Hostage (40 page)

Fatima remembered what she had seen when she looked Karim in the eye, trembling with shock:

Despair.

Unmistakable despair in those beautiful dark eyes.

‘But what’s happened?’ she had said, wanting to try to understand what lay behind his irrational determination to keep Erik locked out of the cockpit.

He hadn’t replied. At the same time, Erik started hammering on the door, and she knew he must have realised what was going on.

Karim had no intention of letting him back in.

She didn’t know how long Karim had held onto her. It had felt like an eternity, and suddenly Erik had stopped banging on the door. For a brief moment, she had thought the danger was over,
that Karim was going to let her go.

Not that she knew where she would have gone.

And he had in fact let go of her, told her to sit down on the floor. She had done as he said, because by now she understood that something had gone terribly wrong.

Karim had moved towards the door and, at first, she had believed he was going to open it. When he turned around, he was clutching the fire extinguisher. She heard him say something she
couldn’t remember, then he lifted the extinguisher and . . .

It was as if her head had suddenly been reminded that it was hurt, and she forced herself to squeeze her eyes tight shut to stop the hot tears spilling over and giving her away.

Shit, there was no way she could fix this on her own.

The tears were caused by the pain, which felt like needles piercing her eyeballs. She didn’t have time to cry. She didn’t want to cry.

But what was that noise, drowning out all the normal racket of an aircraft?

The door. Erik was out there again. Or had he been there all the time?

Fatima gave a start as Karim yelled:

‘Stop it, for fuck’s sake, just stop it! You’re not coming back in, you hear me?’

There it was again, the echo of despair. It was unmistakable; she was absolutely certain she was right. Something was terribly wrong. Something more than the fact that the plane had been
hijacked.

Karim, what have you done?

Eventually, she had to open her eyes a fraction in order to work out where she was in relation to Karim. The light was blinding, and she instinctively closed them again.

Fatima tried again, and this time it was easier.

She was lying behind the seats, not far from the door. Karim was sitting with his back to her, his shirt sticking to his skin with perspiration. He was sweating as if he had just completed a
ten-mile run. He was raking his hands through his hair, repeating over and over again:

‘I can’t cope with this, for fuck’s sake. Stop banging on the fucking door. Please, please let this be over soon.’

She tried raising her head. It went better than she had expected. The fire extinguisher was next to Karim. She couldn’t think of any other weapon within reach.

She would have just one chance, she knew that. If she reached for the extinguisher, she had to be certain that she could get to her feet in the next movement and bring it down on Karim’s
head. If he had time to react, she was screwed. He was far stronger than her in purely physical terms. One chance. That was all she would get. And it would be over in seconds.

Fatima waited a little while longer. Erik carried on hammering on the door. Surely it had to give way soon? Should she wait?

No. It was a security door, designed for exactly this kind of situation. It was built to withstand extreme pressure from the outside, in order to protect the crew, and thus the passengers. Which
meant there was a problem if the threat was on the wrong side of the door.

She sensed that Karim was about to do something really stupid, something that wasn’t part of the plan. The noise from the door was obviously distracting him, which was good. She had to try
to gather her strength.

Then an alternative course of action occurred to her.

The button that would unlock the door – could she reach that instead? Erik would be inside in no time.

By now, Karim had his hands over his ears, and his head was drooping.

It was now or never.

The button or the fire extinguisher.

She counted silently to herself.

One, two, three.

Then she saw it. Just inches away.

A fork.

Not a plastic fork like the ones they handed out to the passengers in economy, but a real fork made of stainless steel. The kind you got if you were travelling first class. Or if you were a
member of the crew.

Slowly, Fatima reached out and grasped the shiny metal.

She had to act right now, because she wouldn’t have this opportunity again. She would try to reach the button, then hurl herself at Karim. And say a prayer that Erik would move fast.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Gripped the fork as tightly as she could and felt the pain in her head roll backwards and forwards like ocean waves.

She was ready now.

