Firewall - By Henning Mankell & Ebba Segerberg Page 0,148

came running down the stairs.

"R盲ttvik got back to me," he said. "You were right. Vesuvius is registered in Luanda."

Wallander nodded. He was not surprised by the news, but it ratcheted up his anxiety.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Wallander stood in the hall staring at Martinsson and felt his fear increase as the seconds ticked by. The only thing he was sure of was that they had to find Modin before it was too late. Images of H枚kberg's scorched body and Landahl's butchered remains swept in front of his eyes. Wallander wanted to dash into the fog and start searching. But the situation was still unclear. Modin was out there somewhere, terrified. Landahl, too, had fled, but someone had caught up with him. And now Modin was in the same situation.

Martinsson had discovered that some Brazilian entrepreneurs were responsible for the installation and upkeep of the server Vesuvius. But they had not yet identified the source of the message to Modin, even if Wallander suspected it to be "C", whoever that was, or maybe "C" was more than one person.

Martinsson returned to the computers. Wallander had encouraged him to keep talking to Modin's friends in R盲ttvik and California. They might know of a possible hiding place.

Wallander walked to the window and looked out. A strange silence seemed to accompany the fog. Wallander had never experienced it anywhere except here in Sk氓ne in October and November, before winter struck. The landscape seemed to be holding its breath when the fog came in.

Wallander heard a car pull up. He opened the front door. It was H枚glund. She introduced herself to Axel Modin while Wallander walked to the stairs and asked Martinsson to come down. They sat around the kitchen table. Axel Modin hovered in the background, attending to his wife and her debilitating anxiety.

For Wallander nothing else mattered now except finding the boy. It was not enough that they put patrol cars on the job, they needed to send out a regional alert. All neighbouring police districts should be involved in the search. Wallander gave this task to Martinsson.

"He fled in a state of panic. We have no idea where he is," Wallander said. "We can't know the seriousness of the threat against him and we don't know if his movements were being watched, but that is what we're going to assume is the case."

"They're very good, whoever they are," Martinsson said from the doorway with the telephone receiver pressed against his ear. "I know how conscientious he was about erasing his tracks."

"That can't have been enough," Wallander said. "Especially if he copied material and kept working on it through the night after he got home. After he had said goodbye to us."

"I have found nothing to confirm that," Martinsson said. "But you may be right."

Once Martinsson had seen to the regional alert, they decided to establish their temporary headquarters at the house. It was possible that Modin would contact his father. H枚glund would go to Sandhammaren with two patrol cars, while Wallander went to Back氓kra.

On the way out to the cars Wallander noticed that H枚glund was carrying her gun. Once she had gone Wallander went back to the house. Axel Modin was sitting in the kitchen.

"I'd like the shotgun," Wallander said. "And some cartridges." Wallander could see the fear flare up in the man's face. "It's just a precautionary measure," he said.

Modin got up and left the kitchen. When he came back he had the shotgun and a box of cartridges with him.

Wallander was back in Martinsson's car, driving to Back氓kra. Cars were crawling along. Headlights emerged from the fog and were swallowed up again. The whole time he was racking his brains to work out where Modin might have gone. Had he left without a thought in his head, or had he had a plan? Wallander realised he wasn't going to get anywhere. He didn't know the boy well enough.

He almost missed the turning to Back氓kra. He increased his speed a little, though he was on a narrower road. He didn't expect to meet other cars here. The grounds as well as the house were owned by the Swedish Academy, the elite group of writers and intellectuals responsible for awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature every year. It was probably deserted at this time of year. He found his way into the car park and got out, taking the shotgun with him. He heard a foghorn in the distance, and he could smell the sea. Visibility was minimal. He walked around the car park but