Stone Coffin Part 16

"You have a spot on your nose," he said, and even though she knew that he was joking, she had to get out her compact and double-check. She put on her lapel mike and checked the prompter she would be reading from. The intro was already on it, the lead that gave all of the program headlines before two minutes of advertising took over. She sighed, but if this bored her, she did not show it. In fact she looked markedly alert.

She pressed the earpiece in firmly and immediately heard the editor's voice.

"We've shortened Enkoping by twenty seconds."

She quickly checked the screen.

"Okay," she said.

Anna Brink observed the female politician. She looked extremely nervous. The guests often were-studying their image in the mirror again and again, pulling on their hair, making tiny movements with their mouths, straightening tie or blouse, laughing in a forced manner, or simply standing without saying anything. Anna had seen all of these behaviors, and Ann-Britt Zimen managed to combine all of them into a sort of spasmodic pattern.

"It's going to be fine," Anna said.

She felt sorry for the woman. They just had to hope that she would calm down or Anders Moss would have a h.e.l.l of a time of it in the studio.

All at once the woman's face twisted into a frozen look of horror. She stared through the window in the door and whimpered. Anna followed her gaze. On the other side was a young woman. Her hair was no longer blonde but red with blood, as was her face. The whites of her eyes glinted, her mouth was open, and she was pressing one hand against the gla.s.s.

Anna pushed the paralyzed Zimen to one side, unhooked the chain, and opened the door. The young woman tried to say something that Ann couldn't understand.

"What has happened?"

The woman quickly pulled the door shut, and before Anna had time to understand what had happened, three or perhaps four figures dressed in black rushed from the loading dock into the narrow waiting area. All of them were masked, and the first thing the bleeding young woman did was also to pull a mask on.

"Not a word," one of them said and laid a hand over Zimen's mouth.

Security was an issue that had been discussed at the station. A lock for the front door had been ordered but not installed, so in a couple of seconds they had been invaded by some gang. This was not a studio visit.

"We don't mean any harm."

Anna saw that they were all young. Slender bodies, thin hands, and youthful voices.

"As long as you keep your mouths shut and do as we say," said another.

Anna and Zimen were forced into the Avid editing room. One of the masked figures grabbed the telephone receiver and pulled out the cord.

"Give me your cell phones," he said, clearly nervous. "How many of you are there?"

"I don't know exactly," Anna said. "Six or seven. Some are in the control room and a couple are in the studio. What do you want?"

"None of your business."

Anna was surprised at herself. She was afraid at first, but felt no terror. Zimen, however, had collapsed, much like her party, and was sitting apathetically against the wall. She would not say anything coherent for a long time. Anna leaned over and told her that everything would be all right.

The door of the room closed. One of the masked men remained outside. The rest stormed into the control room and the studio, the element of surprise on their side. There were only two minutes until the broadcast was scheduled to begin. Charlie Nikoforos attempted to resist them, grabbing one of them by the arm, but the invader only laughed and shrugged him off.

"No one will be hurt if you do what we say," said the one who appeared to be the leader. That was what the audio technician said to the police afterward, that the others seemed to look to him for direction, to follow his instructions.

"We want to broadcast our message and you're going to help us."

He looked slowly around at the entire editorial team, all of whom had gathered in the control room.

"This bag," he said and held up an old-fashioned shopping bag, "contains an explosive ma.s.sive enough to blow this studio to pieces. You see this thread-if I pull it out there will be only ten seconds until the blast. Some of you may get out in time but not everyone."

They all stared at the insignificant shopping bag. A plastic string stuck up through a gap in the zipper. The man held the bag aloft in his left hand and waved the other, visually suggesting an explosion.

"Who is the newsreader?"

"I am," Birgitta Nilsson said.

"Good. You'll be reading a text for us."

He glanced at the clock on the wall, which read 18:09.

"I want you to look normal, read from the paper, nothing else. Do you understand?"