Now.

Now.

A
sister and a brother. A woman and the love of her life. Unbreakable bonds and an act of desperation. In one way so simple, in so many others
completely incomprehensible. And still so many missing answers to the questions they wanted to ask.

In any other investigation, everything they had found out over the last couple of hours would have been regarded as a breakthrough, but not this time.

The passengers were still in a hostage situation up in the sky, and the Americans were still intending to shoot down the plane. And they were almost out of time. It was a matter of minutes
rather than hours before the disaster would become a reality.

‘Please don’t let there be a bomb on board,’ Alex said, as he stood beside Fredrika, looking out of the window.

Darkness and rain. Not a glimmer of light. Nowhere.

Fredrika took Alex’s hand.

‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said.

‘Do you really believe that?’

No.

Nothing was as it should be. The government had recently issued a statement, saying that it had revised its decision to deport Zakaria Khelifi, and this had unleashed a storm of questions and
reactions in the media. And in the middle of this inferno, the plane continued its journey towards destruction.

‘Absolutely.’

‘But how can it be all right, Fredrika? They’ll run out of fuel in half an hour.’

‘We still don’t know how Erik has got on.’

Our last hope.

Alex glanced over his shoulder.

‘The others will think we’re an item if we carry on standing here like this.’

She squeezed his hand.

‘Who cares. We’re police officers, after all. We’re supposed to screw around more than other people.’

Alex’s jaw dropped, and Fredrika smiled.

‘Don’t you remember Peder saying that?’

Alex pulled his hand away when she mentioned the name of their former colleague.

‘I remember.’

The strain felt like a physical pressure in Fredrika’s chest. That was one of the reasons why she had left the police – the fact that the job demanded such terrible sacrifices. All
the time. Non-stop.

Forgive me for deserting you when you had already lost Peder, but I just couldn’t cope any more.

‘Is Spencer at home with the kids?’ Alex asked.

The question surprised Fredrika.

‘No, he’s in Café Opera, drinking himself under the table.’

Alex laughed quietly.

‘Sorry. I’m old and stupid. Of course he’s at home with the kids.’

Spencer had called not long ago, and Fredrika had rejected the call. She didn’t have time for him right now. Nor for the children. God knows what state she would be in when a new day
dawned, bringing the drama to an end one way or another.

‘Am I interrupting something?’

Eden was standing behind them. Fredrika got the feeling she had been there for a while.

‘No,’ Alex said.

Eden asked them to come along to one of the meeting rooms, where Dennis and Sebastian were already waiting.

‘I heard back from the Germans,’ Eden began. ‘They said they definitely have no knowledge of Sofi.’

Dennis adjusted his collar. He was wearing a khaki shirt that Fredrika thought would have suited Spencer.

‘In that case, I can only conclude that they’ve missed what this girl has been up to, because you don’t embark on an operation like this unless you know what you’re
doing. If she is involved, of course.’

This could well be true, and there were other aspects of what they had learned that frightened Fredrika.

‘It doesn’t matter whether or not they know who she is. Sofi lives in Germany. The man we assume was her boyfriend was held in an American detention facility in Afghanistan after
travelling to Pakistan to attend terrorist training camps. And the Swedish government recently decided to deport her brother Zakaria,’ Eden summarised.

All day –
all day
– Fredrika had been on Zakaria’s side, but now she didn’t know what to think.

They had to get hold of Sofi. Without delay.

‘How are we going to find her?’ she said.

‘We contacted the airport police and they found Zakaria’s car in the long-stay car park, on the same level as the waste bin where the mobile phones were,’ Eden said. ‘Do
you know where it was parked?’

‘You just said it was in the long-stay car park,’ Alex said.

‘I meant more specifically. It was also on the same level as Karim Sassi’s car.’

‘But how the hell did we miss it, in that case?’ Dennis said. ‘We were there, for God’s sake, taking fingerprints from Sassi’s car!’

