Helsinki White (31 page)

I’ve never seen her like this, so bitter.

She says I’ve become like the people I swore to combat and have broken my oath to uphold the law. “You’ve gone astray,” she
says. “You’ll end up dead or in jail. I’m disappointed, disillusioned, I’ve lost respect for you. You have to change, to be the good man I married.”

“I’m trying to make things right,” I say.

“Arvid is dead,” she says. “Your surgery changed you. And everything that came after has changed all of us.”

“Kate, this hasn’t gone the way I planned, either. Yes, I’ve been duped and used as a pawn. I’m also disappointed and disillusioned. Had I known where this road would lead, I never would have taken us down it. I made a mistake. And yes, I know brain surgery has affected me. I can’t help that. I’m doing the best I can. I’m going on a wild-goose chase tomorrow. We’re going to spend a couple days cruising around Åland. Come with us. It will do you good. And if we should by some miracle happen to find Antti Saukko, the man we’re looking for, you’ll see that we’re still policemen, not just murderous thugs. The sun and sea air will do us all good.”

She smirks, skeptical. She considers it, her face almost a sneer. “OK,” she says.

I
t’s a warm today. The sky blue. A perfect day for sailing, and we have hours until we reach the islands of northern Åland. Saukko had his cook stock the boat with enough food for an army. Saukko thought of everything, from fresh fish bait to a box of the figurado cigars we had smoked. I guess I did a good job of convincing him I liked them. The sea is calm, and I hope the trip will smooth the waters between Kate and me as well.

After I solve this murder, and I’m near to it, I’m going to solve my work-related problems as well. I didn’t become a cop to be a thug. Time will fix this. I’ll accumulate dirt on powerful people so they can’t hurt me without destroying themselves. I’ve collected much skank, I’m close to it now. Then I’ll do my job on my own terms or just walk away. Resign. Do as Kate said. Take her back to the States with the money I’ve stolen and collect stamps.

Kate and I slather on suntan lotion, make sure Baby Anu is sun-protected head to toe, and sit side by side in deck chairs that fold out so you can lie down in them. Her hangover fades and her mood improves, and after a while she hooks her little finger around mine. We snack, sun, drink soft drinks, let Milo do all the work. I notice Sweetness isn’t boozing. I wonder if the change
in his relationship with Jenna has sobered him up. The sea was crowded with all manner of craft when we left Helsinki, but the farther north we go, other vessels are fewer and farther between.

Life on a small island in Åland must be interesting. Waterworld. An alternate way of living. Inhabitants take boats to the grocery store, to bars in the evening if they want to socialize. Everywhere.

Milo has the map, and after several hours he tells us we’re now in waters that contain the islands donated by Saukko’s foundation, and it’s time to start watching. Some are only specks of rock, some are large. Kate softens, her bitterness dissipates. At a certain point, we go downstairs to a cabin and make love. When we come back up, the yacht is moored near a largish island. A dock juts out into the ocean, but beside and behind the dock is a cave. Its roof is several yards high and it goes about twenty yards back under the island. We’re on the south side of the island, and this end of it is lightly forested and around a hundred yards across.

Inside the cave are a twin-engine fishing boat and a Jet Ski. Whodda thunk? We’ve really found Antti.

“We saw no hurry and waited on you,” Milo says. He edges the yacht up to the dock. Sweetness hops over to it and ties us off.

I doubt we’ll need them, but we don bulletproof vests and the rest of our gear. After all, if my theory is correct, Antti did kill a man. We follow a narrow path and the smell of cooking meat. We walk about fifty meters and find a big ramshackle hut in a clearing with two people outside it in folding chairs, making dinner on a grill. One is Antti. He’s wearing a tie-dyed shirt, shorts and flip-flops. The other is a pretty woman in her mid-twenties, about eight months pregnant.

Antti smiles. “Damn, it’s been a year. I thought you’d have
stopped looking by now. And we were going to leave next week and move to Fasta Åland where there’s medical care, before Mari gives birth. What can I do for you?”

“I’m sorry to say this,” I tell him, “but I have to arrest you.”

“For what?”

OK, we can play this out if he wants. “The faking of your kidnapping, your sister’s actual kidnapping, the theft of ten million euros, and the murder of Jussi Kosonen.”

He sits back, crosses his legs and sips at a beer. “I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about. I was kidnapped and released. When they released me, I decided I didn’t want to go back to my old life. I came here with Mari for the peace and quiet, waiting to be forgotten. There’s no crime in any of that.”

