Into a Raging Blaze

by Andreas Norman

  After a brief pause, Magnus said, “MI6’s assessment, which our colleagues at MI5 also share”—he nodded to Wilson—“is that this group has the will to carry out attacks that can damage vital societal functions. They have the ability to carry out an attack against a summit, the ability to damage key political institutions, and pose a direct threat to those participating in the meeting on October 10th. Finally, they have a motive and have plenty of opportunities to carry out attacks during the days of the summit. In short, these individuals pose a threat to national security.”

  “Where are they?” said Wilson in a low voice.

  “We don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “We haven’t been able to locate the individuals physically. Not yet.”

  “Then it’s probably best if you hurry up.”

  “Do we have anything on their method?” someone asked. “Of attack, I mean.”

  The analyst shook his head. “We still don’t know what their course of action will be. But, given they are planning to get close to their targets, some kind of attack. Not in the building, as they appear to be targeting chosen individuals. We don’t know; they may even be planning a bomb attack. It’s most likely that these people”—he pointed at the discussion thread on the screen—“are not the same people who will carry out the actual attack. We are assuming that this group’s task is to gather the necessary information for the planning of an attack. It would be in line with the way many Salafist groups are organized—as a network of isolated cells, where each cell has a specific function and operates without contact with others in the Ahwa group or the people who have been chosen to carry out the attack. Well, you are familiar with the structure.”

  “Suicide bomber?”

  “Or, as I said, a more targeted attack. It’s too early to say.”

  Hamrén got up and thanked the analyst. Magnus sat down.

  “Okay,” said Hamrén, “you know what the deal is. Track them down. Find them. I want names, addresses. Are we watching Badawi?” he said, and received an affirmative murmur in reply. “Good. Report back to Anders and me.” He nodded at the Head of Directed Surveillance. “We’re also receiving reinforcements from London now,” he added, looking at Wilson. “I want you all to cooperate fully with our British colleagues.”

  Everyone got up. On the way out, Bente caught up with Wilson.

  “Roger.”

  He looked at her. “Yes?”

  “That channel.” She fell into step with him.

  “Yes?”

  “Do we have any more on it?”

  “You mean more signals intelligence? At the moment there’s nothing else.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, is there anything else we ought to know?”

  He stopped and looked at her. “What do you want, Bente?”

  “You connect Jamal Badawi and this cell and their attack planning.”

  “Yes?”

  “And Carina Dymek.”

  “Yes. And?”

  “There are a lot of question marks hanging over these connections.”

  “Lots of question marks.” He tasted the words. His lips were drawn into a joyless smile.

  “Yes.”

  “Bente . . .”

  He looked at her with an amused, almost pitiful expression. She thought it was probably the face he used in certain interrogations. It was simultaneously fatherly, caring and judgmental, which in stressful situations, extreme situations, brought about a deep sense of hopelessness in the person being interrogated.

  “There are always lots of question marks,” he said calmly. “What do you want us to do? Should we wait while these Arabs get organized and then hope they don’t carry out their attack?”

  She said nothing, waiting. A stream of people passed without noticing them.

  “You know, Bente, if we had acted more quickly in July 2007, we would have stopped the bombs. A lot of Londoners would still be alive. But we were so preoccupied with question marks. We couldn’t see the threat through all the bloody question marks. If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that innocent people die when people like you and I hesitate. Don’t hesitate.”

  “I didn’t say that we should hesitate. But we need to have good reasons for our actions.”

  “Jamal Badawi is part of a Salafist organization,” he said irritably. “I’m pretty sure he’s building a network—and Dymek is one of the first recruits. The guy is a threat. That’s reason enough for me. London is following this closely. Washington, too. There are a lot of people who want them off this earth. I don’t intend to sit here and wait while the Ahwa group refines its bomb technology.”

  “If we act and it transpires we were mistaken, it’ll be a damn mess.”

  “You sound like a politician.”

  “But am I wrong?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We don’t let this Badawi out of our sight for a second. If he starts to make a move, we’ll grab him. That’s how it is.”

  He made an attempt to move on, but she said quickly, “Who’s Jean Bernier?”

  “Who?” He recognized the name but hadn’t understood who she meant.

  “Jean Bernier,” she repeated. “The man in the picture.”

  “He’s their target. Why are you asking?”

  “Yes, but why him?”

  “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  He looked at her in puzzlement. “Should I? London identified him for me.” He shrugged his shoulders. “He’s a civil servant, someone they want to kidnap, whose head they want to chop off as an example, I suppose. We’ll have to see. Why are you focusing on him? Focus on the Arab and his stupid girlfriend instead.”

