Hostage (26 page)

‘Exactly.’

Alex’s heart sank. He hadn’t thought about that.

‘In that case we’re back to what we talked about this morning,’ Eden said. ‘What are the chances that someone managed to smuggle a bomb onto the plane?’

‘If the captain himself is part of the plot, then perhaps it’s more likely?’ someone suggested.

‘Hardly. The crew have to go through the same security checks as the passengers.’

Eden shook her head. ‘I refuse to make a final decision under these circumstances. I want to speak to the Germans first, see if they’ve found out any more. And then I want to talk to
our American colleagues; I want to know exactly how they’re intending to deal with the plane if or when time runs out. Only then will I consider getting in touch with Karim and asking about
his plans.’

She had hardly finished speaking when the door flew open and a young woman Alex had never seen before came rushing in.

‘Sorry to interrupt, Eden, but GD asked me to tell you that you’ve been called to a meeting at Rosenbad immediately.’

‘Rosenbad? Tell GD he’ll have to go himself; I’m needed here.’

‘I don’t think he’ll accept that. It’s to do with the Americans; apparently, they’ve contacted the Foreign Office through their ambassador and informed the Swedish
government what they intend to do with the hijacked plane.’

‘Why do we have to go to Rosenbad to discuss that?’ Eden said. ‘Wouldn’t it be just as easy for the Americans to come here and talk us through their plans?’

‘GD was very clear,’ the woman said. ‘He wants you to go with him, right now.’

Eden got to her feet.

‘In that case this meeting is closed. I should be back within the hour.’

Alex stayed in his seat, like everyone else. His stomach was knotted with fear. The Americans had gone directly to the government rather than Säpo. That couldn’t possibly be a good
sign.

H
ere we go again, Eden thought. Another meeting with the cabinet office, this time at Rosenbad. It was dark outside, and a weary drizzle was
falling as they drove the short distance from Police HQ to Tegeluddsbacken. There were only the two of them in the car, which felt strange to Eden.

‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

GD stared at her. ‘In the car?’

‘Yes.’

‘Too bloody right I mind. If you’re going to smoke, you can do it outdoors.’

Eden slid the packet of cigarettes back into her pocket.

‘Pardon me for asking, but do you usually smoke when you’re driving?’ GD asked.

‘It has been known.’

She was too old to be reprimanded about how she took care of her health and her body, and made it clear that she wasn’t interested in the conversation by staring out of the window. Why was
GD behind the wheel, anyway? She was a better driver than him. All those visits to Israel and the years she had spent in London had made her the driver she was today. If you didn’t put your
foot down a fraction of a second after the traffic lights turned green in Tel Aviv, you were in trouble, because someone was guaranteed to drive straight into the back of your car.

Suddenly, Eden couldn’t see very well. Three years had passed since her last visit to Israel. Three years of slow recovery and trying to find a sense of balance in her everyday life again.
Almost everything had fallen apart back then. Things that couldn’t be fixed, things she would have to carry with her for many years in the future. Had it been worth it? Could she have done it
all differently?

Of course she could. There was often more than one way of dealing with a catastrophe. Her mother had once said that a person had three ways of handling things: you could go with your heart, your
head or your stomach. When Eden was in her twenties, she had added sexuality to the list, but she hadn’t told her mother. And it wasn’t her heart, her head or her stomach that had sent
her to the hot streets of Tel Aviv that first time. Nor all the times that followed.

The memories frightened her, and she squeezed the cigarette packet in her pocket. The interior of the car shrank; it was too small. Eden stretched her legs, tensed her muscles. They were only
minutes away from Rosenbad; she told herself to keep calm. When GD stopped the car, she flung the door open and got out. It wasn’t until she had lit her cigarette and taken the first drag
that she realised how grim GD had looked from the minute they had set off. He hadn’t said a word after his comment on her smoking. She could see and feel him watching her, looking her up and
down. What was his problem?

GD strode past her, glancing at the cigarette with disapproval.

