Three Seconds

set them up in the spacious office in front of the TV screen with their backs to the desk and explained that he had to go up to the loft for a few minutes, but they didn't hear him, they were busy watching something about Rabbit and Eeyore and a wooden cart that they wanted Pooh to sit in. Piet Hoffmann got three tins out of the fan heater, carried them down and put them on the floor, cleared his desk so he would have space to work.

Six books that belonged to Aspsas library that were seldom asked for and therefore had a note stuck on the front page, STORAGE, in blue print.

A plastic bag with a disassembled miniature revolver.

Some pentyl fuse that had been cut into two nine-meter lengths.

A plastic sleeve with four centilitres of nitroglycerine divided up into twenty-four pockets.

A tin of thirty percent amphetamine.

He took a tube of glue from the drawer of the desk, a packet of razorblades and a packet of Rizla papers, thin with a sticky edge, generally used by people who like rolling their own cigarettes.

Tulips.

And poetry.

He opened the first book. Lord Byron's Don Juan. It was perfect. Five hundred forty- six pages. Hardback. Eighteen centimeters long, twelve wide.

He knew it would work. Over the past ten years, he had prepared a couple of hundred novels, poetry, and essay collections to hold ten to fifteen grams of amphetamine, and been successful each time. Now, for the first time, he would borrow the modified books himself and empty them in a cell in Aspsas prison.

'I need three days to knock out the competition. During that time I don't want to have any contact and it's my responsibility to take in enough gear.

He opened the front cover and with a razorblade cut through the hinge until it loosened and the spine of five hundred forty-six pages of Don Juan was revealed, then he tidied up the loose ends with the blade. He flicked through to page 90, held all the pages together and with a strong hand ripped them off and put them down on the desk. Then he flicked to page 390 and ripped off the next thick pile.

It was these pages, from 91 to 390, he was going to work with.

With a pencil he drew a rectangle that was fifteen centimeters long and one centimeter wide in the left-hand margin of page 91. Then, with the razorblade, he cut along the lines, deeper and deeper, millimeter by millimeter until he had cut through the whole pile, three hundred pages. His hand worked the razor blade well and even the slightest unevenness and loose strip was shaved off. He lifted the middle section of the book, which now had a new hole that was fifteen centimeters long, one centimeter wide and three centimeters deep, back into place and glued it together. He felt the edges with his fingertips, there was still some unevenness, so he lined the walls with Rizla papers. If he was going to fill it with amphetamine, it was important that the surfaces were even, and there was space for fifteen grams in this book, as it was particularly thick.

The first ninety pages were still intact and he put them back where they should be, over the hole, glued them to the spine and the loose front board and then pressed Lord Byron's classic hard against the desk with both hands until he was certain that every page was glued in place.

'What are you doing, Daddy?'

Hugo's face peered at him from behind his elbow, close to the recently prepared book.

'Nothing. Just reading a bit. Why don't you watch the show?' 'It's finished.'

He stroked Hugo's cheek and got up; there were two more films, Winnie the Pooh had to eat more honey and get more scoldings from Rabbit before he was finished with everything.

Piet Hoffmann prepared The Odyssey, My Life's Writings, and French Landscape in the same way. In two weeks' time, an inmate serving time at Aspsas prison who was interested in literature would be able to borrow as many as four books, containing a total of forty-two grams of amphetamine.

Two books left.

With a new razorblade, he cur a rectangular hole in the left hand margin of Nineteenth Century Stockholm and The Marionettes. In the first, he put the pieces of what a reader, who knew how, might be able to reassemble into a miniature revolver; the hardest piece was the cylinder loaded with six bullets, which was wider than he thought, but he managed to press it down carefully into the cavity by taking off some of the Rizla papers. A gun with the power to kill if the bullet hit its target. He had seen one for the first time six months ago in winoujcie, when a wired mule had tried to throw up 2,500 grams of heroin in the toilet at the ferry terminal, before even boarding the boat. Mariusz had opened the door to see the mule lying on the floor with a plastic bag to his mouth and he hadn't said a word, just moved in sufficiently close and aimed the short barrel at one of his eyes and killed him with one bullet. In the second hole, in the last book, he put a detonator the size of a large nail and a receiver the size of a penny-the kind that you put in your ear to receive and listen to sounds from two transmitters that are attached with Blu-Tack to the railings on a church tower balcony.

Two nine-meter pieces of pentyl fuse and a plastic envelope with twenty-four centilitres of nitroglycerine were still left on the desk. He took a furtive glance over at two small backs that were watching a cartoon about a fat bear. They laughed suddenly, a jar of honey had got stuck on Pooh's head. Hoffmann went out into the kitchen, opened another tub of ice cream and put it down on the table between them, stroked Rasmus on the cheek.

It was going to be hardest to hide the pentyl fuse and plastic sleeve with nitroglycerine without anything showing.

He chose the largest book, Nineteenth Century Stockholm, twenty-two centimeters long and fifteen centimeters wide. He cut open the front and back of the library cover and pulled out the porous paperlike filling and replaced it with the explosive and fuse, glued it up again, tidied the edges and then leafed through all six books to make sure that the hinges were properly glued and it wasn't possible to see any of the rectangular holes.

'What's that?'

Hugo's face popped up over the top of the desk again. The second video had finished.

'Nothing.'

'What is that, Daddy?'

He pointed at the shiny metal tin full of thirty percent amphetamine. 'That? Oh… just grape sugar.'

Hugo stood there, he was in no hurry.

'Don't you want to watch the rest? There's another video.'

'I will in a minute. There's two letters there, Daddy. Who are they to?' Inquisitive eyes had spotted the two envelopes that were lying high up in the open gun cabinet.

'I'm not going to send them.'

'But they've got names on.'

'I'll finish them later.'

'What do they say?'

'Shall I put the video on now?'

'That's Mommy's name. On the white one. It looks like it. And the one on the brown one starts with an E, I can see that too.'

'Ewert. His name's Ewert. But I don't think he'll get it.'

The ninth part of Winnie the Pooh was about Piglet's birthday and an outing with Christopher Robin. Hugo sat down beside Rasmus again and Pier Hoffmann checked the contents of the brown envelope-a CD of the recording, three passports, and a transmitter-stamped it and put it in his brown leather bag along with the six prepared books from Aspsas library. Then, to the white envelope which Hugo had noticed had Zofia's name on-a CD, the fourth passport, and a letter with instructions-he now added 950,000 kronor, in notes, and put the envelope in his brown leather bag along with the rest.

Fifteen hours left.

He stopped Winnie the Pooh, helped the two children who were starting to heat up again put their shoes on, then went into the kitchen and the fridge and put fifty tulips with green buds into a cool box and carried this and the leather bag and two boys downstairs to the car that was parked right outside the front door, with a parking ticker tucked under the windshield wiper.

He looked at the two red faces in the back seat.

Two more stops.