away to their respective cars.
The death’s head stood still as he lit a cigar. The man gave a suitably mocking wave to the others’ cars, then strolled over to a big Porsche Cayenne. Atif studied the man and concluded that he had heard correctly inside the gym. His appearance – bald head, hook nose, and sunken eyes – was unmistakable. It was his old friend and colleague Sasha. A war hero from the Balkans, capable of anything, a man with no inhibitions. On their first job together Sasha had cut off a man’s fingers with a pair of garden shears. He carried on until only the forefingers were left, even though the man had long since crumbled and told them what they wanted to know. Violence was one thing, but Sasha was a full-blown sadist, and eventually Atif had asked not to work with him any longer. Evidently this information had found its way back to Sasha, and as thanks he had held a gun to Atif’s head in the middle of a nightclub. He had told him that the next time they met he was going to pull the trigger, no matter how many witnesses there might be. Shortly after that Atif’s mother had fallen ill. And once Atif accompanied her back to Iraq, the matter had seemed irrelevant. But to judge by the conversation in there, and the looks the bikers and Russians had exchanged out in the parking lot, Atif wasn’t the only one who had a problem with Sasha. His presence at the meeting, his suit, and the expensive car clearly suggested that he had risen through the ranks. And was now someone to be reckoned with.
Two different biker gangs, some Eastern Europeans, Abu Hamsa, and Sasha. The discussion he had overheard had been a top-level meeting. The gangster version of Who’s Who.
The last man didn’t emerge until after Sasha had left. About thirty-five, suit, overcoat, short, dark hair, and a wary look in his eyes. It was impossible to see more from a distance. The man moved smoothly and exuded more genuine self-confidence than the others, more control. He was also considerably calmer than the men who had come out before him. Considerably less nervous.
In all likelihood, this was the consultant Abu Hamsa had talked about. Although the man actually looked as if he was in the military. Or the police.
The consultant stopped outside the back door for a moment and put on a pair of aviator sunglasses. Then he walked slowly toward a dark Range Rover as he let his eyes roam across the surroundings. The man stopped beside his car and for a few moments Atif was sure he was staring straight at him. But then the gym door opened again and Dino, or whatever the lunk was called, came out. He said something that made the consultant turn around and waved his short arms excitedly in a way that looked almost comical. The consultant said something in reply, then the two men hurried back inside the building.
Atif wondered about the security cameras in the gym, and how easy it was to rewind the recording just a matter of minutes. A couple of mouse clicks and he’d be there on the screen.
He turned the key in the ignition and put the car in gear. Just less than three hours before his plane took off.
When Sarac woke up he noticed two things immediately. First: it was pitch black. Not even a tiny light on a monitor, nothing to focus on. So he wasn’t in his usual room. Second: there was someone else there in the darkness. He could sense movement of some sort, and then someone taking a deep breath.
‘Can you hear me, Sarac?’ a low male voice asked.
He turned his head toward the voice as he searched his memory for something to match to the hoarse voice. A name, a place, anything at all. But he couldn’t find anything.
‘You’re not an easy person to get a little chat with, Sarac. There are lots of people keeping an eye on you. A lot of people worried about what you might reveal.’
Sarac tried to raise himself to a sitting position, but got tangled in the tubes sticking out of his body.
‘You know who I am, don’t you?’ the man said.
‘N-no …’ Sarac said. But that wasn’t entirely true. They had met, he was almost certain of that. He just couldn’t remember where and when. His eyes were gradually getting used to the darkness, and the man began to appear as a dark shadow just a few metres away from him.
‘We had an agreement, you and me, remember?’ the man said.
Sarac shook his head, once again without really managing to convince himself. Was this all a dream, a hallucination playing out in his head? He clenched his hands tightly under the covers. He felt the back of one hand touch something. A plastic object connected to a cable. The alarm button.
The man came closer and stopped right next to the bed. He smelled strongly of tobacco. Sarac could make out a furrowed face, the mouth a black hole in which a gold tooth glinted. His sense of unease slid into fear, making Sarac’s heart race. He fumbled for the alarm, but his hand slipped off it.
‘An agreement is an agreement. You know what the consequences will be if you break it,’ the man said.
Sarac shut his eyes, screwing them shut as hard as he could, and pressed the alarm button. Once, twice, again …
‘Get out!’ he roared. ‘Go to hell!’
There were voices in the distance. Then steps as someone approached along the corridor. Any moment now the door would open.
‘You can’t hide forever,’ the man hissed in his ear. ‘You’re going to stick to our agreement, do you hear?’
Sarac went on shouting, yelling out loud until the door opened and the light was switched on. He blinked against the sudden glare and saw the woman in white who was gently shaking his arm.
‘David, how are you feeling?’ she asked.
He blinked again, then rubbed his eyes in an effort to see better. Apart from the nurse, the room was empty. But in one corner was an empty chair. Its padded seat looked slightly compressed, as if someone heavy had recently been sitting on it.
The plane took off on time, at 8:35 p.m. It climbed a couple of hundred metres before retracting its landing gear and starting a long bank toward the east.
Atif leaned back in his seat and shut his eyes. He tried to fit the pieces together as best he could.
1. Adnan and his gang rob a security van.
2.By coincidence, they happen to encounter an unmarked police car.
3. The cops follow them and call in the rapid response unit, which strikes when the gang are switching cars. Shots are fired. Adnan and Juha are killed. The third bloke, Tommy, is left a vegetable.
A perfectly consistent story. No matter how thorough your preparations, the odds weren’t always on your side. Adnan had been lucky up to then. This time the pendulum swung the other way.
Atif had made a conscious choice and accepted the chain of events exactly as it was explained to him before he had arrived in Sweden. He had decided not to ask any unnecessary questions. Not to find out any more than he had to. But he couldn’t shake off Abu Hamsa’s words:
Envy is fatal, boys …
Even though Adnan made his living the way he did, and even though his little brother had a remarkable ability to turn gold into shit, Atif had envied him. Envied him all the qualities that he himself didn’t
