Saga Bauer had been skipping for fifty minutes in the police station’s gym when a worried colleague comes up to her and asks how she’s doing. Her face is sweaty and serious, but her feet keep dancing as if unaware of the quickly passing skipping rope.
“You’re hard on yourself,” he says.
“Nope,” she replies, and keeps jumping.
Twenty-five minutes later, Joona comes down to the gym and sits on an incline bench next to a barbell.
“What a bunch of shit,” she says, and she keeps skipping. “They’re going to pump this ammunition into Darfur and we can’t do a damn thing about it.”
“Well, at any rate, we know what they’re up to,” Joona replies calmly. “We know that they’re trying to go through Kenya and—”
“But what the hell can we do about it?” she asks as she jumps. “Arrest that bastard Pontus Salman? Contact Europol about Raphael Guidi?”
“We still have no proof.”
“This is a big thing, much bigger than anyone realised. We certainly didn’t want to have anything to do with something this huge,” she reasons while the skipping rope whirls around her and whacks the floor. “Carl Palmcrona is involved, Pontus Salman from Sweden … Raphael Guidi, he’s a bigwig … and someone in Kenya’s government, otherwise this whole deal wouldn’t work … and probably someone in Sweden’s government.”
“We probably won’t get everyone,” Joona says.
“The smartest thing would be to drop the case,” she says.
“So let’s drop it.”
She laughs at his joke as she keeps skipping with a serious expression.
Joona says thoughtfully, “Palmcrona had probably been taking bribes for years, but once he received Björn’s blackmail letter, he realised the party was over … so he called someone … probably Raphael … but during the conversation he realised that he was expendable … and he was even a problem after the discovery of the photograph. All the people investing in this deal wanted him gone. They were not about to lose their money and risk their situation because of him.”
“So then he kills himself.” Saga begins skipping even faster.
“He’s out of the picture, so that leaves the photograph and the blackmailer.”
“In comes the international hit man.” Saga is beginning to be out of breath.
Joona nods while she jumps with raised knees.
“If Viola had not been on the boat at the last minute, he would have killed Björn and Penelope and sunk the boat,” he says.
Saga does one last, fast burst and then stops.
“We would have …” she says panting. “We would have written it off as an accident. The hit man would have got the photograph, cleaned out all the computers, left the country without a trace.”
“Though I think that he’s not the kind to be afraid of being discovered. He’s practical,” Joona says. “It’s easier to solve the problem without getting the police involved, but solving the problem is what he’s all about … otherwise, he wouldn’t bother to burn the apartments. This draws attention. He’s just being thorough and he prioritises thoroughness above all.”
Saga steadies herself with her hands on her thighs. Sweat drops from her face.
“Of course, we’d put the apartment fires and the boat accident together sooner or later,” she says. She straightens up.
“But then it would be too late,” he says. “The hit man’s job is to erase the evidence and eliminate the witnesses.”
“But now we have the photograph and Penelope,” Saga says with a smile. “That hit man hasn’t solved the problem.”
“Not yet …”
Saga gives a few random blows to the boxing bag hanging from the ceiling and then looks Joona over. “During my training, I saw a film of a bank robbery and how you rendered the suspect harmless with a broken pistol.”
“I was lucky,” Joona says.
“Right.”
He laughs and she comes up to him, circles him with fancy footwork and then stops. She reaches out with open hands and meets his eyes. She waves at him to come on, waggling her fingers. She’s wanting him to take her on for a round. He smiles as he understands her reference to Bruce Lee: the waving hand. He shakes his head but doesn’t break eye contact.
“I’ve seen how you move,” he says.
“Then you know,” she says shortly.
“You’re quick and you’ll get in the first blow, but after that—”
“I’m cooked,” she answers.
“It’s a good thought, but—”
She makes the same gesture again, a bit more impatiently.
“But you will come in much too hard,” he says, amused.
“No, I won’t,” she says.
“Try it and you’ll find out,” Joona says calmly.
She waves once more, but he doesn’t seem to care. He gets up and turns his back to her as he heads for the door. She goes straight for him to land a right hook. He bends his neck slightly and the blow sails over his head. As a smooth continuation, Joona spins around and draws his pistol while taking her down to the ground with a kick to the kneecap.
“I have to tell you something,” Saga says.
“That I was right, right?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” She glares at him as she gets up.
“If you head in too hard—”
“I wasn’t heading in hard,” she says. “I held back because I’d just thought of something important.”
“I get it!” He laughs.
“I don’t give a shit what you think you get or don’t get,” she says. “My idea is to use Penelope as bait.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I started to think about how she wants to go somewhere else and then at the moment I was about to hit you, I got an idea. I couldn’t knock you out if I had to talk to you.”
“So talk,” he says.
“I realised that Penelope would be bait anyway, whether we’d be involved or not. She’d lure the hit man to her.”
Joona stops smiling and nods slowly.
“Keep talking,” he says.
“We don’t know for sure if the hit man can listen in to our communication, if he can hear everything we say via RAKEL … but it’s probable since he found Penelope on Kymmendö,” Saga says.
“Right.”
“He’ll find her one way or another, that’s what I think. He doesn’t care if she’s under police protection or not. We’ll do everything we can to keep her placement a secret, but it’s hellish to protect her without radio communication.”
“He will find her,” Joona says.
“That’s what I was thinking. Penelope will be bait, no matter what. The question is: Are we going to be ready when he comes? She gets just as much protection as planned, but if we put the stakeout guys from Span to watch the place as well, maybe we can catch this guy.”
“That’s entirely possible. You’re thinking in the right direction,” Joona says.