Life Deluxe (65 page)

Both Adam and Sascha were sitting outside the room, and there was another guy stationed down in the foyer. Security was doubled today.

Ivan Hasdic put his cards facedown on the table. Folded up one corner—looked without moving his eyes.

Natalie checked him out. Hasdic: the cigarette king, the smuggling legend, the wandering Serb. Goran’d told her: Radovan started doing business with Hasdic already in the mid-1990s. They knew each other from the war down there. Dad’d brought in his first thirty thousand packs of cigarettes in a truck that carried aluminum rods. Earned a krona per cancer stick on average, after the truckers and the customs guys’d gotten their cut. Okay money. Their relationship’d developed. Dad began to receive trucks with cigarettes regularly. A few years later Hasdic ran into trouble with the authorities down there. Dad arranged so that he got a temporary residence permit in Sweden, could keep away from allegations of incitement to murder long enough for the police to drop the charges against him. Hasdic moved around, lived in Austria, England, Russia, Romania. He shipped clean goods to Dad—Dad shipped stolen flat-screen TVs to Hasdic. Hasdic sorted things out with one of the pimp kings in Romania—Dad helped Hasdic buy race horses that, over the years, made over two million euros in prize money. Hasdic sent reliable guys when Dad needed reinforcements—Dad arranged so that Nacka municipality hired Hasdic’s workers when they were going to build a new heating plant.

Back then: Ivan Hasdic’d loved Radovan Kranjic as his own brother.

Today: Ivan Hasdic was one of the most important men in the Serbian underworld.

Now: Ivan Hasdic’d promised to help Natalie as much as he could.

Natalie’s Serbian was broken. “Kum Ivan,” she said, “I want to thank you for coming. I want to welcome you to Sweden. The last time we saw each other was during even less pleasant times. We had no opportunity to speak.”

Ivan’d been present at Dad’s funeral, but had flown back that very same afternoon.

Natalie stood up. Walked over to him and handed over a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label.

Ivan kissed her cheeks: right, left, right.

He thanked her for the bottle. He pulled the usual your-eyes-are-so-beautiful flattery. He said how much she reminded him of her father. Asked about her mom. Natalie avoided the questions about Mom—their relationship was ice cold.

They sat back down.

Natalie went straight to the point. She began by explaining what
she knew about Dad’s murder. What she’d found about Semjon Averin, alias John Johansson, alias Volk, the Wolf.

She went on for over an hour.

The entire time Ivan looked at his cards. Continued to play with Goran and Thomas. Continued to flip his chips. Played with the fabric bag, which was constantly being filled. But Natalie could tell by looking at him that he was listening. Sometimes he nodded faintly. Sometimes he scratched his chin as though to try to remember something.

Actually: What did she know that was of value today that she hadn’t known a month ago? Okay, she knew that the murderer was a hired assassin who had a certain name. Still: she hadn’t come any closer to the central question—who’d given Averin the job? Who had hired him? Who was really behind Dad’s murder?

Maybe it was the Russians. Maybe it was some Swedish gang.

At the same time, her entire body screamed: Stefanovic. The connection with the Black & White Inn, the planned takeover of Dad’s empire, the encroachment on their finances that happened at the exact same time as the murder. And more: Stefanovic’s way of responding during the police interrogations, and the fact that no one but Stefanovic and possibly Mom could’ve known that Dad was going to be at Skeppargatan that night.

When Natalie’d finished talking, Ivan put his cards down. He looked up. Met her eyes, but his gaze was distant, as though he were staring far away through the door.

He was wearing a shirt that looked gray, but it was probably supposed to resemble white. His hands were rough, and the knuckles looked worn, like old leather gloves. His hair was gray. It was difficult to say how old he was—he had scars and wrinkles all over his face. And Hadic’s face was just like everything else: gray.

But his voice had a certain rhythm to it. A calm, safe, secure tone.

“It’s not good, what you’re telling me,” he said. “Not good at all.”

He picked up the deck of cards again. Dealt the cards onto the table. Goran and Thomas looked as if they didn’t know what to do. Ivan gestured with his hand—keep playing.

They played a round. The croupier dealt new cards.

“The Wolf could be here now, in Stockholm,” Ivan said.

Natalie put her hands in her lap. Tried to relax.

“Goran briefed me beforehand,” he went on. “I’ve talked to people at home and asked around. I can say that the Wolf Averin is very dangerous. Besides the crimes that Interpol has obviously connected him to, he has carried out at least ten similar attacks that I’ve found out about from other sources. And there are probably more that my sources are not aware of but that the current authorities in Russia know about. He is educated, he has gathered experience over the years, and he uses different identities. They say he works in the high-end segment. That is, he doesn’t take any jobs for less than fifty thousand euros. In Russia, they call him a superkiller. It’s been explained to me that only four other assassins have been given that title prior to the Wolf.”

He fell silent for a brief moment, letting the gravity of the situation sink in.

“According to my sources, he came to Scandinavia a couple of weeks ago. We know that he picked up weapons in Denmark, and we know that he visited an apartment brothel in Malmö. So unfortunately, a lot speaks for him having made his way north, here. And I might add, there is a great risk that he is here to hurt you.”

Ivan continued speaking. He described details of other attacks he’d been informed of. He told them about the Wolf’s reputation in Eastern Europe. Averin was a so-called freelancer—he didn’t belong to any organization. He was hired by
avtoritety
—the Russian mafia—oligarchs, and Central European crime syndicates when the need arose.

