Into a Raging Blaze

by Andreas Norman

  Mikael looked at her. She had his attention now.

  “Green was worried about the leak—genuinely concerned. Then Wilson turns up in Stockholm and suddenly we have a terrorist threat on our hands. I think . . .” she said and stopped herself. What she was about to say surprised even her.

  “I think,” she said slowly, “that the Brits began to invent a story after my meeting with Green. They were worried about the report. Bernier was a vocal opponent of EIS and the entire report prepared by the Commission. He gave it to Dymek. Then something happened, something that forced them to change tactics. So they began inventing. You know they’re the masters of deceptive operations, Mikael. They can do disinformation—they’re almost as good as the Russians at it. And a rule of thumb is that, once you’ve begun to make up a lie, you have to stick to it. The Brits invented something and now they have to keep going with it. Think, Mikael,” she said with emphasis. “Apart from the letter from Akim Badawi, what intelligence do we actually have about this mythical movement within the Muslim Brotherhood? What do we actually have that we didn’t hear from the British first?”

  “We’ve got lots of data,” Mikael burst out. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  “But apart from the letter?” she said calmly. “Do we have anything that stands up by itself, without the Brits?”

  Mikael made an attempt to protest. His face was tense; he was staring out of the window, as if he was looking for something to say that would fob her off. She knew he appreciated the British and the mere thought that they had provided them with intelligence that had been fabricated was humiliating. They were SSI; they ought to be in control. No one wanted to feel cheated. She knew Mikael—he hated losing.

  “I just meant the British are controlling our analysis,” she continued. “I don’t trust them. They’re holding things back.”

  “So does everyone.”

  “They’re lying to us.”

  “How do we know?” he exclaimed. “Their intelligence makes sense.”

  “You know it doesn’t, Mikael.”

  “It’s plausible . . .”

  “We only have what the British have told us. Nothing else,” she hissed. “We don’t have a chance of checking whether what they have said is actually true.”

  He raised his hands in a gesture: I give up.

  “Listen,” she said. “Our entire case is built on British intelligence. We’re being drip-fed, constantly. And we acknowledge that they’re running the investigation. We had a case together with Kempell. A leak—a job for Counterespionage. But then Wilson turned up, gave us the letter, gave us an elegant analysis and directed the investigation to Counterterrorism. Then we found Bernier, and—abracadabra—they suddenly declare that Bernier, about whom they had initially told us they knew nothing, must be a target for a terrorist attack. The IRC channel is linked to the Ahwa group—a link which no one else can confirm. It comes at a convenient moment and explains everything. They’re filling in our horizon, Mikael. They don’t want us to see anything.”

  “Yes, but what would that be?” he burst out. “What?”

  “I don’t know. It’s normally you who is the skeptic. They’re lying about Jean Bernier. And I wonder which other facts they have adjusted. It’s something you should be asking too.”

  “I have asked myself that.”

  “Oh, really?”

  She regretted her quip and fell silent. He was listening now, she noticed. He was thinking outside the box, saw what she saw. Some of what she had said was slowly sinking in. Mikael continued to stare out of the window, as if focusing on a small dot far away across the roofs. She looked at him. He had clearly not given any thought to the things she had just brought up. Presumably it was all too much, even for an analytical and quick-witted person like Mikael. He was defensive because he couldn’t bear to rip apart his assessments, see everything through fresh eyes. She waited while he stood motionless, looking through the window.

  Finally he said, “And Badawi?”

  “He’s a question mark.”

  A question mark. Yes, that was right. She wasn’t sure about him. There was evidence—e-mails between him and the uncle in Cairo. There was a connection to the Muslim Brotherhood there, just like the British had said. It couldn’t be denied. At the same time, the Ministry of Justice had checked him out when he had been appointed. His background was spotless; he was a talented civil servant. But, as the Brits said, an Arab background . . . There might be a loyalty to militant groups they hadn’t discovered.

  Mikael looked at her. “And Dymek—the leak. Is that made up too?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “So what do you think?”

  She pretended not to hear his sharp tone—didn’t let him provoke her. “The leak is genuine.”

  Dymek received the report and had distributed it: that was true; it was proven; it was real. But how much of that was down to Badawi, or to do with a radical element of the Muslim Brotherhood was unclear. Perhaps there was a connection; perhaps there was nothing there at all.

  Mikael began to pace up and down the room. He tried to protest. She interrupted him.

  “Of course, of course. MI6 had intelligence that clearly indicated they were all nodes in a terrorist network. But they had lied about Jean Bernier. And why would someone like Dymek have anything to do with an Islamist group? It didn’t make sense. So the question instead was . . .” She stopped herself, because she hadn’t had time to pose it to herself yet.

  “The question is, what aren’t they telling us? What do they want us to believe?”

  “But . . .” He stopped short, shook his head and began to laugh. He looked at her with an odd smile, as if trying to say that she was amusing him with her madcap theories, but now she had gone too far. A weak ray of sun struck through the cloud cover that lay across the city outside.

  She said quietly, “So how do you explain this annex?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t understand what she meant.

