He’d left home dressed as usual, same time as usual, moved like he always did. If someone was sitting in front of a computer monitoring him through a camera—as he would be if he was them—they’d see nothing unusual. It was now, in his car and on his way, that he’d slip away from them so he could transform. He doubted that whoever was watching him had cameras placed anywhere besides his home and office, but just to be sure he wasn’t being followed, first he drove to a garage beneath Globen Stadium, left the cell phone they wanted him to answer on the passenger seat and switched to a Volvo he kept parked there for exactly this type of occasion. He drove it to a garage under Medborgar Square and a blue car he kept parked there, then to a garage under Åsö Street and a black Opel.

•   •   •

He drove the oval onto Söderleden, crossed the Central Bridge, took the tunnel from Tegelbacken to Kungs Street. The city was waking up now, but still fairly empty, so it didn’t take long to get by Stureplan and Humlegården and on to Vallhalla Road and Sophiahemmet hospital, christened long ago by a queen. The doctor, a man in his fifties wearing a slightly too short lab coat, was waiting as promised at the entrance to the K-building—as far from the front entrance as you could get. They shook hands firmly, they’d never met before, but they were about to spend several hours together locked in a room with no other eyes. They walked side by side, almost in sync, up heavy stone steps to something called the Swedish Phoniatric Clinic. At this time of day it was as empty as the streets.

The large room Hoffmann was led into was divided into two sections. The first looked like a normal office with a standard desk and standard chairs and a couple of computer screens. And on the other side of a glass door, the second section contained a small operating room with cold bright lights, a stainless steel rolling cart, and an operating table that could be raised and lowered like a dental chair. The doctor turned on one of the computers, placed a tripod and a microphone on the desk, and pulled a visitor’s chair out of a small closet.

“Here we go. Please sit down. We’ll need to get acquainted with each other before continuing.”

Anonymous. That’s what they were.

A white coat with no name tag, a visitor with no medical records.

“Our shared acquaintance said time was of the essence. And that you could pay for speed and discretion.”

Piet Hoffmann took an envelope from the same pocket where he’d kept the fucking phone. It was thick—cash takes up more room than you’d think.

“You can count it.”