“Normally, I would say: we’ll track down his mother and father. We’ll track down his siblings and cut their throats. The problem is that the Wolf Averin doesn’t have any relatives that anyone seems to know about, except for his daughter. But she has changed her identity. His former wife and parents have been dead for a long time. And if they were alive, he wouldn’t care.”

Natalie felt cold. She looked down at her hands. They were trembling.

“Kum Hasdic—what do you advise?” she asked.

Ivan responded quickly. “If Stefanovic is behind this, you must liquidate him as quickly as you can. The only way is to strike hard and fast. If the Wolf Averin understands that he is no longer going to be paid by his employer, he will stop hunting you. That is the only advice I can give. And if there is trouble, I promise to support you as best I can.”

Natalie thought:
There is only one way forward
.

Stefanovic’s fate was already sealed.

She just had to understand how JW wanted it to be done.

The following day she met JW at one of the hotels where she stayed. He was driven there by the same man she’d seen pick him up by the Hotel Diplomat. She got the same vibes again, the same ones she got around Thomas. But with this guy, her gut was screaming
“Cop!”
even louder.

She and JW were lying on the hotel bed. Freshly kissed. Freshly licked. Freshly fucked.

JW explained the plan he was imagining for his big econ-bust.

Really, it was the same basic factors that’d set everything in motion. Several of the jurisdictions JW used had changed their policies. Gotten rid of their supersecrecy, let in international police and EU inspection committees, the UN and OECD. Switzerland’d given up a long time go. The Caribbean’d fallen about six months ago. The British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands were the latest examples. Liechtenstein’d just signed a contract about bank transparency. And now the haven-above-all-havens, Panama, was beginning to waver. The country’s president’d signed a contract about transparency with the United States. Within a few years, the EU would get the same insight. So JW had to move the clients’ money. He’d set up new companies in better countries: Dubai, Macao, Vanuatu, Liberia. JW and his people’d worked hard. Contacted new banks, issued new credit cards to their clients. They made an asset transfer of everything in Northern White Asset Management, moved it to a newly started company in Dubai: Snow Asset Management. After that, the money had to be transferred without setting off the banks’ warning systems.

Natalie understood only about half of what JW told her, but she got the basic idea.

Half the clients’ funds’d been moved. Gustad Hansén’d been working like a maniac from down there. Traveled among the countries like a fucking foreign minister. Met bank people, lawyers, management people in air-conditioned offices. JW and Bladman took care of the paperwork. Filled out forms for banks and law firms. Filed applications for new credit cards. Wrote letters and invoices. Confirmed that the deposits’d been made, faxed signatures, answered questions from clients, like, a hundred times a day.

So far, the clients who’d had their money moved were happy. JW & Co.’d transferred over eight million euros. That created a solid foundation to stand on. Confidence in what they were doing.

But the truth: an equal amount still had to be transferred. Those clients were impatient. Anxious.

And JW was prepared.

He’d been planning this for over a year. Created companies, trusts, accounts tied to accounts—but without activating them. Without transferring a single krona so far.

But soon it would be time: JW would set the ball in motion. Press the button and trigger a chain of transfers. To make a long story short: eight million euros would be transferred from already-existing accounts all over the world into new accounts—and from there into accounts that JW controlled. The clients’ money would become JW’s money.

He would become eight million euros richer in one day. A huge scam. A ridiculous robbery. A superswindle, like taken out of a movie.

“They’re going to kill you,” Natalie said. “Even if I help you, there are going to be so many people who want your head on a plate.”

JW stretched. He looked visibly pleased.

“First of all: none of them can go to the police with it. But they’re going to be angry, you’re right about that.”

His smile was roguish, and his eyes sparkled.

“Second of all: everything I’ve done has been done in Hansén’s name.”

“Okay, sure, but he isn’t exactly going to sit on his hands when he finds out about this.”

“Yes, he is going to be sitting very still. In his car. Gustaf Hansén will be found in his Ferrari at the bottom of the Mediterranean with over two percent alcohol content in his blood. A tragic accident. To those who got swindled, it’s going to appear as though some client did it.”

Natalie didn’t know if she should grin or stare.

“But you’re still right,” JW said. “Even if I’ve made sure that everything points to Hansén, people are going to be mad at me. I’m mixed up in it, after all. That’s why I always need support from people like you. In my industry, you need dangerous friends. So I’m going to need your help, Natalie. I really am.”

Thirty minutes later. Rekissed. Relicked. Refucked.

After JW’s financial run-through: to have sex with him felt like playing with a loaded gun. He was almost
too
slippery. Too calculating. Too smart.

The entire setup was on a whole new level. Okay, she still had a lot to learn—but she heard Goran, Bogdan, and the others talking almost every single day. She’d discussed many plans, ideas—but JW’s coup beat anything she could even have dreamed of.

But now they needed to talk about the other thing.

“I’ve done what you said,” Natalie said. “My men approached that politician, Svelander, with the videos of him and the hooker. He got scared. Pleaded and begged. Said we could have anything we wanted.”

JW said, “Good, ’cause then the Russians’ll go crazy. Those videos actually belong to them. And they need them for their gas pipe. I’ve tried to set up a meeting with them and Stefanovic. The Russians want you to calm down. That’s all—they demand that you end the war, they want the material, and they want to take care of Svelander on their own. In a few days, I’ll get the time and place.”

“In a few days.” Natalie fell silent.

Soon it was time. There would be a meeting with Stefanovic. A meeting that the traitor would fully believe’d been planned by objective persons. A situation in which he would feel safe.

But really: a meeting where Natalie would be present and would do what she had to do.

Stefanovic would be eliminated.

For Dad’s sake.