Into a Raging Blaze (43 page)

“But if you look at their material again, maybe you'll see things differently,” he said, “now that things have calmed down a bit. It would probably do the Section some good.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don't have to worry. The Brits have nothing but good things to say about the Section. But, at the same time, they are stressing how important it is to close this case in a positive way,” he said. hastily adding, “I just spoke to London; that's how I know this. It would obviously be very beneficial for the Section to show results, that you can deliver what the Brits ask for. You know how it is. Management in Stockholm looks at all the numbers. And, to be honest, there are some people back home who are raising questions about the Section, so a good result would set you up nicely for budget discussions, as I'm sure you understand,” he said in a serious tone, as if he were on her side.

He had wanted to say it for so long, she could hear it in his voice. He was in a good mood and couldn't hide it, despite it not sitting well with the sympathetic tone. If Badawi really were innocent, he would be let go, Bente said to herself. It didn't matter if she confirmed the intelligence; all that would happen was it would be rejected at a later stage in court. Naturally, a court would poke holes in the British claims; there was no substance to them. They would realize who Badawi was—a normal civil servant—and find him innocent.

“Okay. I'll take a look. But I can't promise anything.”

“Great, Bente. Many thanks.”

He hung up.

She got out a bottle of white, opened it, and poured a glass. The taste unfurled through her mouth and made her eyes moist. It was a dry French wine, one of her favorites. She took another gulp—she couldn't resist it; it was truly delicious—yet it made her feel unwell. She swallowed. It was so desperately quiet around her.

Fredrik was in the living room, fiddling with his cell. He looked up quickly and continued writing on his BlackBerry. “Hello. So, you're back.”

“Yes. I finished a bit earlier than usual.”

He wasn't listening, was engrossed in his cell, presumably reading an e-mail. Then he put the phone in his pocket, came into the kitchen and gave her a dry, absentminded kiss on the cheek as he passed her. “You seem tired.”

“I'm okay.”

Fredrik nodded. She avoided looking at him. She didn't have the strength to explain and she didn't want him to ask more questions because she still wouldn't be able to say anything. She poured another glass of wine and passed it to him. She had spent half her life working in this silence, without wanting to break it. She had always believed in what she was doing. But she wasn't so sure any longer. Maybe it was all wrong.

She looked out the window. It was a long time since she had gotten back from the office this early; normally it was dark. The boys were moving around in the yard. They were chasing the basketball, running in circles on the lawn in some kind of contest. Their eldest stopped and whispered something to his little brother, who listened in earnest. The youngest seemed to do as he had been told and ran across the yard, vanishing from sight.

“It's funny that the boys . . .” she began to say, but broke off when she turned around and noticed that Fredrik was no longer there.

47

Cairo, Monday, October 10

An old car with rattling exhaust pipes had just swung in behind Carina when the call connected, so at first she couldn't tell whether anyone had answered. Two men were hanging through the windows and began to bandy words with the vendors perched on small camping stools outside the little shop where she had just bought the cell, now pressed to her ear.

“Hello?”

It sounded as if someone had picked up the phone and was still there at the other end of the line, but she wasn't sure; the line was bad. Sunlight cut sharp contours across the streets of Cairo. She wandered into a small side street where the midday heat was not as remorseless.

“Hello? This is Carina. Carina Dymek. Can you hear me?”

The poor phone line made it sound like Alex's voice was coming out of a mineshaft. “Carina!” she burst out, and then, as if she had really meant to say something else, she said, “Where are you?”

“In Cairo.”

“
Cairo
?”

“Alex, I . . .”

Words were being delayed and Alex interrupted her. “Have you seen the news?”

“No.”

“. . . Greger, I think.”

It was hard to hear Alex; the words were all fragmented. But she guessed what Alex had just said.

“. . . the hell? I've not fucking done anything!” she heard Alex say, as if she was at the end of an echoing tunnel. Then her voice was suddenly close by, shrill and whiney. She spoke quickly and breathlessly. She was frightened. “Greger said it was cool, that it was just something you needed help with. My site has been down since this morning and they've arrested Greger. I don't know what's happened to Victor—he's not answering his cell. No one's answering. What the fuck have you done? Who the fuck are you?”

