The inside of the house in the forest was dark and cold. Berg shivered as he moved into the poorly lit lounge, the only light coming from an overhead bulb and a flickering lamp in the corner. At least someone had cleaned the place up a little since he’d last been.
‘We’re going to find them,’ Erling said, coming into the room behind Berg, his fists balled, his face creased with anger and streaked with blood – not his.
Before Berg could say anything a man’s harrowing scream rang out from one of the other rooms. Erling and Berg glanced at one another. Sonja walked in, her face ashen.
‘How is he?’ Berg asked.
‘Bad,’ she said. ‘He needs a doctor.’
‘A doctor?’ Berg scoffed. ‘You think some antibiotics will solve this? His fucking arm is hanging off!’
‘Then what?’
Berg didn’t answer that.
‘He’s losing blood too fast,’ Sonja said, focusing on Erling now, as though Berg was too irrational to be part of the adults’ conversation.
‘Give him as many painkillers as you can,’ Erling said. ‘Vodka too, whatever there is. Keep him calm. It’s the best we can do for now.’
Sonja glared at him. But what did she expect him to say? The local doctor in Blodstein wouldn’t be able to offer anything better for Lindstrom. The nearest hospital was more than an hour away, but it was hardly a huge place with endless resource and expertise and it was doubtful even they could help properly. Plus, someone would need to take Lindstrom there and they couldn’t afford to be another man down now.
‘We could at least take him into town,’ Sonja said. ‘Leave him somewhere safe and call an ambulance. Let them deal with it.’
‘Nobody leaves this house,’ Berg said. ‘Everyone stays until I say so.’
Sonja fixed her dissatisfied gaze squarely back to him now.
‘He could die here,’ she said. ‘He’s bleeding to death, for trying to save you.’
Berg said nothing to that, but apparently she wasn’t finished.
‘Should we have just left you in there with those psychos instead?’
The question went unanswered, only adding to Sonja’s frustration.
‘He’s got a wife and a kid. A girl, two years old.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel more sorry for him?’
‘Doesn’t it?’
Berg shook his head and turned away. He winced in pain as he moved over to the sofa. Erling stayed right by his side, and helped to ease him down like a nurse attending to a rickety old man in a retirement home.
‘I’m fine,’ Berg said, swatting him away, which only made his hastily dressed wounds ache and throb all the more.
‘Yeah, you’re fine,’ Sonja said. ‘But Lindstrom isn’t.’
‘You want to help him?’ Berg responded, his tone harder, his voice raised. ‘It’s on you. You take him to town. You dump him there. But if anyone sees you, if you bring anyone back here–’
‘Thank you.’
She didn’t sound like she meant it. She spun and strode out.
‘Is there something I don’t know about?’ Berg said, catching the big man’s eye.
‘Huh?’
‘Her and Lindstrom?’
Erling shook his head. ‘Don’t think so.’
Berg rolled his eyes. Silence for a few moments. Erling hovered, like he wanted something.
‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Tell me everything.’
Everything? Berg wasn’t so sure about that. So he gave Erling the basics. What the Russians had done to Tronstad, what they’d found out about Henrik. The fact that the Russians’ friend – the one who’d butchered Tronstad – had called just before the cavalry arrived to say they now had Henrik in their hands.
‘You think Carl Logan is with them?’ Erling said.
‘There’s nothing to suggest that,’ Berg said.
Which did beg the question, where was he? Had the Russians killed him, too, in retrieving the boy?
‘Do they know who Henrik is?’ Erling asked. He held Berg’s eye now.
‘I told them he’s Rosen’s son.’
No reaction on Erling’s face. No follow-up question.
A shout from down the hall. Not Lindstrom screaming this time, but a woman. Not a shout of pain, but anger.
Isabell.
‘She doesn’t want to be here,’ Erling said.
And Berg didn’t really want her there either, but what choice did he have?
‘Just find a way to keep her quiet, keep her in one place. Do what you have to do.’
There were bigger issues at play tonight than keeping his wife comforted.
Erling nodded and turned to head out. Berg reached out and grabbed his hefty hand. The mammoth turned around, looked down at Berg.
‘I know what you did,’ Berg said.
Erling whipped his hand away but didn’t say anything.
‘I know you met with Sychev and his little lapdog. In the bar.’
Erling’s face remained passive, and despite his size and intimidating position, looking over Berg, something in the air confirmed exactly who was in charge – and the answer had nothing to do with bicep size.
‘I didn’t know it would end like this,’ Erling said.
‘You were trying to sell me out.’
Erling said nothing.
‘What?’ Berg said. ‘I wasn’t paying you enough? I haven’t done enough for you and your family over the years?’
‘I told them nothing.’
‘Maybe. And maybe only because of Carl Logan showing up that night.’
Erling’s head dropped. Ashamed? Was he scared too?
‘But you saved me tonight,’ Berg said. ‘Perhaps I can look past the rest. If we get through this.’
