Hostage

by Kristina Ohlsson

  There was a rushing sound on the line.

  ‘We’re fine.’

  ‘Nobody has gone to pieces?’ Dennis said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good,’ Eden said.

  She clicked on her computer as she carried on speaking.

  ‘What’s your course at the moment?’

  ‘We’re still on autopilot, on course for New York.’

  Alex hadn’t thought about that. Should they still be heading for the USA, or would it be a good idea to stay away?

  ‘You haven’t considered an alternative route, in view of what has happened?’ Eden said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you had requested extra fuel before you took off?’

  ‘Yes. Storms are forecast for New York.’

  ‘How many hours are we talking about?’ Dennis asked, wanting to double check the information they had been given earlier.

  ‘I have enough fuel for just under twelve more hours.’

  Alex felt his blood pressure plummet. Twelve hours wasn’t very long for two governments to accede to two impossible demands.

  ‘Karim, you’re doing brilliantly,’ Eden said. ‘We have a suggestion that we would like to put to you, and we would ask you to think it over.’

  There was something impressive about the hierarchy that now became apparent; Alex hadn’t thought about it before. Eden Lundell, one of Säpo’s most senior representatives, was calling the pilot of an SAS plane and making a suggestion. Not giving an order or a directive, but making a suggestion. Because while he was at the controls of Flight 573, Karim Sassi alone was king.

  ‘Are you listening?’ Eden said when Karim didn’t reply.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  And Eden began to explain.

  ‘No,’ Karim Sassi said.

  Time stood still inside the glass cube. Alex asked himself whether they could have foreseen Karim’s reaction, but he thought not. It was entirely unexpected.

  ‘No?’ Eden said.

  ‘The answer is no. I am not prepared to go against the hijackers’ instructions and bring down the plane. I would be jeopardising the safety of everyone on board.’

  Alex saw Eden swallow hard. She rested her elbows on the desk and put her head in her hands. When she looked up her expression was dark. She wasn’t used to being contradicted.

  ‘Karim, listen to me.’ It was clear that she was having to make a real effort not to sound angry. ‘We share your concerns, but as I said there are a number of logical arguments which suggest that the hijackers would have far too much to lose by blowing up the plane in mid-air. It takes time to land, and that would give the hijackers the chance to protest. In which case you just take the plane back up again.’

  A scraping noise came from the speaker.

  ‘I’m not doing it,’ Karim said. ‘What happens if one of the hijackers is on board, and panics? We might end up with a hostage situation. Someone could get hurt. We have no idea what we might trigger.’

  ‘But at least we would know if there really is a hijacker and a genuine threat,’ Dennis said.

  They heard another voice in the background. Erik. Alex felt his heartbeat increase. Without realising what he was doing he leaned forward on his chair, as if trying to hear better. They waited as Karim and Erik spoke to one another. It wasn’t possible to hear what they were saying, but Alex could tell from his son’s tone of voice that he was wound up. Erik had always been quick to flare up, to sound agitated, but this time Alex had to admit that he had every reason to behave that way.

  Eventually, Karim came back on the line.

  ‘I am the captain of this plane. And I am not going to make any attempt at an emergency landing, particularly in view of the fact that I can’t dump the fuel, which we are all agreed is out of the question.’

  Eden chose her words with care.

  ‘We totally respect the fact that you alone are in command,’ she said. ‘But how are you intending to resolve this situation?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean exactly what I say. If you don’t intend to attempt an emergency landing, what’s your plan?’

  ‘What’s my plan? It’s not my fucking responsibility to sort this out!’

  For the first time, Karim sounded really angry.

  ‘It’s your responsibility, either by finding the idiots who are behind this, or by co-operating with the hijackers and doing exactly as they say. My only task is to keep the plane in the air until it’s all over.’

  Then he ended the call.

  Eden looked at Dennis and Alex.

  ‘Shit,’ Dennis said.

  ‘Although he does have a point,’ Alex said.

  The others stared at him as if he had gone mad.

  ‘There are three ways of resolving this,’ Alex said. ‘Number one, we manage to land the plane and get everyone off without the hijackers noticing. Number two, both governments meet the demands of the hijackers. Or number three, we find the perpetrators behind the hijacking. And that might be the only achievable solution.’

  ‘And an emergency landing isn’t the obvious option?’

  ‘To us, yes. But evidently not to Karim Sassi.’

  ‘Can we force him to co-operate?’ Dennis said.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Eden replied. ‘We’ll have to call SAS and check. It seems strange if we don’t have clear jurisdiction over an individual pilot.’

  Dennis got to his feet.

  ‘I’ll go and find out.’

  When he had closed the door behind him, Alex turned to Eden.

  ‘If Karim says no, then I’m afraid we’ll have to accept it.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘So what’s the alternative?’

  ‘Would it help if you spoke to him? Does he know you? Does he know you’re Erik’s father?’

  Alex shook his head; he couldn’t imagine it would be any easier for him to get through to Karim.

  ‘It wouldn’t make any difference,’ he said.

  Eden linked her hands behind her head and stared into space.

