Below Zero Read online

  Below Zero

  An Ingrid Skyberg Mystery

  Eva Hudson

  INKUBATOR BOOKS

  Previously published under the same title by Two Pies Press (2014)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  FREE SKYBERG NOVELLA

  Eva Hudson

  Also by Eva Hudson

  Rights Info

  1

  Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg pulled her scarf up over her chin. Not only did it help to hide her face from any surveillance cameras, but it insulated her from the icy wind scraping over the water. She had waited in her cabin until the rumble of footsteps and trundle of cases had peaked, timing her exit to disembark with the greatest number of passengers.

  She had spent the overnight crossing from Riga alone in her cabin. She could have saved money by sleeping in a recliner in the lounge, but she needed to minimize the chance of being spotted, or being engaged in conversation, or getting hit on by a truck driver who thought a woman traveling alone must be up for it. The instructions she’d been given could not have been clearer: no one was to ever know she had been in Stockholm. No ID, no credit cards, no trace. If something went wrong, if her body was found floating in the docks of Djurgården, or she was arrested and imprisoned, there could be no way of identifying her. There was no back-up, no FBI, no Fortnum Security, no Phone-a-Friend. Out of an abundance of caution, she had wiped over the vanity unit in the restroom and the handle of her cabin door before tucking her short blonde hair inside her hat and joining the crowd in the corridor.

  Ingrid was relieved to see she was dressed like almost everyone else on the ferry: gray beanie, black padded jacket, black jeans and sneakers. She knew she should have worn boots, but she had packed in a hurry. At four in the afternoon she had been approached at Nick Angelis’ wedding by a man who introduced himself as ‘James’, and by five past four she was in no doubt that her debt to Fortnum Security was being called in. Before midnight she had touched down in St Petersburg.

  That had been two days ago. She’d then left her US passport and cell phone in a locker at Pulkovo airport and traveled on her Russian papers to Latvia by train. She left her Russian ID—issued by the FBI for her undercover work in London—and her credit cards in another locker at Central Station in Riga before buying a ticket, in cash, for the ferry to Stockholm.

  Shuffling like penguins off the ramp and onto the dock, Ingrid was careful not to make eye contact with the other passengers or draw attention to herself. Just another traveler, no one special. There were no passport controls between Latvia and Sweden—hence her choice of route—but a random customs inspection was still a possibility. All she had with her was a change of underwear, a toothbrush and slightly less than $5,000 in cash in three different currencies: she really didn’t want to explain the contents of her backpack to the authorities.

  The last time she had arrived at the docks at Frihamnen, Ingrid had been met by her cousin Anna. Born only weeks but an ocean apart, they had first met aged four at a family reunion in Minnesota. Aunts and uncles had said that the two little blonde girls who played so nicely together could have been twins. But by the time Ingrid was studying in St Petersburg and spending regular weekends in Stockholm, they couldn’t have looked more different: Ingrid had stepped off the ferry aged twenty-two to be met by a punk with piercings and green hair. Anna had officially become a rebel and Ingrid had never felt so square. Now it was Ingrid who was the outsider, the renegade, on a mission so secret and so dangerous that she was a liability to both the FBI and her government. She knew how the State Department graded their priorities: while her mission had level five importance, she was deemed expendable. ‘Below zero’ was how Nick Angelis had put it. Given the temperature of the Stockholm air, that seemed fitting.

  Ingrid walked behind two young Latvian men, carrying canvas holdalls and wearing work boots. In London, in recent years, she’d overheard increasing numbers of conversations about the ‘bloody Poles’ or the ‘scheming Bulgarians’ bleeding the state dry. In Sweden, she noted, the immigrants were also commuters: arriving on a Monday morning to do five days’ hard labor then returning to their families for the weekend.

  The constant flow of arrivals meant the double doors to the terminal building were perpetually kept open, and the air inside was barely warmer than the external temperature. The passengers followed markings on the ground that showed the way to customs and the exit. A cordon of officials monitored their slow progress, examining them from beneath the peaks of their black caps, scanning faces, assessing the threat. Ingrid kept her eyes down and her gait casual, though her heart was hammering inside her chest. A dog handler and an excited spaniel patrolled as they all shuffled forward. A family—exhausted, ragged—who spoke in Arabic were ushered to one side. Refugees from Syria, most likely, and a reminder of how important her mission was. If she could stop one more family having to cross Europe in search of a new life, if she could contribute to ending the war in Syria sooner, then the risks she was taking would be worth it. She stared at the family as they started a conversation with a border guard, a conversation they must have rehearsed a thousand times, a conversation that would likely last for hours, if not days.

  “Ursäkta!”

  Ingrid carried on walking, keen to escape the port as quickly as possible, and felt the money pouch strapped to her ankle rub against her pants leg.

