Page 109 of The Square

“So, in this scenario, that makes you the Crown Jewels?” Eliza asks.

“In all scenarios, I am the Crown Jewels, love.” I wink. I do it just to be cheeky and to try to gin myself up the way a fighter will do before a bout when he wonders if he is outmatched, but looking at Christine’s reaction, I realize that cheek is perhaps best stored elsewhere when Eliza is involved.

“Well, what the fuck do we want to do?” Christine asks

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we drew up a plan based on a certain situation and that situation looks quite a bit different than we prepared for.” She is right. And as I think about that, I can’t help but smile. “Why are you smiling?” I don’t answer, directly, just continue grinning. “No,” she says. “Alec, no. We already—”

“Danny, bru?” I say into my radio.

“Yeah?”

“Are you all in position?”

“Yep. Charlie and Brenden are playing rock, paper, scissors for who gets to fire the .50 cal if it comes to that, but we’re here.”

“Hundreds. But listen, man, turns out that apparently there may be nothing to do here and no one to do it to.”

“What? What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that the plans, all the scenarios we considered, were predicated around the manor being occupied, and… it may no longer be.”

“What? Are you serious?”

“As cancer, my bru.”

“Fuck. Do you think that’s true?”

“That no one is here?”

“Yeah.”

“Not one bit.”

“Me either,” he says. “So, well… OK. What do you want to do?”

Still smiling, I say, “I think we may have to improvise.”

There’s a pause, and sure as I’m grinning like a Cheshire Cat, I’m certain I also hear a smile in his voice when he responds with, “Copy that.”

Emerging from the wooded surrounding area, past the not-currently-electrified fence, and stepping into the open grassiness of the estate itself, I do have a bracing moment of stiffness. That hitch one gets when one is certain they’ve emptied their pockets of all metal but still aren’t sure if the metal detector is going to go off or not. If a spotlight were to suddenly illuminate all of us and our bodies were to be riddled with bullets, I would be less than shocked.

But that does not happen. No light. No bullets. No riddling. Something does catch my attention out of the corner of my eye. A rabbit. A tiny, white bunny with what appears to be a handful or more of bunny children. I didn’t know rabbits were nocturnal. I certainly don’t think baby rabbits should be out this late. It must be well past their bedtime.

Ach, look at that, I sound like a parent. A parent wearing a five-thousand-pound suit and carrying a T91 assault rifle, stalking the grounds of an eerily deserted-seeming mansion with the intent of finding and murdering his own brother.

Well… at least I’m not some type of bosbefok circus acrobat like Andra’s mother. That’s just strange.

“It really does look empty,” Christine says, regarding the darkened, monolithic colossus of a structure here in the midst of nowhere.

“It does look that way,” Eliza offers.

“You think it’s a trap?” Russell asks.

“I always think everything’s a trap,” Eliza says. “Which is why I’m still alive.”

“Are you fucking quoting The Princess Bride?” That’s Christine. Eliza smirks. “Just… fucking don’t. I love that movie. I want to still be able to.”

“Brilliant,” Russell chimes in. “Let’s be careful, shall we?”

“I don’t like this at all,” Christine says. “It doesn’t feel right.”

Before I lead our way, I give her a kiss on the head and assure her that no matter what, we’ll all come away from this intact. Every one of us. And while I have made a vow to no longer lie to her… or Danny… in this one instance, I’ll make an exception.

Where did you go, Lars?

Where are you now?