Page 207 of The Sleepwalker
Narrow roads, gardens and small houses race by before the drone comes to a halt directly above the silo, rocking gently in the wind.
Down below, the enormous concrete structure is visiblebeside the hangar, the mossy roof of the brick building, the blue shipping container, trees, the fence and two railway tracks.
The surveillance units from Enköping Police are still positioned around the area, and continue to report that they haven’t detected any activity in and around the silo.
‘Let’s take a closer look, then,’ says the UAS operator.
The drone tilts to one side, and the camera zooms in on the closed doors of the hangar, zipping past the silo and over to the brick building.
It slowly turns around.
Beneath the roof of one of the loading bays, the back bumper of the Opel Kadett is visible.
A powerful crosswind knocks the drone, and the camera pans across the villas and a cluster of trees on the far side of the tracks before stabilising.
Jamal comes into the command vehicle to let them know that his team is in position and waiting for the green light.
The drone’s camera swings across the junk in the yard and the top of the blue shipping container, capturing the thin dusting of snow on top of the black autumn leaves. It continues around the brick building, to the sloping scrubland, the fence, the tracks and the concrete sleepers.
‘Switching to thermal camera,’ says the UAS operator.
The image on the screen in front of Joona splits in two. The right-hand side is now dark grey, with the buildings and train tracks visible in black.
A glowing yellow rabbit moves slowly across the embankment.
The drone swings over the area again, past the dark-grey silo, the hangar and the shipping container to the brick building.
An orange shape appears on the screen, like a blob of lava with pulsing blue contours.
‘Jamal, over,’ the tactical commander says over the radio.
‘Jamal here, over.’
‘One individual in the house. Get ready to go in.’
‘Can we have a more exact position?’
‘Close to the south-west corner.’
‘Which floor? There are four.’
‘We can’t see.’
‘Can’t the drone drop down to check?’ the coordinator asks, taking a swig from a bottle of Coke Zero.
‘It’s too loud,’ the UAS operator replies.
‘Jamal, get ready to storm the house. Await orders,’ says the tactical commander.
Joona puts on his hat, leaves the bus and jogs over to his car. He drives the short distance to the silo and pulls up behind a cluster of trees on Magasinsgatan.
His wiper blades sweep the light snowflakes from the windscreen as he watches the drone feed on the touchscreen of his comms unit.
Six operatives drift towards the building like a handful of bright orange jellyfish.
On the tracks, a long freight train is approaching.
The increasingly heavy snow has begun to settle on the ground.