Birgitta Nilsson stared at him but didn't say anything.

"What the h.e.l.l," said the editor, "you can't do that!"

"What's this about?" Ove Lundin asked.

"You'll see. All of you should do what you normally do. No tricks. Everything calm and orderly. When our message has gone out, we'll be on our way."

For a brief second, the room was deathly quiet. The shock and the feeling of unreality that had gripped the editorial team started to give way to fear. What if something went wrong? What would happen?

"And no messing around. We have someone on the outside to call to make sure the transmission is going out, so don't try anything. Get it?"

The masked man shouted out his commands. The red marker on the clock was steadily advancing.

"Sit down in there. Look like normal!"

"Thirty seconds," the scriptwriter said and sent a pleading look to the editor.

"Okay," he said, "go to the desk."

Birgitta Nilsson stared at the paper she had been given but couldn't seem to bring herself to read a single line. They all took up their positions in silence. Mechanically, Birgitta picked up the mirror and looked at her pale, blank face. The editor sat down at the small table in the control room. He turned on the microphone that put him in communication with Birgitta.

"Are you there?" he said softly. "You can do this."

One of the cameramen made himself ready.

"Ten seconds," the editor in chief announced.

His gaze was fixed on the monitors. The broadcast began. The introductory music sounded completely unfamiliar.

"Should I do the usual bit?" Birgitta asked.

Anders Moss looked over at the leader, who took a step closer to the open door of the studio, peered in, and then nodded.

"Then there are ads for two minutes."

The masked man nodded again. He appeared to have calmed down.

"Why?" Moss said. "They'll put you away for this."

"Shut up," the man hissed.

Moss was suddenly exasperated with the whole thing. Why do we have to put up with such idiots? The ads were running. Two masked men were keeping watch at the control table, another was in the studio, and then there was the leader. We could take them, Moss thought and tried to make eye contact with the audio technician. But he was just staring dumbly at his controls as if he didn't understand what he was supposed to do.

The seconds slowly ticked away. Ten seconds, Moss thought. How far can we get in ten seconds? Maybe it's a bluff, but who wants to show their colors?

The ads were coming to an end. The audio tech was trembling with terror. His hands rested on the table and were audibly shaking against the surface.

"Ten seconds," the script girl said.

She was the calmest of them all. Birgitta was suddenly on the screen. She gazed nervously into the camera. Those who knew her and who saw the broadcast said afterward that they had noticed nothing, but she felt nauseated from anxiety and fear.

She looked down at the paper in front of her. It was printed in large type, perhaps fifteen rows of strange black letters.

"The Uppsala company MedForsk conducts illegal experiments with primates," she said and then paused.

"What the h.e.l.l!" the leader yelled from the control room. "Keep going!"

A couple of seconds that felt like years went by before she was able to continue. At this point many of the viewers realized that something was wrong. Perhaps they had heard the wild masked man's voice; perhaps they thought that the text had become jumbled and was the cause of the confusion in Birgitta's face.

"These activities have been conducted for the past two years and are both against the law and a terrible injustice to the primates who are held captive under the most abject conditions. They live in tiny cages and suffer pointlessly. We, the Animal Liberation Front, are warning MedForsk: Put an end to the painful experiments or we will put a stop to your b.l.o.o.d.y experiments. You think that you can put yourselves above the animals and excuse your behavior by saying that it serves mankind, but the only thing you want is to make money. A final warning: Desist from your criminal activities or you will regret it."

Calle Friesman, who was hanging around waiting for the story on Akademiska that he had finished earlier that afternoon, realized immediately that something was wrong. The first sentence could have made sense, although he hadn't heard anything about a segment on apes, but there was something about Birgitta's voice and gaze. She was reading from a piece of paper, not the prompter, and that in itself was unusual. Admittedly all newscasters had papers in front of them that they occasionally pretended to read from, but that was simply to give a little more life to the presentation.

