Time stands still. Klara doesn’t say a word, and when Jacob turns his head to see what she’s doing, she looks almost unconcerned, keeping her eyes on the driver. But she’s grinding her teeth; her legs are jittering, and she has a hand stuffed into her pocket.

Finally, the driver makes his decision. Without saying a word, he turns the ignition key. And before Jacob can really take in what’s happening, the driver steers his truck between the blinking blue lights, past the parked cars, up onto the on-ramp that leads to the freeway. The rain streams down the windshield, and Jacob hears it clattering onto the roof. He pulls back into the sleeper cabin.

‘Damn, that was close,’ George says next to him.

*

But the relative peace doesn’t last for long. It is just a matter of minutes before they hear sirens again in the distance.

‘What the fuck should we do?’ he asks Klara through the drapes. ‘How did they find us?’

‘They must have found the car and talked to the other truck drivers,’ Klara says with an unexpected, unaccountable calm. ‘Put the pieces together, guessed our only option was this truck.’

Jacob sits up now, crawls over to the drapes. He looks out and sees the blue lights bouncing through the darkness in the cab. They make Klara’s face seem ghostly. The driver turns to her with a question on his face, and Klara meets his eyes, unflustered.

‘I’m gonna climb back there with the others,’ she says. ‘And you tell the police I asked you for a lift, but I never showed up.’

Jacob sees her pull something halfway out of her pocket. Something that flashes in the blue light and looks surreal in her hand. Black metal. A gun.

The driver gives her a curious glance, and Klara keeps the gun out of his sight.

Jacob can barely breathe. ‘Klara, maybe it’s best if we…’

But he stops. What happens if the police arrest them? What will happen to Klara and George? To him?

‘We’re not criminals,’ Klara says calmly in English to the driver. ‘I promise. The opposite. We have something we need to get to Sweden. It will all work out in the end, but if the police catch us, people will die. I’m not kidding about this.’

Jacob sees her put the gun on the seat next to her. The police car behind them signals with a few loud honks, and the driver starts to slow so he can stop on the side of the road. He turns to Klara again with an expressionless face. Jacob sees her cocking the gun.

‘Hide,’ the driver says. ‘I’ll talk to the police.’

They stare at each other silently. The truck has almost stopped moving now. Klara puts the gun in her pocket again, shoos him and George out of the way so she can crawl behind the seats.