He waited for them at the agreed place, a few hundred meters from the Globe. The giant golf ball was fabulously illuminated in the darkness. He was one big smile; his heart was pumping wildly and the adrenaline made him see everything so vividly that evening. He had reached his goal at last, his journey was over, and now he could make his final payment. He stared up into the clear, starlit night, his head aching with the relief. Happiness hurt when it was this big.
A black car of a type he did not recognize pulled up alongside the pavement where he was standing. A window slid down and the person inside gestured to him to put his haul in the boot and get into the back, right-hand seat. He immediately complied. Opening the car door, he found the woman who had met him at the station sitting in the other backseat. Her face was impassive as he climbed in.
They drove through a cold, wintry Stockholm bathed in moonlight. He was virtually sure they were driving north this time. The spoils lay in their protective black sack in the boot. They must really trust him, since they hadn’t even bothered to check he wasn’t trying to swindle them.
The trust was mutual by this stage, so he felt no unease as they made the short journey. They took a turn off the main road into what looked like some kind of park. Despite the gleam of the moonlight, the night was too dark for him to be able to see properly. They indicated to him to get out, and he did so. The passenger who was sitting beside the driver did so, too. It was the man with the disfigured face. They kept the engine running.
The man’s instructions were wordless; he merely pointed down toward the darkness of the park. Ali followed the pointing finger with his eyes and thought he could see someone standing there, down among the trees. Someone waving. The person stepped forward from the shadows. It was the man who spoke Arabic.
He wondered why the meeting had to take place in a deserted park in the middle of the night. Perhaps because their agreement was too sensitive to be dealt with when other people were around. He set off resolutely toward the Arabic speaker. The disfigured man was two steps behind him.
“I gather it went well today,” the Arabic speaker said when he reached him.
He smiled at Ali, who beamed back at him.
“It all went fantastically well,” he confirmed with the eagerness of a five-year-old keen to impress.
“You’re a good shot,” the man said. “Lots of other people would have missed a target that was moving so fast.”
Ali could not help feeling proud.
“I have many years of training behind me, I’m afraid.”
The man gave a satisfied nod.
“Yes, we know, and that was why we chose you.”
He seemed to be wondering what to say next.
“Come with me,” he went on, bowing his head in the direction of the woods, where a lake could be seen glittering though the mass of tree trunks.
Ali felt a sudden stab of doubt.
“Come along,” said the man. “There’s just one more little detail to be taken care of.”
He gave such a warm smile that Ali’s mind was immediately put at rest.
“When can I see my family again?” he asked as he went after the man into a clearing.
“Very, very soon,” said the man, and turned round.
A second later, a shot rang out. And Ali’s journey was over.