Hjelm and Ernstsson pulled up alongside the others. The officers were helping with what would later be called “the evacuation of the area.” Hjelm was still sitting halfway inside the vehicle while Ernstsson got out and went over to the next car. Squeezing out of it came the disheveled figure of Johan Bringman, who stretched his creaky back.

“The immigration office,” he managed to say in the middle of his stretching. “Three hostages.”

“Okay, what do we know?” asked Ernstsson, peering down from his towering height at Bringman’s hunched form and unbuttoning his leather jacket in the late winter sun.

“Shotgun, third floor. The majority of the building has been cleared. We’re waiting for the hostage negotiators.”

“From headquarters at Kungsholmen?” said Hjelm from inside the car. “That’ll take awhile. Have you seen the traffic on the E4?”

“Where’s Bruun?” said Ernstsson.

Bringman shook his head. “No idea. Maybe he’s waiting for the top brass to arrive. In any case, it was a clerk from the office who managed to get out. Come on out, Johanna. Over here. This is Johanna Nilsson. She works inside the building.”

A blond woman in her forties got out of the police car and went to stand next to Ernstsson. She held one hand on her forehead and the other to her lips, chewing on one fingernail, then another.

Ernstsson attempted to comfort her by placing his hand on her shoulder and said in his most reassuring voice, “Try and take it easy. We’re going to resolve this situation. Do you know who he is?”

“His name is Dritëro Frakulla,” said Johanna. Her voice broke but her words were firm. “A Kosovar Albanian. His family has been here a long time, and now they’ve been sucked into the general wave of deportation. They thought everything was fine and were just waiting for their citizenship. Then all of a sudden they were informed of the opposite. I assume that’s when things went wrong. The rug was pulled out from under them. I’ve seen it so many times before.”