Tuesday evening, December 22, and Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Who did they take her for? Did they really think they could keep her house under surveillance without her noticing? Were they not able to work out that her property was equipped with motion sensors everywhere and that she had heat sensors on her roof picking up not only on movement in the vicinity of the house but also revealing the outline of anyone who tried to get close?
A fairly new VW Golf had been parked a bit down the road the entire afternoon. Not strange in itself, but considering the police press conference on TV and the huge reward being offered, she could not allow herself to overlook even the slightest unexpected change around her.
Later in the afternoon, she caught sight of a pale man and photographed him a couple of times while he stood hiding behind a tree, staring up at her house. He appeared to have time on his hands, because in spite of the inclement weather he did not move from his position, except for a few minutes when he sat in the car.
“Are you having your lunch?” she asked aloud, checking her watch. Exactly ten minutes later he resumed his position behind the tree, so it seemed she was right.
Who are you? she wondered to herself when he pulled out a camera and pointed it toward the house. Sisle moved back from the window with a start and stood for a moment pondering over this man. Who could know something that might explain this surveillance? Not one of her employees had a man in their inner circle like this—the sort of man who could most aptly be described as death warmed up. And she could be certain because she had a file on each employee at Park Optimizing containing personal data that might prove useful in exactly this sort of situation: medical history and health records, their résumé and other background information prior to employment with her, Debora’s progress reports from when they had been under her wing, family relationships, finances, photos of all family and close friends, hobbies, psychological profiles including their strengths and weaknesses, and much more.
But a skinny and especially pale man like this one was not someone she had come across in those materials. So who had stationed him out here?
She called Adam, who answered almost immediately.
“In a moment, I’m going to send you a photo of a man who is watching my property. Let me know if you recognize him.”
He called back a minute later.
“No, I don’t know him. Do you want me to try a face recognition assessment? I can use a VPN connection so it looks like I’m in the U.S.”
“No, don’t bother. The bird might have flown by then. Just get over here pronto.”
They approached from behind, and the guy let out a shout when Adam secured him in a grip under his arms and up around the back of his neck, forcefully pressing his head forward.
“What are you doing?” he moaned as Sisle stepped in front of him. “Let me go.”
“I ask the questions around here,” said Sisle. “You have my house under surveillance. Why? Who are you?”
Sisle nodded to Adam, who loosened his grip.
“I’m not watching your house. My girlfriend lives next door and I think she’s cheating on me, so let go.”
Sisle nodded again and Adam fully released his grip on the man.
“Really! What’s her name?”
He hesitated for one second too long. “What’s it got to do with you? Who are you?”
Sisle stepped closer to him. Where had she seen this man before?
“Do you have any ID on you I can see?” she asked.
He smiled contemptuously. “Over my dead body. You’ve got no right!”
“Over your dead body? That could be arranged. Would you do the honors, Adam?”
The pale streak of a man should not have been taken by surprise when he took a massive punch to the back of the neck, and his blue eyes turned a shade of gray as they tried in vain to stay focused on Sisle.
“What are you doing?” he stammered when Adam rummaged under his jacket and fumbled in the inner pocket.
“Nothing here,” said Adam, as he carried on searching the guy.
“Just tell me who you are here and now and you might just spare yourself any further problems.”
He seemed very perplexed and lowered his head. He still refused to answer, but his fear of another blow was something he could not hide.
“Things could get nasty if you don’t help us out here. You see, I can’t have someone spying on me without knowing why or who they are. Your choice, or do you want another beating?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know why you think I’m spying on you. I’ve just—”
Adam punched him again. Harder this time.
Adam laid the unconscious man on the daybed at the far end of Sisle’s bedroom and fixed his wrists to his belt behind his back with a couple of cable ties.
They found his vehicle registration in the glove compartment, and under the seat they also found his wallet containing ID that was more worrying than they could have anticipated.
“Damn it, Sisle! He’s a policeman,” said Adam when he came in with the ID in his hand. “You can’t keep him here. We need to get rid of him somehow or other.”
Sisle studied his ID card. “Gordon Taylor, lawyer and police assistant,” it read.
She googled his name on her iPhone and found what she had expected. He was standing in several photos next to his boss, Carl Mørck. And then she found a couple more photos showing Department Q grouped together: only four people in total. Quite worrying when she had read about the effectiveness of the department and how many cases they had solved.
She printed a couple of the photos and placed them on the desk.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” said Adam. “Carl Mørck has identified you as the person who has kidnapped Maurits van Bierbek, Sisle. You do realize that, right? I seriously think that the risk of them coming down hard on all three of us is now imminent and greater than ever. So shouldn’t we kill Maurits van Bierbek and this guy and then lie low for a long time?”
