woman made of sun-baked clay crumbled into dust. A tiny child laughing and crying out, “That was Nufi’s ugly mother! All the Fur are going to die! They’re all going to die!” All the other children smiling and taking up the chant.
“What are you trying to say?” Saga asks.
Penelope looks at her, looks into her eyes, but does not answer. Her mind has gone back to Darfur.
After a long, hot car ride, she’d arrived at the refugee camp in Kubbum, southwest of Nyala in Janub Darfur, West Sudan. She’d barely arrived before she and Jane and Grey had to get down to work trying to save the lives of people caught up in the Janjaweed raids.
During the night, Penelope had awakened when she heard three teenage boys shouting in Arabic that they were going to kill slaves. They belonged to the militia. They walked down the middle of the street and one of them had a gun. Penelope had peeked out the window. They were bragging about how they’d walked up to an old man selling sweet potatoes and shot him in the head point-blank.
The boys kept walking down the street shouting and then had pointed at the house where Penelope and Jane were staying. Penelope held her breath. She heard their stomping feet on the veranda and their excited voices.
Suddenly, they kicked in the door of the barracks and started down the hallway. Penelope dived under the bed to hide. Completely still, she had recited the Lord’s Prayer silently. Furniture was knocked over and stomped on. Then she heard the boys walk back out into the street. One of them laughed and yelled that slaves were going to die. Penelope crept back to the window again. The boys had Jane by the hair, pulling her, until they threw her down into the middle of the street. The door to the other barracks across the street was flung open and Grey came out swinging a machete. The thin boy went to meet him, although Grey was about two feet taller than the boy and much more muscular.
“What do you want here?” Grey demanded.
His serious face was slick with sweat.
The thin boy said nothing but simply raised the pistol and shot Grey in the stomach. The bang echoed between the buildings. Grey stumbled and fell down backward. He tried to get back up, but then kept still with his hand pressed to his stomach.
“One dead Fur!” yelled one of the other boys gleefully. He still had Jane by the hair.
The second boy forced Jane’s legs apart. She struggled but still talked to them in a calm, hard voice. Grey yelled something at the boys. The thin boy went back over, yelled something at Grey, pressed the gun to his temple and fired. It clicked and he tried six more times. The pistol was empty. The group of boys suddenly began to look doubtful. Other doors in other barracks opened and African women started to pour out. The teenagers let go of Jane and began to scuttle away. Penelope saw five women chasing them. Penelope grabbed her blanket from the bed, unlocked the door, and rushed out into the street. She ran over to Jane to wrap the blanket around her and help her up.
“Go back inside, all of you!” Jane yelled. “They might be back with more ammunition! You shouldn’t be outside if they come back!”
All that night and the next morning, Jane stood working at the operating table. Not until ten in the morning was she able to go to her bed convinced Grey’s life was saved. That evening, she worked her usual schedule and by the next day, the routine in the hospital tent had returned to normal. The small boys helped her, but they were more guarded and sometimes they pretended not to hear her when they thought she was too demanding.
“No,” Penelope whispers.
“What did you say?” asks Saga.
Penelope thinks that these people must not be allowed to export ammunition to Sudan.
“They can’t get away with it,” she says, and then is quiet.
“You were safer in the underground room,” Saga says.
“Safe? No one can keep me safe,” Penelope replies.
“We know where he is. He’s inside the German embassy and we’ve surrounded the building-”
“But you haven’t gotten him yet,” Penelope says louder.
“He’s probably been wounded. Shot in the arm. We’re going to go in and-”
“I want to go with you,” says Penelope.
“What?”
“Because I have seen his face,” she replies.
Both Saga and Joona start and Penelope looks directly at Joona.
“You were right,” she says. “I have seen his face.”
“We don’t have much time. Perhaps you can just give us a sketch of the suspect,” Saga says anxiously.
“That won’t be enough,” Joona says. “We can’t go into an embassy with just a sketch.”
“But with a live witness who can point him out?” Penelope says, and she stands up to look Joona in the eye.
83
Penelope stands between Saga Bauer and Joona Linna behind an armored police bus parked on Skarpogatan beside the Japanese embassy. They’re barely fifty meters away from the German embassy. She feels the weight of the protective vest dragging on her shoulders and the tight fit around her chest.
They have to wait five minutes. Then three people will be admitted into the German embassy in an attempt to identify and arrest a suspect.
Silently, Penelope accepts the extra pistol Joona slides into the holster on her back. He adjusts the angle so that, if needed, it can be drawn out quickly.
“She doesn’t want that,” Saga protests quietly.
“It’s okay,” says Penelope.
“We don’t know what will happen,” Joona says. “I hope that everything will go smoothly, but if it doesn’t, this little backup might make a difference.”
Swedish police, Sapo’s officers, SWAT teams, and ambulances are everywhere.
Joona Linna looks over what remains of the burned-out Volvo. Only the charred chassis is still in one piece. Parts of the car are strewn all over the street crossing. Erixson has already found a detonator and traces of explosives. “It’s probably hexogen,” Erixson says as he pushes his glasses back up his nose.
“A bomb,” Joona says as he looks at his watch.
A German shepherd is nosing around the legs of a policeman and then lies down on the pavement and pants with its tongue hanging out.
A SWAT team escorts Saga, Penelope, and Joona to the gate, where four expressionless German military officers wait.
“Try not to worry,” Saga says softly to Penelope. “All you have to do is identify the suspect and you’ll be brought out again immediately. The embassy security guards won’t arrest him until you are out of the building.”
A strong-looking, well-built policeman with a freckled nose opens the gate and lets them onto the embassy property. He gives them a friendly greeting and introduces himself as Karl Mann, head of security.
They follow him up to the main entrance.
The morning air is still cool.
“I hope you’ve been well briefed. This man is an extremely dangerous killer,” Joona says.
“We understand. We’ve been informed,” Karl Mann replies. “However, I have seen nobody except employees of the embassy and other German citizens here all morning.”
“May we have a list?” Saga asks immediately.
“All I will tell you is that we’ve been reviewing the tapes from our security cameras,” Karl Mann tells them. “We think your officer was mistaken. Perhaps this fugitive got in over the fence, but instead of entering the building, he probably ran around it and kept on going.”
