Hostage

by Kristina Ohlsson

  ‘When will your colleague act?’ Bruce said.

  The man from the Pentagon looked at his watch.

  ‘We should be hearing from him at any minute.’

  Bruce looked down at his hands.

  Zakaria Khelifi might be released.

  Tennyson Cottage had already been shut down.

  And soon Flight 573 would be in the hands of the Pentagon.

  As long as their operative managed to get into the cockpit.

  50

  STOCKHOLM, 20:10

  They gathered around Fredrika Bergman’s desk. They had a name for Zakaria’s sister, but that was all. And the interview with Ellis, who had been convicted of terrorism offences and had named Zakaria as a collaborator, had lasted less than ten minutes. He wouldn’t say a word about why he had retracted his statement.

  ‘Who can help us?’ Eden said.

  Her fingers beat an impatient tattoo against the hard surface of the desk, and Fredrika suppressed an urge to ask her to stop.

  ‘Have you spoken to the Germans yet?’ Sebastian asked.

  ‘I’ve got a meeting with them in fifteen minutes. They’ve been waiting for this for quite some time. I’d like you to come with me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I can speak to Zakaria’s girlfriend,’ Fredrika suggested, keen to find herself a job before Eden came up with something else. ‘About his sister.’

  ‘Indeed you can,’ Eden agreed. ‘But you’re not employed by the police any longer, so you need to take one of the investigating officers with you. We’re running out of time now, so if you could do that as soon as possible . . .’

  They’d been running out of time all day; Fredrika didn’t understand why Eden had said ‘now’. The pressure had never eased.

  ‘Why is Ellis refusing to talk?’ Sebastian said to Eden.

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Could he have been threatened?’

  ‘If so, it must have happened while he was in isolation in the custody block, which suggests that the answer to your question is no.’

  Sebastian stroked his beard.

  ‘In that case, it seems even more strange that he named Khelifi in the first place.’

  ‘He could have changed his mind without having been threatened,’ Eden said. ‘I’ve read through the transcripts; he didn’t hesitate for a second when he informed on Zakaria Khelifi.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean.’ Sebastian sounded frustrated. ‘None of us had any doubt that he was telling the truth. And he provided a lot of detail – names, events, times, again without any hesitation.’

  Fredrika listened to their discussion, not knowing what to say. There could be hundreds of reasons why a person would wrongly accuse an acquaintance of being involved in a crime, but considerably fewer reasons why he would then retract such an accusation. A threat was of course a possibility, but in that case how had it been communicated to Ellis?

  They would never know.

  ‘Have you told the Justice Department about the phone records?’ Eden asked.

  ‘Yes, and they were worried to say the least,’ Fredrika replied. ‘They said they’d call me within the hour.’

  ‘They’re intending to review the deportation order? Before we even know for sure whether he’s lying or telling the truth?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but if we don’t manage to establish the facts as far as the phone is concerned within the next few hours, they will probably feel compelled to give him the benefit of the doubt.’

  Eden snorted.

  ‘And what if we find out tomorrow that it was his phone all along? Will they expect us to pick him up again? Because that’s not happening.’

  Sebastian spoke up: ‘There’s a great deal we don’t know at the moment; let’s just take one thing at a time.’

  The strain was showing on Eden’s face.

  ‘You could also say that we’re making too many assumptions, which isn’t helping us at all.’ She looked from Fredrika to Sebastian. ‘We think we might have misjudged Zakaria’s background, but we don’t know. We think the fact that he has a sister in Sweden could be important, but we don’t know why. We think yesterday’s bomb threats are highly significant in terms of what has happened since then, but we don’t know how. And we think that Karim Sassi is involved, but there are inconsistencies in the evidence that haven’t really been explained. Leaving that aside, we still have absolutely no idea why he’s doing what he’s doing.’

  ‘Plus, we don’t think there’s a bomb on board the plane, but we don’t know for sure,’ Sebastian added.

  ‘There you go, yet another thing.’

  In fact, there were still more things they didn’t know – things that were too difficult to talk about. How were they going to bring down the plane? How were they going to rescue the passengers on Flight 573?

  I can’t cope with this, Fredrika thought. Not another story without a happy ending. If that happens, I’ll never come back to the police.

  She interrupted her own train of thought. The fact that she would never go back to the police had been self-evident since the day she left. Hadn’t it?

  Surely I’m not sitting here missing the most stressful job I’ve ever done?

  ‘How are we fixed as far as the media goes?’ Eden asked.

  ‘We’re up shit creek without a paddle,’ Sebastian said.

  ‘Have we confirmed which flight has been hijacked?’

  ‘We did that over an hour ago, Eden.’

  So where was I? Fredrika wondered; she’d missed that too.

  Energy. They needed energy. Otherwise they weren’t going to make it. Fredrika almost felt as if the area behind her desk was a trench on the edge of a battlefield, where she was hiding away because she was too tired to fight.

  ‘Zakaria Khelifi’s phone,’ she said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Sebastian said.‘One of the numbers that has had repeated contact with the mobile both before and after the date when Zakaria allegedly acquired it belongs to a guy called Jerker Gustavsson. He’s a car mechanic, and we initially dismissed the contacts with Zakaria as being of no interest to us.’

