Liza Marklund - The Bomber

"Okay," he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table. "Let's begin with the Bomber. What have we got?"

Annika didn't wait for Ingvar Johansson but started talking straight away. She knew the news editor liked to go through the whole lot, including her patch. She wasn't going to sit around and wait for that.

"The way I see it, there'll be four stories from us on the crime desk," she said. "We won't be able to escape the terrorist angle. Evert Danielsson himself brought it up at the press conference, but the police want it toned down. That in itself could be a story. The fact is that we have discovered that Christina Furhage has been on the receiving end of some kind of intimidation. She is off the PubReg, and her address is care of the Tyresö local tax office. Furthermore, no one knows her whereabouts, not even her closest colleagues at the Olympic Secretariat. I'll take care of that one."

"What headline did you have in mind?" Jansson asked.

"Something like 'Olympic boss living under threat' and then a pull-quote from Danielsson, 'This is a terrorist attack'."

Jansson nodded approval.

"Then we have the main story, which has to be really thorough. We could put it together with graphics and captions around a big photo of the devastation. Patrik will take care of that. We've got daylight pictures of the stadium, both aerial and from the roof of the lamp factory, haven't we, Pelle?"

The picture editor nodded. "Yes. I think the helicopter pictures are better. The rooftop pictures are a bit underexposed, unfortunately; they're simply too dark. I've tried to brighten them up on the Mac, but they're a bit out of focus, so I think we should go for the aerial shots."

Jansson wrote something on his dummy page. Annika felt the anger surge within her like fire, fucking Armani photographer who couldn't even set the focus or the right aperture!

"Who took the rooftop pictures?" Anders Schyman asked.

"Olsson," Annika responded curtly.

The editor made some notes. "What else?"

"Who's the victim? Man, woman, young, old? The pathologist's report, the forensic investigation, what are the lines of enquiry the Chief District Prosecutor mentioned at the press conference? Berit and I are looking into this."

"What have we got so far?" Schyman said.

Annika sighed. "Not much, I'm afraid. We'll continue our digging during the evening. I'm sure we'll find something."

The editor nodded and Annika continued. "Then there's the mysterious murder, the hunt for the Bomber, the leads, the theories, the evidence. Who was the man outside the arena just before the explosion? Who was the witness who saw him? Patrik is doing that. We haven't been able to locate the Tiger; neither have the police. According to Lindström, he's not a suspect, but that's bullshit. They may put out a nationwide alert for him this evening or during the night; you'll have to keep an eye on that. And then, of course, there's the Olympic angle, and you've got all that covered, Ingvar…"

The news editor cleared his throat. "Right. The security surrounding the Olympic Games- we've talked to Samaranch at the IOC in Lausanne. He has full confidence in Stockholm as host for the Games and fully believes that the Swedish police will apprehend the perpetrator very soon, blah blah… Then he says that this in no way jeopardizes the Games, which I think we should emphasize. Then we've got the 'what now' stuff, Janet has done that. The stand will be rebuilt immediately. The work will start as soon as the police technicians have left the place and is estimated to be done in seven or eight weeks. Then there's the injured taxi driver; we're alone on that one, so we'll blow it up. We're doing a color piece with a retrospective of infamous Olympic attacks, the Tiger among others, unless we get hold of him during the night. Then I suppose we'll do a separate piece on him."

"His home telephone number's in the contacts book," Annika said. "I've left a message on his answerphone; it's possible he'll be in touch."

"Okay. Nils Langeby is working on world reactions; that will be an additional tie-in. And then we've got the vox pop on the attack, the Ring and Sing has just begun.

He stopped speaking and leafed through his papers.

"Anything else?" the editor said.

"There's Henriksson's pictures from the Olympic flame," Annika said. "We ran them in the early editions this morning, but they haven't been printed nationwide. He shot several rolls, so maybe we could do a variation on that to accompany the story about the victim in tomorrow's paper- a bit of recycling?"

Pelle Oscarsson nodded. "Yep, there are plenty of pics. I'm sure we could find one that isn't all that similar."

"Aktuellt is on," Ingvar Johansson said, turning up the TV with the remote.

They all turned their attention to the TV to see what Swedish Television had cooked up. They opened with footage from the police press conference, then went back to the morning when the arena was still on fire. After this, interviews followed with all the obvious people: Chief District Prosecutor Lindström, Evert Danielsson from the Olympic Secretariat, a Krim investigator, and an old lady who lived next to the arena and who woke up from the explosion.

"They've got nothing new," Ingvar Johansson stated and switched to CNN.

The meeting resumed and Ingvar Johansson ran through the rest of the contents of tomorrow's paper. They kept the TV on low while CNN ran their Breaking News. A CNN reporter appeared at regular intervals doing stand-ups from outside the cordons around the Olympic Village. They had another reporter in front of the police headquarters and a third one at the International Olympic Committee's headquarters in Lausanne. The live broadcasts were interspersed with recorded segments about the Olympics and various acts of violence that had hit the Games throughout the years. They had comments from internationally known celebrities and a condemnation of the attack by a White House press spokesperson.

Annika realized she wasn't listening to what Ingvar Johansson was saying. When he got to the soft-news pages, she made her excuses and left the meeting. She went back to the cafeteria and ordered a prawn pasta and a low-alcohol beer. While the microwave was humming behind the counter, she sat down and stared into the darkness. If she strained her eyes and focused hard, she could see the windows of the building opposite. When she relaxed, all she saw was her own reflection in the window.

Having finished her meal, she assembled the members of her own little desk, Patrik and Berit, and compared notes with them in her office.

"I'll do the terrorist story," Annika said. "Have you got anything on the victim, Berit?"

"A little," the reporter said, leafing through her notes. "The technicians have found some stuff inside the arena they believe belonged to the victim. It was pretty badly damaged, but they've established that there's a briefcase, a Filofax, and a cellphone."

She fell silent and noticed that both Annika's and Patrik's eyes were wide open.

"Christ!" Annika exclaimed. "That must mean they know who the victim is."

"Possibly," Berit said, "but they're not saying a word. It took me two hours just to get this from them."

"But that's great," Annika said. "Fantastic! You've done really well. Really! I haven't heard this anywhere else."

She leaned back in her chair, laughing and clapping her hands. Patrik smiled. Annika turned to him: "And how are you getting on?"

"I've done the blast itself. You can look at it for yourself; it's on the server. I've matched it to the picture of the arena, like you said. But I don't have much on the actual hunt for the murderer, I'm afraid. The police have done door-to-door interviews around the Docklands during the day, but not many people have moved into the apartments of the Olympic Village yet, so the place is quite empty."