Klara sits down on a chair beside George’s bed and looks at him. At his smooth, calm face and ruffled blonde hair which she brushes away from his cool forehead. It’s over now. She feels a relief bordering on euphoria but at the same time the new possibilities scare her. What will happen when he wakes up?

‘He gave you a good scare.’

She jumps and turns around. Bronzelius is leaning against the doorframe. Behind him, she catches a glimpse of the two uniformed police officers who showed up as soon as they moved George to this ward. Klara doesn’t know if they’re here to protect or guard them.

‘Hello,’ she says. ‘God, what a day. What a bunch of fucking days.’

Bronzelius enters the room and sits down on a chair next to her.

‘Do you have time to be here?’ she asks. ‘Don’t you have people to interview and try to figure out what the hell this is all about?’

‘We are already making the arrests,’ he says calmly. ‘Everyone in the Swedish cell you had on your computer has been arrested. We have most of the London, Brussels and Rome cells, too.’

Enormous relief washes over her. ‘Oh, God.’

‘The English found the same plans in London when they made their crackdown, so at least one courier was able to smuggle the information into Europe. It seems like they’d realized that Yassim was a traitor and the plans in Brussels were abandoned after what happened there. They were still planning to carry out the attacks in London and Rome, but in the morning instead of waiting for the evening.’

‘It’s so insane,’ Klara says. ‘It would have been a bloodbath. Oh, Jesus.’

‘Almost too much to fathom,’ Bronzelius says. ‘After Paris? So fucking awful.’

‘What happens now?’ Klara says, looking at him. ‘Where do we stand in all this?’

‘First of all,’ he begins, ‘your friend will be released.’ He sighs. ‘Unfortunately. Lord knows she made life tough for us this summer and autumn.’

‘Gabi?’ Klara says.

‘Yes,’ he says, falling silent for a while. ‘All the information we had was generated by Myriam Awad’s team, and she received it from the Russians. MUST apparently recruited Jacob Seger in Beirut, but he was a bit too independent for them.’

Klara nods and smiles. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Love is inconvenient.’

‘The real mystery is Yassim,’ Bronzelius says. ‘He’s just a few wards away from here. He’s the real reason I’m here. Felt like the natural place to start, to interview him. And I’m sure he has quite a story to tell. He was recruited by Korolov in Beirut when his family was murdered. Then he infiltrated ISIS and became a courier. He even informed the Russians about what was going to happen in Paris…’

‘Do you believe that?’ Klara says.