Three Seconds

'You mean-'

'Respect. Grief.'

Sven ejected the cassette and put it back in the glove compartment, careful to close it in a way that Ewert would see and hear. He rarely understood his boss and he had learned not to ask questions, that sometimes it was easier just to let people's peculiarities be just that. He himself was one of the boring ones, someone who didn't seek out conflict, who didn't demand answers in order to position himself in the hierarchy. He had long since decided that those who were anxious and lacked confidence could do that,

'The hostage taker?'

'What about him?'

'Have you got the background then?'

'Hold on a sec.'

Sven Sundkvist pulled a document out of an envelope and then put on his glasses. The first page, from the criminal intelligence database, had the special code that was only used for a handful of criminals. He passed it to Grens.

KNOWN DANGEROUS ARMED

'One of those.'

Ewert Grens sighed. One of the ones who always meant reinforcement or special units with specially trained policemen whenever an arrest was planned. One of the ones who had no limits.

'More?'

'Criminal record. Ten years for possession of amphetamines. But it's the earlier conviction that's interesting for us.'

'Right.'

'Five years. Attempted murder. Aggravated assault of a police officer.' Sven Sundkvist looked at the next document.

'I've also got the grounds for judgment. When he was arrested in Soderhamn, the hostage taker first hit a policeman in the face several times with the butt of a gun, then fired two shots at him, one in the thigh and one in the left upper arm.'

Ewert Grens put his hand up.

His face had turned a shade of red. He leaned back, and drew his other hand through his thinning hair.

'Piet Hoffmann.'

Sven Sundkvist was taken aback.

'How do you know that?'

'That's what he's called.'

'I hadn't even read his name yet, but, yes, he is called that. Ewert. how did you know?'

The red in Ewert's face deepened, his breathing was perhaps more labored.

'I read the judgment, Sven, precisely that goddamn judgment less than twenty-four hours ago. It was Piet Hoffmann I was going to see when I went to Aspsas in connection with the murder at Vastmannagatan 79.'

'I don't understand.'

Ewert Grens shook his head slowly.

'He's one of the three names I was going to question and eliminate from the Vastmannagatan investigation. Piet Hoffmann. I don't know why or how, but he was one of them, Sven.'

The churchyard should have been beautiful. The sun was shining through the high, green leaves, the gravel paths had recently been raked and the grass was in neat squares in front of the gravestones that stood silently waiting for the next visitors. But the beauty was an illusion, a facade that when they got closer was replaced with danger, anxiety, and tension, and the visitors had replaced their watering cans and flowers with semiautomatics and black visors. John Edvardson met them at the gate and they hurried toward the white church with the high steps up to a closed wooden door. Edvardson handed the binoculars to Ewert Grens, waiting in silence while the detective superintendent looked and found the right window.

'That part of the workshop.'

Ewert Grens handed the binoculars to Hermansson.

'There's only one entrance and exit to that part of the workshop. If you want to take hostages… that's completely the wrong place to go.'

'We've heard them talking.'

'Both of them?'

'Yes. They're alive. So we can't go in.'

The room that was to the right just inside the church door wasn't particularly big, but it was big enough to be made into a control post. A room where the immediate family would gather before a funeral, or the bride and groom would wait before a wedding. Sven and Hermansson moved the chairs back to the wall while Edvardson went over to the small wooden altar and unfolded a plan of the whole prison and then a detailed plan of the workshop.

'And visible… all the time?'

'I could order the marksmen to shoot at any time. But it's too far. Fifteen hundred and three meters. I can only guarantee that our weapons will hit at max six hundred meters.'

Ewert Grens pointed a finger at the drawing and the window that, for the moment, was their only contact with a person who had committed murder a few hours ago.

'He knows that we can't shoot him from here, and behind bars, behind reinforced glass… he feels safe.'

'He thinks that he's safe.'

Grens looked at Edvardson.

'Thinks?'

'We can't shoot him. Not with our equipment. But it is possible.'

There was a drawing lying on the large conference table in one of the corner rooms in the Government Offices. It was bright and the light from the ceiling blended with light from the high window with a view over the water at Norrstrom and Riddarfjarden. Fredrik Goransson smoothed the folds in the stiff paper with his hand and moved it so that it would be easier for the national police commissioner and the state secretary to see.

'Here, this building nearest the wall, is Block B. And here, on the second floor, is the workshop.'

The three faces leaned over the table and, with the help of a piece of paper, studied a place they had never visited.

'So Hoffmann is standing here. Close to him, on the floor, are the hostages. A prisoner and a warden. Completely naked.'

It was hard to comprehend, from the straight lines on the architect's drawing, that there was someone standing there, threatening to kill.

'According to Edvardson, he has been totally exposed in the window since the national task force arrived.'

Goransson moved the files and a thick folder with the Prison and Probation Service documents from the table onto one of the chairs in order to make more space, and when that wasn't sufficient he moved the thermos and three mugs. He then unrolled a map of Aspsas district and with a felt pen drew a straight line from the squares that were the various prison buildings across the green area and open space to one of the other rectangles on the map, the one marked with a cross.

'The church. Exactly fifteen hundred and three meters away. The only place with a view that is clear enough for the snipers. And Hoffmann knows that, Edvardson is sure of it. He knows that the police don't have the equipment to reach him and that's what he's telling us by standing there.'

There was a little coffee left in the thermos and the stare secretary poured herself half a cup. Then she got up and moved away, looked at her visitors and spoke in a quiet voice.

'You should have informed me yesterday.'

She didn't expect an answer.

'You've maneuvered us into a corner.'

She was shaking with rage. She looked at them one at a time, then lowered her voice even more.

'You have forced him to action. And now I don't have any choice, I have to act as well.'