The Bomber

by Liza Marklund

  A stressed voice picked up her call.

  ‘I know you can’t say anything yet,’ Annika began. ‘Tell me when you’ve got time to talk. I’ll call whenever suits you. Just say when.’

  The man sighed down the line.

  ‘Bengtzon, I don’t fucking know. I don’t know. Call later.’

  Annika looked at her watch.

  ‘It’s twenty to four. I’m writing for the early edition. What about half past seven?’

  ‘Okay, fine. Call at half seven.’

  ‘Okay, we’ll talk then.’

  Now that she had a promise, it would be hard for him to pull out. The police hated journalists who called as soon as something happened and wanted to know everything. Even if the police had managed to gather any information, it was hard to know what they could go public with. By half past seven she would have had time to formulate her own observations, questions and theories, and the detectives would know what they wanted to say. That would work okay.

  ‘You can see the smoke now,’ the taxi-driver said.

  She leaned over the front passenger seat, peering up to the right.

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  Thin and black, it stretched up towards the pale half-moon. The taxi swung off the Värmdö road and onto the southern bypass.

  The motorway was blocked off a few hundred metres from the mouth of the tunnel and the stadium itself. A dozen other vehicles were already lined up behind the roadblock. As the taxi pulled up alongside them, Annika handed over her taxi account card.

  ‘When do you want to go back? Shall I wait?’ the taxi-driver asked.

  Annika smiled weakly. ‘No thanks, this is going to take some time.’

  She gathered up her pad, pen and mobile.

  ‘Happy Christmas!’ the taxi-driver called as she shut the car door.

  Oh God, she thought, there’s a whole week to go yet. Are we going to start that already?

  ‘Thanks, same to you,’ she said to the taxi’s rear window.

  She wove through the cars and pedestrians until she reached the roadblock. Not set up by the police. Good. She usually respected their cordons. She didn’t even slow down as she jumped the barrier and started to run.

  2

  She didn’t hear the angry shouts behind her as she stared up at the immense construction in front of her. She had driven past often and each time had been fascinated by the scale of the job. The Victoria Stadium was being built into the rock itself, excavated from the old Hammarby ski-slope. The environmentalists had made a fuss, of course; they always did whenever a few trees were cut down. The southern bypass carried on right through the rock and beneath the stadium itself, but the opening had been shut off with concrete blocks and emergency vehicles. The flashing lights on the roofs of the vehicles reflected off the wet tarmac. The north side of the stadium leaned out above the opening of the tunnel like a great chanterelle mushroom, but now it was torn in two. That must have been where the bomb went off. The curved shape was torn apart, spiking up into the night sky. She ran on, but realized that she wasn’t going to get much further.

  ‘Oi, where do you think you’re going?’ a fireman shouted.

  ‘Up there,’ she shouted back.

  ‘It’s shut off!’ the man yelled.

  ‘Oh, is it?’ she muttered. ‘So arrest me!’

  She carried on, then turned off to the right as far as she could. Beneath her the Sickla canal was frozen solid. On the far bank, on the other side of the ice, there was a sort of concrete plinth, where the roadway plunged into the rock. She heaved herself up onto the railing and dropped down, falling a metre or so. Her bag thudded against her back as she landed.

  She stopped for a moment and looked around. She had only been this close to the stadium a couple of times, once for a press tour back in the summer, and then one Sunday afternoon in the autumn together with Anne Snapphane. To her right was the site of the Olympic village, the half-finished blocks of Hammarby Sjöstad, where the competitors would live during the games. The windows gaped blackly, every pane of glass in the area seemed to have been blown out. Immediately ahead of her the training ground glimmered in the darkness. To her left was a ten-metre-high concrete wall. Up above it was the plaza and the main entrance to the stadium.

  She started to run along the wall, trying to make sense of the sounds she could hear: a siren in the distance, muffled voices, the noise of a water cannon, or maybe a large ventilation unit. The red lights of emergency vehicles played across the wall. She reached the end of the wall and set off up the stairs towards the entrance just as a policeman began to unroll a reel of blue and white tape.

  ‘We’re blocking this entrance off,’ he yelled.

  ‘My photographer’s up there,’ Annika shouted back. ‘I’m just going to get him.’ The policeman waved her through.

  God, I hope I wasn’t lying, she thought.

  The stairs were divided into three even flights. By the time she reached the top she was out of breath. The whole plaza was full of flashing emergency vehicles and people running. Two of the pillars holding up the northern stand had collapsed and were lying crumpled on the ground. Twisted green seats were scattered everywhere. A television camera-team had just arrived. She caught sight of a reporter from the other evening paper, and three freelance photographers. She looked up, into the hole made by the bomb. Five helicopters were circling above, at least two of them media choppers.

  ‘Annika!’

  It was the photographer from the Evening Post, Johan Henriksson, a twenty-three-year-old part-timer who had moved down from a local paper in Östersund. He was both talented and ambitious, the second of these being the most important. As he ran towards her his two cameras jolted against his chest, his bag hanging off his shoulder.

  ‘What have you got?’ Annika asked, pulling out her pad and pen.

