The Einstein Pursuit

24

Eklund immediately stood from his desk. ‘Nick, I didn’t expect to see you so early.’

‘I was just thinking the same thing about you. Did you even sleep?’

‘A little, here and there.’

Dial could see from the wrinkled shirt Eklund wore and the rumpled cushions on his office couch that he hadn’t made it home the night before. ‘But you’re good to go?’

‘Fit as a fiddle, as you Americans say.’

‘Actually, we stopped saying that about fifty years ago.’

‘Really? Why’s that?’

‘We stopped playing fiddles.’

Eklund laughed as he smoothed his hands across the front of his shirt, trying to make himself look more presentable. ‘Now that you mention it, it is rather dated.’

Dial nodded and glanced around the office. He immediately focused on a large magnetic dry erase board that covered most of the back wall, opposite Eklund’s desk. The middle third of the board was plastered with photos from the crime scene and scribbled notes.

‘What’s all this?’ he asked.

‘That’s my version of a touch screen,’ Eklund joked. ‘The younger guys enter all their information into a computerized display that spits it out and lets you pull it around the screen however you want.’

‘I’m familiar with the technology. If you’d like one for your office, I can make a call and have one here by noon. Budget be damned.’

‘With all due respect, I’d like to throw that stuff off a goddamn bridge. All that tapping and dragging and squeezing and spreading your fingers — what a bunch of nonsense! Give me some pictures, a whiteboard and some markers. That’s all I need.’

‘No need to convince me,’ Dial said, laughing. ‘I still use a corkboard.’

The more he got to know Eklund, the more he liked him. When it came to evidence, Dial was old-school like Eklund. He preferred the simplicity of a bulletin board to the functionality of a high-tech gadget. To him there was no better way to organize a case. He could move things around whenever he wanted until everything fit into place — like a giant jigsaw puzzle that revealed the identity of the killer.

‘So, what do we have so far?’ Dial asked as he examined the evidence.

‘Not enough,’ Eklund replied, pointing to the various columns on his board. ‘This is the list of the registered owners of the cars in the warehouse parking lot. Unfortunately, half of the vehicles were rented, which means we have to track down the drivers’ names through the rental agencies — and some of them require court orders.’

Dial saw a second list of names on the opposite side of the board. ‘What about them?’

Eklund glanced at the list. ‘Believe it or not, we were actually able to get a few usable prints from the scientists who were trapped in the back room. The science is beyond me — something about rehydrating the fingertips to expose the ridge patterns — but I can get a tech up here to explain it if you’d like.’

‘No need. I’ll take your word for it.’ Dial shifted his focus to a photo of the two men who had been killed at the scene. ‘What about the gunmen? Were you able to get their names?’

‘Unfortunately, no. At least, not yet. We’re running their dentals and prints through every database we can access, but so far nothing has given us a match. It’s really not that uncommon, to be honest. If they were covert military or government, there’s a better-than-good chance that their records have been expunged.’

‘The perfect hit men,’ Dial offered.

‘You’re right. This doesn’t look like a hack job. But until we figure out what was going on and who was doing what, there’s no way of knowing which one of these people was the target. It could be any of them, or it could be all of them.’

‘Speaking of names, I’ve got one to add to your board.’ Dial grabbed a blue marker from the plastic tray and wrote DR TOMAS BERGLUND in capital letters.

Eklund wasn’t familiar with the name. ‘Who is he?’

‘The owner of the building.’

‘Really? How did you manage that?’

Dial smiled. ‘I’m good at what I do.’

‘You must be better than good, because my guys have gotten nowhere with the paperwork. They said it’s one shell company after another.’

‘I managed to get a few details about him, but not much. Apparently, he’s a well-known Finnish scientist who dropped off the face of the earth a few months ago. My assistant is trying to track down some additional information about his past, but my guess is we’ll have more luck at the Karolinska Institute.’

Eklund checked his watch. ‘Olsen and his colleagues should be arriving soon. If you’d like, we can stop by my favorite bakery for some coffee and pastries before we head over there. Do you like fruit tarts?’

