The Swimmer (6 page)

He didn’t even have to think about what he was going say. The words formed themselves and floated out of his mouth, calmly and precisely, in an articulate stream. Just like on those rare occasions when he was lecturing in Uppsala on a subject that truly interested him.

He could see faces in the audience turn to him with newfound interest; the yawning ended and pens bounced over notebooks taking down his comments. And everything he saw, everything he heard from his own voice, filled him with energy and pride. He was almost moved by his own professionalism and ability to deliver. Mahmoud Shammosh: academic superstar.

When Sir Benjamin, with the leisurely elegance of a seasoned moderator, took advantage of one of Mahmoud’s rhetorical pauses to suggest they continue this discussion over the lunch laid out for them in the foyer, Mahmoud felt offended. Sure, he’d seen something glassy creep into the previously admiring glances, but still. It was his moment. His time in the limelight. Well, he’d have the chance to continue talking during lunch. Research in all its glory: this was the real reward.

As he stood up he fished the cell phone and the battery out of his backpack. The moment he turned it on, it started vibrating in his hand. Two missed calls from a number he didn’t recognize. Mahmoud felt himself tense up. The phone rang again, and his heart skipped a beat.

He excused himself as quickly as possible and moved toward one of the side doors that he suspected led to the toilets. As he pushed open the door, he answered the phone. He was on edge. The adrenaline from the lecture mixed with the suspense of the incoming call. The horrific photograph flickered before his eyes.

‘This is Mahmoud Shammosh,’ he whispered into the phone.

‘How were the letters you received signed?’

The voice in Mahmoud’s ear was deep and muffled, as if it was filtered through some device that distorted the speaker’s voice.

Mahmoud’s mouth suddenly went dry.

‘Determination, courage, and endurance,’ he said as he walked through the doors into the men’s room.

A urinal and a stall. Empty.

‘Where are you now?’

‘The International Crisis Group on Avenue Louise,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’

‘Leave as soon as you can. Take the metro from Louise to Arts-Loi. Change to the metro toward Gare Central. Walk around inside the station until you’ve shaken off your shadows. Take the train back a couple of stops and change trains at the Gare du Midi. Keep an eye out all the time, okay?’

Mahmoud froze.

‘We know each other from Karlsborg, right? Is that why you’ve contacted me?’

‘Put the battery back in when you reach Gare du Midi and call this number for more instructions. Okay?’

Mahmoud strained to identify the voice. But there was nothing there to grab onto.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But what is this about? What do you want to tell me? Is this a joke or what?’

‘This is not a joke. Follow my instructions. I need your help. What do you have to lose?’

‘All right,’ Mahmoud said. ‘I can get out of here in an hour at the earliest.’

‘Okay. Remove the battery and don’t tell anyone about this. I’m serious. You’re probably being followed. This is not a joke.’

With a click, the voice disappeared. Mahmoud saw himself in the mirror above the sink. What was that feeling he had in his chest? Doubt? Nervousness?

Anticipation, he decided. What did he have to lose?

Brussels, Belgium

The man with the crew cut waiting for him in the entrance of Merchant & Taylor’s looked about five years older than George and was buff in a way that made George’s squash matches and halfhearted workouts at the gym seem laughable. Despite his nondescript suit and the white shirt he wore without a tie, he looked like he was destined for water or high altitude rather than lobbies, hallways, and offices. He was sleek and smooth, Teflon-coated for maximum speed. Like Matt Damon in the Bourne films, George thought enviously. Damn, the bastard must really work out.

‘Mr Brown?’ George said and extended his hand.

‘That’s correct. You can call me Josh,’ the man replied, baring his chalk white American teeth in a quick smile.

‘And my name is George.’

The handshake was firm. They held each other’s hands for slightly too long, sizing each other up. George let go first and guided his guest toward the elevators.

‘Reiper explained the situation,’ Josh stated more than asked.

‘Yes.’ George pressed the elevator button. ‘You have documents that need to be translated. For some reason you’re paying double the rate for me to forget about these documents immediately.’