  ‘Is he a close friend of Zakaria’s?’ Fredrika asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. They spoke only a few times from the point when we started monitoring Zakaria’s calls, and it was always to do with Zakaria’s car, or his girlfriend’s car.’

  ‘How many times do you call your mechanic?’ Fredrika said, never having called a garage in her life.

  Sebastian laughed.‘Good question. Perhaps Zakaria had a real old banger?’

  ‘Just like the person who had the phone before him.’ Fredrika said.

  ‘That’s the kind of thing we need to ask him,’ Eden said. ‘We haven’t got time for any guessing games at this stage. I don’t care how late it is, I want someone to go and question this guy. That’s more important than speaking to Zakaria’s girlfriend.’

  Alex suddenly appeared from nowhere. His face was pale and set, his eyes blank.

  Fredrika felt upset and afraid at the same time.

  Are you going to have to cope with another loss, my friend?

  ‘He called,’ Alex said.

  His voice was so loud that others working in the open-plan office could hear him.

  ‘Who?’ Eden said.

  ‘Erik.’

  He covered the last few yards in no time, and stopped by the desk.

  ‘He called you?’ Eden was unable to hide her surprise.

  ‘From the cockpit?’ Fredrika asked.

  ‘No, from first class. He said that Karim has gone crazy.’

  Alex relayed what Erik had told him with such precision that Fredrika’s heart ached. He had memorised every word, because if they never spoke again, he wanted to be sure he didn’t forget what his son had said.

  ‘Washington,’ Eden whispered when he had finished.

  Alex nodded. ‘That means there’s no longer any doubt.’

  It was true. It was hardly a coincidence that Kar
im had said Washington instead of New York. The person who had sent the email to the Germans had been right: Karim was intending to crash the plane in the capital city of the USA.

  Fredrika looked away. Shit. She had felt compelled to question Karim’s involvement, but to what purpose?

  Eden changed tack.

  ‘What advice did you give Erik?’

  Alex stood there in silence.

  ‘You told him to take over the plane.’

  ‘He’d already been thinking along those lines,’ Alex said. ‘But if he hadn’t come up with the suggestion . . .’

  ‘Then you would have done.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We need to inform the Americans,’ Sebastian said.

  ‘Let’s wait until we hear from him again,’ Eden said. ‘Or if we think too much time has passed without any word from him. I spoke to GD, and he agreed that Erik should try to take control of the plane if there’s no other option.’

  ‘One more thing,’ Alex said, and Fredrika could feel him trying to catch her eye.

  ‘What?’ Eden said.

  He had built up their expectations by now; in just a few seconds he had been transformed into the man who knew more than anyone else.

  ‘Karim Sassi can’t have made any of the bomb threats yesterday.’

  ‘Has that been confirmed?’

  Eden’s voice had a sharpness that made the windows vibrate.

  ‘I asked one of my team to check where Karim was when the calls were made from the Arlanda area. His wife says they were at a parents’ afternoon at the children’s nursery for several hours, so he was a long way from the airport. We’ve tracked his mobile, and she’s telling the truth. He wasn’t at Arlanda yesterday.’

  Where did that leave them?

  He hadn’t made the threats, but he had spoken to the person who did, and for some as yet unknown reason he had held one of the phones.

  ‘He’s still involved,’ Eden said, underlining the one thing they could be sure of.

  Karim Sassi was on the hijackers’ side.

  And he had been in contact with whoever made the bomb threats the previous day.

  51

  FLIGHT 573

  Three feet from the door to the cockpit. He had stopped there, unable to make himself go any further. The stress surged through his body, paralysing him in mid-movement.

  Erik Recht had never once struck another person in the whole of his adult life. It just wasn’t part of his make-up. You didn’t do that kind of thing, and that was that. A fundamental principle that marked the dividing line between right and wrong.

  And now he couldn’t make himself do what had to be done.

  The passengers in first class watched him as he turned around and disappeared into one of the toilets. He was still carrying the plastic bag containing the bottle of wine, and he placed it on the floor before sinking down onto the toilet seat and massaging his temples.

  Think. He had to think.

  This was ridiculous; was there no alternative? He tried to imagine what would happen. How he would enter the cockpit, take out the bottle and smash it down on Karim’s head. Several times, if necessary. He would keep on until he was certain that Karim would be out of action for as long as necessary to allow him to carry out an emergency landing.

  He missed Claudia more than ever, wanted her to be there. To take his head in her hands, look into his eyes and say:

  ‘You can do this, Erik.’

  He thought about calling his father again. Loneliness had never been Erik’s thing. He had loathed it in the past, but now he feared it. He had decided not to tell any of his colleagues about his plan. At least not yet. The conversation with Fatima in the toilet was still fresh in his mind. It would take time to convince his colleagues that Karim was involved, time they didn’t have. Erik had to go back into the cockpit and take control of the plane. That was the only thing that mattered. Everything else could come later.

  He thought about Fatima again. She was still in the cockpit.

  That could definitely be a problem.

