To the Top of the Mountain (12 page)

He turns round and gives her one last big embrace, stands up, pulls on his clothes and walks over to the backpack lying on the floor. He looks down into it.

She stands up too, slowly pulling on her clothes, going over to him and wrapping her arms around him. She too looks down into the bag.

Inside, there are two black, knitted balaclavas and two black pistols.

He bends down and pulls the zip shut.

Then he takes the car key from the desk, throws it up into the air, catches it and looks into her eyes.

‘Let’s go and arrange that, then,’ he says.

11

THE MAN STANDS
completely still. He has given up everything, and is standing completely still next to his car. In his hand he is holding a briefcase. It hangs, motionless, by his side.

It’s dark but warm. As though the summer day was lingering behind.

As though there was still light.

Summer has hardly begun but already the nights are growing longer. It’s Midsummer’s Eve, he thinks, it has been for a few hours. The week began with the summer solstice, and it’s ending with Midsummer’s Eve.

What a way to celebrate the longest days of the year.

No lilies or columbines, as the folk song goes; no roses or salvia, no sweet mint.

No heart’s delight.

All he really wants is to go to a place where the winters are shorter. That’s all he wants.

That’s what he is waiting for.

He stands completely still, looking out into the darkness.

It’s not quite pitch black, it never is at this time of year. Not really, really dark. He can make out the shapes of old sheds and rusty, wrecked cars as he gazes out along the road in the cluttered industrial estate.

And right then, that’s when he hears it.

At the same moment he hears the muffled explosion, he knows that it’s all gone to hell. Everything. His entire life has gone to hell.

He stands completely still.

So that’s how fragile it was.

The dividing line so thin.

The balance so delicate.

By the time he hears the third round of shots, he’s sitting in his car. He sighs and drives away.

It’s already too late.

Six men in a van. A metallic-green van parked up against an old industrial shed, windows glistening with condensation from their heavy breathing and involuntary perspiration.

It’s a wait like they’ve never known before.

The night drags on.

Five of the men are moving slightly. Moving nervously. One of them picks non-stop at his thumb, one licks his lips so often he’ll develop a cold sore; one pinches his nose, one bounces his knee up and down, one chews his thumbnail.

But one of the men is completely still. He is squatting down in the back of the van. It’s as difficult as stretching; after a few minutes, the thigh muscles normally begin to twitch. But not this man’s. He is completely still. In his left hand, his sub-machine gun is resting against his thigh, the barrel pointing up towards the roof of the van. In his right hand, he’s holding something that looks like a miniature calculator. Thin, black, and with a single, slightly raised button. A red one.

He looks at his watch and then surveys his men. He can see them sharply outlined in the faint darkness. Sweat is running from their thick, black winter hats, down over their faces. All are wearing these black hats apart from him; he is wearing a gold-coloured one. It sits, crown-like, on top of his head.

The sweat is flowing, but their faces are controlled. Tense, strained, concentrated. Everything as it should be.

‘Three out,’ he says.

The three men in the back of the van transform their black winter hats into balaclavas, pulling the thick material down over their faces. Their eyes shine bright against the black. They take their weapons off safety and climb out of the van. Pressing close to the wall of the shed, their sub-machine guns raised. Clouds of steam rise from their masks.

He watches the movement of the second hand. Its calm, unaffected leaps. Step by step by step. Minutes of constant watching.

The clock strikes two. One second past. Two, three.

There, he hears the first sound of the engine.

It grows louder. Eventually, he nods slightly and pulls the golden balaclava down over his face. The two men in the front do the same, though theirs are black.

Behind the shed, headlights appear, illuminating the road. Only faintly at first, then more and more brightly.

Just as the front of the black Mercedes appears from behind the shed, he presses the red button.

It’s not like an explosion, more like the car is lit up from within. An inward flash of light, strangely soundless.

The Mercedes rolls on for a few metres. Stops.

The three men by the shed are already on their way over to it.

The three still inside the van climb out. One of them is wearing a golden balaclava. He is the golden one and knows it.

