Life Deluxe (27 page)

The van was parked four blocks away so no one would see it near Jorge’s building. He squinted at it. A Mercedes. Boosted this week, with one plate switched out and the other torn off. If they were stopped and asked why they were driving with a stolen plate, they could say that they were the ones who’d reported it stolen. Point to the torn-off plate. “Look, we’re missing one.” That’d been Mahmud’s idea. Real smart, actually.

Sergio opened the back doors. They squeaked. Jorge climbed in.

Inside the storage area in the back: silver wallpaper. As decided—Sergio’d dressed the inside of the back of the van with three layers of aluminum foil. They closed the doors. Lit a flashlight.

Sergio pointed to the walls. “It took a whole day, man. And that spray glue, man, it was better than ten grams of hash.”

Jorge’s finger on the foil. “This oughta be good. But like we said, we’re not taking any risks. Is that the jammer?” He pointed to a black garbage bag.

Sergio nodded. He bent down. Pulled the garbage bag off.

The jammer.

Jorge grinned. “Fuck,
cabrón
, that’s so ill.”

They played with the apparatus for half an hour. Turned it on and off, set it to different frequencies, checked that it was working against their own phones.

Nine-thirty: Tom swung by and picked up Mahmud and Jorge’s cell phones. They checked the walkie-talkies, the police radio. In an hour: their robber cells would be switched on. Jorge eyed Tom—for the first time,
hombre
seemed stressed: was talking fast, playing with his walkie-talkie. Looked wiped—dark circles under his eyes, like he’d been punched in the face. Jorge could feel it too. Constantly: that slow churning in his stomach.

Fifteen minutes: him, Mahmud, and Sergio in the van. Driving toward the city. On their way to pick up the wheel loader.

They were driving in silence. Sergio’d quit his punning. Jorge was leaning his head back, looking up at the roof of the car. Mahmud was holding the wheel, concentrating on not driving too fast. The wheel loader: the key to their success. According to the Finn: the wheel loader made this hit invincible.

Then Jorge thought:
The Finn can hit the showers
. Jorge and Tom were the ones who came up with the wheel loader idea
—not
the Finn. J-boy and the boys were the ones taking all the risks. And what’s more: the vault—a story in itself.

Past Frösunda, Brunnsviken’s water on their left. Mahmud turned off the highway half a mile from their destination. Exit: Haga Norra. A sharp exit from the highway down toward the park: the Haga Park. The trees were green: looked like a rain forest. They drove up to the gates. A small parking lot.
Vato
stopped the car.

Jorge reached for his backpack in the backseat. Picked up one of the new cell phones. Inserted a SIM card. Then he picked up a walkie-talkie: MOTOTLKR T7—Motorola’s hottest model. Over a six-mile range.

He turned it on. Pressed the talk button. “Hello?”

Crackling on the other end.

He waited a while. Met Mahmud’s eyes. Every step of the way had to click now.

He held it up again. “Hello?”

Still just crackling.

A third time: “Hello, can you hear me?”

Crackling, buzzing, hissing sounds.

Finally Tom’s voice. “Yo, man. I hear you. And I’m here. Ready to rock and roll. Over.”

Jorge did thumbs-up for Mahmud and Sergio. “And the others? Over.”

The idea: no calls would go to Jorge’s robbery phone. Instead: everyone reported to Tom, who was keeping track of everything and keeping Jorge informed over the walkie-talkie. Cop-block: no cell phone calls could be connected to the place where the actual hit would take place.

Tom responded. He was using real names; the pigs couldn’t pick up radio waves after the fact.

“Babak and Robert are in position by the big cop station downtown. Jimmy’s at Stora Essingen, ready to drive north on the Essinge highway. Javier is in position at Kungsholmen. Everyone’s ready. Over.”

The entire time he was talking, Jorge was looking at Mahmud. Sergio was sitting in the backseat. The mood in the van: concentrated like in an ebola research lab.

The clock struck ten-fifteen. Almost time now. Very soon.

Jorge held the walkie-talkie up to his mouth. “Okay, let’s roll. Keep reporting to me the whole time. Over and out.”

