Stone Coffin Part 17

"Tell me your name."

"Anders Moss."

"Okay, listen up, all of you. I understand that you are in a state of shock, but try to recall anything you can about the intruders. How many of them were there? Was there anything unusual about their clothing or voices? Were they speaking a dialect? Did they have foreign accents?"

"All of them spoke Swedish," Moss said. "They were young, between twenty and twenty-five."

"How many?"

"Five or six. It was a bit chaotic in here."

Haver looked at Moss, who appeared reasonably collected. Do everything right now, Haver thought.

The EMTs had secured Calle Friesman's neck with a collar and were carefully moving him to a special stretcher. Friesman's eyes were closed. He was gently lifted up and carried out through the narrow door to the dock.

The rest of them were quiet, their eyes locked on Friesman's pale face. Someone sobbed. It was the politician.

"Did they have any weapons?" Berglund asked.

The TV crew members looked at each other, each searching for the answer in another's face.

"I don't think so," the audio technician said. "I didn't see any."

A couple of the others shook their heads.

"They had a bomb," he added. He would always, at every future broadcast, think of the masked intruders.

"A bomb?"

"Yes, that's what they said. They had it in a bag and were going to set it off if we didn't follow their instructions."

"Did you see the bomb?"

"No, it was in a bag. With a string that they were going to pull."

"Describe the bag."

"Brown, with handles. My dad had one like it a long time ago. The kind you had a lunchbox and thermos in."

Haver nodded. His dad had had one just like it.

"But no visible weapons?"

"No," Moss said.

"How did they get in?" Berglund asked.

Moss pointed to the door.

"They tricked me," Anna said. "There was a young girl standing outside, her face covered in blood. I thought she was hurt."

"No one is blaming you for opening the door," Moss said.

"It was fake blood, then?"

Anna nodded.

"She pulled on the mask as soon as she came inside. The only thing I noticed was that she was blonde. I'm going with Calle." She added the last part abruptly and left the room.

The ambulance pulled away and more police vehicles appeared. Haver glimpsed Lindell on the asphalt outside. Canine units had arrived. Police with safety vests and machine guns were huddled together, taking orders from their chief, rnlund.

Lindell walked closer and Haver took the stairs down from the dock to meet her.

"MedForsk" was the first thing she said.

"Yes, they've turned up again."

"Any connection?"

"This was about monkeys, about animal experimentation. It sounds like animal rights activists."

"Armed threat?"

"No, they claimed to have a bomb and threatened to set it off. Other than that, they appear to have been rather nice terrorists. The staff is in shock, of course."

"Is the bomb still here?"

Haver couldn't help but smile. "You think we would be allowed to stand here?"

Lindell glanced at the station staff on the dock. Some were smoking; one man was holding a sobbing woman.

"They need help," she said.

"I think it's on its way," Haver said.

They could hear the sound of sirens from the E4. She knew that there were blockades at the Stockholm roundabout, the northern exit to Gavle, and all other larger roads out of town.

"I'll give Jack Mortensen a call. We have to bring him in for questioning and see what he says."

A bus from Radio Uppland drove up. Soon the other media would also have arrived. Taking over a television station during a broadcast was something new, and the other reporters would probably stress their media colleagues even further.

Haver let Lindell know what had emerged from the brief conversations with the staff.

"We'll let Berglund, Wende, and Beatrice take the first interviews. Is anyone hurt? I saw the ambulance."

"One of them banged his back pretty badly. He may be paralyzed."

"d.a.m.n," Lindell said. "I'll catch up with Security. They must have a whole database full of animal activist types."

"What should we think about MedForsk?"

Lindell had been thinking about this since she heard the news. Could these same activists have attacked Josefin and Emily?

"I don't know," Haver said. "To run people over is one thing, to save animals another. This doesn't seem to have been particularly violent. There were no visible weapons and the injury could have been more of an accident. They may simply have collided on the stairs."

"But there's been violence in earlier incidents tied to these kinds of people."

"Yes, but I'm still skeptical," Haver said.

"Okay, but is there a connection between Cederen, the chimps, and the activists?"

"You have a lot of questions." Haver smiled.

"Like I said, I'll call Mortensen. I think I'll bring him down to the station. And a chat with the Security people before then."

"I'll stay here. Maybe the dogs will turn something up."

