Three Seconds

'I am the one who speaks the language and I am the one who gives the orders in this country.'

It was more than anger. It was rage. He had contained it since the shooting. First they had to take care of the mules, empty them, secure the delivery. Now he could release it.

'If anyone is going to shoot, it's on my order and only my order.'

He wasn't sure where it was coming from, why it was so intense. Whether it was disappointment that a business partner had not materialized. Whether it was frustration because a person who probably had the same brief as he did had been killed without reason.

'And the gun, where the fuck is it?'

Mariusz pointed at his chest, to the inner pocket of his jacket.

'You murdered someone. You can get life for that. And you're so fucking stupid that you've still got the gun in your pocket?'

Rage and something else tearing at him. You should have been reporting back to Poland. He blocked out the feeling that might equally be fear, took a step toward the man who was smiling, pointing at his inner pocket, and stopped when they were face to face. Play your role. That was all that mattered, power and respect, taking and never letting go. Play your role or die.

'He was a policeman.'

'And how the fuck d'you know that?'

'He said so.'

'And since when did you speak Swedish?'

Piet Hoffmann took measured breaths. He realized that he was irritated and tired as he walked over to the round kitchen table and the metal bowl that contained 2,749 regurgitated and cleaned capsules: a good twenty- seven kilos of pure amphetamine.

'He said police. I heard it. You heard it.'

Hoffmann didn't turn around when he replied.

'You were at the same meeting as me in Warsaw. You know the rules. Until we're done here, it's me, and only me, who decides.'

He had been uncomfortable during the short journey from Kronoberg to Vasastan. Or rather, he'd been sitting on something. When Hermansson swung into Vastmannagatan and pulled up outside number 79, he lifted his heavy body a touch while he felt around on the seat with his hand. Two cassettes. Siw mixes. He held the hard plastic cases in his hand and looked at the music that should have been packed away, and then at the passenger seat and glove compartment. There were two more cassettes in there. He bent down and pushed them as far under the seat as possible. He was as scared of being near them as he was of forgetting to take them with him, the last four remnants of another life that would remain packed away in a cardboard box sealed with tape.

Ewen Grens preferred sitting here in the back.

He no longer had any music to play and he had no desire to listen to or answer the frequent calls on the radio. And anyway, Hermansson drove considerably better than both Sven and he did in the busy city traffic.

There wasn't much room on the street; three police cars and forensics' dark-blue Volkswagen bus double- parked alongside a tight row of residents' cars. Mariana Hermansson slowed down, drove up onto the pavement and stopped in front of the main door, which was guarded by two uniformed policemen. They were both young and pale and the one closest rushed over to the unknown men and a woman in a red car. Hermansson knew what he wanted and at precisely the same moment that he tapped on the window, she rolled it down and held up her police ID.

'We're investigators. All three of us.'

She smiled at him. Not only did he look young, he was probably considerably younger than she was. She guessed he was in his first weeks of service, as there weren't many who didn't recognize Ewen Grens.

'Was it you who took the call?'

'Yes.'

'Who raised the alarm?'

'Anonymous, according to the CCC.'

'You mentioned an execution?'

'We said it looked like an execution. You'll understand when you get there.'

Up on the fourth floor, the door farthest away from the elevator was open. Another uniformed colleague was standing watch. He was older, had been in the force longer; he recognized Sundkvist and gave him a nod. Two steps later Hermansson had her ID ready and was just about to show it, and she wondered if she would ever stay anywhere long enough to be recognized by more than her immediate colleagues-she didn't think so, she wasn't the sort who stayed.

They put on their white coats and transparent shoe covers and went in. Ewert had insisted on waiting for the elevator that was slow down and slow up, so he'd be there soon.

A long hallway, a bedroom with nothing in it but a narrow bed, a kitchen with nice cupboards painted in a shade of green, and a study with an abandoned desk and empty shelves.

And one more room.

They looked at each other, and went in.

The sitting room really only had one piece of furniture. A large, rectangular oak dining table with six matching chairs. Four of them were by the table, the fifth had been pushed back at an angle, as if the person sitting there had gotten up suddenly. The sixth was lying on the floor. The heavy chair had for some reason fallen and they went over to establish why.

The dark patch on the carpet was the first thing they saw.

A large, brownish stain with uneven edges. They guessed about forty, maybe fifty centimeters in diameter.

Then they saw the head.

It was in the middle of the stain, on top of it, as if it were floating. The man looked relatively young-it was hard to tell as his face was mangled, but his body was strong, and his clothes were not the sort that older men often wear: black boots, black jeans, a white T-shirt, lots of silver around his neck, wrists, and fingers.

Sven Sundkvist tried to concentrate on the gun in his right hand.

If he only looked at it for long enough, if he blanked everything else out, he might avoid the ugliness of death that he would never understand.

It was shiny and black, nine-millimeter caliber and a make that he didn't often see at crime scenes: Radom, a Polish weapon. He bent down closer to it, thereby distancing himself from the life that had spilled out onto the expensive carpet and left a large dark stain. It seemed that the ejector was stuck in the discharge position and he could clearly see the bullet casing in the chamber. He studied the barrel, the butt, the grip safety, looking for something to fix his eyes on, anything but death.

Nils Krantz was standing farther away, flanked by two younger colleagues. Three forensic technicians who together would scour every nook and cranny in the room. One of them had a video camera in his hand and was filming something on the white wallpaper. Sven took a step away from the head, and looked at what the camera was focused on: a small discolored parch of something, something harmless and sufficiently far away from the lifeless eyes.

'The victim has one entrance wound from one shot to the head.'

Nils Krantz had sneaked up behind his filming colleague and was now close to Sven Sundkvist's ear.

'But two exit wounds.'

Sven turned away from the wallpaper and discoloring and looked askance at the older forensic scientist.

'The entrance wound is larger than both exit wounds because of the contact gas pressure.'

Sven heard what Krantz was saying, but he didn't understand and chose not to ask. He didn't need to know and instead followed the finger that was pointing at the discoloring on the wallpaper.

'By the way, what we're just filming and what you're looking at right now comes from the victim, brain