‘Yes,’ Eden said. ‘But at the time we didn’t know we needed to look at the cars nearby, did we?’

‘Could that have been where they met?’ Fredrika said. ‘Is that how she got Karim’s fingerprints on the phone?’

Eden made a note on the pad in front of her.

‘We don’t know that, and at the moment I don’t think we should waste any time on finding out.’

Her phone rang and she answered.

‘I haven’t got time to talk now, I’ll call you later.’

Fredrika guessed it was a personal call, and this was confirmed when Eden went on:

‘Well, if she’s got a temperature, give her some Alvedon. Seriously, Mikael, this will have to wait until I get home. No, I have no idea when I’ll be back. If I’m not
going to make it before morning, I’ll call you. Bye.’

She ended the call and slipped the phone back in her pocket.

Fredrika couldn’t take her eyes off Eden. There was something about her posture and her tone of voice that sent shivers down Fredrika’s spine. It wasn’t just that Eden was
under pressure; she sounded as if she couldn’t give a damn about her children. But surely that couldn’t be true. Could it?

‘However, we do need to find out how Karim Sassi fits into all this,’ Eden said.

At last.

‘That’s the only major question we don’t have an answer to as yet,’ Dennis said.

‘And ironically, it’s the only one that interests us right now,’ Alex said.

‘There’s something else I find strange about all this,’ Fredrika said. ‘The timing. There’s no way the person behind the hijacking only got to work yesterday. This
has taken an enormous amount of preparation.’

‘Exactly,’ Alex said. ‘And the Germans received that email several weeks ago.’

‘I think we all feel the same,’ Eden said. ‘And I’m wondering if this is what happened: the hijacking was originally planned only as an act of revenge, with the aim of
getting Tennyson Cottage shut down. But then Zakaria was unexpectedly detained, and the perpetrator then set the wheels in motion earlier than he or she had intended, with the aim of securing
Zakaria’s release as well.’

Fredrika could accept that explanation; it seemed pretty credible.

‘But what about Karim Sassi?’ Sebastian said. ‘
How the hell did he end up in this mess?
I mean, Sofi is the one who obviously has a reason to do something like this for
her brother. But where does Karim fit in?’

‘He’s the one who’s executing the whole thing,’ Dennis said.

‘Yes, but why?’

Fredrika couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

‘Could it be that he has no choice?’

Eden put down her pen in frustration.

‘How is that possible, Fredrika? I hear what you’re saying. You think Karim is a victim rather than a perpetrator. But the fact remains – it’s Karim and no one else who
constitutes the greatest danger on board that plane right now. If he’s not doing it of his own free will, what kind of pressure has he been subjected to?’

Fredrika had no answer to that question. She had asked it herself, over and over again. What would it take to make a man sacrifice the lives of hundreds of people, including his own, against his
will?

She didn’t know, couldn’t come up with a sensible explanation.

At that moment, Alex’s phone rang.

It was Erik.

A
t first, he hadn’t been able to work out what was wrong. Everything had happened so fast. So incredibly fast.

The fork.

The fork in Fatima’s hand, dripping with blood when she opened the cockpit door and fell into Erik’s arms. Lydia had to step back quickly.

‘Oh, God, I think I’ve killed him.’

Fatima’s voice was no more than a faint whimper, but Erik heard every word. He let her sink to the floor, took the fork out of her hand and stepped over her body into the cockpit. Lydia
knelt down beside her.

Karim was lying on the floor clutching his neck as the blood spurted out across the carpet. Erik hesitated before bending down to check if he was conscious. He gripped the slippery fork as he
touched Karim’s shoulder.

Karim raised his head and looked at Erik. He was weeping.

‘Forgive me, Erik, please forgive me. I had no choice.’

Erik felt the rage explode in his body.

‘No choice? Are you crazy?’

His voice belonged to someone else. It was deeper and louder than it had ever been before.

‘My family,’ Karim whispered. ‘They said they’d kill my family. It was them or me, so of course it had to be me.’