Tom’s voice sounded happy. The stress Jorge’d seen in him this morning was gone. He bellowed, “Yes, sir!”

Jorge turned to Mahmud and Sergio. “We’ll check everything one last time.”

They nodded. Mahmud climbed out—checked that the jammer in the back was still working. Sergio checked that he had the keys to the wheel loader. They checked the arsenal, the ski masks, the keys, and all the rest. One last time.

The last time.

The walkie-talkie on the instrument panel vibrated. Tom’s voice again: “Everyone’s driven up to their positions. We’re ready to roll. Just give us the word, boss. Over.”

Jorge tried to grin even though he knew it looked forced. “Fire away,” he said.

Mahmud started the van. Jorge was sitting with the walkie-talkie tightly pressed to his ear. Following every step of Tom’s ongoing reports.

Tom was driving a boosted car. He’d parked a clean car on the street outside the pig station in Solna the night before.

Mahmud was driving calmly. They were approaching the spot where the wheel loader was supposed to be parked. Ten minutes till strike down.

Tom was describing what he was doing over the walkie-talkie: “I’m standing outside the car. I’ve busted the instrument panel. Torn out all the shit I can. They’re not going to get this bucket moving for hours. Not even the best booster in Alby could do this now. The only way is to get a tow truck. I swear. Over.”

“Good, Tom. You heard from the others?”

“Yep. Javier’s driving slow like a grandpa on the highway by Klarastrand. And Jimmy’s driving as slow as his mama on the Essinge highway. Over.”

“A’ight, dope.”

Tom kept doing what he was doing outside his police station. “All the tanks of gas and the car tires were already crammed in. This’ll be easy.”

Jorge heard how he slammed a car door shut. Tom sounded out of breath. Jorge knew what the dude was carrying: one of the bomb bags.

Mahmud and Tom’d built the bombs. Ones like it’d been used for Swedish CIT heists before. But it didn’t matter, according to the Finn—the cops could never be careful enough. They’d lifted six cabin bags from a department store storage site where one of Sergio’s friends worked and let them in. Tom’d shoved old car batteries into the bags, hooked up starter cables. Mixed nine pounds of all-purpose flour with water, divided the dough into six plastic bags. Wrapped a couple turns of black electrical tape around the whole package. Tom spray-painted the word BOMB with white text on the bags. Fucking ill terrorist workshop. Al Qaeda would’ve been proud. Hamas would’ve been jealous. ETA would’ve scowled in the corner and wanted in on it all: you’re such bomb-building pros.

Honest: they looked mad real.

And now: Tom was panting like a marathon runner. “I’ve set down the fake bomb, in the middle of the street, and turned it so the text is visible. They won’t be able to drive past here with any cop cars. Now I’m walking toward the clean car. In thirty seconds, the gas car will go BOOM. Over.”

“Sick. And the others? Over.”

“Just got a text from Babak and Robert. They’re about to torch their cars by the Kronoberg station. Over.”

“That leaves six minutes to go.”

Mahmud drove the van toward Haga Södra. There were cars parked outside the restaurant, or whatever it was. Jimmy and Robert’d parked the wheel loader behind the building the night before. There were four tennis courts next to the restaurant—people were playing like crazy. Jorge slipped on a pair of shades.

He heard a sharp
bang
. Then Tom’s voice in the talkie: “
Abbou!
Fuck what a boom, man!”

Then: car doors opening. Tom must’ve sealed the deal: set out the bomb contraption, torched the burn car.

The five-oh would have a hard time getting out of the station. The bomb squad would take their time. Stupid idiots.

“You should’ve seen it!” Tom howled.

Jorge tried to laugh along with him. “Drive away from there right away. Step on it! And brief me about the others.”

He set down the walkie-talkie. The guys so far: band of brothers, so tight.

Jorge jumped out of the van with Sergio. They walked toward the restaurant. Jimmy’d described the wheel loader: a yellow nineteen-ton Volvo Construction Equipment. Massive like a concrete mountain. The dude’d succeeded: talked to contacts of contacts in the construction biz who’d helped him take it off a guy selling construction equipment in Skogås for thirty large, cash. Still cheap for a monster.

The massive vehicle couldn’t be missed.

