The Sandman. Ларс Кеплер

down on the chair just inside the door.

      Joona kneels there completely still. He is wearing jogging trousers and a white T-shirt that’s wet with sweat. The sleeves are tight across the muscles of his upper arms. He raises his head slightly. His eyes are as grey as polished granite.

      The man with the pistol is talking excitedly into the phone, then he ends the call and seems to think for a few seconds before taking four quick steps forward and pressing the barrel of the pistol to Joona’s forehead.

      ‘I’m about to overpower you,’ Joona says amiably.

      ‘What?’

      ‘I had to wait,’ he explains. ‘Until I got the chance of direct physical contact.’

      ‘I’ve just received orders to execute you.’

      ‘Yes, the situation’s fairly acute, seeing as I have to get the pistol away from my face, and ideally use it within five seconds.’

      ‘How?’ the man by the door asks.

      ‘In order to catch him by surprise, I mustn’t react to any of his movements,’ Joona explains. ‘That’s why I’ve let him walk up, stop and take precisely two breaths. So I wait until he breathes out the second time before I—’

      ‘Why?’ the man with the pistol asks.

      ‘I gain a few hundredths of a second, because it’s practically impossible to do anything without first breathing in.’

      ‘But why the second breath in particular?’

      ‘Because it’s unexpectedly early and right at the middle of the most common countdown in the world: one, two, three …’

      ‘I get it.’ The man smiles, revealing a brown front tooth.

      ‘The first thing that’s going to move is my left hand,’ Joona explains to the surveillance camera up by the ceiling. ‘It’ll move up towards the barrel of the pistol and away from my face in one fluid movement. I need to grasp it, twist upwards and get to my feet, using his body as a shield. In a single movement. My hands need to prioritise the gun, but at the same time I need to observe the man with the assault rifle. Because as soon as I’ve got control of the pistol he’s the primary threat. I use my elbow against his chin and neck as many times as it takes to get control of the pistol, then I fire three shots and spin round and fire another three shots.’

      The men in the room start again. The situation repeats. The man with the pistol gets his orders over the phone, hesitates, then walks up to Joona and pushes the barrel to his forehead. The man breathes out a second time and is just about to breathe in again to say something when Joona grabs the barrel of the pistol with his left hand.

      The whole thing is remarkably surprising and quick, even though it was expected.

      Joona knocks the gun aside, twisting it towards the ceiling in the same movement, and getting to his feet. He jabs his elbow into the man’s neck four times, takes the pistol and shoots the other man in the torso.

      The three blank shots echo off the walls.

      The first opponent is still staggering backwards when Joona spins round and shoots him in the chest.

      He falls against the wall.

      Joona walks over to the door, grabs the assault rifle and extra cartridge, then leaves the room.

       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.

       17

      Snow is swirling through the air as Joona runs out to his car and gets in. He drives straight across the large exercise yard where he trained as a teenager, takes the corner with the tyres crunching, and leaves the garrison.

      His heart is beating hard and he’s still having trouble believing what Nathan told him. Beads of sweat have appeared on his forehead, and his hands won’t stop shaking.

      He overtakes a convoy of articulated