The Bomber

by Liza Marklund

  She breathed out a sigh of relief and started to cross the walkway.

  Beata was waiting for her, her breath hanging in the air around her.

  ‘So what do you want to show me?’ Annika said, aware that she sounded irritable.

  Beata was still smiling.

  ‘I’ve found something very strange over there,’ she said, pointing. ‘It won’t take too long.’

  Annika sighed quietly and set off. Beata followed her.

  59

  As Berit and Henriksson were stepping into the lift in the sorting office, Chief Prosecutor Kjell Lindström was making a call. He asked to speak to the paper’s editor-in-chief, but was put through to his secretary.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s gone to lunch,’ the secretary said, as Schyman waved to her to hold him off. ‘Can I take a message? I see. Hold on a moment, and I’ll see if I can get hold of him …’

  Schyman’s migraine was still lingering. Right now, all he wanted to do was lie down in a darkened room for an hour and go to sleep. In spite of the headache, he had accomplished a number of constructive things that morning. His conversation with Eva-Britt Qvist had gone surprisingly smoothly. The secretary had said she thought Annika Bengtzon showed a lot of promise as head of section, and that she wanted to support her in any way she could. She definitely wanted to help make the crime team work under Annika’s leadership.

  ‘It’s one of the state prosecutors, and he’s very insistent,’ Schyman’s secretary said, emphasizing the ‘very’.

  Anders Schyman groaned and took the call.

  ‘So, the forces of law and order are still on high alert on a day like today, a day before Christmas Eve. Although I have to say this is all the wrong way round, we’re supposed to chase you—’

  ‘I’m phoning about the explosive device that detonated in Klara sorting office,’ Kjell Lindström interrupted.

  ‘Yes, we’ve got a team on their way—’

  ‘I know, we’re talking to them now. The device was addressed to one of your employees: a reporter by the name of Annika Bengtzon. We have to get her under protection immediately.’

  The words found their way into Anders Schyman’s brain through a cloud of painkillers.

  ‘Annika Bengtzon?’

  ‘The package was addressed to her, but was set off accidentally in the sorting office. We think it was sent by the person behind the bombings at the Victoria Stadium and the sports hall in Sätra.’

  Anders Schyman felt his knees buckle beneath him, and sat down heavily on his secretary’s desk.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said.

  ‘Where’s Annika Bengtzon at the moment? Is she in the office?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. She went out this morning, to interview someone. I don’t think she’s back yet.’

  ‘Man or woman?’

  ‘What, the person she was going to meet? Man, I think. Why?’

  ‘It’s vitally important that Annika Bengtzon is put under protection immediately. She has to stay away from home and work until the person in question is caught.’

  ‘How do you know the bomb was addressed to Annika?’

  ‘It was sent by registered post. We’re looking into the details at the moment. Right now, the most important thing is to get Annika Bengtzon to a place of safety. We’re sending a couple of patrols over to you at the paper; they should be with you shortly. They’ll make sure she’s taken to a safe house. Has she got family?’

  Anders Schyman shut his eyes and ran a hand over his face. This can’t be happening, he thought, feeling all the blood draining from his head.

  ‘Yes, a husband and two young children.’

  ‘Do the children go to a nursery? Which one? Is there anyone there who can tell us? Where does her husband work? Can you get hold of him?’

  Anders Schyman promised personally to make sure that Annika’s family were informed and taken care of. He gave the police Annika’s mobile number and asked them to do everything they could.

  60

  They walked away from Sickla canal and past a small clump of trees close to the stadium. The slender pines had been damaged by the explosion, one was lying with its roots exposed, and the others all had split and shredded branches. The snow was almost twenty centimetres thick. Annika got snow in her shoes.

  ‘Is it far?’ she asked.

  ‘Not much further,’ Beata said.

  They trudged on, with Annika getting increasingly irritated. The training ground was looming alongside them, and Annika could see the upper floors of the media centre in the distance ahead of them.

  ‘How do you get in, there don’t seem to be any steps?’ she said, looking at the three-metre-high concrete wall that ran alongside the length of the track.

  Beata caught up with her and stopped beside her.

  ‘We’re not going up there. Just keep following the wall.’

  She pointed and Annika trudged on. Stress was starting to bubble through her veins, she had to finish her article about how close the police were to catching the Bomber before she went home, and she still had to wrap up the children’s presents. Well, she could always do that this evening, once they were asleep. Beata’s discovery might even be enough to make the police talk.

  ‘You see where the wall stops over there?’ Beata said behind her. ‘You can get a couple of metres in under the stadium, that’s where we’re going.’

  Annika shivered, it was cold in the shadow of the wall. She could hear the sound of her breathing over the noise of traffic on the southern link road behind her, but otherwise everything was quiet. At least she knew where they were going now.

  The police patrols consisted of two uniformed policemen and two plain-clothed officers. Anders Schyman received them in his office.

  ‘We’ve got two bomb units with sniffer-dogs on their way here,’ one of the officers said. ‘There’s a serious risk that there are more bombs, maybe even here. We have to evacuate the building immediately and conduct a thorough search.’