Dial licked his lips in anticipation. ‘I bet I will.’

After picking up their breakfast in a charming old-world bakery, they climbed into Eklund’s car and headed north toward the institute.

Although the trip was a short distance in miles, it felt like a long journey through time as they left the ancient streets for the modern part of the city. Dial was startled by the contrast between the historic feel of the old town and the futuristic architecture of the adjacent islands. He envied the way that Stockholm had been able to preserve its history while still embracing innovation. It truly was spectacular.

‘You know,’ he said as he sipped his coffee, ‘I’ve traveled all over the world, to every continent on the globe, but I’ve never seen a country like this. Sweden is simply gorgeous.’

Eklund beamed with pride. ‘Thank you. It is a wonderful place to call home.’

‘Maybe I will someday,’ Dial offered.

Sensing an opportunity, Eklund mustered the courage to ask a question that had been weighing on him for some time. ‘Nick, why are you doing this?’

‘Doing what?’

‘The investigation,’ Eklund clarified. ‘Why are you involving yourself? I’m not saying I don’t want you here, or that you’re in the way — of course I’m not saying that — but I would like to understand why. You could coordinate the information from the station. Hell, you could probably do it from France. But you’re here, in my car, on your way to hear what these scientists might have to say, rather than reading their conclusions later.’

Dial sat back in his seat. He rarely discussed his life — personal or professional — with those he met on the job. But Eklund’s question was legitimate, and Dial felt that he somehow owed him an explanation — especially since Eklund had paid for breakfast.

‘Back in ’93, I was stationed in the southwest United States when a religious sect called the Branch Davidians faced off against the ATF and the FBI near Waco, Texas. For fifty-one days their leader, a self-proclaimed prophet named David Koresh, held us at bay. They were well armed, bunkered in, and threatening the lives of twenty-eight kids, so we tried to wait them out as long as we could. Eventually, orders were given to raid the compound, but everything went to shit when the Davidians started three fires, thereby blocking the exits. In the end, four ATF agents lost their lives, and eighty-two church members were killed in the blaze. It was a horrible scene.’

‘Did you know them? The agents?’

‘Conway LeBleu, Todd McKeehan, Robert Williams and Steven Willis … I didn’t know them before they died, but I’ll never forget those names. They’ll stay with me for ever.’

Eklund nodded in understanding.

‘Exactly two years to the day, an American terrorist named Timothy McVeigh parked a rental truck filled with five thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate outside the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He did it in protest at the government’s actions in Waco. Most employees had just started their workday when McVeigh lit the fuse. The blast tore through the north face of the building. One hundred and sixty-eight were killed. Eight hundred more were injured. I arrived less than two hours later.’

Dial had worked non-stop, all day and all night, pulling victims from the rubble and collecting evidence in between. Based on blast patterns, his team had figured out where in the smoldering wreckage they should be searching for the suspect’s vehicle. When they found an axle and pieces of a license plate, they were able to link the truck to a rental agency in Junction City, Kansas. The agency’s owner remembered McVeigh and provided a detailed description to the FBI, who used the sketch to implicate him in the bombing.

‘I remember that,’ Eklund said. ‘He was convicted on multiple counts.’

‘And he was executed for his crimes on June 11, 2001. Maybe the best night of sleep I’ve ever had.’

It wasn’t an exaggeration. Dial had slept like a baby that night. For the first time in years, he was able to close his eyes without seeing burned and mangled corpses, their lifeless faces staring back at him in a plea for help that wouldn’t come. They had haunted his dreams since the day of the bombing, as if their final journey could not be completed until the man who had killed them had been sent to hell.

‘I’m not a religious man,’ he said in summation, ‘but I do believe in justice. It’s the reason I became a cop. It’s the reason I work for Interpol. And it’s the reason I’m in this car. As much as I’d like to pack my things and head back home, that is no longer an option. Now that I’m a part of this investigation, I plan on sticking around until the case is solved.’