A group of civil servants in dark suits thronged past in the corridor. She recognized Johan Eriksson’s familiar laugh and smiled at a half-caught remark about not all Danes having horses in their gardens. A woman paused and loitered in the doorway.
“Hi, Carina.” Her penetrating voice filled the room. Deputy department head, Marina Steinhofer, was a burly woman with her hair tied up in a knot like a strict, old-fashioned schoolteacher. “We’re having a department meeting now.” Steinhofer cast a disapproving glance around the room. “You’re coming?”
“Absolutely.”
Carina had completely forgotten about the meeting. Really, she needed every last minute to finish responding to the questions from Finance, but, whatever, she would have to work half the evening anyway. She dug up her calendar and the small black oilcloth notebook she used to take notes, and followed Steinhofer out into the corridor.
Those who participate in meetings at the Ministry must know their place. Anyone who sits in the wrong place is without exception admonished with a smile and a wave of the hand, revealing by way of their mistake that they do not belong and should not be present.
In the outer ring, on the chairs lined up against the walls, sat the assistants, interns, temps, and others who didn’t belong to the core group. Around the table, in the inner circle, sat the diplomats, according to rank. The department head always sat at the end with the deputy department head beside him and the rest of the civil servants in descending order of rank to the other end of the table. An outsider would probably marvel at the fact that everyone managed to be seated like this, but it was something you learned to do quickly and soon it seemed natural. It was barely a rule—more a frame of mind.
The Security Policy Department was the largest department in the MFA. They were responsible for policies concerning war and peace, security, terrorism, and disasters.
Conversations ended abruptly when the department head, a tall man with a serious face, entered the room. As if a signal had been emitted, all faces turned in unison toward the end of the table where he sat down. Carina took her usual seat close to the middle of the table.
The room was silent. Only the sound of papers could be heard, as the department head leafed through a few documents before looking up and, in a muted voice, saying, “Well.”
The meeting had begun.
It started with a welcome for a new colleague, the new unit head who had joined the department. Anders Wahlund got up. So that was what her new boss looked like, she thought. He was about the same age as Carina. A sandy-haired, pale man in a pinstriped suit that was a little too stylish. The newcomer looked around with a broad smile and said a few words about how happy he was to return home to the Ministry and especially to the Security Policy Department. Everyone knew that he was one of the rising stars in the MFA. He was young, and had already distinguished himself in Kiev, Moscow, and Damascus. He seemed lively and perhaps a little aggressive. The dim room and rows of motionless faces looking back at him seemed only to give him more energy, as he feasted on their gazes.
“Once again, a warm welcome to Anders,” said the department head.
Everyone quietly noted the familiar way his first name was used. Her new boss sat down and, at that moment, their eyes met and he seemed to understand who she was. He nodded at her with a smile.
“Let’s continue. G1, if you please.”
The unit head for G1 took the floor. He was a lieutenant colonel and filled the room with the baritone of one who had spent a lifetime training his voice to bellow across barrack yards. He and the four suits sitting around him dealt with troop contributions to UN forces. They were the nucleus of the department, officers who spent every day working within the framework of a global military system, waging war on various continents and creating peace and stability on others. When the lieutenant colonel spoke, everyone in the room pricked up their ears. They were currently extremely busy with the Libya campaign, he explained. The budget was too small to guarantee more than two months of Swedish involvement, but the Ministry of Finance was refusing to increase it. Negotiations were also ongoing with the UN about a peacekeeping force in South Sudan. Operations were scheduled to begin before the end of the year. But the government in Khartoum was making impossible demands. It was a moving target, said the lieutenant colonel.
“And will we stay on budget with the UN operation?”
“Short answer: yes. Two hundred and seventy million. Plus or minus ten.”
“Thank you.” The department head looked around the table. “G2—any relevant matters?”
That was Carina’s unit. According to protocol, the unit head always had the first word but, since he was new, he merely shook his head with a smile and gestured toward her.
“You have the floor, Dymek,” said the department head.
Everyone turned toward her, rows of faces and dark suits. She cleared her throat. Even though she had sat in these meetings many times and set out EU security policy, her mouth was always a little dry the second she was put on the spot. But only for a second. She rarely doubted herself. The fact was that she had gotten by just fine without a boss and suspected she could do without this one too.
“Discussions,” said Carina in a businesslike manner, “are currently ongoing in the EU about the joint military headquarters for operations in the Horn of Africa.” Then she continued, point by point: the circumstances surrounding the EU’s new security strategy; negotiations concerning Bosnia’s EU candidature. She was calm, presenting sentences like chains of logic, the words coming to her just as she wanted them. Everyone listened. She finished by mentioning the foreign minister’s visit to Ukraine and by reminding everyone that she would be in Brussels the next day for the usual meeting.
