Read Into a Raging Blaze for Free Online Page B

baritone of one who had spent a lifetime training his voice to bellow across barrack yards. He and the four suits sitting around him dealt with troop contributions to UN forces. They were the nucleus of the department, officers who spent every day working within the framework of a global military system, waging war on various continents and creating peace and stability on others. When the lieutenant colonel spoke, everyone in the room pricked up their ears. They were currently extremely busy with the Libya campaign, he explained. The budget was too small to guarantee more than two months of Swedish involvement, but the Ministry of Finance was refusing to increase it. Negotiations were also ongoing with the UN about a peacekeeping force in South Sudan. Operations were scheduled to begin before the end of the year. But the government in Khartoum was making impossible demands. It was a moving target, said the lieutenant colonel.
    “And will we stay on budget with the UN operation?”
    “Short answer: yes. Two hundred and seventy million. Plus or minus ten.”
    “Thank you.” The department head looked around the table. “G2—any relevant matters?”
    That was Carina’s unit. According to protocol, the unit head always had the first word but, since he was new, he merely shook his head with a smile and gestured toward her.
    “You have the floor, Dymek,” said the department head.
    Everyone turned toward her, rows of faces and dark suits. She cleared her throat. Even though she had sat in these meetings many times and set out EU security policy, her mouth was always a little dry the second she was put on the spot. But only for a second. She rarely doubted herself. The fact was that she had gotten by just fine without a boss and suspected she could do without this one too.
    “Discussions,” said Carina in a businesslike manner, “are currently ongoing in the EU about the joint military headquarters for operations in the Horn of Africa.” Then she continued, point bypoint: the circumstances surrounding the EU’s new security strategy; negotiations concerning Bosnia’s EU candidature. She was calm, presenting sentences like chains of logic, the words coming to her just as she wanted them. Everyone listened. She finished by mentioning the foreign minister’s visit to Ukraine and by reminding everyone that she would be in Brussels the next day for the usual meeting.
    “Great. Thanks,” said the department head.
    She leaned back. The entire time she had been speaking, Anders Wahlund had been leaning forward, listening keenly. Now he smiled at her and jotted something in a small notebook.
    The final unit to report was responsible for humanitarian aid and disaster assistance. Their unit head was away in Geneva, so Johan Eriksson had the floor. Carina didn’t have many close friends, but Johan Eriksson was one of the closest. He was different from the others; he didn’t do low-key irony, that slightly playful cynicism so prevalent among staff at the Ministry. Johan Eriksson was keen and forthright in a way that she had immediately liked. A farmer’s son from Skövde, he had become a diplomat and actually wasn’t joking when he said he wanted to change the world. His ultimate dream was a posting to New York. He often talked about the Big Apple. Everyone, except him, knew he would never get there. Johan Eriksson will never get to New York —it was practically an expression. He was too good for departmental management in Stockholm to let him go, and not sufficiently well liked by the UN ambassador in New York to get the post. How many times had he applied to New York? At least five. Rejected every time. Now he was a few chairs down from Carina, explaining current UN operations in Pakistan, which had been hit by flooding. Thousands of villages under water. Immense bureaucracy. India causing trouble at the UN, but aid getting through, in spite of it.
    “Good,” said the department head without further comment. The meeting