Hostage (8 page)

Alex got ready to head for the government offices yet again.

‘Who’s providing me with backup? We don’t know anything.’

‘You’re going in with Säpo. Let them do the talking. All we know is what’s in the note.’

‘And what are our recommendations?’

‘That we wait and see what happens. I mean, what are they supposed to do? Just let this Khelifi go?’

Alex and his boss headed for the lifts.

‘Have we been in direct contact with the captain of the plane?’ Alex asked.

A shadow passed over Hjärpe’s face.

‘Not yet. In a situation like this, the captain has a significant level of authority. We can make suggestions, but at the end of the day he’s the one who decides what to
do.’

‘I’d advise him to dump the fuel and make an emergency landing.’

Hjärpe muttered something unintelligible, then stood next to Alex in silence as they waited for the lift to arrive. He suddenly placed a hand on Alex’s shoulder.

‘I have to say that I admire your professionalism in this situation. By the time I realised how things stood, I’d already given you the job. If you don’t feel you can handle
it, that’s fine – I want you to know that I can easily pass it on to someone else.’

The lift arrived and the doors opened.

‘What are you talking about?’ Alex said as he stepped inside, escaping from Hjärpe’s hand.

His boss looked completely stunned.

‘I thought they’d told you. They said they were going to tell you.’

‘Tell me what? Who was supposed to tell me what?’

Speaking very quietly, Hjärpe uttered the very last words that Alex wanted to hear.

‘Alex, your son is the co-pilot on that plane.’

Without being given any further information, Fredrika Bergman was called to a meeting at the Prime Minister’s office. Representatives from the Justice Department and the
Foreign Office would also be there. And the police. Nobody was prepared to say what had happened, but the meeting was urgent and it was essential that Fredrika attend.

Things were more or less back to normal at Rosenbad following the bomb threats, but it was obvious that the previous day had been something different. People were scurrying around all over the
place. Everyone seemed to be on the way to somewhere else; no one was sitting at their desk.

The atmosphere in the room where the meeting was to take place was noticeably tense. Fredrika said hello to her colleagues from the Foreign Office and the PM’s office, and looped her
handbag over the back of a chair. A light drizzle was still falling outside.

Fredrika looked around and spotted two familiar faces: Eden Lundell from Säpo, and Alex Recht. They were standing side by side, with their heads close together. Did they know one another?
Alex noticed Fredrika and nodded to her.

‘Nice to see you again so soon.’

He didn’t mean that. His face was distorted in a grimace; he looked angry and upset.

You can’t keep any secrets from me.

‘Do you know Eden?’

‘Yes, we met yesterday.’

They shook hands, and Fredrika thought that Eden’s grip was one of the firmest she had ever felt. She could smell cigarette smoke today as well. And Eden wasn’t smiling. She looked
as if she would really like Fredrika to go away so that she could be alone with Alex.

‘Fredrika and I used to work together,’ Alex explained. ‘She was part of my special investigation team.’

Eden looked surprised.

‘I would never have guessed you were a police officer,’ she said to Fredrika.

‘She’s not,’ Alex replied. ‘She’s a criminologist. And a highly skilled investigator.’

Fredrika blushed. She would never have thought that Alex knew what she had studied at university. Not that he wasn’t interested, but he did have a tendency to mix up different academic
disciplines.

Alex’s words softened Eden’s expression.

‘Good to have someone with your background on board right now,’ she said.

The Secretary of State cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps we could make a start?’

They sat down around the table.

‘We have received another bomb threat,’ Eden began. ‘This time the target is a plane that recently took off from Arlanda, heading for New York.’

The silence around the table was palpable.

‘The terms are crystal clear. The hijackers have made two demands that must be met. Meanwhile, the plane is not allowed to land; if it attempts to do so, it will be blown up. In other
words, they are saying that there is a bomb on board.’

‘But what
is
all this?’ the Secretary of State asked, sounding like a child.

