Kristian Andersson instructed Bark to remain in the car and stay in touch with the team at headquarters, which had hastily been assembled, then he stepped out of the car and took out his weapon.
The tarp on the back of the truck fluttered. A red Amazon drove up at slow speed. The driver, an older man, stared at him and swerved in the direction of the ditch for a moment before he regained control of the car.
“Make sure to close the road to traffic!” Andersson shouted, before he carefully approached the truck. He kept to the side of the road, came to a bus shelter and stayed there for several seconds. Nothing was happening at the truck.
He jumped a low fence into a private garden, crossed a raspberry patch where the occasionally berry could still be seen, stepped into the adjacent lot and came increasingly closer to the truck.
Partly obscured by a bush, he stared through an open door into the empty cab. A shoe lay on the asphalt. The truck was abandoned. The inmates and their rescuer had fled. Kristian Andersson looked around and discovered two faces in the window of a house some fifteen meters back on the lot. He instinctively fell down on one knee and raised his gun.
Kristian Andersson let out a curse. The thorns of a gooseberry bush scraped his hands and for a moment he was transported to the garden of his childhood home at the foot of Kinnekulle hill. Harvest time. Currents, gooseberries, and raspberries. White plastic bins and buckets, insects and thorns.
The couple in the window were staring intently at him as if they were waiting for him to act. He could make out the woman’s gray hair, and the dark frames of her glasses made her look like an owl. They probably had nothing to do with the escape. They were simply afraid.
Andersson rose up and ran doubled-over up to the door of the house and felt the handle. It was unlocked. He entered and called out that they should remain calm and move away from the window.
“Have you seen anything?” he shouted and walked into the hall. The woman appeared. She looked much younger than his initial impression, perhaps around forty-five.
“They jumped into a car,” she said.
“What kind of a car?”
“A van,” the man said, who had now joined them in the hall.
“Color and make?”
“Blue,” the man said. “Maybe American. What is going on? Has there been a burglary?”
Kristian Andersson left the house and the couple’s questions and ran back to the patrol car. Sune Bark was talking agitatedly into the dispatch. Andersson grabbed the microphone from him.
Forty-Seven
The fugitives abandoned their blue van at the edge of a forest just west of Norrtälje. Two cars were waiting for them there: a Volvo that looked to be in bad shape, and a newer Audi. Björnsson and Brügger jumped into the Audi, while José Franco got into the Volvo. Everything was done very quickly. The high jacker left them without a word and disappeared into the forest on foot. Sören Sköld and Agne Salme had been left tied up in the van, eyes and mouths bound and gagged.
“Come on!” José cried out to Patricio Alavez, who just stared bewildered at the events rapidly unfolding among the trees. He, like the other inmates, had removed his prison clothes during the trip and been able to choose pants, T-shirts, and shirts from a large bin. Patricio had selected a pair of blue jeans and a white T-shirt.
“Where are you going?”
“Jump in!”
The Audi had already left. Patricio gestured to the van and opened his mouth to say something when José Franco engaged first gear and the Volvo started rolling away. Patricio ran after it, José slowed down, leaned across the passenger seat, and opened the door.
After a minute or so they were driving on a gravel road. Patricio sat without saying anything. After several minutes, José chuckled.
“Freedom,” he said and looked at Patricio. “Put on your seat belt.”
They journeyed along small roads. José was quiet. Patricio had not yet recovered. One minute he was weeding behind high walls and had steeled himself for doing so for the next eight years, and then he was sitting in a nice car, passing farms and grazing cows, and feeling the wind through the open window.
He was amazed that so few words had been exchanged during the escape. Jussi Björnsson had said nothing during the quick trip in the van and while they changed clothes, while Stefan Brügger had said all of ten words. And now José was mum.
Patricio liked it. That they hadn’t screamed and mouthed off, hugged each other, grown overconfident and nonchalant in their movements-all this indicated that the escape had been serious and well-planned. The quick changes of vehicles also bore this out.
He realized there was no point in asking where the highjacker, who had dived into the underbrush, had gone or who he was. Perhaps there was a car waiting for him on the other side of the wooded area? Where Björnsson and Brügger were headed in their Audi, Patricio couldn’t even imagine. He did not know Sweden. So far he had only seen customs, the holding cell, and prison.
“Where are you going?” José asked unexpectedly.
“I don’t know,” Patricio answered. “I don’t know anything.”
“I’m driving north,” José said.
Patricio had heard that there were mountains in the northern part of the country. It was said to be beautiful there, or so the prison minister had said when he had described Sweden.
“Uppsala, where is that?”
“You’re going to Uppsala? I don’t think that’s a good idea,” José said. “It’s full of cops.”
“Where are you going?”
“North,” José said, and even though he tried to look impassive, Patricio could sense the faint smile of satisfaction in his thin face-a face that appeared almost emaciated, as he had also managed to shave his beard off during his brief trip in the van.
“I want to go to Uppsala,” Patricio said.
“Do you know anyone there?”
“Maybe.”
“I would like to help you, since we are countrymen. But I cannot go there, you understand that, don’t you? It’s crawling with pigs. But I can tell you what you should do. I have some money, check the glove compartment.”
Patricio was touched by his thoughtfulness. He had the impression that José was genuine when he said he wanted to help. He opened the glove compartment and saw a brown envelope.
“Open it,” José told him.
Patricio did as he was told and saw a wad of bills.
“There should be twenty thousand kronor,” José said. “Take five.”
Patricio protested but accepted in the end. He knew the money would come in handy.
José slowed and pulled into a church parking lot, took a map out of the door pocket, unfolded it, and showed Patricio where they were, and traced the way they were going to proceed through Uppland.
“I can let you off in Tierp. From there you can take the bus or train to Uppsala. You can speak a little Swedish, can’t you?”
José thought for a moment and then explained to Patricio what he could do: board the train as calmly as possible, buy a ticket from the conductor, simply say “Uppsala” and nod if the conductor asked any questions, as this was likely to be as to whether or not it was a one-way trip.
In Uppsala he should get off the train, buy a map, and mingle with people downtown, not check into a hotel, buy food in a large grocery store and thereafter try to find some place where he could spend the night.
“Buy a blanket or sleeping bag. If anyone asks where you come from, tell them you are a Spanish tourist. Okay?”
Patricio nodded.
“You can’t get in touch with your friend right away, understand? The cops might be keeping an eye out.”
“I don’t think so,” Patricio said, who only now started to think about his brother, who had told him he was going to Uppsala to look up the tall one and the fat one. Where was Manuel?
“You won’t change your mind?”