Life Deluxe (30 page)

Sergio helped Jorge set up the frame. They held up the diagram that the Finn’d made. Exactly how the frame was to be placed. Exactly how it was to be secured. Exactly how it was to be lit.

Jorge turned around. Peered out through the opening.

Now: four bags were already in the van.

Sergio’s next job: he drilled into the wall. Jorge held up the explosive cutting frame. Sergio tightened the screws. It was secure.

One of the guards, a dude with a big gut, was still standing next to the cart with the bags of valuables. Trying to stall. Eyeing what they were doing.

Jorge knew: a strategy they used. Do everything slowly—allow the five-oh to make it to the scene.

He aimed the AK-47 straight at the gut-guard. Kept speaking in English, “Hurry up, or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

The clown got moving.

Five bags in the van.

Mahmud was screaming. Vague stuff in Swenglish.

Sergio pressed the ignition button. They ran back out into the hallway.

Held their hands over their ears. Jorge saw Sergio’s eyes through the ski mask. Gleaming.

Then came the explosion.

BOOM
.

They ran back inside. Two guards on the floor. Smoke in the reloading room. The lights in the ceiling were out.

In the wall: a hole.

Jorge climbed inside. Had to crawl to fit through the hole. Heard Mahmud screaming to the two guards who were still loading their van.

Inside the vault: darkness.

He fumbled for the light switch. Thanked JW again: J-boy knew exactly where it was supposed to be.

He found it. Flipped the switch.

Still, nothing happened. He flipped the switch again. And again.

Cabrón
—the explosion must’ve blown the circuit in the vault.

He looked around. The little bit of light seeping in through the hole in the wall illuminated a cloud of dust. There wasn’t time to fumble around.

He took a few steps inside. Could make out tables. Chairs. Cabinets along the walls.

He tried to flash-accustom his eyes to the light. Impossible. All he could see was faint contours of objects.

Sergio popped his head in. “How’s it look?”

“We blew the electricity,” Jorge said. “And I don’t have a flashlight. I can’t see shit.”

He could make out more tables. Counting machines. Crates on the floor. He saw something that could be bags. He fumbled his way there. Tripped. This was taking too long.

Two bags. Two feet high. He ran his hands over them. Sealed. The weight might be cash.

He grabbed them. Dragged them across the floor.

Back through the hole in the wall.

The guards were still lying down. Underneath one of them: blood on the floor.

He saw Sergio jump into the Range Rover. Jorge hoped it would start.

The guards who were still standing were loading the final bags into the Benz.

They were sweating. Good—they should be.

Thirteen bags.

He started crawling in through the hole again. There had to be more bags.

“We gotta go!” Mahmud screamed.

Jorge stopped. Already over by more than two minutes because of the time spent waiting for the Range Rover and blowing up the vault. The cops could be here any minute. Still: might be more bags in there.

Mahmud roared again, “For fuck’s sake, let’s go!”

His bro rushed up to him, grabbed Jorge’s arm.

Jorge wanted to go back into the darkness. Mahmud pulled him.

No way it’d work. He slithered out.
Fuck
.

He threw the bags from the vault into the Benz. He felt around in his pocket. Pulled out the airsoft gun. Threw it on the floor—setting traps for the pigs.

Fifteen bags.

Mahmud roared. Game clock was going to zero.

He was standing still. Broad-legged. Prepared.

Aiming the Kalashnikov.

Sixteen bags.

Soooo many bags plus the sacks—there had to be a shit ton of cash in there.

Jorgelito, he didn’t give a fuck about the vault right now. Soon: he’d be a very wealthy
blatte
anyway.

Seventeen bags.

A nasty tight nigga.

Eighteen.

A loaded Chilean with style.

They started the van.

Jorge heard sirens.

Hägerström was standing outside the door to the villa. At first he’d planned on breaking in through a window. But if Hansén saw a broken window, he’d realize there’d been an intruder. The door was better, if he could do it.

There was a sticker on the front door and on the windows:
THIS HOUSE HAS AN ALARM SYSTEM. PAN WORLD SECURITY
. But Torsfjäll had taken care of that part. The inspector had called Pan World Security and ordered that any alarms coming from the address during the next hour or so were to be ignored.

Hägerström took a chance. Hoped that his CO uniform would fool any possible neighbors or passersby. Prevent them from wondering why he was standing outside fiddling with the door lock. He had parked the car a ways off. Understood why JW had asked to be dropped off nearly half a mile from the house—he wanted to avoid some curious neighbor making the connection between Hansén and the prison car. This was Djursholm—a car from the Department of Corrections on these streets was more unusual than a Škoda.

Hägerström got out the electronic lock pick—the police’s standard tool that Torsfjäll had just had delivered to him in a cab.

It would probably be able to take care of the front door. He inserted the tip of the pick in the bottom lock. Assa Abloy: a normal model. The lock pick made a spinning sound.

His mind drifted off.

The operation was making strides. Already before the trip in the transport car, JW had been asking him some questions now and then.

“What do you think, do you like Juan-les-Pins better than Cannes?”

“I’m thinking of buying an apartment on Kommendörsgatan when I get out. Do you think that’s too far off the grid?”

“What do you think about the new Audi? Is it a little flashy, or is it just right?”

Isn’t it a bit lame to drive an Audi? Hägerström thought. If you’re going to drive a good car, why not drive a really good car? Otherwise you might as well just drive a regular old Volvo.

Then he felt ashamed: It was odd—the guy appeared endlessly confident and self-assured among his guys on the inside. But in relation to Hägerström, when they talked about this kind of thing, he was like an anxious seventeen-year-old. He almost got all maternal for the poor guy.