Once more Erling gave no response.
‘Believe me, though: if you ever go behind my back again... what you saw of Tronstad tonight will be just the start compared to what I do to you.’
Erling sucked in a lungful of air through his nose. His chest rose several inches as he did so. If he wanted, Berg knew the guy could squash him, pulverise him, mash him into the ground with his meaty fists.
Instead, the big man simply nodded, then headed out.
Berg woke up with a start. He was on the sofa still. Panting. His face dripped sweat, his body clammy, even if his skin prickled with cold. The last remnants of violence flickered in his mind as he pushed away the gory horrors of his sleep.
How the hell was he supposed to sleep properly again after what he’d seen?
Why the hell had he fallen asleep at all with everything that was happening?
He wasn’t alone in the room. Erling, Sonja, two others, were sitting around the circular table in the corner, a couple of bottles of spirits and piles of coins and notes in the middle, cards in their hands.
Berg grumbled and shuffled up in the sofa.
‘Is it really the time for gambling and drinking?’ he said.
A few eyes looked his way but no one said anything.
Only as Berg achingly got to his feet did he properly register that Sonja was now back from her little outing.
‘Any word on Lindstrom?’ Berg asked.
Sonja glared at him. As if to say, ‘do you really care?’
Berg did. In so far as it affected him.
‘Nothing,’ Sonja said. ‘With any luck he’ll be in good hands by now.’
Berg glanced at his watch. He’d been asleep for well over an hour.
‘No sign of anyone else?’ Berg asked, to no one in particular.
‘No sign of the Russians,’ Erling said.
What was Berg expecting? For them to simply drive up to try and finish the job of killing him? No, whatever they had planned next it wasn’t that. He checked his phone. No calls from them either. They’d be in touch soon enough, one way or another.
Perhaps he and Erling and the rest should head out and try to find them first. This was Berg’s town, not theirs.
Except he had no clue where they were. Perhaps they’d simply fled Blodstein and he’d never see them again. Was that a possibility? Particularly if they really did have Henrik, and especially if they knew who Henrik really was.
Did they?
Berg moved out of the room, along the corridor to the first bedroom. He paused at the closed door. Put his hand to the handle. Pushed the door open slowly, as though worried that whatever was inside might escape. Well...
He peered in. Darkness. Except for the light leaking into the room from the hallway.
‘Fitte,’ came the rasping insult.
Berg paused in the doorway as he looked down at his wife, sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, knees up to her chest. Her wrists were cuffed together, the cuffs laced around the thick pipes of the radiator.
‘My love,’ Berg said, wanting to sound genuine. In fact, he thought he did, but the look on her face... if looks could kill...
She spat toward him. He didn’t react. The globule landed by his feet.
‘This is for the best,’ he said. ‘I’m keeping you safe, here, until this is all over.’
‘Get out. Just get out of my sight.’
She sank her head to her knees, covering her face. He thought about going up to her, putting his arms around her, comforting her. Did he love her still? Of course, though he knew they could never go back to what they’d once had. Not after what she’d planned with Tronstad. Whatever she felt right now, she was the one in the wrong. In time he’d make sure she realised that.
Berg stepped back and gently pulled the door closed.
He was about to head further along to the toilet when he paused. A crackle of static from the lounge. Then Erling’s low-pitched voice echoed along, vibrating through Berg’s body even though the big man talked quietly.
Berg followed the sound. Erling headed toward him as he reached the room.
‘Wold’s here,’ Erling said with distaste, the radio held up to his chest in anticipation of relaying Berg’s response.
‘Is he alone?’
Erling nodded.
‘Are you absolutely sure?’
Erling repeated the question into the radio then held the receiver toward Berg so they could both hear the response.
‘He’s in his patrol car. In uniform. But he’s definitely alone,’ came the crackly response.
‘Send him through,’ Berg said. ‘On foot. Just one of you.’
Acknowledgment on the other end before Erling brought the radio down.
‘You sure about this?’ he said.
‘Better to have Wold on the inside with us, than out there causing problems.’
Erling huffed but didn’t say anything.
‘Come on,’ Berg said, heading for the front entrance.
He grabbed a thick coat from the rack by the door. Whose, he had no clue, but it was big and warm and dry and cleanish. Erling didn’t bother with one. They stepped out into the cold. Not dark. The clearing around the house was bathed in bright white from the security lights – usually motion-triggered but tonight they were on permanently. Berg nodded to the single sentry on duty at the front. They had another at the rear. Two on the road, who’d intercepted Wold. Another four within the treeline around the house. Twelve people all included, fourteen including Berg and his wife. A mini army. All at Berg’s beck and call. Well, mostly at Erling’s really, as the guys – and Sonja – were largely loggers, who worked cash in hand for him, and were being paid cash in hand for tonight. But Berg called the shots to the big man.
