Toukola was a small forty-year-old man whose quick movements evoked those of a weasel. Suhonen had heard that Toukola played bass in the Narcotics department’s band. The man’s brown hair just touched his shoulders and he was wearing a black track jacket and jeans.
Suhonen and Toukola were sitting on two office chairs, observing the monitors. Nothing moved on the screens.
The Tallink Star could accommodate 1,900 people, and 450 vehicles on the car deck, but according to the shipping line, only 600 people were on board. That was good news, since it would be easier to pick out the mule in the exit rush. Of course, she might disembark in a car, but that was a risk they had to take.
There was a time when finding this woman would’ve been easy. The police would have simply instructed border officials to stop the woman at the passport checkpoint. But the EU’s Schengen Agreement, which removed passport checks when traveling within the EU countries, had wiped out the practice.
“We’ve been here in the same room once before,” Toukola began. “Looking for a heroin mule, wasn’t it? That one was an easy case. Remember we nabbed a guy about five-foot-seven, wearing size 15 shoes? Found almost two pounds of smack in them.”
Suhonen didn’t respond-he was focused on the monitors. Toomas hadn’t known where the woman had stashed the dope. Four pounds was enough that she wouldn’t be able to swallow the bags. They would probably be hidden in her clothing or taped to her body. That would rule out skinny types in skin-tight clothing, then. Of course, at this time of year everyone wore a coat.
“Well, here we go,” Toukola muttered as the first passengers came into view. The ship was moored at the port’s southern end, so the walk to the terminal amounted to several hundred yards. The security cameras showed footage of the entire walk.
The first passenger was a man in a suit who nearly ran down the gangway. Suhonen wondered why he was in such a hurry. Maybe to catch a taxi, but where to then?
Next was a group of women in their sixties, each of whom had a pull cart filled with ten cases of beer and cider. A few were also carrying six-packs of one-liter vodka bottles. Many Finns happily paid the twenty-euro roundtrip fare in order to buy as much cheap Estonian booze as they could carry.
Both Toukola and Suhonen followed the footage with intense focus. People trickled off the boat in sporadic clumps. Several women in red coats appeared, but their ages didn’t match.
A man in his thirties wearing an old army jacket caught Toukola’s attention. “You know him?”
“Yeah. Karjalainen.”
“We should stop him. I busted him once for a couple pounds of hash. Apparently he’s out of jail again.”
The man’s gait was a little wobbly. “Too smashed to be a mule,” Suhonen remarked.
“You never know-this is just a small-time job. The big loads are trucked in along with legal cargo, unpacked quickly and then stashed somewhere in the sticks. It’s an old trick already, but it still works.”
“There,” Suhonen cut in. The woman walking past the camera was wearing a dark red coat, and Suhonen recognized her attractive face from the photo. She walked off the screen shortly.
“You sure?” Toukola asked.
Suhonen nodded.
Toukola picked up his phone and sent word that the target had been located. “Let’s be ready,” he said.
Half a minute later, the woman in boots appeared on a second monitor. Her pace was casual, and her appearance didn’t show any stress, worry, furtive glances or the like. Not once did she look at the security cameras.
The woman had made it to the third monitor when Suhonen and Toukola slipped out of the control room and drifted along with the crowd past Customs to the terminal’s concourse. They pulled to the side but kept their eyes on the doorway where the passengers were exiting. Some stayed and waited on the concourse. The numerous beer carts made a mess of traffic.
The woman in red came in following two men closely. Nothing indicated that they knew each other.
Neither Suhonen nor Toukola wanted to make an arrest on the crowded concourse, so they let her exit.
Once outside, she veered right and the officers did the same. The covered ramp descended toward the taxi line and the Helsinki city bus stop. Up ahead was a parking lot packed with cars and inter-city buses. The signs advertised their destinations: Forssa, Hämeenlinna, Kouvola.
Maybe her ride was already waiting, Suhonen thought.
About fifteen yards up was a police van, which Toukola had arranged. A large male uniformed officer stepped out of the passenger’s side and a female officer got out of the driver’s side.
The red-coated woman spotted the cops and glanced both ways, looking for an escape route, but there was none.
They approached the woman, who stopped.
“Good evening,” the big cop said. “We have an issue we’d like to clear up with you.”
The woman didn’t respond.
“We’ve received a complaint from the ship about a shoplifter and you match the description,” he continued.
Suhonen followed the events at a distance. With dozens of passengers around, it wasn’t the most discreet arrest, but at least they could tell Toomas that some attempt at a cover-up had been made. Had she been arrested in the terminal, it would’ve revealed that the cops had been tipped off. This way, at least, they wouldn’t directly jeopardize Toomas’ informant in Tallinn. Their other alternative would have been to station a drug-sniffing dog at the Customs checkpoint, but on short notice they hadn’t been able to find an available dog.
“I no thief,” the woman muttered in a broken accent.
“We’ll just clear that up.”
“No, I have to…”
“This won’t take long,” the cop continued. “We can check out your bag and clothes in the back of the police van there.”
The female officer opened the doors and hopped inside. “This way,” she said firmly. The big cop steered her in through the back doors, then stayed outside to stand guard.
Suhonen and Toukola headed for their car, which they had left in the terminal parking lot. The orders for the uniformed officers had been simple: If the woman was packing dope, bring her to Pasila. If she was clean, let her go.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23
CHAPTER 7
FRIDAY, 8:30 A.M.
PASILA POLICE HEADQUARTERS, HELSINKI
Suhonen descended the stairs to the Narcotics department. Toukola had called to ask if he’d like to observe Marju Mägi’s interrogation. Of course he would.
The previous evening, Toukola had dropped Suhonen off at his apartment in Kallio on the way back from the harbor. Then he had continued on to the station to take care of some paperwork connected to the case. The uniformed officers had found two ten-ounce packets of amphetamines taped to her ribs.
Once the amount of amphetamines surpassed four ounces, it became felony drug possession. Lieutenant Ristola had arrested Marju Mägi the same night. Toomas Indres had talked about four pounds, but they hadn’t found nearly that much. Perhaps Toomas’ intel was inaccurate, or maybe his informant had exaggerated to make the scoop seem more important.
Except in extraordinary situations, interrogations had to be conducted before 10 P.M., so the police had waited till morning. Twenty ounces of amphetamines didn’t qualify as extraordinary.
Suhonen strode down the hallway to Toukola’s office, the same type of smallish open office the VCU used.
He had showered before work and left his long black hair over his shoulders to dry. A few gray hairs had already taken root.