“I’m pretty sure that when we search, we’ll find the ransom money. That’s our proof.”

“Search to your heart’s content,” he says.

Mari hasn’t said a word, but she looks scared. “Are you OK?” I ask her. “Do you need anything?”

“Just for you to go away.”

“Let’s start inside,” I say. “Antti, would you please accompany us?” I want to keep an eye on him.

What we find inside startles me. He’s built a small but lovely modern home with all the amenities, and then camouflaged the exterior with boards from old fishing cabins.

“This is great,” I say. “I’m impressed.”

“Thanks,” Antti says. “I did everything myself in my spare time. Took me five years. I’ve been waiting to get away from my old life for a long time.”

“Couldn’t you have found an easier way?”

He shakes his head. “You don’t know my father.”

He’s so relaxed and amiable that we ignore procedure. We don’t cuff him. No nothing. Like idiots. I bend over to look under the bed. A gunshot scares me so bad I almost piss myself. The bullet whizzes past me and shatters a window on the other side of the bedroom. The next round hits me in the side. The bulletproof vest stops it, but the shot knocks the wind out of me. Milo was drawing his pistol as Antti took aim at his head. And then boom after boom after boom, all hell breaks loose and Antti jerks like a puppet until half his head flies off and he falls. Then Sweetness stands over him and dumps the remainder of his ammo in Antti’s face until his .45s are empty.

After sixteen rounds in the chest, face and head, there isn’t much of him left. It’s a real fucking mess. His girlfriend tries to come in but Milo pushes her out so she won’t see it.

For a couple minutes we all just stand there, uncertain what to do, then a familiar voice repeats the phrase I first heard it utter. “I hope I haven’t interrupted you at an inopportune moment.”

I turn, and Moreau stands in the doorway, Kate in front of him with Anu in her arms. The muzzle of his Beretta touches her head.

“Shall we step outside?” he says. “The stink of open intestines is a bit overwhelming in here.”

We trail out and he tells everyone to make themselves comfortable. He takes his gun away from Kate’s head and brings a chair for her. “Please, one at a time, place your weapons at your feet and kick them toward me.” Milo, God bless him, tries to prove himself the pistoleer he always wanted to be and quick draws, tries to save us all. Adrien is like lightning and puts a bullet through Milo’s wrist. His gun drops and he holds his arm up to look at it. He tries to wiggle his fingers but they don’t move.

“I told you,” Moreau says, “Deputy Dawg can never beat Yosemite Sam. I’m the rootinest tootinest here outlaw in the West. Your carpal tunnel and radial nerve are wrecked. I doubt you’ll ever use that hand again. It’s going to hurt like hell in a minute.”

“Fuck you,” Milo says. His repertoire of comebacks is limited at the moment. He slumps to the ground but sits up, holds his wrist with his other hand.

Moreau collects our Colts and piles them well out of our reach.

There are only two chairs. Kate has one, I take the other. “What do you want?” I ask.

“The ten million. Hand it over and I’ll leave you in peace.”

“Antti died before he told us where it is.”

“I am sorry. I cannot believe that you would be so stupid as to kill him before he told you.”

He’ll never believe I was too stupid not to cuff and guard him, but I try. “He pulled a gun, Sweetness shot him.”

“And with verve! Still, you are just not that stupid.”

I consider pleading with him. Nothing I say or do will make any difference. He’ll stick with whatever agenda he’s planning. “Do you know everything?” I ask. “For instance, who killed Lisbet Söderlund?”

“Of course. I’ve known all along. This is the way it works,” Moreau says. “I am going to torture the group of you until I have the money. We have all the time in the world, and I will cause you immense pain. I would spare you that. Please give me the money.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, “I would if I had it. But I don’t.”

“Then I’ll fill you in on the details as you suffer,” he says. “As leader, you must suffer first. As once you were, so again you shall be.”

I try to blank my mind, to steel myself for what’s to come. I don’t ask him to spare Kate, because the sign of weakness might entice him to hurt her first.

“I will start at the beginning,” Moreau says. “Over a year ago, my former Foreign Legion comrades engineered the kidnapping of Kaarina Saukko with Antti. They found Kosonen, the dupe. He frequented their shop, and they took his children. They planned the crime, robbed the home, did the technical work. Antti knew the user name and password at the security company because he had been there while they planned the system, watched the technician open his computer and memorized them. No magic there, but the B&E at the company made the robbery seem more sophisticated and less of an inside job.”

