The Last Good Man Read online

  “Thirty-four,” he murmured to himself. “Two to go.”

  6

  Dortheavej—Copenhagen

  Manic-depressive. Niels heard Leon whispering with the other officers outside the door. He was well aware of the term used to describe him. He also knew how the term was defined in their dictionaries: off his rocker. But Niels was not manic-depressive. Occasionally, he could get wound up a bit. And sometimes he found himself way down in the dumps. The last time it had lasted a couple of months.

  Niels looked at his naked legs as he moved into the middle of the room. They were still shaking; the cold was making it difficult to achieve the desired self-control. For a split second he considered leaving. Fleeing. Letting Leon handle the situation the hard way. He himself had never fired his service weapon—and he never would. He knew that. He just couldn’t. Maybe that was the simple explanation for why he’d ended up as a negotiator. It was the only position on the police force for which the officer never carried a gun.

  Niels cleared his throat and shouted: “Peter! Do you think I’m stupid?” He took two steps closer to the bedroom. “Don’t you think I know how it feels? To do the kind of work that you and I do?”

  He knew that Peter was listening. He could hear him breathing. Now it was a matter of winning his trust so he would let the children go.

  “People don’t know what it’s like to take somebody’s life. They don’t know that it feels like you’re killing yourself, too.”

  Niels let his words hover in the air for a few seconds. “Talk to me, Peter!” he shouted in a commanding voice. Even he was surprised by the harsh tone he used. But Peter was a soldier. He required orders. “I said talk to me, Private!”

  “What do you want?” Peter yelled from the bedroom. “What the hell do you want?”

  “No, what do you want, Peter? What is it you want? Do you want to get the fuck out of here? I can damn well understand that. It’s an ugly world out there.”

  No reply.

  “I’m coming in now. I’m unarmed, and I’m not wearing any clothes. Just like you requested. I’m going to push open the door very slowly so you can see me.”

  Niels took three steps over to the door. “I’m opening the door now.”

  He waited a couple of seconds. It was essential that he get his breathing under control. He couldn’t show any sign of nervousness. He closed his eyes. Opened them and pushed open the door. He stood in the doorway. A girl was lying on the bed. Fourteen or fifteen years old. Clara. The firstborn. Lifeless. Blood on the bedcovers. Peter was sitting in a corner of the bedroom, looking with surprise at the naked man in the doorway. The soldier had put on his uniform. His eyes shifted back and forth. He was a wounded animal. He was holding a hunting rifle, which he pointed at Niels. An empty bottle stood on the floor between his legs.

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” whispered Peter. He no longer sounded very sure of himself.

  “Where is Sofie?”

  Peter didn’t answer, but faint sounds were coming from under the bed. He lowered the rifle and aimed it at little Sofie, who had curled up under the bed.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” said the soldier, looking Niels in the eye for the first time.

  Niels held his gaze, refusing to look away. “Yes. We need to get out of here. But not Sofie.”

  “Yes, the whole family.”

  “I’m going to sit down now.”

  Niels sat down. Blood from the dead girl was dripping from the bed frame onto the floor. Some drops landed on Niels’s naked foot. An oppressive stench of alcohol and unwashed bed linen hung in the air. Niels allowed a few minutes to pass. He could tell that Peter wasn’t ready to shoot his younger daughter. There were many different ways of negotiating with a hostage-taker, many techniques. So many that Niels was no longer up on the latest methods. His two colleagues had gone to the United States to take a course from the FBI. Niels was supposed to go with them, but his fear of travel had kept him home. The mere thought of getting into a huge metal cylinder to fly over the Atlantic at an altitude of thirty-five thousand feet was beyond his comprehension. The result was inevitable: His superiors seldom used Niels anymore. Only if the others were sick or on vacation, like tonight.

  According to the manual, his next step should be to initiate negotiations with Peter. Get him to make some requests or demands, anything at all. Something that would win them time and get his mind to relax. It could be something very banal. A little more whiskey or a cigarette. But Niels had abandoned the manual long ago.

  “Sofie!” Niels shouted again: “Sofie!”

  “Yes?” he heard from under the bed.

  “Your father and I are going to have a little talk. It’s grown-up talk. We want to be alone!”

  Niels spoke in a harsh voice, very harsh, and he didn’t take his eyes off Peter even for a second. Sofie didn’t answer. Niels was now Peter’s commanding officer, his superior, his ally.

  “I want you to do as your father and I say. Get out of there now! Go out to the stairwell!”

  Finally, Niels heard the girl moving under the bed. “Don’t look at us! Get out now!” he bellowed.

  He heard the girl’s light footsteps as she ran through the living room and then the sound of the front door opening and closing. Left behind were Niels and Peter with the body of a teenage girl.

  Niels studied the soldier. Peter Jansson, twenty-seven years old. Discharged soldier. A genuine Danish hero. Peter had turned the gun around and placed the muzzle under his own chin.

  The soldier closed his eyes. Niels could hear Leon whispering in the stairwell. “Let him do it, Niels. Let the maniac blow his brains out.”

  “Where do you want to be buried?” Niels was completely calm. He spoke to the soldier as if they were close friends.

