to Beethoven's string quartets until he couldn't stand Celine's clatter in the kitchen a moment longer. Then he went to the beach for a walk. His chauffeur and bodyguard, Alfredo, walked a short distance behind him. Whenever Carter went into Luanda and saw the social disintegration, the heaps of garbage, the poverty and misery, he felt that the action he was taking was justified.
He walked along the ocean and from time to time he looked back at the decomposing city. Whatever rose from the ashes of the fire he was going to start would be better than this.
He was back at the house by 11 a.m. Celine had gone home. He drank a cup of coffee and a glass of water. Then he retired to his study. It had a breathtaking view over the harbour, but he pulled the curtains shut. He liked the evenings best. He needed to keep the strong African sun away from his sensitive eyes. He sat at the computer and went through his daily routine. Somewhere deep inside that electronic world an invisible clock was ticking. Falk had created it from his instructions. It was Sunday, October 12, only eight days away from D-Day.
He had finished his regular checks by 11.15 a.m.
He was on the verge of switching off the computer, when he froze. An icon was flashing from the corner of the screen. The rhythm was two short flashes and one long flash. He took out the manual that Falk had written for him. At first he thought there had to be a mistake. But it was all too true. Someone had just broken through the first layer of security into Falk's computer in Sweden. In that little town, Ystad, which Carter had only ever seen in postcards. He stared at the screen, unable to believe his eyes. Falk had sworn that the system would be impossible to break into. But still someone had done it.
Carter started sweating. He forced himself to remain calm. There were many layers to the security system in Falk's computer, and the innermost core of the program was buried under miles and miles of decoys and firewalls that no-one could penetrate. Even so, someone was trying to get in.
He thought long and hard. He had immediately sent someone to Ystad after hearing of Falk's death. There had been several unfortunate incidents, but until now Carter had felt sure that everything was under control, especially since he had reacted so quickly.
Everything was still under control, he decided, even though he couldn't deny that someone had broken through the first line of defence in Falk's computer and was possibly trying to go further. This needed to be taken care of as soon as possible.
Who could it be? Carter couldn't believe it was one of the policemen he had heard about through his informant, the ones apparently resolving the details of Falk's death and the other events with what appeared to be complacency.
But who else could it be? He found no answer and remained motionless in front of his computer as dusk fell over Luanda. When, finally, he got up from the desk he was still outwardly calm. But a problem had arisen and it was something that needed to be rectified.
He missed Falk more than ever. He typed his message and sent it off into the electronic realm. His answer came back after about a minute.
Wallander was standing behind Martinsson. Modin was sitting at the computer, where an ever-changing matrix of numbers was rushing by on the screen. Then the screen started to settle down. Only the occasional ones and zeroes flashed by. Then it became completely dark. Modin looked at Martinsson, who nodded. He went on tapping commands into the computer and fresh hordes of numbers flashed by. Then they stopped again.
"I have no idea what this is," Modin said. "And I've never seen anything like this."
"Could it be a computation of some kind?" Martinsson said.
Modin shook his head. "I don't think so. It looks like a system of numbers awaiting a command."
It was Martinsson's turn to shake his head. "Can you explain that?" he said.
"It can't be a calculation. There is no evidence of any equation here. The numbers only relate to themselves. I think it looks more like a code."
Wallander was not satisfied. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn't a stream of meaningless numbers.
"Didn't people stop with codes after the Second World War?" he said, but there was no answer from the other