A Death in Sweden(2)

“My God, are you okay?”

His voice was full of incredulity and horror. She nodded.

“There are other people.”

He’d taken out his phone and held it to his ear, but said to her, “I don’t think so. Stay here.”

He got up and walked tentatively toward the wreckage, speaking into his phone, the words not quite audible though she guessed it was the police. And it wasn’t the sight of the crushed and twisted metal that convinced her the man was right, but the disturbing stillness. No one else could have survived that accident.

She should not have survived it herself, and felt strangely light-headed with the realization that she was unharmed, that she was sitting here alive in the middle of the road, and a man she had seen every day, but with whom she had never exchanged a single word, had undoubtedly saved her life.





Chapter One


Ramon Martinez had been living under an alias in this prosperous Madrid suburb for nearly two years now, and had probably reached the point of believing he’d never be found. Maybe it had gone beyond that, and he’d fooled himself into thinking they weren’t even looking for him anymore.

But they were still looking for him, and after eighteen months of drawing a blank, they’d finally employed Dan Hendricks. In the end, that’s how simple it had been—Ramon Martinez didn’t know it, but his time was almost up.

Dan had spent the last two days watching him from the building across the street. He’d had a grandstand view into the Martinez family apartment, observing the man’s day-to-day life with his wife, his young son and baby girl, the maid and the live-in nanny.

This morning, confident of their routine, Dan went one better and walked out of his own building just as Martinez set off to walk the boy the short distance to kindergarten. Dan fell in behind them as they strolled without haste in the autumnal sunshine.

The boy was maybe five or six, wearing a little rucksack, and he talked animatedly to his father as they walked along, his voice carrying on the still morning air. Martinez responded now and then in good humor, even showing contrition when his son chastised him for laughing at something that wasn’t meant to be funny.

They turned right into a long quiet street and Dan dropped back a little, though he needn’t have worried. Martinez was oblivious, as if the matters being explained by his son were the only things of importance in his world.

Briefly, longingly, Dan thought of his own son, but he packed the memory away quickly, determined not to let his concentration slip, determined not to see parallels or even similarities. Nothing was the same, and in truth, he could hardly compare his own life to that of Ramon Martinez.

But it seemed Martinez had found a real happiness here and Dan couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, a little advance regret for what he was about to do to him and his family. And with that thought he stopped and turned, walking back again and waiting in the window until Martinez returned on his own twenty minutes later.

Dan had nothing more to do for now. He thought about heading back to the hotel but, instead, lowered himself into the fold-up sun lounger he’d positioned near the window and let his thoughts drift, soaking up the immediate silence, the indistinct sounds of traffic in the wider city somewhere beyond.

When his phone rang, he checked his watch, surprised to see that forty minutes had elapsed, time in which he’d thought of almost nothing. It was Hugo Beck, probably pretending to be interested in how things were going, but actually calling with a new job. Dan didn’t mind that, and would rather keep busy than not.

He answered and Hugo said, “How’s it going? Any problems?”

“None at all. Charlie and Benoit fly in this afternoon. We’ll pick up the target in the morning.”

“Great, great. They should have come to you a year ago. But you know . . .”

He fell into silence and Dan said, “What’s the job, Hugo?”

“I’m not calling about a job. In fact, I’m not sure you should take anything else on for a little while.” That was out of character enough to get Dan’s attention, but before he could even ask what Hugo was talking about, he went on, “What do these names have in common—Mike Naismith, Paul Gardener, Rich Woodward, Karl Wittman?”

Dan had worked with them all, and considered a couple of them friends, including Mike Naismith who’d been killed a few weeks before in a hit-and-run in Baltimore, but he couldn’t see any obvious link beyond that. Even so, he didn’t like the sound of this. Hugo liked to talk in riddles at the best of times, but there was something in his tone now that suggested this was more serious than a guessing game.

“I don’t know, Hugo, why don’t you tell me?”

“How about the fact they’re all dead?”

“What are you talking about?” Dan laughed a little, dismissively. Yes, people got killed in their line of work, but casualties had dropped off since the spikes of Iraq and Afghanistan. People got killed, but not in those numbers. And besides, he’d spoken to Karl a couple of weeks ago. “Hugo, Mike’s dead, but the others—”

“I’m telling you they’re all dead. Naismith you know about. Paul Gardener was killed last week—someone broke into his house in Durban, Paul disturbed them, got killed in the struggle. Rich Woodward was last week too—he was in Athens to meet a potential client, killed in a street robbery. So far, it’s only coincidences, no?”