The Swimmer
Joakim Zander
Once he was a man of action, so dedicated to his cause that he abandoned his baby daughter to save his life and keep his cover. Now he has spent far too long alone with that great sorrow. Now, retired from the front line, his views are at odds with the modern ways of intelligence gathering. Now he discovers his daughter has become a person of interest.
Klara has grown into an accomplished woman – a high powered job in the headquarters of the European Union. Demanding and with its rewards. Not bad for a girl who grew up with her grandparents on a remote island in the Stockholm archipeligo. Except an old boyfriend looks her up, and he is in trouble – called a terrorist and pursued for a secret that is too dangerous for it to see the light of day. Deaths and its destruction are the order of the day. No one is safe. Neither hunters nor the hunted. No one will give up until the job is done. Ruthless scheming and violent action drive the pursuit.
The protector
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Kurdistan
“… I think of all the things we have to trust in when trying to keep the world from ending. The shifting alliances….I think we never do what we say. We never keep our promises. We always end up sacrificing the ones we set out to rescue.”
Sankt Anna’s Outer Archipeligo, Sweden
"… He’s armed. Friend or foe. Chance. I get up, but keep my back arched, make myself small. I can’t let him make it to the cottage. Can’t take the risk. I take a few quick steps. Worry makes me careless.
I know before I feel the pain. Like I always know. Like I have always known. That bonds are deadly. That it’s not the lies, but the truth that threatens our existence.”
The players - Mahmoud and Klara
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Paris, France
“ ‘Wait,’ he said to Klara.
He took off his backpack, bent down, and pretended to rummage in it while looking over his shoulder. The blond girl was moving in a wide arc in the same direction as them. On the opposite wall, he saw a man of about thirty-five moving in a similar pattern. He seemed to fit the profile. Physically fit, loose cargo pants. Ski jacket and a duffel bag. Bluetooth headset in his ear. Most likely an American. So there were two at least. He couldn’t see any more.
‘There are two of them at least,’ he whispered to Klara without looking at her.
‘A blond girl with a ponytail in a dark blue Canada Goose jacket. And a guy wearing cargo pants and a grayish red ski jacket. Baseball cap. Both of them have headsets in their ears. Pretend you’re stretching, while I fiddle with the backpack.’
Klara did as he said. Stretched, and took the opportunity to scout the terminal.
‘I see them,’ she said. ‘I recognise the girl. She was in my apartment.’
Her voice was strained. Her face tightened.
‘Focus, Klara,’ whispered Mahmoud. ‘Focus. It’s all about technique. There is no emotion here, you understand? No feelings. In and out of the taxi. That’s the plan.’
Karla nodded calmly, collecting herself.
‘Good. Here we go,’ Mahmoud said, and stood up.
The street outside the station was chaotic, full of smoke and cars and business travellers crossing at random pulling suitcases and families with backpacks and maps and crying children. At least there was no queue for the taxis. They walked up to the first one with determined steps.”
Brussels, Belgium
“The vibrating phone deep in Klara’s coat pocket cut through her fatigue like a laser. This week – full of reports, team meetings, endless hours in airless meeting rooms, lunches on her feet, and late nights at the computer – fell to the side. The only bright spot this week had been the hours spent today with Cyril in her apartment. She was still tingling.
This wasn’t the first time they’d stolen a couple of hours in the middle of the day and taken separate taxis to her place to have sex. No need to deny it. That’s how it was. And in the beginning, that had been the whole point. The forbidden. Sneaking off from her high performance life, getting him to sneak off from his. A little shabby somehow, a little dirty, but still harmless. A game where no one got hurt. And it paid off to be cautious. Gossip was devastating in the European Parliament. A Swedish adviser and a French parliamentarian would be gossip gold.
Her heart racing, she grabbed hold of the phone in her pocket. Maybe his dinner ended early? Maybe he was on his way over?”
The enabler - George
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“The first document had been created by the Swedish Security Service and consisted of a brief personal report.
George stopped and looked straight into the air. Sapo, Sweden’s secret police. The square that had been crossed out in the top right-hand corner was almost certainly a classified stamp. It was a dizzying feeling to have classified documents in front of him. This was espionage. Pure and simple.
There was no other way to look at it. Whoever had released these documents to Reiper and his cronies was guilty of espionage. Inconceivable. George didn’t want to think about what kind of crime he was committing by even holding these papers. But at the same time, it was intoxicating.”
“A couple of things bothered him about the report. First of all, it contained precise descriptions and even photographs from inside the subject’s apartment and office. There was something uncomfortable and intrusive about Sapo, or whoever they were, having been inside this person’s room.
Moreover, there were excerpts from the person’s e-mails. Two messages were from a Hotmail address of someone who wanted to meet this person in Iraq and Brussels. The man under surveillance had sent a short e-mail to Klara Walldeen. The latter was sent only eleven days ago and had been flagged, presumably by Reiper or Josh. George, not normally a man of principle, now started to feel uneasy. But he was just a cog in the machine.”
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