"The taxi driver was taken away an hour ago, this is something different. Aren't they saying anything over the police radio?"
"Nothing interesting."
"Anything scrambled?"
"Nope."
"And the radio news?"
"Nothing so far. There's a special
Rapport
bulletin on TV at six o'clock."
"Yes, I saw their van."
"Keep your eyes open, I'll call you when the front page goes to press."
He hung up. Annika dropped the call but kept the earpiece in her ear.
"Why do you have one of those?" Henriksson asked and pointed at the cord hanging down her cheek.
"Don't you know that your brain is fried by the radiation from cellphones?" she said, smiling. "It's handy. I can run and write and talk on the phone at the same time. And it's quiet; you don't hear when I make a call."
There were tears in her eyes from the cold, so she had to squint to see what was going on over by the stadium. "Have you got a mega telephoto lens?"
"They don't work when it's this dark," Henriksson replied.
"Then take the biggest one you've got and try and see what's going on over there," she said, pointing with her gloved hand.
Henriksson sighed a bit and put his camera bag on the ground. He looked through the lens. "I need a tripod," he mumbled.
The vehicles had driven up a grass slope and parked by the stairs to one of the big entrances. Three men stepped out of the doctor's car and stood talking behind it. A policeman in uniform approached them, and they shook hands. There was no movement in the ambulance.
"They don't seem to be in any hurry," Henriksson said.
Another two men went up to them, one a policeman in uniform, the other he assumed to be a cop in plain clothes. The men were talking and gesticulating with their hands, one of them pointing up toward the gaping bomb hole.
Annika's phone rang. She pressed the answer button. "Yes?"
"What's the ambulance doing?"
"Nothing. Waiting."
"What have we got for the next edition?"
"Have you found the taxi driver at the hospital?"
"Not yet, but we've got people there. He's not married, no partner."
"Have you tried contacting the Olympic boss, Christina Furhage?"
"Can't find her."
"What a disaster for her. She's worked so hard… We have to do the whole Olympic angle, too. What happens to the Games now? Can the stand be fixed in time? What does Samaranch say? All that stuff."
"We've looked into it. There are people here working on it."
"I'll do the story on the actual blast, then. It has to be sabotage. Three pieces: the police hunt for the bomber, the scene of the crime this morning, and…" She fell silent.
"Bengtzon…?"
"They're opening the back doors of the ambulance. They're taking out the stretcher, wheeling it up to the entrance. Shit, Jansson, there's another victim!"
"Okay. The Police Hunt, I Was at the Scene, and the Victim. You've got pages six, seven, eight plus the center spread." The line went dead.
She was on full alert as the ambulance people walked toward the stadium. Henriksson's camera was rattling. No other journalists had noticed the newly arrived vehicles; the training facility blocked their line of vision.
"Christ, it's cold," Henriksson said when the men had disappeared inside the arena.
"Let's go back to the car and make our calls," Annika said.
They went back toward the media gathering. People were standing around, freezing in the frigid air. The TV people were unrolling their cables, and some reporters were blowing on their ballpoint pens. Why don't they ever learn to use pencils when it's below freezing? Annika thought to herself and smiled. The radio people looked like insects with their sound equipment jutting out their backs. Everyone was waiting. One of the freelancers from
Kvällspressen
had returned from a trip to the newsdesk.
"They're having some kind of press briefing at six o'clock," he said.
"Live on the
Rapport
special bulletin— how convenient," Annika muttered.
Henriksson had parked his car way off, behind the tennis courts and the sports clinic.
"I took the route they first cordoned off to come here," he said apologetically.
They had some way to walk. Annika could feel her feet grow numb from the cold. A light snow had started falling— too bad, when you're planning to take photos in the dark with a telephoto lens. They had to brush the snow off the windshield on Henriksson's Saab.
"This is good," Annika said, looking toward the arena. "We can see both the ambulance and the doctor's car. We've got it all covered from here."
They got in and warmed up the engine. Annika started making her calls. She tried the Krim duty desk again. Busy. She called the emergency services control room and asked who had first raised the alarm, how many calls they had received, if anyone in the apartments nearby had been hurt by flying glass, and whether they had any idea as to the extent of the damage. As usual, the emergency people knew the answers to most of her questions.
She then dialed the number she had found on the sticker on the entrance doors of Victoria Stadium, the one belonging to the security company responsible for guarding the premises. She found herself at an emergency service switchboard in Kungsholmen in west-central Stockholm. She asked if they had received any alarms from the Olympic arena in the early morning hours.
"We treat all incoming alarm calls as confidential," said the man at the other end.
"I understand that," Annika said. "But I'm not asking about an alarm call you've received but about one you probably haven't received."
"Hey," the man said, "are you deaf?"
"Okay," Annika said. "Put it this way: What happens when you get an alarm call?"
"Eh… it comes here."
"To the emergency control room?"
"Yeah, where else? It's entered into our computer system and then it comes up on our screens with an action plan telling us what to do."
"So if there were an alarm call from the Olympic stadium, it would appear on your screen?"
"Eh… yeah."
"And then it says exactly what steps you should take concerning that alarm call?"
