The phone on Alex’s desk rang; he picked it up and heard a husky female voice.
‘Eden Lundell from Säpo; I’m calling about the bomb threats. I got your name and number from Hjärpe.’
Hjärpe was Alex’s boss. If he had been informed, then everything was as it should be. It sounded as if Eden Lundell was outdoors, because the line was crackling.
‘I was expecting to hear from you,’ Alex said. ‘How can I help?’
Säpo, so near and yet so far. Their offices were inside police HQ, and yet they were a world of their own.
‘We need to meet. Can you come over to us?’
Alex couldn’t recall ever having worked with Säpo in this way. Of course he knew that they had collaborated with the police on major incidents, such as the murder of Anna Lindh, the Foreign Secretary, outside the NK department store, but he had never been involved.
He told Eden Lundell he was on his way.
‘Great, I’ll come down and meet you.’
‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’
‘Make it ten. I’m just on my way back from a meeting at Rosenbad.’
It just wasn’t acceptable for someone to make a bomb threat against Rosenbad on the day before parliament gathered to debate the issues surrounding immigration and integration. Particularly as it was less than an hour since Eden Lundell had sat there and personally assured Sweden’s Minister for Justice that there was no need for increased security during the debate.
‘It’s not necessarily anything serious,’ the head of analysis said when Eden caught up with him by the lifts as she was on her way down to collect Alex Recht.
She had dashed into her office and dropped off her handbag when she got back from the meeting at the Justice Department. From a suspected terrorist to suspected bomb threats. The world was not an attractive place for someone who had Eden’s job.
‘Can we take the risk?’
Sebastian looked unhappy. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, we can’t.’
Eden pushed the lift call button impatiently. ‘There’s going to be hell to pay when we evacuate both the Central Station and Rosenbad.’
Sebastian nodded in agreement. ‘But nobody will thank us if we don’t bother, and let everyone die instead.’
Eden laughed. ‘You’re not wrong there.’ Her expression grew serious. As the lift doors slid open, she turned to Sebastian. ‘Why Rosenbad? I mean, the debate is taking place elsewhere, in the parliament building. And it’s tomorrow, not today.’
‘Because this isn’t about the debate.’
‘So what is it about?’
‘I have no idea. Maybe somebody was bored. Maybe they just want to test the system.’
Eden stepped into the lift and held the doors to stop them closing. ‘By the way, Alex Recht – do you know anything about him?’
‘He’s like you.’
‘A woman?’
‘A legend.’
Eden allowed the doors to close.
It was Fredrika Bergman’s job to assess the political grounds for deporting Zakaria Khelifi. In plain language, this meant making sure that it wasn’t a repeat of the Egyptian fiasco. How she was supposed to achieve this wasn’t at all clear, but if she failed, many heads would roll. She couldn’t stop thinking about the bomb threats Eden had mentioned before the meeting broke up so abruptly. She wondered whether Alex was working on them.
Not that it mattered. She and Alex were no longer colleagues; she had other duties.
With her head in her hands, she sat and read through Zakaria Khelifi’s application for asylum.
He had met the love of his life in the spring of 2006. She wasn’t from the family into which his father thought he ought to marry, but his father decided to allow the marriage to take place. According to Zakaria, he had given them his blessing and wished them every happiness.
So far, so good. To begin with, the girl’s parents had also been favourably disposed towards the young couple’s romance. Zakaria came from a decent family, he had studied at university for several years, and he expected to get a good job. His girlfriend was also university-educated. They were both intending to carry on working after they got married. The girl had asked her mother if she would help out with taking care of any possible grandchildren in the future, and her mother had agreed.
But as so often in the past, there was no happy ending to this particular fairy tale. Suddenly the girl’s father decided that he wanted his daughter to marry the son of a business acquaintance instead. At the very least he insisted she should take a break from her relationship with Zakaria and give this new man a chance. The girl refused, which led to violent family quarrels. According to Zakaria, the young couple eventually ran away and settled in a different part of the country, where they found it difficult to find work and to make ends meet.
At this point the girl discovered she was pregnant. Zakaria Khelifi had told the Immigration Board they were both happy about the child, but at the same time they were afraid that people would find out they had started a family before they were married. Therefore, they got married very quickly. Unfortunately, somehow the rumour that the girl had got pregnant while she was still single reached the ears of her parents. That was the beginning of a nightmare that ended when Zakaria’s wife died in a car accident halfway through her pregnancy.
Zakaria Khelifi claimed that his wife’s eldest brother called him and told him that the car accident had been arranged, and that they would deal with Zakaria too as soon as the opportunity arose. So-called honour killings were not uncommon in many places around the world, including Algeria on occasion. Zakaria left the country a week or so later.
And now, just a few years down the line, he had ended up in the middle of Säpo’s latest terrorist investigation, and they wanted him deported – in spite of the fact that he had a legally binding judgement granting him permanent residence in Sweden. He also had a steady job and a girlfriend. The state had far-reaching powers when it came to handling threats against national security.
Fredrika tried not to feel uneasy. Deporting someone who had previously been deemed to have grounds for asylum was a serious measure, with radical consequences for the individual. Surely, Säpo would exercise extreme caution when taking such a step? The statistics supported this view; cases like that of Zakaria Khelifi were exceptionally rare.
At the same time, it was impossible to ignore the context that had given rise to this particular case.
Over the past decade, the fear of international terrorism had become overwhelming. And that fear gave legitimacy to counter-measures which would otherwise have been less clear-cut. How could you make sure that no innocent party got caught in the crossfire? You had to have the courage to ask such questions, even if they had been asked many times before. The authorities always faced the dilemma of possibly punishing innocent people, irrespective of the type of criminal behaviour involved. But when it came to terrorism, the issue became even more important. The consequences of making the wrong call could be catastrophic.
She had been fascinated by Säpo’s presentation. Very little of the content or delivery had surprised her; since she started working for the police, she had often thought that Säpo’s reputation for drama was undeserved. Perhaps it was their own fault. In spite of the fact that there had been a stated policy of transparency for several years, at times, Fredrika still couldn’t see why they didn’t do more to explain their actions.
One of her colleagues knocked on the door. ‘The phones are red hot.’
‘Because of the bomb threats?’
‘Yes. They want to know if they government is taking the threats seriously, and if there’s a link to the recent terrorism convictions. Or to tomorrow’s parliamentary debate.’