I have shorts on. Moreau examines my knee, puts his pistol to the exact point of entry from when I was shot before, and fires. The bullet passes through the old exit scar. The pain is awful and I grunt, but won’t allow him the satisfaction of a scream. Good-bye, reconstructed knee.

“The patsy collected the ransom money, Antti killed him, betrayed my colleagues and disappeared. He left them the paintings, I suppose as recompense, without considering that they have provenance and are worthless without a pre-heist buyer for a private collection. Apparently, he came here, to this island, to meet his girlfriend.”

She nods and confirms this.

“As punishment for betrayal, they shot Kaarina. They assassinated her with a .308 Winchester, which they, arrogantly enough, kept rather than disposed of. Find it. You’ll have your murder weapon and no doubt solve the crime in short order. Then they set
about looking for Antti, with no luck. They surveilled the police for a year, kept up with their progress. The police couldn’t find him. If they could follow the police but jump one step ahead, as police act cautiously while they build cases, they could take their ten million. Too much time passed. Afraid police interest in the case would wane, they called me, offered me a split, and used their connections to convince Veikko Saukko to have me brought in. I contacted you to convince you that the Saukko kidnap-murder and the Söderlund assassination were likely related, to keep the Saukko case a police top priority while I remained informed of developments. Then I could kill Antti and take the money back. To aid in this effort, Marcel and Thierry committed the robberies posing as Islamic fundamentalists—they wore charcoal camo stick to disguise themselves as blacks and spouted some rhetoric in ridiculous accents—and also committed the racial murders, simply to make it appear they were related to the Söderlund assassination, to keep your enthusiasm high.”

He examines me with a speculative eye. “Open your mouth.”

I refuse.

“Well,” he says, “it’s either my way or I shoot you through both jaws.”

Wisdom dictates I open my mouth. He sticks the barrel in it, blows out the bridgework from where my own teeth were shot out, and creates a wound that will leave a scar just like the one I had removed. The pain is awful. I feel woozy. He reaches in his pocket and hands me something. “It’s a bindle of heroin. Sniff only a tiny bit. You are what is called opiate naïve. If you use too much, you will overdose, or at least pass out. I want you aware.”

He moves to Antti’s girlfriend. “If you do not tell me where the money is, I will kill your baby.”

She screams and covers her belly with her hands. “I don’t know, he never told me.”

“You have ten seconds,” he says.

She cries, begs, pleads. He counts. I open the bindle, pour some heroin on my thumbnail and snort it. The pain melts away. Relief makes me sigh. I’m not opiate naïve. I used narcotics to combat my headaches. I remain coherent.

He counts to zero and fires at an angle through the side of her belly. The bullet exits the other side of her stomach. The baby, if not dead, soon will die. She only moans and weeps silent tears. Her man, her dream, her child. She’s lost everything.

“We now have a time constraint,” Moreau says. “If she does not receive medical attention, she will die of internal bleeding.”

Kate makes not a sound, but on her face she wears a scream of terror and clutches Anu tight.

He kneels beside her. “You need not fear me. You remind me very much of someone so close to me that I would die myself rather than harm you. She is gone, but as long as you exist, in a way she does as well.”

He walks back over to me. “Yes, there was a rumor that whoever killed Lisbet Söderlund would get her job, but it was just that, a rumor, started by Roope Malinen. In truth, my Foreign Legion colleagues murdered her by agreement with Malinen, who promised them a permanent, lucrative, and competition-free concession in the Finnish heroin market. Malinen lied. He had no authority to promise anything in return for the assassination of Söderlund. He hated her and made a false promise concerning a heroin
concession in the hopes that he could make good on it later, simply because he wanted her dead. You have gone a long way toward seeing that promise kept. They cut her head off with a meat saw in their food shop. I’m sure, if you live through today, you can find plenty of DNA from the saw and blood-spatter specks around their kitchen to prove it. Saukko demanded a spectacle of dedication to hate, which they gave him. Saukko said quit bullshitting around on the Internet and do something, hinting that it might change his mind about his campaign donation. Word went down the line via Malinen that Saukko wanted a display. Marcel and Thierry did it for political reasons, in the hopes that Saukko would then honor his million-euro campaign commitment. Saukko welshed anyway.