When he gets there, the situation has already been determined.

The car is giving off a little smoke, no fire. Two men are standing on either side of it, leaning over the car. They’re frisked, sub-machine guns pointing at them. Inside the car, a man. In the back seat. He is dead, his body blown to pieces. A chain coils from his wrist to a briefcase. It’s intact. Explosion-proof. The golden one nods to the masked man next to him – the broadest of them all. The broad man takes out some bolt cutters, leans into the car and cuts the chain. He pulls back out of the car-turned-hearse with the briefcase in his hand.

The golden one nods to the broad man and looks fixedly at the men leaning over the car. Both have bleeding faces. Through the cloud of smoke, he catches the eye of the one furthest away from him. Blood is running down his dark face as he stands by the passenger side of the car. A dark, cold gaze which doesn’t waver. A gaze the golden one has seen before, a gaze he himself wants. The gaze of a man who has killed so many times that nothing else has any value any longer. The gaze of a man who knows he’s going to die, who isn’t afraid of it, and who just wants to take as many with him to the other side as possible.

Two sub-machine guns are pointed at the man by the passenger side of the Mercedes, two at the man by the driver’s side. When the driver turns round, he looks like the passenger. Just like him.

The same cold gaze.

The golden one gestures with his gun and the broad one moves in front of the car, standing in its headlights. He lifts the briefcase up and opens it. The sub-machine gun hangs from a strap around his neck. He looks down into the case, then up again. Disappointment shines in his eyes.

‘What the fuck is this?’ he asks.

The golden one goes over, the shortest of the masked men with him. Three pairs of eyes gazing down into an open briefcase.

A momentary lapse of concentration.

In the briefcase, there is a key and a two-way radio, each in an individual holder. There is also a piece of paper. The golden one grabs it.

When he looks up again, the man on the passenger side of the car has a pistol in his hand. He shoots behind him, over his shoulder. The shot hits the man behind him in the face, just where the two white holes are gleaming in the black balaclava. For a moment, they gleam red instead. Then they gleam no more.

Never more.

It all happens in slow motion. The man by the driver’s seat also conjures up a weapon, shooting in their direction. Misses. The sound of sub-machine guns rings out.

The broad man reacts instinctively. He doesn’t have time to reach for his gun. Instead he runs, both hands grasping the briefcase. He is aiming for the nearest shed. It’s just three metres away. Two. He feels the pain in his back. One metre. None. He is behind the shed. When he falls, he feels that the pain is gone. He doesn’t feel anything at all. The last thing he sees is the briefcase, lying on the asphalt in front of him. It’s covered in blood.

Then he sees nothing more.

And so, the summer evening is shattered. As though it exploded, as though the whole summer had been blown up into a thousand pieces.

Not much more fire is exchanged. Four sub-machine guns against two pistols. The golden one thinks to himself that the routine of war doesn’t count for so much after all. Both of the men by the car are soon lying on the ground, motionless.

A moaning cuts through the night. When he turns round, he sees another of the masked men on the floor, shot. He watches him tear off the black balaclava, howling. His face is purple. His clothes are slowly turning red around his left shoulder. The golden one bends down over him and makes a gesture to the short one.

The short one heads off in the direction the broad man ran. Turns the corner by the shed. Stops dead. Sees him lying in a pool of his own blood. Sees the pool of blood in front of him. Sees a rectangular island outlined against the blood.

The shape of a briefcase.

And beyond this, bloody footprints growing fainter until they’re swallowed up by the night.

The short man swears. He follows the tracks until they disappear, gazing out into the night. Nothing anywhere. Just the pale, summer darkness. He charges around for a while, his gun raised. It’s pointless. The briefcase is gone.

By the car, the injured man is shouting. His sweater is almost completely red. The golden one looks down at him, closes his eyes, and then presses a thick strip of tape over his mouth. The injured man’s eyes widen fiercely. It looks as though they’re about to burst out of their sockets.

