Liza Marklund - The Bomber

"How can you be so sure it's not a terrorist attack?" Danielsson said, somewhat intimidated.

Lindström sighed and resumed. "Believe me, we have our reasons."

"Such as?" the director persevered.

The prosecutor stopped again. Calmly, he said, "It was an inside job. Someone in the Olympic organization did it. Okay? One of your lot, mate. That's why it's extremely unfortunate for you to go mouthing off about terrorist attacks. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Evert Danielsson turned pale. "That's not possible."

Kjell Lindström started walking again. "Oh, yes, it is. And if you would follow the investigators up to the Serious Crimes Division, you can tell them exactly who in your organization has access to all entry cards, keys, and security codes for Victoria Stadium."

The moment Annika entered the newsroom after the press conference, Ingvar Johansson waved to her from behind the office modem computer.

"Come and see if you can make any sense of this," he called.

Annika passed by her office and dumped her bag, coat, scarf, and mittens. Her sweater felt sticky in the armpits, and suddenly she was conscious of not having had a shower that morning. She pulled the jacket tighter around her, hoping she didn't smell.

Janet Ullberg, a young freelance reporter, and Ingvar Johansson were both leaning over one of the newsroom computers that had a fast modem installed.

"Janet hasn't been able to get hold of Christina Furhage all day," he said while typing something. "We've got a number that's supposed to work, but there's no answer. According to the Olympic Secretariat, she's in town, probably at home. So we wanted to look up her address and go and knock on her door. But when we enter her data, nothing happens. She's not in there."

He pointed to the information on the screen. No Christina Furhage- "The name does not exist for the given data." Annika squeezed in behind Janet and sat down on the chair in front of the keyboard.

"Of course she's here, everybody is," Annika said. "You've done a too narrow search, that's all."

"I don't get it," Janet said in a faint voice. "What are you doing?"

Annika explained while typing away. "The Public Register, the government department for citizen information- people's births, deaths, marriages, and addresses- usually goes under the name of the PubReg. It's not even state owned anymore; they sold it to some Anglo-French company. Anyway, here you can find every person in the country- their identity numbers, addresses, previous addresses, and places of birth of Swedes and immigrants who've been given identity numbers. Before, you'd be able to find family ties as well- children and spouses- but that was stopped a couple of years ago. Now, using the modem, we log in to something called the Info Market, look… You can choose from a number of databases, the National Vehicle Register and the Register of Limited Companies, for example, but we want the PubReg. Look here- you type " 'pubreg" up here where the prompt is…"

"I'll go back to my desk. Call me when you're done," Ingvar Johansson said and left in the direction of the newsdesk.

"…and, hey, presto! We're in. Here we can choose between a number of different functions, things we want to enquire about. See? Use F2 if you have the personal number and want to know whose it is, F3 if you have a birth date but not the four ID digits, F4 and F5 are off limits- family ties- but we can use F7 and F8. To find out where a person lives you hit F8, name enquiry. Voilà!"

Annika pressed the command and a document appeared on the screen.

"So, we're looking for Christina Furhage, living somewhere in Sweden," she said, typing in the necessary data: sex, first and second names. She left the fields for approximate date of birth, county code, and postal code empty. The computer did its thinking, and after a few seconds, three lines appeared on the screen.

"Okay, one at a time," Annika said, pointing at the screen with her pen. "Look here: 'Furhage, Eleonora Christina, born 1912 in Kalix, hist.' That means the data is historical. The old lady is probably dead. Dead people stay in the register for about a year. It can also mean that she has changed her name; she could have married an old geezer from the home. If you want to check that, you highlight her name and press F7, for historical data, but we won't do that now."

She moved her pen down to the bottom line.

" 'Furhage, Sofia Christina, born 1993 in Kalix.' A kid. Presumably a relative of the first one. Unusual surnames often pop up in the same place."

She moved the pen again. "This will be our Christina."

Annika typed a "v" in front of the line and gave the command.

"My God…!" she said, leaning closer toward the screen as if she didn't believe her own eyes. A very rare piece of information appeared.

"What?" Janet said.

"The woman is off the record," Annika said. She typed "command p" and went over to the printer. With the printout in her hand, she walked over to Ingvar Johansson.

"Have we ever written anything about Christina Furhage having bodyguards? That she's received death threats or anything like that?"

Ingvar Johansson leaned back in his chair and considered her question. "Not that I know of. Why?"

Annika held out the computer printout. "Christina Furhage must have received some serious threats. No one but the director of the local tax office knows where she lives. You know, there are only about a hundred people in Sweden who have this protection."

She handed the paper to Ingvar Johansson. He looked at it blankly.

"What do you mean? Her personal data isn't protected. Her name is here."

"Right, but check the address: 'c/o loc dir Tyresö'."

"What are you talking about?" Ingvar Johansson said.

Annika sat down.

"There are different levels of protection the authorities can use when people are at risk," she explained. "The lowest protection is when you have a security flag in the Public Register. That's not too unusual; there are about five thousand people whose personal info is classified. That's when it says 'protected data' on the screen."

"Yeah, I know all that. But it doesn't say that here," Ingvar Johansson said.

Annika pretended not to hear. "To have a security flag against your data, there has to be some form of tangible threat. The decision to classify data is made by the director of the local tax office in the area where the person is officially living."

Annika tapped her pen on the printout. "This, on the other hand, is really unusual. This level of protection is much tighter and a lot harder to get than being merely flagged. You're invisible in the Public Register. Furhage simply isn't listed in the register, except like this, with a reference to the director of the local tax office in Tyresö outside Stockholm. He's the only civil servant in the entire country who knows where she lives."

Ingvar Johansson gave her a skeptical look. "How do you know all this?"

"You remember my work on the Paradise Foundation- articles on people living underground in Sweden?"

"Of course, I do. So what?"

"The only other time I've come across this was when I was searching for people the government had done their best to hide deep down."

"But Christina Furhage isn't hidden, is she?"

"We haven't found her, have we? What telephone number do we have for her?"

They searched the newspaper's contacts book, which could be found on all the computers in the newsroom. Under the name Christina Furhage, title Olympic Boss, there was a GSM cellphone number. Annika dialed the number and got connected to an automated answering service.

"Her phone's not on," she said. She called directory enquiries to find out in whose name the subscription was. The number was ex-directory.