Into a Raging Blaze (21 page)

20

Stockholm, Monday, October 3

Bente squinted into the sharp sunlight falling through the glass windows. The parking lot outside was bathed in bright daylight. White sky; parked cars.

Ten minutes to go. A young couple dressed in identical sweatpants appeared, pushing a shopping cart. They stopped by one of the cars, opened the trunk, and loaded their shopping. The woman said something to the man before they got into the front seats of the car and drove away. The cart was left in the middle of pavement.

The ICA supermarket in Sickla Strand was open from eight in the morning to nine at night, but at this time of morning it was almost deserted. The occasional pensioner could be spotted in the aisles, or perhaps a father on paternity leave, with a newborn strapped to his front. The cafeteria was mostly empty. A man in dirty clothes was sitting and muttering to himself. At another table, three builders were drinking coffee.

The target had left the apartment just after eight on Monday morning. No one had been seen coming or going since then.

Bente looked at her watch.

Three minutes.

If things were as the Brits said they were, and Badawi was a threat, it would rock the boat in Swedish counterterrorism circles. If they had missed a threat so close to the government, then something about the work of the Security Service was seriously wrong. She didn't know what to believe any longer. According to London, they were worryingly close to a disaster. If the British assessment
of the situation was right, heads would roll at the Security Service, someone in the Swedish system would be held responsible for missing the threat. Kempell was presumably on a precipice. He had called her on Sunday evening, subdued. He had been informed that management wanted to review the handling of the case. Criticism had been directed at Counterespionage because they hadn't seen the connection to the Muslim Brotherhood. It had been a long time since she had heard him swear. He was worried about his budget, was pissed off at Hamrén, who he thought was moving forward too fast, without any caution. It wasn't even certain that this was a terrorist threat, he had argued. She had listened to him; sometimes that was all you could do when Kempell was really upset. She understood him. But it didn't matter; now it was all about Badawi. Late on Sunday evening, Counterterrorism had managed to arrive at an overall picture of the situation and had been able to take their first operational decisions. One of them was to go into Badawi's apartment.

At nine fifty on the dot, she drained what remained of her coffee and got up from the small café table at the entrance to the supermarket. She checked inside her coat—cell, wallet, service weapon—and headed toward the exit. Counterterrorism had told her to do some shopping first. Their attention to detail was meticulous, and they had even given her a shopping list. She was just a normal Swedish woman shopping at ICA, so in her left hand she had a shopping bag as she passed through the automatic doors and walked to the car. No one would remember that she had been there—just as it was meant to be.

Nine fifty-two. No rush.

She drove carefully through Hammarby Sjöstad, past new buildings overlooking a canal, and continued across a small square and along an avenue. There was barely anyone out. The people who lived in this area worked in the city during the day. Very few had criminal records. Well-behaved young office workers—that was the typical profile. A man with a stroller walked past; in a café, there were two youths with a laptop each.

She turned into a side street, noted the spotter in a green Golf.

Okay. She parked and remained in her seat for a moment.

There: a small white van. It glided quietly along the street and turned the corner. She got out and began to walk toward the main door. The van had parked at the back, and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the spotters in the café get up and move toward the exit. She walked calmly past an interior design store and a deserted restaurant, crossed a narrow side street that ran between the buildings and, for a moment, caught a glimpse of the area between the structures: a playground and a gravel yard, no people. Three more doors and she would be there.

The main entrance opened on to a dark stairwell with paint-spattered walls. It had been recently cleaned; a pungent smell of solvent lingered between the walls. She took a few brisk steps up into the stairwell and listened: someone was moving, probably two or three floors up; probably a cleaner, judging by the sweeping sounds, the rattle of a plastic bucket. Otherwise, nothing but silence.

She moved backward and got into the elevator where three technicians were waiting for her with their bags; they nodded at her. They went up in silence. The apartment was at the top, on the seventh floor. When she and the technicians reached the top floor, three operatives in plain clothes were already preparing for the intrusion. One of them carefully fed an optical cable cam under the door and was studying a small screen: an entry hall that opened on to a larger room. No movement; no sound.

The apartment had been under surveillance for the last twelve hours. All movements in and out of the main door had been noted. Badawi had arrived with Carina Dymek just after eleven on Friday evening and they had stayed in all weekend, apart from a short period, around seven in the evening on Saturday, when Badawi had gone to a Japanese takeout place on the same street to buy food. On Monday morning, Dymek had left the apartment at the same time as Badawi and gone home by way of the swimming pool.

