Ask No Mercy Read online

  Sarah tried to keep from smiling. The way Gabbi said IT consultant said it all. A fate shared with so many sisters who had not yet come out. It wasn’t an easy thing to do—she knew that—and perhaps Gabbi planned never to do it. But it didn’t make any difference. Not yet, anyway.

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  “No, thanks,” said Gabbi. “I should probably be going now.”

  Sarah nodded. It was a little too soon for the children to meet her.

  10

  David Julin slowly opened his eyes and cautiously lifted his head. At first, he could make no sense of the sounds he was hearing, but he finally realized there was a video game in progress in the living room. He closed his eyes again and sank down onto his pillow. Just a few hours earlier, he had been sitting in front of a screen himself, typing in commands.

  Incubus is landing tonight. Press Y for Yes.

  He had really done it, everything Ray had asked him to do. His whole body had been trembling when he had finally gone to bed. He had twisted and turned and not been able to fall asleep until nearly three thirty. The other half of the bed had been empty, so he had not had to listen to heavy sighs from over there.

  Things can’t go on like this, he thought.

  Someone screamed out in the living room.

  What time was it? Not even seven? The children never woke up this early when their mother was home.

  David threw off the covers. In the beginning he had had a hard time falling asleep without her, and when they had slept together it had been impossible for him just to lie next to her without touching her. Would that spark ever come back?

  I’m not even thirty-five years old.

  David stopped next to the stairs and looked down at the living room and the kitchen. The children were gathered around the TV. Caspar was playing NHL hockey, and his younger siblings were watching with big eyes. They had helped themselves to the leftovers from last night’s dinner. The clear evidence of this was spread out on the kitchen floor.

  “Good morning,” said David when he came into the room.

  No reaction from Caspar or Vilma. Only little Teodor turned around.

  “Mama?” he said.

  David pointed at the video game.

  “Turn that off now, Caspar.”

  Still no reaction.

  “Caspar!” he said, louder now. “Damn it, Caspar!”

  David grabbed the game controller, and Caspar was so surprised that he hit David in the arm. It didn’t hurt, but David nevertheless had to swallow a curse. Vilma screamed, and David closed his eyes because he knew what was coming. Teodor started crying.

  David switched off the game, and the morning news came on. When he saw Frank Ståhl sitting on the interview sofa, he stopped hearing the children’s screams and protests. “Live: Crisis at Telia.” He started to sweat even though he felt very cold.

  Incubus.

  The two news anchors were grilling Frank Ståhl, but he maintained that the problems would not recur. He waved off all questions regarding individual privacy and any speculation about what this could mean for the security of the realm.

  The security of the realm? What the hell have I done?

  Had he really believed last night’s events would have no consequences?

  David reached for the remote control and switched off the TV. He took hold of Caspar, who fought his grip; he held on to his son until his body softened.

  “I’m sorry I sounded angry, Caspar. Forgive me. I love you.”

  It was the first time he had said those words and the first time in a long time he had hugged his eldest son like that.

  He was surprised by the effect it had on himself. He could feel tears burning behind his eyelids.

  David looked at the dark TV screen and the reflection of his and Caspar’s bodies. Everything you did had consequences. His chest tensed, and in the end he couldn’t hold back the tears.

  I’ve been an idiot. But that’s over now. From now on I’m going to do the right thing. I’m going to do right by you.

  The kitchen clock struck seven. David thought he could hear a car pulling into the driveway.

  11

  “What is that, Vladislav?” asked Max, pointing at the department intern’s wrist.

  “This?” The teenager looked at the bracelet he wore.

  Max nodded.

  They had come to the end of a round of introductions. After the head of the Department of Economics, Afanasy Mishin, had introduced Max to the employees, he had hurried off to a meeting and left the intern, Vladislav Bagayev, to show Max around.

  Mishin had begun his career as a researcher in military history but now had a background as a professor of economic history. He had done well in the academic world of the Warsaw Pact and had finally gotten the chance to establish the Department of Economics.

  The new department’s office furnishings contrasted starkly with Vektor’s, which had been designed by Swedish interior decorators and paid for by generous sponsors. The Department of Economics had been furnished with Soviet junk found in the cellars and sometimes literally on the street.

  Vladislav’s desk was a cardboard box. He held out to Max a carton in which more bracelets lay.

  “My sister makes these. She sells them at the market on Saturdays.”

  “May I take a look?” asked Max.

  The bracelets had been made by hand with precision and care and didn’t look like anything you would find in a shop in the West. He touched one; it consisted of a thin cord decorated with cylindrical charms in green, orange, and silver.

  “Are you selling these?” asked Max.

  “Certainly,” said Vladislav. “Would you like to buy one?”

  “How much?”

  “Five thousand rubles.”

  The door opened and Mishin stepped into the room. Vladislav looked at him, and Mishin nodded.

  Max understood that they were playing a game. That the reason Mishin accepted Vladislav’s sales activity was probably that Mishin was unable to pay the intern a salary.