Josh’s smile wasn’t unlike Reiper’s. Indulgent, as if he possessed knowledge that made him irreplaceable. He shook his head almost imperceptibly.

‘I don’t know anything about payment. That’s Reiper’s area. My job is to ensure that these papers don’t leave the room. Nothing personal, but this is sensitive. Let’s just put it that way.’

They left the elevator. George’s handmade shoes clattered against the hardwood floor, no doubt made from an endangered species of tree. Josh’s rubber soles were almost soundless.

‘I’ll have to ask you to lock the door,’ Josh said when they entered the room.

‘Oh, sure,’ George said, and obeyed somewhat hesitantly.

Josh took out what looked like an older model of a black iPod from the navy laptop bag slung over his shoulder. With his eyes fixed on the screen, he walked quickly around the room. The outcome seemed to be satisfactory, because he put the device away and sat down in one of the leather chairs.

George considered asking what the hell was going on but didn’t want to appear even more at a loss than he already was. Instead, he sat down on his side of the desk and waited for Josh to take the initiative.

‘Here,’ Josh said, and took a small black laptop and green paper folder from his bag.

‘The documents in this folder need to be translated. You type it into this computer, nowhere else, okay? It doesn’t need to be perfect. We’re looking for the big picture. We’ll get back to you if we have any questions. Is it okay if I make myself a coffee?’

He pointed toward the machine next to the small fridge.

George nodded, lifted the folder from the table, and opened it. The first thing that struck him was that all references to names had been crossed out in black marker. At the top right corner of the first page someone, Josh himself perhaps, had worked hard at crossing out a square area. George quickly flipped through the folder.

The first document had been created by the Swedish Security Service and consisted of a brief personal report.

George stopped and looked straight into the air. Säpo, Sweden’s secret police. The square that had been crossed out in the top right-hand corner was almost certainly a classified stamp. It was a dizzying feeling to have classified documents in front of him. This was espionage. Pure and simple.

There was no other way to look at it. Whoever had released these documents to Reiper and his cronies was guilty of espionage. Inconceivable. George didn’t want to think about what kind of crime he was committing by even holding these papers. But at the same time, it was intoxicating.

The first document contained what seemed to be a startlingly detailed description of an Arab guy from one of those deeply depressing housing projects outside of Stockholm. A picture of the ten-story building was enclosed. George had never understood how people could live like that. It looked like a Soviet nightmare.

The person the document described was the oldest of three brothers. He was raised by a single father who’d fled to Sweden from Lebanon after his wife died in what was apparently an Israeli bombing raid in the early 1980s. It seemed that the writer of the report had interviewed this person’s teachers and maybe even his friends, and then translated the results into gratingly bureaucratic Swedish. ‘Scores at the top of his class.’ ‘Conveys strong desire and drive to rise from his current living situation.’ ‘Unusually strong motivation.’ ‘Excellent language abilities. Speaks and writes fluently in Swedish, Arabic, and English.’ ‘Politically interested, but not active.’

A longer segment dealt with the man’s religion: ‘Secularized Muslim without a strong connection to radical elements or to the local mosque’ was the conclusion.

Under the title ‘Recreation and Social Life’ the writer had made an effort to show that the person mostly found his friends through sports. Running and basketball, it seemed.

But his teammates were designated ‘acquaintances’, and the person was described as ‘introverted, though paradoxically exhibiting strong and developed leadership skills’. The report ended with the section title ‘Overall Assessment’, under which the person was considered to be ‘particularly suited’ for ‘special service’. George had no idea what that meant. But his job was to translate this shit into English, not to understand it.

The second document was longer, over thirty pages, and according to its date only a few days old. The first page of the report was entitled ‘Reasons for Special Supervision’. The text was short: ‘Credible information from foreign intelligence agencies claims that the subject is affiliated with subversive elements in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, see dossier SÄK/R/00058349.’

The pages that followed summarized the subject’s current situation in life. Law degree. Formerly the chairman of the Foreign Policy Association. Ph.D. student at the Faculty of Law. The courses he had taught. Pictures of a house with his apartment window circled in red. Basketball at the Student Health Center twice a week. A serious romantic relationship with a Klara Walldéen, which ended a few years ago. That name wasn’t crossed out.

