Three Seconds
and they were moving on the roof again, getting ready, finding their positions. He stopped by the window and pulled the rug towards him – the hostage had to be close and he heard him wince as the plastic cut deeper into the wounds around his ankles.
‘Object in view again.’
He stood still, waiting, now,
abort now for Christ’s sake
.
‘Abort. Abort preparations for entry.’
He let out a slow sigh and waited, then he ran back to the office and the telephone, try again, he dialled the number, the ring tone, he couldn’t bear to count them, that bloody ringing, the bloody fucking ringing, that bloody—
It stopped.
Someone had answered but didn’t say anything.
The sound of a car, a car driving, the person who answered was in a car driving somewhere, and maybe, very faint, as if they were sitting further away, it had to be, the sound of two children.
‘Have you done what we agreed?’
It was difficult to hear, but he was sure, it was her.
‘Yes.’
He put the phone down.
Yes.
He wanted to laugh, to jump up and down, but just dialled another number.
‘Central security.’
‘Transfer me to the gold commander.’
‘Gold commander?’
‘Now!’
‘And who the hell are you?’
‘The person in one of your monitors. But, I guess for this room it’s completely black.’
A clicking sound, a few seconds’ silence, then a voice, one that he had heard before, the one that made the decisions – he had been transferred to the church tower.
‘He is a dead man in three minutes.’
‘What do you want?’
‘He is a dead man in three minutes.’
‘I repeat … what do you want.’
‘Dead.’
Three minutes.
Two minutes and fifty seconds.
Two minutes and forty seconds.
Ewert Grens was standing in a church tower and felt totally alone. He was about to make a decision about whether another person should live or die. It was his responsibility. And he wasn’t sure any more if he had enough courage to do it and then live with it afterwards.
The wind wasn’t blowing any more. He certainly felt nothing on his forehead and cheeks.
‘Sven?’
‘Yes?’
‘I want to hear it again. Who he is. What he’s capable of.’
‘There isn’t anything else.’
‘Read it!’
Sven Sundkvist was holding the documents in his hand. There was only time for a few lines.
‘Extremely antisocial personality disorder. No ability to empathise. Extensive reports, significant characteristics include impulsiveness, aggression, lack of respect for own and others’ safety, lack of conscience.’
Sven looked at his boss but got no answer, no contact.
‘Shooting incident involving a police officer in Söderhamn, at a public space on the edge of town, he hit—’
‘That’s enough.’
He bent down towards the prostrate marksman.
‘Two minutes. Prepare to fire.’
He pointed to the door into the tower and the aluminium ladder peeping over the top of the hatch. They would go down into the room with the wooden altar – the marksman was to be disturbed as little as possible. He was about halfway down when he turned on the radio and held it to his mouth.
‘From now on, I only want traffic between myself and the marksman. Turn off your mobile phones. Only the marksman and I will communicate until the shot has been fired.’
The wooden stairs creaked with every step – they were approaching the control post and he would only leave again once it was over.
__________
Mariana Hermansson knocked on the dirty window and looked at the camera that was focused on her. It was the fourth locked door in the long passage under the prison and when it was opened, she ran towards central security and the exit.
__________
Martin Jacobson didn’t understand what was happening. But he felt that it was nearing the end. In the last few minutes, Hoffmann had run back and forth several times, he was out of breath and he had shouted loudly about time and death. Jacobson tried to move his legs, his hands, he wanted to get away. He was so frightened, he didn’t want to sit here any more, he wanted to get up and go home and eat supper and watch TV and have a drink of Canadian whisky, the kind that tasted so soft.
He was crying.
He was still crying when Hoffmann came into the cramped storeroom, when he pushed him up against the wall and whispered that soon there would be an almighty explosion, that he should stay exactly where he was, that if he did that he would be protected and wouldn’t
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