When she went on, he was chilled to the bone. What the h.e.l.l is going on with her? he thought and stood up. He looked around the editorial office, but he was the last one there. Maybe someone in marketing was still working, but they didn't normally watch the broadcast closely. Had she lost her marbles?

When she had finished the text, Birgitta Nilsson simply stared helplessly into the camera. She heard Anders shout something about cutting to black. The cameraman collapsed on the floor.

The leader had been in touch with someone who was watching the program. He turned off the phone and gave a chuckle.

Why are they still here? Anders Moss wondered. Don't they realize the police will soon be here?

"You did well. Thanks for the help."

He sounded genuinely appreciative. As if on command, they all left the control room. Their comrade poked his head out of the Avid room. At that moment Calle Friesman came storming down the spiral staircase so fast that he ran straight into the arms of one of the masked men.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" he yelled.

He was struck on the back of the head, which sent him tumbling against the staircase railing and then in a free fall down the stairs. The pain from his back as he smashed against a step was indescribable. The leader bent over him and Calle noticed his bad breath. Then they all disappeared through the loading dock, the way they had entered ten minutes earlier.

The politician's screams from the Avid room echoed around them.

The alarm came in at 18:15. The caller was Cissi Andersson from the marketing division. She had been working on a quote, and as usual, she had the television on. She rarely watched the broadcast; it was more of a background accompaniment.

But this evening something wasn't right. It was Birgitta's voice. Cissi lifted her gaze from the computer screen, stood up, and looked out through the gla.s.s pane facing the studio one floor down.

Anders Moss wasn't in, nor was Ville, the other videographer. Also, the door to the control room stood open, which it normally never did. She listened to the strange report for a couple of seconds and realized that something was wrong. She leaned over and caught sight of a masked man standing close to the cameraman.

Berglund and Haver were on call that evening. Haver was in his office, preparing for a meeting the following morning. When he spoke to Olsson from the call center he immediately realized the gravity of the situation. There was a protocol for terrorist activity, so Haver asked Olsson to call both Ottosson and Wiren at the Swedish Security Service right away.

For his part, Haver called Berglund on his cell phone as he sprinted down the stairs. The patrol units had been notified, and Haver was going to follow their cars to the TV4 station located in the industrial area to the south.

Once he was in the car, he called Lindell. He had heard that the incident involved MedForsk and he knew that she would want to be involved.

It took the police six minutes to reach TV4. The staff was gathered outside the control room and on the loading dock. A few were teary. Calle Friesman was still lying on the stairs, unable to move his legs. The pain in his back had made him unconscious for a short while, but he had come back around. He was sweating profusely and his fingers were twitching. Anna, the studio manager, was leaning over him.

"Just lie still," she said.

The sirens from the ambulance could be heard through the open door to the loading dock.

Haver stopped by the paralyzed man on the stairs for a few seconds and noticed the sweat beading on his brow. He was pale as a corpse. Haver didn't manage to say anything to him.

Berglund raised his voice in order to get the group to gather around. "Did anyone see how they left?"

Everyone stared at the shouting police officers.

"They ran," Anna said. "They rushed out to the loading dock, jumped down, and disappeared around the corner."

"Did you see a car?"

She shook her head. At that moment the ambulance arrived with squealing tires, braking abruptly by the dock. Two EMTs jumped out. Haver recognized one of them.

"Looks to me like he's paralyzed," he said quietly to the driver.

"d.a.m.n."

The EMTs exchanged a look, then went in. Haver wished above anything else that the television employee would pull through. If there was anything Haver was terrified of, it was paralysis.

He called Ottosson, who reported that the entire building was up and about. The plan of action for terrorist attacks and hostage situations had been set in motion. Blockades were being erected around the city at strategic, previously identified locations. Special reinforcements were mustered, both for additional officers and equipment.

"Do you have a copy of the broadcast?"

"Yes, we can play it immediately. Do you want to see it?"