got nothing to worry about, my friend, nothing at all,’ Abu Hamsa was saying. ‘I’ve known him since he was a boy.’
The other voice grunted indistinctly: ‘… cause problems?’
‘No, no, he swallowed the official version,’ Abu Hamsa replied. ‘Adnan Kassab is dead and buried, and no matter how much our opinions may differ, we have to stay focussed on getting hold of the traitor before he costs us everything we’ve built up.’
Atif felt his heart beat faster. He took a cautious step closer to the door to hear better.
‘… going with the inside man?’ another voice said.
‘The lawyer’s working on it,’ Abu Hamsa said. ‘But apparently there’s some sort of problem. Crispin is convinced it’s only temporary, then we’ll soon be back on track.’
‘We’d better bloody hope so, after what we’ve paid,’ a voice said in a singsong Eastern European accent.
‘That’s hardly fair, Crispin’s insider has been a huge help, which means we’ve been able to compensate at least in part for all the damage the traitor’s caused. The fact is that without the insider, we wouldn’t even know that Janus really existed,’ Abu Hamsa said.
A sudden hush fell inside the room, an uncomfortable silence that went on far too long. Atif realized immediately what had caused it. The name that Abu Hamsa had just mentioned: Janus.
‘Allow me to point out once again,’ a dry voice said, ‘that according to the instructions you have been given, Janus is to be handed over to me at once. Alive, and unharmed. No one is to talk to him until I do.’
‘Not a problem for me,’ the indistinct voice grunted again. ‘There’s no way he’s one of my boys. We don’t have a rodent problem here.’
‘Big words, Lund. It would be a shame if you had to take them back,’ someone said.
Atif started. He had heard correctly a short while before, no doubt about it. That voice belonged to another old friend. Although friend probably wasn’t the right word. The last time they had met, the man had held a pistol to his head and sworn to kill him.
‘The fact is that the rat bastard could be sitting in this room right now. With the exception of the consultant here, we’re all equal suspects, aren’t we?’ the familiar voice said. ‘Everyone in here could be Janus.’
‘That’s why you should leave the cat-and-mouse stuff to me and my team!’ The dry voice again, clipped, almost military in tone. Presumably it belonged to the man who had been called the consultant.
Atif remembered that Abu Hamsa had said something about consultants at the funeral. He must have had this man in mind.
‘We’re experts in investigations of this sort, and we don’t have to pay attention to anything that might spoil our concentration. Finding and eliminating Janus is our job, our only priority, and the best thing you can do is stay out of the way,’ the dry voice went on.
Once again, mention of the name brought conversation to a halt. As if none of them wanted to be the first to speak after the name had been uttered.
The sound of a toilet flushing just a few metres away made Atif jump. He turned his head and saw that the dial above the lock on one of the doors was showing red. Someone was moving about in there and was likely to open the door at any moment. But there was another door, this side of the toilet. He took two long strides and tugged at the handle. The door was unlocked and led to a small cleaning cupboard. Atif slipped inside and closed the door behind him just as the toilet door swung open.
He peered through the crack in the door. A gorilla-like man lumbered past, picked up the bottle, and sat down on the folding chair next to the door, just a couple of metres from Atif. The man was shorter than he was and had dark cropped hair and a diamond ring in one ear. His chest muscles were so pumped up that his arms stuck out at an odd angle. A tattoo stretched out from one sleeve of his T-shirt, covering his skin all the way down to the wrist. Atif recognized him at once: it was one of the men from the funeral. Dino, something like that.
The man gulped down the rest of the protein drink, then belched loudly. He took out his cell phone and started fiddling with it. It took a few seconds for Atif to realize that Dino was sitting there for a reason. It was his job to make sure that the men in there could talk undisturbed. Not that he was a particularly attentive guard.
Atif looked at his watch. Three hours and twenty-five minutes left, still no real hurry. He looked cautiously around the little room. The floor was only a couple of metres square, and obviously there was no window. The smell of ammonia and disinfectant was already making his eyes water.
Dino belched again, then came a groan and the sound of a long, wet fart. Atif peered through the crack in the door and saw the man squirm in his chair. Suddenly he flew up and took a couple of quick steps, reaching out his hand toward Atif. But before Atif had time to react, the man disappeared from view and a moment later the toilet door slammed shut again. He heard the toilet lid being lifted, then a loud splash followed by a groan of relief.
Atif slipped silently out of the cleaning cupboard, hurried across the reception area, and left the premises the same way he had come.
He found a good lookout post on a neighboring plot. In the middle of a row of parked trucks, with a wire-mesh fence that didn’t really impede his view but would make his car almost invisible. Three hours and nineteen minutes until his plane left. The drive to Arlanda would take an hour, so he still had plenty of time. He leaned his seat back and tried to stretch out as best he could. He wished he had his army binoculars with him.
His window of time had shrunk by another twenty-five minutes before anything happened. Abu Hamsa emerged first, lit a fat cigar, then jumped into the Audi. Atif had guessed right. The tone of voice the old man had used when he spoke about Cassandra had given him away. His promise to look after the family and the fact that Cassandra had his cell number only made things clearer. The only question was how long the old man had waited after Adnan’s death before taking on the role of Cassandra’s protector. Or had he already done so before Adnan was killed? But Atif reminded himself once again that it was none of his business. Cassandra made her own decisions, and maybe having an affair with Abu Hamsa was a cheap price to pay for having her family looked after.
The bowlegged man who emerged after Abu Hamsa was big, and considerably more lardy than gym-pumped. Leather waistcoat, long goatee, blond hair in a plait down his back. Swedish biker thug, model 1A. Atif recognized him as Micke Lund: seven years ago he had just been appointed sergeant at arms in the Hells Angels. By now Lund must be close to fifty. A padded jacket hid most of his leather waistcoat, but Atif could made out red lettering on a red background. Still with the Hells Angels, then.
The lard-ass stopped to insert a dose of chewing tobacco, waiting for the man following him out. Another biker, one who evidently didn’t feel the cold, wearing a waistcoat in the yellow and red of the Bandidos. Short hair, younger, fitter than Micke Lund, and far less the blond, blue-eyed stereotype. But the two men no longer seemed to have anything against each other. They stood and chatted for a few minutes as two more men came out to join them. They were wearing tracksuits and had closely cropped hair, with broad foreheads and defined cheekbones. Typical Eastern Europeans, probably Russian.
The two tracksuits lit cigarettes and offered one to the Bandidos biker, while Micke Lund made do with his chewing tobacco. The men stood and talked for a few minutes, stamping in the snow. When another man with a face like a death’s head emerged