  “Ursäkta mig! Miss!” A small part of her brain thought the guard was trying to attract her attention; the rest of her brain feared that was the case. “Miss! Stop!” he said in Swedish.

  She could pretend she didn’t understand the language. She could act dumb. She exhaled deeply, blowing into her scarf. She could feel her pulse in her neck.

  A hand tapped her shoulder.

  She swallowed hard and turned. The woman behind her said something so quickly Ingrid couldn’t understand her. Sensing Ingrid’s incomprehension, she repeated herself in English. “I think he wants to speak to you.”

  A security official was jogging toward her. She felt her cheeks flush but told herself it was OK. She’d worked out a cover story. You can’t blow it this soon.

  “Miss,” he said again, a little out of breath. His brilliant blue eyes were imploring her to stop. His expression looked desperate as he approached. Ingrid gritted her teeth, readying herself for the inquisition.

  He raised his right hand, and Ingrid saw the red leather glove dangling from his grasp.

  Relief surged through her, forcing sweat through her pores under her hat. She couldn’t remember the Swedish for glove, but beamed at him and held up her hands to show him the lost item didn’t belong to her.

  �
��Tack,” he said. Thank you. Of all the words Ingrid wanted to import into English from Swedish, ‘tack’ was her favorite. It reminded her of her grandmother. Whenever Ingrid helped her clear the table, or brought her a morning coffee, she would always say, “Tack”, despite the fact she had been born in the US. Tack, along with blonde hair and blue eyes, was part of Ingrid’s Swedish inheritance.

  She smiled at him and quickly turned away, keen to be unmemorable and eager to escape the terminal.

  Safely through customs and back out in the brittle Stockholm air, Ingrid decided not to take the bus to the city center. It was just another opportunity for someone to remember her. Instead, she set off on foot and within a couple of hundred yards was marching through Gärdet, a light dusting of snow beneath her feet.

  It was a little before ten thirty in the morning. If all went to plan, she would return to Riga on the same ferry she had come in on when it departed at five thirty. She shoved her hands deep into her pockets: it was going to be the longest seven hours of her life.

  Transcript from Riksdag Committee Hearing 23

  December 14 2015

  BILUNGS: For the record, please state your full name and rank.

  HOLM: Detective Sergeant Sami Holm with the Stockholm City Police Department.

  BILUNGS: And what was your primary role in the events of December last year?

  HOLM: I was the officer who responded to the one-one-two calls from the Republik café. The calls claiming the minister had been taken at gunpoint.

  BILUNGS: Claiming?

  HOLM: Well, we now know that wasn’t true.

  BILUNGS: We do indeed. I presume you have been briefed on the purpose of these hearings?

  HOLM: Yes.

  BILUNGS: You understand that we are not here to apportion blame. This is about discovering the true facts of the events of December 15th and 16th last year. Nothing you say here will have any bearing on your future career prospects and no one will be subject to sanction on the basis of anything they reveal to this committee.

  HOLM: I do. But I didn’t do anything wrong.

  BILUNGS: Then you should have no problem speaking freely. If you could start by telling us what you remember of the morning of Monday December 15th.

  HOLM: Where do you want me to start? Breakfast?

  BILUNGS: The beginning of your shift will suffice.

  HOLM: [Refers to notes] I was late. The road closures had already started—

  BILUNGS: The road closures around the National Museum?

  HOLM: Yes. So obviously I stopped to see if I could help. I spoke to an officer [refers to notes], Constable Eklund, who told me it was precautionary. A bomb threat had been called in.

  BILUNGS: And after that, you went to the station house?

  HOLM: Yes. It was not an emergency. There had not been an explosion. Not yet. There were no injuries. The situation was under control, so I went to work as normal, arriving for my shift at eleven fifteen.

  BILUNGS: This was one of the most serious security situations in our nation’s history and you simply carried on to work. You walked away?

  HOLM: I followed protocol. I didn’t have my radio with me, it was at the station—as it should be, I should add. I had cases to work. I had a suspect who’d been taken into custody overnight. All we knew at this point was that someone had made a bomb threat. It’s not uncommon. I was not being neglectful.

  BILUNGS: You are not being accused of such behavior. And this committee has already heard from your colleague, [refers to notes] Sergeant Engström, that hoaxes of a similar nature had been made in the months leading up to December 15th. What happened when you got to the station house?

  HOLM: [Takes sip of water] Well, obviously, because of the incident at the National Museum, most of the uniformed officers were out. I remember the phones were all ringing. On almost every desk, all the time. I guess people had heard the news and they were all calling their friend the cop to get the inside story, you know. And of course no one was there to answer them. Lots of ringing. Endless ringing.

  BILUNGS: So.

  HOLM: I grabbed the case files for the suspect in custody, reviewed the arrest report and made the arrangements for him to be interviewed. Making sure his lawyer was present, that sort of thing.