  Hamrén appeared.

  Bente had almost pushed Wilson to the edge, almost made him roar. Another ten seconds and she would have had him on the ropes, would have made him say something he probably shouldn’t have, something that showed what London was really thinking. But the moment was gone.

  19

  Stockholm, Monday, October 3

  Medborgarplatsen was deserted on a Monday morning. Only a few early birds on the way to work could be seen hurrying by when Carina came out of the subway station. A cold, drizzling rain had fallen over Stockholm during the early hours of the morning. Droves of pigeons had sought shelter under the benches and ruffled their feathers in the wet, shaking the water from their wings. It was a quarter to seven.

  Early morning was the best time of day to swim because you had the pool to yourself. Routine was important, especially now that she didn’t have a job to go to. She had decided to do forty lengths and then go home and read the top secret documents that Jamal had gotten for her. The papers were in her apartment, waiting.

  The swimming pool was empty apart from three other swimmers who swam silently to and fro in the lanes. Carina slipped into the chlorinated water, dipped her face in, and adjusted her goggles, then looked at the large clock face where the seconds slid by soundlessly. She pressed her heels against the tiles and pushed away from the edge of the pool.

  Standing on the subway on the way home, she only heard too late that her cell was ringing in her pocket; she didn’t manage to answer. It was Johan Eriksson. It surprised her that he was calling at nine on a weekday morning, and from his private cell, but she was happy to have a reason to talk to him. Luckily there was still a signal at this level. He answered right away when she called back.

  “Hi, Carina.”

  The subway car went around a corner in the tunnel; the rails screamed. She covered one ear and pressed the cell harder against the other one.

  “How are you?” he asked. He sounded tense.

  “What can I say? I’m okay. Are you at work?”

  “Yes.” He paused. “Wait a second.”

  She heard him put the phone down, get up, and close the door to his office. Then he was back.

  “Yes,” he said in a more
normal tone of voice. “I thought I would let you know. I don’t know if I should, but . . . I’m doing it anyway.” He stopped, and then said, “The department management had a meeting with Säpo this morning.”

  “Okay?”

  The calm of swimming vanished immediately; worry crept back in. She moved quickly to the middle of the car, where there were fewer people, while she listened to Johan.

  “I found out from Birgitta; a few of us were meant to have a breakfast meeting, but Birgitta called and said it was canceled because of an urgent meeting with Säpo. I went over to talk to her and she wasn’t really allowed to say anything because it was about you—pretty serious stuff. Apparently they’re going to take your case further.”

  “Further?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “Further in what way?”

  He didn’t know. “The police were in here and emptied your office the other day. They took the computer and everything—a clean sweep.” He hesitated. “You knew that, right?”

  She swallowed. No, she hadn’t heard that. And he was sure it was Säpo?

  “They came out of the meeting a little while ago and I’m almost one hundred percent that it was the Head of the Counterterrorism branch who passed by in the corridor. What’s he called? Hallén? No, Hamrén.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “I thought you should know,” he said when she didn’t say anything.

  “I’m glad you called.” She looked around the car. Take her case further? Presumably some sort of investigation. They had emptied her office, so they were gathering evidence; the question was what the next step would be. She clenched her teeth and tried to stop the chill creeping along her spine.

  Cupping her hand around her mouth, she said in a low voice, “What if they decide to arrest me?”

  Johan sounded hesitant when he replied that he wasn’t sure what she should do. The tone in his voice frightened her. For the first time since this had all begun, she was truly afraid; his voice was so lackluster, so quiet, he didn’t sound at all like the cheerful Johan who could always find a solution. “I really don’t know, Carina.”

  At home, she threw her swimming bag on the hall floor and opened the living room window. The fresh air surged through the apartment. The street below was empty; no one was visible—just parked cars by the pavements—nothing conspicuous. The anxiety made it hard to think. She had never imagined that the Security Service would be brought in; it meant they were taking what had happened extremely seriously. She didn’t know how Säpo worked, not really; she could only guess. Perhaps it was the contact, the man in Brussels, who was the real problem? Or the report should not have been shared—not even within the Government Offices? The Security Service would take her case forward and she had no idea what that meant. They wouldn’t believe her. Not if the department management team didn’t believe her. She wasn’t part of the House, not really. She hadn’t taken the diplomat course; she was an upstart. They would never listen to her. She stood at the window until her arms were freezing. There was still no one visible on the street below.

