The Swimmer Read online

  ‘Hey, Klara? Are you still there? What are you doing?’

  Jörgen’s voice, coming distantly from the phone. She pressed it against her ear.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘There…’

  At the same time, she saw the door to her staircase being opened from inside.

  ‘I’ll call you later,’ she whispered breathlessly into the phone and turned it off.

  She turned to face the bar’s window, as if she were reading the menu. Pulled up her coat collar to cover her cheeks. Glanced toward the door.

  A young woman, maybe a few years older than herself. Blond ponytail and dark, serious running clothes. The reflective stripes on her pants and top glittered in the headlights of the cars rolling by on the street. Straight, confident posture. A backpack strapped to her back. She stretched a few times, looked around, apparently without paying attention to Klara. Then she jogged calmly toward and past Klara without seeming to notice her at all.

  Klara waited until the woman rounded the corner of the block, until her own breathing calmed down. Then she picked up the phone again. There was a moment’s hesitation before she pressed Cyril’s number.

  He answered after six rings. Whispering, an ounce of annoyance in his voice.

  ‘Klara, now is not a good time.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But something’s happened. I just wanted to check…’

  She could feel his impatience through her phone.

  ‘Yes, what? What is it?’

  ‘Can I sleep at your place tonight?’

  ‘What?’

  She could almost see him frowning, feel how tiresome he thought this was.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  Klara took a deep breath. She felt stupid and childish. But also annoyed with Cyril. Did he have to ask? Couldn’t he just say: ‘Yes, of course, come.’

  ‘I think I’ve had a break-in.’

  Cyril said something to someone else in French. Glasses clinked.

  ‘You think you’ve had a break-in? What? Have you called the police?’

  ‘Never mind,’ Klara said. ‘Forget I asked. I’ll figure it out myself.’

  She heard him stifling a sigh.

  ‘No, no, of course you can spend the night at my place. Can you take a taxi there? We’re waiting for dessert. Give me an hour and a half, okay?’

  Klara closed her eyes.

  ‘I don’t even know where you live.’

  21

  December 19, 2013

  Brussels, Belgium

  George swallowed and leaned over to open the yellow folder. Somehow he already knew what was hidden inside. It was impossible, but he knew it.

  And as soon as he saw the Gottlieb law firm’s logo on the first page, he knew it was game over. He slowly took the document out of the folder. It was as if the room were vibrating and crackling around him.

  What he held in his hand was a copy of a confidentiality agreement between himself and Mikael Persson, partner in the law firm of Gottlieb. There were only two copies. George had locked one of them in a safe-deposit box in Stockholm, and he had watched Persson lock the second one into a safe in his corner office at Norrmalmstorg. He glanced at it briefly through squinting eyes. Actually, he didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to read it, didn’t want to take in the fact that he was sitting with that very same agreement in his hand, in a poorly furnished living room in Brussels with a man who looked like Gene Hackman’s evil twin. But even if he had no doubts at this point, he still needed to check that it in fact was the right agreement.

  It was, of course.

  Everything was there. Every watertight paragraph. It was neither long nor detailed, just enough to specify that George and Persson would not disclose anything dealing with their possible relationship to the investment fund Oaktree Mutual. Even divulging the existence of the confidentiality agreement was a breach of contract. Which did seem to make it difficult to invoke it. But George had been in no position to suggest amendments on the day he signed it.

  The agreement itself wasn’t particularly damning. But it was dizzying, agonizing, that Reiper had had access to it and was even able to make a copy of it. That was, of course, why Reiper had put it at the front of the folder.

  George didn’t want to continue looking through the folder. He knew what he would find there.

  Yet, he couldn’t help it.

  And just as he’d suspected, there were roughly thirty-five pages of e-mail correspondence and bank statements. Together they proved beyond all reasonable doubt that George had leaked information to Oaktree Mutual about a big merger he was assisting Persson with in exchange for payment.

  Oaktree had been one of the investment firms funding the merger. But they’d also, using front organizations, traded shares in both companies. Using the information from George, it’d been impossible for their investments to fail. They were playing high-risk poker with marked cards. George didn’t even want to think about how much money they must have made from his information. In comparison to that, they were only paying him a pittance, though it was big money for a freshly minted lawyer with expensive habits.

  But George didn’t even receive any of the money before Persson started getting suspicious. He was an old fox when it came to high finance and quickly realized Oaktree Mutual was batting for both teams. It wasn’t his problem, as long as they weren’t using information that came from him. George never did understand how Persson figured it out. There had been at least ten associates and three partners working on that deal at Gottlieb. Maybe Persson had scanned all the e-mail correspondence going to and from people working on the deal. Maybe he’d had a hunch that it was George.

  Whatever it was, one day George had been called into Persson’s office. Persson was sitting there with a puzzled look on his face. On the desk in front of him was basically the same folder that George was holding in his hands right now.

  Persson had drily explained the fact that serious insider trading meant imprisonment for at least six months to four years. And fines on top of that. His legal career would go up in smoke. Not to mention his old man’s reaction. He was ruined, and he was only twenty-seven years old.