  “Jean Bernier gave this document to his most junior colleague,” she said, as she pulled the papers out of the envelope. She hadn’t even had time to look at them. “A stagiaire, for God’s sake. Completely wet behind the ears. He can’t have trusted any of his other colleagues. He was quite clearly an opponent of the annex. The British wanted it included in the EIS proposal, but he was against it. Perhaps he was the only one who really was. And now he’s dead.”

  “Due to natural causes.”

  She smiled coolly at him. “Not even you believe that.”

  Mikael shrugged his shoulders.

  She remained seated while Mikael left the office. He seemed depressed and anxious. She had thought better of him, that he might be able to suffer greater disappointments. It was at times like this that you saw what made people tick, and Mikael was clearly a little too impressed by the British. Admiration like that shook your judgment. The British weren’t friends; they were an old imperial power trying to remain in pole position. She had no illusions about Her Majesty’s Government, as they liked to call themselves. That Mikael didn’t see things as she did disappointed her.

  Out in the large command room, everyone had fallen silent. She heard Mikael hand out orders, assignments. All British material connected to the Dymek/Ahwa case was to be reviewed. As far as possible, they were to trace all sources, verify and test all data one more time. There was no other way. They needed to know. Counterterrorism in Stockholm needed to be certain before sending in a task force, before Wilson and his hunters got an order from London, before lives were destroyed. It was her responsibility as Head of SSI to present a clear picture of reality.

  Three days until the summit meeting. Verifying intelligence of this kind in such a short period was an almost hopeless task. But that was the situation. They would contact the other services, the Danes, the German Verfassungsschutz, the French DGSE, the various Spanish services. Something would turn up.

  She opened the envelope the
y had been given by Florian Klause, pulled out the papers and glanced through them. The document was just five pages long, but written in impenetrable EU Commission prose. It was a draft legal text. It was about security, about some form of judicial cooperation between countries, but it was so dense and technically written that she kept stumbling over the sentences. She quickly reread the text, but still didn’t manage to work out what it actually said; she couldn’t understand the contents of the text. The margins were full of notes written in red ink—probably Jean Bernier’s notes. In several places there were just question marks or exclamation marks. Completely unacceptable! Jean Bernier had written next to one paragraph.

  She got up heavily. She could sleep for a week. She rooted around for her car keys and cell and stretched so much that her back creaked. She put the annex document back into the envelope, folded it in half and put it in her inside pocket, reaching for her coat as she left the room and headed to the exit. Mikael watched her go. Perhaps he was wondering where she going, but that was none of his business. She nodded at him, as if in benediction. It was time for her to meet an old friend.

  35

  Leiden–Brussels, Friday, October 7

  Leiden was just a two-hour drive north on the E19, but Bente hadn’t been there for over a year. She used to come here more often, before she and Fredrik had children. She loved the old-world atmosphere the Dutch university town exuded, the beautiful professors’ houses along the canal, and the pleasant, winding streets and squares, with their old-fashioned stone-built houses. She could still remember when she had been there as an exchange student, decades ago. Leiden had a tranquil, carefree air about it, as if the town really was a haven from the stupidity and narrow-mindedness of the world. The university had been there since the sixteenth century and was proud of its heritage as a defender of religious freedoms and the freedom of thought. Presidium Libertatis—the stronghold of liberty. It was fortunate that there were any left in the world.

  Students swarmed past her on the wide stone steps. The Faculty of Law was located in a heavy, beautiful building in classical style, with marble pillars and symmetrical rows of white mullioned windows. Perhaps she should have become an academic. Or perhaps not, given how often she had fallen asleep during lectures. But she had enjoyed the courses in international law. She had thought about becoming a lawyer and working on the big questions surrounding international law, working at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. She could smile about it now. Reality had demanded other things of her, an income for her children. She probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the academic environment; she was no theoretician.

  Afternoon lectures had just ended and young people streamed through the corridors. She found her way to the room where Professor Willem De Vries had just delivered a lecture about international humanitarian law. The students were on their way out and passed her in small groups with their notebooks and cell phones. She peeked through the doorway. By the podium was a tall, blond man surrounded by a group of students, lingering to speak to their lecturer. She recognized his rich, friendly laugh. She had heard it many times before and knew how it could grow into a roar when he thought something was especially funny or uncommonly stupid. She watched him while he finished talking to his students. He was a handsome man.

  “Hello, Willem.”

  The last students had squeezed past her in the doorway. Professor De Vries was alone at the lectern, lost in thought. When she entered the room, he looked up from his papers absently. It actually seemed as though he didn’t recognize her. Then he laughed and boomed, “Bente! What a pleasant surprise!”

  He came to her and kissed her on both cheeks.

  “What are you doing in Leiden? I thought you were in Stockholm.”

  “I’ve moved. I’m in Brussels these days.”

  “And still defending our open, democratic society, I take it.”

  She smiled. “Something like that. That’s actually partly why I’ve come here.”

  He nodded, became slightly more serious.

  “The fact is that I came to see you.”

