Smoke Screen

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘Hi, Emma,’ he said.

  3

  The harbour looked like a battlefield. There was blood everywhere. The injured were leaning against one another, crying. It was unclear what had exploded, but what was left was spread across the ground and continued to burn. Emma tried to avoid looking directly at the bodies of those who were clearly dead.

  The New Year was only a few minutes old. A cacophony of noise surrounded her. The sound of sirens, a firework exploding somewhere above them, the blaring of a car horn, the thumping bass of a song being played far, far away. Oslo was under attack again, Emma thought, seven and a half years after the last time, when a car bomb had been detonated in the Regjeringskvartalet area of central Oslo, killing eight people. It was well known that Norwegians enjoyed a good party, so she had often thought that the capital would be an easy target for terrorists. The streets were always packed, and never more so than on huge national celebrations like the seventeenth of May, or New Year’s Eve.

  The woman Blix had rescued from the water was now laid out on a stretcher. Paramedics were attempting to fit her with an oxygen mask, but were struggling to remove the hair that had melted into the wound on her cheek. A man was kneeling beside her, performing chest compressions. If she survived, she would be forever marked by the events of that night. Emma thought of her own physical defect. A rare illness had caused her to lose all her hair. At least her condition, and the emotional scars that came with it, were easy to hide from the outside world, with the help of various wigs and a resolute attitude. A facial burn was much more difficult to conceal.

  The police had started carrying out their routine operations. They had already rolled out the barrier tape and had secured the area around the site of the explosion. They were now in the process of expanding the perimeters.

  Emma’s phone rang. Anita Grønvold, news.no flashed up on the screen.

  ‘Where are you?’

  Emma could tell that her boss had been drinking, and that she was somewhere where the party had not yet ceased.

  ‘The square, in front of City Hall,’ Emma replied. ‘I came down to watch the fireworks.’

  She recounted what she had seen, the bodies of the dead, the injuries of those who had survived, the woman who had been rescued from the water.

  ‘Have you taken any photos?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘We need photos,’ Anita said. ‘You don’t need to write much, but we need those pictures. Go with the terrorism angle first. Make sure to mention the casualties and the other victims, the extent of their injuries. I’ll get Henrik Wollan to help, and some others, regardless of how drunk they are.’

  ‘I had thought about linking it to the countdown murders,’ Emma said.

  ‘Huh?’ Anita said. She didn’t understand.

  ‘The fact that whoever did this chose a particular time,’ Emma explained. ‘Twelve o’clock. The countdown to midnight, and the New Year.’

  There was a moment’s silence.

  ‘You don’t think it’s just a coincidence?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, copycat killer or not, you won’t be able to get the police to confirm or disprove that theory, certainly not tonight, anyway. Just focus on getting those photos and figuring out the scope of the situation.’

  Emma sighed inwardly. ‘Will do.’

  ‘Tomorrow, you can get started on a piece about Blix and the woman he rescued. Find out who she is and how she’s doing.’

  Emma hung up, swiped up to open the camera on her phone and began walking around, holding it out in front of her. She took a few shots of the first responders, the police officers rolling out more barrier tape, the flashing blue lights, the blood-soaked victims, the armed officers. She thought about calling Kasper or Irene – she should let them know she was still in one piece – but settled on sending her sister a quick text to say she was okay. She could pass on the message.

  Emma caught sight of Blix again. He was sat in the open door of a police car, wrapped up tight in a blanket. Steam was rising from the top of his head.

  Blix had saved her life once too, nineteen years ago, in an incident the media had subsequently named ‘the Teisen tragedy’. Blix had shot Emma’s father – he hadn’t had any other choice; he had to do it before her father had a chance to shoot Emma too. He had already shot and killed his wife, Emma’s mother, only minutes before, leaving her in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.

  Emma hadn’t fully understood Blix’s role in the events of that day, not until circumstances had brought them together again years later, with both of them working towards solving the countdown murders. He had kept an eye out for her then, giving her information he hadn’t shared with the other journalists. But that wasn’t the reason that Emma had grown to appreciate his presence in her life – even more so as time went on. It was because she felt that he actually cared. In conversations with her therapist, she had come to realise that she saw Blix as a kind of father figure.

  Emma took a step closer to him. Blix’s lips were blue, contrasting with the stark white of his face. One of his hands was bundled up in a bloody bandage. She snapped a photo of him without him noticing, and moved on. A reply from Irene had popped up on her screen, but Emma swiped it away, resolving to read it later. Kasper hadn’t called or sent a single message to check if she were safe.

  Now that there were fewer people inside the perimeter, the extent of the damage was much clearer. Her gaze was drawn to the black hole in the ground, about a metre wide. Emma held her phone in front of her, continuing to take photos of the scene. She zoomed in closer to one of the casualties – a man on his back. He was wearing a grey coat with a high collar. It was singed from the explosion, and was drenched in blood. He had black trousers and black gloves. Matching black shoes too. They were made of leather, and they looked like, as if they could be…

  Emma drifted towards him, stepping over to the other side of the body. She heard a voice shouting her name, but didn’t look to see who it was. She only had eyes for the man on the ground in front of her, refusing to acknowledge who she was looking at. It was not Kasper. It was impossible, it couldn’t be him.

