Its a hard hit followed by one to her upper ribs. She stumbles backward onto the rope. The referee rushes over but Saga has already figured a way out of the trap. She moves to the side and toward the middle of the ring and at the same time she is weighing her opponent: Svetlana Krantz from Falkoping, a wide woman around forty years old with sloped shoulders and a Guns N Roses tattoo. Svetlana is breathing with her mouth open and is hunting Saga with elephantine steps; she believes shes on the way to a knockout.
Saga dances softly backward, whirling like an autumn leaf over the ground. Boxing is so easy, she thinks, and a wave of joy fills her chest. She stops and smiles so broadly that her mouth guard almost falls out. She knows Svetlana is her match, but she had planned to win on points and not a knockout. However, when Svetlanas boyfriend howls that Svetlana should turn the blond cunts face into mush, Saga changes her mind.
Svetlana is moving too quickly around the ring. Her right hand is eager, almost too eager. She is so convinced that shes going to beat Saga that shes no longer concentrating. Shes already decided to end the match with one or more direct right-hand blows. Shes thinking that Saga is already so groggy she wont be able to land a punch. But Saga Bauer is not weakened. Instead, she zeroes in on her concentration. Saga dances a bit in place as she waits for her opponent to rush forward. She holds her hands over her face as if in defense only. At the perfect moment, Saga executes a surprising shoulder-and-foot combination so that, stepping to the side, she glides away from her opponents line of attack. Saga is now beside her and uses all her momentum for one blow-right into Svetlanas solar plexus.
She feels the edge of Svetlanas breast shield through her glove as Svetlanas body simply folds in half. Sagas next blow glances off Svetlanas head, but the third is a clean, hard uppercut right to the mouth.
Svetlanas head snaps backward. Sweat and snot spray out. Svetlanas dark blue mouth guard flies away and her knees give out. She falls straight to the mat and rolls over once, remaining still for a second before she starts to move again.
After the match, Saga Bauer pads around the womens dressing room feeling the tension run out of her body. Theres a taste of blood and tape in her mouth. Shed had to use her teeth to undo the fabric tape around her gloves lacing. She looks at herself in the mirror and wipes away a few tears. Her nose is throbbing. Shed been thinking of other things during the match: her conversation with her boss and the head of the National Criminal Investigation Department and the decision that she was supposed to work with Joona Linna.
Inside her locker door is a sticker with the name Sodertalje Rockets and a picture of a rocket that looks like an angry shark.
Sagas hands shake as she pulls off her shorts, pelvic protection and underwear, a black tank top, and the bra with the breast shield. Shivering, she steps into the showers and turns on the stream of water. Water pours over her neck and back. She forces her mind to think of things other than Joona Linna as she spits blood-tinged saliva into the floor drain.
There are about twenty women in the dressing room when she returns. A round of KI aerobics must have just let out. Saga doesnt notice them stop and stare at her in disbelief.
Saga Bauer is astonishingly beautiful, beautiful in a way that makes people weak in the knees. Her face is perfectly symmetrical and free of makeup, her eyes remarkably large and sky blue. Even with her pumped-up muscles and recent bruises, at five feet seven shes finely shaped; most of the women in the dressing room would take her to be a ballet dancer, not an elite boxer or an investigator with Sapos security department.
Or theyd see her as an elf or a fairy princess, like Tuvstarr the valiant princess, able to stand fearlessly before the huge, dark troll in the paintings of the legendary artist John Bauer. John Bauer had two brothers: Hjalmar and Ernst. Ernst was Sagas great-grandfather. She never met him, but she still remembers well the tales her grandfather told about his own fathers grief when his brother John, wife Esther, and their baby son drowned one November night on Lake Vattern just a few hundred meters from the harbor of Hastholmen. Three generations later, John Bauers painting seems to have miraculously come to life in Saga.
Saga Bauer knows that shes a good investigator, even though shes never brought an investigation to its conclusion. Shes used to having her work pulled out from under her or being excluded after weeks of hard work. Shes used to being overprotected and overlooked for dangerous assignments. Used to it. But that doesnt mean she likes it.
She did very well at the Police Training Academy; after that, she went to the Security Service to be trained in counterterrorism and there rose to the rank of investigator. Shes worked on both investigative and operational duties, and all the while, shes never neglected continuing education and shes always kept to a tough physical-training routine. She runs daily, boxes at least twice a week, and not a week goes by where she fails to make the shooting range with her Glock 21 and an M90 sharpshooter rifle.