“Great. Thanks,” said the department head.
She leaned back. The entire time she had been speaking, Anders Wahlund had been leaning forward, listening keenly. Now he smiled at her and jotted something in a small notebook.
The final unit to report was responsible for humanitarian aid and disaster assistance. Their unit head was away in Geneva, so Johan Eriksson had the floor. Carina didn’t have many close friends, but Johan Eriksson was one of the closest. He was different from the others; he didn’t do low-key irony, that slightly playful cynicism so prevalent among staff at the Ministry. Johan Eriksson was keen and forthright in a way that she had immediately liked. A farmer’s son from Skövde, he had become a diplomat and actually wasn’t joking when he said he wanted to change the world. His ultimate dream was a posting to New York. He often talked about the Big Apple. Everyone, except him, knew he would never get there. Johan Eriksson will never get to New York—it was practically an expression. He was too good for departmental management in Stockholm to let him go, and not sufficiently well liked by the UN ambassador in New York to get the post. How many times had he applied to New York? At least five. Rejected every time. Now he was a few chairs down from Carina, explaining current UN operations in Pakistan, which had been hit by flooding. Thousands of villages under water. Immense bureaucracy. India causing trouble at the UN, but aid getting through, in spite of it.
“Good,” said the department head without further comment. The meeting had already run over by five minutes. “Thank you, all.”
Afterward, a small group stayed behind, surrounding the new unit head. The room was full of Carina’s colleagues flocking to the coffee cart, engrossed in quiet but lively conversations. She approached and greeted him.
“Ah, Dymek,” said her new boss exuberantly as they shook hands. “I’ve heard a lot of great things about you. Good to meet you. Your presentation was perfect.”
She smiled broadly and nodded. That slightly patronizing tone that some men used toward her—she hated it. It didn’t bode well. She said something about looking forward to working with him and hurried away. By the elevators, she caught up with Johan Eriksson and a group of colleagues.
“Hey, Johan—you look tired.”
He grunted in respon
se and rubbed his eyes.
“How’s it going?”
“To hell.”
A well-groomed older gentleman beside them, the Head of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, looked at his younger colleague with amusement.
“I’ve been with Finance all morning,” muttered Johan Eriksson, unaware of the other’s smile. “There’s nothing more tiring than trying to convince those damn bean-counters. They don’t get that disasters cost money. It doesn’t matter what we say. They don’t care—we might as well send some rubber ducks to Pakistan. Jesus Christ—that’s Swedish foreign policy in a nutshell. Completely absurd.”
They got out of the apartment and promised to do a long lunch soon. But not this week; this week, neither of them had time.
3
Brussels, Thursday, September 22
There was dense traffic on the freeway into Brussels, but it was moving quickly and smoothly, as if every vehicle around the taxi knew that each and every minute counted for Carina and that they were escorting her into the city center in a high-speed convoy. It was nine thirty in the morning. The flight had landed on time and, if everything continued the way it was, she would arrive, as usual, just before the meeting began at ten o’clock in one of the spacious rooms inside the Justus Lipsius building.
She had nodded off on the plane and slept all the way to Brussels. As usual, she’d half-jogged along the moving sidewalk toward the Brussels international arrivals hall and got a taxi.
The large cube of mirrored glass that was the EU Council’s headquarters, the Justus Lipsius building, towered above them further up the Rue de la Loi. It was where the Council’s working groups held their meetings. Approximately three hundred working groups and almost three thousand committees met every other week to hammer out decisions through negotiations between representatives of member states. These formed the foundations of the EU organization. Policy issues that couldn’t be resolved by working groups were escalated to the next level and dealt with every Thursday when the Brussels ambassadors of member states met. Anything that still needed to be negotiated after those kinds of wranglings normally ended up on the ministers’ table at the next top meeting.
She was going to spend the day behind the Swedish flag at the Committee for Security, COSEC, a working group dealing with issues of importance concerning joint European security policy. Today’s meeting was to be about security in the Mediterranean. She glanced at the agenda. Mostly points of information, no particularly significant decisions to be taken, nothing that would lead to drawn-out discussions as far as she could tell. She would make the plane home at eight.
Security in the Mediterranean was a vague concept. Everyone could look at it from their own perspective. Countries like Italy and France saw regional security as a question of migration—i.e., stopping the flow of migration. Spain’s line was that it was also a matter of fighting terrorism, and was supported in that respect by several countries, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany. Other EU delegates kept a low profile.
