Red Wolf_ A Novel Part 43

'Go on, in you go. It's just an old compressor shed.'

She took hold of the door and pulled it open, noting that its lock consisted of two welded metal hasps, one with a rusty old padlock hanging from it. The same terrible stench that she had smelled behind the pine trees poured out through the door.

Ragnwald was in there.

She stepped into the solid darkness, blinking, hearing people breathing. It was icy cold inside; paradoxically it felt even colder than outside.

'Who are you?' Karina Bjornlund said from the far left corner.

'We have an important guest,' Hans Blomberg said, shoving Annika further into the room, then stepping inside.

The Minister of Culture ignited her cigarette lighter. A weak flame illuminated the shed, the shadows cast across her nose and eyes made her look monstrous. Yngve the alcoholic was next to her, Goran Nilsson leaning against the wall to the right. On the wall beside him hung a picture of Chairman Mao.

Annika could feel panic rising at the sight of the murderer, the characteristic itch in her fingers, giddiness and numbness.

Calm down, she thought. Don't hyperventilate. Hold your breath Don't hyperventilate. Hold your breath.

Karina Bjornlund bent down and lit a small candle at her feet, put the lighter down, then stood up holding the candle.

'What's this?' she said, looking at Hans Blomberg. 'Why have you brought her here?'

She put the candle on a piece of rusty machinery that may have been the old compressor. Their breath hung like clouds around each of them.

I'm not alone, Annika thought. This isn't the same as the tunnel This isn't the same as the tunnel.

'May I present Miss Annika Bengtzon,' Hans Blomberg said, 'snooping reporter from the Evening Post Evening Post.'

Karina Bjornlund started and stepped back a step.

'Are you mad?' she said in a loud voice. 'Bringing a journalist here? Don't you understand what you're exposing me to?'

Goran Nilsson looked at them, his eyes cloudy and tired.

'This isn't for outsiders,' he said, surprisingly sharply. 'Panther, what on earth are you thinking?'

Hans Blomberg, the Black Panther, pulled the door firmly shut behind him and smiled.

'Miss Bengtzon already knows about us,' he said. 'She was standing outside, so I couldn't let her run around telling anyone.'

Karina Bjornlund stepped closer to Blomberg.

'It's all ruined now,' she said in a shrill voice. 'Everything I've worked for all these years. d.a.m.n you all.'

She picked up her bag and turned towards the door, and Goran Nilsson stepped into the small circle of light. Annika could see no sign of a weapon. The man's face was sunken and drawn, he looked weak and ill.

Yet Karina Bjornlund still stopped mid-pace, frightened and uncertain.

'Wait,' he said to the minister, then turned to Blomberg. 'Do you accept responsibility for her? Do you guarantee the safety of the group?'

Annika stared at the killer, noting his shabby appearance and slow sentences, as if he had to search for the words before he found them.

'No problem,' the archivist said enthusiastically. 'I'll take care of her afterwards.'

Annika felt her feet turn to lead; her body grew heavy and turned to stone. Inside her she heard a pleading, whimpering sound grow, but it never reached her throat.

The Yellow Dragon looked straight at Annika, she daren't even breathe.

'Stand in the corner,' he said, pointing.

'We can't have a reporter here, surely you can understand that,' Karina Bjornlund said animatedly. 'I won't agree to that.'

The Dragon raised a hand. 'That's enough now,' he said. 'Our group commander bears the responsibility.'

He put his hands in his pockets.

The gun, Annika thought.

'It's very cold today,' he said. 'I shall be brief.'

Yngve the alcoholic stepped forward. 'Great,' he said, 'but has anyone got something to drink?'

Hans Blomberg undid the top b.u.t.ton of his jacket, and from his inside pocket he pulled out a bottle of Absolut. Yngve's eyes lit up, his lips parting in rapture, and he took the bottle as gently as if it were a baby.

'I thought we might have a little celebration,' Hans Blomberg said, nodding encouragingly.

Yngve unscrewed the cap with tears in his eyes. Annika looked down at the floor and wriggled her toes to stop them from going stiff.

What were they going to do with her?

It's not like the tunnel, it's not like the tunnel.

Karina Bjornlund put her bag down on the floor again.

'I don't understand what we're doing here,' she said.

'Your power has made you impatient,' Goran Nilsson said, looking at the minister with his dragon's eyes, pausing until he had everyone's full attention. Then he tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling.

'I am very aware that some of you were surprised to get my call,' he said. 'It's been a long time since I gathered you together like this, and I appreciate that it aroused mixed feelings. But there's no need for you to be scared.'

He looked straight at the Minister of Culture.

'I'm not here to harm you,' he said. 'I'm here to thank you. You became the only family I had, and I say that without any sentimentality.'

'So why did you kill Margit, then?' Karina Bjornlund said, her voice tight with fear.

Goran Nilsson shook his head, his stinking yellow dragon head, his divine, revolting ruler's head.

'You're not listening,' he said. 'You're just talking. You weren't like this before. Power really has changed you.'

Hans Blomberg took a step forward, apparently tired of the lack of focus. 'Tell me what I should do,' he said to his leader. 'I'm ready for armed struggle.'

Goran Nilsson turned to him, sorrow in his eyes. 'Panther,' he said, 'there won't be any armed struggle. I've come home to die.'

The archivist's eyes opened wide, an imbecilic expression spreading across his face.

'But you're back now,' he said. 'You're here again, our leader, we've been waiting years. The revolution is near.'

'The revolution is dead,' the Dragon said harshly. 'Capitalist society that treats human beings like cattle has won, and with it all the false ideologies: democracy, freedom of expression, justice before the law, women's rights.'