‘All we know is that one of the stewardesses found the bomb threat written on a piece of paper in one of the toilets,’ Eden said. ‘How it got there is of course of great
interest to all of us, but at the moment we have no information on that point. It could have been put there by one of the passengers, or a member of the crew. The prosecutor has decided to launch a
preliminary investigation, and we are currently trying to persuade SAS to provide us with a list of passengers, and of the crew members on board, so that we can compare them with our own databases
to see if we find any matches.’

‘So that hasn’t been done yet?’ the Secretary of State said.

‘No. But we’re expecting a quick turnaround. We’re also working on the specific demands made in the note. One is directed at the US government, and calls for the closure of
Tennyson Cottage.’

‘What’s that?’ Fredrika asked.

‘An American detention facility in Afghanistan,’ Eden explained. ‘It’s relatively unknown, so it’s not at all clear how the person who made the threat could be
familiar with the place. We have already made contact with our American colleagues. It’s important that we’re all on the same page in our dealings with the American side. I assume
you’ll take care of communications with the political leadership over there?’

‘Yes,’ the cabinet secretary from the Foreign Office replied.

‘Good.’

Eden turned to Fredrika and the Secretary of State.

‘There is a further demand, this time aimed at the Swedish government. It concerns the matter we discussed during yesterday’s meeting: Zakaria Khelifi.’

The Secretary of State folded his arms; Fredrika had noticed that he often did this when he felt under pressure.

‘Whoever made the threat is calling for his immediate release, and for the restoration of his residence permit.’

The atmosphere in the room was oppressive.

‘Had you been expecting this?’ the Secretary of State asked, much to Fredrika’s surprise.

‘No, of course not,’ Eden said, unable to hide her irritation. ‘And I must add that we don’t know if this is another hoax.’

‘Hard to say, isn’t it?’ the cabinet secretary said.

Eden’s eyes narrowed.

‘I don’t think this kind of discussion is particularly helpful.’

‘True,’ the Secretary of State said. ‘So what’s our next move?’

‘My suggestion is that we start talking to our respective American colleagues. Säpo will also try to establish direct contact with the captain of the plane in order to find out what
his intentions are. Personally, I would prefer to see him go for an emergency landing as soon as possible, but bearing in mind the way in which the threat is expressed, and that we still
don’t know if it’s genuine, or if one of the perpetrators is on board, I daren’t make that recommendation at the moment.’

‘How much time do we have?’ the Secretary of State asked.

Fredrika saw Eden and Alex exchange glances. Alex looked deeply distressed.

Eden explained what the note had said about how much time the two governments had to meet their demands: when the fuel ran out, their time was up.

‘Oh, my God,’ the cabinet secretary said, covering his mouth with his hand.

‘I must point out once again that we don’t know whether this is a threat we need to take seriously, but I can say that Säpo are extremely concerned,’ Eden said.

Fredrika hesitated for a moment, then asked a question.

‘You didn’t say how long we’ve got. How long will the fuel last?’

Eden bit her lip.

‘We have just over thirteen hours, starting from now. Then the plane will crash, unless it’s allowed to land.’

T
ennyson Cottage. A dark corner of the earth where dubious activities took place.

Eden Lundell hadn’t wanted to say too much about it during the meeting, but she knew exactly what it was. An American so-called secret detention facility in Afghanistan, close to the
Pakistani border. Notorious to those who had been there, unknown to everyone else. The turnover of inmates was low. Most of those who ended up there were suspected terrorists who had been captured
in Pakistan, and who were then moved on through the system after a period in Tennyson Cottage. In the past, they had been flown to Guantánamo, but now they were taken to other facilities.
The Americans had never confirmed it, but Eden suspected that there had been fatalities among the inmates.

Eden hadn’t had anything to do with Tennyson Cottage herself, but she had heard the name mentioned when she was working in London.

They gathered in one of the larger operational meeting rooms: Eden, Sebastian, whom she still hadn’t apologised to, and a number of investigators and analysts. A total of twelve people
were seated around the table. Only one of them wasn’t wearing a black suit, and that was Eden. She was wearing a blue pinstripe suit by Hugo Boss. As she often said to Mikael,
‘Authority doesn’t come for free.’