  ‘You can’t be here,’ the voice said behind her, closer this time. ‘You have to stay behind the cordon, Emma, like everyone else.’

  But Emma wasn’t listening, she just edged closer and closer to the man lying there on his back, staring straight up at the sky. At the fireworks and the stars. The ground and snow around him were stained with the blood that had drained from the open wound in his stomach.

  No, Emma whispered softly. It can’t…

  She shook her head, gasping for air. She felt a hand on her side, but didn’t turn to see who was talking to her, pulling at her. All she could do was stare at his black curls against the white snow. His stubble. His eyelids. She desperately hoped they would start blinking, but they remained as they were, just as motionless. Just as dead.

  4

  Blix thought he knew what it felt like to be cold, to be frozen to the core. In his younger years, he had gone through a period of taking a swim in the sea every morning. Autumn or spring, summer or winter. It made no difference. He had been living on the peninsula at Bygdøy at that time, so it was only a short drive to the beaches at Huk or Paradisbukta. Gard Fosse, who was now his boss, would join him from time to time. Hollering and panting, they would race out into the water, only to sprint back to shore again a few seconds later, to a dry towel and warm clothes. Maybe even a flask of coffee.

  With all the roadblocks and chaos in downtown Oslo, it had taken much longer than usual to get back to the Oslo Police Headquarters. The locker rooms were packed. The extra officers who had been called in were preparing themselves for action. The room was buzzing with activity. It was difficult to hear anything else over the sounds of weapons being loaded and the crackling of the radio transmitters.

  Blix had torn off his wet clothes, closed the shower door behind him and stood under the warm jets of water until he wa
s absolutely sure that he had fully thawed.

  The cut on his hand probably needed seeing to – he had managed to bandage it up himself at least – but he decided to stay at the office regardless.

  Kovic had remained at the harbour. He called her to see how things were going.

  ‘We’re trying to track down witnesses,’ she replied. ‘But none of the people I’ve spoken to so far were sober, and no one’s provided any new information. Hopefully, the CCTV cameras can help us out.’

  Blix nodded. Cameras didn’t lie. Unlike people, they couldn’t be persuaded to change their story. And the city was full of them.

  ‘A lot of people were using their phones to film at the time as well,’ he commented, dropping into the chair behind his workstation. ‘We can encourage people to send us whatever footage they’ve got.’

  ‘We’ve already secured some,’ Kovic replied. ‘But it’ll be a massive job to trawl through all of it, especially when we don’t even know what we’re looking for.’

  ‘Do we know anything more about the explosion?’ asked Blix.

  The line crackled.

  ‘The bomb was placed in a waste container,’ she answered.

  ‘A waste container?’

  ‘Yes, one of those litter ones. Green, about a metre high. God, I can’t think straight – what’s the word I’m after?’

  ‘A rubbish bin?’

  ‘Yes, that, a rubbish bin.’

  Blix had turned his computer on and headed straight to the news website VG Nett. Photos from the scene at City Hall dominated the front page, already supplemented with witness statements: ‘blood everywhere’ … ‘mindless terrorism’.

  ‘The bomb squad believe that the force of the explosion measured in at around seventy millibars,’ Kovic continued.

  ‘Is that a lot?’

  ‘Not enough to break windows or damage the nearby buildings,’ Kovic explained, ‘but enough to inflict fatal injuries on those closest to the explosion.’

  ‘I see,’ Blix replied.

  ‘There’s something else you should know…’ Kovic began.

  ‘Go on?’

  Kovic hesitated before continuing.

  ‘None of the casualties have been formally identified, but Emma’s boyfriend is one of them.’

  Blix moved his phone to his other ear.

  ‘She was inside the cordon,’ Kovic said. ‘I was next to her when she saw him. Kasper Bjerringbo. A Danish journalist.’

  ‘I know who he is,’ Blix replied, swallowing hard. ‘He was a good guy.’

  ‘From what I managed to get out of Emma, he wasn’t meant to be there.’

  Blix had seen Emma that night, but she’d been alone.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked.

  ‘What can I say? I think she’s in shock. She just stood there. Didn’t cry or anything. And I didn’t have the heart to pull her away when the paramedics came for him.’

  Blix felt a strong urge to see Emma. Talk to her. Not that he could say much to help, he just wanted to be there for her.

  ‘Is there someone looking after her?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Can you make sure?’ Blix requested.

  ‘Will do.’

  The line fell silent.

  An officer walked by behind his desk. Blix straightened up a little and cleared his throat.

  ‘Any news on how the woman from the harbour is doing?’

  ‘I’ve just spoken to someone at the hospital, about ten minutes ago,’ Kovic said, sighing. ‘They said it’s too early to tell.’

  ‘Have we managed to identify her?’

  ‘We have. Bear with me.’

  Blix listened as Kovic fumbled with a notepad.

  ‘She had a bank card in her jacket pocket.’

  A few more seconds went by, before Kovic found the name.

  ‘Ruth-Kristine Smeplass,’ she said.