Hägerström snapped back into focus.

The lock made a clicking sound. The door opened. Behind it was a locked metal gate. He knew it would be considerably more secure. He got down on his knees in front of it. Pulled out another lock pick.

He tried to remember the course he’d taken in picking locks. He had read only one book, but he had practiced a lot. The secret to picking locks was three-part. Anyone could learn to pick a desk lock in a day. But picking real lock devices demanded the ability to concentrate, analytic intelligence, and above all, a mechanical sensitivity.

It was more difficult than he’d thought. But the teacher had said he was a natural.

The concentration part wasn’t a problem. He was a former coastal ranger, internal affairs police investigator, a thinker. Concentration was part of his everyday existence. Even though he was often juggling many thoughts at once, he could focus when it came to locks.

But most of all, picking locks was about mechanical sensitivity. About learning to handle pressure. The problem was that most people learned to hold their body or hands in a certain way early on in life, no matter how much pressure you applied with them. But when it came to picking locks, the opposite was needed. You had to maintain the pressure at a very exact level. When you extracted the pick, the pressure against the pins had to be even. The lock picker moved his hand but kept the pressure completely steady.

He inserted the pick into the metal gate’s lock.

Tried not to force the concentration, to ignore all the feelings that didn’t concern the lock. There was a faint breeze on his face. A door slammed shut somewhere far away. A bird was chirping on a roof.

He felt the gravitation, the friction. Pins that moved a hundredth of a millimeter. A bolt that resisted. The pick was an extension of his fingertips and nerves. He maintained the exact same level of pressure against the pins.

He turned, slowly.

He felt the act of turning, the pick, the pins.

He felt the bolt move.

The lock clicked.

He grabbed hold of the metal gate.

It opened.

That’s when the motion-sensor-triggered alarm went off. Blaring at a volume that was on the verge of unbearable.

Hägerström closed the door behind him. Walked up to the alarm system box that was mounted directly to the right of the door. Entered the code that Torsfjäll had given him, the one from Pan World Security.

The screaming alarm stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

He heard his own breathing. Remained standing in the hallway. Waited, in case a neighbor were to start yelling.

Nothing happened.

He looked around. A small rococo table and a sconce on the wall. No stool, but a set of stairs leading upstairs.

Hägerström walked farther into the house. A living room straight ahead. Genuine Persian carpets on the floor. More rococo furniture. Huge paintings on the walls: Bruno Liljefors, Anders Zorn, maybe a Strindberg. It looked like Mother’s apartment, but with less taste. This felt vulgar.

He walked through a kitchen that was decorated in a rustic style. Some kind of white panel cabinets, matte metal handles. No invisible mechanisms or strange materials. A kitchen island in the middle of the room with induction stove plates and a fan above it that was about as big as Hägerström’s Jaguar. A Moccamaster coffee machine, a dishwasher, fridge, freezer, and microwave from Miele. Four barstools around a tall table. Black and white stone slabs on the floor, they were warm—probably warm-water underfloor heating.

He moved on.

A hallway with four doors. A quick look into each of the rooms. A bedroom, a den. An office. Hägerström stepped inside.

This is where he might find interesting material. Inspector Torsfjäll ought to have gotten a search warrant right away. But he hadn’t wanted to.

“It’s better to have robust evidence before we even make the hit,” the inspector told him over the phone. “Anyway, I’ve talked to Taxi Stockholm and put a tail on JW and Mr. Hansén. So we’ll find out what they’re up to no matter what.”

The office looked ordinary. British oak furniture, a bookcase with three binders and some financial books in it, a desktop computer. Not much paperwork. Hägerström had hoped for more paperwork.

Not much of interest in the binders. A few old plane tickets, taxi receipts, hotel bills. It appeared as though Hansén traveled a lot: Liechtenstein, Zurich, Bahamas, Dubai.

Ding, ding
.

The sound was coming from the computer. Hägerström checked it. It had switched on from standby mode. A reminder was flashing on the screen.
To do today: lunch with JW, call Nippe, call Bladman, dinner with Börje
.

JW and Bladman. There was obviously a theme to Hansén’s social circle.

He looked up from the computer.

There was someone in the house.

He listened again.

Silence.

He wished he had his P226 on him.

He took a step toward the wall in order not to be visible from the doorway.

No sounds.

He took a careful step.

Still no sounds.

He picked up a pen from the desk. Held it out in front of him.

He walked out into the hallway.

Carefully.

Silently.

Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe what he had heard were sounds from outside.

He passed the kitchen.

Walked into the living room.

Something hard hit him in the back of the neck.

The force of the blow made Hägerström spin around. He dropped the pen, but before he fell, he saw a man dressed in black.

He heard a voice: “You fucking junkie—how the hell’d you shut off the alarm?”

Pain again. The man was kicking his back.

He tried to shield his head with his arms. Glimpsed a figure next to the one who was kicking. Speed-analyzed the situation. At least two
attackers. Maybe they’d called the police, but if so, they shouldn’t be this aggressive. At least one of them was armed with some sort of hard object, maybe with something more. But most important: they hadn’t figured out what he was doing here. And they hadn’t figured out who he was.

Another kick struck his back. But this time Hägerström was prepared. He blocked the blow. At the same time, he crawled back in the kitchen.

Another kick. Hägerström twisted his body—the kick missed. He threw himself after the leg, tried to slam into the back of the knee. He had been trained for this sort of thing, but that was a few years ago. The coastal rangers were taught an extremely stripped-down form of Krav Maga. Close combat training was basically nonexistent within the police force.