Julia was oscillating between fake self-control and real helplessness. Modin had seen such erratic behavior before among his fellow secret operators at Special Ops and had even experienced the phenomenon himself. Working in the shadows could wear you down eventually. Some people couldn’t hack it.
Modin could see that what Julia was telling him took a toll on her. He would lay off for a little while, but he knew he’d return to the topic later.
He got up, went to the kitchen, and came back with a glass of milk, which he put on the table.
“Here, drink this.”
“Thanks.” She drank it all. “Fuck man, I’m hung over.” Julia blew her nose in a paper napkin.
“How’s your eye? Does it hurt?” Modin asked.
“My whole face aches. My brother is such a swine. He always hits me to get me to do as he says. Not a surprise, given this is what our father did to him. Christer would get a beating for the slightest misstep. Christer really hated our dad, but now he has become just as big a monster. “
“Is it true that he raped you?”
“I’d rather not talk about that.”
“This will be the last time he ever hits you. The very last time, Julia.”
“Who can stop him? You?” She looked into Modin’s eyes, somewhat appalled by his nose. “No one stops Christer. He is a professional.” She laughed almost hysterically. “My father always said that our family wasn’t like others. He used to tell us that we had a big secret to protect, and that we needed to guard it carefully. I never understood what made us different. Not until I became older and understood politics. But I was always scared of bringing friends home. Do you remember? You were never allowed to visit us at home.”
“We used to think there was something weird about you all. Especially Christer,” Modin said. “There was something sinister in his eyes, and his dark gaze and temper tantrums seemed scary. He was so unpredictable.”
“We were often visited by a gentleman from Germany. Later I found out he was from the East German Embassy. Dad and the visitor would take long walks together, to watch seabirds out at Skatudden, they told us. But really they planned my dad’s operations in Sweden out there. We always seemed to have lots of money after these visits. Dad used to buy something nice from the shops.”
“When were you sucked into all this?”
“Much later, after I had started to work for national television. Dad would ask questions about my colleagues, the names of the producers, where they lived and so on.”
“Like Cats Falk?” Modin asked without thinking.
“I don’t want to talk about that! I really don’t!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, startling Modin.
“But you’ll have to, Julia. For your own sake. You have to rid yourself of your demons. Cats Falk will always haunt you, will keep coming up from the depths, and beat you black and blue. You have to tell your side of the story. We’ve got to clear up this shit, Julia, once and for all. Cats has a mother.”
“I know,” she said, still sniffing. She turned toward the front door. There was no one there. “Cats stumbled onto something very sensitive that involved both East Germany and the U.S. There were lots of Stasi double agents who were secretly working for both the CIA and MI6. They arranged shipments of arms to Iran on the orders of the CIA. Deliveries were made from factories all over Europe. Bofors was involved here in Sweden. Even Special Ops had a dog in this race. They made sure that deliveries went smoothly and quietly. Old rusty ships sailed from Lake Vänern near Bofors and then continued on to the port of Rostock in East Germany. For a while, such vessels with weapons, ammunition, and technology were sailing weekly. Payments to the Stasi and offering them a piece of the pie ensured that the shipments stayed secret. The Stasi made a lot of money by smuggling, but even the people at Special Ops here in Sweden were somehow in on the deal. One man especially had a nose for business.”
“Who?”
“Anders Glock—a Freemason, a Catholic, and an illegal arms dealer with very good connections to the Security Service and Special Ops. There were others, but he was the top dog, at least here in Sweden. It was an international cartel with links abroad, to Manuel Noriega in Panama, for example, as well as Italy, among other countries. Stay Behind, called Gladio in Italy, and the CIA were both neck deep in this.”
“That would explain quite a lot,” Modin said. “The fact that large amounts of money were involved. How come you know all this, Julia. This is deep secretive stuff.”
