Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [11]
But she had serious stuff to study here.
The clips were arranged in date order, oldest at the front. The first text had been published at the end of April and provided tasty details from the history of Swedish terrorism, including the story of the inventor, Dr Martin Ekenberg from Töreboda, who really only succeeded with one invention: the letter bomb. She paused when she recognized several phrases she herself had used in articles on the same subject published just weeks before. She concluded drily that Ekland had evidently allowed his colleagues to inspire him in a very direct way.
She leafed through the pile of cuttings. A lot of it was old padding, but some of it was new to her. She read with growing interest about the fuss on the Norrbotten islands in the spring of 1987 when the military spent days searching for submarines and Spetsnaz brigades that had been landed on the skerries. A stubborn, fifteen-year-old rumour had it that a Russian frogman had been shot in the leg by a Swedish officer. The officer’s dog picked up a scent and started barking, and the officer dashed into some bushes, where bloody tracks were later found, leading to the water. Benny Ekland had been more interested in retelling the rumour as entertainingly as possible than in getting to the bottom of what had really happened. There was a brief quote from military command in Boden, to the effect that the atmosphere was completely different in the late eighties, that everyone misjudges things sometimes, even the Swedish military, and that it had never been ascertained that there had ever been any submarine encroachment in northern Swedish waters.
At the bottom of the pile was the article she was interested in, and it contained information entirely new to her.
Benny Ekland wrote that during the late sixties the old Lansen planes of the Norrbotten air defences were being switched for more modern Drakens, for search and reconnaissance purposes. The airbase was subjected to numerous acts of sabotage against the new planes, mostly in the form of matches being inserted in the planes’ pitot tubes. These tubes sat like small spears at the front of the planes, and were used to measure airspeed, pressure, and so on.
It was thought fairly obvious that left-wing groups from Luleå, probably Maoists, were responsible for the sabotage. No damage was ever done, and none of the match-wielders was ever caught, but the article cited anonymous sources in F21 claiming that these acts were the basis of the more serious attack that followed. The Maoists were believed to have discovered something that had catastrophic consequences.
After each flight, when the plane was on the tarmac, absorbent material had to be spread on the ground, or a stainless-steel container placed behind the plane. Not all of the fuel in the engine was burned off, so it had to be drained after the engine had stopped. On the evening of the attack, the night of 18 November 1969, the whole base had been involved in a large exercise. Afterwards the planes remained on the tarmac, and that was when the terrorists struck.
Instead of sticking the match in the pitot tube as usual, they lit it and tossed it into the bucket of surplus fuel behind the plane. The explosion was instant, and massive.
Ekland wrote that considering the air group’s lamentable history, it was easy to conclude that it was the local leftists who were behind this act of sabotage as well, even if it did have fatal consequences this time.
He writes like an idiot, Annika thought; but the theory was very interesting.
‘Can I have a copy of this one?’ she asked, holding up the article.
Not looking up from his screen, the archivist responded, ‘You found it readable then?’
‘Of course,’ Annika said, ‘I haven’t seen this information before. Might