He had no chance to think any further as the window facing north was demolished by another shot. He pressed himself against the floor. They’re coming from all directions, he thought. The house is surrounded and they’re shooting out the windows before coming in. He searched desperately for a way out.
Dawn, he thought. That’s what can save me. If only this accursed night would come to an end.
Then the kitchen window was shot out. He lay on his stomach, pressing down against the floor with his hands over his head. Then the next crash, the bathroom window. He could feel the cold air rushing in.
There was a whistling noise, then a thud right next to him. He raised his head and saw it was a tear gas canister. He turned his head away, but it was too late. The gas was in his eyes and his lungs. Without being able to see anything, he could hear more canisters sailing through the other windows. The pain in his eyes was so bad that he could stand it no longer. He still had his shotgun in his hands. He had no choice but to leave the house. Maybe the darkness would save him after all, not the dawn. He scrambled to the front door. The pain in his eyes was unbearable, and his coughing threatened to tear his lungs apart. He flung the door open and rushed out, shooting at the same time. He knew it was about thirty meters to the trees. Although he couldn’t see a thing, he ran as fast as he could. All the time he was expecting a fatal bullet to hit him. It was only a short run to the forest, but far enough for him to think that he was going to be killed—but he didn’t know by whom. He knew why, but not who. That thought was as painful as his eyes.
He barged into a tree trunk and almost fell. Still blinded by the tear gas, he staggered through the trees. Branches made deep wounds in his face, but he knew he must not stop. Whoever it was was somewhere behind him. Maybe several of them. They’d catch him if he didn’t get far enough away into the forest.
He stumbled over a rock and fell. He was about to get up when he felt something on the back of his neck. A boot on his head. The game was up. The shadows had defeated him.
He wanted to see who it was that was going to kill him. He tried to turn his head, but the boot prevented him. Then somebody pulled him to his feet. He still could see nothing. He was blinded. For a moment he felt the breath of the person placing the blindfold over his eyes and tying the knot at the back of his head. He tried to say something. But when he opened his mouth, no words came out, just a new attack of coughing.
Then a pair of hands wrapped themselves around his throat. He tried to resist, but he didn’t have the strength. He could feel his life ebbing away.
It would be nearly two hours before he finally died. As if in a borderland of horror between the nagging pain and the hopeless will to live, he was taken back in time, to the occasion when he had given rise to the fate that had now caught up with him. He was thrown to the ground. Somebody pulled off his pants and sweater. He could feel the cold earth against his skin before the whiplashes hit him and transformed everything into an inferno. He didn’t know how many lashes there were. Whenever he passed out, he was dragged back up to the surface by cold water thrown over him. Then the blows continued to rain down. He could hear himself screaming, but there was nobody there to help him. Least of all Shaka, lying dead in his pen.
The last thing he felt was being dragged over the ground, into the house, and then being beaten on the soles of his feet. Everything went black. He was dead.
He couldn’t know that the last thing that happened to him was being dragged naked to the edge of the forest and left with his face pressed into the cold earth.
By then it was dawn.
That was October 19, 1999. A few hours later it started raining, rain that barely perceptibly turned to wet snow.
Chapter Two
Stefan Lindman was a police officer. At least once every year he found himself in situations where he experienced considerable fear. On one occasion he’d been attacked by a psychopath weighing over 300 pounds. He had been on the floor with the man astride him, and in rising desperation had fought to prevent his head from being torn off by the madman’s gigantic hands. If one of his colleagues hadn’t succeeded in stunning the man with a blow to the head, he would certainly have succumbed. Another time he’d been shot at while approaching a house to deal with domestic violence. The shot was from a Mauser and narrowly missed one of his legs. But he had never been as frightened as he felt now, on the morning of October 25, 1999, as he lay in bed staring up at the ceiling.
He barely slept. He dozed off now and again only to be woken with a start by nightmares the moment he lost consciousness. In desperation he finally got up and sat in front of the television, zapping the channels until he found a pornographic film. But after a short while he switched it off in disgust and went back to bed.