Three Seconds

bullet went straight through, hitting the back wall, and they heard it falling to the floor among the black and brown shoes.
    Lennart Oscarsson didn’t move. The warm cup of tea still in one hand.
    She pointed to the wall clock behind the desk with the muzzle of her gun.
    ‘Eight more minutes. Do you hear? I want to know why you lied. And I want to know who Hoffmann is, why he’s standing in the workshop window with a revolver to the hostage’s head.’
    He looked at the gun, at the cupboard, at Hermansson.
    ‘I was just lying on a … an unused bunk in Block K, searching the nice, newly painted white ceiling. Because … because I don’t know who Hoffmann is. Because I don’t know why he’s standing there, claiming that he’s going to shoot my best friend.’
    His voice – she wasn’t quite sure whether he was going to cry, or whether it was just the fragility of having given up.
    ‘What I do know is … is that it’s about something else … that there’s other people involved.’
    He swallowed, swallowed again.
    ‘I was ordered to allow a lawyer to visit a client the evening before Grens was here. A prisoner in the same unit as Hoffmann. Stefan Lygás. He was one of the people who attacked him. And he was the one who … who was shot this morning. Lawyers, you might know, are often used as messengers when someone wants information to be spread inside … that’s often the way it’s done.’
    ‘Ordered? By whom?’
    Lennart Oscarsson gave a fleeting smile.
    ‘I was ordered to prevent Grens – or any other police officer for that matter – from getting near Hoffmann. I stood there in reception, tried to look him in the eye, explain that the prisoner he wanted to see was in the hospital unit, that he would be there for three, maybe four days more.’
    ‘By whom?’
    Same smile, impotent.
    ‘I was ordered to move Hoffmann. Back to the unit he’d come from. Even though a prisoner who’s been threatened should never be moved back.’
    Hermansson was shouting now.
    ‘
By whom?
’
    The smile.
    ‘And I was given orders, just now, that if Hoffmann demands that the gates are opened for him and the hostages …
that I mustn’t let him out.
’
    ‘Oscarsson, I have to know who—’
    ‘I want Martin to live.’
    She looked at the face that wouldn’t manage to hold on for much longer, then at the clock that was hanging on the wall.
    Seven minutes left.
    She turned around and ran out of the office, his voice following her down the corridor.
    ‘
Hermansson!
’
    She didn’t stop.
    ‘
Hermansson!
’
    Words that ricocheted off the cold walls.
    ‘
Someone wants Hoffmann to die
.’

His legs tied. His hands tied. His mouth gagged. His head covered.
     
    Nitroglycerine against his skin. Pentyl fuse round his chest, torso, legs.
    ‘Setting thirty-two.’
    He dragged the heavy body over to the window, hit it, forced it to stand there.
    ‘TPR three.’
    ‘Repeat.’
    ‘Transport right three.’
    They were close to firing. The dialogue between the marksman and the observer would carry on until they fired.
    He needed more time.
    Hoffmann ran across the workshop to the storeroom and the other hostage, the prison warden with the pale face.
    ‘I want you to shout.’
    ‘The packing band, it’s cutting—’
    ‘Shout!’
    The older man was tired. He panted, his head hung to one side, as if he didn’t have the strength to hold it upright.
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘Shout, for fuck’s sake!’
    ‘What …?’
    ‘What the fuck you like. There’s five minutes left. Scream that.’
    The frightened eyes looked at him.
    ‘Shout it!’
    ‘Five minutes left.’
    ‘Louder!’
    ‘Five minutes left!’
    ‘Louder!’
    ‘
Five minutes left!
’
    Piet Hoffmann sat still and listened: careful sounds outside the door.
    They had understood.
    They had understood that the hostages were still alive, they wouldn’t break in, not yet.
    He carried on to the office and the telephone, the ringing tone, once, twice, three times, four, five, six, seven. He was holding the empty porcelain cup and threw it against the wall, shards all over the desk, the pencil holder, the same wall, she hadn’t answered, she wasn’t there, she …
    ‘Object out of sight for one minute, thirty seconds.’
    He hadn’t been visible enough.
    ‘Repeat.’
    ‘Object out of sight for one minute, thirty seconds. Can’t locate either object or hostages.’
    ‘Prepare for entry in two minutes.’
    Hoffmann ran out of the office