The view from the top floor of the Empire State Building was staggering. John had named the building right by the waterfront in the Bryggudden neighborhood after the New York City landmark. The building was far from being as tall as the original, but it was the closest to a skyscraper he was going to get in Karlstad.
Depending on which window he looked out of, he saw either the waters of Lake Vänern or the cathedral spire in the town center. But that was during the hours of daylight. Now darkness had fallen and John was looking in a different direction. Inward. At his own miserable existence.
Why the hell had he emailed Trevor in the first place? The bureau’s rules for witness protection were there for a reason. They were based on the experience of overseeing countless subjects in protection over decades. But had he cared about that? No, of course not.
Not even when he had guessed that it was the hunters writing the emails to him had he taken his chance and fled town. Instead, he’d let his emotions govern him and now it was too late. Ganiru’s hitmen were guaranteed to be waiting outside the apartment and would act if he did anything unusual.
Yet again, John replayed the scene from the restroom at Rederiet. Trevor had passed him a napkin on which he had scrawled Manbun in the bar and Invite me round tomorrow.
That the silver-haired man had been sent there by Ganiru was no surprise. He had been on the list of potential threats early on. Once back at the table, John had looked for an earpiece in his ear without spotting anything. Presumably the device was concealed inside the ear canal. The man’s co-conspirators were just as invisible. Perhaps they were all listening in from a car in the parking lot behind the restaurant.
The request to invite Trevor round had left John of two minds. At the same time, he understood why his friend had written that. It was a way to evade prying eyes and the suggestion had to be his. The hunters wouldn’t like it if Trevor moved the conversation to somewhere out of sight at his own initiative. It was bad enough that John had gone with him to the restroom in the basement.
After some hesitation he had therefore obeyed the instruction and asked whether Trevor wanted to visit him at six o’clock the next evening.
John looked at his wristwatch.
That was in fifteen minutes’ time.
He fetched a beer from the refrigerator. The apartment, which he was subletting, comprised one single room of at least two hundred square meters. The furnishings were minimal to say the least. There was a cast-iron bed, a Chesterfield armchair by the window with the lake views, and a gateleg table in the kitchen area with four fruit crates serving as chairs.
John sat down on one of them and uncapped the bottle. His hand trembled as he raised the bottle to his mouth. There was a cacophony of voices yelling at him inside his head. He was going to be beaten. Tortured beyond the worst limits of pain. It was only a matter of minutes before the hunters stormed the apartment and transformed it into a torture chamber.
John tried to grasp at the only straw there was. Trevor might well have hoodwinked him, but he had also unbuttoned his shirt and revealed the microphone on his chest. That had to mean he wanted to change sides and that he no longer wanted to participate in Ganiru’s operation—whatever shape it took.
When the intercom buzzed, John took the safety off his service weapon and headed for the front door. He let the visitor into the stairwell and waited with his eye to the peephole of the door. It took an eternity for the elevator to reach the top floor. Only when he saw that it really was Trevor who had come—and that his friend was alone—did John relax and let him into the apartment.
“Wow, this is an incredible penthouse,” said Trevor, sitting down on one of the fruit crates in the open-plan kitchen.
“The décor might be a little unusual, but I’m happy,” said John.
Perhaps his bones would remain intact a little longer.
“Fancy a beer?” he said.
“Yes, please.”
John opened another bottle from the refrigerator. He considered whether to draw the curtains but decided to refrain. The sound would be audible through the microphone on Trevor’s chest and there was no cause to worry about being watched up here.
He set down the beer in front of his guest together with a notepad and pencil. The stationery had been chosen with consideration. The pencil was soft to avoid making any scratching noises on the paper.
“Cheers,” he said, nodding at the table.
The penny dropped for Trevor. He wrote a big Sorry and held the notepad in the air like a placard.
John took the pencil.
What’s going on? he wrote.
