Excerpt from Hell and High Water by Christian Unger

 

PROLOGUE

THE NOBEL HOSPITAL, STOCKHOLM

Thursday evening, 6.vi

 Monica Carlsson slowly drew the bowl closer and picked out a liquorice monkey. The salty tang right at the back of her palate distracted her for a moment as the 24-hour news played out soundlessly on the screen in front of her. She let her gaze drift from the dead-straight platinum blonde hair of the news anchor to the column of smoke a kilometre away, on which she had been keeping a watchful eye for the last half hour. Her vast office was pleasantly quiet, except for Fredrik’s increasingly agitated telephone voice outside the door.

            On the skyline she spotted two new features on the top of northern Europe’s biggest prestige building project. The hospital roof had been crowned with two helipads. Two! While the budget for the overdue replacement of the plumbing at her own hospital, the Nobel, had been halved.

            For the third time in twenty minutes, Fredrik knocked on the door and looked in.

            “Isn’t it time now?”

            Carlsson pushed her feet into her high-heeled shoes. Straightened the gold pen next to the keyboard.

            “Göran’s rung for the third time. The situation’s chaotic. What shall—”

            “What was the name of the doctor who took care of the stabbing down there?” Carlsson interrupted in a calm voice.

            Her secretary thrust his hand into his pocket, took a piece of paper out of his pocket and read: “Tekla Berg. But . . .”

            Carlsson turned her attention back to the screen. The clock up in the corner showed 21.43.

            She looked out at the city. My God, what was going on? First gang members with drawn weapons in A. & E., and now this. Who on earth would want to be C.E.O. of a hospital?

            She considered her alternatives. Let her fingers play with the gold chain around her neck. The new burns unit had cost the taxpayer 120 million kronor, and yet Uppsala was made the national centre. It was like owning a luxury restaurant with a kitchen full of expensive ingredients and a platoon of celebrity chefs standing around with no guests to cook for. She knew what the solution was, she understood who the key person was, she just did not know how to catch their attention. But she had an idea.

            She took another liquorice monkey and got to her feet. Her knees were hurting, but she was not going to take any more painkillers today. Carlsson adjusted the belt of her trousers and buttoned her jacket. Sauntered to the large oval window. Did it look like an enormous, waking eye to someone in the houses on Ringvägen? One which never blinked?

            Her mobile showed 21.48. Those five additional minutes would surely have meant at least one new patient for the burns unit.

            Carlsson called out:

            “Fredrik, you can sound the major incident alert now. And make sure you put that Tekla Berg woman on it.”

Hell and High Water by Christian Unger (Quercus Publishing) Out Now

With 85% per cent burns to his body and a 115% risk of dying, it's a miracle the patient is still alive.  He only made it this far thanks to Tekla Berg, an emergency physician whose unorthodox methods and photographic memory are often the difference between life and death.  Convinced that the fire was a terrorist attack - and that the patient was involved - the police are determined to question him. Almost as determined as those who would silence him at any cost. And while Tekla battles to keep him breathing, she can't shake the thought that something about him is strangely familiar . . . Tekla has always hidden her remarkable mind from her hospital colleagues, resorting to amphetamines to take the edge off the endless whirl of lucid memories. But now she'll need to call on all her wits as she's drawn into a mystery involving corrupt police, the godfather of the Uzbek mafia, and her beloved but wayward brother.