Into a Raging Blaze

by Andreas Norman

  Carina looked around the inside of the plane; the cabin was full of passengers. She didn’t understand. No one came. No one pulled her away or strapped down her hands and arms so that she couldn’t move. The cabin crew wandered around the plane, checking everyone was properly seated and then, smiling, performed the safety demonstration. She couldn’t stop staring at them. She felt the plane begin to move. Was she free? The man next to her, a normal business traveler reading the newspaper, looked up for a second and smiled at her. And like that, without anyone noticing the slightest difference, she was just one of many travelers welcomed on board EgyptAir’s morning flight to Cairo.

  46

  Brussels, Monday, October 10

  Overnight, between Friday and Saturday, three people were arrested in Stockholm on suspicion of conspiring to commit terrorist offenses. Bente flipped between the channels; they were all saying the same thing: three people, Stockholm, terrorist offenses. Mikael came in with a coffee cup and stood by the TV. They watched the pictures for a while. The story was on all the news bulletins and was sharing media space with a tropical storm over Indonesia, a Russian passenger jet that had crashed on final approach, and reports from the EU summit meeting that had opened that morning. BBC World had it as a standing headline in its international broadcasts; CNN, Sky News, and France24 had all featured it in their lunchtime bulletins. The short segment featured the Security Service press officer, surrounded by journalists, outside the main entrance at Kungsholmen.

  “All I can say,” said the press officer, staring right into the camera lenses while brushing a strand of hair from her face, “is that we can confirm that three people were arrested with probable cause to suspect conspiracy to commit terrorist offenses.”

  A journalist asked an inaudible question.

  “Yes. The arrests took place with the help of the national task force and the police in the county of Stockholm.”

  The press officer didn’t want to go into any further detail on the reasons for the arrests, except that there had been a serious threat posed by a group of people and the decision had therefore been taken to execute the operation. Pre-investigation secrecy was now applicable and the Security Service was therefore unable to provide any further information. No, the press officer did not want to state where the people had been arrested. Nor did she want to state their sex or age. She didn’t want to state whether they were Swedish citizens.

  The news story had run all day; they wouldn’t get anything new now. Bente turned off the TV.

  The Head of the Security Service had called her in the morning and thanked her. He was happy and the British were also satisfied. He had personally received positive signals from London. Sweden could be counted on, the boss had said to her. Bente had said she was pleased to hear that. After she had hung up, she had sent an e-mail to the entire staff thanking them. They had worked hard, she wrote. The threat from the hostile intelligence operation against their office had been a strain on everyone. They had done a good job. They had shown that SSI was a top-notch resource and she thanked them all for it.

  The leadership team meeting that morning was brief. The atmosphere was relaxed; the others were in high spirits. They had gone through their active cases and then discussed the threat against SSI. There were no indications that any surveillance was still ongoing against them. Rodriguez wanted them to remain in a high state of readiness for another week, just for safety’s sake. She couldn’t explain to him what had happened in Evers. Not even her colleagues would ever find out what had happened there. Without any further explanation, she decided that the Section would return to its normal level of readiness, despite Rodriguez’s objections. Mikael understood, but he said nothing. That was how it should be; they were professionals and certain things could never be said aloud.

  Really, she ought to contact her American counterpart in Brussels this afternoon. The Head of the Security Service was right. After the handling of this case, the Americans had begun to see them as a more attractive partner. They had already been in touch with the Section about the two Swedish-Moroccans in Pakistan. The Swedes were under observation by the Americans; they could bring them in at any time and were happy to cooperate with Sweden in this matter. The targets had a typical profile: both in their twenties, from deprived social backgrounds, and with several acquaintances among the three or four hundred individuals who were of interest to Stockholm. They had been in Pakistan for two weeks and the situation was developing. There was a report written by the CIA station in Islamabad that had arrived that morning, together with a request for signals intelligence against three addresses in Örebro. Counterterrorism was a restless activity. She had already received voice messages from the British liaison officer in Brussels and Green’s deputy director. Sweden’s friends didn’t rest. There were always new threats.

  She really should have called Green and the Americans back already, but she had kept on forgetting to, throughout the day. Standing by her desk, she realized that her entire being—her whole body—was against it. The thought of talking to them disgusted her. Not yet, not so soon. They had forced her to grovel at their feet, forced her to ask for Dymek’s release. MI6 would keep Dymek under surveillance in Cairo, and probably for a long time thereafter; they wanted to be sure she was clean. Every security service preferred to be safe rather than sorry, and, once a threat had been perceived, it could take a long time before it was judged to have dissipated. Just as long as Dymek did nothing stupid . . . Bente had taken a risk getting the young diplomat back. The slightest sign that something was wrong—a suspicious contact, unexpected behavior—and Bente would be held personally responsible for having ensured her release.

  But what was really burning inside her was that they had fed her all their lies and she had just swallowed them. It was her job and she couldn’t have done otherwise, but it was hard to pretend that nothing had happened. She had chosen a job where silence reigned supreme, but now she didn’t know if she could cope with it. She had never felt like that before; the silence weighed her body down like lead.