  Peter opened his eyes but didn’t look at Niels. He fixed his eyes on the ceiling. Was he a religious man? Niels knew that many of the soldiers sent off to war made more use of the military chaplain than they were willing to admit.

  “Do you want to be cremated?”

  The soldier tightened his grip on the gun.

  “Is there a message that you want me to give to somebody? I’ll be the last one to see you alive, you know.”

  No reaction from Peter. He was breathing heavily. This last act—the taking of his own life—apparently required more courage than killing his wife and daughter.

  “Peter, is there anyone you want me to contact? Somebody you want to leave a message for?”

  Niels spoke to Peter as if he had one foot in heaven. On the threshold to the next world. “What you went through in Iraq—no human being should have to go through something like that.”

  “No.”

  “And now you want out.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can understand that. Is there anything you’d like to be remembered for? Something good?”

  Peter was thinking. Niels could see he’d hit home. For the first time Peter was thinking about something other than blowing up himself and his family and the whole fucking world. So Niels kept at it.

  “Peter! Answer me! You’ve done something good! What is it?”

  “There was a family . . . a village outside of Basra that was under heavy fire,” Peter began, but Niels could see he didn’t have the strength to go on.

  “An Iraqi family? And you rescued them?”

  “Yes.”

  “You saved lives. You didn’t just take lives. That will be remembered.”

  Peter lowered the gun. For a moment he let the blows pummel him like a boxer who’d been stunned but was still on his feet.

  Niels reacted with lightning speed. In a flash he was next to the soldier, grabbing hold of the rifle barrel. Peter looked up at Niels in surprise. He had no intention of letting it go. Niels promptly slapped the man on the head with the back of his hand.

  “Let go!” he yelled at Peter, who finally released his grip.

  At first Niels thought it was Peter making that rattling and m
oaning sound. But the soldier was just sitting there, looking like someone who had given up. Holding the rifle, Niels turned around. The girl on the bed was moving.

  “Leon!” shouted Niels.

  The officers stormed in. Leon was in front, like always. They threw themselves over the soldier, even though he offered no resistance. The medics came thundering up the stairs.

  “She’s alive!” Niels hurried out of the room. Someone stood ready with a blanket that was thrown over his shoulders. He paused in the doorway and looked back. Peter was crying. He was in the process of falling apart. Tears were good; Niels knew that. If there were tears, there was hope. The medics had put the girl on a gurney and were on their way out.

  Niels retreated to the kitchen, wrapped in the thick blanket that smelled of police dogs, and let the others do their jobs. The family had eaten meatballs for dinner. With béarnaise sauce from a package mix.

  Outside it was still raining. Or was that the first snow of the year? The windowpane had misted over.

  “Bentzon.” Leon came into the kitchen. He stood very close. “There’s one thing I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

  Niels waited. Leon had bad breath.

  “What the hell do you think about?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  Niels took a deep breath. Leon used the pause to eat the family’s last meatball. He smeared it around in the béarnaise sauce and stuffed it into his mouth.

  Niels said, “I think about something I once heard on the radio. About Abraham and Isaac.”

  “I was afraid you’d say something like that.”

  “You asked.”

  Leon was still chewing. “So what about them? I don’t really know much about that kind of stuff.”

  “There was a pastor on the radio who said nobody should ever preach that story. Do you remember how it goes? God tells Abraham that he has to sacrifice his son to prove his faith.”

  “I agree with the pastor. It sounds like a sick story. Ban that shit.”

  “But isn’t that exactly what we do? Send young men off to a war in the desert and ask them to sacrifice themselves for a belief?”

  Leon looked at Niels for a few seconds. A little smile, an exaggerated shake of his head, and then he was gone.

  7

  Charleroi Airport—Brussels, Belgium

  My revenge will be my redemption.

  That thought was crystal-clear in the mind of Abdul Hadi as he stared with contempt at the security guard. If I really wanted to hijack a plane, your ridiculous security check wouldn’t stop me.

  But it wasn’t that simple. He didn’t want to hijack a plane and fly it into EU headquarters. There weren’t going to be any pictures on TV of the passengers’ relatives screaming and crying when the airline posted the names of the victims. This revenge was going to be different; it was going to be a righteous vengeance.

  The security guard gave him an annoyed look. Abdul Hadi had of course understood his question the first time, but making the guard repeat his unreasonable request gave him a feeling of power.

  “Could you take off your shoes, sir?” The security guard raised his voice.

  Abdul Hadi looked at the Westerners who had slipped right through the airport security check without taking off their shoes. He shook his head and went back through the strange free-standing doorway that beeped if you had coins in your pocket. He took off his shoes, calmly and self-confidently, and placed them in a plastic bin. Maybe they think I’m hiding a knife in my shoe, like Mohamed Atta, he thought before he stepped through once again. A second security guard called him over. This time it was his carry-on bag that was submitted to different treatment. And with great suspicion. Abdul Hadi looked around the airport while they rummaged through his toiletries kit. Chocolate and the comic strip Tintin. He didn’t know much about Belgium, but he now knew that it was famous for these two things. He also recalled that two middle-aged Belgian women had been killed a year ago in Wadi Dawan. Some of Allah’s warriors had attacked a convoy of Westerners, and the two women had died. Abdul Hadi shook his head. He would never drive through the Wadi Dawan desert without protection.

