The façade almost looked as if it were glowing in the golden shimmer of the evening sunlight. The sky above was cornflower blue, a warm breeze rippled through the treetops in the cemetery of Kungsholm Church and a squirrel ran across the deserted street. The place was, as always, remarkably peaceful given how close to the city centre it was. Number 16 Bergsgatan looked like a small castle. Or fortress – an impenetrable one, to which Sara had the magic key. The door code – 1814, the last time Sweden had been at war. Officially, at least.
Thörnell opened his door and admitted Sara into his imposing apartment, which had once been the headquarters of the secret resistance network known as Stay-Behind. From here, they had planned the resistance against any occupying power. It was so secret that not even everyone in the government knew about it – let alone the Swedish population. Thörnell had shown her the secret door behind the large hall mirror. A door that led into the beating heart of the movement, a room where all the desks and typewriters were still to be found – a reminder that the past never really leaves. It was a large, beautiful apartment with a fascinating history that was known to almost no one but her.
‘Coffee? Water? Wine?’
‘A glass of water would be great.’
‘Sorry. It’ll have to be coffee.’
Thörnell ushered her into the drawing room, where there was already a tray with cups and a coffee pot on it. Outside the window the treetops in the cemetery were visible, while far in the distance was Södermalm and the Högalid Church. Thörnell’s view was no worse than Sara’s.
She shifted her gaze from Södermalm to Thörnell. A grey slip-over, well-ironed shirt and tie, polished black shoes and dark blue trousers with sharply-pressed folds. His white hair was perfectly combed. He looked Sara straight in the eyes, presumably as he did with everyone he spoke to.
‘I see that you bear traces of what happened following our last encounter.’
‘This? This is nothing compared to the scars left by the bullets.’
Sara touched the rough skin on her cheek. Typical of Thörnell to get straight to the point. There was no embarrassed silence or misdirected goodwill. And he continued in the same fashion.
‘You’re looking for someone called Faust.’
Sara was startled and met his gaze.
‘Hedin called,’ he said by way of explanation.
That probably shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, it had been Hedin who had originally put her in touch with Thörnell. But why had she told him about Faust?
‘What do you know about him?’ said Sara.
‘Enough to advise you to refrain from pursuing this further.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Tell me what you know first and then I shall try to explain.’
‘His real name is Otto Rau; the priest Jürgen Stiller gave him a birth certificate with a Swedish identity. It’s unclear what. He was the driving force in a communist cell that comprised mainly German terrorists with the Stasi as financial backers. Kommando 719. They were preparing something spectacular. The others in the cell are now called Bo Enberg, Marita Leander and Günther Dorch, and they all live in Sweden. They’re well-established and sufficiently keen to keep their past a secret that they paid one hundred thousand kronor each when Stiller blackmailed them. Except for Rau, which is why I suspect he was the one who murdered the priest.’
‘And that’s all you know? No further clues?’
‘Someone said that he was probably still active in that world – ergo, espionage and intelligence.’
Sara paused while waiting for a reply. But it took a while.
‘You might say that,’ Thörnell said eventually.
Sara nodded. She was a step closer to identifying Faust. She scrutinised Thörnell and had the strong feeling that he was hiding something. But what?
‘You know something about him,’ she said at the moment the realisation hit her. Perhaps she should have kept it to herself and been more tactical, but sometimes taking people by surprise worked too. ‘You know who he is.’
‘I know what kind of person he is, at any rate.’
‘So you can help me to find him?’
‘The reverse, actually. Given that I know what he’s like, I want to help you to not find him.’
‘He fired shots into my apartment. While my son was at home.’
‘Was anyone hit?’
‘No.’
‘Then he was just sending a warning. And I must say that you should probably heed that warning.’
‘Isn’t it your duty as a former NATO officer to unmask him?’ said Sara. ‘We’re dealing with a former terrorist backed by the Stasi.’
‘The Stasi no longer exists.’
‘But Rau exists.’
‘Since the end of the Cold War, the world is no longer quite so black and white,’ Thörnell said, leaning back in his armchair. ‘There are many shades of grey. It’s hard to make out anything, to be honest. To an outsider like you, it may look simple enough on paper. But it is anything but simple. It was difficult to comprehend back then, but it is ten times more difficult now.’
‘Try.’
Thörnell adjusted an already perfect crease on his trouser leg, brushed an imaginary piece of dust from his lap and then raised his gaze and became lost somewhere in the distance.
