Three Seconds

shrugged.
    ‘I’m familiar with that paragraph. But I still don’t understand what you’re getting at.’
    ‘We’ll employ a military marksman. For police service as a police sniper.’
    ‘He would still be military staff and not have formal police training.’
    The state secretary smiled again.
    ‘You are, like me, a lawyer, is that not so?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You are the national police commissioner. You have police authority, don’t you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Despite the fact that you do not have formal police training?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So let’s use that as our starting point, and work towards a solution.’
    He was none the wiser as to where she was heading.
    ‘We’ll find a trained, equipped military marksman. With the cooperation of his superiors, we’ll discharge him from service in the armed forces and then make the newly discharged military marksman an offer of a … say … six-hour temporary contract with the police. As a superintendent or another rank. You choose what rank and title you want him to have.’
    He wasn’t smiling, not yet.
    ‘So, he will be employed by the police for exactly six hours. He will complete his contract. And he will then, six hours later, apply for the vacant position that the armed forces haven’t yet had time to advertise, and be reinstated.’
    Now he was starting to understand what she was getting at.
    ‘And what’s more, the police never give out the names of their marksmen, during or after an operation.’
    Exactly what she was getting at.
    ‘And so no one will know who fired the shot.’

An empty, clean building.
     
    A floor that no feet had stamped on, windows that no eyes had stared through.
    There were no lights on in the building, no sound, even the unused door handles shone. Lennart Oscarsson had envisaged the inauguration of the newly built Block K, with even more cells, greater capacity, more prisoners, as a manifestation of a newly appointed governor’s ambition and drive. That would never happen now. He walked down the empty corridor, past the wide open cell doors. He was about to turn on the strong lights and activate the new alarm system and soon the smell of paint and newly upholstered pine furniture would blend more and more with fear and badly brushed teeth. The uninhabited cells would instead be inaugurated in a few minutes’ time by hastily evacuated prisoners from Block B who were under serious threat with the national task force prepped at every door and window, guns at the ready, and a hostage situation on the second floor of the building that no one really knew anything about, why the man had done it, his aims and demands.
    Another day from hell.
    He had lied to an investigating officer and chewed his lower lip to shreds. He had forced a prisoner to go back to the unit where he was threatened and when the prisoner had taken hostages, had ripped the yellow petals of the tulips into tiny, porous pieces and dropped them on the wet floor. When his mobile phone rang, the ringtone echoing in the empty surroundings, he went into one of the empty cells and lay down exhausted on one of the bunks with no mattress.
    ‘Oscarsson?’
    He recognised the general director’s voice immediately, stretched out his body on the hard bunk.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘His demands?’
    ‘I—’
    ‘What are his demands?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘Three hours and fifty-four minutes. And not a single demand?’
    ‘No communication at all.’
    He had just seen a mouth fill a TV monitor, tight lips that slowly formed words about death. He couldn’t bear to talk about it.
    ‘If there are demands,
when
he makes demands, Lennart, he’s not allowed to leave the prison.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘If he asks for the gate to be opened, you mustn’t allow it. Under any circumstances.’
    The hard bunk. He couldn’t feel it.
    ‘Am I understanding you correctly? You want me to … to ignore the policy that you yourself have written? And that all of us who hold senior positions have signed? That if anyone’s life is in danger, if we believe a hostage taker is prepared to carry out any threats he has made, if he demands to be released, we
should
open the gates to save lives. And that is the agreement that you now want me to ignore?’
    ‘I know what policies and regulations I’ve formulated. But … Lennart, if you still like your job, then you’ll do as I ask you.’
    He couldn’t move. It was impossible.
    ‘As
you
ask
me
?’
    Everyone has their limits, an