"I'm sorry," he said, let go of the man, and turned away. "I'm not quite myself. I'm sorry."
Jansson enterered the room last, as always, but without his usual cheerful remarks. The night editor was pale and subdued. This was going to be the hardest paper he'd put together his whole career, he knew that.
"Okay," Schyman began, looking at the handful of men around the table: Picture Pelle, Jansson, and Ingvar Johansson. The soft-news and sports people had all gone home. "How do we do this?"
For a few seconds, a tense silence filled the room. Everyone sat with his head bent down. The chair Annika normally occupied seemed to grow until it occupied the entire room. Anders Schyman turned to face the night outside the window.
Ingvar Johansson broke the silence and began talking, quietly and focused. "I suppose what we have so far must be called embryonic. There are several editorial decisions involved in this…"
Unsure of himself, he leafed through his papers. The situation felt both absurd and unreal. It was rare that the people in this room were personally affected by the business they were dealing with. Now the discussion was about one of them. And he'd just been half-strangled by the editor-in-chief. As Ingvar Johansson started going through the items on his list and giving an account of what he'd done up to that point, they did at least find a sort of strength in their routine. They couldn't get away from it; the best they could do was to go on with their work as well as they were able.
So this is what it's like to be the colleague of a victim, Anders Schyman mused and stared out the window. It might be a good idea to remember this feeling.
"First, there's the bomb at the Klara sorting office," Ingvar Johansson said. "We need one story about the victims. The man who was most badly injured died an hour ago. The others are in stable condition. The authorities will be releasing their names during the night, and we're counting on getting passport photos of them. Then there's the damage to the building…"
"Leave the families alone," Schyman said.
"Sorry?" Ingvar Johansson said.
"The injured post office workers— leave their families alone."
"We haven't even got their names yet," Ingvar Johansson replied.
Schyman turned around to face the table. Distractedly, he pulled his hand through his hair, causing it to stand straight up. "Okay," he mumbled. "Sorry— go on."
Johansson took a few breaths, braced himself, and then continued: "We've actually been inside the damaged room at Klara. I've no idea how he did it, but Henriksson managed to get in and shoot a whole roll. Normally, the room isn't open even to regular staff; it's full of special delivery mail. But we've got the pictures."
"And to that we can add something on the responsibility," Schyman said, slowly walking around in the room. "What's the responsibility of the post office in a case like this? How thoroughly should they be checking the mail? It's the classic compromise between the integrity of the general public and the safety of their employees. We'll have to talk to the director general of the post office, the union, and the cabinet minister whose portfolio it falls within."
The editor stopped by the window, looking out at the dark night outside. He listened to the sighing of the ventilation system, searching for the sound of the traffic far below in the street. He couldn't hear it. Ingvar Johansson and Jansson took notes. After a while, the news editor continued his run-through.
"There's the question of how we're affected by this at the paper, as the bomb was addressed to our crime editor. We'll have to give an account of that, the whole course of events, from when Tore Brand went to collect the parcel at lunchtime to the police attempts to trace the package."
"Annika has disappeared," Ingvar Johansson said in a low voice. "We have to face that now, and we have to write about it, don't we?"
Anders Schyman turned around. Ingvar Johansson looked uncertain.
"The question is whether we should say anything at all about the bomb being targeted at us," the news editor said. "We could end up with a flood of letter bombs, any number of copycats starting to kidnap our reporters or phone in bomb threats…"
"We can't think of it in that way," Schyman replied. "If we did, we wouldn't be able to cover anything that happened to anyone. We have to give an account of everything that has occurred, including anything involving ourselves and our crime editor. What I
will
do, though, is talk over with Thomas, Annika's husband, what we should write about her personal life."
"Has he been told?" Jansson asked, and Anders Schyman nodded.
"The police finally got hold of him around half past five. He'd been out of town, in Falun, all day and hadn't had his phone switched on. He had no idea what Annika was up to today."
"So we'll do a story on Annika having disappeared," Jansson said.
Schyman nodded and turned away again.
"We'll outline her work, but we have to be very careful with any details about her private life," Johansson said. "The next story will cover the police theories on why Annika was… targeted."
"Do
they know why?" Picture Pelle asked, and the news editor shook his head.
"There is no connection between her and the other victims. They never met. Their hypothesis is that Annika has been digging around and found out something she shouldn't have. She's been leading the news from the first moment on this story. The motive has to be somewhere there. She simply knew too much."
The men fell silent, listening to each other's breathing.
"Not necessarily," Schyman said. "This lunatic just isn't rational. She could have sent off the bomb for reasons incomprehensible to anyone but herself."
The other men all looked up simultaneously. The editor-in-chief gave a sigh. "Yes, the police think it's a woman. I think we should print that. Annika thought this morning that the police had pinpointed her, but they hadn't told her who it was. Let's write that the police are searching for a suspect, a woman, whom they haven't been able to locate."
Anders Schyman sat down at the table and hid his face in his hands. "What the hell do we do if the Bomber has her? What if she's killed?"
No one replied. Somewhere out in the newsroom,
Aktuellt
came on. They could hear the voice of the anchor through the plasterboard walls.
"We'll have to do a recap of the bombings so far," Jansson said, stepping in. "Someone will have to pump the police for information on how they fixed on this particular woman. There are bound to be details there that we should…"
He fell silent. Suddenly, it wasn't so obvious what was relevant or not. The horizon had been shifted, the benchmark moved. All frames of reference were distorted; the focus was upside down.
