The people threatening me think I’m out somewhere preparing to start a gang war. They don’t know I’m working on getting closer to the people they hired to follow me.

He climbed out of the car, crossed the street, went over to the entrance to 32B, and rang the buzzer.

“Yeah?”

A loudspeaker that swallowed words.

“Hi, my name is Peter Haraldsson.”

He’d used that name before. But he’d used so many, lived so many different lives. Piet Hoffmann at home in Enskede became Piet Koslow to the human smugglers in Libya, Paula to the Swedish police became El Sueco to the South American drug cartels and Peter Haraldsson to his neighbors in the Colombian town of Cali. He didn’t need any more variations of himself.

“Yeah?”

“I’m a small business owner. I’m here to look into your services.”

“Like what?”

“Am I at the wrong place? Aren’t you a security company? Someone recommended you to me. Don’t you sell security services?”

The terrible loudspeaker buzzed exhaustedly as the door unlocked. Hoffmann took the stairs and stopped for a moment on the fourth floor. It was there, behind the shade of a wall-mounted light, that he taped his package with the jammer and timer. In a few minutes, as he was admitted to the premises of the security company on the next floor, the transmitter would be activated and the cameras tasked with recording his movements would go black.

“Come in.”

The man who had been watching their house opened the door.

Tall. In good shape. Spoke Swedish with a slight accent. He didn’t recognize his frumpy, overweight visitor this time either.

“Small business owner, you said?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“What do you work with?”

“Consulting.”

Hoffmann smiled. In a way he thought an overworked numbers guy might.

“Finance, accounting really, but that sounds so boring.”

He had already noticed three surveillance cameras. One in the hall, at ceiling height. Then another one in the room he’d guess was the heart of the security company—the setup wasn’t so different from his own office, just a few kilometers west of here as the crow flies. And then, a third camera staring at him from the doorframe to the kitchen. All of them useless from this point on.

“So what’s this about?”

Piet Hoffmann turned around; the voice had come from the only room he couldn’t see. The other security guard. Just as tall and fit with eyes that looked like they were used to being obeyed.

“What services were you intending in buying from us?”