Page 210 of The Sleepwalker
‘Stop!’
The man veers off into a dark hallway behind a sheet of thick plastic.
The operatives’ tactical lights swing across the floor.
Jamal and his colleague come out onto the landing from the same direction as the grey-haired man.
The whites of their eyes glow in the gloom.
Joona points to the plastic sheet, tears it down, and the three men run down the hallway.
The ceiling boards have begun to collapse. One is already on the floor, another hanging down across the passageway.
Up ahead, a door slams.
Joona pushes the loose board to one side and feels a protruding nail catch his arm.
The men pause and exchange a quick glance at the end of the hallway, then move forward and secure the corners in the same way as earlier.
The large room, with a ceiling rose and an arched window looking out onto the train tracks, has two doors.
The one on the left is blocked by a pile of moving boxes.
Joona hears a soft scraping sound.
They stop to listen.
Behind the right-hand door, someone coughs quietly.
Jamal moves over to it and pulls a stun grenade from his belt. His colleague aims his rifle at the door.
Joona lowers his pistol.
Blood from the cut on his arm has started dripping from his wrist.
Jamal pulls the pin, opens the door and tosses the grenade inside, then slams the door and backs away.
There are a series of loud bangs, and the floor shakes. Flakes of paint fall from the ceiling, and there is a bright flash of light around the edges of the door.
The man lets out a guttural scream.
Jamal opens the door and sees him crawling beneath a bed with a filthy mattress.
‘Police! Come out!’ he shouts, dropping to one knee and taking aim beneath the bed.
His colleague runs in after him, and Joona moves over to the left-hand door to kick the moving boxes out of the way.
Dust swirls through the air, and files and papers spill across the floor.
Jamal pulls the bed back, but the grey-haired man has disappeared through a hole in the wall.
Joona opens the left-hand door and heads through to a large room full of empty bookshelves. He sees the man get up on unsteady legs.
‘Police, stop!’ he shouts, taking aim at the man’s chest.
His dirty grey hair is knotted and hanging over his face, his ears are bleeding following the blast, and he seems to be struggling to see.
The man is dressed in layers of over-sized clothing, and his rubber boots have been mended with silver tape. The sharpstench of sweat and old urine is heavy in the air around him.
