“Okay. What does Stockholm say?”
“The government will assemble for an extraordinary meeting. They’re going into crisis mode now. The Junior Ministers’ group meets at seven o’clock,” said Mikael. “It’s all about damage limitation, of course. We’ve received a request from the Government Offices for crisis management. They’ve asked us to listen in on what’s being said unofficially at the Commission and how other EU countries are positioning themselves. They’re providing the Prime Minister with updates every hour and need to be one step ahead. The justice minister also needs to be able to say the right things when she speaks to the media. She has a press conference at ten o’clock”—he looked at the time—“in precisely three hours and twenty minutes.”
That wasn’t much time to find anything of value through signals intelligence, but it couldn’t be helped. She beckoned to the Head of Signals Intelligence. “Göran, you have three hours, then we have to report to Stockholm.” She thought quickly. “Target key people in the Commission. Manservisi, and the heads of the various departments that handled the EIS proposal. Priebe, de Almeida. You know who I mean, Mikael.”
Mikael mumbled a yes. Göran, the Head of Signals Intelligence, also nodded, although he probably didn’t have a clue. He had a better idea of who the various underlings in Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaida in the Sahel were, rather than who all the political commissars in the EU bureaucracy were.
“Try to get into their cells and iPads; we need to know what they’re talking about. Then I want to get into the Brits’ system. Their permanent delegation is vulnerable, so start there. We need to know what their military attaché is saying. They probably have some assistant with a crap password you can use. Priority number two is the French and Spanish EU reps, and the same goes for them: everything being said about intelligence collaboration is of interest. If we have time, try the Americans too—Kennard and his deputy, White. If that’s heavily encrypted then forget it; we can check them out later. Okay, I think that’s everything. Are there any prominent EU parliamentarians we ought to keep an eye on?” She turned to Mikael.
“Maybe some of the characters involved in intelligence matters, like the delegates on the LIBE Committee.”
“Okay. Mikael has the names,” she said to Göran. “Report back to me in an hour.”
She went to one of the analysts and asked him to give her an overview of the media situation. The young man was new at the Section, clever, had worked on open-source projects at MUST, the Swedish Military Intelligence and Security Service. He provided her with a situation report so quickly she couldn’t help but smile. He was anxious to show her his abilities—she was his boss. Bente liked that.
The analyst brought up a number of windows on his screen and pointed. The news had, as they already knew, appeared on the Guardian’s website at four forty-five, and they were probably preparing a larger spread for their print edition. The BBC had been the first to pick up on it on TV. It was included in the first news roundup of their morning show, BBC Breakfast, which was currently going out live. The angle had been British: the British government had tried to establish a secret European CIA without the approval of parliament. That some of the documents were Swedish was mostly mentioned only in passing. Some of the larger blogs had already brought up EIS and described it as an enormous scandal; several stated that the home secretary, and possibly others, would have to resign. Around ten British parliamentarians, both Tory and Labor, had already tweeted about it.
“They’re calling EIS”—the analyst brought up another page—“a monster . . . a grotesque violation . . . an idea worthy of a dictatorship. And so on.”
Just a few minutes earlier, the British Home Office had released a statement to the press that emphasized the importance of increased cooperation with Europe in the fight against terror. He brought up the British website. Theresa May was to hold a press conference at twelve o’clock.
“She’s a dead woman walking,” Bente interrupted him. “Carry on, what do the others say?”
After the Guardian, several other British dailies had published the news on their websites: the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, the Sun. More and longer articles could be expected to appear during the day. France24 already had a report about the leak. Deutsche Welle and several German radio stations had mentioned EIS in their early bulletins.
“And the Swedish media?”
“The Daily Echo radio show had it in their five o’clock bulletin, in brief, and will probably expand it for their seven o’clock bulletin. It’s on their website.” He showed her. Secret spy network in Europe uncovered. Out of the Swedish papers, Expressen had splashed the news first, surprisingly high up their homepage: DEATH PATROLS HUNTING TERRORISTS IN SWEDEN. GOVERNMENT HID SECRET PROGRAM. PARLIAMENT IN THE THE DARK. “This is unheard of,” Peter Eriksson, chairman of the standing committee on the constitution was quoted as saying—apparently, they had managed to get hold of him. Bente glanced through the article. It was basically a rehashed version of the Guardian’s story, but with a greater focus on the government giving the green light for foreign armies to fight terrorism in Sweden, while keeping parliament in the dark.
It was already a few minutes before seven. Everything was still in its infancy. But when the editorial and news teams sat down for their morning meetings at eight or nine European time, it would get going in earnest. In six hours’ time, the American eastern seaboard would be waking up to a new day, and then the American news channels would also pick up the story. NBC, CBS, Fox, radio stations, political blogs. What was now a mere murmur would grow into an ear-deafening roar and spread around the globe as each continent began a new day. Perhaps the analyst had thought the same thing, because he brought up Al Jazeera. They had the story in their morning news bulletin and a short article was on their English-language website. CNN had also included a brief segment on World Report at six o’clock European time, and would probably develop the story for their eleven o’clock bulletin. Reuters, AP, and TT of Sweden had all had the story as their main headline for hours.