  ‘Is that really necessary, we haven’t received any threats?’ Anders Schyman said.

  The policeman looked at him sternly.

  ‘She hasn’t sent any warnings before.’

  ‘She?’ Schyman said.

  The other officer stepped forward.

  ‘Yes, we believe the Bomber could well be a woman.’

  Anders Schyman looked from one to the other.

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t tell you that at the moment.’

  ‘So why haven’t you arrested her?’

  ‘She’s vanished,’ the first officer said, then changed the subject. ‘We haven’t managed to get hold of Annika Bengtzon. Have you any idea where she might be?’

  Anders Schyman shook his head. His mouth was completely dry.

  ‘No. She just said she was going out to do an interview.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  ‘Has she got her own car?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  The policemen exchanged a look. This man didn’t seem to know very much.

  ‘Okay, we need to find out what vehicle she’s driving and put out an alert for it. And we have to start clearing the building.’

  ‘Up above is where the competitors will warm up before the different events,’ Beata said once they were under the training ground. It was gloomy, almost dark, under the concrete roof. Annika looked back through the long, low opening. On the far side lay the Olympic village, its white buildings shining in the sun. The windows were sparkling, they were all new. Putting in new glass had been a priority after the explosion, otherwise the plumbing might have frozen and burst.

  ‘The competitors have to be able to get to the Victoria Stadium quickly,’ Beata said. ‘This area will be open to the public, so to stop the athletes having to queue at the main entrance to get in and compete, we built an underground tunnel from here right up into the stadium itself.’

  Annika turned rou
nd and peered into the darkness.

  ‘Where’s the tunnel?’ she asked, surprised.

  Beata smiled.

  ‘Well, we didn’t exactly want to make it obvious,’ she said. ‘Otherwise the public would be able to get in through the tunnel as well. Over here in the corner. Look, I’ll show you.’

  They went further in, and Annika blinked to get her eyes accustomed to the darkness.

  ‘Here it is,’ Beata said.

  Annika was facing a grey-painted metal door, hardly visible in the darkness. There was a thick iron bar across it. It looked like a normal waste-disposal room for bins and rubbish. Next to the metal bar was a small box, which Beata opened. Annika watched her pull a card from her pocket and run it through the electronic reader inside the box.

  ‘You’ve got a card?’ Annika said in surprise.

  ‘Everyone has,’ Beata said, lifting the metal bar.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Annika said.

  ‘Opening the tunnel,’ Beata said, pulling the door open. The hinges made no sound at all. The darkness inside was impenetrable.

  ‘But is this allowed? Isn’t it alarmed?’ Annika said, feeling more and more uncomfortable with the situation.

  ‘No, the alarms aren’t on in the middle of the day. They’re working like crazy up in the stadium. If you go in you’ll find something really strange. Hang on, I’ll get the lights.’

  Beata pulled a large circuit-breaker beside the entrance and a series of strip-lights lit up in the roof. The tunnel had concrete walls and a plain yellow linoleum floor. It was approximately two and a half metres high. It went straight on for some twenty metres, then curved to the left and disappeared up towards the Victoria Stadium. Annika took a deep breath and walked into the tunnel. She turned round, to see Beata closing the door.

  ‘It’s against regulations to leave it open,’ Beata said, smiling once more.

  Annika smiled back, turned round and carried on into the tunnel.

  ‘Is it up here?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, just round the corner,’ Beata said.

  Annika felt her blood start to race: this was actually pretty exciting. She quickened her pace, her heels echoing in the tunnel. She turned the corner, and caught sight of a heap of clutter up ahead.

  ‘There’s something up there!’ she said, turning to face Beata.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I wanted to show you. It’s really interesting.’

  Annika hoisted her bag further onto her shoulder and started jogging. It was a mattress, two plain folding chairs, a camping table and a coolbox. Annika walked closer and stared at the objects.

  ‘Someone’s been sleeping here,’ she said. At that moment she caught sight of the box of dynamite. It was small and white, and had the word ‘Minex’ printed along the side. She gasped, and the next moment felt something round her neck. Her hands flew up to her throat, but couldn’t get any grip. She tried to scream, but the rope was already too tight. She began thrashing and pulling, trying to run, sank to the floor and tried to crawl away, but the rope just kept getting tighter and tighter.

  The last thing she saw before everything went black was Beata holding the rope in her gloved hands, hovering far above her under the concrete ceiling.

  61

  The evacuation of the building housing the Evening Post took place relatively quickly and efficiently. They set the fire alarm off and nine minutes later the building was completely empty. Last out was Ingvar Johansson, the editor, who made it very clear that he had more important things to do than take part in a fire drill. When the editor-in-chief roared at him over the phone he left his post, albeit under protest.

  The staff remained relatively calm. They had no idea that the bomb in the central sorting office was intended for one of their colleagues, and now they were being offered coffee and sandwiches in the staff canteen of the neighbouring building. As they did so, the police bomb detection squads searched through the newspaper’s premises.

