Vengeance (35 page)

    
Channel 3 Reporter Sanna Römpötti, dressed in a black blazer, appeared on the screen and continued, “
I should emphasize that this has not been verified, but according to our sources, both men caught in the explosion were police officers. Again, this account has not been verified. At this stage, we have no information about the cause of the explosion
.”

    
Salmela’s eyes were glued to the screen. The female reporter continued with details on the time and the number of emergency vehicles, but Salmela wasn’t listening anymore. It all seemed surreal. The picture snapped back and forth from the newsroom anchor to a field reporter and any eyewitnesses, or at least earwitnesses that they had found.

    
“You alright?” the shopkeeper asked.

    
Salmela snapped out of it. “Uhh, yeah.” he said. When the broadcast cut back to the studio, Salmela walked out the door.

    
Outside, he pulled out his phone and dialed Suhonen’s number. It went straight to voicemail. He tried to call Aalto with the same result—straight to voicemail.

    
Salmela glanced around, but nobody seemed to notice him. He tried to think about his situation. No sense going home—that wouldn’t be safe. He didn’t have enough money for a hotel. He’d have to find one of his friends and crash at his house for the night. The
 
guys would be at the Corner
 
Pub,
 
and a
 
couple

beers would take the edge off.

    
Jesus, what had happened? What had he done?

* * *

Römpötti hopped into the satellite truck to warm up for a while. The wind was gusting on the roof of the exhibition hall parking ramp, but at least it wasn’t raining yet. The back of the van was packed with monitors and other electronics. One of the screens showed a live feed of the accident scene, still veiled by white tarps. The operator sat near the monitors in an office chair. Römpötti plopped down in the passenger seat and pumped some coffee from a thermos into a paper cup.

    
Her fingers soaked in the warmth of the coffee. Thin leather gloves didn’t suffice for these cold conditions, but they looked better than mittens on camera. She couldn’t wear a hat either, at least not unless the temperature dipped below zero degrees Fahrenheit.

    
Römpötti sipped her coffee as she scanned the screen on her laptop. With a wireless connection, she was able to access the production program. She was back on the air in eight minutes. Something new to report would be nice, but the cops had been tight-lipped. Their initial statement had been brief: An explosion had occurred, and of the two victims, one had died and one was injured. One of Römpötti’s friends at dispatch had tipped her off about the victims being cops. She had called again, but the friend hadn’t learned anything more.

    
Something about the incident seemed peculiar to Römpötti. Car-bombs per se were nothing new—Helsinki had been rocked by a few. She recalled the 1994 explosion in the parking lot of Pasila Police Headquarters. Though the police had a suspect, the case still remained unsolved, as nobody had dared to testify against organized crime. At that time, the cops had been the target, but the circumstances of today’s incident were still unclear. Another car bombing had occurred downtown in the summer of 2002—a contract killing.

    
At a loss for new info, she considered mentioning those stories in her next spot. But viewers wanted new information, not just recaps. Römpötti’s phone rang. The caller was unidentified.

    
“Yeah?” answered Römpötti briskly. Occasionally, these types of incidents stirred up some strange people who were best dumped at the outset. She had no time for them.

    
“Sanna Römpötti?” a man asked.

    
“Yes?” She said, unable to recognize the voice.

    
The man paused briefly. “It’s Sami Aronen, from the Skulls.”

    
For a moment, Römpötti was confused. Why was Aronen calling her now? “Oh, hey Sami.”

    
“I suppose you’re kinda busy.”

    
“If you’ve seen the news, you know why.”

    
“Yeah. Listen, I have some information for you about that.”

    
Römpötti nearly dropped the phone. One of the top men in the Skulls wanted to give her a lead on a breaking story. “What’s that?” she said in a voice that seemed to have fielded hundreds of similar offers.

    
“I know the police think we’re behind this, but that’s not the case.”

    
Römpötti wasn’t surprised. “No?”

    
“Nope. I don’t care if you make their suspicions public, but I don’t want our denial to be aired at this point.”

    
“Why are you telling me this?”

    
“You look just as good in person as you do on TV,” Aronen said without the slightest hint of comedy. “The cops have been working on some kind of an undercover operation against us and they think we did it. But as I said, that’s not the case. If you wanna air what the cops think, be my guest.”

    
Römpötti was confused. Typically, people suspected of a crime would want to minimize or clarify their role. But here was Aronen, tipping her off that the gang was a suspect, yet not wanting to publicize a rebuttal. Suddenly, it occurred to her to record the conversation.

    
“I’m not sure I understand,” she said as she glanced at the operator. He was holding up four fingers—four minutes until she was back on camera. “Why would the police suspect you if you had nothing to do with it?”

    
“Listen to what I’m saying,” Aronen’s voice was tense now. “They’ve been running an undercover operation against us and they think we’re behind the bombing. The truth will come out later, but for now, you can say the police suspect us of being involved. That’s a true statement.”

    
The operator raised three fingers.