"Eh… right."
"So what has your company been doing out at the Olympic stadium tonight? I haven't seen a single one of your cars out here."
No reply from the man.
"Victoria Stadium has been blown up. We can agree on that, can't we? What's your company supposed to do if the Olympic area catches fire or is damaged in some other way?"
"It comes up on the computer," the man said.
"So what have you been doing?"
The man said nothing.
"You haven't received any alarm whatsoever from the arena, have you?" Annika said.
The man was quiet for a while before he replied.
"I can't comment on the alarm calls we don't get either."
Annika took a deep breath and smiled.
"Thank you," she said.
"You won't write any of what I've said, will you?" the man said anxiously.
"Said?" Annika said. "You haven't said a word. All you've done is refer me to your confidentiality policy."
She switched off. Yes, she had her angle now. She drew a deep breath and stared out through the windshield. One of the fire engines pulled off, but the ambulance and the doctor's car remained. The explosives experts had arrived; their vehicles were dotted around the forecourt. Men in gray overalls were lifting things out of the cars. The fire had been extinguished, so she could hardly make out any smoke.
"How were we tipped off this morning?" she asked.
"Smidig," Henriksson replied.
Every newsroom has a number of more or less professional tipsters who keep an eye on what's happening on their particular newspatch.
Kvällspressen
was no exception. Smidig and Leif were the best police informers; they slept with the police radio on by their beds. As soon as anything happened, big or small, they called the newspapers and told them. Other informers would pore over the records of the different legal institutions and other government authorities.
Annika, lost in thought, slowly let her eyes travel over the facility. Straight ahead lay the ten-floor building where the technical operations of the Games would be conducted. From the roof of this building was a footbridge up to the rock. Strange, who would want to walk there? She followed the footbridge with her eyes.
"Henriksson," she said, "we've got another pic to take."
She looked at her watch. Half past five. They'd make it to the press conference. "If we climb up next to the Olympic flame, at the top of the hill, we should be able to see quite a lot."
"You think so?" the photographer said, unconvinced. "They've built the walls so high no one can sneak in or see inside."
"The actual grounds are probably hidden from view, but maybe you can see the North Stand. That's what we're interested in now."
Henriksson looked at his watch.
"Do we have time? Hasn't the helicopter taken all that? Shouldn't we be watching the ambulance?"
She chewed on her lip.
"The helicopter isn't here right now. Maybe the police ordered it down. We'll ask one of the freelancers to keep an eye on the ambulance. Come on, let's go."
The rest of the journalists had discovered the ambulance, and their questions were buzzing in the air. The
Rapport
team had moved their OB van nearer to the canal to get a better picture of the arena. A frostbitten reporter was rehearsing his stand-up for the six o'clock bulletin. There were no police around. After Annika had given the freelancers instructions, they were on their way too.
It was further to get up the hill than she'd thought. The going was hard— the ground was slippery and stony. They stumbled and cursed in the dark. On top of everything, Henriksson was lugging a large tripod. They didn't encounter any cordons and got up there in time but only to be faced with a seven-foot-high concrete wall.
"I don't believe it," Henriksson groaned.
"Maybe this'll work in our favor," Annika said. "Get up on my shoulders and I'll hoist you up. Then you can climb up on the actual flame. You should be able to see something from there."
The photographer stared at her.
"You want me to stand on the Olympic flame?"
"Yes, why not? It's not alight, and it hasn't been cordoned off. I'm sure you can get on top of it; it's only another yard up from the wall. If it's to hold the eternal flame, it should be able to hold you. Come on, let's go!"
Annika passed up the tripod and the camera bag to him. Henriksson crawled up on the metal frame.
"It's full of little holes!" he shouted.
"Gas holes," Annika said. "Can you see the North Stand?"
He stood up and looked out over the stadium.
"Do you see anything?" Annika shouted.
"You bet I do," the photographer said. He slowly raised his camera and started snapping.
"What?"
He lowered his camera without taking his eyes off the stadium.
"They've lit up part of the stand," he said. "There are about ten people down there walking around picking things up and putting them in little plastic bags. The guys from the doctor's car are there. They're also picking stuff up. They seem to be extremely meticulous about it." He raised his camera again.
Annika felt the hair on her neck stand on end. Shit! Was it really that bad? Henriksson opened up the tripod. After three rolls of film, he had finished. They alternately ran and slid down the hill, shocked, slightly nauseated. What would doctors be picking up and putting in little bags— explosive residue? Hardly.
A couple of minutes before six they were back down with the media scrum. The TV cameras' bluish lights were illuminating the whole scene, making the snowflakes sparkle.
Rapport
had their link in place, and the reporter had powdered his face. A group of police officials, led by the officer-in-charge, headed their way. They lifted the cordon but couldn't get any further. The wall of journalists was solid. There was silence when the officer screwed up his eyes against the camera lights. He glanced at a paper in his hand, raised his eyes, and began talking.
"At 3:17 A.M. an explosive charge went off at Victoria Stadium in Stockholm," he said. "It's not known what kind of explosives were used. The explosion badly damaged the North Stand. It's not clear at the moment whether it will be possible to repair it."