  Anders Schyman suddenly realized that his migraine had vanished. His blood vessels had shrunk to their normal size and the pain had subsided. He was sitting with his secretary and the head telephonist in an office next to the kitchen in the neighbouring building. Getting hold of Annika’s husband was easier said than done. The switchboard at the Association of Local Councils had closed at one o’clock and no one on the paper had Thomas’s office phone number. Nor did anyone know his mobile number. None of the main phone companies had a Thomas Samuelsson living on Hantverkargatan on their books. And Anders Schyman had no idea which nursery the children went to. His secretary was calling all the nurseries within social service district 3, which covered Kungsholmen, asking if the Bengtzon children were there. What she didn’t know was that the nursery never gave out any information about Annika’s children. They weren’t even on the list of phone numbers handed out to other parents. After a series of articles about an organization known only as the Paradise Foundation, Annika had received death threats. Ever since that, she and Thomas had been very careful with their personal details. The nursery staff had obviously been made aware of this, so when Schyman’s secretary phoned she was blithely told that the children weren’t there. Then the manager called Annika on her mobile at once to tell her, but got no answer.

  Anders Schyman could practically taste the metallic tang of stress in his mouth. He asked the head telephonist to try every conceivable number on the Association of Local Councils switchboard, starting from the main public number, then 01, 02, and so on, until she reached someone who could get hold of Thomas. The police already had a patrol waiting outside Annika’s home address. Beyond that, the editor-in-chief didn’t know what he could do. He went over to the police to find out how they were getting on.

  ‘So far we haven’t found anything. We should be done in half an hour or so,’ the officer in charge said.

  Anders Schyman went back to help his secretary call every nursery on Kungsholmen.

  Annika slowly became aware that she was awake. She could hear someone groaning, and realized after a while that it was her making the noise. When she opened her eyes she was struck with a sense of total panic. She was blind. She screamed like someone possessed, opening her eyes as wide as she could against the impenetrable darkness. Her fear multiplied when the only sound that came out was a falsetto croak. The sounds were echoing in the dark, bouncing back like frightened birds against a window, and she suddenly remembered the underground tunnel beneath the Victoria Stadium. She stopped screaming and listened for a minute to her own panic-stricken breathing. She was still in the tunnel. She concentrated on her body, trying to feel if everything was still there, and still working. She started by raising her head, which hurt, but wasn’t obviously injured. She realized that she was lying down, and that whatever she was lying on was relatively soft, probably the mattress she had seen before …

  ‘Beata,’ she whispered.

  She lay still in the darkness. Beata had put her here and had done something to her; that was it. Beata had put a rope round her throat, and now she was gone. Did Beata think she was dead?

  Annika became aware that one of her arms was hurting, the one that was squashed beneath her. When she tried to move it she realized it was tied down. Her hands had been tied behind her back. She was lying on her side with her arms behind her. She tried to lift her legs and found the same thing. They had been tied up as well, not just together, but to the wall alongside. When she moved her legs she realized something else. Her bladder and bowels had emptied themselves of their contents while she was unconscious. The urine was cold and the faeces sticky. She started to cry. What had she done? Why was this happening to her? She cried so hard she was shaking. The tunnel was cold, and her crying seeped out through the cold and into the darkness. She rocked gently on the mattress, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

  I don’t want to, she thought. Don’t want to, don’t want to, don’t want to …

  Anders Schyman was back in his office again, staring out over th
e dark façade of the Russian Embassy. No bomb had been found on the premises. The sun had gone down behind the old tsarist flag, leaving the sky glowing red for a few minutes. The paper’s staff were back at their desks, but only he, his secretary, and the head telephonist knew that the bomb in Klara sorting office had been intended for Annika. Anders Schyman had been given some basic information about the bomb, but all the police knew so far merely proved that the Bomber was a cold-hearted killer.

  The package containing the explosive device had arrived at the sorting office in the Klara district of central Stockholm at 18.50 on Wednesday evening. It had been sent by registered mail from postal district 17 in Stockholm at 16.53. District 17 meant the local post office on Södermannagatan, on Södermalm. Because the package had been registered, it was treated as valuable and had not been picked up by the usual truck, but by a special van that arrived slightly later.

  The brown package hadn’t aroused any particular interest. Stockholm Klara is the largest sorting office in Sweden, on the Klaraberg Viaduct in the middle of the city centre. It occupies eight floors of an entire city block between the City Coach Terminal, the City Hall and the Central Station. One and a half million items pass through its premises every day.

  After it arrived at one of the office’s four loading bays, the package had ended up on the fourth floor with the other registered post. Specially trained staff there dealt with all manner of valuable items.

  Because the Evening Post had its own postcode, notifications of registered mail were sent to the newspaper’s normal postbox. The box was emptied several times each day and the contents driven up to the editorial offices out in Mariaberg on Kungsholmen. The paper’s caretakers were authorized to pick up items needing signatures even though they were addressed to other people at the paper. These were picked up once a day, usually just after lunch.

  On Thursday morning there were a number of registered items in the first post, because of Christmas. The notification of the package addressed to Annika Bengtzon had been one in a pile of others left with the caretakers.