  He’d actually thanked Persson when he told George to resign effective immediately and never breathe a word about the whole incident. Persson claimed that he’d wanted to go to the police. He’d wanted to see George pilloried in the Stockholm District Court. But the damage to Gottlieb would be far too great if it came to light that they were somehow involved with insider trading. A law firm of Gottlieb’s caliber couldn’t afford to be associated with that sort of thing. Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion, Persson had said.

  George had signed the necessary papers, received his severance pay, and thanked his lucky stars. Until just a few minutes ago, he’d almost managed to repress the shame and the terrible fear of that day.

  ‘I’m sorry, George, but as I said, I really need your help, and I can’t afford to doubt your motivations.’

  George winced. He hadn’t noticed Reiper creeping up behind the sofa he was sitting in.

  He turned around.

  Reiper didn’t look particularly sympathetic. Rather, he seemed to enjoy the fact that the formalities were over.

  ‘How?’ George’s voice was just a lonely croak.

  He was suddenly having a hard time breathing, and he loosened his bright yellow Ralph Lauren tie.

  ‘How the hell did you get a hold of all this information?’

  Reiper waved his rough hands dismissively.

  ‘That’s not important. We have our methods, as you’re probably becoming aware of. But now let’s focus on your future role.’

  He looked at the clock.

  ‘You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve got a rough night ahead of me, so we’ll need to hurry this up a bit.’

  George couldn’t manage to do more than nod. His throat was sore, his heart pounding. It felt like his immune system was about to collapse.

  ‘Here,’ Reiper said and tossed Georg
e a USB stick.

  ‘There’s a useful program on that little fella. It allows us to see exactly what’s happening on any computer on which it’s installed. What I want you to do is to take that to the European Parliament and install it on Klara Walldéen’s computer and laptop. If possible, be sure to install it on the rest of Madame Boman’s computers as well.’

  ‘But how?’

  It was the only thing George could get out.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll figure something out. We have, as you’ve noticed, pretty impressive resources, but we’re never better than our agents on the ground. Now you’re our agent in the European Parliament. You have access there whenever you want in your capacity as a lobbyist. You glide through the halls like you own the place.’

  This must be what Appleby was referring to during dinner, George thought. He couldn’t imagine Merchant & Taylor’s senior management sneaking around and breaking into stuff in their youth.

  ‘And here,’ Reiper said and set a couple of round plastic cylinders down on the table.

  They looked like caps from plastic bottles.

  ‘Microphones. Under the desks in both Klara’s and Boman’s offices. And in their colleagues’ rooms if you get the opportunity. It has to be done early tomorrow morning. We’re pretty sure her computer is still at her office. And don’t worry about the technology. It’s a piece a cake.’

  George closed his eyes and leaned back in the couch.

  ‘Sorry, George, no sleep for you just yet. Josh has a few technical things to show you to prep for tomorrow.’

  George didn’t really know how he made it home. Just that he found himself sitting in his Audi outside of his apartment with the engine running sometime after half past twelve that night. He was completely exhausted. He could feel the USB stick in his pocket. Had it not been for the USB, he might have thought the night had all been a bad dream.

  22

  December 20, 2013

  Brussels, Belgium

  Mahmoud was lying in the hard hotel bed, wide awake. He was exhausted, so tired that he couldn’t sleep. And his brain was giving him no opportunity to recuperate. He hadn’t slept a wink since checking into a budget hotel just a stone’s throw from Avenue Anspach in central Brussels, late the night before. He turned his wrist. The green, luminous numbers on his watch showed 4:35.

  He’d just put his head back down on the pillow to make a new, futile attempt at falling asleep, when he heard it. The crunching sound of rubber against asphalt, a car rolling forward slowly with its engine off. The crunching stopped outside his window, followed by the sound of doors opening and closing gently, almost silently.

  Far too gently. Nobody closes a car door without slamming it unless they have an explicit purpose, Mahmoud thought. He sat up, his full concentration on his hearing. The poorly insulated window let in almost all the sounds from the street, even though he was on the fourth floor. What he heard sounded like boots and whispering, disciplined voices. Gore-Tex and automatic weapons. Memories from another time. An operation was being prepared.

  Mahmoud threw on his clothes and cautiously pulled aside the curtain to peer out at the street, which was illuminated by streetlamps. He half expected to see police cars and roadblocks. But there stood just a single, black delivery van. He could just make out what seemed to be three men dressed in black, jogging around the corner toward the hotel’s entrance.

  A fourth man was standing by the front bumper of the van, preoccupied by something near the lamppost. He had his back toward the hotel, so Mahmoud couldn’t see exactly what he was doing. But suddenly the lamp was extinguished, and the street went completely dark. Something green, like text on an ancient computer screen, gleamed for a second in the place where Mahmoud assumed the man’s head must be.

  Night vision, thought Mahmoud and drew back the curtains with lightning speed. The man must have killed the lamp in order to keep an eye on Mahmoud’s window using night-vision equipment. This was definitely not the police.

  When he pressed his ear against the thin door facing the hallway, he thought he heard steps coming up the stairs farther down in the building. Stealthy rubber soles on the stained carpet. But even these pros couldn’t hide the fact that the stairs creaked. Mahmoud realized he didn’t have much time. He was clenching his teeth so hard that his jaw ached. He’d probably be dead within five minutes. He couldn’t sit here and wait for his killers.

