LITMIR.BIZ

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      His hands are lying by his sides, as if he’s sunbathing.

      Saga raises her pistol again and checks the rest of the kitchen.

      The curtains in front of the patio doors are swaying, billowing into the room. The rings on the curtain rod are tapping against each other.

      Blood from the first shot to the man’s head has sprayed far across the floor, and been trodden about by bare feet.

      The prints lead directly towards Saga.

      She quickly turns and sweeps her pistol around the room before walking back towards the double doors leading to the living room.

      Saga startles when, from the corner of her eye, she sees a person crawling out from their hiding place behind one of the sofas.

      She spins around just as the person stands up. It’s a woman in a blue dress. Saga points her pistol between the woman’s breasts as she takes an unsteady step.

      ‘Hands behind your head!’ Saga calls out. ‘Get on your knees, get down on your knees!’

      Keeping the pistol raised, Saga runs forward.

      ‘Please,’ the woman whispers, dropping the personal alarm on the floor.

      She barely has time to show that her hands are empty before Saga kicks her from the side, just below her knee, so hard that both her legs are knocked out from under her and she falls to the floor with a thud, hip first, then her cheek and temple.

      Saga is on her instantly. She punches her in her left kidney, then presses the pistol to the back of her head, holding her down with her right knee as she scans the room again.

      ‘Is there anyone else in the house?’

      ‘Only the gunman, he went into the kitchen,’ the woman replies, gasping for breath. ‘He fired and then went—’

      ‘Quiet!’ Saga interrupts.

      Saga quickly rolls her onto her stomach and pulls her arms behind her. The woman submits to everything in a disconcertingly calm way. Saga handcuffs her with a zip tie, then gets to her feet and hurries into the kitchen, past the dead man.

      The curtains are still billowing, blown by the wind.

      Aiming the pistol ahead of her, she steps over a soot-smeared poker, checks the left-hand side of the kitchen, then moves behind the island unit towards the sliding doors.

      There’s a round hole in the glass, made by a diamond cutter, and the door is open. Saga goes out onto the deck, and sweeps the lawn and flowerbeds with her pistol.

      The water is still, the night silent.

      Someone who broke into a house and carried out such a clean execution would never stay at the scene of the crime.

      Saga goes back inside to the woman. She ties her ankles with more zip ties, but keeps one knee on the small of her back.

      ‘I need some answers,’ she says quietly.

      ‘I have nothing to do with this, I just happened to be here, I didn’t see anything,’ the woman whispers.

      Saga pulls the woman’s dress down to cover her bare backside before she gets up. Soon five SUVs will pull up outside and the Security Police will pour into the house.

      ‘How many gunmen?’

      ‘Just one, I only saw one.’

      ‘Can you describe him?’

      ‘I don’t know. He had a mask over his face, I didn’t see anything, black clothes, gloves, it all happened so quickly. I thought he was going to kill me too, I thought—’

      ‘OK, just wait,’ Saga interrupts.

      She goes over to the dead body. The man’s round face is intact enough that she has no trouble identifying him. She pulls out her phone, moves a short distance away and calls the head of the Security Police. It’s the middle of the night, but he’s been waiting for the call and answers immediately.

      ‘The Foreign Minister’s dead,’ she says.

       8

      Seven minutes later the house and grounds are swarming with members of the Security Police’s specialist unit.

      For the past two years the Security Police has dramatically increased the level of protection for members of the government, with bodyguards and modern personal alarms. There are different levels of alert, but because the terrified woman managed to press both buttons on the alarm simultaneously for longer than three seconds, a Code Platinum was declared.

      The crime scene has been cordoned off, three separate zones around the Greater Stockholm area are being closely monitored, and roadblocks have been set up.

      Janus Mickelsen comes in and shakes Saga’s hand. He’s taking over command of the operation inside the house, and she quickly briefs him on the situation.

      Janus has an almost hippie-like charm, with his strawberry-blond hair and pale ginger stubble. Saga always thinks he looks all peace and love, but she knows he used to be a professional soldier before he ended up in the Security Police. He took part in Operation Atalanta, and was stationed in the waters off Somalia.

      Janus positions one agent at the door, even though they won’t be keeping the usual list of people visiting the crime scene. Under Code Platinum regulations, no one can know who is informed or aware of events and who isn’t.

      Two Security Police officers walk over to the young woman Saga handcuffed. Her eyes are red from crying and her mascara has run down her temple.

      One of the two men kneels down beside her and takes out a syringe. She becomes so scared that she starts to shake, but the other officer holds her tightly as the sedative is injected directly into her vein.

      The woman’s cheeks turn red, she cranes her neck, her body tenses and then goes limp.

      Saga watches them cut the zip ties, put an oxygen-mask over her nose and mouth, then lift the sedated woman into a body-bag and zip it closed. They carry the inert form outside to a waiting van.

      The four other teams are already busy with their examination of the crime scene, scrupulously documenting everything. They’re recording finger- and shoe-prints, mapping splatter patterns, bullet-holes and firing angles, gathering biological evidence, textile fibres, strands of hair, bodily fluids, fragments of bone and brain, as well as pieces of glass and splinters of wood.

      ‘The minister’s wife and children are on their way home,’ Janus says. ‘Their plane lands at Arlanda at 08.15, and everything needs to be cleaned up here by then.’

      The members of the unit have to gather information in one search. They won’t get another chance.

      Saga goes up the creaking staircase and into the Foreign Minister’s bedroom. The room smells like sweat and urine. Leather straps hang from the four bedposts. There are bloodstains on the sheets.

      A riding crop is visible on top of a chest of drawers, in the glow of a watch-winding case. Behind the glass a Rolex ticks silently next to a Breguet.

      Saga wonders if the minister’s wife knew about the prostitutes.

      Probably not.

      Maybe she just didn’t ask.

      Over the years you realise that you can put up with all sorts of cracks in your self-image and still cling to security.

      Saga herself spent years in a relationship with a jazz pianist, Stefan Johansson, before he walked out on her.

      He’s moved to Paris now. He plays in a band and he’s engaged.

      When Stefan is on tour in Sweden, he calls her late at night and she lets him come over. She knows there’s no chance

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