Beata walked around the table and picked something up. When she straightened up, Annika saw that she was holding a noose, the one she'd put around her neck earlier. She felt her pulse quicken but forced herself to look at Beata with a steady gaze.
'Don't worry,' the Bomber said, smiling. She approached the mattress with the long rope in her hands. Annika felt her breathing speed up; she couldn't control her feelings of panic.
'Relax, I'm just going to put this back around your neck,' Beata said, laughing lightly. 'You're so jumpy!'
Annika forced a smile. The noose was around her neck, the rope hanging like a tie on her chest. Beata held onto the end of the rope.
'That's it. Now I'm going to walk around you… I told you to relax!'
Out of the corner of her eye, Annika saw the woman disappear behind her back, still with the rope in her hand.
'I'm going to release your hands, but don't try anything. If you do, I'll tighten the rope for good.'
Annika breathed and racked her brains. She realized there was nothing she could do. Her feet were chained to the wall, she had the noose around her neck, and the explosives on her back. It took Beata close to five minutes to untie the rope around Annika's hands.
'Phew, that was tight,' she panted when she'd finished. Annika's fingers immediately started tingling as the blood started flowing again. Carefully, she moved her hands back and forth, wincing at the look of them. The skin on her wrists was chafed and raw, either from the rope, the wall, or the floor. Two of the knuckles on her left hand were bleeding.
'Get up,' Beata ordered.
Using the wall to support herself, Annika did as she was told.
'Kick the mattress to the side,' Beata said, and Annika obeyed. The dried-up vomit disappeared under the foam rubber. While doing this, Annika spotted her bag. It lay some twenty feet away, toward the training arena exit.
Still with the rope in her hand, the Bomber walked backwards to the table. She put the battery and the timer on the floor, keeping her eyes on Annika. Then she gripped the table and pulled it closer. The scraping sound of the table legs against the floor echoed in the passage. When the table was right in front of Annika, Beata backed away again and picked up a stool.
'Sit down.'
Annika pulled the stool closer and gingerly sat down. Her stomach turned when she saw the food on the table.
'Have something to eat,' Beata said.
Annika started pulling off the plastic seal on the water bottle. 'Do you want some?' she asked Beata.
'I'll have a Coke later; you drink,' Beata said, and Annika drank. She had a small ham and cheese baguette and forced herself to chew properly. Having eaten half, she couldn't continue, she couldn't get any more down.
'Finished?' Beata asked, and Annika smiled.
'Yes, thanks, that was really nice.'
'I'm glad you liked it,' Beata said, pleased. She sat down on the other stool. On one side of her was the parcel with Minex, on the other was a brown box, the flaps open.
'Time to begin,' she said and smiled.
Annika returned the smile. 'Can I ask you something?' she asked.
'Of course,' Beata replied.
'Why am I here?'
Beata's smile died at once. 'You really don't understand?'
Annika took a deep breath. 'No. What I do understand is that I must have made you very angry. I really didn't mean to, and I apologize,' she said.
Beata chewed on her upper lip. 'Not only did you lie, you wrote in the paper that I was devastated by the death of that creep. On top of that you humiliated me publicly, twisting my words to get a better story. You wouldn't listen to me and my truth, but you listened to the guys.'
'I'm sorry I misread your frame of mind,' Annika said, as calmly as she could. 'I didn't want to quote you saying things you might regret later. You were obviously shaken, and you were crying a lot.'
'Yes, I was despairing of the evil of people, that bastards like Stefan Bjurling were allowed to live. Why should fate use me to end the misery? Why should everything always be up to me, eh?'
Annika decided to wait and listen. Beata continued chewing on her lip.
'You lied and spread a false picture of that bastard,' she went on after awhile. 'You wrote that he was nice and funny and that his workmates liked him. You let them talk, but not me. Why didn't you write what I said?'
Annika felt increasingly confused, but she made an effort to sound calm and friendly. 'What did you say that you think I should have written?'
'The truth. That it was a shame that Christina and Stefan had to die. That it was their own fault and how wrong it was that I had to do it. I don't enjoy doing this, if that's what you think.'
Annika braced herself to play along. 'No, of course I don't think that. I know how you're sometimes forced to do things you'd rather not.'
'What do you mean by that?'
'I had to get rid of someone once, I know the feeling.' Annika looked up. 'But we're not here to talk about me now. This is about you and your truth.'
Beata observed her in silence for a while. 'Maybe you're wondering why you're not dead yet. Because first you're going to write down my story. It will be published in
Annika nodded and smiled mechanically.
'I'll show you what I've got,' Beata said and pulled something out of the box next to her. It was a laptop computer.
'Christina's Powerbook!' Annika gasped.
'Yes, she was very fond of this. It's fully charged.'
Beata got to her feet and walked over to Annika with the computer in her right hand. It looked heavy, her hand was shaking slightly.
'Here you are. Switch it on.'
Annika took the laptop. It was a basic Macintosh Powerbook, with a rechargeable battery, a disk slot, and a port for the mouse. She opened the lid and switched on the machine. It hummed to life and started loading the programs. There were only a few, among them Microsoft Word. After a few seconds, the desktop appeared. The desktop pattern was a sunset in pink, blue, and purple. There were three icons on the desktop: the hard disk itself, the Word icon, and a file marked 'Me.' Annika double-clicked on the Word icon and the 6.0 version started up.
'Right, I'm ready to begin,' Annika said. Her fingers were frozen stiff and aching; she squeezed them discreetly under the table.
'Good. I want this to be as good as is possible.'
'Okay, sure,' Annika said and prepared to start writing.
'I want you to write what I tell you, in my own words, so it'll be my story.'
'Naturally,' Annika said.
'Though I want you to touch it up so it's neat and easy to read and is stylistically good.'
Annika looked up at the other woman. 'Beata, trust me. I do this every day. Shall we begin?'
The Bomber straightened up on her stool.
'Evil is everywhere. It's devouring people from within. Its apostles on earth are finding their way into the heart of humanity, stoning it to death. The battle is leaving bloodstained remnants in space because Fate is resisting. One knight is fighting on the side of Truth, a human of flesh and blood…'
'Forgive me for interrupting,' Annika said, 'but this feels a bit muddled. The reader won't be able to follow.'
Beata looked at her with surprise. 'Why not?'
Annika knew that she had to choose her words very carefully. 'Many people haven't thought as far and gained the same insights as you have,' she said. 'They won't understand, and then the whole piece is pointless. The idea
