Ask No Mercy Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Martin Österdahl

  Translation copyright © 2018 by Peter Sean Woltemade

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as Be inte om nåd by Bokförlaget Forum in Sweden in 2016. Translated from Swedish by Peter Sean Woltemade. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2018.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503958784

  ISBN-10: 1503958787

  Cover design by Jae Song

  For Ellina

  CONTENTS

  MAP

  PROLOGUE

  SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1996

  1

  TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Stockholm, April 1943

  WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  Stockholm, May 1943

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 29

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  Stockholm, June 1943

  FRIDAY, MARCH 1

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  Stockholm, August 1943

  SATURDAY, MARCH 2

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  Stockholm, September 1943

  SUNDAY, MARCH 3

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  Stockholm, October/November 1943

  MONDAY, MARCH 4

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  Stockholm, January 1944

  TUESDAY, MARCH 5

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  77

  78

  79

  80

  81

  82

  83

  84

  85

  86

  87

  88

  89

  90

  91

  92

  93

  94

  Stockholm, February 1944

  WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6

  95

  96

  97

  98

  99

  100

  101

  102

  103

  104

  105

  Stockholm, September 1986

  THURSDAY, MARCH 7

  106

  107

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  PROLOGUE

  A black Mercedes followed her all the way from the gates of the university to the Griboyedov Canal. The car was still behind her when she turned onto Nevsky Prospekt. Max had always told her to have eyes in the back of her head when she walked alone in the dark, but she didn’t want to arouse suspicion by looking back. She didn’t want her pursuer to know she was onto him.

  She walked fast, as fast as she could without running. She pressed the envelope containing the book hard against her body, under her coat. She had to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.

  When she reached the subway station at Gostiny Dvor, she hurried toward the platform, tried to disappear among all the people. At Mayakovskaya she changed to a red-line train. By the time she reached the Finland Station, she could feel the sweat running down her spine; she sighed with relief when she got off the subway car and saw the train that would take her out of the city standing across the platform.

  As soon as she boarded the train, it departed. It was not until it rolled out of the city on its way to the suburbs that she let herself relax. Many trains left the station every hour. It was unlikely, she thought, that her pursuer would have been able to track her through the crowds as she changed subway lines.

  Perhaps she’d imagined everything. Let herself be influenced by the journalist’s warnings.

  “Drop this. Don’t get too close to that company.”

  But she couldn’t drop it.

  When she stepped off the train forty minutes later, the first thing she saw was the Mercedes. She tried to keep from panicking and walked away from the platform as fast as she could. Took out the envelope, scribbled the address on it, and dropped it into one of the station’s mailboxes. When she closed her eyes for a moment, she saw Max.

  I was planning to explain everything. I hope you’ll understand anyway.

  As the house came into view, she started to run. The dark street was empty. Perhaps she’d managed to shake off her pursuer after all? But then the Mercedes rolled around the corner she was approaching, and the car’s high beams blinded her.

  She was very close to her front door, but she couldn’t lead the car to her home. There was far too much material there that was linked to her research, that could lead people to her colleagues. She opened her bag and closed her hand around her cell phone. She could see nothing but a large, dark silhouette closing in on her.

  She heard the click of a car door opening and then hard heels on the asphalt. The sound of a pistol round being chambered.

  A long arm was pointing at her. She raised her hands high, throwing her cell phone into the bushes in the same movement. All would be lost if he found that.

  The man stopped a few meters from her. He was broad-shouldered but had a small head and an unusually long neck. His clothes were elegant: an overcoat and a tuxedo. She couldn’t see his face clearly but was nevertheless surprised. The man looked so old. Like someone from another time.

  “Who are you?”

  “Turn your back to me,” said the man. “Get down on your knees, and put your hands behind your head.”

  She did as he said. Closed her eyes.

  The man approached and leaned against her, and for a moment it felt as though he were embracing her. Then she found herself locked in an iron grip, her nose and mouth covered by a rag. The man’s strength was inhuman. She took a few heaving breaths through the rag and immediately lost all strength. She sank back into the man, felt his overcoat being wrapped around her, making her invisible to the world outside.

  The man lifted her like a sleeping child. The last thing she heard before she lost conscio
usness was the click of a car trunk opening.

  SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1996

  1

  The buzz of conversation from below reached Nestor Lazarev all the way up in his private box. It could seat twelve, but tonight he wanted to be alone.

