“Sacrilege!” a man in the front row suddenly shouted, and the whole room tried to see who it was.
Sören Hammarsten pretended not to have heard him.
“And no matter how difficult it might feel today,” he said, “it is our duty to look ahead. That is what Caroline would have wanted. For that reason we must all continue working for the future, for Caroline’s sake, and in the spirit of Alfred Nobel …”
“You’re betraying Nobel’s memory!” the man in the front row shouted again. “You’re playing at being God and exploiting Alfred Nobel’s testament to justify your own egotistical ambitions.”
Sören Hammarsten leaned toward the microphone, his bald spot glinting in the beam of a spotlight.
“Lars-Henry,” he said. “If you can’t keep your objections to yourself, I shall have to ask you to leave the room.”
The noisy man responded by standing up. He shook his fist toward the podium, his voice rising to a falsetto.
“Nemesis!” he shouted. “You ought to watch out! Nemesis has already struck, and she will strike again!”
“And who do we have here?” Bosse asked, and Annika leaned toward him as she replied.
“I think his name is Lars-Henry Svensson—he’s a professor and a member of the Nobel Assembly. He wrote a rather confused opinion piece for us on Saturday.”
“Divine retribution!” Lars-Henry Svensson cried. “Nemesis, you have truly challenged her!”
“Security,” Sören Hammarsten said into the microphone. “Can we have security to the Wallenberg Room …”
The narrow door flew open and a whole battery of dark suits streamed into the room.
The third man up on the stage leaned back in his chair, unable to conceal an amused smile. He was, apparently, Bernhard Thorell, MD, of Medi-Tec Group Ltd., and he was considerably younger than the other men. He might have been in his forties, and looked completely different: suntanned, in good shape, wearing a dark Italian suit.
“Nobel’s testament is inviolable!” Lars-Henry Svensson cried. “Yet we still break it, over and over again. And Nemesis, his final wish, we keep that well hidden …”
Everyone in the room watched as the dark suits surrounded the noisy professor and dragged him out of the room. After the door had closed the silence was as dense as cotton wool.
“I must apologize,” a perspiring Sören Hammarsten finally said, knotting his small white hands on the desk in front of him. “Caroline’s death has affected all of us in different ways.”
“What on earth did he mean?” Annika whispered, looking back at the door through which the man had vanished.
“I haven’t got the foggiest,” Bosse whispered back.
“It is with great pleasure that I can present one of the global pharmaceutical industry’s most influential figures: Dr. Bernhard Thorell, managing director of the pharmaceutical company Medi-Tec, all the way from its headquarters in Los Angeles, California,” Sören Hammarsten said.
The man next to him, Ernst Ericsson, leaned back and folded his arms demonstratively over his chest. Bernhard Thorell nodded benevolently at the gathering, and Sören Hammarsten seemed to be visibly purring.
“Today we are delighted to be able to announce that Medi-Tec has just entered into a research partnership with the Karolinska Institute,” Sören Hammarsten said. “This is an extremely significant and rewarding program that will stretch across several years. Bernhard?”
The professor leaned back and indicated that it was the younger man’s turn to speak.
“I would like to start by pointing out,” Bernhard Thorell said in a deep, melodic voice, “that I have been deeply affected by Caroline’s death.”
His earlier, amused attitude was long gone now.
“Caroline was my first adviser in the academic world, and I couldn’t have wished for a better start to my working life. I will always be deeply grateful to the Karolinska institute for providing the basis of my scientific career.”
Sören Hammarsten appeared very moved by this, but Ernst Ericsson looked so uncomfortable that his skin seemed to crawl.
“What are they up to?” Bosse whispered.
“My own background and personal recommendation has obviously contributed to the fact that Medi-Tec has chosen the institute for this particular research project, but it was in no way the decisive factor,” Bernhard Thorell said, leaving a dramatic pause.
A dense silence fell on the hall. Bernhard Thorell whispered something to Sören Hammarsten, and Annika had a feeling that all the journalists collectively leaned closer to the podium.
“One hundred million dollars,” Bernhard Thorell went on, in a neutral tone of voice. “Medi-Tec has decided to put one hundred million dollars at the disposal of the Karolinska Institute. One hundred million dollars to be used for future research into the immune system, its interleukins, its signal pathways and other structures …”
Feverish activity broke out around them, especially among the two groups of researchers in the front rows. The murmuring grew to an almost unbearable level, and people were standing up from their seats. Only the reporters failed to show any sort of emotional response.
“Three quarters of a billion kronor,” Annika whispered to Bosse. “Is that a lot or a little in this sort of context?”
“I’m guessing it’s quite a lot,” Bosse said quietly.
Sören Hammarsten appealed for silence, and then spoke out once more.
“As head of MEM, it will fall largely to Ernst Ericsson to administer this project over the next five years,” he said. “Ernst?”
Ernst Ericsson was a thin, gray-clad man, his eyes puffed and red. His suit hung limply from his thin frame. He leaned toward the microphone.
“It is part of our articles of association,” he said, “to accept any project funding we are offered.”
