“The same typewriter used for the other letters. No return address. I’m sure you’ll recognize what I found inside. Copies of logbooks and intelligence reports that are supposed to exist in a single copy, locked inside a safe. Notes from all the meetings I had with Erik Wilson—an infiltrator providing information about organized crime to his handler at the City Police, who then collected and used it.”

Grens flipped through the stack, reading bits here and there.

Even the contents of the white envelope. The one that should have been closed with a wax seal. Even that had been copied in its entirety. Pages that revealed the infiltrator’s code name, Paula, and his real name, Piet Koslow Hoffmann.

He slowly lifted his gaze—from the documents on the table to the face opposite him, which had been transformed so skillfully. And now Grens understood.

The seriousness. The fear.

Someone had access to the only thing that protected an infiltrator—his anonymity.

If this got into the wrong hands.

If the hardened criminals and violent organizations that Piet Hoffmann had infiltrated got ahold of this, if they knew who he really was, that he’d tricked them, deliberately violated the mafia’s most sacred rule—never, ever, ever snitch.

If . . .

He was dead.

Zofia, Hugo, Rasmus, Luiza.

Dead.

“I understand your situation. But I’m not sure what the hell they want you to do for them. What they think you’re going to do, but won’t do, because you’ve chosen to change your identity and hid your family in a secure location. Chose to escape.”

“Here, Grens. Listen to this.”

Piet Hoffmann pulled a phone out of his pocket, opened some app, and held it forward so Ewert Grens could hear.

“. . . you’re going to initiate a small gang war // with an FN BRG-15.”

“I recorded our conversation on my phone. They’ve transformed their voice, so it could be anyone. And the clicks here and there are where I’ve edited out unimportant information.”

Grens leaned closer to the voice, which had clearly been distorted by an electronic soundboard.

“You can decide which criminal organization. // You knock them out. And then // let it be known which weapon was used in the attack // make sure people know where they can get one of their own.”