When Klara opens her eyes, Camp Nou is bathed in light. The man who was holding the gun is stretched out flat and unmoving on his back in front of her. The grey-haired man looks around in confusion, blinking under the sudden bright light, while backing away from Klara and his lifeless colleague.
‘What the hell…’ he says.
Then they start streaming in, through the low entrance to the field. A SWAT team dressed in black with helmets on their heads and weapons in their hands.
‘Police!’ they scream. ‘Get on the ground! Lie down!’
From the corner of her eye, Klara can see that the other man who was standing guard has already been overpowered and is lying with his face against the field. Two more police officers are bent over the man who was aiming his gun at Klara.
‘He’s wearing a flak jacket,’ one officer says. ‘Turn him over and cuff him.’
She falls down to her knees, holds her hands above her head and looks at the man in the coat. He’s also on his knees, with his hands on his head.
‘I have diplomatic immunity,’ he screams. ‘You cannot arrest me.’
Suddenly Klara is lying on the AstroTurf with a knee in her back, someone pulling her hands behind her, and she can feel cold steel as her hands are cuffed.
All around her, legs and weapons move under bright and merciless light. Somebody grabs hold of her arms and lifts her brusquely to her feet, leads her away from the light, down a slope and towards a dark, almost deserted parking lot.
They’ve made it about halfway across when two black vehicles roll in, plus an ambulance with no sirens or blue flashing lights. In the darkness by the school, Klara can see two unmarked vans along with some kind of prison transport.
It is strangely quiet. It’s almost impossible to imagine that what just happened on the football field really happened. Klara turns to the police officer who’s leading her forward.
‘Why am I being arrested?’ she asks. ‘What am I wanted for?’
The police officer doesn’t react, as if he doesn’t hear; he just pushes her forward towards the parked transport.
‘You can’t let that Russian go,’ she continues. ‘You know that, right?’
Fifty metres to her left she sees the passenger door of one of two black Volvo SUVs sliding open. Somebody jumps down onto the asphalt and heads in her direction. It’s not until he’s just a few metres away that she sees who it is.
Anton Bronzelius turns to the black-clad police officer with a firm grip on Klara’s arm. ‘I’ll take it from here. Säpo.’ He holds up his badge to the faceless man.
The officer nods and releases her arm.
Over by the vans, Klara sees doors open and two people in civilian clothes and flak jackets and stocking caps start to move towards them. Bronzelius grabs hold of her arm firmly and leads her quickly to the parked Volvo. ‘Get in,’ he says.
He pushes Klara into the back seat and gets in on the other side. She hears shouting from outside just as Bronzelius pulls the door closed again, maybe one of the two people in civilian clothes. Without having to say a word, the car starts driving across the parking lot. Klara turns around and looks out the back window, her heart pounding.
‘What the hell is going on?’ she asks. ‘Are you kidnapping me?’
‘I guess you could call it that,’ Bronzelius says.
Klara turns to him and looks at his grey face, at his blue, straightforward eyes. There’s something in his eyes, something in that naive calm that makes something suddenly quite clear to her.
‘You have no idea what this is about,’ she says. ‘Not when you arrested Gabi. Not now.’
He looks at her without changing his expression. ‘For someone whose life I just saved you sure aren’t very thankful,’ he says.
Now she looks at him, quite composed again. ‘You’re just a cop. A good cop. But you don’t understand what this is about. Do you?’
She knows she should be grateful. Without Bronzelius she’d be dead now. But she can’t resist the feeling that if it weren’t for him she and Gabi wouldn’t have landed in this mess either.
She turns around and sees one of the vans from the parking lot following them. They’re driving fast now, up the on-ramp to the highway. She knows that she shouldn’t give in to the impulse, but it is growing like a balloon inside her. ‘You got played. You all got played,’ she says. She shakes her head. ‘The Russians tricked you into arresting Gabriella. Did you seriously believe she was involved in a fucking terrorist attack? I thought Säpo’s job was to protect us from Russian spies. Not do their bidding.’
He looks calmly at her. ‘It was good that you called,’ he says. ‘For everyone’s sake.’
The anger she feels is mixed with something else, the feeling that she too doesn’t really know what’s going on.
‘Who’s after us?’ she asks, and feels her anxiety come back with full force. ‘Where are my friends?’