72

The long convoy of black vehicles cut through Warsaw like shiny beetles under the street lights. They drove with engines roaring but no sirens, just the silent, flashing blue lights to clear their path, flying without stopping straight through junctions and across tram tracks.

When they arrived at last outside the station building there was no time to worry about details such as kerbs or traffic islands. They steered across pavements and flower beds, braking hard outside entrances and doorways, and black-clad SWAT officers poured out of the sliding side doors.

They spread out around the outside of the building, communicating through finger movements and running silently, like a company of armed mime artists, before storming the building on a single command, the stocks of their assault rifles pressed to their shoulders, crouching low and peering through sights that very soon would be trained on William Sandberg.

‘Now!’

As they entered the hall, they stopped and scanned their new surroundings, signalling back and forth between themselves.

I can’t see him. Can you?

More colleagues poured through doorways and down staircases behind them, dozens of black-clad SWAT officers working their way forward. Because he was there, they knew that. As they carried on through the hall, they walked with slow, hesitant steps. They shuffled forward, still crouching, weapons raised, ready to scream at him to get on the floor the instant they caught sight of him.

But they didn’t, and none of them shouted, because there was no one to shout at.

In the communications room Wojda and everyone else stood motionless, all eyes glued to the large screen. It was happening. They’d heard the SWAT team leader issue his command, and in a few seconds’ time they’d be seeing Sandberg react to the noise of all the uniforms storming in. Perhaps he’d make an attempt to run away, only to realise that there was no way out. Hopefully he was going to surrender immediately, lie down on the floor, calm and quiet. He’d let them cuff him and then lead him away–that’s what they were thinking.

But no police came. Instead, they saw William, still in position, still revolving slowly.

A nerve-jangling second of waiting became two, then three, then a whole load of seconds, and gradually the nervousness gave way to a feeling that something was wrong. Single passengers were still coming and going, young, old, people in thick winter coats. All that was missing were the black uniforms.

When the SWAT team leader’s voice finally came over the radio the silence enveloped the room like an ice-cold blanket.

‘Repeat,’ said Wojda, despite having heard him loud and clear.

‘He’s gone,’ Borowski repeated through the speakers.

It took more seconds before it was even possible to process that statement. What the hell was he talking about?

‘Bullshit,’ said Wojda. ‘We’ve got a live stream. Where have you got to?’

‘We’re here. We’re in the hall now.’

Hardly. On the screen in front of them, Sandberg was still rotating.

‘Where?’ he said again. ‘Where in the hall?’

‘Every. Fucking. Where!’

Wojda clenched his jaw. It was like being part of a surreal sketch, and he was just about to say so, when a thought occurred to him. A thought so embarrassing that he didn’t want to say it out loud.

‘You’re at the wrong station,’ he said, and felt a vast weariness wash over him. ‘He’s at Central Station. Centralna. Cen. Tral. Na.’

Wojda sat down, put his hand over his eyes and closed them. That had to be it. The idiots were on the completely wrong side of town, and he tried to work out where, how long it was going to take them to regroup. Hoping that Sandberg wouldn’t give up, that he’d wait, regardless of why he’d chosen to make contact in this way.

Borowski’s voice forced him to open his eyes again.

‘We are at Central Station,’ the SWAT leader said through the speakers, with an irritation he didn’t even attempt to conceal. ‘We’re there now.’

‘That’s a negative,’ said Wojda with the very same tone.

‘We’re everywhere!’ He was shouting now. ‘For fuck’s sake. Can’t you see?’

Slowly, something dawned on Wojda.

‘We’re in the middle of the hall. What’s the matter with you? We are here!’

In Warsaw Central Station, fifty adult men, all dressed in black and with safety goggles and automatic weapons, stood spread across the grey-flecked stone floor. A small invasion in the heart of Warsaw, eyes searching desperately for a William Sandberg who didn’t exist.

A few kilometres away, Inspector Wojda stood bewildered in the comms room at Warsaw Police Headquarters, looking at proof that he was in fact there.

And yet some eight hundred kilometres to the north, rows of people were sitting in the Swedish Armed Forces’ JOC, lined up behind desks and at workstations and scanning a screen that showed the very same thing.

‘Wait…’

Palmgren was the one who broke the silence. He stood up front, almost right underneath the screen as though he was looking at an enormous piece of art, his head scanning back and forth.

William, on the screen above him… His movements…

‘Looks left… looks right… his neck…’

The first to one to clock what Palmgren was doing was Velander. He heard Palmgren up at the front, barely more than a mumble: ‘Looking straight ahead, blinks, hesitates. Neck again.’ He was looking for a pattern.

Another rotation, another rotation, another rotation. The mouth, the request to negotiate. And then it came.

They saw it at the same time, but thanks to different cues: for Palmgren, it was the lips, the same movement he’d seen thirty, forty seconds earlier, and once it registered he was certain: it was the same. Forty more seconds, and there was not a doubt.

‘Dark blue suitcase!’ Velander exclaimed a moment later. ‘Dark blue suitcase, at the top of the frame.’

Once they’d seen it, it was so obvious it hurt. Now they could see it everywhere, details popping up time and time again, things repeating at constant intervals, people and specific small movements and–fucking hell.

Forty seconds. Far too long for anyone to notice if they didn’t know. But once you did…

In Warsaw, Wojda felt himself deflating. The information had come from the Swedes long after he had seen it himself, yet he waited and watched for another forty seconds before he spoke.

‘Call off the operation,’ he said, straight into the radio.

Borowski’s voice came back.

‘One more time?’

‘It’s a loop,’ he said with a sight, to the radio, to his colleagues in the room, to himself. ‘Forget about Sandberg. Sandberg is gone.’