The short man is next to the golden one. He has taken his black balaclava off. His face is pale. He shakes his head.

‘It’s gone,’ he says.

‘What the fuck are you saying?’

‘Esse’s dead and the briefcase is gone. Someone’s made off with it.’

‘Who?! Fucking hell! Spread out, get looking!’

There are only three of them now. Three people can’t spread out especially well. Far in the distance, they hear the sound of a car starting. They realise that it’s too late.

The golden one stops. Stands completely still. It couldn’t go wrong.

It had gone wrong in several places, how the hell was that possible?

The short man passes him. He moves determinedly towards the still-smoking car. When he passes the golden one, he says: ‘Maybe we’ve still got a chance.’

He bends down to Nedic’s man, lying on the passenger side of the car. The man is coughing up blood, strange phrases in a strange language coming from his mouth.

‘Frequency?’ the short one asks in English, pressing the barrel of his gun to the man’s forehead.

The man laughs. He laughs blood. The last thing he says is: ‘Fuck you, asshole!’

He gets a bullet in the face.

The short one looks up at the golden one’s smoking gun. He goes pale, stares at him, shocked. He stands up. Regains his wits. Stands there thinking.

‘The paper,’ he eventually says.

The golden one nods. He had forgotten about the piece of paper in the briefcase. Yet another mistake.

The golden one unfolds the paper. On it is a series of numbers.

The short one nods energetically.

‘See,’ he says, ‘we’re not completely screwed.’

The golden one looks around. Nods briefly. He and the short one load the injured man into the van.

The golden one thinks about a conversation he had recently – in prison, with a murderer studying art. About the fabulous difference between theory and practice. He feels like a failure. Stands there for a few minutes for no particular reason. Then, he lifts his golden balaclava from his face and jumps into the van.

In the beginning there were six. Now, three and a half.

Though the others are nobodies, the golden one thinks, pulling himself together.

That’s what counts, after all.

A rusty old Datsun is already on the motorway. It is filled with a flickering mixture of fear and elation. He is driving terribly. It’s lucky there are no other cars around. It’s early in the morning on Midsummer’s Eve, probably the quietest day of the year. Usually.

This year it wasn’t so quiet.

He is pale, she is dark, and he turns towards her. He can see that her wonderful legs are shaking. He lays a hand on her knee. Now his hand is shaking, too.

‘Shit,’ she’s saying. ‘Shit, shit, shit. Did you see? Shit, did you see?’

He nods, and his eyes move down her legs to the floor. To the bag resting by her feet. Two balaclavas and two pistols are sticking out of it.

Unused.

‘We didn’t do anything,’ he says. ‘They did it themselves.’

‘Shit,’ she says.

They’re silent for a moment. Recovering. His gaze wanders, moving from the bag back up to her knees and further. To her lap.

To a briefcase, dripping with blood.

He can’t hold it in any more. He lets go of the wheel. The car sails left and then right across the lane.

‘Jesus Christ, we did it!’ he shouts, putting his arm around her and giving her a kiss.

‘Shit!’ she shouts, raising her arms to the roof of the car.

12

THE PORN POLICE
were wandering around in the clear morning light. The asphalt was covered with a layer of scented dew. It isn’t often that dew has a scent, but on that morning, Midsummer’s Eve, you could really smell the dew. Even the porn police had noticed it, though they had other things on their minds.

Their night’s work made their uniforms feel like week-old underwear. All that effort instead of just sitting in the staffroom, watching high-quality videos.

The porn police enjoyed watching high-quality videos in the staffroom. So much so that someone on the outside had found out, and this person had told the tabloids. The result? The porn police were given their far from honourable nickname.

Maybe the night’s events would wash it away. That’s what they were hoping, in any case, as they wandered around in the clear morning light, growing used to the unusual sight which greeted them.

This should be able to wash away even the most stubborn of stains.

It was no later than five, but they had already managed to turn away five or six carloads of their friends from the tabloids. Not without a certain sense of
Schadenfreude
.