Any DNA found at crime scenes across Sweden is registered and archived, and, as a matter of routine, this DNA is also checked against the country’s master database. As it happened, Niklas Nordgren’s genetic evidence had caused the computers in the police station to flash like one-armed bandits, spitting out one jackpot after another.
It transpired that Nordgren was a match for DNA found at the scene of a four-year-old bank robbery in Sollentuna. He was also matched to a two-year-old robbery in Mörby. And to a raid on a post office in Sundbyberg in 2001. As well as a robbery at a jewelry shop in Östermalm the year after that.
By chance, Niklas Nordgren was sentenced to the same amount of time in prison as Michel Maloof. When they got out, it was almost like they had gone down together. They started meeting more and more often.
Maloof’s infectious positive attitude toward life, his good nature and clear loyalty were a good match for Nordgren’s thoughtful curiosity. On top of that, they shared a fundamental character trait: both always looked forward, never back.
Maloof turned right after the bridge and continued along Södra Kungsvägen toward Larsberg. He parked two blocks from the building where Nordgren lived, and together they walked along the empty sidewalks through the warm summer night. It was just before midnight.
“You know… if you want,” Maloof said, “you can get in on it? There’d be four of us. Split everything by four?”
“OK?” Nordgren asked. “How big is it?”
“Well…” Maloof replied. He knew that not even paraphrasing it could make the plan seem less mad. “We’re planning to… land a helicopter on a cash depot right next to a police station and then grab a few hundred million.” He laughed.
“Seriously?” asked Nordgren.
“Yep, yep.” Maloof nodded.
Nordgren looked his friend in the eye.
“I’m in,” he said.
“That’s why we need your phone bombs,” Maloof continued. “To stop the police helicopters from taking off.”
22
At around nine in the morning, Sami gently pushed the door to the bedroom open. Karin had been up since five.
“We’ll go out for a while,” he whispered, referring to himself and John.
The baby had fallen asleep during his feed and Karin’s breast was still in his mouth. She gently pulled herself free.
“That’s not a problem, is it?” she wondered.
There was no mistaking the relief in her voice.
“Get a few hours’ sleep,” Sami said gently.
“So the milk has time to thicken and put him to sleep this afternoon,” she whispered with a sigh without opening her eyes.
“Kids are great,” he replied with a wry smile.
He gently closed the door again.
John was waiting on the floor in the hallway. When Sami picked him up, he laughed. He was a happy baby. According to his parents, the boy was already talking, though not even his grandmother could understand the noises Sami heard as “Mom,” “Dad,” “car” and “bird.”
In truth, he was a little too heavy to be carried around now, but he liked it, and Sami felt freer without the stroller. In the bag he swung over his shoulder, he had packed gruel and extra diapers, and he added a blanket. Summer had spread its warm embrace over Stockholm the day before, but the weather report that morning had said that the warm front would be taking a temporary break for a few days. They wouldn’t be needing the overalls, at least, and for that Sami was grateful.
He carried John on his arm as he walked down Högbergsgatan, but as he turned the corner onto Götgatan, the feeling of being followed struck him unexpectedly.
The sidewalks were crowded. One week into July, and people still hadn’t started their summer holidays. Or maybe that was the reason everyone seemed so stressed, Sami thought. Over the course of four drizzle-filled summer weeks, passions were meant to be rekindled, relationships with children restored, books read, friends met and the fence scraped before being repainted. When it was finally time to go back to work in August, it felt like crawling back onto land after swimming through the stormy waters of time off.
They reached Medborgarplatsen. Sami quickly headed for the subway station and ran down the escalator. Once he was almost at the bottom, he turned around. At least a handful of people farther up seemed to be in as much of a rush as he was.
On the platform, he boarded the train toward Hagsätra that had just pulled into the station. But just before the doors closed, he jumped back off again. John, still resting on Sami’s arm, laughed happily. The leap onto the platform had given him butterflies in his stomach.
No one else seemed to follow Sami’s example.
He crossed the platform. According to the screens, the train toward Åkeshov was two minutes away. When it pulled into the station, he repeated the maneuver. Stepped on board, waited a few seconds and then jumped back out onto the platform. When he didn’t see anyone else do the same, he climbed back on board. John gave a big, gurgling laugh.
They took a train to the central station, where Sami ran up to street level only to take the escalator right back down to the blue line.
By this point, he was pretty sure he had been wrong.
No one was following him.
Still, to his son’s amusement, he repeated his platform-hopping trick on the train toward Hjulsta.
Sami Farhan had moved around Stockholm’s southern suburbs while he was growing up, but he was less familiar with those to the north. When he finally emerged aboveground in Rissne, between Sundbyberg and Rinkeby, he initially went in the wrong direction. He was heading for the Shurgard building, a warehouse where private individuals could rent a dark storeroom to lock up whatever they didn’t want to use, throw away or sell.
The one-year-old had almost fallen asleep during the subway ride, but as they came out into fresh air, he opened his eyes and seemed to be on the verge of protesting. As long as he was being carried, however, things could be worse, and so he remained in a good mood.
The walk should have taken five minutes, but it took Sami fifteen. Eventually, he managed to find the place. He spotted the Albanian sitting on a stool outside the entrance to the new building from a way off. He was the sort of beefy man who, beneath all the fat, was more muscular than the majority of people. The man’s hands and arms were covered in tattoos, and on his neck, above the collar of his T-shirt, dark green flames licked at his earlobes.
The Albanian struggled to get up from the stool as Sami approached. He didn’t give the baby a single glance.
“You can go in,” he said.
The building was dark, but there was some light coming from an open door farther ahead. Sami saw two more people inside the office. They looked exactly like the man who had been left on guard duty outside, and he remembered that they were all brothers. He had never done business with them before, but that was the whole point. Not using any of his normal contacts. The room was crowded and dirty, and the computers looked like something IBM had thrown together during the nineties.
“This way,” one of them said, laboring to get up from a dark green velvet armchair that was leaking stuffing.
Sami followed the man into the corridor, up a dark staircase and past a long line of locked doors. They didn’t pass anyone else along the way. Maybe the brothers were renting out the entire building?
The Albanian stopped in front of the second-to-last door, unlocked it, reached inside and switched on the light.
“Have a look round,” he said. “And tell me what you want.”
Sami stepped into the room. It was both an exhibition room and a storage area. Machine guns and smaller firearms were displayed on top of wooden boxes in the same way you would see sneakers on sale at ICA Maxi. Sami absentmindedly touched some of the pieces with his left hand; he was still carrying John with his right arm.