A Death in Sweden by Kevin Wignall Read Free Book Online

course, and he was carrying ID marking him as a French national, Jacques Fillon. Trouble is, there’s no such person. He’s been living in a house in the woods up there for the last twelve years, but no one knows who he is. Apparently he spoke pretty good Swedish, but the guy in the local store said that when he first arrived he spoke English with an American accent.”
    “Doesn’t mean he was an American. Nothing in the house to suggest his true identity?”
    “Nothing—he was living a pretty simple life.”
    Dan thought about it, then said, “Okay, you’ve got me—a guy who might or might not be an American, who’s now dead, has been living under an assumed name in the middle of nowhere for twelve years, and you want me to find out who he was. Why? How does this connect to Bill Brabham? More importantly, how does it get Bill Brabham and his team off my back?”
    Patrick finished his coffee in a single gulp, and said, “Bear with me.” He seemed to be relishing this now, as if he didn’t enjoy his new role in the ODNI as much as he’d hoped he would, and this was reminding him of more interesting times. “Both the CIA and FBI were sent pictures of the guy and all the markers. The FBI ran it but didn’t come up with anything. The CIA said the same, but then one of their guys flew up there and took a look around the house. And this place isn’t easy to get to—it’s up north of Råneå. What really piqued our interest is that the guy who went up there wasn’t based in Stockholm . . .”
    “Let me guess, he was one of Bill Brabham’s men.”
    “Exactly. We’ve been hitting a brick wall ever since, but we’re pretty certain Bill Brabham knows exactly who Jacques Fillon was. So I want you to find out the same, and find out why Brabham’s so keen to keep the information under wraps.”
    “You had access to the same prints, the same profile?”
    Patrick nodded but said, “And drew a blank. All the systems we could access suggest the guy never existed.”
    Somebody came into the café, a guy in his thirties, but he immediately started laughing and joking in French with a couple of the regulars and Dan relaxed.
    “So you’re hoping I find out something that’ll undermine Brabham. Two questions. Firstly, why don’t you look into it yourself? You must have resources.”
    “The same reason I used you in the past—deniability. As I suggested earlier, Brabham has a lot of support, and the ODNI needs to build its case in the dark if we’ve any hope of shutting him down. The other thing is that I do have resources, but not the kind I need for this. Finance, not a problem, great legal minds, not a problem, researchers, you name it. But someone like you?”
    “Okay.” Dan looked back down at the newspaper story. It was intriguing, who the guy was, why he’d gone up there, what he’d been running from, but intrigue on its own wasn’t enough, and nor was the money, not in the current climate. “Second question. Give me a good reason why I should do this. I could just go after Brabham myself.”
    “You could. It wouldn’t be easy, but you’d stand a chance, I guess. Trouble is, you know the reality—working on your own, you might cut a head off the Hydra but it’ll grow back. If we work together we go for the heart.”
    “Nice analogy.”
    Patrick smiled, and waited a moment before saying, “So you’ll do it?”
    It was an easy choice, because Dan would rather be doing anything than sitting around trying to work out who was coming for him and how. But there was something interesting here, and he believed Patrick’s assessment—if Brabham was hiding something, they could disrupt his operation by uncovering his secret, even if they didn’t manage to shut it down.
    Of course, that would only apply if they succeeded. And even then, in the meantime, it could well lead to Dan attracting more fire. Whatever the arguments, Patrick had come to him for a reason, and he guessed his chances of survival