  ‘If we don’t neutralise the threat by landing the plane, then we either have to meet the hijackers’ demands or identify the perpetrators before the fuel runs out, as you said. And to be frank, there isn’t a cat in hell’s chance of either the Swedish or American governments giving in.’

  It was an accurate assessment, so Alex raised no objections.

  ‘In that case, we have to find whoever kicked off this entire circus,’ he said.

  They sat in silence for a while.

  ‘There is one consolation,’ Eden said.

  Alex raised an eyebrow. ‘Is there?’

  ‘I really don’t believe there’s a bomb on board that plane.’

  After almost thirty years with the police, Alex had learned that a case could take the most unexpected turns. He ran his fingers over the pink scar tissue on his hands. He had made mistakes on more than one occasion, and had once burned his hands badly as a result.

  ‘I’m not quite so convinced,’ he said. ‘We have to be prepared for any eventuality, particularly as we don’t even understand everything about the message that was left on the plane.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Exactly what I say. For example, we don’t know how Tennyson Cottage comes into all this. And what’s the connection with Zakaria Khelifi?’

  Eden was about to answer when Sebastian yanked open the door of her office.

  ‘Bad news. The press have started calling; someone has leaked the hijack story.’

  ‘Shit,’ Eden said. ‘We could have done with more time.’

  ‘I know,’ Sebastian said. ‘But if you come over to my office, I’ve got something to show you that’s even worse. We’ve just got a match on one of the names from the lists. And it looks bad. Really bad.’

  18

  FLIGHT 573

  Why couldn’t they agree? Erik and Karim had had a frank and vociferous row about the call from Säpo and their suggestion of an emerge
ncy landing. Erik couldn’t understand why Karim was so vehemently opposed to the idea that he wasn’t even prepared to discuss it. He had stated his position very clearly to Erik: the plane was staying in the air, in accordance with the hijackers’ instructions. Under no circumstances would he attempt to land until their demands had been met.

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ Erik had yelled. ‘Don’t you realise that’s not going to happen? There isn’t a sensible government anywhere in the world that would go along with such demands!’

  But Karim wasn’t listening. Or he didn’t care. Erik was seething with suppressed rage. Karim’s behaviour was totally unacceptable. It was completely unreasonable.

  Wherever Erik looked, all he could see was the sky, extending into infinity beyond the plane. This usually gave him a sense of peace, but right now he was almost scared out of his wits at the thought of being at a height of thirty thousand feet. They had seen several other aircraft in the distance, on their way to different destinations. Erik wished he was on board any one of them. He just wanted to be anywhere but on a plane that someone was threatening to blow up.

  What if this was the day when he was going to die?

  Erik had a pragmatic view of death. As his grandfather used to say, death was the only certainty in life. It might come when you were old, or when you were young. As Erik’s mother had been. Erik had always thought of her as young, even though she had been almost fifty-five. Being young wasn’t just about age; it was in the soul. Erik’s father had always been old, ever since Erik was a child.

  He watched as Karim wiped his forehead, over and over again. Karim had barely said a word since they received the threat. Unlike Erik, he didn’t seem to feel the need to talk about the situation in which they found themselves. He just kept on staring straight ahead.

  They had agreed not to tell the passengers about the threat. It would only create chaos and despair, and make the crew’s job even harder. However, every member of the crew had been discreetly informed by Fatima, who had found the note. They had had a lot of questions, and the anxiety level was high. It had been decided that Fatima would be the link between cockpit and crew, which Erik and Karim thought was a good idea. The fact that the crew had many questions was understandable, but unfortunately there were no answers. The plane had been hijacked, and no one knew how the drama would end.

  Erik didn’t know Fatima all that well; they had worked together only a few times in the past. She was a pretty girl, and seemed clever. Tall and dark. She had the loveliest cheekbones Erik had ever seen on a woman. If he had been single he would have asked her out for a glass of wine. But he wasn’t single, so he hadn’t bothered to find out whether she was seeing anyone. Erik had messed up a lot of things in his life, but never his relationships. He had never been unfaithful to any of the girls he had gone out with. That kind of crap didn’t interest him. Going astray was one thing, betrayal was something else altogether. And he just wouldn’t do it.

  He turned to Karim. Tried again: ‘What do you think the police are going to do if you refuse to land?’

  Karim shrugged. ‘What can they do? We’re sitting on a jumbo jet with four hundred passengers, flying at thirty thousand feet. If they want us to come down, they need to start delivering.’

  Erik attempted to reason with him.

  ‘If they meet the hijackers’ demands, they would lay themselves open to a horrific future, where it becomes worth hijacking a plane or taking hostages in order for terrorists to get what they want. We have to resolve this in some other way.’

  Fresh beads of sweat broke out on Karim’s forehead.

  ‘There is no other way,’ he said.

  Erik didn’t know what to say, so he turned away from Karim and looked out at the sky instead. How did Karim know that there was no alternative to meeting the hijackers’ demands?

