Three Seconds

against the sky. The sniper had lain up there, he had aimed and fired a bullet on Ewert Grens's command.

Aspsas shrank in the rear view mirror.

He had stayed for a couple of hours in the stench of burned oil and heavy smoke. The feeling had continued to torment him, no matter how many red and white flags marking body parts he counted, he still couldn't understand it, and the unease kept him awake, a reminder of the adrenaline and irritation. He didn't like it, tried to lose it in the mess on the floor and the tools that would never be used again, but it clung to him, whispering something he couldn't understand. He was approaching Stockholm through the northern satellite towns and suburbs when his mobile phone sang out from the back seat. He slowed down, leaned back for his jacket.

'Ewert?'

'Are you awake?'

'Where are you?'

'This early, Sven? Shouldn't it be me who's calling you?'

Sven Sundkvist smiled. It was a long time since he and Anita had been bothered by the phone ringing in the bedroom between midnight and dawn. Ewert always called the minute he had something that needed an immediate answer, and that tended to be at night when everyone else was asleep. But he hadn't been able to sleep himself last night. He had lain close to Anita and listened to the ticking of the alarm clock until, after a couple of hours, he crept out of bed and went down to the kitchen on the ground floor of their terraced house, and sat there doing crosswords, as he sometimes did when the nights were long. But the unease refused to leave his house. The same unease that Ewert had talked about earlier that evening, thoughts that had nowhere to go.

'I'm on my way into the city, Ewert. I'm just by Gullmarsplan and then heading west. To Kungsangen. Sterner just called.'

'Sterner?'

'The sniper.'

Grens accelerated-the early morning commuters were still in their garages, so it was easy to drive.

'Then we've got about the same distance. I'm just passing Haga Park. What's it about?'

'Tell you when we get there.'

Another locked gate in another uniformed world.

Grens and Sundkvist arrived at the Svea Life Guards in Kungsangen only a few minutes apart. Sterner was waiting for them by the regiment guardhouse. He looked rested, but was wearing the same clothes as the day before, white-and-gray camouflage, creased after a night on top of the bedclothes. Standing in front of the closed gate and with the barracks behind him, he looked the cliche of a model American marine, cropped hair and broad- shouldered, square face, the kind that on films always stand too near and shout too loud.

'Same clothes as yesterday?'

'Yup. When the helicopter dropped me off… I went and lay down.' 'And you slept?'

'Like a baby.'

Grens and Sundkvist exchanged looks. The guy who had fired had slept. But the one who had made the decision to fire, and his closest colleague, had not.

Sterner signed them in and showed the way to a deserted barrack square, with solid buildings that stared down at all visitors. Sterner walked fast and Grens had difficulty keeping up when they went through the first door and carried on up the stairs, down long corridors with stone floors, conscripts still in underpants ahead of a day in uniform.

'Life Guards. First company. The ones who are going to be officers and stay longest.'

He stopped in a room with simple, institutional furniture, white walls that needed painting, and plastic flooring on hard concrete.

Four work stations, one in each corner.

'My colleagues won't be coming in today. A two-day exercise in north Uppland, around Tierp. We won't be disturbed here.'

He closed the door.

'I called as soon as I woke up. The thought that I had as I fell asleep came back to me and refused to leave the bed.'

He leaned forward.

'I observed. With the binoculars. I watched him for a long rime. I followed his movements, his face for nearly half an hour.'

'And?'

'He was standing in the window, fully exposed. You mentioned it too, I heard you. Like he knew he could be seen, that he wanted to demonstrate his power over the hostages, the whole situation, maybe even you. You said that he was doing it because he was sure he was out of range.'

'Right.'

'That's what you said. What you believed.'

He looked at the door, as if he wanted to reassure himself that it really was shut.

'I didn't think that. Not then. And not now.'

'I think you'll need to explain that.'

Grens felt uneasy, the same feeling that had kept him awake, that was in some way connected to the feeling he got in the burned-out workshop. There was something that wasn't right.

'When I was watching him through the binoculars. Object in clear sight. Awaiting order. I don't know, it was like he knew. I repeat. Awaiting order. As if he knew that he was in range.'

'I don't understand.'

'I aborted. Abort. Object out of sight. I aborted twice.'

'Yes, and?'

Well, both times… it was like he knew when I was going to shoot. He moved so… precisely.'

'He moved several times.'

Sterner got up, he was restless, went over to the door, checked it, then over to the window with a view of the square.

'He did. But both times… precisely as I was about to fire.'

'And the third time?'

'He stood still. Then… it was like… like he'd decided. He stood still and waited.'

'And?'

'One bullet, one hit. The motto of sniper training. I only shoot if I know I'm going to hit the target.'

Grens went over to the same window.

'Where?'

'Where…

'Where did you hit him?'

'The head. I shouldn't have done it. But I had no choice.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean that from a distance, we always aim at the chest. The largest target area. I should have aimed there. But he was standing in profile the whole time and so… to get as big a target area as possible… I shot at his head.'

And the explosion?'

'I don't know.'

'Don't know?'

'I don't know.'

'But you-'

'It wasn't connected to the shot.'

A group of about twenty teenagers in uniform marched across the gravel in two rows.

They tried to lift their legs and swing their arms at the same time, while someone who was a bit older walked beside them screeching something. They weren't succeeding.

'And one more thing.'

'Yes?'