Ask No Mercy Page 3

  4

  David Julin’s hands were still shaking a little as he stood at the podium. Before he had walked up to face his audience, he had repeated the mantra again and again. How can you expect others to believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself? He had almost succeeded in calming himself down.

  David ran one hand through his shoulder-length brown hair and looked out across the auditorium of the Stockholm School of Economics. He squinted a little to avoid being blinded by the spotlights trained on him, which were reflected in his octagonal glasses. The young students looked at him expectantly. They had all come to find out how they could duplicate his success in the area of telecommunications—how they, too, could “innovate with GSM technology and reap the profits!” as the lecture’s published theme had it.

  To the students, he was a well-known figure. They knew all about how he had built up his company, SwitchCom, and then sold it at a huge profit. The pink pages of Dagens Industri, which the young students read like the Bible, had described the company’s rocket-like ascension in great detail, from its modest beginnings on David’s home computer to a solid IT consulting firm boasting major clients like Ericsson and Telia. Ultimately, he had successfully sold SwitchCom to a new-money giant in California’s Silicon Valley.

  David Julin was a success story. And he was one of them.

  Two years earlier, he had stood on a much bigger stage and accepted Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award. Last year he had participated in a meeting of award alumni in Doha, Qatar. This year he would not be there. He had come up with a lie to explain his absence, and so far no one else knew the real reason.

  David’s laptop was in front of him. Next to him lay the cell phone he sometimes held up in the course of his talk to illustrate what he was talking about. The image on the big projection screen bore the heading “Remote Control” over a diagram clarifying how it all worked.

  “The digital GSM system is relevant to a large number of use scenarios,” David said. “Soon we will be able to switch on the heat in our summer houses remotely, turn lights off and on, and acquire information from chips embedded in our bodies to measure heart rate and pulse.”

  The auditorium’s speaker system buzzed. At first David thought it was his wife calling him—maybe something had happened to the children. But it wasn’t she who was trying to reach him.

  Ray.

  David stared at the name on the screen of his cell phone. The three letters sent a chill down his spine. He heard a low murmuring somewhere far away and realized that he had fallen silent in the middle of a sentence. David pressed a button to reject the call and looked up from the podium and out at the sea of faces, which now seemed endless. He swallowed hard and forced himself to smile.

  You’re in control. You’re a rich man.

  “The downside of modern technology is that you can always be reached, even by people you don’t want to talk to,” he said. “My wife says hello.”

  Laughter exploded in the auditorium.

  Where were we? David pressed a button on his keyboard to move to the next page in his presentation.

  “GSM offers a great deal of personalized data that can be controlled by users via their telephones,” he continued. “Payment functions can also be accessed.”

  The speakers buzzed again. A brief burst this time.

  “Excuse me.”

  David picked up his cell phone, brought up the text message.

  Incubus is landing tonight. Press Y for Yes.

  David swallowed several times, gripped the podium much too hard. Incubus. The demon who gave his victims nightmares that lasted forever.

  What should he do?

  He knew he really had no choice. If he did as Ray said, David would soon be out of his clutches and could get back to life as he had known it.

  He pressed Y and Send.

  5

  Max told the taxi driver to ignore the speed limits, but it nevertheless felt as though the taxi were driving in slow motion. He stared out the window at the houses passing by, the people hurrying out of the shops and into the subway. Everything wrapped in gray February darkness. He called Pashie’s number again; he couldn’t remember how many times he’d done so now. Once again, he got the recorded message.

  What’s happened to you, Pashie?

  Sarah had succeeded in acquiring a beachfront property on the Tyresö peninsula south of Stockholm, with a sandy beach, a sailboat pier, and a boathouse. She had torn down the old house and had a house built that reflected her love of Swedish architecture. The interior was open-plan, and there were wide floor-to-ceiling windows.

  A young woman opened the door.

  “So you’re Max?” she said. She smiled cautiously. “Sarah said she’d meet you down at the boathouse.”

  “I know where it is.” Max smiled at her before he turned around, but the woman didn’t smile a second time.

  The grass was wet from meltwater, and in order to avoid sinking too deep into the mushy snow and mud, Max shifted his weight as he had learned to do as a child when he had wandered through the snow-covered forests on Arholma.

  Illuminated steps led to the beach area. Max opened the door to the boathouse and saw the glow of a cigar at the edge of the dock. The glow waved at him and showed him where to go. The moon was reflected in the calm surface; otherwise all was black.

  Sarah was dangling her legs over the edge of the dock. Max sat down beside her. A cold wind was blowing off the water, but Sarah didn’t seem to mind. Was the water in the process of icing over completely once again?

  She took a long drag on the cigar. “This was what was most important to me when we built the house,” she said. “A place to put our sauna. I’d heard that many marriages in Sweden have been saved by a sauna. Mine wasn’t going to be one of them, as it turned out.”

  Max had heard this before and didn’t comment. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, and he could make out her tense features.

  “What did Mishin say, exactly?” he asked.