  Blix’s mouth opened involuntarily. ‘What did you just say?’ he asked.

  Kovic repeated the name. Blix ran a hand through his hair.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Kovic asked. ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘No?’

  Blix thought of the long, curly hair. That perpetually irritated expression. The hours he had spent staring at her face, searching for the truth.

  ‘Ruth-Kristine Smeplass is Patricia’s mother,’ he said. ‘The Patricia who’s been missing and presumed dead since 2009.’

  ‘Shit,’ Kovic said.

  In all his years as an investigator, Patricia’s disappearance had been the case Blix had spent the most time working on. It was a case that he returned to time after time, reviewing all the information they had, going over everything again and again, looking for a sliver of information that he might have overlooked the first time.

  First, Kasper. Now Ruth-Kristine.

  Two people he knew, both victims of that night’s attack.

  Bloody hell.

  He heard a siren start to wail on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Are you coming back to HQ soon?’ he asked.

  ‘Not entirely sure yet,’ Kovic replied. ‘There are still a lot of people here.’

  ‘I understand,’ Blix said. ‘Take care of Emma for me. See you soon.’

  5

  It was only three hours and six minutes into the New Year when Gard Fosse emerged from his office, decked out in a black suit and white dress shirt, now unbuttoned at the collar.

  ‘The large meeting room,’ he said, pointing to the floor above them.

  Kovic had just arrived.

  ‘I should’ve grabbed some food first,’ she grumbled, chucking her notepad and pen onto the desk.

  Blix pushed his chair back and stood up. He had called and messaged Emma several times over the last few hours. He was still waiting for a reply.

  They followed Fosse upstairs. The seats around the long conference table filled up promptly. The leader of the Emergency Response Team, and the heads of the Intelligence and Investigation Departments were sat together at the end of the table, next to a number of leaders from various other specialist units. A handful of investigators were scattered around the table, as well as a few men and women Blix knew from Kripos, Norway’s National Crime Investigation Service, someone from the Norwegian Police Security Service, or PST as they called it, and a couple of other people he didn’t recognise. A lot of the attendees were still dressed in the clothes they had been wearing to parties they must have been attending only a few hours earlier. Some of them were struggling to keep their eyes focussed.

  Blix and Kovic found a vacant chair each. A door at the far end of the room opened, and the chief of police strode in, followed by the communications advisor and another man who had the sleeves of his tuxedo rolled up.

  ‘Welcome,’ the chief of police announced as he sat down. ‘Let’s get started.’

  He nodded at the man in the tuxedo, indicating that he should take the lead.

  ‘My name is Raymond Rafto,’ the man began. ‘I am one of the chief inspectors at PST, and will be the lead investigator on this case.’

  He looked around, with a somewhat arrogant air, before continuing:

  ‘At midnight, an explosive device was detonated in a rubbish bin at the square located between Oslo City Hall and the harbour. As the situation stands, four people have been killed: two men and two women. Another woman has suffered life-threatening injuries. Twelve people have been seriously injured and, thus far, seventeen others are at the hospital being treated for minor injuries. We currently have no ID on the casualties. There is nothing to indicate that the victims are anything more than innocent bystanders.’

  Blix felt the urge to interrupt him and inform them all about Kasper and Ruth-Kristine, but decided to leave it be.

  Rafto continued: ‘No one has claimed responsibility for the bomb yet. And we have no substantial intelligence that would have led us to suspect such an incident might take place. There was some minor activity regarding
restricted materials over the Christmas weekend, and further tracing has been initiated. We are also working closely with the usual security services in other countries, but no other threats have been detected. We do consider it likely that another attack may occur, however, simply because one terror attack is often followed by another. With that in mind, the national threat level has been raised to substantial.’

  He pushed the sheet of paper aside and turned to Fred Malmberg, head of the Emergency Response Team.

  ‘What’s the current status on the ground?’ he asked.

  ‘The area around the harbour and Oslo City Hall has been secured,’ Malmberg explained. ‘The injured have been taken to hospital. Paramedics are currently working on the casualties, who’ll then be taken for post-mortems. Crime Scene Investigation are now on site, working with the bomb-disposal technicians. We have personnel stationed at key points around the city centre, to maintain calm and for surveillance, and we’re receiving assistance from the armed forces to search for any other explosives.’

  The PST investigator nodded his approval and looked to the far end of the table.

  ‘Investigation?’

  The head of the Criminal Investigation Department sat up.

  ‘We’ve interviewed the witnesses with minor injuries,’ he began, ‘but nothing much has come of that. There were a lot of people who were close to the harbour and weren’t directly affected by the explosion, not physically anyway, but of those who were near the site, none have provided any useful information.’ He cleared his throat and carried on. ‘Several people have called in already with tip-offs, claiming to have seen men who they’ve assumed are of a Muslim background, but so far it seems that these tip-offs are mainly based on prejudice, not on any particularly suspicious behaviour. Large parts of the area are monitored by our own cameras. We’ve already begun a review of all the footage, and have started collecting recordings from other sources. And I expect to be informed of the type of explosives that were used sometime later this morning.’

  ‘What about the design and trigger mechanism?’ Rafto asked.