‘This was its own world, that existed in parallel with yours. Its own dimension. We saw you, but you didn’t see us. While you went to work at the factory, did your grocery shopping and ate your oven-baked sausage slices, we were reconnoitring secrets, standing guard against invisible enemies. And if we hadn’t done so, then the world would look different today. At that time, there were two sides – you were either on one or the other – but today loyalties criss-cross in every imaginable direction. You have no idea where tomorrow’s enemy might appear from, and which of your old contacts might come in handy then.’
‘Then let me make it simple for you,’ Sara said. ‘I’ll summarise it into one single question: why do you want to protect a terrorist? Just because you and your friends might have a use for him in future?’
‘It’s not him I want to protect. It’s you.’
‘Haven’t I proven that I can manage pretty well on my own?’
‘You have to understand – these were no ordinary sympathisers out demonstrating and holding out their collection tins outside Systembolaget on a Saturday. Kommando 719 were highly focused and they were violent.’
‘I know. They robbed banks and went to training camps in the Middle East. And they were well-armed. But then so are most gangsters nowadays.’
‘Have you heard about urban guerrillas?’
Sara shook her head.
‘It’s a concept that emerged from the dictatorships of South America, where revolutionary groups were fighting against the police and military in urban environments. The name comes from Brazil, but the tactic was quickly adopted by the Tupamaros in Uruguay, and then by the Red Army Faction in West Germany. And for them it really was a war. They killed without the slightest hesitation, carried out contained, rapid attacks against key points in the police state, and just like the guerrillas of the jungle they were almost impossible to find and stamp out.’
‘Sweden is hardly Brazil or Uruguay,’ Sara objected.
‘Our Swedish groups were also reinforced by hardened terrorists from West Germany,’ Thörnell said, taking a sip from his coffee. ‘And South Americans with their own experiences of urban guerrilla warfare. And a few really violent fanatics from Italy, Japan and France. “The Internationale” put into practice. All with the support of the Stasi – with the utmost secrecy. Would you like to see something interesting?’
Thörnell stood up and held out his hand as if to entice Sara. She followed her host through a large room with Gustavian dining furniture and into a room accessed directly from the last one in this gigantic apartment. The innermost room, it turned out, was Thörnell’s study. The walls were covered in bookcases filled with volumes on history and security policy, while in the centre of the room there was a large desk made from dark wood with brass fixtures. Sara thought it might be British in style, with desk drawers both under the desk itself and along the sides. There were probably a couple of secret compartments too. Thörnell picked up a small gold-coloured badge from the desk and handed it to Sara. It bore a hand with a rifle, the East German flag, the number 40 and the words ‘Ministerium für Staatssicherheit’.
‘A souvenir badge to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Stasi,’ Thörnell said. ‘Which they never had time to hand out because the Wall fell.’
‘But they managed to make them?’
‘Yes. And when I look at it I am reminded that you never know what might happen and that existence can change very quickly. But above all, it is evidence that we achieved something incredible. If it hadn’t been for us, the Stasi would have celebrated their fortieth anniversary uninterrupted. And perhaps their fiftieth and sixtieth too.’
‘Why are you showing this to me?’
‘Because it’s fascinating. Don’t you agree? And perhaps because I hope that you will show a little trust in those working in secret today too. The badge proves that we know what we’re doing, if you ask me.’
‘At any rate, it shows that you knew what you were doing, but it’s no guarantee that you do now.’
‘Touché,’ said Thörnell with a smile. ‘Come, let’s return.’
He proffered his hand, retrieved the badge and returned to the drawing room via the three elegant rooms situated above the treetops.
‘Now, where were we?’ said Thörnell once he had retaken his seat. ‘Oh yes, terrorists. By the way, would you like anything else? A biscuit? A glass of wine? Water?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Good. Don’t lose focus. Anyway – after the initial groups there came new and passionate souls, sympathisers who became activists. When Baader and Meinhof were imprisoned, Kommando Siegfried Hausner, Kommando Ulrike Meinhof, Kommando Andreas Baader and so on followed in their wake. Various successors to the original Red Army Faction. And the focus shifted from the struggle against imperialism to a struggle to get their idols out of prison, through murder, kidnap and hijacking. Lufthansa flight 181, Hanns Martin Schleyer, Jürgen Ponto. Etcetera. And these groups became increasingly brutal. People have forgotten quite how much of a threat terrorism posed.’
‘Here too?’
