After the Monsoon: An unputdownable thriller that will get your pulse racing!. Robert Karjel

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СКАЧАТЬ for instance?”

      “The Balkans, I guess everybody started off there,” replied Jondelius, the second beard. “I met Philippa for the first time in Kosovo.”

      “What about you?” Grip said, turning his gaze to Radovanović, who’d looked up from the floor.

      “Me …?” He shifted in his seat. “Well, before this, twice in Afghanistan.”

      Milan Radovanović’s personnel file said his parents were Bosnian Serbs who’d come to Sweden when he was five.

      “Afghanistan, of course,” said Jondelius. That got them started, pointing at each other, talking about who served together when, names flying with locations and units: Mazar-e Sharif, Sheberghan, OMLT, FS-17, Marmal. All of them had served there, one of the beards doing the most tours, it seemed. Someone laughed: “We’ve done everything: drivers, grunts, vehicle mechanics—you name it.”

      “And now you do MovCon.” Grip got a thumbs-up from one member of this traveling circus. Fritzell, the muscular one, smiled broadly behind his beard.

      “You like to dig into things?” Grip asked, looking at him.

      “I like to dig into things,” he replied, with the indulgent gaze of a bouncer looking at a drunk trying to get past him.

      Philippa Ekman snorted at the comment. She wore her long blond hair up and sat with her legs wide apart like the others.

      “And in Africa?” Grip continued.

      “This is a first for me,” said Jondelius. Radovanović nodded.

      “Me and Hansson were in Chad together,” said Ekman.

      “Yeah, I’ve done my fair share around here,” continued Fredrik Hansson, the new leader. “Chad, Sudan, a few other little missions.”

      “Always MovCon?”

      “Something like that. My thing is logistics.”

      Grip nodded. “And now you’re here. There aren’t many of you, and I hear there’s a lot to do. How do you divide the work?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “You know, mornings, evenings, nights, how do you arrange your shifts?”

      “We work as needed.”

      “Around the clock?”

      “Not always, but it happens.”

      “And the Djiboutians?”

      “During the day. But really, they only get things done in the morning.”

      “Why?”

      There was silence.

      “I said, why?” Grip saw Hansson look at Fritzell, so instead he went to Radovanović. “Why, Radovanović?”

      The soldier fiddled and twisted his index finger nervously.

      “Too hot in the afternoon sun?”

      The staff sergeant struggled for words.

      “The real reason,” Grip went on, “is because at lunchtime, the khat stalls open in town. After one o’clock, nearly everyone is chewing, and by two, they’re no longer useful … right?”

      “Something like that,” said Hansson, to break the deadlock.

      “Then I understand better. And another thing I was wondering, since you’ve been out on so many missions. How often have you taken the locals to a firing fest at a shooting range? And I don’t mean when you were training some ex-Talibans to be police officers in Afghanistan. I mean people who have jobs on the base that have nothing to do with weapons. Do you have a single example? Chad, Liberia, Kosovo?”

      Silence again.

      “Anything?”

      “It was the lieutenant …”

      “I know, Slunga told you to. And not just that you were going to shoot with them, but that you’d do it in the afternoon, when the entire gang was high. You’ve said it yourselves, right?” Grip leaned forward, looking at Hansson, Fritzell, and Ekman. “The idea was so goddamn stupid that the lieutenant couldn’t have done it alone. No way in hell it was five against one, and he won just because he was a lieutenant. Never, not with this crew. You need to work on your story, it’s too polished.”

      This hit home. But Grip had more. “Was he a good shot, by the way?” He’d turned to Radovanović, who looked down at the floor again. “Hello? How well did he shoot?”

      “Huh, who?” asked Radovanović, looking up.

      “Abdoul Ghermat, was he a good shot?”

      “When?”

      “C’mon, you stood next to each other on the shooting range. I’ve seen the sketches. It was you who instructed him—was he a good shot?”

      “I don’t know, the idea was just that they’d give it a try. We taped over the targets as they went.” Radovanović tore a little sliver off his cuticle.

      “But did he hit the target at least?”

      “I guess so.”

      “You guess? It was only three days ago. Did he hit the cardboard soldiers or not?”

      “Yes, he did.”

      “And then he shot Slunga?”

      Radovanović didn’t know what to say.

      “Let it go,” said Fredrik Hansson at last. “I was standing in the back as well, when the others walked up to the targets. The shot, when it happened, fuck, it wasn’t something you were expecting. Whether he aimed before or not …” Hansson shrugged. “In any case, it was Abdoul Ghermat who fired the shot.”

      Radovanović nodded. Saved by Hansson.

      “Ghermat,” mumbled Grip. He glanced at the clock and stood up. “I’m sure you also took a lot of photos with your phones. That goes along with doing something so goddamn stupid.” No one denied it. “Exactly. And I want to see pictures, enough pictures so I can see the faces of everyone there. Email them to me. I want them by ten tonight.” Still no one said anything, and Grip tossed some business cards on a table, nodded, and left.

      The next time Grip stopped, he was out on deck. Alone in the late dusk, he looked out over the water and the lights on the other side of the harbor. Behind him, the ship’s funnel whirred, towering behind him.

      Already he’d found the weak link.

      The whole MovCon unit stayed at the Sheraton, with the other Swedes and foreigners who didn’t serve aboard the ships. They’d go back to their rooms now, on the same hallway. They’d have a few beers, trying to come up with a new strategy, because the pig wouldn’t just СКАЧАТЬ