Hostage (30 page)

Erik couldn’t argue with that.

Joakim sighed. ‘Although my phone doesn’t seem to be working any more.’

Thank God for that, Erik thought.

‘How late are we going to be?’

There was no answer to that, and Erik knew that Joakim realised that. If the plane crashed, they would never arrive.

They shook hands and Joakim went back to his seat, while Erik quickly moved into first class.

He hoped to God he would succeed, otherwise he had no idea what to do next.

There were three empty seats. Erik tried to think strategically. Even if he spoke quietly, there was still a risk that those sitting nearby would hear what he was saying on the phone, and that
would be stupid. Therefore, it would be best if those sitting closest to him didn’t understand Swedish.

Eventually, he decided on a seat by the window, where the passengers both in front and beside him looked like Asian businessmen.

Erik nodded to the man next to him as he slipped into the seat. Nobody took much notice of him, in spite of his uniform. However, he could see that Lydia was watching him. He ignored her.

The telephone felt awkward in his hand, and he carefully followed the instructions to obtain an outside line from the plane. He could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead as he keyed in
Alex’s number. Then he pressed the phone to his ear and waited as it rang out.

When Erik eventually heard Alex’s voice, he felt tears pouring down his cheeks, much to his surprise.

‘Dad, it’s me,’ he whispered.

T
he battle was no longer against the clock, but against those who were withholding information that could put everything right. Zakaria
Khelifi’s uncle wasn’t difficult to get hold of, but Fredrika Bergman suspected that it would be considerably more difficult to get him to co-operate. His voice sounded weary, and for a
moment she felt guilty for hassling him.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you; my name is Fredrika Bergman, and I’m with the police.’

Was she? Hardly. Not right now. But the truth was too complicated. If she called and said she was a liaison officer between the cabinet office and the police, the man wouldn’t have a clue
what she was talking about, and she would have to waste time explaining.

She reminded herself that she must get in touch with her boss at the Justice Department to follow up on the report she had sent him. She thought about the final sentence she had added before
sending it via encryption software:

‘There may well be reasons to question yesterday’s decision on the case of Zakaria Khelifi.’

She had been unable to bring herself to send the document without that addition. And before it was too late, she intended to follow it up with further supporting documentation in which she would
spell out the circumstances that weakened the case against Zakaria, if such information emerged. Which Fredrika believed it would.

‘What’s this about?’ Zakaria’s uncle said. ‘I’ve already spoken to the police.’

‘I know that,’ Fredrika said. ‘And I’m very sorry that we need to contact you again. But it’s about Zakaria, and it’s urgent.’

‘Has something happened to him?’

The question came so quickly that Fredrika realised that Zakaria’s uncle, and no doubt many of Zakaria’s relatives, must be worried that something bad would happen to him.

‘No, no, he’s fine.’

Was he? She had no idea. He might be dying of fear in his cell, facing the inescapable fact that he would be forced to return to his homeland.

‘However, we are wondering about something you mentioned to my colleagues when they came to see you this afternoon,’ she said.

‘Oh?’ Moussa Khelifi’s voice was full of suspicion.

‘You said that Zakaria has a sister.’

‘He has several sisters,’ Moussa said curtly.

‘But how many of them live in Sweden?’

She heard a sigh at the other end of the line.

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Possibly nothing,’ Fredrika said, trying to hide the fact that the police were now interested in the sister who had suddenly cropped up in their investigation. ‘We’d
just like to know her name.’

And where we can get hold of her.

When Zakaria’s uncle didn’t reply, Fredrika went on: ‘It’s for Zakaria’s sake. We think she might be able to help us. Quite a lot.’

That was what they thought, wasn’t it? Why else would they want to talk to her?

‘Help you in what way?’

‘Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to go into that, but I can assure you that anything you can tell us would be extremely useful at this stage.’

She wished he would stop dithering, that she could convince him, because she couldn’t cope with soft-soaping him much longer.

‘Sofi,’ Moussa said at last. ‘Her name is Sofi Khelifi.’