Her instructions for the meeting were summarized into four points and jointly prepared with a number of departments at the MFA, Justice, and the Ministry of Enterprise. They were brief. She was to observe the southern member states and, if necessary, intervene if discussions turned toward asylum policies. Otherwise there were no other lines in the sand to defend. It was important to emphasize that security was a part of the wider neighborhood relations with the Mediterranean nations—that was the first point. If necessary, she was also to highlight that security matters ought to be seen against the background of the dramatic political developments in North Africa and the Arab Spring, and could not limit the EU’s commitment to democracy in the region. Also, if necessary, she should argue that security could not limit shipping. Reforms to the Schengen Agreement, outlining the EU visa regime and border control regulations, were not to be discussed at the meeting—Justice didn’t want things like that being handled by the wrong working groups. There were already around twenty working groups in existence dealing with issues of migration and asylum with Swedish representatives from the police and Justice at the negotiating table: it was none of COSEC’s business. Thus, kill any discussion of Schengen at the meeting.
She hurried across the expanse of carpet on the third floor. It always took ages to get your pass out and get through security down at the entrance, but she had made it through the door along with two other delegates, the Slovenian and the Bulgarian. They recognized her and gave a friendly nod.
The room arched over clusters of diplomats who were standing talking as they waited for the meeting to begin. Slowly, everyone began to take their seats. The table was a huge oval that filled the room, with at least ten meters of empty space in the middle that was filled by a floral arrangement dominated by red flowers. Delegates continued to hurry through the door, primarily gray-haired men in reasonably well-fitting jackets. Out of twenty-seven delegates, only she, the Spaniard, and the Finn weren’t members of the old guard. But she rarely spoke to the Finn—he usually sat engrossed in a sullen silence as if he had just tumbled out of the Karelian forest and was wondering where on earth he was. The Spaniard, who had the seat next to her, was a pleasant fellow. You always sat in alphabetical order according to country at these things, so she always had a Spanish colleague to her left, and at COSEC it was Alejandro who was standing by his seat drinking coffee.
“We must stop meeting like this.” They shook hands.
Two weeks ago they had been at the same meeting in New York. The sense of déjà vu made her smile.
“We’re the Marriott caravan,” he said and laughed softly.
It was true; they were the traveling salesmen of international politics.
The murmur became subdued and a concentrated silence followed. The chairman smiled jauntily at the delegates around the table and leaned toward the microphone.
Two hours later, Carina came out from the room, trembling with anger. It was lunchtime and the wide corridor was filled with diplomats. The entire EU building hummed with people. She normally liked being in Brussels, but this morning had been unbearable. They had discussed cooperation with countries around the Mediterranean. The French proposed cooperation for stronger security. The French delegate had, unsurprisingly, spoken at length about the importance of security and about the threats from across the Mediterranean. Human trafficking, drugs, terrorism. North Africa was a problem. The Frenchman was good—he spoke skillfully—but she could not tolerate his words. She had heard it all before, so quite why she had reacted so strongly now she wasn’t sure, but she just wanted to disagree. She thought about Jamal. What would he have said? she wondered. The British and several others supported the Frenchman. A united front, they said. A joint policy to ensure Europe’s security. Shortly before lunch, she had requested the floor. She leaned forward to the microphone and spoke about the importance of human rights, she reminded them all of the refugee convention and queried, sarcastically, since when had there been similarities between refugees and terrorists? She spoke far too loudly and for far too long, while the other delegates stared at her. She had overstepped the mark; she knew she had. Nothing in her instructions said that she should pursue matters as forcefully as she had, and they definitely didn’t say that she should give the Frenchman a dressing-down, she thought guiltily. But that didn’t matter; she simply couldn’t allow statements like that to go uncontested. Eventually, she had fallen silent and leaned back into her chair. No one said anything.
She had already reached the elevators when a man caught up with her. She was still agitated and couldn’t place the short, plump, plain man who had apparently been present and listening to the meeting.
“Madame, do you possibly have a moment?” he said. “I have something I would like to show you.”
She merely shrugged her shoulders. She would have preferred to eat lunch alone but in Brussels it was common to be approached, or for someone to get in touch, and all you could do was go along with it.
She was Sweden’s representative in COSEC—her lunch would have to wait. They took the elevator down together.
The man was vaguely familiar. He wasn’t a delegate, but rather one of the backbenchers: temporary guests, advisers and legal experts who sat in the back row, listening, observing. The man was around fifty, dark-haired, short, and dressed in a dark gray suit that was a little tight over the stomach. When they came out into the street, he apologized for intruding on her time but repeated that he had something that might interest her. Did she feel like taking a walk?
“Of course. But you’ll have to tell me where you’re from.”
He smiled uncomfortably. He said he didn’t represent any particular organization. “I ordinarily work for the EU Commission.”
“I understand.” She didn’t really understand at all. But she noted that he didn’t give his name. He was nervous.
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