Three Minutes Read online

  There are so many types of silences. Embarrassed. Forced. Uncomfortable. Threatening. Natural. Welcome. Pleasant. Comforting.

  This silence was none of those things. It was a slow evaluation. And absolutely crucial. If the embassy official regarding him now, one Jonathan Woods with short, spiky blond hair, were to ask the stranger across from him to get up and leave, that would destroy Hoffmann’s last hope. If, however, he continued to listen, to weigh, to make verification calls to DEA headquarters just outside Washington, there would be a small opening left for one family to survive.

  “If you’ll excuse me.” Woods walked through the door and closed it ceremoniously behind him.

  Grens remained in another kind of silence. A silence of waiting, anxiety, and lack of control. He leaned back in his easy chair, checked the clock ticking on the wall, and closed his eyes.

  Twenty-seven minutes. Then the door opened just as ceremonially as it closed.

  “It took a bit for me to get an answer.”

  Grens stretched unconsciously. “And?”

  “Sue Masterson vouched for you. Apparently, you both worked in CICAD?”

  “If you say so.”

  Jonathan Woods leaned forward, smiled. “It’s that secret?”

  “I promised Masterson not to talk to anyone about our joint work.”

  “With all due respect, the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission sounds good, but I really don’t believe in those kinds of international bureaucratic task forces. I would rather—”

  “If you say so.”

  The embassy official regarded the Swedish detective claiming to be in Colombia as a tourist for a long time.

  “Where is the body—now?”

  “In a rental car. Three hundred meters down the street. In the trunk.”

  Woods moved to the window to a view of the embassy’s iron gate and armed guards, as if hoping to see the vehicle they were talking about. “And when we open it—how do I know you don’t have any other intentions? For example, what if it were to explode?”

  “You don’t know. But you’ve got an army at your disposal here that’s pretty good at investigating those sorts of things.”

  They looked at each other again, in yet another kind of silence—quieter, cooler.

  “Well then, are we done?”

  Woods nodded. “I suppose so. I’ve called for someone to escort you out.”

  Grens had just stood up and started walking toward the door when Woods seemed to change his mind.

  “Mr. Grens.”

  “Yes?”

  “Now that I think about it—we’re not really done here after all.”

  Ewert Grens had always had a face that hid how worried, how unsure, he might feel. He hoped that was the case now.

  “I need one more thing from you. Before I can let you go.”

  The embassy official must have figured it out. Realized something. Seen he was facing a bluff.

  “The car keys.”

  Woods didn’t smile, but almost. And Grens felt his anxiety crashing down from his chest to slowly leak out the bottom of his stomach.

  “Here.” Grens held out his hand with the keys, and they said good-bye. When Woods opened the door, a young man was already waiting to escort their guest out of the building and off of US territory. The Swedish detective had taken his first steps when he again stopped, turned back, and this time he was the one with something to say. “By the way.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you cleaned the inside of the car thoroughly. And fill up the gas tank before you return it. Apparently, they’re sticklers about that.”

  A SHORT WALK. Hoffmann was waiting for Grens about a kilometer from the US Embassy. Grens was easily identifiable from a distance, the large body, the slight hobble, as his left leg compensated for the constant pain. They walked slowly down two blocks of well-preserved buildings—far enough for Grens to have time to give him all the details of how the dead man in the trunk was received, and thus confirm that there was at least one last chance. And when they parted, Hoffmann lingered in the intersection of two one-way streets and watched as the policeman he’d decided to trust—who’d just launched the most crucial phase of his plan for survival—left. And now it was up to Piet to finish the rest.

  THAT FUCKING NEWS report.

  The television had been on in the brothel bar, and El Mestizo was watching it distractedly while drinking a beer. It took him a while to understand what it was about, but gradually from someplace deep inside, his rage grew. A reporter spoke excitedly about authentic images being shown for the first time. The razor-sharp voice shouted out the revelation that another name had been crossed off the kill list. El Sueco. American politicians were holding a triumphant press conference to reveal the explicit photographs of a lifeless body. A team of prominent forensic experts had confirmed, after comparing all external circumstances with the actual existing conditions and distinctive characteristics of the deceased, that the identity of the individual known as the Seven of Hearts, who lacked both a face and a name, was beyond any reasonable doubt a match for a man who had been found dead in Bogotá, likely strangled by a neck snare.

  Seen. Understood. Hated. After the last image had disappeared from the TV, his rage turned into a kind of panic, a dizziness he’d never felt, and he staggered up the brothel staircase to the first floor, to one of the rooms with large beds meant for selling sex.

  It was as if everything around him became transparent. As if he were moving through a world without color. The fiery red carpet in the entrance hall, stained and rough where customers had spilled their drinks, the moss-green plants climbing out of their self-watering pots and up onto the trellis, the deep-blue sky that stood watch outside the brothel windows.

  Everything was transparent. As if it no longer existed. Just like the trust he had—against his own principles—placed in another man, and now the man he’d chosen to let in and believe in also no longer existed.

