LITMIR.BIZ

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them in the eyes, the whole circle, again and again. All between twenty and thirty. Sleeves carefully rolled up on their uniforms, with just the right amount of wear. They all dressed in khakis, definitely not navy blue. Grip knew their personnel files by now, and every single one had a background in the army. His own linen suit was out of place. His mouth ran on, something about combatant status and international accords, a few heads nodding in agreement, as if they followed the nonsense point by point. Four men and one woman. A pair of tattooed forearms, a mustache, two with beards—probably a look the veterans brought home from Afghanistan. Three met his gaze, one looked around at the walls, the last stared down at the floor in front of him.

      “… therefore, I’ll be around for a few days asking some questions.” Nobody reacted, not the slightest movement. “So, when did you get the idea of heading off to the shooting range?” Grip looked at the person sitting directly in front of him.

      “The lieutenant told us.”

      “Lieutenant Slunga?”

      “Yes, the day before, around lunchtime last Saturday,” one of the beards answered. It was Fritzell, the biggest of the bunch, who no doubt lifted dumbbells when he had an extra hour or two.

      “And what time did you go?”

      “At three.” This was Fredrik Hansson, the sergeant who’d had to take over command. “I booked the shooting range and went to pick up ammunition. Did anyone have objections?” Hansson answered his own question. Laid-back style, expensive watch. “Most of us probably did.”

      “Most, probably?”

      “Well, I was against it,” said Hansson, “and I told Slunga the minute he came up with the damn idea.”

      “But he insisted?”

      “Yes.” Hansson shrugged.

      Grip let it go. “So the point was to do a little bonding between you and the locals.” Grip smiled. “You needed that?”

      Silence.

      Hansson looked at Jondelius, the other beard, who leaned forward and replied, “I think the Djiboutians had been pushing him, saying they wanted to shoot.”

      “And Slunga caved in to the pressure, just like that?”

      “Yes.”

      “And the Djiboutians, what did they do, the day after the shooting?”

      “The next day, only two showed up—Mr. Nazir, the foreman, and his nephew,” answered Philippa Ekman, the only woman in the room, speaking up without a look from Hansson. “Where the others went, who knows?”

      “And that means more work for you, delivering supplies to the Sveaborg before she casts off again?”

      “It’s okay. Mr. Nazir hired six new people today.”

      “I see.”

      Philippa Ekman nodded. The mood among those in the room remained total self-confidence. It was in their body language, and in that “bring-it-on” look in their eyes.

      “Just for my own information,” Grip continued, “many of you have worked together before? On missions?”

      “Yes, of course,” someone answered. Another nodded, and the one gazing at the floor raised his head.

      “Where, for instance?”

      “The Balkans, I guess everybody started off there,” replied Jondelius, the second beard. “I met Philippa for the first time in Kosovo.”

      “What about you?” Grip said, turning his gaze to Radovanović, who’d looked up from the floor.

      “Me …?” He shifted in his seat. “Well, before this, twice in Afghanistan.”

      Milan Radovanović’s personnel file said his parents were Bosnian Serbs who’d come to Sweden when he was five.

      “Afghanistan, of course,” said Jondelius. That got them started, pointing at each other, talking about who served together when, names flying with locations and units: Mazar-e Sharif, Sheberghan, OMLT, FS-17, Marmal. All of them had served there, one of the beards doing the most tours, it seemed. Someone laughed: “We’ve done everything: drivers, grunts, vehicle mechanics—you name it.”

      “And now you do MovCon.” Grip got a thumbs-up from one member of this traveling circus. Fritzell, the muscular one, smiled broadly behind his beard.

      “You like to dig into things?” Grip asked, looking at him.

      “I like to dig into things,” he replied, with the indulgent gaze of a bouncer looking at a drunk trying to get past him.

      Philippa Ekman snorted at the comment. She wore her long blond hair up and sat with her legs wide apart like the others.

      “And in Africa?” Grip continued.

      “This is a first for me,” said Jondelius. Radovanović nodded.

      “Me and Hansson were in Chad together,” said Ekman.

      “Yeah, I’ve done my fair share around here,” continued Fredrik Hansson, the new leader. “Chad, Sudan, a few other little missions.”

      “Always MovCon?”

      “Something like that. My thing is logistics.”

      Grip nodded. “And now you’re here. There aren’t many of you, and I hear there’s a lot to do. How do you divide the work?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “You know, mornings, evenings, nights, how do you arrange your shifts?”

      “We work as needed.”

      “Around the clock?”

      “Not always, but it happens.”

      “And the Djiboutians?”

      “During the day. But really, they only get things done in the morning.”

      “Why?”

      There was silence.

      “I said, why?” Grip saw Hansson look at Fritzell, so instead he went to Radovanović. “Why, Radovanović?”

      The soldier fiddled and twisted his index finger nervously.

      “Too hot in the afternoon sun?”

      The staff sergeant struggled for words.

      “The real reason,” Grip went on, “is because at lunchtime, the khat stalls open in town. After one o’clock, nearly everyone is chewing, and by two, they’re no longer useful … right?”

      “Something like that,” said Hansson, to break the deadlock.

      “Then I understand better. And another thing I was wondering, since you’ve been out on so many missions. How often have you taken the locals to a firing fest at a shooting range? And I don’t mean when you were training some ex-Talibans to be police officers in Afghanistan. I mean people who have jobs on the base that have nothing to do with weapons. Do you have a single example? Chad, Liberia, Kosovo?”

      Silence again.

      “Anything?”

      “It was the lieutenant …”

      “I know, Slunga told you to. And not just that you were going to shoot with them, but that you’d do it in the afternoon, when the entire gang was high. You’ve said it yourselves, right?” Grip leaned forward, looking at Hansson, Fritzell, and Ekman. “The idea was so goddamn stupid that the lieutenant couldn’t have done it alone. No way in hell it was five against one, and he won just because he was a lieutenant. Never, not with this crew. You need to work on your story, it’s too polished.”

      This hit home. But Grip had more. “Was he a good shot, by the way?” He’d turned to Radovanović, who looked down at the floor again. “Hello? How well

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