  When the transaction was complete, Mishin pointed at Pashie’s office. Mishin closed the door after them and told Max to sit down in Pashie’s chair.

  “This is her desk.” Mishin laid his hands on the desk in front of Max. “We haven’t seen her since Friday.”

  “And you’ve still heard nothing from her since then?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And when you call her home number?”

  “We get no answer.” Mishin cleared his throat. “Pashie keeps to herself these days. She almost never has coffee with us anymore. The fact is, we don’t know much about what she’s doing for you.”

  “Pashie is helping me with information and analyses that are relevant to the upcoming presidential election.”

  She’s also the only person I share my private secrets and hopes with, he thought.

  “I understand,” said Mishin. “But you’re an economist, aren’t you?”

  “Something like that.”

  Russians were seldom grateful for lessons in democracy. Would Mishin perceive a difference between lobbying and the activities of intelligence agents during the Cold War if Max outlined Vektor’s actual work and intentions? Even in Sweden the difference could sometimes be subtle.

  Mishin coughed. “As I say, we’re very worried.”

  “We’ll find her,” said Max. “Have someone call her home number once an hour until we get hold of her landlady, Mrs. Bili.”

  Mishin nodded and left the room.

  Max looked around. On the wall to the left of the desk hung a bulletin board covered with papers and various objects, including a picture of David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson of Baywatch with the text “FUCK” inscribed on Hasselhoff’s forehead and an empty chip bag that still smelled of onion powder and salt. There was also a necklace of wooden beads, an Orthodox Christian cross, and a slip of paper bearing handwritten text. “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” A quote attribu
ted to Joseph Stalin.

  On the opposite wall hung a poster from a ski-jumping competition. It showed two ski-jumping slopes, one a little longer than the other, side by side in the sun. The poster bore a date from the previous year and the name of the place, Toksovo. Just over half an hour by car, she had said, though she always commuted by train.

  Where are you, Pashie?

  To conduct an effective search, he needed to establish a base. What kind of accommodations would be most appropriate in this case? Pashie had laughed at him whenever they had occupied a hotel room together. The first thing Max did when he entered a hotel room was to examine everything in it and around it. He investigated the room’s placement within the hotel and noted all the ways to get in or out. Then he unpacked his bag. A wardrobe with hangers was a must, and all his clothes had to be hung up immediately; nothing could be left in the bag.

  “Can’t that wait?” she would ask.

  But it couldn’t. If you created order, you would easily notice if anyone disturbed it.

  Mishin had suspected that someone had been in Pashie’s office, someone who should not have been there. Max went through the desk, felt along the legs and under the desktop with his fingers. He pulled out one of the drawers and felt its weight. It was made of light, cheap material and could hardly be used for self-defense if an uninvited guest were to show up. A fire extinguisher was attached to the wall next to the door. The room lacked a proper fire cabinet with an ax such as those found in similar buildings in Sweden. The fire extinguisher was an old model, heavy and hard as a diver’s oxygen tank. Max knew how to knock a man unconscious with such a fire extinguisher if that should be necessary.

  Max found nothing that stuck out. But he couldn’t stop thinking that someone had been here. Pried.

  He rubbed his face with his hands, forced out of his mind the images that had invaded it.

  To succeed in finding Pashie, he would need help. He had some acquaintances he could contact besides Mishin and the rest of the department faculty.

  One man in particular came to mind. As an exchange student enrolled in half a year of intensive Russian-language studies at Moscow State University, Max had gotten to know Ilya, a real tolkach—a fixer. He had had a little office there and a ridiculous title, something like “head of the sports committee.” In that office, Ilya had carried on all kinds of activities—exchanging goods and cash, rubles and hard currency. Ilya had sold everything: jeans, rock music, stimulants, and love.

  Two years after Max’s Moscow period, Ilya had come and stayed with him in Stockholm. He had become bigger and more muscular and looked more worn. His energy had been intact, but cynicism had started to replace his youthful naïveté. Ilya had said he’d moved to Saint Petersburg because that was where Russia’s bright future lay, but Max had never viewed this claim as anything but a lie. No one believed the city to the west would ever replace Moscow as the beating heart of the awakening giant. Max had assumed that Ilya had left the capital because he had gotten into trouble, but they had never spoken about it.

  If there had ever been a time he had needed a friend like Ilya, this was it.

  He took out his cell phone. It had been unable to pick up a local network since he had arrived in Saint Petersburg, and now it seemed to be completely dead. Max switched the phone off and switched it back on. The Nokia logo appeared on the screen and stayed there. Nothing else happened.

  He went out into the corridor and asked Vladislav whether he could use the department’s phone to make a local call. He got out his address book and looked up Ilya’s phone number.

  “Yes?” said a woman’s voice.

  “Is Ilya there?”

  A long pause.

  “Who are you?” the woman finally asked.

  “I’m an old friend who’s looking for Ilya.”

  “So are the police. No one knows where he is.”

  “Can I leave a message for him?”

  “What’s the message?”

  “Tell him to come and see Max Anger at the Department of Economics at the university.”

