“It would take a hell of a lot of money,” I said. “Computers. Vehicles. Surveillance gear.”
“In two weeks, Swedish and Finnish Gypsies are going to make a drug deal for Ecstasy. A hundred and sixty thousand euros will trade hands. You can intercept it and use the money for the beginning of a slush fund. I’ll get you more money for equipment later.”
“No.”
Frustration gripped him, resonated in his voice. “I told you I know you, and I do. You hate your job. You’re frustrated because you can’t make a difference. You’re a failure. To your dead sister.” He brings up the high death toll from a previous investigation: “To Sufia Elmi and her family. To your former sergeant Valtteri and his family. To your dead ex-wife—and in your personal life—to your dead miscarried twins and, as such, to your wife. To that pathetic school shooter Milo capped. You’re a failure to yourself. You’ve failed everyone you’ve touched. You’ll take this job to make up for it. I’m offering you everything you ever wanted.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Because of your aforementioned annoying incorruptibility. You don’t want anything. You’re a maniac, but you’re a rock. I can trust you to run this unit without going rogue on me.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“No one ever finds out anything about my involvement in this case,” he said. “I’ll organize everything, get you the manpower. Fix this for me,” he said, “and run my black-ops unit.”
I bought into Jyri’s specious diatribe like the na?ve fool that I am. I’ve helped no one, but hurt several people, and there are more to come. I’ve succeeded only in alienating my wife, the person I remember being dearest to me.
There’s a great myth believed by nearly everyone that Finland is corruption-free. Police and politicians are scripture pure, dedicated to the good of the nation beyond all things. Foreigners even write about it in travel guides for tourists. The best thing going for our black-ops unit is that no one would believe such a thing could exist, or that corruption could be so widespread at such high levels of government.
I run a heist gang. I’m a police inspector, shakedown artist, strong-arm specialist and enforcer. Three months ago, I was an honest cop. I’m not sure I care how or why, but I reflect on how I could have undergone such a drastic change in such a short time. Jyri wanted me to recruit some other tough cops, but I refused. More than four people is too many in on a secret. The group is just me, Milo, and Sweetness. Milo is a sick puppy, but he’s grown on me over time because of his enthusiasm. Sweetness is a baby-faced behemoth, whom I hired out of sympathy, because of his size and capacity to commit violent acts without enjoying them, and to piss Jyri off. Which it does. Jyri refers to him as “the oaf.” Sweetness often seems a simpleton, but he’s far from it.
To quote Sweetness: “Life just is. Ain’t no reason for nothing.”
1
A little over three months before my meeting with Jyri, Kate gave birth to our first child, a girl, on January twenty-fourth.
It was an easy birth, as childbirths go, no more difficult than squirting a watermelon seed out from between her fingers, only sixteen hours from her first contraction to me cradling our child in my arms. When I first held her, I felt a wealth of emotions I didn’t know existed, and I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but I loved Kate tenfold more for the gift she had given me.