The Killing 3 (22 page)

Went back to the window. Felt his breath catch as the light stayed on and a figure came close to the glass.

Young girl in a dark coat. Pale, pretty face. Blonde hair tucked back beneath a black beanie.

‘Emilie,’ he murmured.

As he watched, the glasses trembling in his hands, she moved away from the window. Looked scared. A figure briefly crossed his vision. Burly, dressed in a nondescript dark jacket. A ski mask on
his face, two holes for the eyes, one for the mouth.

Then the light went out and it didn’t come back.

Lund had body armour on. Waited in the Politigården car park, Zeuthen by her side.

The phone rang.

‘Are you ready, Lund?’

He sounded calm but his voice was breathy. As if he was walking somewhere.

‘Yes.’

‘Both of you?’

‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

‘Take the motorway south. I’ll call you back in a little while.’

They’d got a large unmarked saloon, GPS tracking live on the dashboard.

‘Last chance, Lund. Remember.’

She drove. Zeuthen was in the passenger seat. As they came out of the station there was a figure by the side of the road.

Slight, pretty but with a sad, frightened face.

Maja Zeuthen watched, open-mouthed. Saw her husband.

Started to yell as Lund put her foot down and surged into the open road ahead.

No time to explain, Asbjørn Juncker barked at the men with him to follow, raced round the corner, back towards the office block.

Arms flying, legs pumping. No breath to make a phone call. Barely room to think.

He was faster than them. On his own by the time he got close to the building. A noise came to him, like the growl of an angry animal. It got louder and louder and still he didn’t stop.

One last corner. Asbjørn Juncker raced round. Saw the lorry almost on him. Lights bright, full beam. Heavy haulage truck thundering down the road.

The sound became a rising scream.

Juncker stood there in the monster’s path fumbling for his weapon. Couldn’t find it. Couldn’t move.

It was high above him, bearing down. A face behind the wheel. The ski mask. A pair of dark eyes.

Then something hit him hard. The young detective found himself flying to the side of the road, a heavy shoulder bringing him down to the hard ground.

Confused, short of breath, he rolled round just in time to see the truck lumber along the dingy lane towards the motorway.

Madsen was with him in the dirt, rubbing at his arm, calling Juncker all manner of names.

‘He’d have mown you down, you idiot.’

‘It’s her,’ Juncker said and pointed to the lorry disappearing round the corner. ‘Emilie. It’s her.’

The older cop got to his knees, pulled out his phone.

Juncker crawled to his feet. In his head he could still see her at the window. A scared little girl, snatched into the night.

The media pack was outside Christiansborg screaming for a statement. Hartmann stayed in his office brooding while Weber and Karen Nebel chased their contacts in the police and
PET.

The only firm news they’d got was that Robert Zeuthen had agreed to the exchange. He was willing to offer his life in return for his daughter’s.

‘I should have been consulted,’ Hartmann whined when Weber came in and told him.

‘Why?’ Weber asked.

‘Because I should! If we lose Zeuthen and his daughter we’re screwed. Those bastards out there will rip me to shreds.’

‘That’s probably not Brix’s top priority right now. Before you make another public statement maybe we ought to talk about tone and wording.’

‘I want that kid back!’ Hartmann yelled. ‘Do you think I don’t?’

‘Of course not,’ Weber answered. ‘You just have a kind of . . . unfortunate turn of speech on occasion.’

‘I lost Benjamin.’ His voice was soft and hurt. ‘I know what it’s like. You don’t.’

The mood was all wrong. This campaign kept swinging back and forth. Hartmann was no stranger to that, knew the key was to make sure the final turn, in his favour, came on polling day. But it was
hard to judge such delicate movements without knowing where he stood.

And Birgit Eggert kept nagging in the background, demanding a meeting, complaining about everything under the sun.

Weber thought he should see her. Face her down, kill any rebellion before it began. The little man had been right about one thing: Mogens Rank was one of their strongest supporters of old. To
Hartmann that made it important to distance the man from Christiansborg. The accusation of meddling in the Zeuthen case seemed impossible to dispel.

A sound outside the window. Hartmann looked. Another TV van turning up. They sniffed blood.

‘Don’t they have better things to do?’ Hartmann muttered. ‘Why do they keep hanging around?’