  Sitting on the sofa with a cup of coffee, she slowly turned the pages of the documents that Jamal had gotten for her. There were three short memos, all from the Ministry of Justice. She had asked Jamal what they were about, but he hadn’t read them. She understood why—he wasn’t really authorized to handle them. It had been a stroke of luck that Jamal had even managed to get the documents from the archives. Someone must have made a mistake. She couldn’t involve him any further; he was already noted in the archive records as the person who had signed out the documents—that was enough.

  The first memo was a record of a meeting held in Noordwijk, in the Netherlands, in June 2010. Ministers from all twenty-seven EU members had gathered at a spa hotel in the town and discussed a British proposal to reinforce Europe’s fight against terrorism. The meeting was completely informal, it said in the report. The newly appointed British home secretary, Theresa May, was present. The atmosphere was good. She read on:

  The meeting was led by Great Britain’s representative, Theresa May, who opened proceedings with a speech (see attached doc) about the British efforts to prevent and fight terrorism. May emphasized that the European Union now had a unique opportunity to become a key player in the fight against terror and organized crime. These threats were, by their very nature, global, and required a coordinated response to a far higher degree than was currently the case. The string of terrorist threats facing Europe showed how welcome and necessary such a reform was. The EU’s Counterterrorism Coordinator, Gilles de Kerchove, praised the British initiative. It was a new level of European cooperation and a natural development of the Swedish initiative for improved exchanges of information and border controls that had been brought in under Commissioner Malmström. De Kerchove was of the opinion that it was possible to create “sharper European resources” that took better advantage of Europe’s overall capacity to combat terrorism. “The threats are many. We shall face them as one.”

  Three pages followed, with a detailed description of the meeting. Several member states—Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands—all supported the Brits, while France was more hesitant. Spain wanted to know more about how the coordination of operations and intelligence work abroad would function. Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and a few other eastern member states wanted assurances that the cooperation would not rule out bilateral contacts with the Americans. The overall impression, it said in the report, was that the EU sphere saw the British initiative in a positive light. A short comment concluded the report:

  The opportunity to operate transnationally, arrest and transport suspects, the use of lethal force, secret operations, etc. requires a number of changes to Swedish law. Given the political sensitivity, this demands the greatest caution in dealings with parliament and other authorities. The proposal also suggests that the EIS should have the right to conduct signals intelligence, using national resources, without explicit permission. This will require amendments to the so-called FRA laws and is technically complex. However, the Ministry of Justice is of the opinion that the British proposal is a natural development of the surveillance of data traffic already being carried out today. Proposals for a “sharp” resource as part of the EU’s counterterrorism operations should be welcomed.

  A number of changes to Swedish law. Carina found herself staring across the room. This couldn’t be right. She read the text aloud to be sure she had understood it correctly. Without further authorization, without asking permission, using lethal force, carrying out secret operations, and cooperating with the FRA to use the data and surveillance resources of the authorities. Without having to ask parliament, without having to ask anyone at all except a small operational unit in the Government Offices.

  At the back were two appendices: de Kerchove’s speech in full and a list. The list was classified as top secret—for the protection of national security. It comprised fifty-four names, all numbered, presented in a long column. She read through them slowly; there was no Jean. Next to each name was the name of the organization to which they belonged. There were names listed for Sweden and, next to them, in parentheses, it said, Security Service, MUST, and the National Center for Terrorist Threat Assessment—NCT, respectively.

  Security services. It was a list of contacts for a spy network within the EU. It merely confirmed what she had read in the report, but here it all was in black and white: a kind of European CIA with black ops, signals intelligence, all the apparatus required for an international spy organization.

  Together with the other documents, there was one with the title Annex. It was some kind of legal agreement, which opened the way for potential cooperation. The text was extremely technical and referred to a number of international agreements on crime prevention, the Hague Convention, and other EU legislation. If she understood correctly, the agreement opened the way for foreign military and police to operate on European soil, but she wasn’t sure. She would let
Jamal read it; perhaps he would be able to explain it in more depth.

  The final document was just a letter-headed page of A4 paper with the title Guidelines for contacts with parliament and other authorities:

  All contact with parliament shall be kept to a minimum due to the sensitivity of the issue. The matter should not become known to any ministries except for the Ministry of Defense, the MFA, and the Ministry of Justice, and even within these ministries the information should only be shared with a very restricted, narrow group of people who are directly affected. Contact with other authorities concerning the matter, such as the Migration Board or the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, should only occur based upon the decision of the political leadership (justice minister or junior minister). As a rule, all such contact should be handled by the Security Service. Communication by e-mail or phone concerning the EIS should be, as far as is possible, kept to a minimum. Contact with the EU should take place informally in order to avoid the involvement of parliament.