"We'll have to handle this the normal way, as far as it's possible," Anders Schyman said. "Do what you usually do. I'll stay here tonight. What pictures do we have for this?"
The picture editor began to speak. "We haven't got that many pictures of Annika, but there is one from last summer, when we took pictures for the portrait gallery of employees. That could work."
"Isn't there one of her at work?"
Jansson snapped his fingers. "There is one of her in Panmunjom, in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, where she's standing next to the American president. She went there on a grant and got a place in a press delegation before the four-party talks in Washington last autumn, remember? She happened to step off the coach at the same moment as the president got out of his limo, and AP took a picture of the two of them standing right next to each other…"
"We'll use that," Schyman said.
"I've picked out some archive pictures of the damaged stadium, Sätra Hall, Furhage, and the builder, Bjurling," Picture Pelle added.
"Right," Schyman said, "what goes on the front page?"
Everyone waited in silence, letting the editor say it out loud.
"A portrait of Annika, preferably one where she looks happy. She's the news. The bomb was meant for her, and now she's disappeared. Only we know that. I think we should do it logically and chronologically: on pages six and seven, the bombing of Stockholm Klara sorting office; eight–nine, the new victims; ten–eleven, our reporter is missing; twelve–thirteen, the Bomber is a woman, the police have her pinned down; fourteen–fifteen, a recap of the bombings, an examination of mail security versus personal integrity; the center spread, the piece about Annika and her work, the picture from the DMZ…"
He fell silent and stood up, feeling nauseated at vocalizing his own decisions. Once again he went up to the window and looked out over the dark embassy building. By rights, they shouldn't be doing this. By rights, the paper shouldn't be published at all. By rights, they should let all coverage of the Bomber be. He felt like a monster.
The others quickly ran through the rest of the paper. No one said a word when they left the room.
* * *
Annika was shivering. It was cold in the passage; she thought the temperature to be somewhere around forty. Luckily, she'd put on long underwear that morning since she'd planned on walking home after work. At least she wouldn't freeze to death. But her socks were damp after the trudge through the snow and they chilled her feet. She tried wiggling her toes to keep warm. Her movements were cautious; she didn't dare move her feet too much or the explosive charge on her back might go off. At irregular intervals, she shifted position to rest different parts of her body. If she lay on her side, one of her arms was jammed; if she lay on her stomach, her neck hurt; her legs became numb if she tried kneeling or crouching. She cried from time to time, but the more time that passed, the more collected her thoughts became.
She wasn't dead yet. Panic subsided and her reasoning returned. She considered ways of escaping. That she could physically get away and run was not a realistic option. Attracting the attention of the builders up at the arena was out of the question; Beata had probably been lying when she'd said they were working up there. Why would they start the restoration on the day before Christmas? And for that matter, Annika hadn't seen a single car or person anywhere near the stadium. If the builders really had started work, there would have been various vehicles parked near the stadium, and she hadn't seen a single one. Anyway, they would have gone home a long time ago: It must be evening by now. Or even night. That meant they would have started looking for her. She started crying again when she realized that no one had picked up the kids from the nursery. She knew how pissed the staff could get; it had happened to Thomas about a year ago. The children would be sitting there, waiting to go home and dress the Christmas tree, and she wouldn't come. Maybe she'd never come home again. Maybe she'd never get to see them grow up. Ellen would probably not even remember her. Kalle might have vague memories of his mother, especially if looking at the photographs from last summer in the cottage. She started crying uncontrollably; it was all so horribly unfair.
The tears subsided after a while; she had no more energy for crying. She mustn't start thinking about death, then it would be guaranteed to happen, a self-fulfilling prophecy. She
was
going to get through this. She would be home for the Christmas Disney show at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon. She hadn't reached the end of the line yet. The bomber clearly had plans for her, otherwise she'd have been dead already, she was positive of that. Furthermore, the newspaper and Thomas would have sounded the alarm about her disappearance, and the police would start looking for her car. It was, however, lawfully and discreetly parked among a whole row of other cars, half a mile from the arena. And who would think of coming down here? No one had done so far. They would have discovered this hideout. How could the police have missed it? The entrance from the stadium must be well hidden.
The phone rang at regular intervals. She'd searched for a stick or something that she could use to pull her bag closer but had found nothing. Her range was less than ten feet in any direction and judging by the sound, her phone must be at least ten yards away. Oh, well, at least it meant they were trying to get hold of her.
She had no real grasp of what time it was or how long she'd been lying in the passage. It had been just before half past one when she walked inside, but she had no idea of how long she'd been unconscious. Neither could she judge for how long she had been panicking, but it must have been at least five hours since she got a grip of herself. That would mean it was at least half past six now, but it could be considerably later, nearer half past eight or nine. She was both hungry and thirsty and had pissed herself again— nothing much to worry about. Her excrement had started to harden and was itching. It was disgusting. This must be what it's like for children to wear a diaper. Except they get them changed.
Suddenly she was struck by another thought: What if Beata didn't come back? No one would think of coming down here during the Christmas holidays. A person could survive without water only a couple of days. Come Boxing Day and it would all be over. She started crying again, quietly with exhaustion. The Bomber
