‘Before you begin, Jacob,’ Klara says, turning to George. ‘Where are we headed? I’m just driving blindly here.’
They’re almost out on the ring road around Brussels. Out of old habit Klara is driving towards the airport, but their plan stretched no further than picking up Karl at the Palais de Justice.
George looks away from Jacob and back to her. ‘I don’t know. Depends a little on what you say, Karl, or Jacob, or whatever your name is.’
‘I don’t know where to start…’ Jacob says. ‘I contacted Gabriella because…’
Slowly and quietly, almost hesitantly, the young man they have in the back seat starts to tell them a story. He starts from what he says is the beginning. An internship at the Swedish embassy. A rooftop in Beirut. A garden at a deserted palace. A mysterious man and an overwhelming and passionate love.
Then a young woman who claims to work for the Swedish intelligence service. And a memory card that’s surgically inserted under his skin. A love that slowly turns to doubt. Here he falls silent. As if it’s become too much, tears start to run down his cheeks.
‘But he’s dead now,’ he whispers. ‘Yassim is dead.’
Klara lets go of the wheel with one hand and reaches back to touch his knee, to show she understands what it’s like to lose someone in the way Jacob just lost Yassim.
George regards Jacob with suspicion. ‘What a fucking story,’ he says. ‘It sounds almost a little too dramatic.’
‘I want to remind you that you drugged a Russian spy this morning and shot the tyres on a van like we’re in a goddamn gangster movie,’ she says drily. ‘You might not want to talk about what’s a little too dramatic.’
He flinches as if offended and turns to Jacob again. ‘I just mean it doesn’t hurt to be a little critical,’ he mutters. ‘Who is this Yassim anyway?’
Jacob looks at him, annoyed. ‘I’m just telling you what happened.’
‘Don’t mind him,’ Klara says. ‘George is a well-known arsehole. But Jacob?’
‘Yes?’ Jacob says weakly and looks at her.
‘What’s on that memory card, and where do you have it now?’
‘And you still haven’t explained who these Russians are,’ George adds. ‘Or why you contacted Gabriella.’
Jacob takes a deep breath and stares out at the dusk falling around them. ‘Yassim’s part of a group that’s been collecting information about drone strikes in Syria,’ he says. ‘About all the civilians that have been killed, all the war crimes. That’s the information on the memory card. Myriam calls him a spy because the information is classified.’
‘So Yassim is the new Snowden?’ Klara says. ‘Is that what you mean?’
He nods. ‘I guess so. And I guess Myriam is working on behalf of the Americans somehow. That’s what Yassim says, that all the Western intelligence services are working together.’
‘What a jackpot for a brand-new embassy intern,’ George says, turning to him. ‘Straight into the thick of it?’
Jacob shrugs. ‘It wasn’t my choice to end up here.’
‘But there’s something that doesn’t add up here,’ George says.
Klara is silent for a moment, then she nods gently. ‘Yep, it doesn’t explain the Russians. And it doesn’t explain Gabi’s arrest, which is the reason we’re here.’
‘I don’t know anything about any Russians,’ Jacob says quietly.
‘Also your story doesn’t account for the fact that your boyfriend kidnapped then saved you. What the hell is that all about?’
‘I told you I don’t know.’ He lets his head fall forward again, into his hands, and it sounds like he’s sobbing.
‘The memory card,’ Klara says. ‘That’s the key. Where is it?’
In the rear-view mirror, she sees Jacob stick a hand into the pocket of his long parka. When he takes it out again, he’s holding a small, insignificant piece of plastic.
‘Is that it?’ says George, almost sneering. ‘Why didn’t your boyfriend just email it to whoever was going to take it?’
‘Yassim said they never use email or computers connected to the Internet,’ Jacob says. ‘Everything is done face to face.’
‘And Gabriella?’ Klara says. ‘Why did you contact her?’
He pauses before answering. Why did he contact her? ‘I read about her. She seemed tough, independent. And I didn’t know what would happen when I got here. What if I flew to Brussels and Yassim never showed up? Should I go to the police after what I went through in Beirut? I thought I needed a backup. And I guess I was right.’
*
The rain has started to fall harder and harder, and Klara adjusts the wipers.
‘We’re going home,’ she says quietly. ‘No sense in staying here. We’re driving back to Sweden.’
It feels good to make a decision, to have a goal, a direction, even if she has no idea what’s waiting for them there either.
George types their destination into his GPS, and they follow the blue line on the digital map: Leuven, Cologne, Hamburg, Copenhagen.
‘Ten hours to Malmö,’ he says. ‘Then we’ll see where we go from there.’