Carina sank down on to the pavement and closed her eyes. Greger, arrested? A big bus rumbled past, dangerously close, but she didn't care. Her arms were numb; she could barely keep the phone to her ear. “Alex, listen,” she said and tried to sound calm. “It's all a misunderstanding. It'll be all right.”

“How—?”

Carina interrupted her. “I'm going to sort this out. You have to trust me.”

“Fuck you!” exclaimed Alex, her voice cracking. “I don't want to go to prison. I haven't fucking done anything. I'm a computer programmer, for Christ's sake, and I just let you do what you wanted on my site. I wasn't in control—how the fuck could I have been? There must be—”

“Alex. Alex, listen,” Carina said firmly in an attempt to break through the rattling stream of words. All she really wanted to do was cry. Everything had gone wrong—everything. She had to find a TV, she thought. As soon as she was done with the call. Only Alex could do what she was going to ask for. It was her last chance. With immense effort, she managed to soften her voice. “Alex, please. Listen to me.”

There was silence at the other end of the line.

“I don't have time to explain everything,” she continued rapidly, afraid of losing Alex's attention. She gathered her thoughts and spoke slowly, as if to a frightened child. “It's a misunderstanding. Whatever has happened, we have done nothing wrong. Okay?”

“Okay,” she heard.

“I want to ask you for a favor.” She took a breath. “Under your fridge there is a bundle of papers and a USB stick.”

“Under my
fridge
?”

“Alex, listen!” she shouted and for a moment she was quite certain that Alex would hang up. But her tone of voice had the intended effect: Alex swallowed the questions that were probably on the tip of her tongue and abruptly fell silent. “You have to get the USB and the papers. Do you understand? It's very important. Can you do that for me?”

“Okay.”

“Under the fridge, there's a small plastic grill. Take it off. The papers and USB are inside.”

She waited impatiently while Alex went to the kitchen. It was so surreal to imagine the small apartment in the south of Stockholm, so infinitely far away from the lane where she was standing, sweating in the close heat. She heard a rattle and a scraping sound as Alex put the phone to one side.

After a frustratingly long time, Alex's voice returned, loud and clear: “There.”

“Have you got it all?”

Yes. Alex had it all: the report, the secret documents and the memory stick. It was all still there.

“Was it you who put them all there?”

“Yes. I had to hide them.”

“. . . looks secret. What is it?”

“It's a report.” She couldn't explain now, the line was too bad, but promised to explain everything later, even though she silently doubted whether such an opportunity would ever arise. “Three of the documents have green stamps on them. Do you see them?”

Yes, Alex had them.

Carina took a deep breath. For the first time in a very long time, she felt a weak, budding sense of hope. It might work. But they had to act quickly. If the police had shut down Alex's site and arrested Greger and the others, it was only a matter of time before they came
looking for Alex too. But there was no point in telling her that, it would only scare the living daylights out of her.

“Hello? Alex, can you hear me?”

It seemed as if the line had been cut, and she swore aloud. But Alex was still there—her voice audible but delayed.

She had been right: Alex had a scanner. Carina quickly began to explain, and waited while she listened to Alex turning on her computer and then, page by page, scanning the short documents: the records from the secret meeting in The Hague, the grotesque instruction not to inform parliament about the EIS, and the annex. Finally, Alex copied the report on the memory stick.

Then: “. . . do I do now?”

Carina swallowed. What she was now going to ask Alex to do would irrevocably change their lives in ways she couldn't foresee. But that couldn't be helped. It had to be done.

“Go to my e-mail,” she said, and spelled the password to her private e-mail account. She had to repeat it twice before Alex heard it properly. But now she did exactly as Carina told her to, quickly, without any objections.

“Okay.”

Carina got out the crumpled note and read the e-mail address for the
Guardian
. She had considered other options, but had chosen the British daily newspaper. They understood British politics; they would take it seriously. If the
Guardian
made a big deal about the EIS and showed that the entire project had taken place without the knowledge of any elected politicians, there was still a chance that she and the others drawn into this would be exonerated.