He fell silent and looked around the room, shuffled in his seat and moved even closer to the microphone. Annika could see his chin trembling.
“I would like to take this opportunity,” he said, “to protest against the commercialization and profit motive that have come to characterize the activities of the Karolinska Institute …”
“Ernst!” Sören Hammarsten said sternly. “This is neither the time nor the place …”
“Be quiet!” the gray man interrupted his black-clad colleague, his voice surprisingly forceful. “You know perfectly well that we can’t pretend that this debate doesn’t exist. Not only does it throw into doubt the independence of our research, but also opens us up to charges of bias where the Nobel Prize is concerned …”
Two men at the front stood up again and starting shouting at Ernst up on the platform.
“Security!” Sören Hammarsten called into the microphone once more. “Security to the Wallenberg Room!”
Ernst Ericsson stood up as well, and the two groups of scientists at the front got to their feet, everyone talking and shouting and gesticulating.
“What a damn circus,” Bosse said. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”
The suits poured into the room for the second time, but this time they never reached the platform. Birgitta Larsén stepped up in her striped jacket and spoke to the suit in charge, pointing and explaining, and then the suits turned and left.
“They’re twitchy as greyhounds,” Annika said. “Pretty much anything’s making them jumpy right now.”
“It’s Nemesis,” Bosse said. “Nemesis is after them.”
“They ought to be afraid,” Annika said. “One of them’s already dead.”
The Kitten stuffed the rag in her mouth and bit down so hard her jaw almost locked. The pain of breaking her leg on that bastard path up at the North Pole was nothing compared to this. The break had started to heal in completely the wrong way, and the alcoholic mechanic of a doctor that her wingman had dug up had been forced to break it again.
“Now I’m going to stretch the leg and put it in the right position before I plaster it,” he said, sounding all fucking apologetic again
. “I’m so sorry I haven’t got any painkillers …”
She was lying on the table in his filthy kitchen on the outskirts of Jurmala, forty-seven kilometers from Riga airport. The whole house was unbelievably disgusting and shabby. She had never been able to understand why these bastard eastern Europeans were too stupid to look after their houses. And it was all crooked and draughty as well, cold as hell. Great frosted patterns had spread across the insides of the kitchen window.
“Here we go,” the doctor said and the Kitten roared into the rag, holy fucking shit!
Sweat was pouring down her neck, and she was breathing so hard through her nose that her nostrils stuck to the cartilage when she breathed in.
Her wingman wiped her forehead with a dirty cloth and she twisted her head away in irritation. Damn amateur, she thought, hanging around waiting for me for an hour and a half at Torö when I expressly told him to get going after thirty minutes.
She couldn’t work with amateurs, that was out of the fucking question.
“I’m going to go and mix the plaster,” the doctor said, reaching for the same cloth that her wingman had used to wipe her face. Disgusting fucking communist amateurs.
“The worst is over now,” her wingman said sympathetically, taking her hand, but she pulled it away at once and spat the rag out of her mouth.
Yes, for me, she thought.
“The car’s waiting outside,” he said. “Automatic gearbox, just as you said. I used the Latvian credit card.”
“Idiot,” the Kitten snarled, “I told you to pay in cash.”
“I know,” he said, “but then I’d have to hand the car back here in Jurmala, and paying with a credit card means we can leave it at the airport.
“Idiotic fucking communist rules,” the Kitten said. “Where are the keys?”
“I’ve got them here,” he said, patting the right pocket of his trousers. “But you can’t leave tonight, not until the plaster has set. There’s a pair of crutches by the door.”
The quack came back in with a rusty bucket in his hand.
“I’ll try to be careful,” he said, and set to work plastering her swollen, bruised leg.
Jesus fucking Christ, he was slow! He fiddled and wrapped and fussed, and every time he touched her leg she groaned.
She shut her eyes and could still feel everything around her swaying.
The crossing in the little boat had been absolutely terrible. They had had snow and rain and wind, one after the other, the waves had splashed over the prow until the Kitten had thought they were going to sink, but she hadn’t had the energy to feel scared. The pain in her leg meant that she kept drifting in and out of consciousness.
She couldn’t actually remember how she had made her way out to Torö on the motorbike, which was the only thing in this whole sorry affair that she was happy about.
She had worked the way she always did: she had programed her brain with numbered posts, so thoroughly that they worked even when she was semiconscious, which was actually a nice thing to have confirmed.
“There,” the doctor said, gathering his tools together. “Now it just needs to set.”
Her wingman was good with boats, that was why she had picked him. That was probably why they had made it across the Baltic without drowning, she had to admit, but he was useless at finding decent doctors who were prepared to do a bit of extra private work. This one would start blabbing the moment he got out of the door.
“How long before it sets?” she asked, unhappy that her voice sounded so weak.
“It depends,” the doctor said, wiping his hands on the towel. “Heat and humidity affect it, but there’s no need for you to worry. You can rest here until it sets.”
“Can you help me up?” she said to her wingman, who rushed over at once and supported her as she got herself into a sitting position. “Can I have my bag, please?”
