He’s about halfway across the square when the shots ring out between the old, grey buildings. He freezes, no place to hide in the middle of this square. At first he doesn’t even make the connection. The sound’s too loud and violent. But then there’s another shot, and he hears screaming, slamming doors, footsteps running in all directions.
The man who met him is gone. Jacob is now almost at the street. Standing there in a daze as a shiny, dark-blue Audi suddenly stops right in front of him with the man from the elevator hanging out the window, screaming at him.
But it’s as if he can’t hear him. As if he’s behind a glass wall and reality can’t penetrate, the world is just a silent movie.
He slowly turns his head and looks up the street; as if in slow motion he can see men in jeans and leather jackets jump out of a black van. It’s only then that life returns to him, reality returns to colour and sound, and he hears the man shouting from the car, right in front of him.
‘Come on!’ he screams in Swedish. ‘Get in the car now! Hurry up, for fuck’s sake!’
Finally he obeys and takes a few steps towards the car, rips open the door and falls into the back seat. Somehow, he gets the door closed again and the car almost leaps forward with Jacob’s face pressed against the cool leather of the seat. He hears the engine rev, and the man’s stressed voice somewhere in front of him, but he doesn’t have the strength to turn around, can’t even take in where he is, who they are, what’s happening around him.
Finally, he lifts himself up onto an elbow.
‘Take a right there!’ the man shouts.
‘Where? The next one?’ says the person driving.
Jacob is almost sitting up now, and he sees it’s a woman driving. Black hair, short, some kind of pixie cut, probably around thirty. She’s holding onto the wheel so hard her knuckles are white.
‘Next turn,’ the man says.
The man sounds calmer now, but it’s hard-won, as if he’s trying to tame something that’s coursing inside him. The car turns and slows down.
‘Damn it!’ the woman shouts. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’
She drums her hands on the wheel, and Jacob realizes that they’re stuck at a red light and the traffic is heavier here. He turns around and sees a queue forming behind them as well. Slowly the lights change, and they follow the traffic forward again.
The man turns to look through the rear window, maybe to check if they’re being followed.
‘Hi,’ he says hesitantly to Jacob. ‘I really hope you are who we think you are. Otherwise, I don’t really know what to say.’
‘How does it look?’ the woman asks grimly. ‘Do you see anything? Are they after us?’
She’s driving calmly now, following the traffic down a wide street towards a roundabout with a statue in the middle. Buses and trams pass by in the opposite direction.
‘I don’t know,’ the man says. ‘Not that I can see.’
‘What…’ Jacob begins. He wants to help them keep watch, but doesn’t know what to look for. ‘What happened?’ he says.
‘Klara here had the brilliant idea of shooting the tyres on the Russians’ van,’ the man says. ‘So they couldn’t follow us when we picked you up.’
Even after everything that’s happened to him in recent months, this sounds very strange. He’s just falling deeper and deeper into the rabbit’s hole. ‘Russians’ van?’ he says hesitantly.
‘Yes,’ the man says. ‘I feel like we have a lot to talk about.’ He turns back again, looking at Jacob. ‘Just so we’re completely clear on things, you are Karl, right? And you did contact Gabriella Seichelmann?’
Karl. He’d almost forgotten that was the name he used. He nods. ‘My real name is Jacob,’ he says.
Klara follows the traffic to the right, between a park and something that looks like a dilapidated palace.
‘The Royal Palace,’ says the man when he sees Jacob bending to look at it. ‘Shall we do a little sightseeing on our way out of town?’
‘Do you think anyone saw us?’ the woman asks. ‘Is someone following us? Not just the Russians. Anybody else? The police?’
The man shrugs and turns to her again. ‘I don’t think anyone saw what happened. They definitely heard the shots, but I played the whole thing rather coolly if I do say so myself.’
The woman throws a quick glance at him. ‘It was chaos, George. You don’t shoot tyres in the middle of a city without someone calling the cops. The question is whether they saw us or the car.’
‘Who are these Russians you’re talking about?’ Jacob asks.
The man turns around and looks at him attentively. ‘We hoped you could tell us. Please say you know what all this bullshit is about.’
Jacob just shakes his head. ‘I don’t know anything. I’ll tell you what happened to me, but then I have to know who you are. I was supposed to meet Gabriella Seichelmann…’
‘Yes,’ the woman behind the wheel says without looking away from the street and the traffic. ‘That’s a reasonable request, I’d say.’
They weave in and out through blocks full of office buildings, EU flags and straight roads, while Klara and George tell their story. About how it started a few days ago when Gabriella Seichelmann was arrested in Stockholm, and Klara received a letter from her about this meeting.
They don’t seem to be a couple; in fact they make a point of telling him they’re just old friends. But there’s something about the way they talk to each other, look at each other, that makes Jacob wonder if maybe they just haven’t realized that they’re in love.
They’ve entered a long tunnel, which ends just as they finish their short story.
‘So that’s all we know,’ Klara says. ‘Which is to say basically nothing. Gabi has been arrested, and it seems like the Russians are mixed up in it.’
‘And that you probably have something to do with it,’ George says. ‘Now, we’re hoping you can explain to us what the hell is going on. What happened to Gabriella.’
Jacob takes a deep breath. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what happened to Gabriella, but I can tell you what happened to me.’