  BILUNGS: And, just to be clear, does this have any bearing on the events that happened that day?

  HOLM: No, but you asked me to tell you about my morning. I am telling you.

  BILUNGS: Perhaps if you could speed things up a little bit, Sergeant Holm.

  HOLM: I guess it was around twelve forty-five when a call was patched through to me from the dispatch office. They had received several calls claiming that Anna Skyberg had been kidnapped. At gunpoint.

  2

  Ingrid tried to calculate the odds, as she walked quickly west through a light flurry of snow, of bumping into Anna. She knew her cousin was in town as it had only been a couple of days since she’d liked a photo of hers on Facebook. It had been a shot of her cousin—the piercings and mohawk long since replaced by expensive clothes and a sophisticated elfin crop—and her husband Björn in front of their Christmas tree while their toddler screamed his head off, raging against the indignity of posing for the camera.

  It was just about the only contact they had these days, tiny electronic reminders of each other’s existence, although it hadn’t been so long since Ingrid had read about Anna in the Guardian, causing her to splutter her coffee. A bill Anna had introduced in the Riksdag had been approved and her cousin had been photographed shaking the hand of the British Prime Minister. Of course Ingrid was thrilled for Anna, but her cousin’s success only gave her mother more ammunition to berate her for her own lack of career progression. “Look at Anna,” her mother would say, her accent as heavy as the day she defected in 1976. “See what people achieve when they work hard.” Sometimes, Ingrid was amazed that the inheritance from the Russian side of her family tree had never forced her into therapy.

  At ten thirty in the morning, Anna Skyberg would most likely be in her office. Maybe she was in the parliament building, righting wrongs at that very moment. And if she was between meetings, the Minister for Climate and the Environment would be in a chauffeur-driven car, nose buried in briefing papers or on the phone to her nanny. Ingrid reasoned that even if they happened to be in the same grid reference at the same time, the only person in Stockholm who knew who she really was would be too busy to recognize her. After twelve years, it was possible Anna could look straight at Ingrid and not even see her. She was a ghost. She didn’t need to worry.

  Ingrid looked down at her feet: ghosts didn’t leave footprints in the snow.

  She carried on searching for the kind of store that was on every street corner in London, but although she stopped at each intersection to check the retail outlets, she couldn’t see what she was looking for. The center of Stockholm was just too damn classy. Where’s a bit of urban decay when you need it? At this rate, she’d have to walk all the way to Central Station.

  She finally found what she was looking for and ducked inside, instantly grateful for the fan heater that rumbled on the worn linoleum floor. The store owner was wearing a woolen coat over his salwar kameez. He was on the phone, talking in tones that indicated he was arguing with his wife. Ingrid was fine to wait. She had rehearsed what she needed to say countless times, but it had been so long since she had spoken Swedish that she was worried she wouldn’t be able to make herself understood. In a city where residents slip into English as easily as changing gears in a car, it would be hard to resist the convenience of speaking in her mother tongue. But that was one of Nick’s rules. At no point was she to speak English. No one could be left with a memory of a blonde woman, five ten, one hundred and thirty pounds, speaking in an American accent. If her schoolgirl Swedish failed her, she was allowed to try her Russian or her Italian, languages in which Ingrid was fluent. Capisce, Nick had said. She understood perfectly.

  The man ended his conversation, slammed his phone down o
n the glass countertop and looked at Ingrid with the same contempt he had shown his caller. Ingrid guessed he was Pakistani, possibly Afghan.

  “Ja?”

  “Hej. Jag behöver en mobiltelefon?”

  “What kind?” he asked in Swedish. Thankfully, it was a question she had rehearsed an answer to.

  “An old one. Just calls and texts.”

  “No iPhone? I have iPhone.”

  “No, something basic. Something cheap.”

  He couldn’t hide the disappointment from his face as he bent beneath the counter. While he was on his knees, Ingrid took a look around. The store sold the kind of merchandise found in street markets the world over. Replica watches, personal fans, pocket warmers and air fresheners to hang from your rearview mirror.

  The man placed a Tupperware container on the counter and pulled out an old Nokia handset, a Samsung flip phone and several grime-covered chargers and leads.

  “They work?” Ingrid asked.

  “Ja. Of course.”

  “How much?”

  He shrugged. They were virtually worthless and they both knew it. “One thousand kronor.”

  “For both?”

  He nodded.

  “I’ll give you five hundred. With the chargers.”

  He looked at her, considering if he could be bothered to haggle. Ingrid took his hesitation as capitulation and reached into her pocket for her wallet. Before she opened it she remembered that it only contained dollars. She shoved it back in her pocket then searched inside her backpack for the envelope her Swedish currency was in. She placed a five hundred kronor note in front of him and pushed another one into her jeans pocket.