George stood up from his chair and walked over to the coffee machine. He inserted a black capsule and pressed the green button.

‘Klara Walldéen,’ he said quietly to himself.

‘Excuse me?’

Josh looked up from his cell phone. He was sitting in the leather chair by the window that faced the park. George watched the raindrops beat against the windowpane and run down toward the windowsill. Yesterday’s chill had given way, and a powerful storm seemed to be moving in over Brussels. The room had suddenly become dim, as if the sun were setting.

‘Klara Walldéen,’ George said again.

George knew who she was. He kept an eye on most of the Swedes in Brussels. And he’d kept an especially close eye on Klara. Not that she had an especially important position. Her member of parliament, Boman, was a classic leftie dragon of the old school, mostly focused on foreign affairs. Not something George was usually interested in. No, he’d kept an eye on Klara for purely personal reasons. She was on his top-five list of the hottest assistants in Parliament.

‘She works in the European Parliament,’ he said.

‘Exactly,’ Josh replied calmly. ‘Reiper wants you to keep an eye on her. There are indications that she’s had dealings with the terrorist we’re after.’

Terrorist. The word seemed to echo in the room.

‘Keep an eye on? What do you mean by that?’

George felt uncomfortable. Terrorist. Säpo. ‘Keep an eye on.’ The almost euphoric experience of having classified information in front of him started to give way to the feeling that he might be in over his head.

‘No big deal. Just start by following her on social media. That sort of thing. We’d do it ourselves, but our Swedish isn’t so good. As you may have noticed.’

George sat down again and continued working. The rest of the documents consisted of ‘intelligence reports.’ Brief descriptions of what the person did during the day. Damn, thought George, some poor bastard had had the dreary job of hanging out in front of a building all day long.

A couple of things bothered him about the report. First of all, it contained precise descriptions and even photographs from inside the subject’s apartment and office. There was something uncomfortable and intrusive about Säpo, or whoever they were, having been inside this person’s room.

Moreover, there were excerpts from the person’s e-mails. Two messages were from a Hotmail address of someone who wanted to meet this person in Iraq and Brussels. The man under surveillance had sent a short e-mail to Klara Walldéen. The latter was sent only eleven days ago and had been flagged, presumably by Reiper or Josh. George, not normally a man of principle, now started to feel uneasy. But he was just a cog in the machine.

‘I expect this will take me most of the afternoon,’ he told Josh, and opened up a new document in his word processor.

‘You’d better get started then,’ replied Josh, and he leaned back in his chair with a small smile.

Brussels, Belgium

Mahmoud spent an hour on the Brussels metro. Changing directions and trains, just like the voice on the phone had told him to. When he reached Gare du Midi, he took the escalator to an empty platform. A low cloud hung over southern Brussels, making it seem like dusk. Drizzle swept across the cracked concrete. Everything was gray. Dreary. The only color in sight was the rust on the tracks and the flaking graffiti on the small sheltered waiting area on the platform.

He half-hid behind a pillar and then put the battery into the phone. From here he’d be able to see if anyone came up the stairs. He felt his pulse quicken, his throat tighten. The platform, the rain, it all felt more tangible, more real. In a way it was exciting. A game.

Mahmoud scanned the platform once more, even though he knew it was empty, and clicked on the only number stored in the phone. Someone answered before the first ring had sounded.

‘Take a taxi to the Gare du Nord,’ said the muffled voice. ‘Change taxis and drive to the Africa Museum in Tervuren. You should be there in an hour. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ Mahmoud replied.

‘Take your time when you arrive. Look at the exhibitions. There is an emergency exit at the far end of the room with the giraffe. At six-fifty go through that door and down to the park. The door will be open and the alarm off. Walk around the pond in front of the museum on the right-hand side. On the other side of the hedge, opposite the museum, there will be a statue. You’ll see it. On the right side of it, at the edge of the forest, is a bench hidden by some bushes. I’ll be sitting there at seven o’clock. Don’t be late.’