Assassin (29 page)

Larsson owned a Volvo XC90 4 x 4 whose engine growled like an angry bear as Maddy flung it round corners, slicing across the oncoming traffic, seeking out the racing line. She braked like a racing driver, too: one decisive deceleration, then straight back on the power and a slingshot round the bend, trusting the Volvo’s four-wheel drive to keep it on the blacktop. She broke every rule in the book, overtaking on blind corners, aiming for tiny gaps between vehicles, playing chicken with trucks and buses. Her face was a tight mask of concentration, the only outward signs of her tension coming from the occasional flicker of her cheek, just below the left eye, and the clenching of her jaw as she worked the wheel and the brakes.

The ground was flattening out and the individual detached chalets that lined the streets on the edge of the city, each with their patch of garden, were giving way to more tightly packed housing when Larsson spotted a run of shops a hundred metres or so ahead.

‘Pull in there,’ he said.

‘Are you outta your freakin’ mind?’ Maddy shouted, her temper pumped up by the adrenalin flooding her system.

‘Just do it,’ Larsson insisted. ‘If you want Carver to live.’

Fuming, she pulled into a small line of parking spots.

‘I won’t be long,’ Larsson said, jumping out of the car and running over to one of the shops. Maddy couldn’t work out what the sign on the front meant, but, from the gear displayed in the window, it looked like a tool-hire store.

Larsson emerged from it barely a minute later carrying what looked like a gigantic, super-vicious pair of orange kitchen scissors, with a chainsaw where the top blade would be.

‘Alligator loppers,’ he said, by way of explanation.

‘Yeah, I know what they are,’ she said dismissively. She’d already started the engine as he was walking towards the car and was now pulling back out into the traffic.

Within a few minutes they were on the ring road that ran around the north of the city, still going fast, but travelling more smoothly. Larsson didn’t have to give directions any more. He tried making conversation.

‘Where did you learn to drive like that?’

‘Back home, when I was a girl. I come from the boonies, didn’t Carver tell you? Oh, no, I guess he didn’t have time. Look, just don’t talk to me, all right? Don’t tell me how it’s all a terrible mistake. Don’t try to justify yourself. Just shut up unless you’re giving me directions.’

Larsson lowered his head for a moment, cradling it in his right hand. Then he took a deep breath, pulled himself back together and sat back in his seat.

‘Yeah, I get it,’ he said. ‘So, where are we?’ He glanced out of the window. ‘OK, turn left at the next exit. Take the E6. Follow the signs to Lorenskog and Lillestrom. Got that?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Fine then, I’ll shut up.’

The police Saab 9-5 was powered by environmentally conscious biofuel, but that didn’t seem to slow it down as Ravnsborg raced down a country road on the way to Tvillingtjenn. He leaned forward and looked up through the windscreen as a helicopter clattered overhead, painted in drab, military green.

‘The anti-terrorist boys!’ he shouted over the noise. ‘Let us hope they manage to control themselves until we get there. Not long now.’

Another car, filled with Ravnsborg’s own people, was hurtling after them. The local force from Bjorkelangen had already established a perimeter around the farmhouse and barn where the Lists had reported hearing sounds of violence and seeing a helicopter take off. Grantham was on the phone, listening more than talking.

‘Thanks,’ he said at last. ‘Appreciate it. Sorry if I caused you any grief. Speak to you later. Bye.’

He put his phone away and turned his head towards the driver’s seat.

‘The man’s name is Damon Tyzack,’ he said. ‘He’s an all-purpose nasty piece of work. Suspected links with various unpleasant gangland activities, including trafficking of people and drugs. He’s also rumoured to work on the side as a hitman, though no one’s ever got enough evidence on him to bring charges. One interesting thing, though: he’s an ex-marine, spent some time in the Special Boat Service, but got cashiered, kicked out. Seems like a mission went wrong, though the SBS didn’t release any specific details. They like to keep things close to their chests, those boys, but friend Tyzack must have been a very naughty boy indeed, judging by the speed with which they shoved him out the door. There’s one other interesting wrinkle. It was the commanding officer on the mission who insisted Tyzack had to go. Guess who that was …’

‘I thought you said Mr Carver did not work for Her Majesty.’

