Hostage (25 page)

The very thought of plunging to the ground had made Joakim settle down properly in his seat without even glancing at the window. However, now he was an adult he loved to sit and gaze at the
clouds. They had been in the air for some hours by now; the advantage was that the distance between him and the bad-tempered girlfriend he had left back home felt immense. Joakim was certain now.
When he got back, he was going to finish with her. He didn’t need someone like her in his life. Not when he was moving forward, and all she wanted to do was stay in the same place.

Joakim was restless. The flight time was supposed to be nine hours and fifteen minutes, and he hadn’t slept a wink. The captain had just announced that there would be a delay of several
hours because of bad weather. Joakim’s seat was as hard as a park bench, and the man next to him stank of sweat. Joakim fiddled aimlessly with the small TV screen set in the back of the seat
in front of him. There wasn’t a single film he hadn’t already seen.

He picked up his rucksack and took out his camera. He scrolled through his photographs, most of which were of no interest at all. Party pictures and photos from his niece’s christening. He
switched off the camera and put it back in his bag, then rummaged through the rest of the contents. Hadn’t he brought a book? A guide to the world of jazz in New York – a present from
his parents.

He found the book and put it on his knee. He wanted to listen to some music as well. The man next to him started glancing sideways at Joakim, obviously irritated by all this scrabbling in his
bag.

You stink and I’m scrabbling. If you put on some deodorant I’ll put down my bag.

After a minute or so, he realised he was searching in vain. He hadn’t brought his MP3-player. He could see it clearly, sitting on the kitchen table. He had intended to bring it, but he
must have forgotten. However, he was sure he’d transferred a few playlists to his new phone.

With his book and phone on his knee, Joakim dropped the rucksack back onto the floor. He turned away discreetly so that his neighbour wouldn’t see that his phone was on. Lots of people had
music on their phones, but they could usually switch to flight mode. Joakim didn’t know how to do that; however, he had recently read an article about how someone was trying, once and for
all, to get to the bottom of how dangerous it was to have a mobile phone switched on during a flight. If it really was such a hazard, then why were people allowed to take a phone on board at all,
the writer argued. The safety of the entire plane was left in the hands of individual passengers, with no control over how they handled that responsibility.

The article had been well written, and Joakim thought it made a good point. If it was so important for phones to be switched off, then surely people would be compelled to check them in. The
thought eased his guilty conscience.

To his surprise, he saw that he had a new message. From his mother. But why? She knew he was on a plane to New York, so why would she send him a message? Or did she assume that he had his phone
on?

Furtively, he turned his back on his neighbour and opened the message. If the phone was on anyway and the message had been received, surely it wouldn’t make any difference if he opened
it?

Quickly, he read through what his mother had written.

He blinked, shook his head. What the hell . . . had she gone mad?

He read it again.

‘
Joakim, I assume both your phones are switched off, but I’m sending this anyway. Dad and I have both come home from work and are following your journey on the internet and on TV.
Don’t give up! We love you and know that everything will be all right! Lots of love, Mum.
’

Come home from work? Following your journey?

Joakim didn’t understand a word of it. Was the message really from his mother, or someone else? He looked at it several times, but there was no doubt.

He started to laugh. Quietly at first, then louder and louder. Suddenly he grew serious again. This wasn’t funny. What were they playing at? What were they talking about? It sounded as if
they thought he was in real danger.

There must have been some kind of misunderstanding, something on the news about a plane heading for New York, and his parents must have thought it was his flight. For God’s sake, there
were several flights a day to New York. Weren’t there?

Joakim looked around. Everything seemed fine, and the crew hadn’t made any alarming announcements. If their flight was in some kind of trouble, surely they would have said something? They
wouldn’t just leave people sitting there, unaware that they were heading towards death?

A stewardess was just passing his row.

‘Excuse me,’ Joakim said.

She stopped and Joakim leaned forward so that he could see past the smelly man.

‘I was just wondering . . . Have there been any problems with this plane?’

