Three Seconds

watched as two more players happily helped themselves.
Now
we have another opportunity. This time, with the Poles.’
    Piet Hoffmann tried to sit still and with one hand under the table attempted to untangle the lead and the pieces of tape that had started to stick together.
    Small movements with searching fingers.
    ‘Paula will continue to infiltrate. He will be in the right place at the point when Wojtek takes over all drug dealing in Swedish prisons. He is the one who will supply Warsaw with reports about deliveries and sales and at the same time supply us with information about how and when to launch an attack and smash them.’
    He’d got it. A microphone the size of a pinhead under the material of his trousers. He fixed it again, trying to pull it up, back towards his groin, as it sat better there and it was easier to point in the direction of whoever was talking.
    He stopped abruptly.
    Göransson, who was sitting directly opposite him, suddenly started to stare, his gaze unflinching.
    ‘High security Swedish prisons. And Wojtek are going to concentrate on two categories of prisoner. First of all,
the millionaires
, the ones who have earned their money through organised crime and are inside for a long time, and who will transfer their ill-gotten gains gram by gram, day by day, to a property on ul. Ludwika Idzikowskiego. And then
the lackeys
, the ones who have no money and who leave prison with substantial debts and in order to survive, pay off these debts by selling large quantities of drugs or committing violent crimes, debts that Wojtek can link to a dangerous criminal network.’
    He let go of the microphone and placed both his hands on the table, where they were visible.
    Göransson was still looking directly at him and it was as hard to breathe as it was to swallow, each second an hour, until he looked away.
    ‘I can’t say it any more clearly than that. It’s you who decides. Let Paula continue or stand by and watch once again.’
    The state secretary looked at each of them, and then out of the window at the sun, which was so beautiful. Maybe she also longed to be out.
    ‘Could I ask you to leave the room?’
    Piet Hoffmann shrugged and started to walk towards the door, but stopped suddenly. The microphone. It had come unstuck and slithered down between his right leg and the material of his trousers.
    ‘It will only take a couple of minutes. Then you can come back in.’
    He said nothing. But he held up his middle finger as he left the room. He heard a tired sigh behind him. They had observed it, were irritated, kept their eyes averted. That was what he had intended, he wanted to avoid any questions about what was being dragged behind his foot as he shut the door.
    The state secretary’s face still gave nothing away.
    ‘You mentioned nine months. Five months. The Mexican and Egyptian mafia. I said no because the criminals you use as infiltrators can only be deemed to be high risk.’
    ‘Paula is not a
high-risk
source. He is Wojtek’s ticket to expansion. The whole operation is built around him.’
    ‘I will never give criminal immunity to someone who neither you nor I trust.’
    ‘
I do
trust him.’
    ‘Then perhaps you can explain to me why Chief Superintendent Göransson body-searched him out there not long ago.’
    Erik Wilson looked at his boss and then at the woman with the blank face.
    ‘
I
am Paula’s handler,
I
am the one who works with him every day. I trust him and Wojtek is already here! We’ve never managed to position an infiltrator so centrally in an expanding organisation before. With Paula, we can cut them down with one fell swoop. If he’s given immunity with regard to Västmannagatan. If he is allowed to operate fully from the inside.’
    The state secretary went over to the window and the golden sun, and a view of the capital that was going about its afternoon business without any idea of the decisions that governed it. Then she turned and looked at the fourth participant in the meeting who had not yet said anything.
    ‘What do you think?’
    She had opened her door for Detective Superintendent Wilson and Chief Superintendent Göransson. But it was in decisions like this thatshe turned to the top man in the police authority and asked him to sit down at the table with her and listen.
    ‘The criminal elite, multimillionaires, major criminals as Wojtek’s financiers. The criminal grass roots, those indebted, the petty thieves, as Wojtek’s slaves.’
    The national