The door opened. Karen Nebel came in, threw a set of photos on his desk. The two men came and looked.

‘One of the papers has got them,’ she said. ‘They’re going to run a story tomorrow morning.’

Morten Weber was on the phone first.

‘Mogens,’ he roared. ‘Get your arse in here this minute.’

Borch got back to the Politigården as the operation began. Brix stood in the ops room, a headset on, giving out orders to the remote teams: no helicopter, plain pursuit
cars at a distance, all communication on encrypted comms channels.

Caution all the way.

They had a registration number for the truck that had nearly killed Asbjørn Juncker. It was a fake. But the vehicle, a black lorry, had been briefly caught on traffic cameras entering the
motorway. The team near the factory had established Emilie had been kept in the building Juncker had found.

‘What about the phone he’s using?’ Brix asked. It was PET’s job to monitor telecoms for the operation.

‘No luck,’ Borch said. ‘He’s changed the SIM or something. Must be using a different Internet company.’

‘You’ve got to be able to track a phone!’

Borch cocked his head.

‘You can’t find a damned truck. Don’t start. Are Lund and Zeuthen covered?’

Brix was bent over some maps.

‘I’ve got armed teams close by.’

‘He knows that. Is this the best . . . ?’

Brix looked up, nodded to a side room. Something in his face stopped the PET man.

Maja Zeuthen was there listening, wide-eyed, scruffy in an old jumper and jeans.

‘Watch what you say,’ Brix told him.

Out in the car. Rain and light evening traffic. What Lund thought were backup vehicles dogging them three hundred metres behind.

Zeuthen sat in the passenger seat, tie neat, dark expensive winter coat, hair tidy, face glum.

‘What do you intend to do, Lund?’

‘When we know the location, we get near, pull you out, grab Emilie. Brix is good. He’s got people around. You just can’t see them.’

Zeuthen glanced at the driver’s mirror. A support car was always visible.

He didn’t need to say it.

‘What if he finds out we’re not on our own?’

She reached into her jacket, pulled out some gum. Offered him a piece. Zeuthen shook his head. He didn’t look like a gum person. Lund popped a chunk into her mouth anyway.

They were headed out of the city. No sign of a truck. He had to call soon.

‘We can manage this,’ she insisted. ‘We work together. We follow instructions.’

He was watching her.

‘And you’ve done this before?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said and wondered: did he know that was a lie?

Lund was almost glad Emilie’s phone rang at that moment.

She put it on the car speaker.

‘Is Robert Zeuthen there?’

‘Yes. Do you want to talk to him?’

‘Plenty of time for that later, Lund. Where are you?’

The car comms were hooked into the Politigården. Brix would be hearing every word, monitoring the vehicle each step of the way.

‘Coming up to exit thirty-seven. Where are we going?’

‘I only invited two to this party.’

‘That’s all you’ve got.’

The slip road was visible through the rain. They were well beyond the city, in flat farmland.

‘Do I sound like an idiot?’

‘I’m in a car with Robert Zeuthen. Like you asked. Tell us what to do.’

‘Take exit thirty-eight.’

She was drifting into the slip road already. Came out, back into the motorway. Saw the backup car make the same manoeuvre.

‘If at any stage I sense you’re not alone this is the last you’ll hear from me. You do understand that, don’t you?’

‘Got it.’

A sign for exit thirty-eight came up.

‘I hope so,’ he said.

They had a map of the area spread out in the ops room. Exit thirty-eight led to a narrow country road and then a network of smaller lanes. Farms. A few small industrial units.
Lots of empty land.

‘There’s nothing there,’ Brix said. ‘This can’t be right.’

Borch was next to him.

‘He’s taking her out into the open. If he’s on that road he can see those cars you’ve got. From miles away.’

‘OK,’ Brix said and ordered Juncker and his people to fall back further.

‘He’s seen them already!’ Borch cried. ‘What’s Lund supposed to do?’

‘Follow his instructions. We’ve got her on the GPS. When she stops, we move.’

‘This is a joke.’ Borch got to his feet. Went for his jacket. ‘I’m out of it.’

A voice on the radio. Asbjørn Juncker’s.

‘I think we’ve got him,’ he said. ‘Volvo FH16. Looks like the one we saw in town. It’s got a shipping container on the back. The tail light’s
smashed.’