Bente didn't like apartments. However much you prepared, you never quite knew what was on the other side. It was risky. Sometimes
it went to hell, like last summer in Copenhagen when PET did a routine check on an address and found a guy in the bathroom with a Glock. That was probably worst—when someone was lying hidden and waiting.

A door opened a few floors below them. A bright, child's voice emanated up through the stairwell; a woman spoke to the child in a low voice. The elevator began to move. For goodness' sake, hurry up, she thought.

One of the technicians carefully unlocked the door and backed away. The plain-clothes operatives moved quickly through the open door, one after another. All were quiet. A dark hall opened out in front of them. Reflexes set in, a sudden sharpening of the senses as everyone moved through the apartment. They didn't expect to find anyone at home, but you never knew. Suspects who were hiding were risking in their lives in situations like that. The drill was to open fire if you couldn't clearly see someone's hands, if someone was deemed to be a threat by, for instance, making a sudden movement that might be an attempt to grab a weapon.

It was crucial to quickly take control of all spaces and ensure that anyone there was forced to surrender immediately; otherwise they were risking their lives.

But the apartment was empty. Bente put on gloves and moved slowly around the rooms, checking that no marks or damage from their intrusion were visible. It was a large two-room apartment, light, open plan, sparsely furnished. A surprisingly clean home—not a single speck of dust was visible. It was almost as if no one lived here, but the bed was unmade. In the sink were two wine glasses and a few plates. Magazines were stacked tidily on the coffee table; the dining table had been thoroughly wiped. There was a flat-screen TV on one wall, alongside a stereo and a computer. The kitchen was equipped with a brand-name fridge and an expensive-looking espresso machine. It fit the profile: young, competent civil servant with a decent income. This was the home of a meticulous person who would notice differences; they had to be careful. She stood in front of the small bookcase and read the titles. They were mostly
crime-fiction novels and few of the usual classics, along with a lot of academic texts from the legal field and a few TV box sets.

A thin volume caught her attention. It stood out because of its tattered spine covered in Arabic characters, otherwise it would have been barely visible, wedged between two reference books. Being careful not to accidentally damage it, she worked the book out and slowly turned the pages. It had been read many times. Several pages were dog-eared and had been colored by the visiting fingers, some were crinkled due to water damage. Arabic poems, so far as she could tell. She stopped. In one of the poems, the final two stanzas had been marked with a pencil line. She showed it to one of technicians.

“Photograph this.”

The technician put the book on a table and took several photos with his digital camera. Bente cautiously returned the volume to exactly the same location in the bookcase.

The plainclothes officers had waited for a while, bored, but had now disappeared. The apartment was quiet. All that could be heard were the technicians quickly and confidently working on their installations. One of them was squatting and installing a camera into a doorframe. In the kitchen, his colleague was attaching a microphone behind one of the halogen spotlights. There were now microphones in four locations in the room, he said; they would provide a perfect rendition of all conversations—the slightest sound.

“How long do you have left?” Bente asked.

“Fifteen minutes.”

She flipped through a stack of films and CDs next to the stereo, carefully opening one case after another. A few Cronenberg films, some dramas. Nothing eye-catching. On the coffee table was Badawi's laptop. They would leave that. The technical unit had already infiltrated the hard drive with a Trojan and was running a spyware program that recorded everything: all e-mails and Internet logs, every keystroke, every click. Counterterrorism knew exactly what Badawi did on that computer. For example, they knew he had booked a trip to Cairo for two—now that was interesting.

On the fridge were a few bills, held up by a magnet. She glanced at them, mostly out of habit, then checked the sofa to see if anything was sewn into the cushions; she looked in the bathroom, searched the washing basket. Dymek was a regular visitor, judging by the panties in the laundry and the two toothbrushes by the sink.

One of the technicians appeared. “We're done.”

Bente waited by the elevator while the technicians did a final once-over, putting everything in the apartment back to what it had been before. When they were finished, they turned off the lights and locked the door behind them, so casually that, for a moment, they looked like they lived there.

21

Stockholm, Monday, October 3

The noise made Carina jump. The doorbell made a long and aggressive sound, as if some brat was holding the button down. She got up and went into the hall. Through the peephole she saw three men standing in the crumbling stairwell.

