They turned their attention to the screen and waited. Schyman had to go to the toilet and left the room for a few minutes. As he emptied his bladder, he noticed that his legs were shaking.
Nothing had happened when he returned to the room.
'Nacka,' Schyman said absently. 'What on earth was she doing there?'
'Here we go,' the technician said. 'Right, there it is. The A number is for Annika Bengtzon's cellphone, the B number is for the
'Can you tell where she is?' the policeman asked tensely.
'Yes, I've got a code here. One moment…'
The technician tapped on his keyboard and Schyman felt cold.
'527 D,' the technician said doubtfully.
'What?' the policeman said. 'What's the matter?'
'We never usually have more than three cells at each base station: A, B, and C. There are more here, and that's very unusual. D cells are usually special ones.'
'Where is it?' the policeman asked.
'One moment,' the technician said, as he quickly got to his feet and walked over to another terminal.
'What are you doing?' Schyman asked.
'We have more than a thousand masts around Sweden; you can't remember them all,' he said apologetically. 'Here it is, base station 527 in Hammarby Dock.'
Anders Schyman felt his head spin and a strange chill on his neck. Christ, that's the Olympic Village!
The technician had another look. 'Cell D is in the tunnel between Victoria Stadium and Training Arena A.'
The policeman's face turned even whiter. 'What tunnel?'
The technician looked at them gravely. 'I'm afraid I can't tell you that, only that there is a tunnel somewhere under the stadium.'
'Are you positive?'
'The call was transmitted via a cell that sits in the actual tunnel. A cell usually covers a larger area, but the reception is quite limited in tunnels. We have one cell covering only the South Tunnel, for example.'
'So she's in a tunnel under the Olympic Village?' the policeman asked.
'Her phone is, at least. I can guarantee you that,' the technician replied.
The policeman was already halfway out of the room.
'Thank you,' Anders Schyman said, squeezing the technician's hand between both his own.
Then he hurried after the cop.
Annika had dozed off when she suddenly felt Beata tinkering with something on her back.
'What are you doing?' Annika asked.
'You go on sleeping. I'm just checking that the charge is okay. We're getting nearer the time now.'
Annika felt like someone had poured a bucket of ice-cold water over her. All her nerves contracted in a hard knot somewhere in her midriff. She tried to speak, but couldn't. Instead she began shaking all over.
'What's with you?' Beata said. 'Don't tell me you'll start acting like Christina. You know I don't like it to be messy.'
Annika breathed rapidly and with her mouth slightly open. Calm down, talk to her, come on, talk to her, buy time.
'I was wondering… I just wanted to know… what will you do with my story?' she managed to squeeze out.
'It'll be published in
Annika braced herself.
'I don't think that's going to be possible,' she said.
Beata interrupted what she was doing.
'Why not?'
'How will they get hold of the text? You don't have a modem here.'
'I'll just send the whole computer to the paper.'
'My editor won't know I wrote it. It doesn't say that anywhere. It's written in the first person. In its present shape, it just looks like a long letter to the editor.'
Beata stood her ground. 'They'll publish it.'
'Why should they? My editor doesn't know who you are. He might not understand how important it is that this piece is published. And who's going to tell him when I'm… gone?'
That gave her something to think about, Annika thought as the woman went back to her stool and sat down.
'You're right,' she said. 'You must write an introduction to the article and tell them exactly how to go about its publication.'
Maybe that would buy her a little time. But perhaps she'd been wrong to play so much into the woman's hands. What if it had made everything even worse? But then she dismissed the thought. It couldn't really be much worse. Christina had fought her, and she'd had her face smashed in. If she had to die, it was better to be writing on a computer than to be tortured.
She sat up, her whole body aching. The floor was tottering beneath her feet, and she noticed she had difficulty judging the distance.
'Okay,' she said. 'Give me the computer and we'll finish this off.'
Beata pushed the table back.
'Say that you've written it and that they must publish the piece in its entirety.'
Annika wrote. She knew she had to buy more time. If she'd succeeded with the phone, the police ought to be somewhere nearby now. She didn't know how accurately the cellphone would pinpoint her, but the man out on the ice two years ago had been located immediately. He had been beyond all hope; his family had already begun to make arrangements for a memorial service when he phoned his son on his cellphone. The old man had been completely exhausted and very confused. He had had no idea where he was. He couldn't describe any landmarks. It's all white, was all he could say. Not a particularly distinctive feature in Sweden in the winter.
Still the man had been rescued within an hour. With the help of the phone operator, the police had narrowed down his whereabouts to within a radius of six hundred meters, and they'd found the man inside that circle. And the operator had been able to determine that from the signal of the cellphone.
'By the way,' Annika said, 'how did you get inside the stadium?'
'Nothing to it,' Beata said in a superior manner. 'I had both a card and the code.'
'How come? It's been a couple of years since you worked on the arena.'
Beata got to her feet. 'I've already told you that,' she said stridently. 'I worked in the pool and visited every paltry little hall that was connected to the Games. We had access to the central office where all entry cards and codes are kept. We had to sign for them and hand them back after we were done, of course, but I managed to take a few. I wanted to be able to visit the buildings that spoke nicely to me. The Olympic stadium and I have always gotten along very well. I've always kept a card to this place.'
'And the code?'
Beata sighed. 'I'm good with computers,' she said. 'The codes for the arena are changed every month, and the changes are recorded in a special computer file that you have to have a password to enter. They never changed the password.'
She smiled a lopsided smile. Annika started writing again. She had to think of other questions to ask.
'What are you writing?'
Annika looked up. 'I'm explaining the importance of making this story as big as the death of Christina Furhage,' she said cheerfully.
'You're lying!' Beata cried, and Annika jumped.
'What do you mean?'
'They couldn't make as many pages as when Christina died.' Beata suddenly looked wild. 'You know it was
