The Last Compromise (31 page)

Mäkinen
sighed. ‘I wish I could sit down for this chat, but I aim better while standing
up.’ He was speaking to Hans again. ‘The money comes from the customers, of
course. Hospital doctors who also want to help their patients and cut short the
waiting list for treatment. They pay half the market price.’

Krohn
was getting angry. ‘What kind of a charity is that? Look at me! You corrupt
pig! You steal from patients in Europe, you use the merchandise to advance your
own academic career, and you sell the rest to needy hospitals. You help a gang
inside A&C get rich running their own business on the side. And where do
the hospitals get their money from, huh? From the poor patients’ families?’

‘Stop
it!’, Mäkinen shouted at Krohn. Finally he was giving him some attention, but
again he was diverting it away from the trigger finger where it was needed much
more urgently. ‘Stop it. The payments cover the cost of transport, the
operational costs of the production, the bribes. Yes, and some of it is profit.
Not for me, but for the others. And for the hospitals themselves. And yes,
naturally the patients pay, who else?’

Hans
thought he saw a tear in Mäkinen’s eye. This wasn’t good at all, it was getting
out of control.

‘But
don’t be stupid,’ Mäkinen continued, talking to Hans again. ‘Having
some
available treatment is paradise compared to having none at all. And paying
something for it is absolutely legitimate, if the alternative is no treatment,
either because there is none, or because the waiting list is too long, or
because you cannot afford it at real market prices. Think! And then you will
understand. This is a good cause, on balance. The good minus the dirt is still
better than nothing.’

There
were tears in both his eyes now. It was all extremely worrying. If Krohn at
least moved away from the door, but it was as if he was nailed to the floor.
This had to end, but in a way that ensured everybody would stay reasonable, and
calm, and alive.

Hans
seized the initiative. ‘Listen, I don’t know why you just told me all this,
instead of just chasing me the hell away. I’m sure you have your own reasons.
But you need to know that it’s very likely that the investigation is closed
anyway. If what you said is true, then nothing really happened. Your donors
inside A&C conned their own shareholders, that’s not my problem. Some
research reactors had to wait for their uranium a little longer, they’re
insured. Somebody sold something that otherwise would have been sold by
somebody else. Remember, I’m not the police. And see how I look, do you think
I’m here on an official mission, looking like this? All I know is that there’s
been some false reporting to the Commission, on as far as I know four occasions
over two years, among the thousands of reports that come in every year. God
knows how many errors there are in the rest of them. Or how much other fraud. Nobody
cares, Mäkinen. Leave it alone, and everybody continues living their happy
lives. But if I don’t return from here, then they will reopen the case for
sure, and then you’re truly fucked. So use your brain, Mäkinen. Right now I’m
your best friend.’

Mäkinen
didn’t move his rifle, he was still aiming at Hans’s chest, but he didn’t say
anything either. Finally he said, ‘You will understand in a minute why I told
you all this. But first, tell me, what do you suggest will happen now, Mister
Tamberg?’

‘So
I will tell you,’ Hans said. ‘What will happen now is that you let me make a
phone call to make sure that the investigation is closed.’

Mäkinen
thought, then whispered, ‘Then they’ll know you called from here.’

Hans
whispered back to mock him, ‘They already know I’m here. The question is,
should I even
be
here?’

Mäkinen
seemed to consider this.

Hans
offered, ‘I’ll turn on the speakerphone if you like.’

Mäkinen
nodded. He looked at Krohn over at the door. Krohn hesitated but nevertheless
obeyed and brought Hans a cordless landline phone from a bookshelf on the wall
opposite the fireplace.

Hans
took it. ‘Zero-zero to dial abroad?’

Mäkinen
nodded again. He was still aiming at Hans, who was still sitting at the wooden
table.

Hans
pressed the speakerphone button and dialled the number. He didn’t need the
switchboard, because he knew Tienhoven’s extension by heart. He waited.

‘Hello?’
It was a female voice. Krohn and Mäkinen heard it, too.

‘Gabriela,
is that you?’, Hans asked. It was Tienhoven’s secretary, meaning the phone line
had again been transferred to her, but her voice sounded somehow unfamiliar.

‘Yes,
Hans. It’s me.’

‘Where’s
Willem?’

There
was a pause. ‘Willem is dead, Hans.’

Hans
didn’t pause, though. ‘How?’

‘His
heart. Another heart attack. He died in a hospital here in Brussels at four
o’clock last night.’

‘Is
the investigation into the nuclear fraud still open?’

A
pause. ‘Excuse me, what?’

‘The
nuclear reports fraud, at atomic energy in Luxembourg. Is it open?’

‘No
Hans.’ There was a bitter reproach in Gabriela’s voice. ‘No, it’s closed. Since
yesterday afternoon.’

‘Zayek
manipulated the reports and killed himself?’

‘Yes.
It’ll be on the news.’

‘Thank
you.’

Hans
held the phone away from his face, found a red button to hang up, and pressed
it. He gave the phone back to Krohn, who put it back on the charger.

‘As
you heard, the investigation into this matter is closed,’ Hans said to Mäkinen.
‘They are pinning it on somebody else, the dead Boris Zayek from your
daughter’s unit in Luxembourg, for reasons that I don’t care about. Which means
I’m done here. I don’t even have to bother your daughter about this, because there’s
nothing to investigate.’

‘This
is why I needed you to stay, and to understand,’ Mäkinen said quietly. ‘Do you
think the donors, the helpers, do you think they will allow me to just extricate
myself from this? Do you think they will let me just stop converting the
uranium? Do you think they will leave my daughter alone, let her even change
jobs, while the operation is still running? She is tied up in all this. She and
my two grandsons.’

Extricate.
Mäkinen wanted out himself. That’s why he was talking. He was tired of
believing his own lies about his noble charity which he’d initially tried to
sell Hans.