Hans Blomberg listened devoutly, Karina Bjornlund seemed to shrink with every word, and the alcoholic was completely absorbed in his newfound bottle of bliss.

'The working cla.s.s has been reduced to a brain-washed horde of cretinous consumers,' he said. 'There's no desire to improve things any more. The false authorities herd people into the meat-grinder without a word of protest.'

He fixed his eyes on Karina Bjornlund.

'The authorities use people up, now as then,' he said, his voice clear and steady. 'They wring us out like dishcloths and then they throw us away. This is how it has always been, but today it is governments elected by the people that permit the buyers of labour to exploit us until we break. I have accepted that this is the case, and I have fought against it in my own way. Revolution?' He shook his head. 'There'll never be any revolution. Humanity has bartered it for Coca-Cola and cable television.'

Hans Blomberg stared at him, his eyes blank and bewildered. 'But that's not true. You're back, and I've been waiting so long. I've trained all these years, just as you said, and I'm ready. It isn't too late.'

Goran Nilsson raised his hand.

'I have very little of my life left,' he said. 'I have accepted my personal condition, and the condition that we are all in together. Fundamentally, there is no difference between me and the lies of the bourgeoisie. I shall live on through my children, and in return I give them their inheritance.'

He staggered, clutching his stomach.

'No one will be able to exploit you any more,' he said. 'Your days on the treadmill are over.'

'What do you mean?' Karina Bjornlund seemed less scared now.

'He's going to give us presents,' Hans Blomberg said, his voice echoing with astonished disbelief. 'It's Christmas for all of us! Or perhaps some post-funeral coffee? The revolution is dead, didn't you hear?'

'Stop it, Hans,' Karina Bjornlund said, taking hold of his arm. 'Mao's dead, too, and even China is capitalist now.'

'You believed as well,' Hans said. 'You were a revolutionary too.'

'But, good G.o.d,' she said, 'we were nothing but children. Everyone believed in the revolution. That was just the way things were back then, but that all vanished long ago.'

'Not for me!' Hans Blomberg shouted, and Goran Nilsson took an unsteady step towards him.

'Panther,' he said, 'you've misunderstood me.'

'No!' the archivist yelled, his eyes red and moist. 'You can't do this to me. The revolution is the only thing that matters.'

'Pull yourself together,' Karina Bjornlund said, shaking the archivist's arm in irritation.

With an angry tug the man pulled himself free from the Minister of Culture and the next moment he raised his clenched right fist and punched her hard in the face.

46.

Someone screamed. It could have been the minister or the alcoholic or Annika herself; and then the furious archivist turned to face Goran Nilsson and shoved him with all his strength against the wall with the poster of Mao. The Yellow Dragon fell to the concrete floor with the audible crack of breaking bone, and a hissing sound as the air went out of his lungs.

'You b.l.o.o.d.y traitors!'

Hans Blomberg's voice was breaking. He gathered himself and leaped for the door, throwing it open with a crash and slamming it behind him with the same force.

The candle flame flickered but did not go out; the shadows slowly stopped dancing about.

'I'm bleeding,' the minister shouted from the floor behind the compressor. 'Help me!'

Then silence settled heavily and the cold grew even harsher. Annika could hear the archivist cursing through the brick wall as he disappeared towards the railway line. She went over to Goran Nilsson. He was unconscious by the wall, his right foot twisted at an unnatural angle. His right leg looked a bit shorter than the left. Yngve the alcoholic stared drunkenly and unsteadily at his leader lying there on the floor, his face almost completely colourless and his teeth chattering. Karina Bjornlund struggled to her feet, holding a hand to her face, blood was trickling between her fingers and down onto her fur-coat.

'My nose is broken,' she howled. 'I have to get to hospital.' She started to cry, then stopped because it was too painful.

Annika went over to the minister, put a hand gently on her arm. 'It's all right,' she said, inspecting the woman's face behind her hand. 'It'll heal okay.'

'But what if it's crooked?'

Annika turned away and went back to the man slumped on the floor. He really did smell unbelievably bad, the stench of something severely diseased.

'Goran,' she said loudly. 'Goran Nilsson, can you hear me?'

Without waiting for a response she leaned over, taking off her gloves, and pulled the man's gun from his pocket, it was heavy and ice-cold. With her back to the others she slipped it quietly into one of the outer pockets of her polar jacket, she knew nothing about revolvers and tried to convince herself that the safety catch must be on.

The Yellow Dragon groaned, his pale eyelids flickering. She put her hand on the frozen cement floor to see how cold it was, sweat making her fingers stick to it at once. Shocked, she pulled them away.

'You can't lie here,' she told the man, 'you have to get up. Can you stand up?'

She looked up at Karina Bjornlund.

'We've got to get out of here,' she said. 'This place is worse than a freezer. Can you help me carry him?'

'But I'm wounded,' the Minister of Culture said. 'And why should I help him? After all he's done to me. Can't Yngve carry him?'

The alcoholic had sat down on the floor clutching the half-empty bottle in his arms.

'You can't fall asleep here,' Annika said to Yngve, feeling reality letting go of her, the ice-cold room threatening to strangle her.

'If you knew how much I've suffered over the years,' Karina Bjornlund said from over by the compressor. 'Always afraid that someone would let on that I knew these fools. But that's what happens when you're young, isn't it? You think a load of crazy things, get in with the wrong crowd?'

Goran Nilsson tried to sit up but let out a little cry and slumped back on the concrete floor.

'Something's broken in my hip,' he whispered, and Annika remembered her grandmother's broken hip that winter when there was so much snow.