Antti smiles. “Damn, it’s been a year. I thought you’d have stopped looking by now. And we were going to leave next week and move to Fasta Aland where there’s medical care, before Mari gives birth. What can I do for you?”
“I’m sorry to say this,” I tell him, “but I have to arrest you.”
“For what?”
OK, we can play this out if he wants. “The faking of your kidnapping, your sister’s actual kidnapping, the theft of ten million euros, and the murder of Jussi Kosonen.”
He sits back, crosses his legs and sips at a beer. “I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about. I was kidnapped and released. When they released me, I decided I didn’t want to go back to my old life. I came here with Mari for the peace and quiet, waiting to be forgotten. There’s no crime in any of that.”
“I’m pretty sure that when we search, we’ll find the ransom money. That’s our proof.”
“Search to your heart’s content,” he says.
Mari hasn’t said a word, but she looks scared. “Are you OK?” I ask her. “Do you need anything?”
“Just for you to go away.”
“Let’s start inside,” I say. “Antti, would you please accompany us?” I want to keep an eye on him.
What we find inside startles me. He’s built a small but lovely modern home with all the amenities, and then camouflaged the exterior with boards from old fishing cabins.
“This is great,” I say. “I’m impressed.”
“Thanks,” Antti says. “I did everything myself in my spare time. Took me five years. I’ve been waiting to get away from my old life for a long time.”
“Couldn’t you have found an easier way?”
He shakes his head. “You don’t know my father.”
He’s so relaxed and amiable that we ignore procedure. We don’t cuff him. No nothing. Like idiots. I bend over to look under the bed. A gunshot scares me so bad I almost piss myself. The bullet whizzes past me and shatters a window on the other side of the bedroom. The next round hits me in the side. The bulletproof vest stops it, but the shot knocks the wind out of me. Milo was drawing his pistol as Antti took aim at his head. And then boom after boom after boom, all hell breaks loose and Antti jerks like a puppet until half his head flies off and he falls. Then Sweetness stands over him and dumps the remainder of his ammo in Antti’s face until his.45s are empty.
After sixteen rounds in the chest, face and head, there isn’t much of him left. It’s a real fucking mess. His girlfriend tries to come in but Milo pushes her out so she won’t see it.
For a couple minutes we all just stand there, uncertain what to do, then a familiar voice repeats the phrase I first heard it utter. “I hope I haven’t interrupted you at an inopportune moment.”
I turn, and Moreau stands in the doorway, Kate in front of him with Anu in her arms. The muzzle of his Beretta touches her head.
“Shall we step outside?” he says. “The stink of open intestines is a bit overwhelming in here.”
We trail out and he tells everyone to make themselves comfortable. He takes his gun away from Kate’s head and brings a chair for her. “Please, one at a time, place your weapons at your feet and kick them toward me.” Milo, God bless him, tries to prove himself the pistoleer he always wanted to be and quick draws, tries to save us all. Adrien is like lightning and puts a bullet through Milo’s wrist. His gun drops and he holds his arm up to look at it. He tries to wiggle his fingers but they don’t move.
“I told you,” Moreau says, “Deputy Dawg can never beat Yosemite Sam. I’m the rootinest tootinest here outlaw in the West. Your carpal tunnel and radial nerve are wrecked. I doubt you’ll ever use that hand again. It’s going to hurt like hell in a minute.”
“Fuck you,” Milo says. His repertoire of comebacks is limited at the moment. He slumps to the ground but sits up, holds his wrist with his other hand.
Moreau collects our Colts and piles them well out of our reach.
There are only two chairs. Kate has one, I take the other. “What do you want?” I ask.
“The ten million. Hand it over and I’ll leave you in peace.”
“Antti died before he told us where it is.”
“I am sorry. I cannot believe that you would be so stupid as to kill him before he told you.”
He’ll never believe I was too stupid not to cuff and guard him, but I try. “He pulled a gun, Sweetness shot him.”
“And with verve! Still, you are just not that stupid.”
I consider pleading with him. Nothing I say or do will make any difference. He’ll stick with whatever agenda he’s planning. “Do you know everything?” I ask. “For instance, who killed Lisbet Soderlund?”
“Of course. I’ve known all along. This is the way it works,” Moreau says. “I am going to torture the group of you until I have the money. We have all the time in the world, and I will cause you immense pain. I would spare you that. Please give me the money.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I would if I had it. But I don’t.”
“Then I’ll fill you in on the details as you suffer,” he says. “As leader, you must suffer first. As once you were, so again you shall be.”
I try to blank my mind, to steel myself for what’s to come. I don’t ask him to spare Kate, because the sign of weakness might entice him to hurt her first.
“I will start at the beginning,” Moreau says. “Over a year ago, my former Foreign Legion comrades engineered the kidnapping of Kaarina Saukko with Antti. They found Kosonen, the dupe. He frequented their shop, and they took his children. They planned the crime, robbed the home, did the technical work. Antti knew the user name and password at the security company because he had been there while they planned the system, watched the technician open his computer and memorized them. No magic there, but the B amp;E at the company made the robbery seem more sophisticated and less of an inside job.”
I have shorts on. Moreau examines my knee, puts his pistol to the exact point of entry from when I was shot before, and fires. The bullet passes through the old exit scar. The pain is awful and I grunt, but won’t allow him the satisfaction of a scream. Good-bye, reconstructed knee.
“The patsy collected the ransom money, Antti killed him, betrayed my colleagues and disappeared. He left them the paintings, I suppose as recompense, without considering that they have provenance and are worthless without a pre-heist buyer for a private collection. Apparently, he came here, to this island, to meet his girlfriend.”
She nods and confirms this.
“As punishment for betrayal, they shot Kaarina. They assassinated her with a.308 Winchester, which they, arrogantly enough, kept rather than disposed of. Find it. You’ll have your murder weapon and no doubt solve the crime in short order. Then they set about looking for Antti, with no luck. They surveilled the police for a year, kept up with their progress. The police couldn’t find him. If they could follow the police but jump one step ahead, as police act cautiously while they build cases, they could take their ten million. Too much time passed. Afraid police interest in the case would wane, they called me, offered me a split, and used their connections to convince Veikko Saukko to have me brought in. I contacted you to convince you that the Saukko kidnap-murder and the Soderlund assassination were likely related, to keep the Saukko case a police top priority while I remained informed of developments. Then I could kill Antti and take the money back. To aid in this effort, Marcel and Thierry committed the robberies posing as Islamic fundamentalists-they wore charcoal camo stick to disguise themselves as blacks and spouted some rhetoric in ridiculous accents-and also committed the racial murders, simply to make it appear they were related to the Soderlund assassination, to keep your enthusiasm high.”
He examines me with a speculative eye. “Open your mouth.”
I refuse.
“Well,” he says, “it’s either my way or I shoot you through both jaws.”
Wisdom dictates I open my mouth. He sticks the barrel in it, blows out the bridgework from where my own teeth were shot out, and creates a wound that will leave a scar just like the one I had removed. The pain is awful. I feel woozy. He reaches in his pocket and hands me something. “It’s a bindle of heroin. Sniff only a tiny bit. You are what is called opiate naive. If you use too much, you will overdose, or at least pass out. I want you aware.”