The government’s website gave no indication of a crisis, apart from the dry press release about the Ministry of Justice press conference. However, the EIS leak was the fastest-spreading story of the day in the flood of Swedish tweets, said the analyst. Comments and links were beginning to gather under the hashtag #bigbrotherstate. The Guardian’s article and the Expressen article were spreading fast. It was worth noting that several Swedish MPs had already outlined their thoughts on the story in writing via their blogs. Bente read quickly, hanging over the analyst’s shoulder while he brought up new pages. Several opposition politicians had commented on the leak, she saw. Someone demanded a vote of no confidence in the government; another wanted the resignation of the justice minister.
She stretched. “Good. Text me all the big stories for the rest of the day.” She gave him her number. “Interviews with the government. Press conferences. Focus on TV and radio, and the big guns.”
She looked around. A concentrated calm lay across the room. The analysts were at their desks around her. The technicians in Signals Intelligence had disappeared into the adjoining room to get to work. The rattle of keyboards and the murmur of voices from the news channels on the screens filled the room. The Section had started work. On this Tuesday, governments around Europe would be under attack, ministers would wake up to their last day in the job, civil servants’ heads would roll, and an intelligence partnership, painstakingly worked toward for many years by the British and twenty or so other countries, would be torn to shreds. Yet Bente still felt remarkably calm and unaffected. EIS would die, as so many proposals like it had done before. It didn’t bother her. There would be new proposals. But SSI would come out of this mess smelling of roses, unlike Counterterrorism back home in Stockholm, she reflected with a smile as she headed toward her office. Hamrén would have a lot of explaining to do.
She shut the door to her office and turned on the computer, glanced through her e-mails and s
aw that Hamrén had written to her. The tone was rushed and the message brief. He wanted to talk to her; could she call him as soon as possible? She snorted; she would leave him to sweat. She lifted the receiver, but didn’t dial Hamrén’s number—instead, she called the only person at the Security Service who would be in a good mood this morning.
A familiar, dry voice answered the phone: “Kempell.”
“Good morning, Gustav. How are you?”
“Fine, thanks.” Kempell was, of course, not in a good mood at all, but sounded his usual, reserved self. Since he was Gustav Kempell, he hadn’t allowed himself to revel in the vain intoxication of having been right all along. “We have a big cleanup ahead of us.”
Counterespionage had launched an investigation against the British to smoke out their operatives and discover what had really happened in their contact with Counterterrorism. They had to find out how deep MI6’s disinformation had penetrated the Swedish system and then secure all sources: a major cleanup.
“What’s Hamrén say?”
“I haven’t spoken to him. I think he’s rather preoccupied.”
For a short moment, Bente thought she heard a tone of satisfaction in his voice, as if he was smiling. But maybe she was imagining it.
“I’m just wondering, given the turn things have now taken, what we should do about the investigation—the material. Hamrén asked me to go through everything we had on Badawi—”
“You can forget about that,” Kempell interrupted her. “It’s no longer relevant. There’s nothing the Brits have given us that will support charges against Badawi.”
“No; okay.”
“We’re going to release him today. Naturally, we’ll continue to keep an eye on the young man, just for safety’s sake. His name turned up in the margins when we looked into the leak to the Guardian, but nothing more than that. I’m mostly curious to see whether the British will contact him.”
“What do the Brits say?”
“To be quite honest, I don’t care what they say,” said Kempell. “But MI6 informed the British prime minister yesterday evening, and elements of the MOD and home office have been in crisis meetings ever since. According to our sources, MI6 spent a number of hours considering whether to send in resources to—as they put it—neutralize Dymek.”
“Seriously?”
“Apparently they had second thoughts,” said Kempell, unperturbed. “Dymek has been ruled out of their inquiries. They don’t need any more problems. They’ve also contacted us and stated that they would prefer it if the entire investigation was shut down. They presumably don’t want to make a bad situation worse by having Dymek sing like a bird in court.”
Bente snorted. No, obviously not. She thought about Green and what he had said about Jean Bernier, that things like that sometimes happened—regrettable things. Dymek would never know how close she had been to ending up a regrettable corpse in a ditch outside Cairo. But the last thing MI6 needed now was another dead body they’d have to explain away.
“Although, she’s still a problem, Dymek.”
“Yes . . . In what way?”
Kempell sighed. “I mean that she’s likely to have committed a breach of secrecy—of the more serious kind. We could probably dig up proof that she was behind the leak to the Guardian . . .” He stopped.
“But?”
“The question is, Bente, do we want a trial?” He cleared his throat. “Do you understand where this is going? If it ends up in court, everything will come out. The Brits hoodwinked us—that’s a fact—and we’ll not be able to hide it if Dymek ends up in court. Believe you me, it won’t be about a leak then; it’ll be about how Sweden’s Security Service let themselves be fooled like a bunch of village idiots. The service will be dragged through the mud.”
“Probably, yes.”
“Probability of one hundred percent, I reckon. Our partners will never look at us in the same way again. It would destroy our service. I’m not going to let that happen.”