‘That’s right, he doesn’t.’

‘But he did once? In the SBS?’

‘Bingo.’

‘And Tyzack has never forgiven him for destroying his military career?’

‘Well,’ said Grantham, ‘that’s certainly a possibility.’

‘We may soon find out, one way or the other,’ Ravnsborg said, hitting the brakes and bringing the Saab screeching to a halt at a police roadblock. Up ahead, to the left of the road, a long, narrow stretch of water was lined with rows of trees rising up into jagged, rocky hills. Three fire-engines and a couple of ambulances were lined up along the side of the road, their crews standing around, chatting, smoking, or lying on the verge, soaking up the sun.

Ravsnborg opened his window and showed his badge. One of the officers manning the block leaned down and gave directions, pointing across the water towards the trees. Ravnsborg turned off the road on to a dirt track and drove the car, much more gingerly now, around the narrow end of the lake and along the far bank.

The track had taken them round the back of the property, up to the patch of open ground now occupied by the anti-terrorist unit’s helicopter. It led past the farmhouse and round to the barn, which was just visible through the trees in the distance. Black-uniformed and helmeted assault troops and local police were lined up behind a line of squad cars opposite the farmhouse. A couple of the men were pointing guns at the building, but most were standing round with the unmistakable air of men awaiting orders and wondering when something would happen.

As Ravnsborg parked and got out of the Saab one of the black-clad figures walked towards him with a tough, purposeful stride in keeping with his menacing appearance. A pot-bellied policeman followed after him, almost having to jog to keep up. Ravnsborg was a superb detective, but it didn’t require a man of his talents to deduce that this was the local inspector.

‘Morten,’ snapped the anti-terrorist officer, shooting out a hand towards Ravnsborg, who shook it and introduced himself.

‘Inspector Petersen,’ said the policeman, presenting a sweaty paw. He spoke a couple of further sentences in Norwegian. Grantham did not understand a word, but he didn’t have to. A nervous, eager-to-please subordinate sounded the same in any language.

‘This is Mr Grantham … from London,’ Ravnsborg said, in English, with a wave of his hand. ‘He may be able to help us with the man in the barn.’ He gave one of his weary smiles. ‘If he is who we think he is … If he is there at all.’

Morten gave a grunt that seemed to convey disapproval of Ravnsborg’s apparently vague manner, and scepticism of Grantham’s value to proceedings, all without a word being spoken.

‘Hope I can be of assistance,’ said Grantham, offering his own hand and noting Morten’s reluctance to take it.

‘Now that you are here, we can proceed,’ Morten said, also switching to English. ‘We have reconnoitred the main building thoroughly. No heat-signatures of any occupants have been detected, nor any sounds. With your permission, we will secure this building, then move on to the barn.’

Ravnsborg shrugged. ‘That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Mr Grantham?’

‘Fine by me,’ said Grantham with a smile whose graciousness was calculated to irritate Morten still further.

He told himself he really shouldn’t be winding the poor bastard up like this. They all had serious work to do. But it was fun. And Grantham was a great believer in trying to enjoy his work.

Morten turned on his heel and walked back down towards his men, shouting orders. He was efficient enough, Grantham had to grant him that. There were already men posted on all sides of the farmhouse, covering every possible exit. Now the personnel behind the cars were transformed in seconds from bored layabouts to fast-moving fighting men. Three of them scurried across the open ground towards the front door while the rest stood behind the cars, guns pointed towards the house, ready to fire at the slightest sign of trouble.

The first blast, however, came from a shotgun blasting the lock on the door. It was followed by the crash of a hand-held battering ram.

