“I admit it.”

Now Sven lifted his gaze from the floor.

Now Grens punched the wall with his other fist.

“You, Mariana?”

“Yes, it’s me. I’m Wilson’s secret relationship.”

It was so quiet.

Still.

Despite three people breathing in so little space.

“Now I’m getting a little . . . Wilson?”

“Yes.”

“So you and he . . . ?”

“Yes.”

There was a small stool next to the bunk, just like in all the other cells. Grens sank down onto it, sank into himself.

“So . . . so . . . that was what your small lies and canceled meetings and strange walks were all about?”

“Yes.”

It was no longer just his hands and knuckles . . . it was as if he’d run his whole body straight into that cell wall. He’d been going in the wrong direction and someone had stopped him.

Dizzy.

That’s how he felt.

“Well, that’s, well . . . very nice. That you found someone, I mean. And that Wilson found someone. That you no longer, well, need to live alone, I mean. But still—he’s your commanding officer, Mariana. You work in the same unit. One of you is going to have to transfer. That’s what the regulations say. Don’t you know that?”

“And why do you think we didn’t want to talk about it?”

The stool was hard, lacked any back support, and it was difficult for him to sit without pain. But he couldn’t stand up, not yet. He asked Sven and Mariana to leave the cell and wait for him at the guard’s box. He had heard what she said. He knew her so well, her serious ways that he’d come to depend on so much. Lost me. You and I are over, too. Unlike him, she’d never say that and not mean it.

He had nobody other than those two. His closest colleagues were also his closest friends.

And he already knew how it would feel, once he had time to feel. When the last few hours of this race against time were over, and he could do no more for Hoffmann. Despair. That was what awaited him if she really did leave him, and he hated that goddamn terrible feeling, he’d tried his best to bear it after Anni disappeared.

7:15 PM

(2 hours and 47 minutes remaining)

The brick at the center and top, a light press. Then that metallic click. And a wall slid open.