“My father. He was a top dog at the Stasi. He didn’t like the drugs and arms dealing with the third world. Like many others at the end of the Cold War, he got disillusioned. It all got just too messy.”
“And Cats stumbled upon all of this?” Modin said.
“Yes, she did, and someone went ahead and leaked it, which led to her death. She knew too much. What she knew could have hurt people all the way to the top.”
“What do you mean?”
“If people had found out about the smuggling of technology and weapons, things would have become difficult for both the Stasi and Military Intelligence Special Ops. Former DSO head Birger Elmér and the East German intelligence chief, Markus Wolf, knew one another personally. They did business together. Markus Wolf could have been compromised by the West.”
“You’re kidding,” Modin said.
“No, I’m not, he and his colleagues said that they were triple agents—in other words false double agents: Communist spies in the West who really spied on the Communists for the West. But that’s not the way I see it. They were all working for the western powers. Why do you think the Berlin Wall crumbled with so little resistance? The West had people on the inside who instigated.”
Modin drew a question mark in the air.
“What is true is false and what is false is true, Modin. That’s how it works in this world of ours—a world of mirrors reflecting the light in all different directions. Mirror images are always reversed.” She fell silent.
“You’re trying to tell me that Swedish Special Ops were collaborating with the Stasi on direct orders from the CIA. Have I got that right, Julia?”
“Yes, however crazy it may sound to you. This was the secret door the CIA needed to the Warsaw Pact.”
“But this would mean,” Modin said, clearing his throat, “that everything can be a mirror image. Suspected KGB spies can, in reality, have been working for MI6 or the CIA. Have I got that right?”
“That’s what’s so complicated about all this. Nothing is what it seems. Think about this one. If someone is a spy working for, let’s say, the KGB, why the hell would they go public in the media and promote Soviet and Russian points of view? That would be committing mental hara-kiri.”
“You’re suggesting that the sound of minks and tourist boats in the Hårsfjärden strait could have been CIA vessels? The KGB works with the upper echelons of right wing movements and fascists, and vice-versa. Lefties can, in reality, belong to the right?”
“Yep,” Julia said. “It’s amateurs, those who are being played as useful idiots, who say and do the obvious. A top agent would do the complete opposite. Lie low or play at being in opposition. That’s how things work in the world of intelligence. That’s why it still works. But it’s a well kept secret and could mean lights out for anyone who knows it.”
“A world of mirrors,” Modin said and disappeared deep into his thoughts. “Men with beards and long hair were CIA and the men in nice suits, KGB.”
He looked out over the sea to the east. A container ship could be seen silhouetted against the horizon near the Finnish border. Right is wrong, wrong is right, the truth is lies and lies are truth. Red is green, green is red. A diplomat he once met came to mind who always wore one red and one green sock. Now Modin knew why.
“I want to know everything, Julia. The SOSUS ties it all together, doesn’t it?”
“You really should go and visit former Prime Minister Ingo Swanson again and ask him straight out,” Julia said. “Interrogate him. I can help you if you want. I’ve been under interrogation-like conditions at the NSA. I know a few tricks you can use.”
Julia said nothing more and snuggled up to him. He liked her breathing close to him, but even more the fact that she trusted him.
• • •
Julia took a shower and freshened up, inside and out. She shoved two fingers down her throat and forced herself to puke up the previous day with eyes closed and in blind faith that the memories of the evening would fade away. She puked until her stomach was turned inside out and all that was left was gall. Her brother’s sick abuse of her body was still fresh in her memory and remained humiliating. Modin’s hands weren’t big enough to cover all the bruises and pretend that they had never happened. No one could. And she could not ask that he ignore the bumps and scratches. If they were going to love and respect each other, they had to find a middle ground between total disclosure and blind trust.
Julia Steerback rubbed in body lotion that smelled of lavender, dried her hair with a blow drier, put on a thin layer of makeup, and got dressed. Then she meditated for five minutes, sitting cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom.
Then she was good to go.