Evert Danielsson lost his temper now; the overwhelming feeling of failure felt stiflingly unjust. 'But that's what we agreed on. You were there when we discussed it. It wasn't only my view. On the contrary, we were going to seize the initiative and direct public opinion straight away. We all agreed on that.'
Helena turned away and started walking toward the door.
'It got a bit embarrassing when the police denied it all with such emphasis. On TV you appeared hysterical and paranoid- not particularly becoming.'
She turned around in the doorway and put a hand on the doorpost. 'Are you staying in here or can I lock up?'
The director left Christina Furhage's room without a word.
The evening news meeting took place around the large conference table in the editor's office. TV1's
'He'll be here,' Annika said. 'He's just…'
'He/she is just' is the code for delays caused by general disturbances or other b.s.- reporters who don't know what they're supposed to do or readers on the phone who simply have to state their opinions at that very moment. It can also mean you've gone to the toilet or to get coffee.
The participants around the table were preparing or waiting. Annika went through her list of points to be presented during the meeting. She didn't have a long list like Ingvar Johansson, the news editor, who was handing out slips of paper with the different jobs in progress to the people around the table. The picture editor, Pelle Oscarsson, was on his cellphone. The editor was rocking to and fro on his feet, staring unseeing at the muted TV.
'Sorry,' the night editor said as he hurtled into the room, coffee mug in one hand and the dummies for all the pages of the paper in the other. He was barely awake and was into his second mug. Naturally, he spilled some coffee on the floor as he shut the door. Anders Schyman noticed and sighed.
'Okay,' he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table. 'Let's begin with the Bomber. What have we got?'
Annika didn't wait for Ingvar Johansson but started talking straight away. She knew the news editor liked to go through the whole lot, including her patch. She wasn't going to sit around and wait for that.
'The way I see it, there'll be four stories from us on the crime desk,' she said. 'We won't be able to escape the terrorist angle. Evert Danielsson himself brought it up at the press conference, but the police want it toned down. That in itself could be a story. The fact is that we have discovered that Christina Furhage has been on the receiving end of some kind of intimidation. She is off the PubReg, and her address is care of the Tyreso local tax office. Furthermore, no one knows her whereabouts, not even her closest colleagues at the Olympic Secretariat. I'll take care of that one.'
'What headline did you have in mind?' Jansson asked.
'Something like 'Olympic boss living under threat' and then a pull-quote from Danielsson, 'This is a terrorist attack'.'
Jansson nodded approval.
'Then we have the main story, which has to be really thorough. We could put it together with graphics and captions around a big photo of the devastation. Patrik will take care of that. We've got daylight pictures of the stadium, both aerial and from the roof of the lamp factory, haven't we, Pelle?'
The picture editor nodded. 'Yes. I think the helicopter pictures are better. The rooftop pictures are a bit underexposed, unfortunately; they're simply too dark. I've tried to brighten them up on the Mac, but they're a bit out of focus, so I think we should go for the aerial shots.'
Jansson wrote something on his dummy page. Annika felt the anger surge within her like fire, fucking Armani photographer who couldn't even set the focus or the right aperture!
'Who took the rooftop pictures?' Anders Schyman asked.
'Olsson,' Annika responded curtly.
The editor made some notes. 'What else?'
'Who's the victim? Man, woman, young, old? The pathologist's report, the forensic investigation, what are the lines of enquiry the Chief District Prosecutor mentioned at the press conference? Berit and I are looking into this.'
'What have we got so far?' Schyman said.
Annika sighed. 'Not much, I'm afraid. We'll continue our digging during the evening. I'm sure we'll find something.'
The editor nodded and Annika continued. 'Then there's the mysterious murder, the hunt for the Bomber, the leads, the theories, the evidence. Who was the man outside the arena just before the explosion? Who was the witness who saw him? Patrik is doing that. We haven't been able to locate the Tiger; neither have the police. According to Lindstrom, he's not a suspect, but that's bullshit. They may put out a nationwide alert for him this evening or during the night; you'll have to keep an eye on that. And then, of course, there's the Olympic angle, and you've got all that covered, Ingvar…'
The news editor cleared his throat. 'Right. The security surrounding the Olympic Games- we've talked to Samaranch at the IOC in Lausanne. He has full confidence in Stockholm as host for the Games and fully believes that the Swedish police will apprehend the perpetrator very soon, blah blah… Then he says that this in no way jeopardizes the Games, which I think we should emphasize. Then we've got the 'what now' stuff, Janet has done that. The stand will be rebuilt immediately. The work will start as soon as the police technicians have left the place and is estimated to be done in seven or eight weeks. Then there's the injured taxi driver; we're alone on that one, so we'll blow it up. We're doing a color piece with a retrospective of infamous Olympic attacks, the Tiger among others, unless we get hold of him during the night. Then I suppose we'll do a separate piece on him.'
'His home telephone number's in the contacts book,' Annika said. 'I've left a message on his answerphone; it's possible he'll be in touch.'
'Okay. Nils Langeby is working on world reactions; that will be an additional tie-in. And then we've got the vox pop on the attack, the
He stopped speaking and leafed through his papers.
'Anything else?' the editor said.
'There's Henriksson's pictures from the Olympic flame,' Annika said. 'We ran them in the early editions this morning, but they haven't been printed nationwide. He shot several rolls, so maybe we could do a variation on that to accompany the story about the victim in tomorrow's paper- a bit of recycling?'
Pelle Oscarsson nodded. 'Yep, there are plenty of pics. I'm sure we could find one that isn't all that similar.'
They all turned their attention to the TV to see what Swedish Television had cooked up. They opened with footage from the police press conference, then went back to the morning when the arena was still on fire. After this, interviews followed with all the obvious people: Chief District Prosecutor Lindstrom, Evert Danielsson from the Olympic Secretariat, a Krim investigator, and an old lady who lived next to the arena and who woke up from the explosion.
'They've got nothing new,' Ingvar Johansson stated and switched to CNN.
The meeting resumed and Ingvar Johansson ran through the rest of the contents of tomorrow's paper. They kept the TV on low while CNN ran their Breaking News. A CNN reporter appeared at regular intervals doing stand- ups from outside the cordons around the Olympic Village. They had another reporter in front of the police headquarters and a third one at the International Olympic Committee's headquarters in Lausanne. The live broadcasts were interspersed with recorded segments about the Olympics and various acts of violence that had hit the Games throughout the years. They had comments from internationally known celebrities and a condemnation of the attack by a White House press spokesperson.
Annika realized she wasn't listening to what Ingvar Johansson was saying. When he got to the soft-news pages, she made her excuses and left the meeting. She went back to the cafeteria and ordered a prawn pasta and
