The Andalucian Friend by Alexander Söderberg Page A

seat and sighed as his rage subsided.
    Lars stared ahead of him, huddled up, unsure whether the abuse had stopped. His ear was stinging and his legs felt like jelly.
    “What would you have done if I wasn’t there? Given up, told her what you were doing? You introduced yourself to her with your real name. … Haven’t you understood anything about what we do?”
    Lars didn’t answer.
    “Fucking idiot,” Anders muttered to himself.
    Lars was incapable of figuring out what to do.
    Anders looked at him, then pointed ahead at the windshield. “Go on then, drive!”
    They drove into the city in total silence, Anders still furious, Lars suffering terribly.
    “We don’t have to tell Gunilla any of this,” Anders said eventually. “It all went fine, the microphones are in place. You’ll have to test that everything’s working next time you’re out there. If not, I’ll go in on my own next time. Just keep quiet about the cleaner.”
    He got out at Eastern Station, leaving a bag containing the receiver in the footwell. He pointed at it.
    “Test that as soon as you can.”
    Then he slammed the car door and vanished into the crowd of people.
    Lars didn’t move. His whole body was full of fear and anxiety. His thoughts didn’t dare venture back to what had just happened, and instead a fury found its way into him, a fury that told him that he hated Anders Ask more than he had hated anyone in his entire life.

     
    The stranger who had spoken Swedish to him was gone. Jens was sitting and listening from his position by the hull of the ship, his eyes darting about, the submachine gun ready to fire at any moment. The sound he had just heard had come from over near the open part of the hold. Otherwise everything was quiet. The men working on the quayside and the Vietnamese crew must have fled when the first shots were fired. That felt like a lifetime ago, but it was really only a few minutes. Long, tough, elastic bloody minutes. He hated minutes. Minutes were always when the shit happened.
    He was starting to hear things that weren’t there again. Someone getting closer, a quick whisper, footsteps, a gust of wind … His body was pumping sweat and adrenaline, and his shirt was stuck to him.
    Once again he was filled by a sudden and intense desire to get away from there, a feeling of panic that he could remember from childhood — the urge to run.
    He was debating with himself whether he should stay hidden or fight. Then he heard a movement and a shape flashed quickly across the deck some distance away. Instinctively Jens raised the Bizon to his shoulder and fired a few shots toward the shadow. Then he took cover. The question he had been pondering just now had gotten its answer, he was going to fight. There was no going back now. Jens waited, no sound apart from his own heartbeat pounding inside him. He would have to move, but got no farther than standing up. The weapon sounded like a chainsaw as it rattled off bullets toward Jens. He threw himself to the ground. The bullets hit all around him and the sound was deafening, followed by absolute silence. He could hear a weapon being reloaded some distance away. Jens got up and threw himself over the crates, moving forward, trying to find the person who was shooting at him … There, up ahead, movement! He could make out half of a body behind a stack of crates, just visible. Then a submachine gun, like the one he was holding, being raised in his direction. But Jens was quicker, firing a salvo at the man, who ducked behind the crates. Jens kept moving. The man peeped out quickly again, Jens was some thirty feet away, fired, hit the man in the shoulder; he spun around but still managed to raise his weapon toward Jens, who was now in the middle of the deck with no chance of any cover.
    Two guns aimed at each other. And then time stopped, as if someone had grabbed the second hand measuring the movement of the universe. Jens had time to see the man’s empty eyes, the barrel aimed