THE RUMBLING OF the powerful diesel engines rolled out across the dark water as coastguard vessel KB 202 steered up alongside the Hallberg-Rassy, which had lowered both its jib and two-thirds of its mainsail.
Fenders were hung. Ropes were thrown, hauled in and cleated until the two boats became one, though from a distance the yacht, despite its size, looked tiny next to its visitor.
He was sitting about a hundred yards away, feeling impressed by his new biocular device. An Armasight Discovery 5X. It was his first time using it and out here in the dark, in the middle of the sea, it was really showing him what it could do. Gone was the blurry green night-vision image of old. With the Armasight, he could study them in close-up detail. If not for the lack of sound, it would have been like being on board, and he was pleased to conclude that it had been worth every penny.
In a way, he’d been lucky. He could just as easily still have been swimming around, looking for his rubber dinghy. As it was, it had taken him forty-five minutes, and he’d been on the verge of giving up when it suddenly appeared out of nowhere, slowly bobbing towards him. He’d even managed to hang on to the sword, if only because it had got caught in one of the loops on his wetsuit during the few seconds he’d been unconscious.
And yet, lucky was the last thing he felt.
He’d only just finished cleaning up after the debacle with the little girl and had finally been able to relax and look forward to his next task. A task that, no matter how you looked at it, could only be described as a complete disaster.
Was he losing it? Had he just been too busy to notice? His powers, if he’d ever really had any, were they deserting him? It felt a bit like they were.
He was aware, of course, that chance had a will of its own, and maybe on balance he’d actually been lucky. But still, these past few days it was almost as though the dice had been working against him.
At first glance, the Hallberg-Rassy had been the perfect target. The dice had spoken, and for a few minutes he’d been utterly convinced there was a higher purpose to their paths crossing.
Then, everything had gone wrong. Absolutely everything.
Just boarding the boat had been difficult. In order to avoid detection, he’d had to kill the engine a hundred feet away and silently glide the last part of the way. But he’d underestimated his speed and even though he’d rushed to push off, his bow had bumped into their hull.
But no one had seemed to notice the thud. He’d realized why after he stepped over the lifeline and saw the flickering blue light through one of the windows. They’d been watching a film, which was somewhat remarkable considering they were still in the middle of the heavily trafficked Öresund.
But so far, so good, he’d thought as he lowered himself into the cockpit with the dice in his pocket and the sword in its sheath on his back, completely unprepared for that bloody brat to poke his head out of the aft cabin and stare at him, still half-asleep.
They’d stood frozen as the seconds ticked by. The thought of jumping back into the rubber dinghy, cutting the line and hightailing it out of there had occurred to him. But he’d resisted the temptation.
There had been three of them, potential pets not included. That meant each family member had to be assigned two numbers each. As the youngest, the child got one and two, the mum three and four and finally the dad five and six.
The problem was that there had been no time to take out and roll the dice, which was a problem he’d have to solve for future high-stress situations. This time, he’d instead been forced to deal with the boy, who had been pulling air into his lungs to start screaming.
Three quick steps later, he’d been on top of him, forcing him back down into the aft cabin. Then he’d closed the hatch from inside and gone to draw his sword, which turned out to be almost impossible in the cramped space. Especially with a kid kicking and fighting for his life.
In the end, though, he’d managed to get the sword out and the sight of it had subdued the boy, which meant he could use his free hand to take out the dice and roll it. What happened next was something he’d prefer to forget.
He’d suddenly been dragged backwards out of the aft cabin. Granted, he’d recovered quickly and got back on his feet, but the sword had not been on his side. If truth be told, it had turned out to be utterly useless. At least as far as weapons went. He’d kept hitting things with it and missing his target.
Maybe he hadn’t practised enough. But in that moment, he’d felt like a clown, and when the boom knocked him out, the humiliation had been complete. The whole thing had been so embarrassing he’d deserved falling overboard.
But at least the day was still young, so there was plenty of time for him to lick his wounds and recover. If not for the sudden visit by the coastguard, he would have lain down and closed his eyes for half an hour. To compose himself. As it was, he had to keep an eye on how things developed.
The worst-case scenario would be if they gave the family a lift to Helsingborg while a crew member sailed their boat back to shore. Unfortunately, that was also the most likely one. If that happened, he’d have to completely rethink everything. But he’d cross that bridge if he came to it. At the moment, all he could do was hang back in the dark and hope they would be alone again soon.
The crew seemed to consist of three men. And one of them was, strangely enough, wearing civilian clothes. Even stranger, he’d been the first one to step aboard the yacht, and he was the one speaking to the family. He’d been at it for almost forty-five minutes now.
Perhaps he was a police detective. He might even be one of the ones working with that Irene Lilja who had been terrorizing him over the past few days, which was yet another problem.
At first, he’d assumed she was ringing his doorbell whenever she happened to be in the area and that she would give up and leave him alone before long. But when she’d continued to bother him several times a day, sometimes ringing the bell for minutes at a time, it had become obvious she was not the kind of problem that would go away of its own accord. And yesterday, when she broke in and searched his flat, aided by an entire arrest team, he’d barely had time to hide.
It wasn’t an unfortunate coincidence. They really were on to him.
Not only had they managed to find out where he lived, they’d sniffed out enough to know his next strike was going to take place out on Öresund. How else could they have got here so quickly?
He had no answer, and ultimately, it didn’t matter. He would finish his task regardless. It wouldn’t be easy. But then, why should it be? Simple was often synonymous with boring and insipid. Thinking back, it had always been the difficult, almost impossible things that had interested him. Like that time when he was little and had done the impossible by running away from home with both his piggy banks and getting all the way to Tivoli in Copenhagen and having the best day of his life.
Now, instead, he was lying out here in the dark and through his biocular he saw ropes being untied and then the two boats drifted apart.
The wait was over, and he could feel his energy returning. Even the powerful but increasingly distant rumbling from the coastguard ship’s engines was like music to his ears.
Even better was that none of the family members seemed to have left the yacht. All three of them were standing in the cockpit with their arms around each other, waving, like in a film with a happy ending when the credits are rolling.
Completely unaware that the film had in fact only just begun.