They were waiting outside her door. Dark leather jackets, short hair, alert faces. They were clearly waiting outside her door. She had never seen them before. The one at the front reached forward and rang the bell again. Another piercing noise cut through the air and left a silence in its wake. Then there were heavy knocks on the door. She backed away.

“This is the police!” she heard from the other side of the door. “Open up!”

Her stomach did a somersault. She could have fallen to the floor and just stayed there. It was several seconds before she could move.

She ran through the apartment to the living room window and looked out. The street looked just as it always did, with one difference: right outside the main door to her building were two dark-blue double-parked Volvos. As she looked out, she saw three men standing and talking to each other and two others looking up at the window where she was standing. She moved back from the window hastily. For a protracted moment, she tried to understand what was happening.

They had come to arrest her.

She hadn't thought it would happen so quickly; it had only been a few hours since she talked to Johan. She tried to control her breathing. She couldn't be arrested. Not that.

The doorbell rang again.

No one would believe her. Not the Ministry, not the police—no one. If they brought charges, she didn't have a chance. If only the man who had given her the report knew what had happened . . . Only he could explain the situation to them. She had to find him before Säpo caught her. She had to get out.

The fear made her thoughts run through her mind like pure water. She moved quickly and purposefully, grabbing what she needed: computer, passport, wallet, keys, cell—and the report, the documents. She grabbed her swimming bag and threw everything into it, then pushed her feet into a pair of sneakers.

A heavy pounding could be heard through the door and then the doorbell rang again. Then a different sound: a low whining that quickly became a throbbing, scraping sound. They were drilling the lock out.

There was a small window in the bathroom, facing the yard. It was narrow, but she would be able to squeeze through. A bar of soap on the windowsill fell into the bathtub and bounced along making a dull clang like a church bell. She swore and pushed her way through the window with the bag in her arms; she leaned out with her feet on the windowsill, one arm holding the window frame. Next to the bathroom window was a ledge and, beyond that, a small balcony belonging to the next stairwell. There was about a meter between the two. For a second she almost changed her mind and climbed back into the apartment. She looked down and gasped.

The apartment block was four stories tall. Her legs felt limp as soon as she peered down the façade of the building. One slip and she would be dead. Perhaps it was completely crazy to do this; perhaps it would be better to go back inside and open up for the police . . . but the balcony was only two meters away. A few steps, just a few steps along a ledge on the façade and she would be there. She hung the bag out of the window and swung it through the air, throwing it toward the balcony. It landed with a thud on the inside of the rail. With her left hand she took a firm grip of the window frame and turned around slowly so that she had her back to the
abyss. Carefully, she moved her right leg out into the air and put it down on the ledge. It couldn't have been wider than five or ten centimeters. She carefully moved backward out of the window and pressed down with her foot; it didn't give way. After a brief hesitation, she moved her weight to her right leg at the same time as she moved her left foot until she had just the tips of her toes on the window frame. There—a small lightning rod. She fumbled for it with her right hand and began to lose her balance. Nice and easy, she whispered to herself in between breaths. Nice and easy; nice and easy. Her legs shook. She pressed herself against the wall of the building, clasped the lightning rod with her right hand and slowly pulled herself away from the window, putting her left foot down on the ledge. Then she let go of the window. The ledge shook a little, but held. Don't look down, she thought. If she looked down, she would fall. She concentrated on the yellow plaster façade; its grainy pores were right by her face. Perhaps this was the last thing she would see in life, the dirty yellow plaster encasing the building in which she'd lived. This idea jolted through her body like an earthquake and for a moment she thought, I'm falling. But she was still there with both feet close together on the ledge, balancing on her toes like an odd ballerina. She wouldn't manage more than a minute or so; her calves were already trembling. Using small steps, she moved toward the balcony, first her right leg, then her left. Not too fast; nice and easy. A few centimeters at a time. She rested beside the lightning rod for a few seconds before continuing, holding the rod in her left hand now.