‘A container?’

‘Hang on,’ Juncker said, voice breaking up over the radio. ‘We’re getting closer. We could stop him—’

‘Keep back!’ Borch yelled, grabbing for the mike.

‘Keep back,’ Brix repeated. ‘Don’t do anything.’

‘We could pick him up for the broken light,’ Juncker suggested.

‘I said fall back and wait,’ Brix barked. ‘Just do it, will you?’

They were out in dark countryside, steady rain coming down.

Lund called in.

‘I can still see your cars, Brix. Get them away. I’m about to hit the exit.’

‘You’re fine,’ he came back. ‘Asbjørn’s got a visual on the truck. He’s almost two kilometres behind you. He can’t see a thing. We’ll keep
people on you. Another couple of cars are heading for the truck. Nothing within viewing distance.’

Zeuthen was listening to every word.

The slip road came up. She was half expecting another call telling her to go somewhere else. But it never came. Lund edged off the motorway, headed down the lane.

Maja Zeuthen wandered into the ops centre unnoticed. Brix was absorbed, talking into his headset. Carsten Lassen arrived from work. He put his arm round her shoulder, persuaded
her to go back into the side room where she was supposed to wait.

‘Carl’s with your mum. She says he won’t go to sleep.’

‘He knows something’s wrong. Of course he won’t . . .’

Brix walked in.

‘We’ve made visual contact with the truck. We think Emilie’s inside. We plan to stop it . . .’

She folded her arms, closed her eyes for a moment.

‘He said if you did anything . . .’

‘You can’t believe him, Mrs Zeuthen. Everything he’s told us has been a lie. I can’t go into the details but we’re taking every precaution. Emilie’s safety is
our priority. Above all else.’

‘Can I go?’

‘Go where?’

‘Can I be somewhere close? She’s my daughter.’ She put a hand to his arm. ‘Please.’

He nodded, called an officer.

‘We’ll organize a car. You’ll have to wait until the operation’s over. Do what we say. OK?’

‘OK,’ she said and reached for her coat.

The road turned into a single track then, to her surprise, broadened. Brix had kept to his word. There were no more headlights on her tail. No lights anywhere. Just the rainy
way ahead.

Borch called.

‘The truck’s approaching an exit. We’re going to stage an accident and stop him. We’ve got a SWAT team and some marksmen from the Army.’

Zeuthen swore and shook his head in the passenger seat.

‘I’ll just keep driving,’ Lund said.

‘Do that. One more thing. Maybe this was nothing to do with Zeuthen. Or Zeeland.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When I was in Jutland I checked the papers. Schultz and Overgaard cooked the reports. They said she disappeared on a Friday. Not true. I checked with the foster family. Louise went
missing the day before. Thursday.’

‘So?’ Lund asked.

‘Those men from the
Medea
only came into harbour on the Friday.’ A pause. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

She thought about it, said yes. Then finished the call.

‘They’re going to shoot him?’ Zeuthen asked. ‘With Emilie there?’

‘They know what they’re doing. Trust—’

Emilie’s phone rang.

‘Have you reached the woods yet, Lund?’

She glanced outside the window.

‘No. Just fields.’

‘You’ll see a line of trees soon. A track up to the right. There’s a disused workshop. Wait for me there.’

Juncker was in the passenger seat, Madsen behind the wheel. Still a good way behind the turn-off Lund took. Suddenly the gap between them and the truck widened.

‘He just put his foot down,’ Juncker told Brix in ops. ‘I mean
really
put his foot down. Are the accident team ready?’

A short pause then Brix said they were.

The traffic had picked up too. It was hard to keep in contact without being conspicuous.

‘Keep your distance,’ Brix said. ‘You’ve got twelve hundred metres to run to the accident. They’re blocking the road now.’

The problem changed. The truck was slowing down now.

‘I don’t know what he’s playing at,’ Juncker muttered.

A double row of lights. Had to be a junction. Maybe a kilometre to go.

Then the lorry swerved abruptly to the right. Juncker swore. Madsen braked too hard, skidded on the wet road, fought to bring the car under control.

The truck had turned from the slow lane onto the slip road.

‘He’s leaving the motorway,’ Juncker told them. ‘Going early.’

Brix came back straight away.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Exit thirty-seven. He’s on the lane now. What do we do?’