The Demon of Dakar - Kjell Eriksson [115]
The Scania was expected and was let in through the gate without fuss. If any of the prison staff asked him why there were two drivers, Sören Sköld had been instructed to say that the new driver was being trained.
The truck pulled up to the carpentry area. Then everything happened very fast. The door to the wood shop opened, Agne Salme came out and jumped into the forklift in order to drive it around to the back of the truck. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sören Sköld, whom he knew well, and an unknown man walking toward him.
Agne Salme stepped out of the truck, put his hand up in greeting but stiffened when he saw the gun in the stranger’s hand. At the same time three men came running from the mini–golf course that was right next to the large open area in front of pavilions two and three.
Agne knew Jussi Björnsson, Stefan Brügger, and José Franco very well. They were all long-timers.
“Let’s take it nice and easy,” the man with the gun said. “Loosen the tarp!”
Sören Sköld automatically obeyed without protesting or saying a word. Agne Salme followed the instructions for a hostage situation and remained completely passive in order not to worsen the situation unnecessarily.
When the golf trio passed Patricio Alavez, who was weeding the strip between the metal fence and the sports field, José Franco slowed down and shouted something to Alavez. Salme saw how the Mexican stared at the truck, hesitantly lowered his basket, stared at Franco who had run on, and then he set off after him.
Jussi Björnsson immediately received a gun from his partner. Brügger, who was the most nervous of them all, went and stood very close to Agne Salme.
“I’m leaving now, you damn slavedriver. Do you understand? Now you’ll have to put your damn shelves together yourself.”
Agne Salme nodded. He was too smart to make any comments. The German had worked in the carpentry area before and Salme knew the unpredictable killer from Rostock too well.
“Fuck you,” José Franco said—he had been doing nine years for attempted homicide, arson, and resisting arrest. He kneed Salme in the groin.
“Stop it! Get in, damn it! Are you coming?”
The highjacker looked at Patricio, who was standing completely passive.
“Venga!” Franco shouted from the back of the truck.
Patricio jumped up and thereafter Agne Salme was forced to his feet.
The alarm had been triggered when security had seen the three golfers leaving the sport area. About one minute later the truck left the prison grounds. Law enforcement was notified, but the situation looked anything but good. There was a traffic accident on the approach to Spillersboda, and a patrol car was at the scene. In Gräddö, a house had caught on fire, which required attention from both the fire department and the police. Several minutes later a dispatch was received about gunfire between Finsta and Rimbo. A truck and two cars had been shot at from a wooded hillside. No one was hurt but all available patrol units were directed to the spot.
Police officers Sune Bark and Kristian Andersson were located north of Norrtälje, on their way back from Grisslehamn, where they had been questioning a retired man about a series of burglaries in the area, when they received word of the gunfire. They were ordered to proceed directly to Finsta.
A quarter of an hour later they received a counterorder: they were to drive straight to the Norrtälje prison facility.
Bark was a recent graduate of the Police Academy and the most serious event he had encountered to date was a violent drunk on the ferry to Blidö. This incident had occurred off-duty, but he had felt compelled to intervene and had done so with great aplomb. The neutralizing of the drunk man had been facilitated by the fact that the latter was seventy-seven years old and basically unconscious by the time he was brought under control. Bark had received praise for his efforts.
Andersson had spent more than twenty years on the force, most of the time in a radio patrol car, and thus had seen and heard considerably more. He had been called out