  Saint Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre was full of people waiting expectantly for the evening performance of Eugene Onegin to begin. The boxes near Lazarev’s were filling; fabric rustled as the theatergoers sat down. The women’s dresses glittered like the theater’s cream and gold walls. On the parquet below, a young man laughed as he sank into one of the roomy seats next to a pretty woman.

  Nestor Lazarev sat with his back straight. His spine had been neither bent by advanced age nor weakened by illness. His body was still strong thanks to workouts every morning based on the Russian martial art systema.

  The curtain rose, and Lazarev’s pulse quickened. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up when the orchestra began to play.

  With his right index finger, Lazarev followed the notes of the first act in the score until he closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the experience. This was a special evening for him with the Tchaikovsky music he had spent his childhood mastering. The Mariinsky Theatre opera company’s performance of the work was a perfect demonstration of Russian superiority.

  There was a quiet knock at the door of the box.

  Lazarev turned around as it opened slowly. Marcel Rousseau stood quietly and stiffly in the doorway. Rousseau fingered his gold ring and avoided Lazarev’s gaze.

  If this isn’t important, I’m going to throw you over the railing onto the nouveau-riche idiots down there, Lazarev thought.

  “Mr. Chairman,” said Rousseau. “We need to talk.”

  “Wait outside. We’ll talk during the intermission.”

  Lazarev turned back toward the stage, closed his eyes, tried to let the music wash over and surround him again. But all he could think of was Rousseau waiting for him. The evening was ruined.

  Why had he come here? Why now?

  When the act ended, the doors to the boxes opened and people started talking. Around Lazarev other theatergoers were laughing, happy and stimulated, thirsty for champagne.

  He found Rousseau outside his box, waiting with a glass of Sovetskoye Shampanskoye in his hand.

  Rousseau leaned toward Lazarev, whispered in his ear. “Do you remember the journalist I told you about last week? The one who asked where the technology had come from?”

  “I don’t forget things like that.”

  “This afternoon I was asked exactly that same question. Again.”

  Lazarev furrowed his brow. He had been carrying his secret around with him longer than he liked to recall. In all the many dark years before he had started the company, not once had he been asked this question. No one had wondered. Until now.

  “Who?”

  “A young woman,” said Rousseau. “From the university, the Department of Economics.” This could mean only one of two things: a very unusual coincidence or an echo from Lazarev’s distant past. If the first, there was nothing to worry about. He knew that if it was the second, he would have to deal with it immediately.

  “You seem concerned, Marcel.” Lazarev put his hand on the back of Rousseau’s neck and squeezed. “I can assure you there’s nothing you need to be worried about.”

  He pulled Rousseau closer and kissed his cheeks three times.

  “Go home and rest now.”

  Lazarev turned his back on Rousseau and returned to his box. He slid down onto the soft velvet seat, waited a moment to be sure Rousseau wasn’t coming back. On the floor, next to his feet, lay the program for this evening’s performance. The booklet included a picture of the soprano who played the female lead. Under the picture the producers had printed a famous quote from the opera’s libretto: “All men surrender to the power of love.”

  His thoughts wandered to another premiere, another opera house. Wartime.

  She had been surrounded by people. The walls of the foyer had been clad with gilded mirrors. He had seen the man, his archenemy, in one of them. He would never forget the way the man had looked at her. Lazarev had been careless; he had let down his guard and almost lost everything.

  Somehow it was as if those chains were still weighing him down.

  A drumroll from the orchestra. The second act had begun. The sound of the drums called up other images, of airplanes appearing in the sky. Salvation.

  This was not a coincidence. Lazarev had never believed in coincidences. It was time for him to launch the final operation.

  That it also meant the end of something he had believed finished long ago would only increase his sense of satisfaction.

  This time there was no room for mistakes.

  TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27

  2

  Max Anger’s gaze wandered back and forth between his cell phone and the conference room’s wall of television screens showing local channels from Eastern and Central Europe. Once again he read the text Pashie had sent him Friday. She had been trying to get in touch with him. Over the weekend he had tried calling the phone Vektor had given her, but it had been switched off. What was she up to?

  Max looked at the television screens again. The sound wasn’t on, and the silent images flashed at him. As always, it was the Russian news channel that captured his attention. Max shifted in his chair when the screen showed images from the frozen waters of Arkhangelsk on a clear, sunny late-winter morning.

