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had come in at intervals of less than three minutes, so it ought to be possible to tell if it was the same person who had made all four calls.
    The phone on Alex’s desk rang; he picked it up and heard a husky female voice.
    ‘Eden Lundell from Säpo; I’m calling about the bomb threats. I got your name and number from Hjärpe.’
    Hjärpe was Alex’s boss. If he had been informed, then everything was as it should be. It sounded as if Eden Lundell was outdoors, because the line was crackling.
    ‘I was expecting to hear from you,’ Alex said. ‘How can I help?’
    Säpo, so near and yet so far. Their offices were inside police HQ, and yet they were a world of their own.
    ‘We need to meet. Can you come over to us?’
    Alex couldn’t recall ever having worked with Säpo in this way. Of course he knew that they had collaborated with the police on major incidents, such as the murder of Anna Lindh, the
Foreign Secretary, outside the NK department store, but he had never been involved.
    He told Eden Lundell he was on his way.
    ‘Great, I’ll come down and meet you.’
    ‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’
    ‘Make it ten. I’m just on my way back from a meeting at Rosenbad.’
    It just wasn’t acceptable for someone to make a bomb threat against Rosenbad on the day before parliament gathered to debate the issues surrounding immigration and
integration. Particularly as it was less than an hour since Eden Lundell had sat there and personally assured Sweden’s Minister for Justice that there was no need for increased security
during the debate.
    ‘It’s not necessarily anything serious,’ the head of analysis said when Eden caught up with him by the lifts as she was on her way down to collect Alex Recht.
    She had dashed into her office and dropped off her handbag when she got back from the meeting at the Justice Department. From a suspected terrorist to suspected bomb threats. The world was not
an attractive place for someone who had Eden’s job.
    ‘Can we take the risk?’
    Sebastian looked unhappy. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, we can’t.’
    Eden pushed the lift call button impatiently. ‘There’s going to be hell to pay when we evacuate both the Central Station and Rosenbad.’
    Sebastian nodded in agreement. ‘But nobody will thank us if we don’t bother, and let everyone die instead.’
    Eden laughed. ‘You’re not wrong there.’ Her expression grew serious. As the lift doors slid open, she turned to Sebastian. ‘Why Rosenbad? I mean, the debate is taking
place elsewhere, in the parliament building. And it’s tomorrow, not today.’
    ‘Because this isn’t about the debate.’
    ‘So what is it about?’
    ‘I have no idea. Maybe somebody was bored. Maybe they just want to test the system.’
    Eden stepped into the lift and held the doors to stop them closing. ‘By the way, Alex Recht – do you know anything about him?’
    ‘He’s like you.’
    ‘A woman?’
    ‘A legend.’
    Eden allowed the doors to close.
    It was Fredrika Bergman’s job to assess the political grounds for deporting Zakaria Khelifi. In plain language, this meant making sure that it wasn’t a repeat of
the Egyptian fiasco. How she was supposed to achieve this wasn’t at all clear, but if she failed, many heads would roll. She couldn’t stop thinking about the bomb threats Eden had
mentioned before the meeting broke up so abruptly. She wondered whether Alex was working on them.
    Not that it mattered. She and Alex were no longer colleagues; she had other duties.
    With her head in her hands, she sat and read through Zakaria Khelifi’s application for asylum.
    He had met the love of his life in the spring of 2006. She wasn’t from the family into which his father thought he ought to marry, but his father decided to allow the marriage to take
place. According to Zakaria, he had given them his blessing and wished them every happiness.
    So far, so good. To begin with, the girl’s parents had also been favourably disposed