By the time they had emerged from the castle, there was still no hint of dawn light, but the helicopter was standing on the pad, its rotors unhurriedly spinning. The pilot was ready to take off the moment they climbed aboard. Wallander was still trying desperately to fashion a way of escaping. Tolpin was walking in front of him, Obadia a few paces behind with a pistol in his hand. They had almost reached the helicopter. Its rotor blades were still slicing the chilly night air. Wallander saw a pile of old broken-up concrete at one corner they had to pass to get to the helipad: somebody had been repairing cracks but had not yet cleared away the debris. Wallander slowed down so that Obadia came momentarily between him and Tolpin. Wallander bent down and used his hands as shovels to scoop up as much of the concrete chunks as he could and hurled it up at the rotors. He heard loud, cracking bangs as fragments of concrete flew all around them. For just a moment Tolpin and Obadia thought that somebody was shooting at them and lost sight of what was happening behind them. Wallander flung himself with all his strength at Obadia and succeeded in wrestling his pistol from his grasp. He took a few steps backward, stumbled and fell. Tolpin stared wide-eyed at what was going on without it fully sinking in, but now he reached into his jacket for his weapon. Wallander fired and hit him in the hip. Obadia hurled himself at Wallander, who fired again. He did not see where he had hit him, but Obadia fell, screaming with pain.
Wallander scrambled to his feet. The pilots might also be armed. But when he pointed the pistol at the open door of the helicopter, he could see only one young man there, and he had his hands above his head. Wallander examined the men he had shot. Both were alive but unlikely to go far. He pocketed Tolpin’s pistol, then he walked up to the helicopter. The pilot still had his hands up. Wallander shouted that he should fly away. He took a few paces backward and watched the helicopter take off, then disappear over the roof of the castle, its searchlights probing the dark sky.
He seemed to be seeing everything through a fog. When he rubbed his cheek with his hand, it was covered in blood. A concrete chip had hit him in the face without his noticing it.
Then he ran toward the stables. Sofia screamed when she saw him. He tried to smile, but his face was stiff from his wound.
“Everything’s all right,” he said, trying to get his breath back. “But I’ve got to ask you to do something. Call for an ambulance. There are two men with bullet wounds lying on the helipad. Once you’ve done that, I won’t ask you to do anything more for me. You can go back to Sten and take him up on his promise. It’s all over here now.”
Then he remembered Harderberg. Time was very short.
As he ran from the stables he slipped in the mud churned up by the horses’ hooves and fell. He struggled to his feet and ran toward the gates. He wondered if he would get there in time.
She had gotten out of the car to stretch her legs, and looked up to see him coming toward her. He saw the horrified expression on her face and realized how alarming he must look. He was covered in blood and mud, his clothes torn. But he had no time to explain. Only one thing mattered, and that was preventing Harderberg from leaving the airport. He shouted to her to get back into the car. Before she had closed her door he had reversed on to the road. He forced the car through the gears, slamming the accelerator hard, and ignored the red light as he swung onto the main road.
“What’s the fastest way to Sturup?” he said.
She found a map in the glove compartment and told him the route. We won’t make it, he thought. It’s too far, we don’t have enough time.
“Call Björk,” he said, pointing at the car phone.
“I don’t know his home number,” she said.
“Then ring the goddamn police station and find out, for God’s sake!” he yelled. “Use your head!”
She did as she was told. When the officer on duty wondered if it could not wait until Björk had come in for work, she too started shouting. The moment she had it, she dialed the number. “What shall I say?” she said.
“Tell him Harderberg’s about to leave the country in his airplane, and for good,” Wallander said. “Björk has to arrange to have him stopped. He has half an hour maximum to do it.”
When Björk answered, Wallander listened as Höglund repeated word for word what he had said. She listened to the response in silence then handed the phone to Wallander.
“He wants to speak to you.”
Wallander took the phone in his right hand and eased the pressure on the accelerator.
“What do you mean, I have to stop Harderberg’s jet?” Björk’s voice rasped over the phone.
“He arranged the murders of Gustaf and Sten Torstensson. Ström is dead too.”
“Are you absolutely sure about what you’re saying? Where are you right now? Why is the sound so bad?”
“I’m on my way from Farnholm Castle. I don’t have time to explain. Harderberg is on his way to the airport now. He must be stopped immediately. If that plane takes off and he leaves Swedish airspace, we’ve lost him.”
“I have to say this all sounds very unusual,” Björk said. “What have you been doing at Farnholm Castle till this time in the morning?”
Wallander realized that Björk’s questions were perfectly reasonable from his point of view. He wondered how he would have reacted if he had been in Björk’s place.
“I know it sounds outlandish,” he said, “but this time you have to take the risk of believing me.”
“I shall have to consult Åkeson,” Björk said.
Wallander groaned. “There really is no time for that. You’ve heard what I said. There are police officers at Sturup. They have to be told to stop Harderberg.”
“Call me back in a quarter of an hour,” Björk said. “I’ll get in touch with Åkeson right away.”
Wallander was so furious that he almost lost control of the car.
“Roll down that goddamn window!” he said.
She did as he said. Wallander threw out the telephone.
“Now you can close it again. We’ll have to figure this out by ourselves.”
“Are you certain it’s Harderberg?” she said. “What’s happened? Are you wounded?”
Wallander ignored the last two questions.
“I’m certain,” he said. “I also know we will never ever get him if he leaves the country.”
“What are you going to do?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “In fact, I don’t have the slightest goddamn idea. I’ll have to think of something.”
But as they approached Sturup forty minutes later, he still had no idea what he was going to do. With tires screeching, he pulled up at the gates to the right of the airport building. The better to see, he clambered onto the roof of the car. All around passengers arriving for early flights paused to see what was going on. A catering truck inside the gates blocked his view. Wallander waved his arms and cursed in an attempt to attract the driver’s attention and get him to move the truck. But the man behind the wheel had his head buried in a newspaper and was oblivious to the man on the roof of the car, ranting and raving. Then Wallander drew his pistol and shot straight up into the air. There was immediate panic among the watching crowd. People ran off in all directions, abandoning suitcases on the pavement. The driver of the truck had reacted to the shot and grasped that Wallander wanted him to move out of the way.
Harderberg’s Grumman Gulfstream was still there. The pale yellow light from the spotlights was reflected on the body of the jet.
The two pilots, on their way to the aircraft, had heard the shot and stopped in their tracks. Wallander jumped off the car roof so that they would not be able to see him. He fell, hitting his left shoulder hard against the road. The pain made him even more furious. He knew Harderberg was somewhere inside the yellow airport building and he had no intention of letting him get away. He raced toward the entrance doors, stumbling over suitcases and carts, Höglund a few paces behind him. He still had his pistol in his hand as he ran through the glass doors and headed for the airport police offices. Since it was early on a Sunday morning there were not many people in the terminal. Only one line had formed at a check-in desk, for a charter flight to Spain. As Wallander came charging up, covered in blood and mud, all hell broke loose. Höglund tried to reassure people, but her voice was drowned in the uproar. One of the police officers on duty had gone out to buy a newspaper, and saw Wallander approaching. The pistol in his hand was the first thing he had seen. The officer dropped the paper and started feverishly keying in the door code, but Wallander grabbed him by the arm before he had finished.