sweat. Ninety-nine degrees Fahrenheit, just above body temperature and it would be even hotter in a couple of hours, in the early afternoon-the heat seemed to settle around that time of day.

He wiped his forehead with an already moist handkerchief and wasn't sure whether his skin or the material benefited most. It had been hard to concentrate in the lecture hall, the air conditioning in the building had broken down in the morning and the discussion about the follow-up course advanced infiltration had petered out. Even the heads of police from the western United States who normally liked to listen to their own voices were listless.

He watched, as he usually did, through the fence and barbed wire that overlooked the large practice ground-six black figures trying to protect a seventh, shots fired from two low buildings and two of them threw themselves over the protected object and the car raced forward and then off. Erik Wilson smiled. He knew how it would end: this president would also survive and the baddies who fired from the buildings would be unsuccessful. The Secret Service won every time, the same exercise as three weeks ago, different police officers, but the same exercise.

He turned his face up to the cloudless sky, as if to torment himself; the sun would wake him up.

At first he had blamed the heat. But it wasn't that.

He just wasn't there.

He hadn't been present at all in the last few days-he had taken part in the discussions and exercises, but he wasn't in the room, his thoughts and energy drained from his body.

Four days had passed since Sven Sundkvist had asked him to drive seventy kilometers to the state line and Jacksonville for lunch in a restaurant that had room for laptops with security camera images on its white tablecloths. He had seen Paula's face in a prison window and then an explosion and black smoke when the shot fired by a sniper had ripped apart a human being.

They had worked together for nearly nine years.

Paula had been his responsibility. And his friend.

He was nearly at the hotel, fleeing the heat on his cheeks and forehead. The spacious lobby was cool, jostling with people who were delaying going out. He headed for the elevator and the eleventh floor, the same room as before.

He got undressed and had a cold shower and lay down on top of the bed in his robe.

They burned you.

They whispered and then looked the other way.

He got up, the restlessness had returned, the lack of focus. He flicked through the day's edition of USA Today, yesterday's New York Times, drowned himself in TV ads for detergent and local lawyers. He wasn't there, no matter how hard he tried. He wandered around the room, stopping after a while in front of the mobile telephones he had already checked in the morning, his link to all the informants: five handsets side by side on the desk since the evening he arrived. It was usually enough to check once a day, but the restlessness and the feeling of being absent… he checked again.

Lifted them up, studied them, one by one.

Until he held the fifth phone in his hand. He sat down on the edge of the bed, shaking.

One missed call.

On a mobile phone that he should have disposed of as the informant was dead.

You don't exist anymore.

But someone is using your phone.

He was sweating again, but it wasn't the heat; this came from inside, a feeling that burned and cut, like nothing he had known before.

Someone has control of your phone. Someone has found it and has dialed the only number that is stored there.

Who?

Someone investigating? Someone in pursuit?

The room was cool, he was freezing so he pulled back the bedclothes and crept down under the duvet that smelled of scented conditioner and lay still until he started to sweat again.

Someone who doesn't know who has this phone. Someone who is calling a number that isn't registered anywhere.

He was shivering again, more than before; the thick duvet was chafing his head.

He could phone. He could listen to the voice with no risk of being identified.

He dialed the number.

A sound wave looking for a harbor in the weightless air, a few seconds stretched to hours and years, then the ringing tone, a long shrill peep.

He listened to the tone that rasped in his ear three times.

And a voice he could recognize.

'Mission completed.'

Careful breathing on the other end, at least that's what it sounded like-perhaps it was just the signal that was weak and atmospheric interference was trying to muscle in.

'Wojtek eliminated in Asps a s.'

He lay on the bed, didn't move, scared that the person talking to him would vanish from his hand.

'See you in an hour at number three.'

Erik Wilson smiled to the voice that blended with another, a repeated call over the loudspeakers, probably in an airport.

He had perhaps known, somewhere deep, deep down, or at least hoped. Now he knew.

He answered.

'Or another time, another place.'

From the Authors

Three Seconds is a novel about today's criminals and the two authorities-the police and the Prison and Probation Service-who meet and are responsible for them.

And a novel allows the authors liberties.

Fact and fiction.

Together.

The Swedish Police Service

FACT The Police Service has for many years used criminals as covert human intelligence sources. A cooperation that is denied and concealed. In order to investigate serious crime, other crimes have been marginalized and a number of preliminary investigations and trials have therefore been carried out without the correct information.

FICTION Ewert Grens does not exist.

FACT Only criminals can play criminals and have, if so required, been recruited when on remand or later. The police criminal intelligence database and reports have been used as tools to develop suitable and credible personal backgrounds. Extensive doctoring of information has become standard working practice in a society based on the rule of law.

FICTION Sven Sundkvist does not exist.

FACT Criminal informants are, in our time, outlaws. When a criminal informant is exposed, the authorities deny having used their services, and look the other way while the organization that has been infiltrated tries to resolve the problem. The police supervisory authority is convinced that conventional intelligence methods are not sufficient to combat organized crime and will continue to develop their work with covert human intelligence in the future.

FICTION Mariana Hermansson does not exist.

The Swedish Prison and Probation Service

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