  “I doubt I’ll ever see his damned face again,” said the woman. “But if I do, I’ll tell him.”

  12

  Gabbi steered her Saab cabriolet into the driveway of the house in Danderyd. She turned the engine off and then sat in the car, drumming her fingers on the wheel, letting everything sink in.

  As usual, the sight of the six-hundred-square-meter mansion brought her pulse rate down. One of the most prominent architects in the country had designed it and personally overseen all critical phases of its construction.

  They had been so happy then.

  Gabbi shook her head. It seemed like a very long time ago.

  During the good half hour it had taken her to drive here from Tyresö, she had felt like the star of a movie. She hadn’t felt this young and full of life since this house had been built.

  What was awaiting her behind that beautiful door? The same old routine. If there were going to be any surprises in her life, she would have to create them herself. So many people left their happiness in someone else’s hands. She wasn’t going to be one of them.

  She picked up her overnight bag from the passenger seat, shut the car door behind her, and walked up the path to the house. Someone had shoveled the snow and scraped away the ice. Things could have been worse, then.

  Gabbi stopped in front of the door. She couldn’t hear any sounds from inside the house; all she could hear was the wind shaking the big juniper that stretched tall and broad beside the entrance to her home.

  She took a deep breath.

  On the sign next to the outer door stood the family name she had taken because the age-old convention said that women should do so. She had still not really gotten used to it. It was a name that belonged to someone else, not her.

  Julin.

  She was about to put the key in the door when it opened from the inside.

  “Hi, Mama!” Caspar shouted.

  His face lit up when he saw her, and he threw himself into her arms. But there was something wrong with him. Had he been crying?

  “How’s Grandma? Is she still sick?” he asked.

  Gabbi picked Caspar up and held him, his little heart beating against her rib cage.

  “Grandma is feeling better now,” she said, stroking his hair, which was a little damp at the neck.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you, too.”

  The warmth from Caspar’s little body made her soft. How was it possible to love the children so much and feel the way she did at the same time? She had to keep the children from being hurt no matter what happened.

  A shadow descended over them, and Gabbi looked up.

  “Hi. You’re home early. I thought I’d have to take the kids to work with me, but now you’re here.”

  Work, work. Next year Caspar would have his first winter vacation. Would work come first then, too?

  She smiled at her husband.

  “Go ahead and go to work, David. I’ll take care of things here.”

  13

  Max walked to the bedroom window of the student apartment he’d been assigned. It had a view of the university, Kazan Cathedral, and the Griboyedov Canal.

  Strebor, the residence hall’s ancient security guard, had taken him on a tour of the top-floor corridor. It was newly renovated throughout, clean and functional. Adjacent to the shared kitchen was a large lounge with a TV and stereo.

  Max could hear some children playing in the inner courtyard, but otherwise his surroundings were as quiet as he had hoped. The children were running around with sticks, chasing an empty beer can across the slush-covered asphalt.

  He opened the wardrobe, counted the hangers, and checked the drawers. Max had not brought much with him from Sweden, and the space the wardrobe afforded would be adequate. As always, he started with the shirts, trousers, and jackets. Then he set the shoes and a bag of shoe-care products on the floor of the wardrobe. Finally, he laid sweaters
, underwear, and socks in various drawers.

  He placed his notepad and the file Sarah had given him on the little desk. He put the toiletry bag with the benzodiazepine pills on the night table. He took out his address book and found Mrs. Bili’s number. No one answered at her house now, either.

  Max didn’t know much about Mrs. Bili except that she was an elderly widow. Could it simply be that Pashie had gone off to help her with something?

  Max looked around the room. It reminded him of life in the military. During the intensive language course he and Sarah had taken, they had put up an overview of all the Russian grammatical cases on a wall in Max’s room so they would be able to master Russian verbs’ various inflections. Sitting on their respective edges of the bed, they had stayed up nights on end and fired vocabulary at each other and sworn they would show the others how to ace the exam.

  Max picked up the receiver again and called Stockholm. Sarah answered after just a couple of rings.

  “I’m going to need the help of an old friend.”

  “I didn’t know you had a lot of acquaintances in Saint Petersburg.”

  “Do you remember me telling you about Ilya? The guy from Moscow State University?”

  A few seconds passed. “Yes. Is he in Saint Petersburg?”

  “He was living here the last time I talked to him, and I’ve tried to get in touch with him now.”

  Max could hear someone knock on Sarah’s door. He heard her quietly say, “Give me just a minute.” Then she cleared her throat.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea? If I remember correctly, he was pretty dissolute. I have a feeling this could get expensive.”

  “I’m going to need to move around outside of our established channels,” said Max. “It’s worth the extra expense. And I’m certain I can trust him.”

  Sarah sighed.

  “Just keep me informed. And be careful.”

  After he hung up, Max looked at the telephone for a long time. Then he turned to the desk.

  On the wall above it hung a poster, a copy of some classical nature painting depicting a river running through a green and fertile landscape. Max lifted it off its hook and set it in the wardrobe.