THREE DEAD AND one seriously injured.
So far, Jan Hesk thought grimly to himself as he received the information from one of the Tivoli guards with a curt nod, after which he went on alone towards the big lawn in front of the main stage. How many victims there would be before this was over was anyone’s guess.
Once the first shock had worn off and the dust had settled, there would be a lot of questions. That much was certain. People would ask how something like this had been allowed to happen. Why the public still wasn’t safe after all the things that had already occurred, and if there had been any warning signs.
Every stone would be turned, and investigative journalists would dig ever deeper into the shit. Conspiracy theories would surface about how the police had known but tried to cover it up, and in part, they would be right.
But only in part. No one would fully take into account the fact that everyone involved was human. People with flaws and shortcomings. Regular people with rents and car loans to pay. Who were trying to do their best despite having a boss with his own, radically different agenda.
None of that would be considered extenuating once it became clear the Swedes had done everything in their power. That they’d contacted and informed the Danish police the second they’d discovered signs pointing to Tivoli. That they’d reached out to him again and again to try to work together.
And now here he was, stuck so deep in the shit he risked falling over if he so much as twitched. The slightest error at this point, and he would have to go into exile.
But dark as things may look, there was still a chance he could turn this into something positive, and if he failed, he had only himself to blame.
No one knew where Sleizner was. For the past forty minutes, he’d been refusing to answer his phone. Normally, that would have aggravated Hesk’s ulcer, but this time he was fine with it, because it gave him a chance to step up, take charge and show what he could do.
In fact, most of the anxiety he’d been feeling just an hour ago had evaporated. It was a relief no longer to have to wonder but rather to know that all hell had broken loose and that it was up to him now.
The mood at the amusement park was definitely different to usual. No widespread panic yet, luckily, but it was simmering beneath the surface and risked bubbling over any second.
Panic was something they wanted to avoid at all costs. Once panic broke out, there was no way back, and the death toll could quickly rise into double digits when twenty-five thousand visitors started trampling each other to get out.
For that reason, they’d left most of the rides running, except for the old roller coaster and the Ferris wheel. The important thing was to perform an orderly evacuation while making sure the killer wasn’t able to slip through their checkpoints. It was a difficult balancing act, but to his mind, it was their only option under the current circumstances.
At least no one was running around spraying the crowd with automatic gunfire. If that had been the case, they would have had hundreds of dead people just in the first fifteen minutes. The downside was that now they had a more protracted scenario on their hands and a perpetrator killing clandestinely was much harder to locate.
That’s where Fabian Risk came in. In fact, it was all about him now. The Swede who had stormed in with his gun drawn, without inhibition and with a demeanour that said nothing was going to stand in his way.
He’d sensed it the moment he stepped into the room where Risk was being held. The darkness and the firm determination that showed he was ready to go all the way, no matter what the consequences.
In a way, he envied Risk. He’d always tended to think more about the consequences than the goal itself. He was no hero, and he never would be. The truth was that he was mediocre. But he was smart, and this time he had no problem letting someone else play the hero.