  “Well, it’s been a long time since we met,” he said and smiled at her warmly. “I have no more lectures today. If you have no objection, we can go back to my place. I live nearby.”

  They left the room together and walked out toward a side entrance while talking about what had happened since they last met. She had moved to Brussels, got a job there. He was tactful enough not to ask what it was. He knew how it worked in her business. He had worked in the Hague for several years as a legal expert at the ICC, but now he was back in Leiden and had a professorial chair.

  “It’s nice. A little sleepy, though.” He laughed.

  Willem De Vries was one of the world’s leading experts on the rules of war—or international humanitarian law, as it was called in his circles. He had been Head of the Legal Secretariat at the UN in New York, one of the big hitters inside the UN that had spoken out against the US invasion of Iraq. He still looked good—the same easygoing, intelligent man she had fallen in love with as he lectured over twenty years ago as young, brilliant PhD researcher. They had stayed in touch. He was one of the few men she sometimes wondered what it would have been like to share her life with. Naturally, nothing had ever happened between them. But when she started at Counterterrorism, she had gotten in touch with him when she needed an independent assessment of certain complex legal matters. Willem De Vries had an instinctive feel for the nuances of international law, and he was incorruptible. She had never met a person with such integrity, such an ability to see the letter of the law.

  They walked together through the heart of the town, along the winding pedestrian mall alongside the canal, until they reached one of the larger villas—a big, beautiful brick-built house with views over a small park, situated in the bend of the watercourse. He opened the gate to a messy garden, overgrown with scrubby rose bushes, honeysuckle, and vines behind a dense box hedge that prevented anyone from seeing in. She followed him up the garden path and into the house.

  She waited in the living room while he moved around the house, turning on lights and preparing coffee. The walls were covered in bookcases; thousands upon thousands of book spines faced toward her. There was something impressive about this quantity of different titles that she had never heard of. Here and there were books she recognized, a few classics, and an almost exhausting amount of specialist literature. So much knowledge gathered between the covers of books, probably already dated. As a practitioner, she had never had any great need for legal textbooks after her studies.

  Willem reappeared holding a tray with a pot of coffee, cups, cream, and a plate of small chocolates. Was she was hungry? he inquired. He could make some sandwiches. No, she wasn’t hungry.

  The aroma of the strong, well-brewed coffee filled the room. Here, among all these books, she relaxed. It was good to see him again. She wished she was here for a more pleasant reason.

  “It’s been a long time,” he said.

  “Yes. You haven’t changed a bit.”

  He smiled.

  She drank the coffee and looked around the room. It was so peaceful here. She really wanted to talk to him—as Bente. Ask about his research, how his years in New York had been. But there was no point postponing the real reason she had looked him up. She got out the envelope, straightened it, and pulled out the papers. He looked calmly at her and then the envelope. This, she said slowly, was top secret material. She had come here unbeknownst to anyone else because she needed his assessment.

  “I want you to read this and tell me what you think the text means.”

  She passed over the five pages. No, she couldn’t tell him what it was about. She just wanted him to read it and give his interpretation of the text. He shrugged his shoulders and took the document with an amused but quizzical expression. He got out a small pair of spectacles and leaned back.

  While Willem read, she went outside. The weather was mild and it felt pleasant to wander around the unkempt ga
rden. Apparently her former lecturer liked to cultivate herbs because there was a small corner filled with fragrant shrubs. She rubbed a few silver-white leaves between her fingers: sage. Then it occurred to her that perhaps it was De Vries’s wife who gardened; Bente didn’t even know if he was married. She looked over her shoulder: Willem was hunched over the document, reading in concentration.

  Her cell vibrated in her pocket.

  Carina Dymek is in Brussels. Landed 09:51. Staying at Radisson, Rue d’Idalie. Action?

  So she was in Brussels. Why hadn’t she found out about that? Hamrén should have notified her. She looked at her watch: almost four. Nearly six hours. She swore silently and wrote a quick reply: Follow her. No intervention. Keep me informed.

  She stood for a brief moment and stared into space while gathering her thoughts, so she didn’t notice that Willem had finished reading and was looking at her seriously.

  “Bente.”

  She put away her cell and returned inside. “Yes?”

  “I’m just wondering, does this exist? I mean, is this going to become reality?” He tapped the paper with his finger. Then, when he noticed her hesitation, he made a dismissive gesture. “You don’t have to answer. It’s just that . . .” He shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what he had just read. “If this is an excerpt from an EU decision, which it appears to be, then it’s . . . extremely radical.”

  “In what way?”

  He wasn’t listening. He had picked up the annex and was grimly rereading it.

  “What is a ‘strike team’?”

  “Where does it say that?”

  “Here.” He pointed at a footnote.

  She knew what a strike team was. It was what the Americans called their special forces, used to eliminate high-value targets—like bin Laden. Since the American administration had forced the CIA to close its secret prisons, American counterterrorism had moved into targeted operations, using lethal force. Of course, some prisons were still left, but there were fewer of them and the ones that remained were more secret than ever. She leaned over his shoulder and read the document.