She had gotten about halfway when she heard a noise from the bathroom window. Perhaps it had blown shut, perhaps the police had gotten into her apartment—she didn't dare turn her head to find out, but just continued. Forward, one step at a time. The last bit was the worst. She needed to let go of the lightning rod and hurl herself toward the railing. If she slipped, she would fall precipitately on the outside of the balcony railing. Don't slip; nice and easy. She clenched her teeth and stared at the balcony. There was her bag, just a meter or so away. She bent her knees, tensed her thighs and with
a violent exhalation she made a small leap to the side. For a brief moment she was floating in midair, four floors up, with her arms wildly outstretched. Then she hit the railing and grabbed hold. One arm slipped and she hit her face but managed to hang on, pull herself up and find a foothold. The disgusting taste of blood filled her mouth. A pulsing pain spread through her nose. Kicking, she fell over the railing and on to the balcony.

She got up and grabbed the balcony door, but it wouldn't open. The door was bolted; the latch was on. Without really thinking, she took her bag and used it to break the window. Then she stretched her arm through it and undid the bolt before pulling the door open.

She entered the stairwell and rushed up toward the attic. She couldn't risk coming out of the neighboring door on the street—she would be seen—she had to get away cleanly. A gray fire door led into the attic. She put down her bag and rooted through her swimming things and other possessions until she found her keys, and unlocked the door. At first she could see nothing and she groped around helplessly. It smelled of dust and damp. The dark was so dense that it was impossible to adjust her eyes to it. Then she spotted the small red dot in the darkness and rushed forward to press it. A row of pale light bulbs came on, revealing a narrow, winding passage between hundreds of storage units, all with small, numbered wooden doors. She knew that the attics in the apartment blocks were old and ran right across the top of the building. With a little luck, she would be able to make her way across the building and come out on the other side. There was a door that opened on to a small side street. She jogged into the storage area in the next attic, until the lights turned off and the darkness enveloped her in the blink of an eye. She groped her way to the next light switch, found the fire door to the next attic and continued along the lit passage. The storage units stood at attention in the gloomy light; small side passages led off to all sorts of dark places. Finally, she reached the end of the attic and crept through a fire door.

A stairwell. There was music playing somewhere.

She ought to be three doors down from her own stairwell, if she had calculated correctly. She heard nothing and caught her breath before hurrying down the stairs. On the penultimate floor, she paused to try and quell the sound of her panting while she listened.

No one was visible down by the door on to the street. The cold, fresh air hit her when she carefully opened the door. She was, as planned, three doors down, at the opposite end of the building from her own, the door that faced on to a narrow cul-de-sac. When she stepped on to the pavement and looked around the corner, she could see the dark-blue cars; they were still there. No one was visible on the street.

She crossed the road and walked, quickly, crouching down slightly behind a row of parked cars. She wanted to run, but someone might still be sitting in one of the cars and spot her.

At the corner of Tegnérgatan she couldn't stop herself any longer, she began to run, crossed to the other side, and ducked under some scaffolding, heading toward the crowds on Sveavägen. The whole time, she wanted to turn back and check no one was following her, but at the same time it was as if the action of looking over her shoulder would give her away, make her face stand out among the crowd. Every second, she was expecting the dark-blue cars to glide up alongside her, for firm hands to grab hold of her. Her legs shook. She felt unwell. She stopped at a pedestrian crossing by Sveavägen and was able to slow down and fall into the same leisurely pace as everyone else crossing the road when the light turned green. She hurried past a 7-Eleven and rushed up the hill, taking the steep steps up to the Observatorielunden park three at a time. She turned around the corner of one of the buildings belonging to the Stockholm School of Economics and almost knocked over a woman pushing a stroller when she reached the Observatory hill.

She ran up one of the small sets of steps. On the hill, just below the observatory, she had to stop to catch her breath. Her arms and legs were shaking and felt powerless. A couple of youths sitting on a bench looked at her. Why were they staring at her? Go to hell. Stop staring. She was sweaty, but shivering. Slowly, she carried on along
the gravel path toward the viewing point next to the old, venerable observatory building that rested among the trees with its large, dark and shiny windows. She leaned against the railings that ran along the edge of the steep hill and looked out over Stockholm.

It had started to get dark. The darkness protected her and she relaxed a little. Her face hurt; she could feel it now the agitation was wearing off. It was all so unreal; the police had come to her home. Perhaps it was a mistake, she said to herself. Perhaps they were looking for someone else. But she knew that wasn't true. They had rung her doorbell; they had been looking for her, not anyone else. When she was sure she was out of sight from the street, she lay down on the grass. The damp chill pressed against her back right away.