Trevor demonstrated his capacity for multitasking as he talked about how bad the local beer was in Bali while also answering the question.
They found me. Fuck knows how. They cracked the password and took over my email, just like you said.
John grabbed the notepad.
Cancer? he wrote.
Trevor shook his head.
That was good news, at least. Nevertheless, John couldn’t help feeling a stab of anger that he’d been deceived.
Why are you here? he wrote.
His friend’s torrent of words was beginning to wane, so John bought him a spell of silence by announcing that he needed the can. In practice, he went to the hallway, took off his shoes, and crept back to the table in his socks to read Trevor’s reply.
They asked about a video and I realized you had a hold on Ganiru. A video that would be made public if anything happened to you.
John carefully swallowed a mouthful of beer.
That meant it was as he’d suspected: Trevor knew about the life insurance policy. The one that had come about purely by chance a year ago during an assignment with the leader of the drug cartel in a Baltimore suburb.
Ganiru had told him to wait in the car while he met someone in a warehouse. John had ignored the order and filmed the meeting in secret through a crack in the corrugated sheet metal. He had immediately recognized the moustachioed detective Ganiru had been speaking to. It was one of the Baltimore PD’s most respected investigators, charged with all major inquiries into drug-related crime in the eastern district.
These alpha males had seemed annoyed with each other, gesticulating wildly inside the warehouse. When the moustache man had demanded more cash for his services, Ganiru pulled out a silenced pistol and shot him in the head.
John had recoiled and sprinted to the car. Had the cop been honorable, he would have handed the footage to his bureau handler at their next rendezvous. But the rules were different for dirty cops. John had decided to keep the video to blackmail Ganiru. Corrupt or not, the penalty for killing a police officer was life without parole.
After the trial, he had discreetly passed a flash drive with a copy of the video file to Ganiru’s attorney—together with a message that in the event of John’s death the video would be posted online and a link emailed to the FBI’s Baltimore office. The evidence would result in new charges and the seven years behind bars would be extended to forever. That was better protection from Ganiru’s revenge than anything the bureau could offer.
John put the pencil to paper and ignored Trevor’s gaze. His friend seemed disappointed to have been kept in the dark about the secret.
You didn’t answer the question. What are you doing here?
John underlined the final bit and pushed the notebook across. Trevor leafed carefully forward to an empty page to make sure he had enough space.
I heard them talking about torturing you to make you hand over the video. So I told them it was pointless. No matter how hard they pushed you, you’d never give up the arrangements you’ve made for posting the video. It would be tantamount to death. Instead, I offered to prize the secret out of you. My life in exchange for them having control of the video—that’s our deal.
So you’re their infiltrator? John wrote.
I had no choice. They were going to kill me, Trevor replied.
John realized that his visit to the bathroom could not last much longer. He stood up soundlessly, put his shoes back on in the hallway, flushed the toilet, and returned to the kitchen table, treading heavily across the floor.
“Fancy some peanuts before dinner?” he said.
“Yeah, that would be great.”
John filled a bowl while glancing to see what his friend was writing.
I want you to extend the protection of that video to me too. Ganiru has to be told that he can’t harm either of us without it being shared.
Trevor’s request was hard to refuse, but the question remained whether he could be trusted. John thought about the video file, which was stashed on a cloud server. Once a week, he visited a website to input the eight-digit code that prevented it from being made public. If he revealed how that worked, he would be taking a huge risk.
Trevor seemed to understand his hesitation.
You don’t have to answer now, he wrote. Sleep on it, and then we can meet up and “talk” some more. Until then we’ll have to play the game.
John nodded. That was exactly what he planned to do. He would pretend that his sick friend had come to Karlstad to die, and invite him round for dinner again soon.
But first they had to get through this evening. He checked the time to determine how long Trevor had to stay to ensure the hunters didn’t become suspicious. There would need to be at least two hours of meaningless conversation to satisfy the microphone taped to his chest.
John was weary at the mere thought of it.