  “He had a feeling that someone had been in Pashie’s room, looking for something.”

  Mishin was the head of the Department of Economics at Saint Petersburg University, a department established with assistance from Vektor.

  Max had participated in developing the plans for Vektor’s activities in Saint Petersburg. Establishing a presence associated with any of the Russian military academies was out of the question, and topics such as government and political science were also too sensitive.

  It was Chairman of the Board Charlie Knutsson who had come up with the idea of establishing a department of economics. It was fashionable in Russia to talk about market economics and entrepreneurship, and these were basic factors that could stimulate democratic developments.

  “Do you think she could be visiting relatives?” asked Sarah.

  Max shook his head.

  “Not without letting me know.”

  Sarah took another long drag on the cigar and then threw the butt in the water. It went out with a hiss. She turned away from the water, looked at Max.

  “What is Pashie working on right now?”

  “She’s studying the interactions between new private companies and the political campaigns. Working her way through the list of companies we gave her.”

  “In order to find out what?”

  “Who’s supporting whom, which of the companies on the list could be in trouble given a certain election result, how they run their companies in turbulent times.”

  “Do you have an overview of the companies on that list?”

  Max had sent the list out to be reviewed by sponsors and others who were providing financial support. Some of the companies he had put on the list himself. Others had been added by the sponsors, a few by individual board members.

  “Some but not all of them,” he answered.

  He’d been focused on other things recently, but how was he supposed to explain that to Sarah?

  The wood creaked under him when he shift
ed his weight.

  What was it they weren’t saying? How dangerous this kind of work was in a time of unrest, particularly if one took risks? But Pashie was neither uninformed nor incautious. She wasn’t new to dangerous territory. And while the nature of their work meant they met dangerous and violent people, it was extremely rare that threats were followed by actual violence.

  But what could have made Pashie miss two meetings in the same day? In many ways, she was chaotic and spontaneous, but she never missed a meeting. “It’s about respecting the time put in by other people,” she often said.

  “Mishin is planning to go to the police, but he isn’t very optimistic,” Sarah said.

  They both knew that would be a waste of time.

  “And there’s nothing we can do from here,” Sarah continued. “We can’t ask the Swedish consulate for assistance, because Pashie’s not a Swedish citizen.”

  “I’m going there tomorrow,” said Max. “This isn’t like her. Something must have happened.”

  He had made the decision while still in the taxi.

  Sarah sat facing him, but he couldn’t see her expression. This was probably why she had wanted to meet here in the dark; she’d probably preferred not to have to meet his gaze or look away. She could neither force him to go nor prevent him from doing so. There was no point in discussing the matter further.

  Vektor’s sponsors were awaiting the final analyses of the pre-election situation. The election was now so close that timing was critical: delays or canceled deliveries would not be acceptable. Major investments were at stake.

  Max didn’t want to worry. Maybe Pashie was out in the countryside somewhere, with no cell phone coverage, looking for that last person who could help her understand the election campaigns in the area. Maybe he’d find her absorbed in a book in some old library.

  But these were troubled times in Saint Petersburg. There was a serious risk that something bad had happened. Max felt sick just thinking about it.

  It was up to him to write the brief for this assignment. He would have to arrange for help to find Pashie and to ensure his personal security. He didn’t like to be poorly prepared for this kind of trip, but he had no choice—and he was trained to improvise.

  “Will you tell Mishin I’m coming?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “In Poland we say the truth is a drug that should be handled with care,” she said.

  “That’s true of all the drugs I take.”

  6

  Sometimes nothing was more healing than silence. When voices and sounds wouldn’t give him peace, silence was all he wished for. But there was also that special silence, the silence he never seemed to escape. Screams and explosions were better than that.

  Carl Borgenstierna woke to that silence. It took him back through the decades, to February 1944 and the evening when the howl of engines suddenly fell silent and the planes glided soundlessly in over Stockholm.

  Fifty-two years ago.

  The nurse had seen to it that he was comfortable. Had shown him the remote control with which he could raise and lower the bed. The bed was a little too close to the window, but he didn’t feel like bothering them. Not now.

  He had finally been freed from the respirator. Smiling, the nurse had told him that it was one they used for premature babies. Perhaps she’d wanted to cheer him up, but her comment had had the opposite effect.

  Borgenstierna drifted in and out of a drugged sleep. On the wall opposite the bed hung various reproductions of paintings. Bruno Liljefors. Carl Larsson. In Borgenstierna’s family home in Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s Old Town, hung a reproduction of a famous kurbits painting. It showed the staircase of life, how it went first up and then down. Each stair represented ten years. The top of the staircase symbolized age fifty, after which the staircase led downward to the last step, age ninety.

  On each step a man and a woman stood holding hands. On the first steps, they were youthful and stood upright, while on the last steps they were old and bent. Side by side, the man and the woman shared their lives with each other until they went into the grave.

  Under the staircase grew a green tree. On the left-hand side of the tree sat a naked child. On the right-hand side of the tree, right next to the last steps, stood a skeleton with a scythe in its hand. Death.