As he stood waiting in the cold, a renewed shiver ran through Berg. Having the security lights wired on definitely helped in illuminating the area directly around the house, but it also meant that the area beyond appeared all the more dark and lifeless. Berg could see nothing out there, in any direction. He shivered again.
He heard them before he saw them. The soft shuffle of feet on frozen ground – the only sound he could make out above his and Erling’s breathing and the otherwise eerie silence of the night-time forest, where, in midwinter, even the night creatures didn’t care to venture.
Berg kept his eyes on the spot straight ahead of him where the sound came from. Finally they came into view. Wold, and one of Berg’s guys, walking next to each other in silence. Wold had his hands by his sides. The sentry had a huge wrench dangling from his fist. Not the most sophisticated of weapons but better than nothing. Between them all they had two shotguns, but as far as firearms were concerned, that was it.
As they neared, their warm breaths billowing above them, Berg saw that Wold was not happy. He and Erling remained rooted. Wold’s exasperation only seemed to grow as he closed in, perhaps for the very fact that Berg stood there waiting rather than closing the gap.
‘Are you deliberately trying to annoy me?’ Wold said when he finally came to a stop a few yards away.
‘I’m being careful. After the night I’ve had–’
‘Quite a night.’
What did he know about it?
‘Two dead bodies,’ Wold said. ‘I’m presuming both because of you?’
Two? Berg didn’t react.
‘Lindstrom worked for you, didn’t he?’ Wold said, turning his attention to Erling.
So Lindstrom hadn’t made it. Sonja wouldn’t be happy.
‘I found him slumped in the café car park in a pool of his own blood,’ Wold said. ‘His arm cleaved off. The ambulance arrived a few minutes after but there was nothing they could do.’
Berg grit his teeth.
‘And right over the road from there...’ Wold bowed slightly and shook his head as if in despair. Genuine? ‘I’ve never seen anything like that.’
Berg still kept his mouth shut. He would until he understood Wold’s intentions.
‘Stefan Tronstad,’ Wold said. ‘He was found hacked to pieces in his new office. And when I say hacked, I mean his skin was peeled from his body. I’ve got a forensics team on the way to help figure it all out, but I’m pretty sure that happened to him while he was still alive.’
He said it as though he had experience of finding tortured bodies. Did he believe his own crap?
‘The thing is, there’s several sets of bloody footprints leading out of that house, and plenty of other evidence to suggest something big went down there. Not just Tronstad being brutalised, but a fight. Involving quite a few people. I find Lindstrom dead, across the road, and I find you holed up here with every other man in Blodstein.’
Wold looked around now, as though he knew exactly which men were out there, and exactly where they were stationed.
‘I’ve also got one of my own missing, uncontactable.’
He let that one sit. Who? And what did that have to do with anything?
‘So please, Sigurd, I’ve had enough of this night already. I’m not having these outsiders turn my town into a horror show. Just tell me what’s happening. Tell me how I can help.’
Well, this was a surprise. Berg and Erling flicked a look to one another, as though both were as shocked as the other. But then Wold had come alone, and not with a hoard of police officers from near and far. Even that, though, didn’t mean much, and possibly only that Wold wanted to get more for himself from this situation.
‘The Russians attacked Tronstad and my wife,’ Berg said. ‘They attacked me too. Took me to that house. Tronstad was already dead when I got there. They would have done the same to me and Isabell. If it wasn’t for Erling.’
‘And Lindstrom was caught in the crossfire, I assume,’ Wold said, turning his attention to Erling.
Erling simply nodded.
‘There’s three of them now,’ Berg said. ‘The one who butchered Tronstad... I’ve not seen him before. There’s three of them and they have Henrik too. We need to find them and deal with them and get him back.’
‘Deal with them?’
‘Whatever we have to do.’
‘You’re asking my permission to allow you to cause more mayhem, more bloodshed, on the streets of my town?’
‘I’m not asking. And it’s not your town.’
The look on Wold’s face... like he’d chewed on a wasp.
‘Any man who helps me–’
‘You think I want your money?’ Wold spat.
As if he hadn’t taken backhanders before. As if the entire relationship between the two of them wasn’t based off and borne from that fact.
‘What choice do you have?’ Erling said, unprompted. Did his opinion really matter? ‘This is us versus them. And you’re one of us.’
Actually, not a bad choice of words, and the slight nod from Wold suggested those words had hit home.
‘We’re going to finish this,’ Berg said. ‘If you see or hear anything from the Russians, you tell me.’
‘And if I don’t hear or see anything? What? Are you going to stay out here forever, hiding?’
‘I’m not hiding,’ Berg said, realising that he sounded a little offended by the implication.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ Wold said. ‘Mainly because I don’t want anyone else from this town hurt. Who do you think has to tell their families, has to help them pick up the pieces? But when this is over... you and me–’
‘When this is over? Let’s worry about getting there first.’
Wold glared but said nothing more. The next moment he turned, and with the guard by his side, walked away.