‘Close your eyes and cover your ears,’ Ravnsborg said to Grantham just seconds before the deafening blast of a flashbang erupted from within the front hall of the farmhouse.

The three men by the door were already moving into the house before the last echoes had stopped ringing round the surrounding hills. Three more men raced across from the cars, following them into the building. Barely a minute later, Morten was taking a message on his headset.

Ravnsborg was standing next to him.

‘The building’s clear,’ Morten reported. ‘No occupants.’

‘Good,’ said Ravnsborg. ‘Now for the barn. And fast. Someone may still be alive in there. There’s no time to waste.’

The road from Bjorkelangen to the lake at Tvillingtjenn described two sides of a crudely drawn right-angled triangle. The third side was formed by rough, heavily wooded country. That was the way that Maddy and Larsson took, hoping to make up time by cutting the corner. Their route was comprised, at best, of rutted, potholed dirt tracks. When they ran out Maddy had to drive between the trees, jinking between the biggest trunks and simply smashing the big Volvo through the lighter undergrowth.

If her technique on tarmac had been as impressive as it was terrifying, her off-road skill was something else again. Maddy drove at motorway speeds down tracks barely wider than the car, using the rally-driver’s knack of drifting round corners in a controlled sideways skid, oblivious to the frantic scrabbling of the tyres as they swung out over precipitous hillside drops. She took hairpin bends using handbrake turns, locking the rear wheels and letting them swing round to push the car through an angle far tighter than its steering lock would allow.

‘Are you sure you’re not really Scandinavian?’ Larsson shouted over the roar of the engine and the constant clattering of stones, solid rock and knotted tree-roots against the underside of the car. ‘I thought we were the only people who were crazy enough to drive like this.’

Maddy didn’t say anything. She was racing through the woods, heading directly towards the trunk of a massive old tree. Larsson suddenly realized that he had never been so frightened in all his life. He was certain that he was about to die. There could be no doubt of it. She was taking her revenge for his betrayal of Carver by killing them both.

The tree got closer and closer until it seemed to fill the entire windscreen. In the last fraction of a second before impact, Maddy flicked the steering wheel sharply to the left and then equally fast to the right. The sudden shifts in direction were enough to destabilize even the Volvo’s four-wheel drive. For an instant, all traction lost, the Volvo turned broadside on to the tree. Maddy seemed to be hurling herself sideways into its trunk. Then she slammed her foot down on the accelerator, the wheels spun frantically, grabbed a fraction of purchase against the forest floor and the car slid past the tree, still moving sideways till she turned hard left again and swung the nose of the car round and they could carry on again, careering through the trees until they hit another track.

‘OK, almost there,’ said Larsson, his voice shaking. He looked across at Maddy and saw the whites of her knuckles against the steering wheel. Her face was more taut and mask-like than ever. She was only just keeping her emotions in check. It occurred to Larsson that the nerve-shredding tension of driving so fast in such difficult conditions was, for her, a distraction from the far greater fear of what might have happened to Carver.

How had it come to this? Larsson thought about the steady escalation of threats and demands to which he had been subjected. At first it was just a matter of getting Carver to arrive in Oslo on a particular day. Then came the order for the bombs and their triggers: not just the hotel device but other ones, too, incendiaries. There had never been any explicit connection between the various commissions. Larsson had feared, of course, that Carver might be the target for the bomb, but not knowing it for sure had enabled him to pretend that it might not be so.

Finally he had been taken up to the barn and had been forced to install the booby-trap system the man demanded. Larsson had seen that the barn was intended as a torture chamber, but there was still no certainty that it would be Carver hanging from that cord and sitting on that simple wooden chair. The only certainty was that Karin and their unborn child would be made to suffer if he, Larsson, did not do as he was told. That had overridden everything else. But then there was the other thing, the design job he’d been given just recently. That didn’t fit with any of the others. It was intended for something else, he was sure: something just as bad as the atrocity at the King Haakon Hotel. If only he knew what, that might give him a chance to atone for what he had done.