‘Thank you. Thank you so much. Do you know where we can find her?’

‘No. When she’s in Sweden she usually stays with various close friends. And she’s stayed with Zakaria and his girlfriend now and again.’

Fredrika thought about what he had just said.

‘When she’s in Sweden? Does that mean she doesn’t live here on a permanent basis?’

But at that point, Moussa Khelifi decided he had had enough.

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ he said. ‘I only see her a few times a year. If you want more detailed information you’ll have to speak to someone else; I
can’t tell you any more.’

Shortly afterwards, Fredrika ended the call with a request for a picture of Sofi. Moussa agreed that they could have one, but they would have to come and fetch it themselves. Fredrika organised
that, then looked at the name she had written down. Sofi Khelifi. A sister who sometimes lived in Sweden, sometimes elsewhere.

She picked up her notebook and went to see Sebastian, who was talking to a colleague.

‘I’ll check it right away,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’

Fredrika followed him into his office, where he logged onto his computer and started a series of searches on Zakaria’s sister. Fredrika peered over his shoulder, but there were no matches.
Sofi Khelifi didn’t exist. Or at least she wasn’t visible, and that said something about her that Fredrika didn’t like. It was difficult to make yourself invisible in a country
like Sweden.

‘Could she be using a different name?’

‘That’s possible,’ Sebastian said. ‘Plus, you said her uncle indicated that she doesn’t live here all the time, which means that she could be based in another
country covered by the Schengen Agreement and travel in and out of Sweden as often as she likes without coming to our attention.’

‘Can we put out a call for her?’

‘I’m not so sure about that; we don’t suspect her of any crime. But we could ask some of our partners if they know who she is.’ He swallowed and stared at the screen.
‘Although of course that means there’s a significant risk that we won’t get a response until it’s too late.’

Fredrika drew her jacket more tightly around her. Exhaustion had crept up on her, threatening to paralyse her. The investigation had no direction, it was spreading out like a fan. And now they
were looking for someone who could be anywhere.

‘Is Eden back?’

‘No.’

Fredrika thought Alex had been right: they were putting their energy into the wrong aspects of this case. On the other hand, it seemed ridiculous to ignore the reasons behind the hijacking.

Alex. Where had he gone? She hadn’t heard from him for a long time.

‘We ought to speak to Zakaria as well,’ she said. ‘And his girlfriend. One of them must know where we can get hold of his sister, if we think it’s necessary.’

Sebastian didn’t move; he was lost in thought.

‘That’s up to Eden,’ he said.

So they waited for Eden to come back to the office.

The evening pressed down on Stockholm and Kungsholmen like an impenetrable lid. Fredrika gazed at all the committed souls, single-mindedly working away at the investigation. She liked what she
saw; there was nothing frivolous or disorganised about Säpo. Everyone seemed to know their place, everyone fulfilled their role with something that looked like professional pride, at least on
the surface. And there was something else: a warmth and a sense of community that she hadn’t seen in any other workplace. Not necessarily between staff and bosses, but between colleagues.
Säpo also seemed to have made significant progress when it came to recruiting civilian personnel. Someone had mentioned that they used to have a trainee scheme, and Fredrika remembered seeing
the adverts. She had considered applying for one of the posts, but had changed her mind. By that stage she had already been working for several years, and couldn’t face the idea of starting
all over again from the beginning.

Sebastian excused himself to go to the toilet, and Fredrika thought about Zakaria’s uncle. Zakaria had a sister that no one on the investigating team had met, a sister who hadn’t
come forward at any stage during the legal proceedings. She could of course have fallen out with her brother and therefore wished to distance herself from him, but Fredrika had the distinct feeling
that there was another explanation for her silence.

Sebastian came back a few minutes later, accompanied by one of his analysts.

‘One of the numbers you suggested we should contact to check if Zakaria’s phone used to belong to someone else is an unregistered pay-as-you-go SIM card, and can’t be
identified. Another belongs to a person whom we absolutely do not want to contact. But the third ought to work.’

