Sonny’s body is making a wheezing, almost bubbling sound.
Gustav scans the area where he thought he saw the gun’s flare through his rifle-sights. He can see grey earth, smaller boats, a skip. Everything looks like it’s made of lead, dusted with soot. He keeps searching and sees the low bushes, a sealed bin-bag, an empty paint-tin.
Adam is cradling Sonny in his arms. His chest is smeared with blood.
‘Dear God in heaven … Sonny,’ he whimpers.
Gustav is breathing jaggedly as he keeps looking through the rifle-sights. Grass sways in the breeze as sooty embers fall around him. The smoke catches in his throat. Burning boats crash to the ground behind him. Their hulls knock together, and the weights holding down the tarp above him start to sway.
He sees the barrel of a rifle behind a rusty pallet, and his heart starts to beat hard. A bush jerks in the wind just behind the sniper.
Gustav wipes the sweat from his eyebrows in order to see better, and adjusts his goggles. He’s usually a very good shot, but right now he can feel his hands shaking.
He carefully adjusts his sights to the position where he thinks the sniper’s head will appear when he looks up to shoot again.
‘They’re all dead,’ Adam says to no one in particular. ‘I think they’re all dead.’
Gustav’s sights tremble and slip down the tiles. He can’t reply. He needs to stay focused.
Only he and Adam are visible.
Gustav knows he won’t get many seconds before the sniper fires.
One of the weights sways on its rope in front of the sights.
Gustav sees the sniper’s rifle move slightly to the left, then a head appears for a few seconds before disappearing again. The barrel slides down and stops. Then the head is there again, its eye to the rifle, looking for a new target.
Very gently, Gustav moves his rifle until the face appears in the crosshairs, then he squeezes the trigger.
The G36 jerks back against his shoulder. The sniper is gone. Gustav blinks several times, and tries to slow his breathing. The gun is gone. He starts to think he must have missed when he sees something dark dripping off the branches of the bush behind the sniper’s hiding place.
50
Joona is standing by the forklift, watching the flames and oil-black smoke twist up furiously towards the sky.
Parisa is hugging her sister, who is curled up in fear. She is covering her ears and sobbing hopelessly like a child.
‘Ask your sister if she can run. We should try to get to the edge of the forest,’ Joona says quickly.
‘We have to find Fatima, the woman who was here a moment ago,’ Parisa says. ‘We can’t leave her. She saved my sister, told everyone she was her daughter so she’d be left alone.’
‘Where is she? Do you know?’
‘She was going to get her things – you see that big boat without any plastic?’ she points.
‘It’s too dangerous …’
Suddenly they hear automatic gunfire, a whole magazine being emptied down by the water. Bullets slam into wood and ricochet off the steel cradles holding the boats.
Joona tries to see where the Rapid Response Unit is.
They hear smaller explosions as glass shatters and boats topple.
He pulls out his phone and calls Janus again, then suddenly sees that Parisa has left her sobbing sister and crept away with the shotgun. She’s running bent over, along the side of the workshop towards the boat she indicated.
Joona draws his pistol and pulls back the hammer.
The fire from the burning helicopter is stretching off to one side, and seems to fade into the dark sky.
Joona sees Parisa slow down when she reaches the end of the workshop. Her shadow ripples across the corrugated metal wall.
Her sister is sitting in silence, her hands over her ears.
Parisa glances towards the water, then steadies herself against the wall and gets ready to run across the open patch of gravel to the boat.
Joona sees her take a step forward and look around the corner, then her whole body trembles, she collapses onto her backside and sits there, a blank expression on her face.
Suddenly she falls backward and hits her head on the ground. Then she’s dragged away by her feet.
It looks like some predator has brought her down and dragged her into the undergrowth.
Holding his pistol close to his chest, Joona runs down the path beside the wall, then stops and raises the weapon as he approaches the corner where she disappeared.
He listens, feeling the billowing heat from the fire on his face.
Glowing fragments of burning plastic are drifting through the air.
He quickly glances around the corner and scans the scene: the concrete ramp, the five-metre-tall doors to the workshop.
The trunks of the pine trees at the edge of the forest are lit up by the yellow glow of the fire.
There’s a white trailer parked a little further into the forest, behind a chicken-wire fence.
Joona runs over to a smaller doorway, pushes the handle, opens it and looks inside the workshop.
Machinery shimmers dully in the darkness, and further away there’s a dark-blue motorboat with damaged bows.
Joona darts inside, checks the corners closest to him, then runs at a crouch over to a large lathe.
The smells of metal, oil and solvents mingle in the air.
The door clicks shut behind him.
The fire is still visible through cracks and tiny holes in the metal walls.
He moves towards the boat, making sure to check dangerous angles.
A man roars: ‘You’re just an animal. You’re nothing. You’re just a fucking animal!’
Joona runs towards the voice, crouches down and sees them at the far end of the workshop.
Parisa is hanging upside down, raised up by her feet with a pulley and tackle. Her thick sweater has fallen around her head. The white strap of her bra stretches across her naked back.
The bearded man’s mouth is still bleeding. Parisa is trying to hold onto her sweater, and sways as the man yanks it away.
‘I’m going to cut your fucking head off!’ he cries, raising the axe.
Joona starts to run, but the boat is obstructing his line of fire. He can just see them through the gloom beneath the hull.
Parisa tries to scream even though her mouth has been taped shut. The man mirrors her movements and steps to one side.
‘This is Guantánamo!’ he yells, and swings the axe with full force.
The heavy blade hits her from behind, in her shoulder, and slices through the muscle. Parisa’s body spins around, spraying blood across the floor. Joona rushes past blue barrels of old oil, rolls under the boat and gets a clear view of them again.
‘Get back!’ Joona shouts.
The man is standing behind Parisa, wiping blood from his beard. One of her trouser legs has slipped up to her knee. She’s now spinning back the other way, breathing through her nose and trying to use her hands to defend herself.
‘I’ll shoot if you don’t drop the axe,’ Joona calls out, moving sideways to find a better angle.
The man takes a few steps back and stares at Parisa, whose struggling is making the chain creak.
‘Look at me, not her. Look at me and back away,’ Joona says, moving slowly closer with his finger on the trigger.
‘They’re only fucking animals,’ he mutters.
‘Put the axe on the floor.’
The man is about to put the axe down when there’s a loud bang as a shotgun hits the metal roof. Small pellets of lead ricochet off the roof and walls, then lose velocity and fall to the floor of the workshop.
‘Completely still, now,’ the old man’s voice says behind Joona.
Joona holds the pistol and his other hand up above his head. After all his years of training he’s made the same mistake that killed his father. He got carried away by the situation, by the desire to save someone, and left himself open to attack from behind for a few seconds.
Parisa’s stomach is heaving in time with her terrified breathing. Her white bra is soaked with blood and a dark puddle is spreading out beneath her. The bearded man is breathing hard as he puts the axe down.
‘Drop the pistol,’ the old man says.
‘Shall I put it on the floor?’