HE OPENED THE box as though it were the first time, picked up the two-hundred-year-old, white marble icosahedron and weighed it in his hand. He’d been looking forward to this moment, and more than once during the past few days he’d been convinced it would never come.
It had been a week since the last time he’d held it. That time, its weight had felt like a burden, and he hadn’t been sure he was even worthy of holding it in his hand. But his last task had turned him from a blind caterpillar into a resplendent butterfly.
He studied the twenty sides, twenty equilateral triangles whose perfect geometry formed his most valuable dice. It didn’t just set the pace, chart the course and determine the agenda for what lay ahead. With its nineteen engraved numbers, plus the ten, which had been replaced with an X, it ruled on whether there would be any more tasks at all.
Rolling a two or higher gave him the number of days until the next deed had to take place, counting from today. A one meant it was over, and not just for now, but for ever and ever.
There had been times when he would have had no problem accepting that outcome. But not this time. He couldn’t explain why, but it felt like everything he’d gone through and endured had only been preparation for what was to come. As though each of his tasks had in fact been lessons, tailor-made to help him develop the skills he would need.
The dice was getting warmer in his hand, and his entire body itched to perform the first throw. To make sure there was no dirt that could affect the outcome on the green felt board, he dragged his hand across it before shaking the dice until he was convinced there was nothing to impede chance.
Then he let the dice fall and watched it bounce on the felt before coming to a stop.
A twelve.
He was relieved but also slightly disappointed. It wasn’t over yet. Another task was going to be set, but it would be almost two weeks before he could complete it. The question was whether he’d be able to wait that long. Maybe there was a point to it, though. Maybe the preparations were going to be so extensive he’d need the time.
He moved on to the next step to find out who his victim was going to be this time. For that, he needed his collection of six-sided, anodized aluminium precision dice. He picked up one of them to determine if he was supposed to use one or two dice and shook it in his hand before releasing it onto the felt.
A three.
In other words, one dice. He picked it back up, shook it and rolled.
A one.
He turned to the map of Skåne pinned to the wall in front of him. The map was cut into a square that was further divided into 144 smaller, numbered squares. Twelve columns numbered west to east and twelve rows from north to south.
For the first time, he was going to execute his mission in the first column, which extended south from Mölle on the beautiful Kullaberg peninsula, in many ways a perfect setting for a murder.
He picked up the dice again, shook it and did another pre-roll.
A four.
That meant the row was going to be determined by two dice. He picked up another one, shook both and released them onto the felt.
Two sixes.
He didn’t even need to check the map to know the southernmost square in column number one was Copenhagen. The idea of getting to do something in Denmark had been there since the day he drew the grid on the map, but that it would be the bottom-left square had been beyond his wildest dreams.
An online search revealed that there were approximately 2,300 street names in Copenhagen, and to find out which letter the street name should start with, he once again did a one-dice pre-roll.
A five.
This time he could use up to six dice, so he took out five, shook them in his cupped hands and rolled.
A three, a four, a five, a one, a six.
Together that made nineteen, which corresponded to the letter S.
The column of street names starting with S was much too long to fit on the computer screen, so he repeated the procedure to determine the subsequent letters T O L. That narrowed it down to Stoltenbergsgade, and a few more rolls gave him street number 9.
The street was fairly centrally located, and judging from Google Maps, the building in question had six floors including the attic, which looked like it had been converted into flats. A few rolls later, the dice had settled on the flat to the far right on the third floor, and he was able to do a search on Krak.dk to find out who it was that had only twelve days to live.
At first, he didn’t understand what it said. How that could be someone’s name. When he realized a few seconds later that it wasn’t the name of a person at all, but rather of a Danish government agency, something sparked to life inside him.
The National Police of Denmark.
No wonder he’d need time to prepare. Just determining who exactly the intended victim was would require going there and letting the dice decide at the scene.
He’d only had three people to choose between on the boat. At Ica Maxi, there had been so many potential victims, he’d made the colours of their clothes correspond to numbers on the dice. That had worked out okay. But there, he’d been able to walk around unnoticed.
Repeating the same procedure in an office building full of police officers was something else entirely.
To find out how that was supposed to work, he picked up one of the dice again and shook it. First, he needed to know which category he was doing next. An uneven number meant getting out the list of murder weapons, from rifle to slingshot. An even number meant the list of different ways to die.
A four.
He took out the list of twelve possible causes of death and did a pre-roll.
A four.
So he had to use two dice.
A five and a four.
According to the list, the chosen victim, whoever that might be, was supposed to die in a fire twelve days from today. Something that at first glance might seem relatively straightforward. The difficulty lay in isolating the fire so no one else got hurt. But it was nothing that couldn’t be solved with some preparation. After all, he had twelve days.
He already had several ideas of how to proceed and felt eager to get started. But before he did, he needed the final confirmation from the icosahedron. So he picked up the marble dice, which had gone cold, and warmed it in his hands. Then he shook it thoroughly before making his throw.
This time, it rolled around for a long time before looking like it was going to settle on twelve, but then, for some unknown reason, it tipped over and landed on X. The chance – or, if one preferred, the risk – of that happening was one in twenty. And yet this was the fourth time he’d rolled an X.
Every number on the dice except X meant the task was set in stone and that he could get started on the preparations. Now, instead, he was going to have to get out the notebook in which he’d written down 120 different additional tasks and then roll the icosahedron again.
Twenty.
The outcome meant he was supposed to use no fewer than twenty six-sided dice to determine which of the additional tasks would be required. It was the absolute maximum number. He took out another box of anodized aluminium precision dice and counted out twenty.
They barely fitted in his cupped hands, and more than once he dropped one while trying to shake them and had to start over again. But after a while, he felt convinced they were sufficiently randomized and released them onto the felt.
He looked at the dice – no, he stared, utterly speechless. What lay before him on the green felt was inconceivably improbable. It looked like someone had deliberately adjusted each dice.
All twenty dice had come up six.
Twenty sixes, which added up to 120.
He’d never heard of anything like it, much less experienced it himself. But there they were, each one with its six pips pointing up, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. But it was anything but.
Individually, each dice was just as likely to roll a three as a one or a six, of course. But put together it was something else entirely. The probability of all of them coming up six in one throw was negligible. Winning the jackpot at a casino was considerably more likely than rolling twenty sixes. And yet, that was what he’d done.
He still couldn’t quite believe it, but there they were, twenty sixes that together made 120, which ordered him to do the last of the additional tasks. A task he’d never thought he’d get to perform. A task more complex and challenging than all the ones he’d already done put together. A dream scenario that was too good to be true, and to make sure he wasn’t about to wake up and realize it was all a dream, he pinched his arm so hard he drew blood.
Persuaded that he was, indeed, fully awake, he went over to the shelves and took down the notebook with a big X on the cover. Then he sat back down and turned to task 120, and a shudder went through him the moment he laid eyes on the header, written in all caps.
FORGET EVERYTHING
Time, place, victim, weapon and method.
Forget everything. This is a task like no other.