The Shadow Woman

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For three years a massive drug war between the Hells Angels and the Bandidos has ripped through Scandinavia. Antitank rockets swiped from the Swedish military have been launched at club-houses, gunfights have erupted in airports, car bombs have been planted and bystanders killed. A well-publicized truce will soon bring the Great Nordic Biker War to a close, but not before dozens of lives are claimed by the violence, many of them innocent.

SHE SAT WITH MOMMY A LONG TIME. SHE SLEPT FOR A WHILE in the backseat and then crawled up front. It was cold there and Mommy started the car and let it run for a while and then turned it off again. Mommy hadn’t answered when she’d asked, so she asked again and Mommy’s voice was hard. So she went quiet. “Why isn’t he coming?” Mommy said, but straight out and not to her. “Where in God’s name is he?”

Someone was supposed to come there and pick her up and then drive her home, but nobody came. She wanted to be with Mommy, but she also wanted to sleep in her own bed. It was darker now and it was raining. She couldn’t see out because the windows were fogged up. She crawled closer and wiped the window with her sleeve. Cars drove past and the headlights twirled around inside the car where they were sitting. “Why can’t we go?” she had asked. Mommy hadn’t answered, so she asked again. “Quiet now,” Mommy said this time. Then she didn’t say anything after that, didn’t dare when the voice from the front seat was so stern. Mommy said a few bad words. She had heard them so many times that it didn’t matter. She had said words like that herself and nothing had happened to her. But she knew it was wrong somehow anyway. The rain pattered against the roof. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.

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