Salmela stayed quiet.
“Answer me when I ask you a question!”
“No.”
“No what?” Niko sneered.
“No money…to pay my debt,” Salmela said quietly.
“You’ve had plenty of time, and nothing to show for it.”
“I tried.”
“No excuses.”
Salmela fell silent.
The coupe reached the intersection of Sture Street. They passed the Linnanmäki Amusement Park on the right and Roge drove down the hill under the train tracks.
“We’ve got a problem-and that problem is you,” Niko remarked coolly.
* * *
Aronen parked the VW Golf in front of a gas station and glanced at the time: 9:30 A.M. He had some extra time, as Larsson was to be picked up at ten.
The gas tank was full, but a cup of coffee would do him some good. The Lauttasaari Shell was a familiar spot. Aronen remembered the old arcade bar, long gone now. On the far side of the fuel pumps was a stodgy convenience store with a few pedestal tables.
Inside, the ex-soldier poured himself a cup of coffee and paid the 1.50 euros. A young woman next to him was playing slots and the beeping grated on Aronen’s ears. He went back to the counter and ordered a hot dog. It was ready in a minute.
Save for the woman at the slots, there were no other customers. That was good. He wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. Lying to his former army buddies about his new gig was tiring. Not that there was any shame in it, much to the contrary, but talking about the Skulls inevitably led to too many questions.
Aronen flipped through a newspaper left on the table, but couldn’t focus.
His phone rang. The caller’s number was unidentified.
“Yeah?” he growled into the receiver.
“Sami Aronen?” asked a woman’s voice.
He didn’t recognize the caller. “Who are you?”
A short silence on the other end. “Don’t hang up, just listen for a bit. I’m a reporter named Sanna Römpötti and I’d like to chat with you.”
Aronen thought for a second. He could’ve hung up, but curiosity got the better of him-at least for the moment.
“Where’d you get this number?”
“From a police interview transcript. You were a suspect in a pizza shop extortion case and the police had this number in the file.”
Alright, fair enough, Aronen thought. Maybe it was careless to keep the same number for so long, but on the other hand, he never used this line for business. “What do you want?”
“Well, since you’re the acting boss, at least on the outside, I thought maybe we could talk. So the cops won’t have all the say,” she said. Römpötti had formulated her strategy in advance. This was probably the only way to get the gangster to talk.
“What kind of story you doing?” Aronen asked. He didn’t want to let anything slip about the gang, not even to correct her error about who was leading it. She had done her homework, but apparently didn’t know about Larsson’s release.
“I’m interested in your organization in general, particularly in how you’ve ended up at odds with the Helsinki police. It’s surprising to me that the police consider you a criminal organization when, at least in the pizza shop case, the court ruled otherwise.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Will you promise to think about it?”
“Can’t promise anything, but I’ll get back to you.”
“When?”
“After I’ve thought about it.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll text you my number.”
The call ended and Aronen turned back to his coffee and hot dog, both now tepid. The woman was still at the slots, and had definitely been listening to the conversation. Whatever. He hadn’t said anything suspicious.
His phone alerted him to an incoming text. Aronen hesitated then saved it to his contact list.
CHAPTER 12
SATURDAY, 10:00 A.M.
NBI HEADQUARTERS, VANTAA
The air conditioner was humming quietly. “Think the room is bugged?” Suhonen wondered.
Takamäki grinned and sipped his coffee.
“Wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Suhonen continued.
The lieutenant wasn’t sure if Suhonen was serious or not.
The two men were seated in a clean, blue-themed conference room at the headquarters of the National Bureau of Investigation in suburban Helsinki. Whereas the Helsinki police used flip charts and grungy white boards, the NBI used smart boards and overhead projectors.
The table had space for sixteen. There were no windows to offer a view, but several large dragon trees sat in the corner. The plants were healthy enough that somebody other than an NBI agent had to be watering them. A silver thermos and paper cups rested on the table.
Suhonen was surprised at how much the room resembled the conference room at the Estonian Central Police headquarters.
The meeting had been set for ten o’clock. They had driven here directly from Assistant Chief Skoog’s office. Lieutenant Jaakko Nykänen, the head of intelligence for the NBI, had met the men in the lobby and escorted them upstairs. The stout, walrus-whiskered Nykänen was a familiar face. Before transferring to the NBI, he had worked for Takamäki in the Helsinki VCU, though that had been many years ago.
“What do you think?” Suhonen asked, sipping his coffee.
“Tough to say. It’ll probably depend on their caseload.”
Nykänen came back into the room along with another agent. Each was wearing a gray suit, white shirt and blue tie. The second man, Jouko Aalto, stood just under six feet tall, and had a lean face and neatly trimmed hair. Takamäki had on a blazer and polo shirt, and Suhonen, his trademark leather jacket. His black hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
“Sorry it took a while,” Nykänen rasped. About ten years ago, he had lost part of his voice box after being shot in the throat on a VCU raid.
“Is that your uniform here?” Suhonen asked, pointing to the pair’s identical outfits.
Nykänen smirked. “Coincidence. Do you know Jouko?”
Takamäki nodded. He had met Jouko Aalto previously, but the man was a stranger to Suhonen.
Nykänen gestured toward Aalto and explained that he was in charge of coordinating the NBI’s undercover operations, a part of the intelligence group.
The NBI men took their seats and poured themselves a cup of coffee.
“So, you had a project proposal?” Aalto began in a dry voice. His lips barely moved and his expression was rigid. “Typically, these initiatives would get channeled through the supervisory branches of the police departments to the PCB-committee, where such matters are resolved…”
Aalto rattled off a synopsis of multilateral work between Police, Customs and Border officials, collectively known as PCB. Suhonen was sure his eyelids would start to sag if this Aalto droned on with his bureaucrat-speak any longer.
“We’re familiar with PCB,” Takamäki interjected.
“Oh, good,” the man said, disappointed. “Then I’m sure you know the numbers, too. There are about 1,100 members in 80 different criminal organizations, of which 40 fulfill the organized crime criteria set out by the EU. Annually, about 550 gang members, or half, have a run-in with the police.”
“I guess we’ll have to improve that,” Suhonen remarked dryly.
Aalto continued, his expression unchanged, “My group has undertaken fifteen new investigations this year. Plus, we still have a good thirty open cases.”
“Can we get to the point,” Suhonen cut in. “Numbers are really interesting, but…”
Aalto shot Suhonen an icy glare. “I only tell you this so you understand that we never say ‘no’ without a good reason. Most often, we can’t just take on new initiatives. We simply don’t have enough manpower for them all.”
“So, about your case,” Nykänen intervened. “Give us the short version.”