  And when he pulled his gun from its holster and shot at the first person he happened to meet in the corridor, then shot her again—even then everything remained transparent. His secretary, who had worked for him for twelve years, now lay on the floor of the brothel bleeding colorless blood.

  It was the first time he’d found himself in such a world, and it was so much easier, moving without air resistance, as if he could walk straight through the customers who were now pressed against the walls and the young women who were crawling along the floor, while he continued firing his weapon at random.

  Transparent.

  He fucking knew what this was all about.

  You or me. And I care more about me than about you, so I choose me.

  El Mestizo yelled, screamed, pushed an armchair away, knocked over a couple of lamps, and kicked in a door—room 15, as good as any other. The woman lying naked on the bed, in front of a man who was getting dressed, saw her employer aiming his gun at him, shooting him twice in the chest. And she didn’t understand why.

  She didn’t know that the man shooting wildly had just a minute ago seen someone betraying him in a news report, pretending to be dead, and that he would continue to shoot until the transparency had gone.

  ERIK WILSON TURNED off the small fourteen-inch television on his desk.

  Day after day with no information, and it had been hell. Then, no contact whatsoever. That was why he’d so enthusiastically cleared his calendar when Sven Sundkvist, Mariana Hermansson, and Lars Ågestam knocked on his door to discuss an upcoming raid on a cocaine shipment to Sweden. Because it had to be connected to Hoffmann in some way. That is why for the past several days, several times an hour, he’d turned on the TV and sought out the US news channels. It could be connected to Hoffmann. And that was why he now sat completely still in his office in the homicide unit of the Kronoberg police station, weeping.

  Nothing would ever be connected to him again. Piet Hoffmann was dead.

  The CNN report he’d just watched had said so—pack
aged and presented as today’s big news in the fight against drugs. Another playing card had been ripped apart. The Seven of Hearts, the so-called El Sueco, had been killed.

  Wilson tried to collect himself, tried to make sense of it. Had he understood correctly? Had the clips of Colombian coca plantations and cocaine kitchens really been followed by slow shots of the trunk of a car outside the US embassy in Bogotá? And did they really show that body?

  Lying on its right side. That much he remembered. Facing the inside of the trunk, back to the camera. An image that felt arranged—they had twisted his right arm under his body to get the deceased into that position.

  But then the camera zoomed closer. On the left hand were two mutilated fingers. On the top of the head was a black piece of cloth that they pulled off, uncovering a large tattoo—a lizard he recognized.

  Hoffmann. Dead.

  And even though he wept ever more quiet, gentle tears that lingered on his upper lip, which he removed with the tip of his tongue, still he continued to be emptied out from the inside.

  THE WOMAN STANDING on the other side of the bar was naked from the waist up.

  She pushed the bottle of beer toward El Mestizo, precisely as cold—never over five degrees Celsius—as he preferred it. This was his joint after all. The guests who came here, who consumed absurdly overpriced alcohol in exchange for access to young women and rooms, had no idea—they didn’t mean a thing, they were only here because El Mestizo allowed them to be. Just as he’d allowed the man who betrayed him to be here.

  Despite the serious tone of the news report, despite the convincing formulations and the tattoo, he’d seen through all of it immediately. The Seven of Hearts was not dead. He’d realized how that body, so very important to save, had been used. That was not Peter. But it was supposed to look like Peter.

  And then after that the dead man had called. Said a single sentence. Johnny, I bet you want to talk to me. And hung up.

  After that, Johnny had returned to the bar and asked Rosalita to turn off the television that played the same news reports on a loop. He’d closed his eyes, following his thoughts inward, remained still while they landed.

  The man who’d gained his trust no longer existed. Not because he was dead, as the reporter claimed. But because he must die and would.

  He waved her over, and she picked up another bottle of Aguila, made sure it was properly chilled, and pushed it across the counter like before. She was on her way to a new customer at the other end of the bar when he spoke.

  “Stay here, Rosalita.”

  She did. Waiting. It was as if he were gathering his thoughts. Then he looked at her, pulling what he was about to say from deep inside.

  “You need to learn something.”

  “Yes?”

  “Never trust anyone.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s just how it is, Rosalita. Do you hear me? You should never trust anyone.” He waved his hand for her to go.

  The beer didn’t help. The truth was just as difficult to swallow. He’d learned never, never, never to trust anyone. One single rule. In his private life as well as at work. They’d spoken of it a bit, he and Peter, after they discovered they were alike. Peter was even the one who formulated what they both thought. Trust only yourself. And they’d laughed, two people who didn’t trust a single motherfucker, how could they trust each other?

  “Rosalita.”

  She’d better come back. He waved, she’d better hurry back.

  “Something else? Should I . . . one more?” She looked at his bottle, still half full.

  “What I said before, Rosalita.”

  “Before?”

  “Do you? Do you trust someone, Rosalita?”

  “I don’t know if . . .”

  “You can go again.” For the second time, he waved her away. And traveled with his thoughts, inward, to the car he once fell asleep in. To the mother he’d chosen to reveal.

  He shouldn’t have done either. He shouldn’t have invited anyone in. She’d been right.