And she held out her right arm and caught her Chanel bag by the shoulder strap, feeling the weight of the weapon swing in her hand.
“And some water, please?” she said, and the two men turned toward the sink to satisfy her humble request.
She pulled out the gun, still with its silencer on, and shot the doctor in the spine. He slumped forward with his head in the sink.
Her wingman turned around with a look of surprise and she shot him between the eyes.
“Fucking amateur,” she said.
It was a stroke of luck that she’d changed her mind about throwing the gun into the sea. She put it back in the bag.
Okay, that was that.
She looked around, and felt the plaster. It was completely soft.
How long would she have to sit here with these two fucking stink bombs?
“Oh well, what the fuck,” she said, and heaved herself to her feet.
She hopped over to her wingman, dug about in his trouser pocket and pulled out the car keys and his cell phone. She quickly checked his other pockets, and he only had a wallet containing his passport and credit cards in the inside-left pocket of his jacket. False, of course, but never mind.
She put the wallet and phone in her Chanel bag and hopped to the front door. It hurt like hell, the plaster was already looking deformed. She grabbed the crutches, opened the door and heaved herself out.
Suddenly the bag vibrated.
She was suddenly confused. What the hell?
Halfway out of the door she stopped, balancing unsteadily on her good leg (well, her more or less good leg) as she pulled out the bastard phone and looked at the display. You have 1 new message.
And before she even pressed read she knew what it meant:
Complications.
Anders Schyman was seriously worried. Whenever a big news story broke the strengths and weaknesses of every form of media stood out in particular clarity.
He took a stroll around his desk, chewing on a pen.
As far as the Nobel killings were concerned, the Evening Post had handled the story relatively well from a journalistic point of view, even if they really could have done with Annika Bengtzon’s eyewitness account of events in the Golden Hall. But purely technically they had been left standing by pretty much all the other media, so far behind that the others were out of sight. Of course the Evening Post had a website and even some online video footage, and they occasionally put audio files on the net, but no one was listening to them. No one cared. Schyman had never believed the Internet was a passing fad—he wasn’t that naïve—but he had underestimated its significance, and the Nobel killings had made him realize that. An opinion poll had revealed that 56 percent of Swedes had gotten their news about the Nobel killings direct from the Internet.
He sorted the papers on his desk, then walked nervously over to the window to look at the guard on the Embassy gate. As usual there was one soldier standing down there; maybe it was always the same one. Whatever—this one was confusingly similar to all the others, with the same fur hat and bored expression. The young man squinted in the sunlight as he inspected the limousine that was slowly pulling up at the main entrance of the Evening Post building.
“He’s arrived downstairs,” his secretary told him over the intercom.
I know, the editor in chief thought, I can see him.
The chairman of the board, Herman Wennergren, was climbing carefully out of the car, concerned about his well-polished shoes.
He’d better go for my proposal, Schyman thought, otherwise I’m going to have to learn to play golf.
The chairman looked extremely focused as he stepped into the office some minutes later.
“What a wretched business,” he said. “The Nobel banquet is one of the few decent parties we have in this country. Have you found the killer yet?”
“We’re working on it,” Schyman said, and had to stop himself from running over to take the man’s coat. Instead he picked up his bundle of papers and invited the chairman to sit down at the conference table.
“I don’t understand what’s so important,” Herman Wennergren said, putting hi
s leather briefcase and silk scarf down on the sofa. “Why couldn’t it wait until the next board meeting?”
“I’ve sketched out a proposal for how our news-gathering operation should be developed in light of the challenges and opportunities of the new age,” Schyman said, sitting down.
He left a dramatic pause as Wennergren sat down opposite him.
“This is a far-reaching proposal covering everything from technology and personnel to attitudes and infrastructure,” Schyman went on.
Herman Wennergren said nothing, just looked extremely skeptical as Anders Schyman put the first sheet of paper in front of him.
“Let’s be honest,” Schyman said, feeling that his hands were getting clammy. “Since we brought publication forward from the afternoon to the morning, the paper’s deadline is several hours earlier. The television news has far more broadcasts, which means that the same reporters have to come up with more items in less time. And the Internet means that information can be published moment by moment. That hasn’t resulted in an expansion of choice, but in the exact opposite. Less time for reflection means that everyone coalesces around a consensus. Because all the media are covering the same things, in the end it is only their different approaches that set them apart from each other.”
“Hmm,” Herman Wennergren said, glancing at his watch.
Anders Schyman forced himself to slow down a bit; he was aware that he was sounding too frenetic.
“The serious media,” he went on, “have always focused on technology, law, the economy, and politics, which have traditionally been seen as typically male subject areas. The positions they adopt have always been part of the public arena, and are regarded as respectable and, well, serious. This is where we find the finer end of the media: the morning papers, Swedish Television news, and national radio news.”
He leaned back and tried to relax his shoulders.
“Tabloid journalism, which of course we represent, is largely only found in the evening papers in Sweden. We are largely content to focus on personal, private matters, a point of view which is generally regarded as representing female subject areas. A single individual is positioned at the center of a story, and the news is reflected through their feelings and experiences.”
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