‘You do know that any kind of dependency is a potential weakness in our line of work?’ he said.

Eden couldn’t work out whether or not he was joking.

‘I don’t think nicotine addiction is usually a problem,’ she said. ‘Besides. I’m not addicted. I’m in full control.’

‘Really?’ GD looked sceptical.

‘Of course. I can stop whenever I want to.’

She dropped the cigarette and watched it go out on the rain-soaked gravel.

There wasn’t much room behind Fredrika Bergman’s desk as Alex sat down beside her.

‘We need to take a closer look at Zakaria Khelifi’s case,’ she said.

Alex hesitated, then said, ‘You think he’s innocent?’

Now it was Fredrika’s turn to hesitate. She looked around. There were still a lot of people working at their desks in the open-plan office, and several of them were sitting quite close to
her.

‘Come with me,’ she said, heading resolutely for the kitchen. Fortunately, it was empty. ‘I want to examine those phone records more closely. I absolutely believe that
Sebastian’s team know what they’re doing, but there could be information there that would help us find out if the phone really did belong to Zakaria during the relevant
period.’

Alex poured himself a cup of coffee. Fredrika had always thought he had lovely hands, but that was yet another thing he would never know.

‘If you think it will change anything, then go for it.’ He shrugged and took a sip of his coffee.

Fredrika suddenly felt a wave of tiredness. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean what I say,’ Alex replied. ‘We’re fiddling about, doing a little bit here, a little bit there. Following leads in a thousand directions and getting precisely
nowhere. Like the Keystone Kops.’

‘Everything has happened so fast, Alex. And we have so little time.’

Alex put down his cup with a bang. ‘We’ve got to decide which direction we’re going in,’ he said, sounding agitated. ‘Either we save the plane and everyone on
board, or we investigate the question of who’s to blame. One or the other, you choose. We can’t do both at the same time. And if we choose to focus on who’s to blame, which is
obviously what we are doing, then the plane is doomed.’

‘You don’t think we can stop this by finding whoever is behind the whole thing?’

‘We already know who’s behind it; he’s sitting at the controls on board the plane!’

Alex turned away.

I don’t need to see your anger, Alex; I can feel it anyway.

‘So what do you suggest?’

‘That we forget about everything else and concentrate on one thing, and one thing only – getting that bloody plane down by letting Erik take over.’

It was difficult to contradict him.

‘But that’s what we’re doing,’ Fredrika said, lowering her voice as she did when she was talking to her children, trying to calm them down. ‘None of us believes
that Karim is the only person behind all this, which means that none of us knows how everything fits together, and how best to proceed.’

Fredrika was still thinking about Zakaria.

Zakaria and Tennyson Cottage.

What was the connection?

‘Is Zakaria Khelifi the main focus here, or Tennyson Cottage?’ she wondered.

‘The bomb threats came before the government’s decision to deport Zakaria.’

‘But the hijacking came after.’

Fredrika reached for a glass and filled it with water. There was a link between Zakaria Khelifi and Tennyson Cottage, just as there was between the bomb threats and the hijacking – there
had to be. And they wouldn’t get anywhere until they worked out what it was.

It was like wading through glue. The investigation had been going on for less than one full working day, but Fredrika was as exhausted as if it had been going on for weeks.

‘We’re getting nowhere,’ she said.

‘That’s exactly what I said,’ Alex replied, his voice hoarse and subdued. ‘I don’t understand what kind of breakthrough we’re supposed to be waiting for. The
plane has been hijacked, and the person responsible is in control of the cockpit. That’s the situation, and we have to act accordingly.’

Fredrika nodded and put down her glass. Alex was right, but she wasn’t ready to support his suggestion that Erik should take over.

‘I’ll go and check those phone records.’

She went back to her desk, leaving Alex alone in the kitchen. The lack of time wasn’t their biggest problem. The real issue was that they had no strategy for what they were going to do
when time ran out.