  Hoffmann tapped lightly on the bar, and Rosalita looked up. He smiled and waited until she smiled back and nodded to the owner’s table, where El Mestizo now sat with a bottle of beer in front of him.

  “The usual?”

  “The usual, Rosalita.”

  She looked at him, knew very well what his usual was, both of them. When he was about to head to work with their mutual boss he wanted black coffee to stay alert, after they came back and he’d sit here talking with the boss he preferred Colombian rum to relax. Now she didn’t know really. He wasn’t dressed for work, but he seemed tense, as in the way he moved and watched her. Prepared. That’s what he was. And when she combined his clothes with his behavior she decided to serve him coffee—and rum. He took the warm cup and the beautiful glass and nodded in thanks, she’d read him right. And then went over to the owner’s table with his hands full.

  “Johnny.”

  El Mestizo stared at him without answering. He had laid his gun on the table, and when Hoffmann got closer, he lifted it up, weighed it in his hand, pushed out the fully loaded chamber and spun it a couple of times before pushing it back in and putting the gun back on the table, careful to keep the muzzle pointed at his visitor.

  “I had to. There was no other way.”

  El Mestizo stared at him, silent.

  “Either I go home with my wife and sons, you know how much she wants that, or she’ll leave me.”

  Not a movement. Not a word.

  “And losing someone you’re that close to, no man can risk that. Right, Johnny?”

  Hoffmann closed one hand around the glass of rum, another around the cup of hot black coffee. Both still untouched.

  The limit. Everything depended on that. To go near it, balance on it, but never go over it. Had he done so just now? Had he done so just by coming here?

  But he had no choice. It wasn’t the adult El Mestizo who had to be neutralized, it was the child, the betrayed El Mestizo who was dangerous—the El Mestizo who knew he was being abandoned, that the closeness he so rarely allowed had been taken advantage of. And if after finding out that Peter Haraldsson had been identified as the body El Mestizo finished off, El Mestizo would have analyzed and evaluated everything without contact, without explanation, then he would immediately put all of his resources to hunting down and killing Piet Hoffmann and his family. So instead Piet sought out El Mestizo to convince him they were still on the same side, that together they could fight back the next time they were attacked, that he would stand by El Mestizo to the end—and perhaps that would buy him the days he needed to get out of here.

  “Yes. I understand that you’re disappointed. And one day I will go home. To northern Europe. But not until this fucking kill list has come to an end. Not until I know that you too have gotten out unscathed. Until then, my friend, I will be at your side.”

  But maybe that wasn’t the only reason for coming here—lying to gain time? Could there be another reason? Such as getting close enough to meet El Mestizo’s eyes, see how the pain had dug its way inside a man who took the life of little angels and so must be deprived of his own—maybe it was because Hoffmann wanted this. He couldn’t leave it alone. That feeling that he, who was now formally dead, would continue to live, while the man who sat in silence opposite him, formally still alive, would die—could that be it?

  Manipulation. Revenge. Sometimes it gave you the same rush.

  And when he left the brothel, much later, both the glass of rum and cup of coffee stood on the table, untouched. He’d never again need to maintain his focus before a job they’d do together, or sit down afterward and relax.

  El Mestizo had ordered one more. Ice cold. And when Rosalita served it, he asked her to join him.

  “Sit.”

  She did, hesitantly, at the very edge of the booth.

  “Do you remember what I told you, Rosalita? Seven beers ago.”

  “No. Yes. What do you . . .”

  “Never t
rust anyone. Rosalita. Never.”

  She didn’t understand. Why was she sitting here? At the owner’s table? During all the years she’d worked for El Mestizo, she’d never seen him shake like this. She’d heard from Zaneta that he’d killed his secretary. He did things like that outside the brothel, she knew that, but he’d never shot anyone in here before. She should be afraid. She wasn’t. Uneasiness, that was what she felt, his unpredictability had swirled around them, but she was sure he wouldn’t hurt her, that it had passed now.

  “Because if you trust someone, Rosalita, they will eventually leave you. Betray you.”

  Her boss took her hand, held it hard.

  “And if someone disappears far, far away from you, you lose their loyalty.”

  Her hand. He pulled it closer, lifted it, rubbed it against his cheek.

  “And somebody who you let get too close who’s planning to be so far away—he might just talk, betray you, expose you.”

  He rubbed her soft hand against his cheek, back and forth, she felt the back of her hand grow warm and saw his skin turning red.

  “And when somebody talks too much—they have to die. Did you know that, Rosalita?”

  Then El Mestizo stood up suddenly, kissed each of her fingers lightly, and left. Headed toward the exit and his car. To the woman who had been right when she told him not to trust anyone. And toward the person who would take on the mission of putting an end to the man who betrayed him.

  She’d been right. She’d been right. Even his father, a man he’d met on only two occasions, had been right. My son, he’d said the last time. You don’t know what friendship is. But you’ll understand when you end up in prison or in the hospital. Then you’ll know where love exists. He understood what his father meant. As life went by, he had fewer and fewer friends. They took advantage of him. Stole from him, from what he was. And didn’t give back when he needed it.