‘My
daughter sent me an e-mail just this morning,’ Mäkinen continued, almost in a
whisper. ‘Where is the exit from all this? I cannot just stop. And even if I
did and they found a replacement for me, they will still force my contact
inside the Commission to keep manipulating the figures.’

Hans
needed to help the rifle-wielding man out quickly. He asked, ‘Do your donors
know that it’s your daughter who takes care of the statistics?’

Mäkinen
shook his head. ‘No, and at first they didn’t even care about it. I was the one
who told them that they had to think about that as well. All they know is that
I have a person on the inside.’

‘So
perfect,’ Hans said. ‘You tell them it’s been Zayek, who is dead now, so it
can’t continue. They either stop their operation now, and get no more money out
of it, or they do one more shipment and have the police destroy their business
completely. And they should thank their good fortune that the current anti-fraud
case is closed because the suspect is dead, and they should pray that no-one
will reopen it.’

Mäkinen
seemed to be thinking of something else. Then he focused on Hans.

Finally
he asked, ‘How will I know the case is really closed? Or that you won’t reopen
the case yourself?’

‘Take
a picture of Krohn here, in his present state, and save it,’ Hans replied. ‘Call
the number that called his office number earlier today. It’s a guy from the
street I asked to call him down. He saw that Krohn’s face was intact when I
entered the building, and he can confirm that I lied to him about being your nephew.
Let him make a written declaration before a lawyer and lock it in a safe. If I
come back, press charges for assault, insubordination by ignoring the closure
of a case, and abuse of official function outside investigative authority. I
showed you my anti-fraud identification in order to extract information, that
alone was illegal. That’s all I have. My case is closed, and now I’m going home.
And you will call a taxi, or one of you takes me to the airport. I’ll book a
flight right there, I don’t want to book it from your computer.’

Mäkinen
didn’t move. He looked, aimed, breathed, thought. A tear escaped from his left
eye and ran down his cheek into his white stubble.

Finally
he lowered his rifle, and pulled the action back. The cartridge was flung out
of the chamber and fell on the floor with a metallic ring.

***

Mäkinen
went into the kitchen and returned to the living room carrying a laptop. He put
it on the wooden table and turned it on. Hans was already standing at the door
with Krohn. Mäkinen took Hans’s seat, sitting with his back to the window. He
had put the rifle on the table, too, it was lying there like a giant
paperweight for his exams.

Hans said, ‘Goodbye Professor Mäkinen.’

Mäkinen didn’t reply.
He
started typing something on his laptop.

They
waited for a few moments. Then Hans stepped outside. Krohn followed him without
saying goodbye to his boss.

Krohn
closed the front door behind him, and together they walked through the garden
gate. Hans looked back, to make sure Mäkinen wouldn’t change his mind and shoot
them in the back, but there was no-one standing at the window.

Hans
and Krohn reached the car and got in. For a moment they sat in silence.

That’s
when they heard the gunshot. There was no impact on the car, though. Hans
looked back at the house. Krohn got out of the car and had a look, too. The
glass of the window next to the front door had turned red.

Krohn
went back to the house, peered through the window, then returned to the car. He
sat back in the driver’s seat, closed the door and firmly held the steering
wheel.

‘The
postman will find him on Monday,’ he said. ‘He squeezed the trigger with his
toe.’ He chuckled. His knuckles turned white. He grimaced and started weeping.
He lowered his face and his shoulders started shaking. Tears dripped off his
cheeks and fell on his shirt. He breathed heavily. Then his breath became
softer and slower and more regular. He sniffed.

Then,
without letting go of the steering wheel, and without looking at Hans, he said,
in a clear and rational voice, ‘I don’t believe that lying to the Commission
was ever the biggest part of this. I don’t even think that they really needed
anyone on the inside for that. There are plenty of other points where you can
lie about your containers, before it even gets to the Commission. What they
really needed is someone to run a reactor for them. And now they have lost
both. Your dead man in Luxembourg will no longer manipulate any reports, if
that’s what they’ll believe. And the dead man in here will definitely not make
any more isotopes. Not for himself and not for them. They’ll have to find
somebody else to do it. And his daughter and her family can live in peace.’

Hans
took a last look at the house. Krohn started the engine and they drove off.

***

Within
this town Leppävaara they took the same route they had come, through the rural
parts, then past the family homes, past the apartment buildings, and onto the
motorway. But then they didn’t drive back along the coast again. Krohn drove
north and east instead, in a wide arc around Helsinki, to the international
airport.

Neither
of them spoke a single word. Krohn certainly needed to do some thinking. About
his tainted research perhaps, or his association with Mäkinen, or his future.
He had every reason not to know anything, if this ever came out. As for Hans,
he was done thinking. No Mäkinen, not even Tienhoven, nobody deserved his
thoughts at the moment. He wasn’t sleepy. He was just tired, with his injured
face and the shirt he’d been wearing for three whole days. He was tired and
indifferent and free.

Krohn
brought Hans to the departures gate. Before getting out, Hans looked at him for
a long while. They looked at each other in silence. It was a handshake, an
apology, an agreement. A mutual understanding with no words. Then Hans got out,
shut the door and entered the airport hall without turning around.

Booking
a flight at the last-minute counter was easy, there was still enough credit on
his card and there had been economy class seats available.

Now
he had another twenty minutes before the plane would start boarding. He didn’t
have any luggage, he could check in at the machine, and as a European Union
citizen he could take the fast lane to get through passports control. So it
would be just the security check where he would have to wait a little.

He
went through the routine and finally stood at the end of the queue in front of the
security gate. To his right he saw a flat television screen on the wall. The
sound was muted, but there were subtitles running along the bottom edge of the
screen.