And Mikael would usually reply, ‘Particularly when it stinks of smoke.’

Eden had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. One day, she would make her husband happy by stubbing out her very last cigarette. But not today.

When everyone had settled down, Eden opened the meeting. She didn’t waste any time, but got straight down to what she considered to be the key question as far as Säpo was
concerned.

‘Why has Zakaria Khelifi come up in this context? Who would do such a thing with the aim of helping him? Is it his current girlfriend? A friend? A group of activists?’

‘Or a terrorist group,’ someone said.

‘Or a terrorist group,’ Eden repeated. ‘And secondly, why is Tennyson Cottage mentioned? What’s the connection with Khelifi?’

‘Does there have to be a connection?’ Sebastian asked. ‘It could be someone who just wants to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.’

‘True,’ Eden said, grateful for Sebastian’s contribution. ‘That could of course be the case. But then the question remains: how does this person know about Tennyson
Cottage? I mean, it’s not particularly well known.’

One of the investigators raised his hand.

‘I think you can find it if you do an Internet search. Well, I know you can. I just tried it myself.’

‘I did the same thing,’ Sebastian said. ‘But there weren’t many matches – less than a handful. It doesn’t seem like a place you would just come across unless
you knew what you were looking for.’

‘Which takes us back to square one,’ Eden said. ‘How did the person or persons who made the threat know about Tennyson Cottage?’

Was this the right angle of attack? Eden was doubtful. She was finding it difficult to work out how to react to the two different demands contained in the note. Was Tennyson Cottage the most
important thing for the hijacker or hijackers, or was it Zakaria Khelifi? Why decide to challenge two governments rather than just one? Surely, whoever it was must realise that the USA would never
accept a hostage situation. They didn’t negotiate with terrorists, and there was no way they would shut down Tennyson Cottage during the time it took a jumbo jet to use up its fuel.

As far as Zakaria Khelifi was concerned, Eden thought the same applied. The Swedish government was not going to revise its decision because of a bomb threat. If they did, it would open the
floodgates for a surge of hostage situations and bomb threats. Besides which, they still didn’t know if this was a hoax, and that bothered Eden more than anything else.

‘Let’s just ignore the demands for a while and focus on the actual threat instead,’ she said. ‘The bomb that’s supposed to be on the plane. What do Arlanda say,
first of all?’

‘I’ve been in touch with them,’ one of the investigators said. ‘They reckon it’s virtually impossible to smuggle a bomb on board these days, either in hand luggage
or in baggage that’s been checked in. At least with flights that have the USA as their final destination.’

‘Because the Americans insist that everything has to be X-rayed?’

‘Exactly. Every single thing is X-rayed.’

‘And what do they do if they see something suspicious in baggage that’s been checked in? Do they open it? I can think of countless occasion when people have been asked to open their
hand luggage to show what they’re carrying, but I’ve never heard of anyone having to open a suitcase after it’s been checked in. And most people lock their cases these days, so
what happens then? Do they break them open? I can’t recall ever seeing that either.’

Sebastian broke in, sounding slightly impatient.

‘Isn’t this exactly what this kind of threat is aiming to achieve?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They want us to sit here trying to guess whether or not there really is a bomb. The fact that we can’t be sure makes the answer irrelevant, because we can’t afford to take the
risk. Therefore, it’s not a good idea to mess with people who threaten a plane that’s actually in the air.’

Eden nodded thoughtfully. ‘We can compare this situation with the threats we dealt with yesterday. We were given times and locations for four bombs; we were able to get there, evacuate
each location and carry out a search for any possible explosives. In the case of a plane that’s already in the air, with the threat that it will be blown up if it tries to land, that’s
impossible. Even if we sent one of the crew down into the hold to search the baggage, it would be impossible. There are far too many bags to go through, and they don’t have the necessary
equipment.’

‘This claim that the plane will be blown up if it comes in to land tells us something else,’ Sebastian said.