  She gathered the papers on her desk and went to the safe, pushed the bundle inside and closed it. The combination lock emitted a beep. “I’m going home.”

  “Do.” Mikael looked at her.

  She stopped herself. “What’s up?”

  “What?”

  She thought there was something accusatory in the way he looked at her, but when she glanced at him again it was gone. Maybe she had imagined it. She smiled at him and got her coat. He accompanied her into the hallway and waited for her to lock her office door. Was he doing anything nice this evening? He shrugged his shoulders. His wife was arriving in Brussels later. How lovely, she said. She knew that his wife was the sales director for a large tech company and traveled a lot—that had been evident in the security review carried out when he had joined the Section.

  Out in the command room there was a group of FRA technicians working on the Pakistani case. They were in contact with the Americans. The two Swedes had been identified the day before in Islamabad. The Americans were counting on tracking them with unmanned aircraft as soon as they left the city. The Swedes would probably join one of the caravans traveling through the mountainous regions toward the northwestern border, and then across it into Afghanistan.

  The traffic jam stretched all the way along Rue Montoyer. She should have anticipated this: security had been increased due to the terror threat. Naturally, there was no terror threat, but that didn’t make any difference; a security apparatus was always needed to demonstrate that threats were taken seriously.

  She didn’t know how long she had been in traffic, but for once it didn’t bother her. She was in no hurry to get home. It felt good to sit in the car and watch the stream of people passing by on the pavement. She could discern security personnel in plain clothes circulating around the area. They looked like normal civil servants in dark suits, but didn’t seem to be on their way anywhere. In the entrance to an office building, there was a man
looking through the window, watching passersby. At a street corner further ahead, she saw a woman, smoking. It was her baggy jacket that had drawn Bente’s attention; it was a little too large. She was probably carrying a concealed weapon underneath it. Helicopters rattled above the rooftops. The area around Justus Lipsius would be cordoned off throughout the week; anyone who wanted to get in had to pass three checkpoints.

  The ministers had flown in from their capital cities that morning and now, at half past four, the first day of the meeting was drawing to a close. She turned on the radio. They were broadcasting from a press conference with the German and French home secretaries. Bente half-listened while the line of cars slowly began to move forward. Illegal immigration from the south had been one of the big issues during the day. The Schengen agreement was under the spotlight. All member states welcomed reform of the EU’s border controls. This showed that the EU could respond to the challenges posed by the future, said the French home secretary. It was important to avoid a situation similar to the one during the Arab Spring this year, when thousands of Tunisians had landed on Lampedusa and then spread throughout Europe. A major review of all systems for border control and crime prevention was necessary. The German home secretary was satisfied with how the meeting had gone during the day; he said that talks had been constructive. He looked forward to creating a more cohesive policy for border control and crime prevention. It was true, he said, that they had also decided to step up cooperation in security matters within the EU. A new organization dedicated to this purpose would be established. Closer cooperation at an EU level to deal with future threats, in Europe and around the world, was necessary. The French home secretary said that he was happy with the decision; it was a first step and showed that the Union was united in the fight against terrorism. Criticism of the proposal had been heard from some Swedish politicians and EU parliamentarians, said the reporter, as the segment continued. According to a statement made at lunchtime, they were deeply concerned about the proposal. The reporter noted that the debate surrounding the balance between the security of the EU and the right of EU citizens to privacy was very likely to continue. The report, Bente thought. It was out there, in spite of everything. The European Intelligence Service had been launched and was part of the system.

  She rapidly overtook a truck, passed the traffic lights before they turned red and, soon enough, she was in the tunnel. For a second she felt an impulse to switch lanes and carry on along the freeway—to head north instead of taking the exit for home. She could be in Leiden in two hours. It would have been so wonderful to sit on the sofa in De Vries’s quiet living room, surrounded by his books. She thought about him. They would never see each other again, she knew that, but she still longed for him—or maybe it was the calm that surrounded him she longed for, she wasn’t sure. His was a calm possessed only by those who knew they were doing the right thing. But what did he know about reality? She was in the middle of reality, it besmeared her, as was its nature—dirty and ugly, with no easy answers. He, however, floated in a world of truths. What did he actually know? Nothing.

  Fredrik was already home. The other car, the small green one, was parked in the drive. She could already hear the boys’ voices from the front door. She turned the key. When she came into the hall, she heard Fredrik shout to the living room, telling the boys to calm down. He appeared at the kitchen door with his cell pressed to his ear and looked at her in surprise, as if he was, for a moment, wondering why she was home so early. He mouthed a hello without taking the phone from his ear and disappeared back into the kitchen. She heard him talking about some PowerPoint presentation. Have you found it? he asked. The person at the other end was presumably still at the office. She kicked off her shoes and hung up her coat, and heard Fredrik shout to the living room, “Mom’s here!”

