Christer Ade waved his arms and shouted out the rules of conduct in both Swedish and English. As a rule, journalists were terrible at taking orders, and it took almost ten minutes just to get the people and the cameras into the right places and for them to stop talking.
The many languages being spoken in the room gave everyone the sense that the world’s eyes, that early afternoon of September 23, 2009, were focused on police headquarters in Kungsholmen. It felt like the oxygen was going to run out even before the questions began, and Ade asked someone from the BBC to open the windows and let in some fresh air. But when the sounds of the city came rushing in to the media’s assembled microphones, tape recorders and cell phones, they were quickly closed again. The journalists would rather suffocate than not do their job.
Once the noise levels in the room had fallen low enough that Ade thought he could make himself heard, he loudly cleared his throat and began by outlining what had happened. Nothing he said was news to those in the room:
“The robbery was well organized, well planned and technically well equipped. All in all, that may lead to a number of different hypotheses about who was involved, and during this afternoon and evening—”
“Have any arrests been made?” the reporter from Aftonbladet, Sweden’s biggest tabloid, impatiently interrupted him, waving a yellow microphone in the air.
Ade realized that there was no point continuing his prepared statement. He answered Aftonbladet’s question with the particular kind of authority that can only be learned in media training courses.
“No. We have questioned a number of people, the type we usually question in situations like this, but… no. At present, no one is being held in custody for the robbery in Västberga.”
“Martin Hogan, New York Times. How much did they steal?” The correspondent’s broad American accent caused everyone else to turn around.
He had neither a tape recorder nor a microphone. Instead, he was holding a small notepad and a pen in his hand, as though it were still the 1980s.
Ade switched to English.
“According to G4S, the robbers have stolen a ‘large but unconfirmed sum’ of money. We don’t know any more than that at present.”
“Why didn’t the police storm the building?” a columnist from Sweden’s leading newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, wanted to know. The paper’s news reporter, standing next to her, was irritated at not having thought of the question himself.
Christer Ade glanced at the national police commissioner, who shook her head almost imperceptibly. And yet Ade took a step to one side, as though to indicate that it was time for someone who had been directly involved to answer the question. County Commissioner Caisa Ekblad cleared her throat.
“There were indications that the robbers were heavily armed,” she said in English. “We may be dealing with individuals with military training and equipment here. We wanted to wait for the right resources.”
Her words made the room explode with excitement.
“Were they mercenaries?” the Washington Post reporter shouted.
“There are reports of helicopters exploding. Can you confirm that?” a representative from the French channel TF1 asked. “We know the police cars were stopped by the chains across the access roads!”
Therese Olsson took a step forward. There was something so authoritative in her movements that the room immediately fell silent. She replied first in Swedish and then in very good English.
“We are defining this robbery as an extraordinary event. This means that police forces from across the county are working on the case. The police chief from the Norrmalm district was the commanding officer this morning, working alongside two operation heads, one in Västberga and one in Arninge. The operation is now working alongside us and the serious, organized crime unit. Which means that we are on high alert across the country.”
They loved it.
Caroline Thurn was standing in the shadows, right behind County Commissioner Ekblad, and realized that she would make it through the press conference unscathed. Neither Olsson nor Ekblad could hand over to Thurn at this point; it would make it look like they were shirking their responsibilities.
From her ringside seat, Thurn could feel that the atmosphere in the room was different than usual. Not just because of the number of journalists and nationalities. The questions were being asked in a very different tone, and there was a very different sense of expectation and intensity. At first, she assumed it was just because of how spectacular the robbery had been. Pictures of the helicopter taking off were already plastered across the Internet. No one had been hurt, they had gone in through the roof; this was the type of raid people loved.
But after listening to the commissioners for a while, and realizing that none of the reporters asked any follow-up questions about the course of action the police would be taking, she became doubtful.
A team from Japan and another from Taiwan pointed their cameras at Therese Olsson and asked, in unison, how likely it was that the robbers had left the country.
“We’re watching our borders and airspace closely,” Olsson replied, sounding very reassuring.
But since the police had no idea who had carried out the raid—not even Zoran Petrovic’s involvement was a given—keeping an eye on the country’s airspace wouldn’t help, Thurn thought.
The Japanese reporter seemed satisfied, however, and didn’t follow up with the obvious objection.
In that moment, it dawned on Thurn why this particular press conference was different. What she had already felt in the corridors of the police station over the past few weeks, a reluctant admiration for the robbers’ planning and professionalism, was now shaping the questions and attitudes of the assembled media. Ordinarily, the press would be trying to find a scapegoat, or else they would direct their interest toward the victims. The staff at the cash depot had undeniably gone through a deeply unpleasant morning, but no one had been physically hurt, no one had been subjected to a concrete threat.
These journalists, photographers and cameramen, Thurn realized, were here to create heroes.
In a few days’ time, in a week or a month, the fact that the police had known about the robbery in advance would come out, she thought. It wasn’t hard to imagine what the headlines would be like when that happened: “Police Force Knew Everything, Robbers Escaped.” She discreetly glanced around the room. The bright eyes, the loud voices. This, she thought, was just the beginning.
Tor Stenson cleared his throat. The press conference was coming to an end, and so were his chances. He needed to ask a question, something none of the other journalists had thought of, and he had to make sure it was caught on film. There was a job at stake. It had been a long night, morning and day, and weariness washed over him in waves. But suddenly, the question came to him.
Stenson pushed forward a few feet and waved the tabloid’s microphone in the air. Therese Olsson nodded.
“My name is Tor Stenson,” he said, “and I was first to publish the images of the robbers’ helicopter this morning. My question is, where were the police helicopters during the robbery?”
He could see from Olsson’s face that she knew the answer but didn’t want to say it. He glanced at the cameras around the room. They were rolling. Stenson breathed out. The job had to be his now. He waited for her answer.