‘No, absolutely not. You have my word.’

But she wasn’t smiling the way stewardesses usually do when they speak to passengers.

‘Are you afraid of flying, sir?’

Joakim forced a smile.

‘No, no. I just wanted to check.’

The stewardess moved on, and Joakim felt his cheeks redden. ‘I just wanted to check.’ What a stupid thing to say. Check what? If the plane was expected to crash?

‘Listen, plane crashes are incredibly rare,’ the man beside him said. ‘Driving a car or riding a motorbike is much more dangerous.’

‘Thanks, I know that,’ Joakim said.

Once more, he turned away and opened his phone, but there was no coverage. He read his mother’s message over and over again. The tone and the choice of words communicated absolute despair.
The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became. The stewardess who couldn’t bring herself to smile had been lying.

T
hey had to decide how to proceed. The plane would pass its planned arrival time in just fifteen minutes, and from then on it would be using up its
additional fuel supply. Alex Recht sensed an air of indecision when he came back from his meeting with Zakaria Khelifi’s uncle. It bothered him. They had to move on, take decisive action.

Everyone had gathered for a meeting in Säpo HQ, including Alex’s boss and several other officers from both the National Bureau of Investigation and the Stockholm city police.

Eden began by talking about the call to the TT news agency, and Säpo’s theory that whoever had tipped off the media about the hijacking was actually involved in some way.

‘The call to TT was made from a mobile phone with an unregistered pay-as-you-go SIM card, so that won’t get us anywhere,’ she said. ‘What interests me more, however, is
the fact that the person who took the call was initially sceptical as to whether it should be taken seriously.’

‘Why?’ Fredrika asked.

‘Because the caller sounded like Donald Duck.’

Hjärpe, Alex’s boss, let out a low whistle. ‘Voice distortion again.’

‘That’s right.’

Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What kind of a clown were they chasing here?

‘So that’s another dead end,’ he said.

‘No,’ Eden said. ‘But at least we know we were right when we guessed that the caller was involved.’

‘Why was it so important to inform the media?’ Hjärpe said.

‘I would guess that the caller wanted to be sure that the plane was following the instructions in the note, and he or she can only know that if the media are monitoring the
story.’

The calculated execution of the hijacking made Alex go cold all over.

Eden quickly moved on.

‘What is it that’s driven Karim Sassi to hijack the plane he’s actually flying? What’s his motive?’ she said.

‘Have we completely ruled out the idea of other perpetrators?’ Alex replied.

‘We don’t believe there are others, so we are assuming that Karim had help with his preparations, and that the person or persons concerned are now helping him on the ground. With
regard to yesterday’s bomb threats, all we know is that his fingerprints were on one of the phones. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that he made one of the calls.’

‘Then again, there are no prints at all on any of the other phones,’ Alex said. ‘And there’s nothing from the tracking to suggest that the calls were made by more than
one person. All the threats were made in the same area between Stockholm and Arlanda.’

‘Several people could have been travelling in one car,’ Eden said.

Alex nodded. ‘True.’

Sebastian, the head of analysis, indicated that he had something to say.

‘I think we ought to talk about a possible motive, which you mentioned just now. What is making Sassi do this? He’s not a practising Muslim, which is very interesting. That takes out
any connection with Islamic extremism, which I think we all presumed was behind this, and his motive becomes incomprehensible.’

‘Exactly,’ Eden said. ‘I have to admit that this worries me more than anything. Worries is the wrong word, but it bothers me that I don’t understand what’s driving
him. No one close to him seems to have noticed any kind of change of personality recently, nor has anyone mentioned a burning social conscience. He has no background as an activist, and he
hasn’t even been a member of any voluntary organisation.’

‘Exactly,’ Sebastian said. ‘It would have been a different matter if we’d been able to track down a clear commitment to asylum issues, for example; we could have assumed
that was why Khelifi’s deportation in particular had provoked him to such an extent.’