Sergio turned to Jorge. He looked pale.

“
Hombre
, if this goes to hell, what lawyer you want?”

Pessimist question. Still, important. The last time Jorge was convicted, he’d had some tired-ass public defender appointed by the court. That was a long time ago. Before he became a Gangsta with a capital G. Before he was crowned the Coke King of the concrete. Before he’d lived in Thailand.

Jorge answered Sergio, “I don’t know, man. Not the same suit as last time. Maybe Martin Thomasson, or that guy Jörn Burtig. I heard they’re supposed to be ill. Then there’s that new star child. That tall guy. I think his name is Lars Arstedt.”

Sergio was silent.

“But what the fuck,
hermano. Calma te
. We’re not gonna blow it.”

They walked behind the building. Large windows facing out toward the water. Brown-painted wood.

A small parking lot. Three cars: a Volvo, an Audi, another Volvo. Three empty spots.

No wheel loader.

“It was supposed to be here, right?” Sergio asked. His voice sounded high and pinched.

Jorge looked around. He didn’t see anything that so much as resembled a wheel loader.

He called Tom. “Check with Jimmy or Robert where the wheel loader is.”

How was it possible?

Jorge couldn’t believe it. Like his head’d been beaten in.

No wheel loader.

NO FUCKING WHEEL LOADER
.

A thousand thoughts at once.

Like bombs going off inside his skull.

He screamed.

His stomach exploded.

One thought beat out all others:
It’s all going to hell
.

He threw up everywhere.

Hägerström would soon be back in the city. There was a particular reason he was on his way to Stockholm. JW was going on day parole—twenty-four hours—and Hägerström was the one transporting him into Stockholm. The paroles were more frequent these days since he needed to get adjusted to life outside the prison walls.

He and JW had ridden in the prison’s transport car. An interesting drive: they had spoken a great deal. Hägerström was on his way now. On his way into JW’s world. And Torsfjäll was cued in too—if something interesting were to happen today, he was available.

He lived undercover on two fronts. It was one too many.

The weeks inside the prison. The weeks of advances, of kissing ass and trying to win JW’s trust. Maybe he was close to a breakthrough.

But JW was still overly careful. More paranoid than an American ambassador post WikiLeaks. Thought the cops were tapping his phone conversations and his visits. And he was right about that. What’s more, Hägerström had done his best to encourage that line of thinking—the more cautious JW was, the more he would let Hägerström do.

It worked. JW had started asking Hägerström to do him favors more and more. Call in a message to X or Y. Send a text to this number with the following number combination. Print this letter and send it to the bank man there and there.

JW was constantly buying new calling cards for the pay phone—spoke on the phone for at least forty minutes a day. The other inmates started complaining. Some called him the Jew instead of the bookworm—the dude was occupying the phone booth like Israel occupies the Middle East. Mischa Bladman paid him a visit once a week. The fact was that all of his visiting hours were used up by that accounting guy. Torsfjäll bugged the visiting room, but it didn’t give jack shit: either JW and Bladman were whispering, or they were speaking in code.

JW could’ve asked Hägerström to smuggle in another cell phone or an Internet hookup for his computer. But Hägerström made sure the other COs became more watchful about those kinds of things. The unit increased the number of shakedowns and searches. They found other inmates’ porn stashes rolled inside clothes hangers, amphetamine on the drawings given to them by their three-year-old daughters, cell phones in crevices carved into the walls. JW became even more cautious. Refrained from unnecessary risks.

Needed Hägerström even more.

At night, he tried to analyze what was actually happening. The information he had smuggled out. The number combinations, the banks he had called, the e-mails he had sent. A pattern was beginning to crystallize. Some kind of move was in the works. Companies were being liquidated, relationships with banks were being ended, accounts were being closed, and funds were being transferred. Liechtenstein, the Virgin Islands, and the Cayman Islands. Meanwhile other companies were being created, new bank relationships were being made, accounts were being opened, and funds were being transferred to other jurisdictions: Dubai, Liberia, Lithuania, Bahamas, Panama. Credit cards were being ordered, bank guarantees were being proffered, account slips were being sent. Maybe it had to do with changing secrecy laws in certain countries.