  ‘I got here thirty seconds or so after the fire brigade. I managed to get a shot of an ambulance taking a taxi-driver away, seems he was hit by something. The fire crews are having trouble getting water up to the stand; they ended up driving an engine right into the stadium. I’ve got pictures of the fire from the outside, but I haven’t been inside. A couple of minutes ago something must have happened – the cops started running around like mad. I’m sure something’s happened.’

  ‘Or else they’ve found something,’ Annika said, putting her pad away.

  Holding her pen like a relay baton she started to jog towards the entrance at the far side of the plaza. If her memory was right, it ought to be somewhere over to the right, under the part of the stadium that had collapsed. No one stopped her as she crossed the plaza, there was too much chaos. She wove her way between lumps of concrete, twisted metal and green plastic seating. Four flights of steps led up to the entrance; she was out of breath when she reached it. The police had blocked the entrance, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t need to see more. The doorway was untouched, it seemed to be locked. Swedish security companies evidently couldn’t resist putting stupid little stickers on the doors of buildings they guarded, and the Victoria Stadium was no exception. Annika pulled out her pad and noted down the name and phone number.

  ‘Please evacuate the area. There is a risk of collapse! I repeat …’

  A police car glided slowly across the plaza, its loudspeaker on. People started to hurry off towards the warm-up area and the Olympic village down below. Annika jogged along the outer wall of the arena, and managed to avoid having to go back down to the plaza. Instead, she followed the ramp that curved gently round the whole edifice. There were several entrances; she wanted to check them all. None of them had been damaged or forced open.

  ‘Sorry, madam, it’s time to leave.’

  A young policeman put his hand on her arm.

  ‘Who’s in charge?’ she asked, holding up her press card.

  ‘He hasn’t got time. You’ve got to leave. We’re evacuating the whole area.’

  The policeman started to guide her away, he was clearly shaken up. Annika
pulled away and stopped in front of him. She took a chance: ‘What did you find inside the stadium?’

  The policeman ran his tongue over his lips. ‘I’m not sure, and I’m not allowed to say either,’ he said.

  Bingo!

  ‘So who can tell me, and when?’

  ‘I don’t know, check with the duty officers. But you have to get out of here now!’

  3

  The police positioned their cordon on the far side of the training centre, several hundred metres from the stadium. Annika bumped into Henriksson close to where the restaurants and cinema were being built. A makeshift media centre had started to form on the broadest part of the pavement, in front of the post office. More journalists were arriving by the minute, a lot of them wandering about with smiles on their faces, greeting colleagues. Annika found this sort of comradely back-slapping difficult, people hanging around accident scenes boasting about which parties they’d been to. She shrank away, pulling the photographer with her.

  ‘Have you got to get back to the paper?’ she asked. ‘The first edition’s about to go to press.’

  ‘No, I emailed my photos over. I’m okay to stay.’

  ‘Good. I’ve got a feeling things are going to happen here.’

  An outside-broadcast truck from one of the television stations pulled up beside them. They walked away from it, past the bank and pharmacy, down towards the canal. She stopped and looked across at the stadium. The police and fire brigade were still in the plaza. What were they doing? An icy wind was blowing from the water, further out a broken outlet pipe formed a dark gash in the ice. She turned her back to the wind and warmed her nose in her glove. Through her fingers she suddenly saw two white vehicles gliding over the pedestrian bridge from Södermalm. Bloody hell, it was an ambulance! And paramedics! She looked at her watch: it had just gone twenty-five to five. Three hours until she could call her contact. She inserted the earpiece and tried the duty desk instead. Engaged. She rang Jansson.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘There’s an ambulance on its way up to the stadium.’

  ‘My deadline’s in seven minutes.’

  She could hear the sound of tapping from his keyboard.

  ‘What are the agencies saying? Any reports of casualties?’

  ‘They’ve got the information about the taxi-driver, but they haven’t spoken to him. The destruction, comment from the police, they’re not saying anything yet, that sort of thing. Nothing special.’

  ‘The taxi-driver was taken away an hour ago, this is something else. Is there anything on police radio?’

  ‘Nothing remotely controversial.’

  ‘Anything scrambled?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘What about radio news?’

  ‘Nothing so far. There’s an extra television news broadcast at six.’

  ‘Yes, I saw the OB unit.’

  ‘Well, keep an eye on things. I’ll call you once we’ve got the first edition to press.’

  He hung up. Annika ended the call on her mobile, but left the earpiece in place.

  ‘Why have you got one of those?’ Henriksson said, pointing at the wire running down her cheek.

  ‘Your brain gets fried by radiation from mobiles, didn’t you know?’ She smiled. ‘I just think it’s practical. I can run and write and talk on the phone at the same time. And it’s quiet, there’s no noise when I make a call.’

  Her eyes were watering from the cold; she had to squint to see what was going on over by the stadium.

  ‘Have you got one of those big telephoto lenses?’

  ‘Doesn’t work in the dark,’ Henriksson said.

  ‘Well, use the biggest lens you’ve got and try to catch whatever’s going on over there,’ she said, pointing with her glove.

  Henriksson sighed gently, put his photographer’s bag on the ground and peered through the lens.