  What would she think in the seconds before Erik managed to explain? Would she actually jeopardise the whole thing, step in to protect Karim? He didn’t want to end up in a situation where he had to deal with Fatima as well.

  Erik got up, turned the tap and quickly sluiced his face in cold water. He dried himself with a paper towel. It was now or never. He wouldn’t save anyone’s life if he stayed here, locked in the toilet. Karim would have the opportunity to explain, but not right now. For his own sake and everyone else’s, he had to be removed from the controls.

  Resolutely, Erik picked up the plastic bag and opened the door. His legs were trembling as he stepped into the first class cabin.

  Now. It has to be now. Not later, now. Now.

  He had taken no more than two steps when he heard a man’s voice behind him, addressing him in English.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Erik turned around, not wanting to draw any more attention to himself than necessary. But it was already too late; he realised that as he looked around and saw all the passengers gazing enquiringly at him.

  ‘Unfortunately, I don’t have time to talk right now,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to speak to one of the stewardesses.’

  ‘That was my intention, but then I saw you,’ the man said. ‘The stewardess who went into the cockpit is still in there, I think.’

  The man gave Erik a meaningful look, as if he was silently referring to some kind of mutual understanding between them, but, as far as Erik was aware, they had never met before.

  He looked the man up and down. He wasn’t very tall, but even though he was wearing a shirt and jacket, Erik could see that he was unmistakably muscular; he obviously spent a considerable amount of time working out. His shirt hung loose over his trousers, but judging by the creases around the bottom, it had been tucked in until fairly recently.

  When Erik didn’t say anything, the man went on:

  ‘The fact is that I’d much rather talk to you. Can you spare a few seconds?’

  He was speaking so quietly that Erik was sure none of the passengers could hear him, but they could still see the two of them standing here talking.

  ‘No,’ Erik said, keen to get back to the cockpit. ‘You’ll have to wait for the stewardess – she’ll be back in a minute.’

  It happened so fast that Erik didn’t have time to react. In less than a second, the man had stepped around him and was now standing in the aisle, preventing him from going anywhere. The man moved as close as possible, and for some reason Erik was rooted to the spot.

  The man whispered in his ear:

  ‘I know what’s happened and I can help you if you just get me into the cockpit. Okay?’

  Erik jerked back, involuntarily but so obviously that the man couldn’t help but notice. Through clenched teeth he muttered:

  ‘I don’t know who you think you are, but I’d like you to do us all a favour: go back to your seat and let the crew take care of the plane.’

  He didn’t bother waiting for a reply, but shoved past the man. His heart was pounding so hard it almost hurt. So there was more than one perpetrator on board. No fucking way was Erik about to let any of them into the cockpit. Not without a fight.

  Each step took him closer to the cockpit door; only when he reached it did he glance over his shoulder to see if the man was following him. Which he was. He was dangerously close, less than two feet away.

  The bottle. What if he needed to use it before he got to Karim?

  Erik had no time to think. He let the man draw closer, and just as he was about to turn and confront him with everything he had, the man strode forward and pushed him up against the door.

  ‘I’m on your side, for fuck’s sake. I’m with a special unit in the US military. Don’t make me do something unpleasant in front of the other passengers. Just get that fucking door open. Right now.’

  His voice was no more than a hiss, and it made Erik feel sick.

>   Why would he act like this if he was on Erik’s side?

  Special unit? What kind of a joke was that? If he couldn’t come up with anything better, he had only himself to blame.

  ‘Okay, okay. I’ll help you.’

  Erik had to free himself from the man’s grip in order to deal with him. He wanted to ask him who he was, who he worked for. But there wasn’t time, and besides he wasn’t interested in any more lies. He already knew who the man was, knew he was evil. His build and attitude conveyed something that Erik couldn’t put into words. He looked like someone who was used to being obeyed and treated with respect.

  But not this time.

  ‘No fucking way are we on the same side.’

  As the man loosened his hold, Erik acted with a strength he hadn’t realised he possessed. Without taking the bottle out of the bag, he slammed it straight into the man’s temple.

  Hard.

  The man groaned and tried to clutch at Erik before he went down. He crashed to the floor, landing at the feet of the passengers in the front row, who screamed in terror as Erik raised the bottle to strike again; it hadn’t broken.

  He bent down and examined the man, who was bleeding. He was breathing, but appeared to be unconscious. Without hesitation Erik removed the man’s belt, turned him over and secured his hands behind his back. He spoke to the passengers:

  ‘I’m sorry you had to see that. If you’d like to change seats, you’re welcome to do so, but I’m afraid this man has to stay here.’

  He had to get into the cockpit, get Fatima out so that she could keep an eye on the man, sound the alarm if he started to constitute a danger.

  Without another word, Erik got to his feet and moved over to the door. Pressed the button and waited to be let in. Pressed it again. And again.

  And again.

  And again.

  But the door remained locked, leaving Erik standing in the aisle with the plastic bag in his hand.

  Karim had no intention of letting him in.

  He was going to do what he had set out to do, and kill them all.

  52

  WASHINGTON, DC, 14:15

  Why hadn’t they heard from him?