“Also copy in these people,” she continued, and read the names of the Swedish MPs on the Advisory Committee on EU Affairs. They were well-known politicians; over the years, Carina had become familiar with their debating techniques and their innermost beliefs. How many times had she prepared data for the foreign minister or other junior ministers so that they could provide watertight answers to all the razor-sharp, piercing questions about the government's EU policies? But now she was no longer a civil servant, she
served no one. It was their right to know the truth and her damn democratic duty to inform them. She slowly dictated the short message that would be the first thing read by the recipients when they opened the e-mail, and waited. The heat beat down on her head. Sweat ran all over her body in small, sluggish rivulets.

“Send it now,” she heard herself say. “Send all the files.”

Shortly thereafter, Alex's voice penetrated through a wall of noise. There. Now it was sent.

“Good.” But she doubted that “good” was really the right word. There was no triumph in her actions; this was just something that she had been forced to do, and now it was done. Hopefully, it would absolve her and all the others she had pulled into the case. She felt hopelessly tired. Without caring about the stares of the passersby, she squatted down to rest in front of a dirty yellow façade. “That's great,” she repeated in a low voice.

“. . . now?”

“What did you say?”

“What do we do now?” Alex repeated.

“I don't know, Alex.” She just wanted to cry. She bit her lip and managed to say, “But thank you. You don't know what this means.”

“. . . problem.”

The line crackled. It whistled and whined as if an electric storm was sweeping in between them. Alex's voice was subdued, the words indistinct.

“I can't hear you.”

“. . .”

“I'll be in touch, Alex. Speak soon. Okay?” Carina cupped her hand over the phone to hear better. But the line had already been cut off.

She got up laboriously, crossed the street and headed to a small café where, the whole time, there had been three elderly men watching her. She asked in English if there was a TV in the café. They looked at her, puzzled, as if she was a complete idiot, and said nothing. A young man came out and asked if he could help. He looked so eerily like Jamal that, at first, she was thrown. Of course he had
a TV. With an amused expression, he led her inside the dark, cool room. The young man reluctantly changed channel to BBC World on the small flat-screen TV in the corner and indicated that she should sit.

She stayed there while some men stared at her from the next table, until, finally, the news she had been waiting for came on.

TERRORIST
CELL
IN
STOCKHOLM
UNCOVERED
, was the headline. A probable terrorist attack had been averted, said the newscaster, after three people, suspected of planning attacks against targets in the EU, were arrested in Stockholm in the early hours of Saturday morning. According to anonymous sources, one of those arrested was a thirty-two-year-old Swedish civil servant with connections to Islamist networks. A grainy film sequence showed a task force moving around on the street outside the main door of an apartment building. Just as the segment ended, she recognized the building: it was Hammarby Sjöstad, outside Jamal's building.

“No!”

She flew up from her seat. The men at the next table had lost interest in her, but now fell silent and looked sideways at her in disapproval.

No. That couldn't be right. Not Jamal. She was tired; she must have been mistaken. But, naturally, she had not been mistaken; she had recognized the door, the gray exterior, the small sushi place. A sob swelled in her throat. It was all her fault. She fumbled with the remote control, which was still on the table. Her hands shook so much she could barely flick between the channels. Finally, she found another English-language news channel and waited. A similar report appeared. It was brief, but the same shaky images flicked past: heavily armed police moving in and out of Jamal's building.

She rushed out of the café, got out her cell, and called Jamal's number. But his phone was still turned off. The call was connected, crackling, and she went straight to his voicemail. For a few seconds his voice was so close, so soft, so familiar: “Hi. You've reached Jamal. Please leave a message. I promise to get back to you as soon as I can.”

“Jamal, it's me!” she shouted through the din of the traffic hammering along the avenue. “Please call me. If you get this.”

She blurted out the number for her new cell. Standing in the middle of the hubbub, she cried violently with the phone pressed to her breast, as if it contained the last remains of the man she loved. A boy playing nearby stopped and squinted at her curiously, occasional passersby glanced at her, but most people hurried past without even noticing her, occupied with their own lives.