  Human life from the cradle to the grave.

  The green tree had become the symbol of the Baltic Foundation, the foundation to which Carl Borgenstierna had dedicated most of his life. He turned his gaze to the nightstand and the two objects he kept there. The album Wallentin had given him, a purple lily on its cover. And the photograph of her. She had been a part of his life’s staircase on a single step. Ten months was all they had had, more than fifty years ago. Then they had stopped her. And their shared dreams.

  A day or so ago someone had visited him while he slept. A young, good-looking man, between twenty-five and thirty years old. The nurse said he belonged to an institute in Stockholm that needed to get in touch with Carl.

  An institution, not an institute, thought Carl. It’s called Vektor, and I contributed to laying the foundation for its existence.

  The young man the nurse had spoken with had sent several letters to the family’s house in Gamla Stan.

  I know who you are, Max Anger. If I were to respond to your attempts to make contact, I would send you to a certain death.

  And your survival is all I have left.

  Stockholm, April 1943

  Carl Borgenstierna tugged off his overcoat as he hurried through the mirror-clad foyer of the opera house.

  Leaning against the tall cocktail table, Wallentin looked him over from head to toe. “In a rush?”

  “Not at all.” Carl twisted his wrist to check his watch. “Nine minutes. Plenty of time.”

  “Sure. Drink this.”

  Wallentin gave him one of the two rum and Cokes that had been on the table. Carl had to smile. Wallentin was always fashion conscious. The choice of drink was as obligatory as the white tuxedo.

  “So where are we going, Wolfgang? To the Pacific?”

  “Apparently the island is called Costadoro.” Wallentin glanced at the program on the table. “And we’re going to make the acquaintance of Zorina the Indian girl and the wealthy Don Pedro.”

  “Let me guess. The girl, Zorina, is unhappy because she is supposed to marry a rich man instead of her beloved?”

  Wallentin tasted his drink and grimaced a little. “You don’t choose love, Mr. Borgenstierna. Love chooses you.”

  Carl shook his head. He emptied his glass and set it down. Over in the foyer, a newly arrived pair was attracting attention.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Russian visitors.”

  The man who had entered the foyer was striking. He was tall and broad and had an unusually long neck. He was holding hands with a young woman. She wore a black dress, and with her dark, curly hair she looked more like an Italian film star than a poor girl from the Soviet Union. The whole opera house seemed to be looking at her.

  “Why does all the excitement always gravitate toward you, Borgenstierna?” Wallentin asked when the Russian couple started walking straight toward them.

  The mismatched couple was right in front of them when the woman bent down to free the edge of her dress, which had become caught under her heel.

  When she straightened up, she looked him in the eye.

  “Someone you know?” asked the tall man.

  He held her hand in a firm grip, as if he were holding a dog on a leash. He gave Carl an ice-cold look. When the woman shook her head, the man turned away and pulled her along with him.

  When they had found their seats, Carl looked for the woman. His heart beat faster when he located the box where she sat next to the strange-looking man.

  She turned around, and their eyes met again. Carl gasped. She seemed to be speaking to him.

  Don’t look at me. Take me away from here.

  WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28

  7

  The dog was p
ulling so hard on its leash that Sergey Gachov thought she would pull him into the sea. What is it with you today, Sharik? He looked around. Were any other dogs out taking a dawn walk? All he could see was an empty, dilapidated beachfront promenade near the Soviet marina that had once been a lively spot at the edge of Saint Petersburg.

  Sharik was Gachov’s only companion in life. She followed him everywhere, to lectures and to the toilet, and enlivened an otherwise uneventful existence. He knew that his lifestyle, which wasn’t characterized by physical exertions of any kind, wasn’t appropriate for a lively bloodhound, but he couldn’t imagine life without her.

  The biting wind from the sea didn’t deter Sharik. She’d picked up a scent, and Gachov had a hard time keeping up. He stopped and made her sit, then got down on one knee and bent toward the dog’s ear.

  “Don’t run off now, you hear? Stay close to me.” He removed the leash.

  When he stood up, he felt a burning sensation in his lower back.

  You’re getting old, Sergey.

  He looked at Sharik, who had managed to get under the fence running along the beachfront promenade and was now rushing toward the thin silver-colored line on the horizon that separated the gray sea from the gray sky. What could have gotten into her this morning?

  Suddenly, at the edge of the water, she stopped. The low waves of the early morning swept in from the Baltic; there was foam around the concrete pillars and the small stones at the edge of the beach. Sharik turned her head from side to side and then began to howl.

  Gachov looked around, found the steps that would take him down to the beach, and slowly walked the twenty meters. Sharik’s howling increased in intensity.

  “Quiet!” he shouted as he staggered across the sand. “Can’t you see I’m coming? Everyone else is still asleep at this hour!”

  This was true, to be sure, but there was no one in the vicinity of the graffiti-covered, windowless Soviet marine center, which rose toward the sky like a stone giant. It guarded the locked-up warehouses in silence.