  He quickly shoved his things into his pack and swung it onto his back before carefully opening the door to the hallway. It was still empty, but he could hear those efficient, stealthy steps closing in. They sounded like they were on the floor beneath him.

  The emergency exit was just across the hall from Mahmoud’s room. The regular stairs were at the other end of the hallway. He decided to chance it. Ten quick steps on legs shaking with adrenaline. He pushed open the door to the emergency stairs. A puff of air, saturated with concrete and damp, washed over him.

  The stairs were empty, quiet, and dark. He assumed whoever was coming after him would leave a guard at the front desk, or even at the door to the stairs, so he decided to climb up. As he began groping his way through the pitch darkness up the next flight of stairs, he sensed steps below him in the hallway. It sounded like several people. He heard them approaching, they couldn’t be more than ten yards away.

  He climbed up to the next two landings as smoothly as could, two steps at a time. He swore quietly when he stumbled on the first landing and scraped his knees. It was pitch-black, and he didn’t dare turn on the light.

  Through the thin walls he could hear someone kicking in what he assumed was his door, somewhere behind and below him. Wood splintering. Muted voices hissing staccato orders. Despite the chill in the stairwell, he could feel sweat on the nape of his neck. He continued upward. Halfway up to the hotel’s fifth and top floor, he heard a door open beneath him. A crack of light spread out a couple of floors down and a shadow fell on the stairs. Someone seemed to be standing in the doorway to the emergency stairs.

  Mahmoud was at the top of the stairwell. Beneath him was a group of people who seemed determined to kill him. The only way forward was the door to the hallway on the fifth floor. If he opened it the killers would see the light and know that he was in the stairwell. He squatted down and tried not to breathe, not to move. Not to do anything that would reveal his presence.

  Mahmoud groped along the wall in search of the door handle. His hands grazed a square, glossy box on the wall. He slowly turned toward it. Opened his eyes as wide as he could to see in the dark. A fire alarm. Inside his own head, he heard a voice from another time:

  ‘If the odds are against you, chaos is your friend.’

  Chaos. Mahmoud fumbled in his pocket and snatched his hotel room key. Chaos. He stood up as quietly as he could. Took a deep breath. He raised his arm, key in hand, and slammed it as hard as he could against the glass of the fire alarm.

  The stairwell exploded with a deafening, old-fashioned fire alarm. The volume shocked him, and he plugged his ears.

  It took a few seconds. Then the figure beneath him started to move forward, upward. The lights came on, and the whole staircase was bathed in fluorescent light. Several pairs of feet rapidly started moving up the stairs. They’re coming after me, thought Mahmoud. It’s over now. It’s really over now. The alarm sang around him, inside him. Threatening to drive him crazy.

  He pressed down on the handle to the hallway door, pushed it open, and hurled himself onto the fifth floor.

  ‘He’s up there! Let’s go!’ he heard a deep voice say somewhere beneath him.

  Mahmoud staggered out into the hallway. Looked around desperately. At the far end of the corridor he saw a stairway that continued up. He had no idea where it led, but he ran toward it. When he reached it, he saw that it consisted of just a couple of steps leading to a padlocked door. Beside the door hung a large fire extinguisher. Mahmoud picked up the fire extinguisher and threw it with all his might against the padlock. He missed badly and dr
opped the extinguisher on the floor. He lifted it up again with trembling hands.

  On the second attempt, he hit the padlock, and it flew off in a gratifying arc. The padlock fell and bounced off the carpet. Mahmoud depressed the handle of the door as he heard his pursuers coming through the door to the hallway behind him. When the door swung open, the icy cold hit him so hard it almost took his breath away.

  Ahead of him lay a poorly maintained roof, half the size of a tennis court. He was in the corner of the hotel building, seven stories above the street. The two sides of the terrace that overlooked the street were fenced in by broken and rusty chicken wire. Below him he heard the distant sound of sirens. The firefighters were already on their way. He was getting his chaos.

  Behind him, next to the door he’d just exited, there were a couple of pieces of rebar fastened to the building. Like a makeshift ladder. He didn’t have much choice. All he could do was to continue going upward. Somehow he managed to climb and crawl up the hotel’s sloping roof. The roof tiles seemed to move beneath him. There was no time to think about how high in the air he was.

  He thanked God the roof didn’t slope more than it did. With his arms on one side of the roof ridge, and his body on the other, he started sliding in one direction. He had no idea where he was going. But a few meters farther along the roof, he discerned a square, black metal hatch that seemed to be open by a small gap. Maybe it was the outlet of a ventilation shaft or the door to an attic. Mahmoud started moving toward it. On the terrace, just below him, he heard his pursuers step out onto the roof.

  ‘So, what’s the status? The fire department is here. What a fucking circus.’ Mahmoud heard one of the men say in English.

  Another man seemed to be running to the other side of the terrace. It sounded like he was shaking and bending the chicken wire.

  ‘There’s no one here. Unless he jumped,’ the man informed his colleagues after a few seconds.