Fredrika felt something that resembled gratitude. As far as Zakaria was concerned, the key issues were his phone and his sister. And now they were getting close to an answer to at least one of
those issues.

O
n the floor where GD had his office, Säpo looked somewhat different. The walls were painted in a colour reminiscent of a private medical
practice, and there was no open-plan office; everyone had a room of their own. Eden said hello to Henrik, the head of counter-espionage, when they met in the corridor outside GD’s door. He
gave a start when he saw her, but smiled politely. Why the hell would he be stressed?

‘I guess you’re pretty busy today?’ he said.

‘Yes, we’re under a fair amount of pressure,’ Eden replied as she knocked on GD’s door.

She couldn’t get her head around Henrik or his boring job.

GD didn’t seem particularly pleased to see her.

‘I presume you’re here to discuss our response to the information we received at Rosenbad?’

Before she had time to say anything, he went on:

‘As I see it, we ought to consider contacting Karim Sassi by phone in order to make it clear that he’s not going to get away with his plan. The demands will not be met, nor will he
get the chance to stage his spectacular finale by crashing the plane into the Capitol building in Washington, DC. We no longer have anything to gain by not confronting him.’

He hadn’t asked Eden to sit down, but she did so anyway.

‘That’s an interesting idea,’ she said. ‘But there’s a better option.’

‘Such as?’

‘We ask the co-pilot, Erik Recht, to take over the plane and land it.’

She had thought about it for a long time, and had reached the conclusion that they had no choice. The plane simply had to be brought down.

‘And we can be sure that this guy is on our side?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘What happens if he fails? That means Karim will know he’s been exposed. But then of course he’d realise that if we called him anyway.’

‘Exactly,’ Eden said. ‘It doesn’t seem to me that we’re risking any more by letting Erik try to take control of the plane than by confronting Karim.’

GD seemed to agree with her, but Eden could see that something else was bothering him. Something he didn’t want to share with her right now.

She shook off her unease. There was something else she wanted to discuss, but GD was still talking about the hijacking.

‘Do we think there’s a bomb on board?’

‘No. At least, I don’t believe there is, particularly now that we know Karim is involved. A bomb seems unnecessary if the pilot is on the side of the hijackers.’

‘But maybe that’s exactly why there is a bomb,’ GD said. ‘The hijackers might have foreseen that we would work out Karim’s involvement, and therefore supplemented
their plan with a bomb. Or maybe they didn’t trust him.’

‘You mean the bomb is there to put pressure on Karim as well?’

‘I’m not saying that’s definitely the case, just that it could be.’

‘It’s an interesting point of view, but I think one of the few things we can be sure about is that Karim is a part of the hijacking.’

‘Of course, but even the most hardened criminal can get cold feet.’

And that’s why there could be a bomb on board, as a kind of insurance to make sure Karim didn’t pull out? Eden thought it was highly unlikely. If Karim believed there was a bomb, why
was he refusing to approach a different country that would welcome him if he decided to go for an emergency landing? There was very little risk that the hijackers would know if he changed course;
even if they were among the passengers, they wouldn’t notice anything apart from the fact that the plane was either in the air or coming in to land.

‘Actually, I didn’t come here to discuss the Americans’ plans to shoot down the plane,’ Eden said.

‘You surprise me.’

The tone was neutral, but Eden sensed a frustration that she didn’t understand.

‘Zakaria Khelifi.’

GD looked troubled.

‘Yes?’

Eden went over what they had already discussed on the phone, and explained how they intended to proceed. She also forewarned GD that the government might revise its decision if it turned out
that the mobile had indeed belonged to someone else. That was really why she had come to see him; they had to take this possible turn of events into account.

‘The mobile, Ellis and the sister,’ GD summarised.

‘We have to sort this out,’ Eden said. ‘And fast.’

‘Of course; if there are question marks we have to look into the matter right away. I’m just wondering why he’s refusing to co-operate with us.’