The activity around them was intense. The voices of radio reporters, information updates, and calls mixed with the sound of general chatter. Some patrol officers were busy cordoning off the area. Ryde and a forensic colleague came rumbling along in Ryde's old car.

Lindell drove back to the station. She smiled to herself as she thought about the Security Services chief, the one with the extra-large felt slippers. He was likely having a blast. Finally their laborious information gathering was being put to use. At last they would get to show off a little, not least to their colleagues. Many in the building made fun of Security. Now their time had come.

She felt a sense of anxiety in her body. The holiday spent with Edvard had more than measured up to her high expectations. He had been unusually open and relaxed. They had made love, taken walks, lain down in the meadow and stared at the clouds, and made love again. They had talked about the future only a little, mere hints at its being something that could be shared. Edvard had spoken in vague terms about possibly moving back to town or at least a little closer, and she had mentioned that new officers were always needed in sthammar and Tierp. Her work wasn't everything, or at least it shouldn't be.

And yet she felt a creeping discomfort. There was something that wasn't right. Later that evening she would understand.

Sure enough, the chief of the Swedish Security Service, Frisk, was very much in his element when he, Lindell, Sammy Nilsson, the head of KUT, and Ottosson had a review session the evening of June 26. He devoured a cheeseburger with chips as he volubly expounded on Security's files on vegans, animal lovers, and other enemies of the world order. Lindell watched his jaws smacking. Frisk had a large mouth and he smiled in a wolflike fashion. She didn't have anything against him but felt nauseated by his frenetic chewing.

"We have a good overview of the situation," he said and popped a handful of french fries into his mouth. "You'll have to excuse me, there was no time for dinner."

Ottosson nodded impatiently. He and Frisk did not get along well, and this was common knowledge.

"We have the Animal Liberation Front as well as AFA," Frisk went on. "Both with known activists."

"What does AFA stand for?" Sammy Nilsson asked.

Frisk looked markedly pleased.

"Anti-Fascistic Action," he said quickly. "They have some twenty members in town."

"Isn't it more likely that this is the work of an animal rights organization?"

"Perhaps," Frisk said and finally wiped his mouth with a napkin, pushing away the remains of his meal. "DBF has a dozen or so more or less active members-we can regard them as the core-and then there are about fifty sympathizers."

"That many?" Lindell asked.

"Yes, if one counts them fairly loosely."

Loosely, she thought. I wonder how that count was taken.

"It could be acquaintances, siblings, school friends, and others."

"Sounds like you've got these kids in your sights. I take it most of them are fairly young?"

"Completely in our sights," Frisk said.

"Can we have a list?" Ottosson said calmly.

"It's not that easy," Frisk said, and now the felt slippers came back on. He tiptoed around the subject, talking about integrity and leaks. It became a long lecture.

"We have to have names," Ottosson interrupted. "You understand that, don't you?"

Frisk's face took on a disapproving expression mingled with an ill-concealed delight.

"We can collaborate," he said, as if this were a historic compromise from Security's side.

"Bulls.h.i.t," Ottosson said, to the others' surprise. Ottosson was not someone who usually took a hard line. "We need names and that's that. If you think the Violent Crimes division will leak the information, you're just wrong."

Frisk looked insulted. "I'll see what we can do," he said.

"Start with that core group of animal lovers. We'll start there. And we want those names tonight."

Lindell smiled inwardly. Sometime Ottosson astonished them. That's why he was so well liked as a boss.

Frisk stood up. Ottosson did the same. They stood like two roosters on either side of the table. When Frisk left the room, Ottosson took the packet of french fries and the greasy papers and threw everything into the trash.

"He leaves nothing but garbage in his wake, that one."

"Okay," Sammy said, "stuff this for now. Have you tracked down that Mortensen?"

"Yes, he's on his way in. He was in his summer cottage in the archipelago, but got in his car right away. He was shaken, of course. I asked about the primates, but he didn't want to say anything."

"Is he coming here?"

Lindell looked up at the wall clock, which read half past eight. "In half an hour, maybe."

"You look tired," Ottosson said. "Was it a difficult Midsummer?"

His anger had completely washed away. Lindell smiled and shook her head.

"I was hungry but lost my appet.i.te," she said.

"Sammy will check Frisk's list and you can take Mortensen. I'm going to go home. Gullan isn't doing too well. She's got a bad summer cold. Is that okay? I'll be back later."

"Completely okay," Sammy said.