‘I’m meeting the German liaison officer when we’re done here so that I can find out what they know,’ Eden said. ‘But they’ve already forewarned us that they
don’t have anything specific on Karim, just on the hijacking.’

As Alex listened to Sebastian and Eden, his doubts grew. He couldn’t understand why they thought the situation would change if they could work out Karim’s motives.

Eden noticed his pensive expression.

‘What do you think, Alex?’

Her voice was different from when she was speaking to Sebastian or Fredrika. Softer, as if she wanted to show that Alex was someone she liked.

‘I think it’s going to be bloody difficult to understand Karim’s motives without talking to him,’ he said.

The words came more quickly than he had expected.

‘Talking to him? You mean we should contact the plane and let him know we’re aware of his involvement?’

‘That’s exactly what I mean.’

In spite of the fact that he hadn’t really thought things through, he carried on: ‘We’re not getting any further, and the clock is ticking. In just a few hours the plane will
either crash or be blown to pieces, if the hijackers are serious. Since it’s in the air, we can’t physically go in. The only thing we can do is to call the cockpit and hope we can
reason with Karim, appeal to his good sense.’ Alex paused for effect. ‘Unless of course we want to go for the option we mentioned earlier: contact the co-pilot and ask him to take
control of the plane.’

By this stage, everyone in the room knew that the co-pilot was Alex’s son. But that didn’t matter, because they also knew that he was right.

‘What if we speak to Karim and the conversation causes him to panic?’ Eden said. ‘Since we don’t know what’s driving him, we don’t know what values are at
stake as far as he’s concerned. Confronting him could put all the crew and passengers in mortal danger.’

‘In that case, we have to contact the co-pilot.’

‘And if he fails? The effect could end up exactly the same. Karim realises he’s been exposed, and takes drastic measures. What are Erik’s chances of overcoming Karim, in
practical terms?’

Alex pictured Erik in his mind’s eye. As a child. Tall and thin, almost skinny. Passionate, full of ideas about how to make life more exciting. His temperament was more evenly balanced
since he had grown up, but he still looked for kicks that brightened the dullness other people simply regarded as everyday life.

It doesn’t get any more exciting than this, does it, Erik?

Erik was taller than Alex, but shorter than Karim. And thinner, not nearly as muscular. To be perfectly honest, Alex didn’t think his son would stand a chance against his captain in a
fight – unless he could find some kind of weapon to render him harmless.

‘I don’t think he’d be able to knock Karim out with his bare hands; he’d need to take him by surprise. Perhaps there’s a fire extinguisher in the cockpit that he
could use?’

Alex’s suggestion aroused a hum of conversation around the table. A fire extinguisher? Impossible. Ridiculous. Eden rapped on the table to quieten everyone down.

‘We haven’t got time for chatter,’ she said. ‘Alex has a point; we have to decide how we intend to proceed. The fact is that we have very little chance of bringing the
plane down safely with Karim at the controls. The governments are not going to meet the hijackers’ demands, and the fuel will run out very soon. And then only a miracle can save us from total
disaster.’

‘How can we get hold of the co-pilot without Karim Sassi realising what’s going on? I mean, they’re sitting next to each other,’ said a Säpo investigator Alex
didn’t recognise.

Another burst of murmuring, which irritated Eden.

‘We’ll get in touch with the airline again and see what they say. We don’t know enough to make a decision.’

She looked at a member of her team.

‘Call SAS and find out everything we need to know. Can we reach Erik without Karim realising? And, if so, how? I’m still not sure that asking Erik to overpower Karim is the best
course of action, but we need to consider it as a last resort, in which case I want to know if it’s actually possible.’

Fredrika spoke up: ‘The note said there was a bomb on board the plane; what do we think about that now we know Karim is involved?’

‘What do you mean?’ Eden said.

‘According to the note, the plane will be blown up if we attempt to land it or to evacuate those on board. Do we believe that threat if Karim is behind the hijacking?’

‘You mean that if Karim is put out of action and Erik lands the plane without the demands being met, will the plane be blown up anyway?’