Sisle’s eyes narrowed. “As far as I remember, it wasn’t too long ago that I tried to impress on you and Debora that I do not change my plans. And as far as Gordon Taylor here, let me see if I can’t twist us having him to our advantage. In the long term, we can do what we want with him, but Maurits van Bierbek will have to wait until Mao’s birthday on Boxing Day. Understood?”
“But what do you think Carl Mørck will do when he discovers that this one hasn’t reported back? If he just simply vanishes from the face of the earth, Mørck will force his way into the house. And I assume you don’t want that, right?”
“Let him come. The guy will be gone tomorrow morning.”
“Where to?”
“We could put him in with van Bierbek for the next few days, couldn’t we?”
Adam looked more than skeptical.
Sisle gave the police assistant an injection that would ensure he did not gain consciousness for hours. So things were peaceful, especially now that Adam had gone home—albeit grumbling, contrary, and wholly dissatisfied that his opinion had not been taken into account.
It would not take many of those sorts of murmurs of discontent from Debora and Adam before Sisle could see the advantages of ending their association. The new setup she was kick-starting in the New Year was going to be led by new disciples of a far higher caliber than the recruits Debora had provided in the last few years. In fact, she did not need any more recruits. And when she considered her own organization, there were at least forty suitable candidates who could be sent out to complete their own missions over the next twenty years. And that was as far as her plans went. So as soon as Maurits van Bierbek had been killed, Adam and Debora would have outlived their use.
Sisle sat down at her desk.
All the preparations had been made for executing Maurits van Bierbek. In this last phase, with the instruments for the actual execution ready, the only thing that remained was to formulate the judgment itself and the justification for it. The verbal issuing of the final sentence was something she had started in 2016 when it was Franco Svendsen’s turn to be killed. But just before she was about to give him the lethal injection, her words failed her. His terrified eyes had implored her, and his tears resulted in one wretched moment of doubt that was enough to ruin even a well-rehearsed sentence.
As a direct result, she had written down what she wanted to say when it was time for Birger von Brandstrup to die, and everything went smoothly with the declaration of his sentence. And that was exactly how she wanted things to be when they put down Maurits van Bierbek. Controlled and dispassionate.
Sisle smiled. Her disdain for van Bierbek meant the words almost wrote themselves.
A ray of light shone over her bookcase close to midnight, so Sisle stood up from the desk and just caught sight of a taxi turning the corner on her street. She looked down the road toward the gray Golf that was still parked there; they would have to get rid of that. She was thinking that they could do it tomorrow, when she spotted another figure down there by the car. And this one also seemed to be looking up toward her house.
The figure moved momentarily out of the shadows, stopped briefly under the light of the streetlamp, and looked around. It was a youngish woman who, judging by her body language, was puzzled about something. Was it perhaps because she had expected to meet Gordon Taylor?
Sisle took her night-vision goggles and caught a glimpse of the woman’s face before she returned to the shadows.
It only took a quick glance at one of the printed photos of the Department Q group before Sisle had identified her as one of them.
There was no mistaking that the group was closing in on her.
Sisle got up at six o’clock the following morning and confirmed that the woman was still in position. What a shame there has been nothing for you to see and report back on, she thought. She was probably going to be relieved by someone else soon.
It happened at exactly eight o’clock. Just as she had expected, the third person from the group of four turned up. A dark, broad-shouldered man of less than average height whom she immediately identified as Hafez el-Assad was now standing behind the Golf, talking with the woman. They were probably discussing where Gordon Taylor had got to, as he was probably supposed to take the shift after this one.
Sisle smiled. She had checked on the sedated man several times during the night. Lying there like a stranded porpoise, he exhibited absolutely no visible or audible signs of life apart from the odd faint sound of breathing.
The next changeover down at the parked Golf would probably be at four o’clock this afternoon, when Assad would be relieved. And when Gordon Taylor failed to arrive, it would stir things up one way or another.
There was direct access from Sisle’s house to the garage. However, the route from her bedroom at the back of the house to the garage door went through four living rooms, a corridor, the kitchen, and the utility room, which was an impossible distance for Sisle to carry an unconscious man—even if he was almost just skin and bone.
So she gave him a big push and he rolled down with a bump onto a heavy blanket she had placed on the floor. He landed on one shoulder and let out a sigh, but he was still unconscious.
Sisle pulled her Persian rugs to the side a little and dragged the man through the various rooms while the sweat started to trickle down from her armpits. When she reached the garage, she was already tired and took the five concrete steps down to the garage floor with one almighty tug at the blanket. She heard the back of the man’s head hitting the concrete edges of the steps, but what choice did she have?
At ten o’clock, the man from Department Q had moved sufficiently close to the house for her to make her move. This is my chance, she thought, and she rushed out to the garage, opened the garage door, and with her foot on the gas sped past the man, leaving him fumbling with his ass in the air looking for something on the front left tire of the Golf.
She did not have far to drive.
But there was no way they could know that.