  The shouts and muffled, rhythmic thuds from the living room promptly stopped. The boys appeared in the hall, the eldest with a basketball under his arm.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  The youngest waved as if he was far, far away. Then they vanished back into the living room; she heard them rush through the door on to the veranda and then heard the sound of their voices coming from outside the house. There was a shopping bag from one of the big out-of-town supermarkets on the kitchen floor. She picked it up and began to put the shopping in the fridge. Fredrik was in the living room and talking to his colleague when her own cell rang. She went into the hall and got it. It was Hamrén.

  “We’ve interviewed Badawi again,” he said.

  “Okay?”

  “The British want to extradite him as soon as possible. They’re probably going to make the request soon. It’s all gone very well.”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s just one thing I’m wondering whether you can help us with.” When she didn’t reply, he continued with a barely noticeable tension in his voice. “They want us to verify some of their intelligence.”

  She said nothing.

  “I know that your people did a great job. Extremely thorough.” He cleared his throat. The flattery was so false that it made his throat dry; she could hear it. “It would be great if you could help us with this. We need you to verify some reports.”

  “Which reports?” she said quietly. What she really wanted to do was hang up, but that wouldn’t help her.

  “About Badawi—his contacts in Cairo.”

  “Okay. Can’t you do it yourselves?”

  “The Brits know you,” said Hamrén. She could see him leaning back in his chair, in his office in Stockholm. “They trust you. Your word counts for a lot.”

  It was such an apparent lie that she was tempted to tell him to go to hell. If there was anything the Brits felt about her, it certainly wasn’t trust. They needed her, wanted to use SSI’s resources, but they saw her as a difficult partner. It would take years for the Section to rebuild trust with the Brits.

  “Why should it be me who looks at the material? It’s not my job. Surely the prosecutor—”

  “Yes, yes. But it would be good to have your assessment before then. We’ve talked to management as well. Just an opinion. Confirmation, if you know what I mean.”

  “But I’ve made my assessment, Roland,” she exclaimed in a low voice. “Everything the British have come up with is circumstantial.”

  “But if you look at their material again, maybe you’ll see things differently,” he said, “now that things have calmed down a bit. It would probably do the Section some good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t have to worry. The Brits have nothing but good things to say about the Section. But, at the same time, they are stressing how important it is to close this case in a positive way,” he said. hastily adding, “I just spoke to London; that’s how I know this. It would obviously be very beneficial for the Section to show results, that you can deliver what the Brits ask for. You know how it is. Management in Stockholm looks at all the numbers. And, to be honest, there are some people back home who are raising questions about the Section, so a good result would set you up nicely for budget discussions, as I’m sure you understand,” he said in a serious tone, as if he were on her side.

  He had wanted to say it for so long, she could hear it in his voice. He was in a good mood and couldn’t hide it, despite it not sitting well with the sympathetic tone. If Badawi really were innocent, he would be let go, Bente said to herself. It didn’t matter if she confirmed the intelligence; all that would happen was it would be rejected at a later stage in court. Naturally, a court would poke holes in the British claims; there was no substance to them. They would realize who Badawi was—a normal civil servant—and find him innocent.

  “Okay. I’ll take a look. But I can’t promise anything.”

  “Great, Bente. Many thanks.”

  He hung up.

  She got out a bottle of white, opened it, and poured a glass. The taste unfurled through her mouth and made her eyes moist. It was a dry French wine, one of her favorites. She took another
gulp—she couldn’t resist it; it was truly delicious—yet it made her feel unwell. She swallowed. It was so desperately quiet around her.

  Fredrik was in the living room, fiddling with his cell. He looked up quickly and continued writing on his BlackBerry. “Hello. So, you’re back.”

  “Yes. I finished a bit earlier than usual.”

  He wasn’t listening, was engrossed in his cell, presumably reading an e-mail. Then he put the phone in his pocket, came into the kitchen and gave her a dry, absentminded kiss on the cheek as he passed her. “You seem tired.”

  “I’m okay.”

  Fredrik nodded. She avoided looking at him. She didn’t have the strength to explain and she didn’t want him to ask more questions because she still wouldn’t be able to say anything. She poured another glass of wine and passed it to him. She had spent half her life working in this silence, without wanting to break it. She had always believed in what she was doing. But she wasn’t so sure any longer. Maybe it was all wrong.

  She looked out the window. It was a long time since she had gotten back from the office this early; normally it was dark. The boys were moving around in the yard. They were chasing the basketball, running in circles on the lawn in some kind of contest. Their eldest stopped and whispered something to his little brother, who listened in earnest. The youngest seemed to do as he had been told and ran across the yard, vanishing from sight.

  “It’s funny that the boys . . .” she began to say, but broke off when she turned around and noticed that Fredrik was no longer there.

  47

  Cairo, Monday, October 10

  An old car with rattling exhaust pipes had just swung in behind Carina when the call connected, so at first she couldn’t tell whether anyone had answered. Two men were hanging through the windows and began to bandy words with the vendors perched on small camping stools outside the little shop where she had just bought the cell, now pressed to her ear.