16

      The door hits the concrete wall hard and bounces back. Joona is changing the cartridge as he marches in. The eight people in the next room all take their eyes off the large screen and look at him.

      ‘Six and a half seconds to the first shot,’ one of them says.

      ‘That’s far too slow,’ Joona says.

      ‘But Markus would have let go of the pistol sooner if your elbow had actually hit him,’ a tall man with a shaved head says.

      ‘Yes, you would have won some time there,’ a female officer adds with a smile.

      The scene is already repeating on the screen. Joona’s taut shoulder, the fluid movement forward, his eye lining up with the sights as the trigger is pulled.

      ‘Pretty damn impressive,’ the group commander says, setting his palms down on the table.

      ‘For a cop,’ Joona concludes.

      They laugh, lean back, and the group commander scratches the tip of his nose as he blushes.

      Joona Linna accepts a glass of water. He doesn’t yet know that what he fears most is about to flare up like a firestorm. He doesn’t yet have any idea of the little spark drifting towards the great lagoon of petrol.

      Joona Linna is at Karlsborg Fortress to instruct the Special Operations Group in close combat. Not because he’s a trained instructor, but because he has more practical experience of the techniques they need to learn than just about anyone else in Sweden. When Joona was eighteen he did his military service at Karlsborg as a paratrooper, and was immediately recruited after basic training to a special unit for operations that couldn’t be solved by conventional forces or weaponry.

      Although a long time has passed since he left the military to study at the Police Academy, he still has dreams about his time as a paratrooper. He’s back on the transport plane, listening to the deafening roar and staring out through the hydraulic hatch. The shadow of the plane moves over the pale water far below like a grey cross. In his dream he runs down the ramp and jumps out into the cold air, hears the whine of the cords, feels his harness jerk as his limbs are thrown forward when the parachute opens. The water approaches at great speed. The black inflatable boat is foaming against the waves far below.

      Joona was trained in the Netherlands for effective close combat with knives, bayonets and pistols. He was taught to exploit changing situations and to use innovative techniques. These goal-orientated techniques were a specialised version of a system of close combat known by its Hebrew name, Krav Maga.

      ‘OK, we’ll take this situation as our starting point, and make it progressively harder as the day goes on,’ Joona says.

      ‘Like hitting two people with one bullet?’ The tall man with the shaved head grins.

      ‘Impossible,’ Joona says.

      ‘We heard that you did it,’ the woman says curiously.

      ‘Oh no.’ Joona smiles, running his hand through his untidy blond hair.

      His phone rings in his inside pocket. He sees on the screen that it’s Nathan Pollock from the National Criminal Investigation Department. Nathan knows where Joona is, and would only call if it was important.

      ‘Excuse me,’ Joona says, then takes the call.

      He drinks from the glass of water, and listens with a smile that slowly fades. Suddenly all the colour drains from his face.

      ‘Is Jurek Walter still locked up?’ he asks.

      His hand is shaking so much that he has to put the glass down on the table.