  A map of the world hung above the tax-free shop. He studied it as they opened the side pockets of his bag and took the batteries out of his shaver. Terror has created a new map, he thought. New York was the capital. Mumbai had also acquired new significance, along with Madrid and the London tube. Sharm el-Sheik, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem. His people had taken out a broad brush and were beginning to paint the world red. They were in the process of creating a new map of the world in which people no longer thought of castanets when Madrid was mentioned, or the Statue of Liberty when the conversation turned to New York. Instead, they thought about the horrors.

  A different security guard came over to join the others bending over his bag. Was this man their boss? Without lifting his eyes from the contents of the bag, the man asked in English: “Did you pack this bag yourself, sir?”

  “Yes, of course. It’s my bag.”

  “Where are you traveling?”

  “To Stockholm.”

  “Do you work there?”

  “No. I’m going to visit family. I have a visa. Is there a problem?”

  “Where are you from, sir?”

  “Yemen. Is there a problem?”

  The guard gave his bag back without even a hint of an apology.

  Abdul Hadi stopped in the middle of the departure hall. Shops, advertisements for movies, and advertisements for specific lifestyles. He was filled with contempt. Toward the West and the bizarre relationship of Westerners to security. It’s pure fiction, he thought. Just like the dream of what all their products will do for them. Now travelers believe that everything is fine, that they’re safe. But none of them are safe! Abdul Hadi wouldn’t dream of trying to bring a gun to an airport. Why make things more difficult for himself? Everything had been prepared for him at his destination. He knew where he was supposed to go. He knew who was going to die and how he was going to do it.

  Stockholm—delayed

  He looked up at the monitor showing departure times. The delay didn’t matter; he had plenty of time. He would land in Stockholm with time to spare. Someone would meet him at the airport, drive him to the train station, and help him find the right train to Copenhagen.

  He looked at the passengers around him and thought: No. You’re not safe at all. The thought pleased him. You can rummage through my bags, you can ask me to take off my shoes, you can demand that I strip off all my clothes, like you did at the first airport where I changed planes. But that won’t save you.

  He thought about the humiliation he’d suffered at the airport in Mumbai. He was the only one in line who was taken aside. He had obediently followed his escort down to the basement. Two airport security guards led the way, and two Indian police officers brought up the rear. The room had no windows. No chairs, no table. He had to put his clothes on the floor. He’d asked for a chair, since the floor was so dirty. Their answer was to ask him whether he wanted to catch his plane or make trouble. He considered making trouble. Westerners weren’t treated like that, not even when they were under suspicion. But he focused his thoughts on his goal. On revenge.

  And then he thought: We will never be accepted in your world. Tolerated, maybe. But not accepted. Not on an equal footing. He’d talked about this with his younger brother just before he left. If he didn’t return, his little brother would become head of the family. That was why his brother had come home from Saudi Arabia, where he’d been a guest worker. The Saudis were almost worse than the Westerners. Decadent. Pathetic. Liars. Everybody knew that their women covered up their bodies merely for show. On Friday evening they boarded chartered planes and headed for Beirut. The women changed clothes on the plane. They threw off the burka, while the men changed into Hugo Boss suits. Abdul Hadi had studied at the American University of Beirut during the years before the civil war. He saw the Saudis arriving every weekend, completel
y transformed in appearance. The women lay on the beach in bikinis, while the men got drunk and played blackjack in the big casino. He didn’t know whom he hated most: the Saudis who played weekend-Westerners in the only city in the world that would play along with them, or the Westerners who had enticed them there. Enticed with promises of freedom. The freedom to try to get the same things the Westerners had. But they couldn’t. That was something Abdul Hadi knew from bitter experience. Even though he was a handsome man, especially before his hair turned gray, he’d had no chance with the American girls at the university.

  Well, one of them did say yes to his invitation. Caroline. She was from Chicago. Wanted to be a movie director when she went back home. They went to see a film together. Jaws. But she lost interest in him when she found out he wasn’t from Lebanon. Caroline was just looking for a little local color. Someone who could take her inside the tent of the Bedouins; someone who could show her the real Lebanon before she went back home.

  Stockholm—delayed

  After the day when Caroline pretended not to recognize him on campus, he’d sworn never to make any more attempts with the American girls. He was living with his brother in a rented room in the building behind the Hotel Commodore. The high-rise had a swimming pool on the roof, but there was never any water in it. They shared the courtyard with a private clinic, and every afternoon human offal from the plastic surgeries was carried out in big sacks. The Saudi women had their fat sucked out and their beaked noses straightened so they would look like Caroline and her friends. But they would never be like the Western girls. And until the rest of the Arab people realized this, they would never be truly free. To be locked inside a dream in which you can never participate is a prison. So it was good that someone had started to remake the map of the world.

  “Boarding card, please.”

  Abdul handed his boarding card to the Swedish stewardess. She smiled at him. It had been a long time since anyone had smiled at him.