Kempell was right. A trial would be too public.
“So what do we do?”
“The Prosecution Authority wants our assessment about how much damage the leak has caused, and if there are grounds for a prosecution. We can formulate it so that there’s insufficient technical evidence for the investigation to proceed.”
“And that would be enough?” It almost sounded too easy.
“Perhaps. The fact is—it’s true. We’ve got jack shit that will stand up in court. We have a bit more on Badawi; his name is tied to three of the leaked documents. There’s a risk that the prosecutor will decide to go to trial. There’s not much to go on, but you never know.”
“We have to talk to Dymek.”
“Yes. She’s done enough damage. Can you talk to her?”
“Me?” Bente balked. She wanted to say no, but reluctantly realized that Kempell had a point. The Section was smaller and more secret than the Security Service; they could operate outside of Sweden without anyone noticing. Maybe they could reach Dymek before anyone else did. And the only person who had any chance of getting Dymek to listen was her. A minimal chance, but it was enough.
“Okay.” She looked out of the window. The day was dawning; a pale golden glow hovered above the rooftops. “Give me an address.”
“She’s not in Cairo any longer.”
“Then where is she?”
“Sorry, I thought you knew. She’s on the way back to Sweden. Bought an expensive first-class ticket yesterday. I imagine she’s probably in a hurry to get home.” She heard Kempell turn some pages. “Dymek flew out of Cairo at ten past three this morning on Lufthansa. Landed at Frankfurt . . . not long ago. Fifteen minutes ago. Her flight to Arlanda is in four hours: five minutes past twelve. Flight LH2414.”
49
Frankfurt, Tuesday, October 11
It was just a normal day at Frankfurt Airport. The expansive departing passenger areas in Terminal 1 were bathed in bright sunlight. Bente squinted; there were thousands of people passing through on their way to their final destinations, and somewhere among them was Carina Dymek. It would be difficult to find her in time.
She stopped by a television monitor and squinted at it. There: Stockholm, five past twelve, gate A16. Barely an hour until boarding.
She had received two text messages when she turned on her cell, both media updates from the analyst at the Section. The justice minister’s press conference had gone badly. It had been short; the minister had been on the defensive and had aggressively defended the EIS and the government’s decision to keep the entire process secret from the beginning because it affected national security. Everyone knew that didn’t hold water. The assessment was that a bandwagon was rapidly gaining traction. There was a video clip from the press conference; Bente didn’t have time to watch it now, but the first, frozen still from the video was a picture of the minister, staring into space, with a stressed expression on her face. She had probably been standing in front of a hundred journalists, gathered there as the fourth estate to pass judgment on her—an already-gone minister. The other text message contained statements from politicians. The opposition had demanded a vote of no confidence in the government. Several press releases had used the same language. Even some conservative politicians were strongly critical and wanted to see a review of the entire EIS project. The government was now fighting for its political life. At the bottom of the message was a list of URLs to foreign media, focusing on the British government; she didn’t have time to look at those, either. She called Mikael.
“I’m here. How’s it going?”
“We’re working on it,” said Mikael. “Maybe in half an hour . . .”
There hadn’t been time to prepare the tactical support that was the norm during these kinds of operations. No targeted surveillance; no tracking of Dymek’s phone; no resources in situ to locate and follow the target. At the Section, her technicians were currently frenetically trying to hack into Frankfurt’s networks to access their closed-circuit cameras. But, even
if everything went perfectly, intrusions like that could take a day to execute; an airport like Frankfurt had security on its computer systems that was practically up to military standards. One single mistake, one single careless attempt to introduce a virus or open a secret door might make the firewalls flare up. She knew that and couldn’t demand the impossible. She would have liked to have the cell team with her, but the flights had all been full that morning. There had only been one available seat on a sufficiently early departure from Brussels. There was no point sending people in on later flights or leasing a private jet—by the time they arrived, Dymek would be in the air. Bente was on her own in one of the world’s largest airports.
She had to be systematic. The airport was like a small city; the distances were enormous. If she made a bad decision and ended up in the wrong part of the airport, she wouldn’t get a second chance to find Dymek. But this was what she was trained for and had spent a large part of her professional life doing: tracking and following people, gathering information about them, understanding their behavior and motives.
She would find Dymek.
She looked across the concourse. She was in Area B, a long pier stretching out from Terminal 1’s main hub that tied together all the gates. Dymek’s flight would depart from Area A. At least she was in the same terminal; she wouldn’t have stood a chance if she had needed to take one of the shuttle buses between the terminal buildings. Bente tried to visualize Dymek’s state of mind. She had flown out of Cairo late at night. She had probably seen the news and, as soon as she had found out what had happened, had thrown herself on the first plane she could to be close to Badawi. Now she had to wait at Frankfurt for four hours—undoubtedly an anxious wait. Getting home was all that mattered to her. She would have had to re-clear security before her next flight. It was unlikely she would have stayed at her arrival gate. Most probably she wasn’t nearby the gate for the Stockholm flight, but she would turn up with plenty of time to spare.
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