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pictures of the Golden Hall and pressed send .
    She stared fixedly at the shell-shaped bronze lamps of the hallway as the message glided away through the pitch-black winter night and landed in the Evening Post ’s server.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11

    Anders Schyman was standing in his corner office, staring down at the Russian Embassy. The whole area lay in darkness, the only exceptions the circle of light around the weak lamp by the entrance and the light creeping out of the security hut with its frozen soldier. Sometimes the soldier made little excursions, a few steps along the inside of the iron gate, then back again, slapping his arms against his sides to warm up.
    How surprised he would be if something actually happened, the editor in chief thought. How astonished he would be if someone drove up in a car and started shooting toward the Embassy building, or clambered over the wall and landed right in front of him. He wouldn’t have a chance, because the intruder would have everything on his side: surprise, determination, knowledge of the next step in the chain of events.
    We’re so terribly exposed, Anders Schyman thought. So incredibly vulnerable. It’s completely impossible to be on your guard the whole time, never missing a single detail about your own security. The whole world faced the same dilemma, not just the West, not just democracies: everyone was affected in the same way by truly ruthless criminals.
    Money and power and influence, Schyman thought. The world has never been safe from people who are prepared to take shortcuts in order to get these, but it feels as if everything is getting more and more raw, getting worse and worse.
    There were rumors that the Nobel killer was a woman. At the press conference the police had neither confirmed nor denied anything at all, they didn’t want to say anything about any threats received, or about the security arrangements. Security had been good, and they weren’t aware of where it had broken down. Everything had gone according to plan, and it wasn’t yet possible to say why it had failed.
    It had started to snow, lonely flakes drifting hesitantly toward the ground. Anders Schyman felt his eyes sting with tiredness; he blinked a few times and went and sat down at his desk. He checked his watch.
    Maybe this isn’t what I ought to be doing after all, he thought. If this is the new age, if this is the new state of things, if terrorism has arrived here and security is to be the main focus from now on, maybe I should let someone else take over. If terrorism has arrived, then the freedom of the individual is dead. Security will be used as an argument to justify more and more restrictions, more and more surveillance, and the principle of freedom of information will be utterly undermined. Maybe a new type of journalist is needed to keep watch over this new age, and they’ll probably need a new sort of leader.
    For a moment he succumbed to self-pity. The paper’s proprietors had no confidence in him, and he couldn’t look ahead to any more weighty appointments.
    “Annika’s here now,” Jansson said over the intercom.
    He pressed the button and leaned forward to reply.
    “Good. Bring her in to see me.”
    Who dressed her this morning? he thought as she entered the room. Cowboy boots, a black quilted jacket, a huge, filthy bag, and a pink tulle skirt. She had piled her hair into a heap on top of her head and had stuck a pen through it to get it to stay up.
    “The lawyer’s confirmed that she can’t write about the actual shootings, or anything that happened immediately before or after,” Jansson said, tumbling into one of the chairs. “And she can’t be interviewed or convey her observations of the event in any other way either. Breaking a ban on disclosure isn’t punishable according to statute, but there’d be big fines, apparently, however the hell they get that to fit together …”
    “What did you see?” Anders Schyman asked.
    “Like you just heard …”