    
“Okay. I’m on camera in a minute. Thanks for the lead.” Römpötti tried to think of how she could say it on the air. Needless to say, the police wouldn’t confirm any suspicions at this stage; they seemed to have ceased all communications with the outside. Undoubtedly, the entire police organization was in chaos as the different branches scrambled to figure out who would investigate what. Maybe she could say something like this: “According to our sources, the bombing may have been connected to organized crime. Reportedly, the Skulls motorcycle gang is a prime suspect.”

    
Römpötti took a gulp of coffee and climbed out of the van into the cold wind. The camera operator, dressed in a thick parka and knit hat, waved her in front of the camera.

    
The top level of the parking ramp was surrounded by a five-foot-tall concrete wall, so the cameraman had set up two plastic crates for the reporter and him to stand on. That way, the scene of the accident, and not just the concrete wall, would be visible in the background.

    
She cleared her throat. In her hand was a small notebook, where she had written her keywords. Stepping onto the crate, she asked the camera man if everything was ready.

* * *

It was still several minutes before the meeting would begin. In the corner of the conference room at Helsinki Police Headquarters was a television, the volume at a whisper. Several officers were conversing in subdued tones as the NBI’s Jaakko Nykänen, dressed in a gray suit with his walrus mustache bristling, stepped inside.

    
The VCU conference room had been made into the command center for the investigation. About thirty officers, some sitting in front of their laptops, others standing beneath the cold fluorescent lights, were gathered in the room. Nykänen remembered dozens, if not hundreds of meetings that Takamäki had led in this room. Dammit, he thought.

    
The news broadcast came on and Nykänen told someone to turn up the volume. He hadn’t had time yet to see how the media was handling the incident, but now he had a minute and a half before the meeting would start. Nykänen grabbed a half-liter bottle of water from the basket on the table, opened it and took a swig. Sanna Römpötti appeared on the screen.

    
First, Römpötti spoke about the victims and the fatality, and alluded to the Pasila Police Headquarters bombing of fifteen years ago. Nykänen remembered it well, since he was still in the Helsinki PD at the time.

    
“
Again in 2002, a car bomb exploded downtown. Car bombs don’t choose their victims,”
the reporter said.
“So it’s not clear yet whether the bomb was intended for police, or whether it was an accident.
”

    
That Römpötti had obtained accurate information about the victims’ profession was no surprise to Nykänen. Almost immediately after the incident, that information had spread to dispatch, and within minutes, throughout the police station and beyond. If Römpötti hadn’t known it by now, she could hardly call herself a crime reporter.

    
But Nykänen perked up when she said the words “
According to our exclusive sources…
”
What could this possibly be? Every now and then, these tidbits were useful to the cops too, as long as reporters did their job well. More often than not, however, it was the other way around—reporters revealed information that shouldn’t be made public.

    
Römpötti looked straight into the camera. In the background, gray skies and broad soccer fields stretched from one end of the screen to the other.

    
“
…there is a possible link between the bombing and organized crime. Police suspect that the Skulls motorcycle gang was somehow involved in the explosion. Though this information hasn’t yet been verified, it came from a source close to the investigation.
”

    
Nykänen stared blankly at the screen as Römpötti launched into the Skulls’ background. Her words fell on deaf ears as the NBI lieutenant struggled to think of where the leak had come from. How in the hell could anyone have known that they suspected the Skulls? Was Römpötti merely speculating in the heat of the moment? He knew she was working on some story about the Skulls; she had just interviewed him a few days ago. But this leak was far too precise.

    
Several of the officers in the room glanced over at Nykänen. He wondered how many cops knew about their Skull investigation. A handful at most, and of those present, only a few. His eyes roamed the room. Many there had just found about the Skulls’ involvement from the broadcast—that was apparent. But who in the hell had leaked this?

    
His irritation nearly surpassed his grief. He tried to concentrate. In only a short while, he would have to conduct an important meeting to kick off the investigation.

    
Grief and irritation fostered anger, which Nykänen couldn’t afford. He had to stay cool and push his feelings aside. Even though he knew this, it seemed too much to bear.

* * *

Larsson and Steiner were on their third round of whiskeys, while Aronen had settled for coffee. That didn’t bother him—best if someone was sober. It had been no different in Afghanistan.

    
“Goddamn, this is a good day. We hit Helsinki Homicide—and hard,” Larsson grinned and raised his glass. In the corner, a television showed Sanna Römpötti gesturing toward the shrouded scaffolding.

    
“Good whiskey will make my day, any day,” Steiner remarked. After three o’clock, the Skulls’ core group had proceeded from the mall’s coffee shop to the restaurant. Aronen had assured their alibi the moment they walked into the shopping center when a security guard noticed the gang symbols on his vest. The guard hadn’t let the three men out of his sight since one o’clock. That was better than any security camera footage. Two guards had followed them from the coffee shop into the restaurant. That didn’t bother Larsson today. The guards sat near the entrance, far enough away that they couldn’t hear the conversation.