In fact he could not remember when it had last happened. Not when his mother died, and definitely not when watching or reading anything. He thought of himself as a block of stone. But now, in front of his son with his rows of pencils and crayons, the professor cried like a child and he just let it happen, and of course it had been Charles Edelman’s words.
August would be able to learn to speak and could keep drawing, and that was overwhelming news. But Balder was not crying just because of that of course. There was also the drama at Solifon. The death threat. The secrets he was privy to and the longing for Hanna or Farah or anyone who could fill the gap in his heart.
“My little boy!” he said, so emotional he failed to notice his laptop switch itself on and show pictures from one of the surveillance cameras outside the house.
Out in the garden, in the blustering storm, there was a tall, thin man in a padded leather jacket, with a grey cap pulled down to conceal his face. Whoever it was knew that he was being filmed, and even if he seemed lean and agile there was something in his swaying walk which was reminiscent of a heavyweight boxer on his way into the ring.
Grane was sitting in her office at Säpo searching the web and the agency’s records. She did not really know what she was looking for. But something unfamiliar and worrying was gnawing away at her, something vague.
Her conversation with Balder had been interrupted by Helena Kraft, chief of Säpo, who was looking for her again to discuss the same matter as before. Alona Casales at the N.S.A. wanted to continue their conversation; this time she sounded calmer, and again a little flirtatious.
“Have you managed to sort out your computers?” Grane said.
“Ha... yes, that was a circus, but I don’t think it’s anything serious. I’m sorry if I was a little cryptic last time. I don’t have much of a choice. I just want to stress again that the level of threat against Professor Balder is both real and serious, even though we know nothing for certain. Did you have time to deal with it?”
“I’ve spoken to him. He refuses to leave his house, told me he was in the middle of something. I’m going to arrange protection.”
“Fine. As you might have guessed I’ve done more than just quickly check you out. I’m very impressed, Miss Grane. Shouldn’t someone like you be working for Goldman Sachs and earning millions?”
“Not my style.”
“Mine neither. I wouldn’t say no to the money, but this underpaid snooping is more my thing. Now, honey, here’s the situation. As far as my colleagues are concerned this isn’t a big deal — which I happen to disagree with. And not just because I’m convinced that this group represents a threat to our national economic interests. I also think there are political implications. One of those Russian computer engineers I mentioned, a guy called Anatoli Chabarov, is also linked to Ivan Gribanov, a member of the Russian Duma. He’s notorious, and a major shareholder in Gazprom.”
“I understand.”
“But most of it so far is just dead ends. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to crack the identity of the person at the top.”
“The man they call Thanos.”
“Or woman.”
“Woman?”
“I could be wrong. I know this type of group tends to exploit women, not promote them to leadership positions, and this figure has mostly been referred to as a he...”
“Then what makes you think it might be a woman?”
“A sort of reverence, you could say. They talk about ‘Thanos’ in the same way men through the ages have spoken about women they desire and revere.”
“A beauty, in other words.”
“Right. But maybe I’m just picking up some homoeroticism. Nothing would make me happier than if Russian gangsters and bigwigs in general were to indulge more in that department.”
“Ha, true!”
“In fact I mention it only so that you’ll keep an open mind if this mess ends up on your desk. You understand there are also quite a few lawyers mixed up in it. What else is new, right? Hackers steal and lawyers legitimize the theft.”
“‘True. Balder’s said to me that we’re all equal before the law — if we pay the same amount.’”
“Yes, if you can afford a strong defence you can get away with whatever you want these days. You do know who Balder’s legal opponents are, don’t you? The Washington firm Dackstone & Partner.”
“Sure.”
“In that case you know that the firm is also used by large tech companies to sue the shit out of inventors and innovators hoping to get some modest reward for their creations.”
“I discovered that when we were dealing with the lawsuits of that inventor Håkan Lans.”
“Grim, wasn’t it? But the interesting thing is that Dackstone crops up in one of the few conversations we’ve managed to track down and decrypt from this criminal network, although there the firm is simply referred to as D.P., or even D.”
“So Solifon and these crooks have the same lawyers?”
“It looks like it, and that’s not all. Dackstone is about to open an office in Stockholm — do you know how we found that out?”
“No,” Grane said. She was beginning to feel stressed. She wanted to finish the conversation and ensure that Balder got his police protection.
“Through our surveillance of this group,” Casales went on. “We know Chabarov mentions it once in passing, which suggests that there are ties to the firm. The group knew about the office opening even before it became public, and Dackstone & Partner is setting up in Stockholm together with a Swedish lawyer called Brodin. He used to be a criminal lawyer, and if you remember he was known for getting a little too cosy with his clients.”
“I do remember that classic picture in the evening papers — Kenny Brodin out on the town with some gangsters, with his hands all over a call girl,” Grane said.
“I saw that. I’d bet that Mr Brodin is a good place to start if you want to check out this story. Who knows? Maybe he’s the link between big business and this group.”
“I’ll take a look at it,” Grane said. “But right now I’ve got a number of other things to deal with. I’m sure we’ll be in touch again soon.”
She called the duty officer for Säpo’s Personal Protection Unit, who that evening was none other than Stig Yttergren. Her heart sank. Yttergren was sixty, overweight, known to be a heavy drinker, and most of all he liked to play cards online. He was sometimes called “Officer No-Can-Do”. She proceeded to explain the situation in her most authoritative tone and demanded that Professor Frans Balder in Saltsjö-baden be given a bodyguard as rapidly as possible. As usual Yttergren responded by saying that it would be extremely difficult, perhaps not possible at all. When she countered by saying that this was an order from the chief of Säpo herself, he muttered something which might even have been “that stroppy cunt”.
“I didn’t hear that,” Grane said. “Just make sure this is put in place immediately.” Which of course it was not. While she was waiting and drumming her fingers on her desk, she searched for information on Dackstone & Partner and anything else she could find linked to what Casales had been telling her — and that is when she was overcome by a sense of something horribly familiar.
But she could not put her finger on it. Before she could find what she was looking for Yttergren called back to say that no-one from Personal Protection was available. There was an unusual amount of activity for the royal family that evening, he said, some sort of public engagement with the Norwegian crown prince and princess, and the leader of the Swedish Democrats had had an ice cream thrown at his head before his guards could intervene, which meant that they had had to provide reinforcements for his late speech in Södertälje.