Trying to stop the plane from using up fuel was like trying to stop the sand from trickling through an hourglass.

It took Eden Lundell less than a minute to realise that the case of the hijacked plane had taken a different turn. They met in a windowless room at Rosenbad: Eden and GD from
Säpo, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Justice, plus a handful of civil servants from the relevant departments.

‘Sit down,’ the PM said.

His voice was harsh and impatient, as if he had asked them several times to sit down without anyone taking any notice. Everyone immediately did as they were told. The door leading to the
corridor was already closed. Eden noticed that not one but two people checked to make sure it was locked.

What the hell is going on here? And why are we on the back foot?

The PM wasted no time.

‘We were contacted by the US government less than an hour ago. As expected, the hijacking of Flight 573 has caused consternation on the other side of the Atlantic, not least because of
information indicating that the pilot is working with the hijackers. The US authorities have already contacted Karim Sassi to inform the crew that the plane will not be allowed to enter US airspace
under present circumstances, and that they must therefore remain in international airspace until the situation is resolved. If the captain decides to attempt to land the plane within the
jurisdiction of some other country, the Americans have no problem with that; the only thing they will not accept is a violation of US airspace.’

Eden raised her hand a fraction, requesting permission to speak.

‘What information have the Americans given Karim Sassi? Does he know we believe he’s involved in the hijacking?’

‘No,’ the PM said. ‘According to the Americans, they have been very low key in their communication with the aircraft. All they’ve said is that under the present
circumstances they regard the plane as a security risk, and are therefore instructing the pilot to remain outside US airspace.’

Eden thought that sounded logical. However, she also thought the hijackers had already foreseen the US reaction, and wondered what would happen next.

Which raised the question of why the hijackers hadn’t made direct contact with either the police or the government. They had heard nothing. What did that suggest? That they expected their
demands to be met in full? Or the reverse – that they knew they would be rejected, and therefore didn’t need any channels of communication?

This hijacking was running contrary to all previous experience. Hijackers usually lost patience, insisted on negotiations, fought for what they wanted. They would also try to speed up the
process, raise the stakes in order to force the authorities to make concessions. But in the case of Flight 573, the stakes were not being raised at all. Everything was on the table already.

Over four hundred passengers at thirty thousand feet.

‘So what does that mean in words of one syllable?’ GD asked.

‘What?’ said the PM.

‘The fact that the plane won’t be allowed into US airspace.’

‘If Karim Sassi has any sense at all, he will obey their orders and stay in international airspace.’

Only then did Eden realise why they had been summoned to Rosenbad at such short notice, and why the Americans had passed on their message to the Swedish government rather than Säpo.

But GD didn’t get it.

‘Sooner or later, the plane will run out of fuel,’ he said. ‘And they already know that the pilot is working with the hijackers, yet they still expect Karim to obey their
orders?’

Eden felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Without thinking about what she was doing, she placed a hand on GD’s shoulder.

‘Not necessarily,’ the PM said grimly; his face had lost all its colour. ‘We have to understand the American perspective, even if we don’t sympathise with it. It’s
ten years since 9/11. They will never risk such an attack happening again. Not if they have the chance to prevent it, which they believe they have in this case.’

GD had nothing to say this time. When the Prime Minister spoke again, Eden already knew what he was going to say.

‘If Karim Sassi decides to defy the order to stay away from US airspace, they will shoot down the plane as soon as it crosses the US border.’

T
he knock on the door made both Erik Recht and Karim Sassi jump. The silence in the cockpit had been almost palpably dense since their last
discussion, and Erik was deep in thought. He had to get out, but without rousing Karim’s suspicions so that he would stop him from coming back in. And he had to get hold of his father.

Erik glanced at the small screen and saw Fatima. Karim pressed the release button and Erik quickly opened the door.

‘It’s happened,’ she said, closing the door behind her.

Erik immediately turned around, but it was a few seconds before Karim looked at Fatima.

‘What has?’ Erik asked.