  ‘I could do with a tripod,’ he muttered.

  Various vehicles had driven up the grass bank and were parked outside one of the entrances. Three men got out of the paramedics’ car, and were standing behind it talking. A uniformed policeman walked over to them. There was no movement by the ambulance.

  ‘Well, they’re not in any hurry,’ Henriksson said.

  Another two police officers went over, one in uniform, the other in plain clothes. The men were talking and gesticulating, one of them pointed up towards the hole made by the bomb.

  Annika’s mobile rang. She clicked to take the call.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s the ambulance doing?’

  ‘Nothing. Waiting.’

  ‘So what have we got for the next edition?’

  ‘Did you get anything on the taxi-driver in hospital?’

  ‘Not yet, but we’ve got people there. Unmarried, no partner.’

  ‘Have you tried to get hold of the Olympics boss, Christina Furhage?’

  ‘Haven’t been able to get through.’

  ‘What a bloody nightmare for her, after all her work … We’ll have to run the whole Olympic angle as well: what’s going to happen to the Games now, all that. Can the stadium be repaired in time? What does the President of the International Olympic Committee say? That sort of thing.’

  ‘We’ve thought of that. We’ve got people working on it.’

  ‘Then I’ll do the story of the explosion. This has to be sabotage. Three articles: the police hunt for the bomber, the crime scene this morning, and—’

  She fell silent.

  ‘Bengtzon?’

  ‘They’re opening the door of the ambulance. They’re taking out a trolley, they’re going up to the entrance. Bloody hell, Jansson, there’s another victim!’

  ‘Okay, Police hunt, I-was-there and Victim. You’ve got pages six, seven, eight and the centrefold.’

  The line went dead.

  4

  She watched intently as the men walked up to the stadium. Henriksson was looking through the pictures he had taken. None of the other journalists had noticed the new vehicles.

  ‘Fuck, it’s cold,’ Henriksson said as the men disappeared into the arena.

  ‘Let’s get back to the car and call from there,’ Annika said.

  They walked back up to the media circus. People were standing about freezing, the television crews were unrolling their cables, a few reporters were trying to blow some life into their pens. Why don’t they ever learn to use pencils when it’s below freezing? Annika wondered with a smile. The radio reporters looked like big insects with their broadcast equipment strapped to their backs. Everyone was waiting. One of the freelancers who worked for the Evening Post had come back from his trip to the office.

  ‘There’s going to be some sort of press conference at six o’clock,’ he said.

  ‘Right on time for a live broadcast on the television news, how convenient,’ Annika muttered.

  Henriksson had parked his car on the other side of the tennis courts and health centre.

  ‘I ended up there because of the roadblocks,’ he said apologetically.

  It was quite a walk; Annika could feel her feet getting numb. A few snowflakes had started to fall, not good if you wanted to take night-shots with a telephoto lens. They had to clear the windscreen of Henriksson’s Saab.

  ‘This is fine,’ Annika said, looking over at the stadium. ‘We can see the ambulance and the paramedics, this is a great view.’

  They got in and ran the engine to warm up the car.

  Annika started phoning round. She tried the police duty desk again. Engaged. She called the hospital’s incident control room and asked who had first sounded the alarm, how many calls they had received, whether anyone had been injured in the flats when the windows blew in, and if they had any idea of what the material damage was. As usual, the hospital staff were able to answer most of her questions.

  Then she called the number she had taken from the stickers at the stadium entrance: the security company that was supposed to be guarding the Victoria Stadium. She reached an emergency
room in Stadshagen, over in Kungsholmen. She asked if any alarms had gone off in the Victoria Stadium during the early hours of the morning.

  ‘Any alarms we receive are confidential,’ the man at the other end said.

  ‘Yes, I realize that,’ Annika said. ‘I’m not asking about an alarm you received, but about one that you probably didn’t receive.’

  ‘Erm,’ the man said, ‘we can’t answer any questions about the alarms we receive.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that,’ Annika said patiently. ‘I was just wondering if you received any alarms from the Victoria Stadium at all?’

  ‘Okay,’ the man said. ‘Are you actually listening to me?’

  ‘Right,’ Annika said. ‘How about this: what happens when you get an alarm?’

  ‘Well, it comes through here.’

  ‘To the emergency room?’

  ‘Of course. It goes onto our computer system, and comes up on our screens along with a plan of action.’

  ‘So if there was an alarm from the Victoria Stadium, it would come up on your screens?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘And it would tell you exactly what to do about that particular alarm?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘So what has your security company been doing at the Victoria Stadium tonight? I haven’t seen a single one of your vehicles here.’

  The man didn’t answer.

  ‘The Victoria Stadium has been blown up, we can agree on that, can’t we? So what’s your company supposed to do if the stadium is on fire or damaged somehow?’

  ‘It’s in the computer,’ the man said.

  ‘So what have you done?’

  The man didn’t answer.

  ‘Because you haven’t had any alarms from the stadium at all, have you?’ Annika said.

  The man was silent for a few moments before replying: ‘I can’t comment on the alarms we’ve received or haven’t received.’