  19

  STOCKHOLM, 12:01

  Less than ten minutes had passed since the Minister for Justice, Muhammed Haddad, had been given the latest update, and he was sitting alone in his office. Collaborating with the Americans was never easy. Washington seemed to find it difficult to share its assessment of the situation and its expertise. As a consequence, Muhammed found himself responding in the same way. The Secretary of State hadn’t quite known how to handle his American colleagues; Muhammed had made it very clear that he expected the Secretary of State to keep them on a tight rein. Whether that was going to resolve the issue was another matter.

  But the Americans weren’t the only problem. A short while ago the news about the bomb threat had exploded in the media. It was obvious that the press didn’t really know what angle to take. A threat had been directed at Swedish interests for the second time in as many days, and in the first instance it had clearly been a false alarm. Did that mean this was another hoax?

  Muhammed wished he knew the answer to that question.

  The press secretary stuck his head around the door:

  ‘We’ve discussed the format for the press conference, and it won’t work unless you’re there to back up the PM. We’re starting in fifteen minutes.’

  Muhammed felt a surge of irritation.

  ‘What the hell is the point of my being there?’

  The press secretary looked surprised.

  ‘Has no one spoken to you? It’s all over the papers.’

  ‘Thank you, I’ve seen it.’

  ‘I mean the whole thing. Not just that there’s a bomb threat, but the plane’s destination and the hijackers’ demands.’

  Right from the start they had known that there was something wrong about this business with the plane, but only now was Muhammed beginning to grasp the extent of the problems facing him.

  ‘How did that happen?’ he said. ‘How can someone have leaked the specific demands of the hijackers?’

  The press secretary shrugged.

  ‘I haven’t got time to think about that right now. It could be anybody.’

  ‘Wrong,’ Muhammed said. ‘Only a few people in each organisation know that Zakaria Khelifi and Tennyson Cottage were mentioned in the note.’

  ‘That’s usually enough for things to reach the journalists,’ the press secretary said nonchalantly. ‘Besides, it doesn’t necessarily mean the leak has come from the government or the police. It could just as easily be Arlanda or the airline.’

  They would never know. The only thing they knew for certain about leaks was that you could never find the source, often because attempting to track them down would be illegal, but also because it simply wasn’t worth the trouble.

  ‘So you want me to attend the press conference just to answer questions about Zakaria Khelifi and why we intend to deport him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Muhammed shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and gazed out of the window. A colleague had once said the he looked like John F Kennedy when he stood there like that. ‘Slightly darker, that’s all.’ It was crap, of course, but pretty cool. A Kennedy from the Lebanon.

  ‘No,’ he said, still with his back to the press secretary.

  ‘No?’

  ‘It would be wrong to bring me in. We have nothing to add to what has already been said about Khelifi. We’re not going to get stressed and start making mistakes. The Prime Minister has called a press conference to inform them that we have received the threat, and that we do not negotiate with terrorists, but will seek other ways in which to resolve the situation. He has not called a press conference to discuss whether there are reasons to reconsider our decision with regard to the deportation of Zakaria Khelifi.’

  Muhammed turned around.

  ‘Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘I’ll speak to the PM right away.’

  And then he was alone again. As he had been so many times in the past.

  Muhammed sat down at the big conference table in the middle of the room. He knew what his role was. Many good people had held the post of Minister for Justice before him, and they had all left some kind of impression.

  Muhammed ha
d often thought that his own range of choices was much smaller. He was predestined to leave one impression, and one alone: as the tough minister who took a hard line against the extremists who espoused violence.

  Violence bred violence. Most people were agreed on that. However, many seemed to believe that it was acceptable to go to any lengths in all other areas which also involved encroaching on the physical freedom of the individual. He constantly heard calls for an increase in CCTV surveillance, more police involvement in social media. The police had to be where the terrorists were, that was the recurring argument. Words that would have been unthinkable before terrorism showed its face in Scandinavia. Now that everyone knew what it looked like, it was as if the general public had lost both its head and its judgement.

  But Muhammed, who was born and raised in the Lebanon, had a different perception of what terrorism was, and what should really be feared. No one who had spent their whole life in Sweden and was younger than sixty-five had ever lain awake at night waiting for a bombing raid from a neighbouring country. Or feared a civil war. Or seen members of their family imprisoned simply for expressing the wrong opinions in public.

  The Swedes didn’t know the meaning of fear. They thought fear was what they felt when their luggage arrived three hours late on a trip to the Canaries, or when energy prices went up. Muhammed ran his hands over the smooth surface of the desk. There were days and occasions when he felt Swedish. But he would never live his whole life feeling that way. And he wouldn’t want to either.

  His thoughts returned to Zakaria Khelifi. He had every confidence in Säpo. It was extremely rare for them to raise an objection to the Immigration Office’s decision to grant someone a residence permit. And for them to make a request as they had done in the case of Khelifi, revoking a permit that had already been granted, was virtually unknown. This told Muhammed that there was something different about Zakaria Khelifi, and to ignore the country’s security service under such circumstances would be no less than a breach of his professional duty.

  However, Muhammed had another idea, and the more he thought about it, the more it appealed to him. He went over to his desk and called Fredrika Bergman. He asked her to come up to his office, then he called Fredrika’s boss and asked him to do the same.