‘Most certainly. In Denmark they had the so-called Blekingegade Gang who spent fifteen years robbing banks and sending money to the PFLP in Palestine. They had adopted the so-called parasitic state theory. They didn’t believe it was possible to enlighten the working classes about the necessity of revolution. The workers in the West had been bought by capitalists with high wages and welfare. So the revolution had to come from the Third World. They managed to piece together a total of thirty million kronor from their heists. The Blekingegade Gang bankrolled many acts of terrorism.’
‘Did Kommando 719 send money to the PFLP too?’
‘No. Not that we know. However, it seems that they spent a vast sum of money. They were preparing something big.’
‘Operation Wahasha.’
A slight raise of the eyebrows revealed that the ever-discreet Thörnell had been taken very much by surprise.
‘Where did you hear that name?’
‘First tell me what you know about it.’
‘Nothing. It’s a name that appears in the papers, but it’s not known what it refers to.’
‘But it was Kommando 719 and Rau that were preparing for it?’ Sara insisted.
‘So they say.’
Sara scrutinised Thörnell and pondered what he had said.
‘Why do I get the feeling that you know more than you’re saying?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. I was stationed in West Germany; I had no direct oversight of what the Stasi or their terrorist cells were occupied with here in Sweden.’
‘But you knew about Wahasha.’
‘It was talked about. And based on what I’ve heard about Rau, I would say he’s a man that everyone should keep their distance from.’
‘Why haven’t the Germans done anything about Rau’s group?’ Sara leaned forward and fixed her gaze on the old colonel.
‘The Germans had quite a lot on their plate when the Wall came down, given the thousands of spies and informants that were unmasked. The whole state apparatus was infiltrated, or so it transpired when they unsealed the archives. The ones that hadn’t been destroyed, that is.’
‘So they forgot about these former terrorists?’
‘Hmm, well, it would also appear that the Kommando’s new identities worked rather well. It probably hasn’t been possible to trace them. And I would think our good friend Faust is more than keen to preserve his anonymity.’
Sara contemplated what Thörnell had told her. She had undeniably been able to rely on him in relation to Geiger and the bombs. So should she trust him now too?
‘So you think I should just drop this? Not give a shit about Rau . . .’
‘With the exception of your choice of words, that’s exactly what I would counsel you to do.’
‘Yes, yes . . .’ Sara sighed.
‘You don’t really have any reason to chase some forgotten old terrorist from the past.’
‘Yes I do. It’s my fault that Stiller is dead. And his wife. He called me and wanted to warn me about a dangerous man. I think that was Rau.’
‘Does that mean you won’t give up?’
Sara thought about the gunshots into the apartment. As long as Rau was at large, she was in danger.
‘Not now,’ she said. ‘He’s gone too far.’
‘I really would like to plead with you one last time.’
‘Sorry.’
They contemplated each other in silence. From the corner of her eye, she saw a seagull fly past right outside the window. That was what it was like when the shoreline at Norr Mälarstrand was round the corner. Sara remembered a bird once flying into the window in Vällingby. She wondered whether the seagulls around here ever did the same thing. It was an unpleasant thought. When it had happened at home, Sara had been in her angriest phase of teendom and had mostly wondered how any single being on earth could possibly want to get into their sad flat.
The sound of a door carefully closing made her start and return to the present.
‘Is there someone else here?’
‘No.’ Thörnell looked at her impassively.
Sara looked towards the wall that faced the secret room. She stood up and hurried into the hallway. She inserted a couple of fingers behind the frame of the large mirror and pressed. There was a click and the mirror swung open, allowing Sara to step into the secret room. On the wall adjoining the living room there was a painting that had been taken down to reveal a one-way mirror and a small speaker. Anyone in here could see and hear everything being said in the living room.
She turned on her heel and rushed towards the door.
She skipped the lift and ran down the stairs, emerged into the street and stood in the middle of the road looking in every direction.
There was a black car that had pulled away from the kerb down by Wijnjas the cheesemonger, a food delivery on the other side of the street, and a few people sauntering along. There was no one who appeared to be fleeing or in a hurry.
But there had been someone. Sara was certain of it.
She went back up to Thörnell and fixed her gaze on him.
‘Who was it?’
‘Not who you think,’ said the old colonel.
‘Rau.’
‘I can neither confirm nor deny that. You know that.’
‘You helped him to find out what I know.’
‘I helped you to protect yourself. Trust me, you really should refrain from taking this further.’
‘I probably should. The problem is that I never do as I’m told.’