  A rusty fishing boat approached the ferry landing through a channel in the ice. When their boat reached the quay, the men on it raised their hunting clubs toward the sky and shouted defiantly at the demonstrators who had gathered there.

  The news segment switched to images from an open truck whose bed was covered with newborn seals. Other images showed baby seals being skinned alive on a loading dock.

  They’re not doing it correctly. The killing must take place on the ice.

  Max shifted in his chair again. He looked out the window, down at Valhallavägen, where the tops of the big trees were moving in the wind like foaming waves chasing each other.

  He had been twelve years old when he crossed the ice on his way to an uninhabited island east of Arholma, the island east of the Swedish mainland where he had spent his childhood. It had been a longer walk than he’d thought, and he had begun to sweat. While he was unbuttoning his jacket, he heard an odd snoring sound. He turned around and gasped at the sight of a sleeping seal. It was completely white, almost invisible in the snow; it lay flat on its stomach, soaking up the sunshine. It must have been a newborn; Max knew the fur would shine like that for two weeks at most.

  The seal opened its coal-black eyes and curiously watched Max’s movements.

  Max knew what his job was when he met a seal on the ice. He knew he was supposed to strike it once, hard, over its nose with the hammer side of his club. If he did it right, the pup would appear to stare at him with an empty gaze, its eyes no longer showing a blink reflex.

  This was a rite that would make him a man, that would prove he could live up to the age-old ideal of manhood his father had cultivated. His father’s friends would gather; they would come to Max’s home to celebrate his first pup.

  But Max couldn’t move.

  The situation became more and more impossible as the minutes passed. There and then, Max realized he was different. Killing an innocent creature wasn’t an admirable feat or something that turned a boy into a man. He didn’t go over to the other island; he just returned to Arholma without telling anyone about the white seal and without a sealskin to hang on the outside of the house.

  One day he would get another chance, and then everything would go to hell.

  The TV screen in front of him suddenly went dark.

  “Violet said you were sitting in here.”

  The remote control in her hand, Sarah Hansen was looking at Max. She seemed to have been standing there for a while.

  “You look like hell, rospigg,” she said. She p
ulled a hand through her unruly platinum-white hair.

  Sarah Hansen was Max’s employer and the only person in his life who could get away with calling him rospigg, a word playfully used to refer to the people of Roslagen, a region including coastal areas and islands to the north and east of Stockholm.

  They had met in the armed forces’ Russian-language program. Max was an attack diver, one of the Swedish Navy’s elite Coastal Rangers. Sarah was a student at the interpreter school. Gradually a friendship had developed between them, and while they had gone their separate ways after completing their training, they had always stayed in touch. Max had followed her successful career with an investment bank and had been impressed by her initiative when she subsequently founded the think tank Vektor, which worked to encourage democratic development and increase security in the region surrounding Sweden. A few years later, when he had gotten fed up with the ongoing dismantling of the Swedish armed forces and Sarah had asked him to start working for her as an analyst focusing on Russia, he hadn’t needed to think it over for very long. It was time to put the soldier’s life behind him.

  “What you do in your free time is up to you, but you know you work here, too, right?” said Sarah. She motioned for him to accompany her into her office. “And I pay your salary.”

  Sarah sat down behind her giant mahogany desk and looked at him through her glasses, the lenses of which were so thick they stuck out a few millimeters from the thin black metal frames. Max avoided her gaze and sat down in a sky-blue armchair she had bought at an auction at Christie’s in London.

  “How could I ever forget?” said Max. “After all, you’ve made me a ruble millionaire.”

  Sarah smiled crookedly.

  Max looked at the photograph on the wall behind her, a picture of her shaking hands with King Carl XVI Gustaf. No one was more patriotic than Sarah. She had been born in Poland but had become a Swedish citizen at the age of sixteen. And now she loved Sweden more than anything else in the world; she could rattle off the names of the Swedish prime ministers from Louis Gerhard De Geer to Ingvar Carlsson and explain the Swedish parliamentary system to a four-year-old at her daughter’s preschool.

  Sarah looked at him with concern.

  “Seriously, Max. You look as if you hadn’t slept for a week.”

  Max didn’t answer; there wasn’t really anything to say. Sarah was right.

  “Did you get hold of Carl Borgenstierna?”