Bad Blood: A Crime Novel Read Free Page B

between the huge, faintly panting body of Gunnar Nyberg and the much thinner skeletal shell of Arto Söderstedt. Across from him, Kerstin Holm’s small, dark body was squeezed between Viggo Norlander’s now extremely fit late-middle-aged muscles and Jorge Chavez’s youthfully unscathed compactness.
    Between these two rows of people, Jan-Olov Hultin was crouching in a position that shouldn’t have been possible for a man in his sixties—even if he was still a formidable center back on their police league soccer team. And he had such an impressive pile of papers that it shouldn’t have been possible to gather them up at such short notice. He coaxed his glasses up onto his monumental nose. The need to shout over the din from the helicopter caused his voice to lose a bit of its neutral tone.
    “This is going to be complicated,” he said. “The Arlanda and Märsta police are already at the airport. Hordes of armed officers have been rushing around in the international arrivals hall, threatening tourists with aggravated assault. I think I’ve gotten rid of them now. We’re up against a man who’ll stop at nothing. That much I’ve understood—he’s a well-programmed murder machine, and if he starts to suspect anything, we’re risking a bloodbath and hostages and an all-around worst-case scenario. In other words, we must act with great care.”
    Hultin paged through pieces of paper.
    “There are more than 150 people on the plane, and we can’t very well shove them all into some old hangar and check them one by one. We would probably effectively kill several of them. So instead, we’ll have careful passport checks, done under our supervision of course; and we’ll do extreme vigilance over all white middle-aged men—which will probably be quite a few people on a typical business-class flight.
    “In addition, customs has provided us with digital cameras that allow the person who inspects passports to discreetly photograph each passport photo. The immigration officers won’t be alone in their booths; you will be there behind them. You’ll be practically invisible from the outside. I’ve gotten the number of passport control booths reduced to two, which will cause some disruption in the flow of people, but it makes it possible for us to have an overview of the flow. Kerstin and Viggo will be located in these two booths. I urge you to be meticulous, attentive, and careful. Take action only in reaction to very strong indications; otherwise use the radio.
    “The risk shouldn’t be as great during the passage through the concourse from the gate to customs, which is critical in and of itself, because there’s no exit there. It’s a straight stretch through bars and boutiques. I’ve placed the Märsta police in the concourse, under the leadership of Arto. So you, Arto, will go up to the gate in question, where a gang of Märsta detectives will be waiting. Above all, make sure they remain invisible. Your task is to try to make sure that no one deviates off course on their way to the passport check. Place people in the bathrooms, in boutiques, in all accessible locations—there aren’t many. The rest of us will be spread out around the terminal and outside. Because if anything is going to happen, it will happen there; everything indicates that that’s the case. Arto’s job is really just to herd the whole flock to passport control. Shepherd.”
    “Are there any other planes arriving at the same time?” Arto Söderstedt asked in his resonant, almost exaggerated Finland-Swedish accent, looking doubtfully down at the E4 highway, which they were following like a helium-filled barge on the Danube River. “Black sheep,” he muttered nearly inaudibly. Hjelm heard him and gave him a cutting side-glance.
    Hultin took another deep dive into the wind-whipped sea of paper.
    “No other arrivals in the vicinity, no.”
    “And the armed guys?” Nyberg said.
    “They’ll be immediately accessible. But only if