He stopped for a moment by Luiza, whom they’d recently moved into the tiny room closest to theirs. She was asleep on her back in the crib both Hugo and Rasmus had used, the fingers of one small hand wrapped around one of its posts. Rasmus was snoring in his room, lying on his left side taking deep even breaths, so convinced that no danger could touch him here, just like Zofia, a song that was so different from the blackbirds. Hoffmann closed his window—that he could explain without lying—and then he closed the big ventilation hatch in Hugo’s room. Hugo slept like his father, his sheets wet with sweat, his pillow on the floor, always tossing and turning.

The stairs to the ground floor squeaked a bit less if he kept close to the handrail. He avoided Rasmus’s plastic action figures, which were scattered throughout the hall in a pattern that would be impossible to re-create. He turned off the alarm and sat down at the kitchen table with a glass of water. So good when those ice-cold drops found their way.

A newspaper stood open at Zofia’s spot. Sunday’s crossword. Almost completely filled in. Her way of relaxing, always had been. He pulled the paper close and its rustle seemed loud in the silence. She usually liked it when he’d settle down beside her and try to help her solve whatever was left. Tonight that didn’t work. The weave of words didn’t seem to fit together or make any sense. The letters must have ended up somewhere in Rasmus’s workbook.

He stared out through the kitchen window at their peaceful suburban neighborhood.

The reality that made sense—unlike the one that didn’t.

An organization with access to a weapon that didn’t exist, whose goal was to take over arms smuggling, who had chosen a retired criminal and former infiltrator named Piet Hoffmann to execute their plan.

He watched the blackbird in the apple tree flying from branch to branch, singing just for him. The great tit had flown away, and in its place was a wagtail strutting around on the lawn, searching for insects or earthworms. More reality that made sense.

He knew most of what there was to know about the underworld of Stockholm. He’d belonged to it for most of his adult life. But he’d never encountered such resourceful criminals. Their reach extended not only to a legendary weapon, but also to a high-ranking police officer. There was no other way to interpret the copies of highly classified documents they’d sent to his office. Documents like that were stored in a safe in the Kronoberg Police Station. Only a police officer would have been able to gain access to it.

It was one thing to fight the police—he’d done it for years.

It was another thing to fight criminals—he’d done that just about as long.