by The Helicopter Heist- A Novel Based on True Events (retail) (epub)
* * *
—
When the phone rings, it’s already after five thirty. Stenson jumps. In the early hours, the flow of news is minimal, meaning the call is unexpected.
“Stenson,” he answers
It’s someone calling in a tip from the police command center.
What he has to say is incredible. Sensational, even.
Stenson’s pulse picks up as he listens. Robbers in a helicopter. Breaking into a cash depot through the roof. And making their getaway—with an unimaginable sum of money—in the same helicopter.
Stenson immediately knows that this is front-page news. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest. This is his chance to bag that permanent position.
“Pictures?” he asks. “Do you have any pictures?”
The police officer gives him the number of the guard who called in the robbery from Västberga.
“Shit,” Stenson swears to himself as he dials the guard’s number and waits for the call to go through. “Shit.”
He swears aloud, though he doesn’t know why.
Yes, the guard has taken pictures of the white helicopter lifting off from the roof of the G4S building and disappearing into the black night sky. Deep down, Stenson is celebrating, but he tries to sound as indifferent as he can when the guard begins to negotiate on price.
* * *
—
It’s 5:48 when Tor Stenson uploads the first fuzzy images to the website. He quickly checks whether the paper’s rivals have done the same, but he can’t see anything yet.
After that, Stenson calls the paper’s news editor at home, waking him up. Stenson repeats his name a few times to begin with, making sure the editor is perfectly clear about exactly who has broken the story. And then he tells him about the helicopter.
The news editor mumbles something, hangs up and then calls the deputy editor, who reluctantly calls and wakes the editor in chief.
“Were you asleep?” the deputy asks.
“I never fucking sleep,” the editor in chief slurs, clearly emerging from some kind of pleasant dream. “I’m the editor of a tabloid. I don’t get paid to sleep.”
The deputy quickly explains what has happened.
“A helicopter robbery?” the editor in chief sums up, already sitting on the edge of his bed, pulling on his underwear. “Is there a more concise way of saying that? Whatever, doesn’t matter, we’ll see. I’m on my way in. Send people out to Västberga to interview the police at the scene. Are there any hostages?”
The deputy has no idea about hostages, but the Web editor Tor Stenson, the one who got ahold of the pictures they now have online, claims the witness heard pops coming from inside the building.
“Pops? What the hell does that mean? Were the robbers making popcorn?” the editor in chief hisses, grabbing a half-stale cinnamon bun from a plate in the kitchen and heading for the door. “We need details!”
93
5:47 a.m.
The fuel-warning light continues to blink. It’s all Kluger can see, all that exists in that moment; the red light fills the dark cabin like a constant, fateful reminder that they’ll soon run out of fuel.
“Where the hell were you?” he shouts as he angles the rotor blades forward a few degrees, allowing the metal bubble to cut through the air, away from the glowing glass pyramid on top of the building at Västberga Allé 11. “We said fifteen minutes?! It’s been…thirty-four. This isn’t going to fucking work!”
The sweat is running down his forehead, and the drops that don’t get caught on his eyebrows roll down into his eyes. He tries to blink them away. No one can hear him, the loud thudding of the machine is overpowering everything else, and they can’t communicate using their headsets, because they have chosen not to put them on. All nonessential electronics have been switched off. They don’t want to be caught on the military or police radars. They’re flying dark, with a red blinking warning light constantly reminding them of reality.
“Fucking idiots!” Kluger shouts again, though no one hears him.
* * *
—
Maloof is in the seat behind Jack Kluger. He leans forward with his eyes closed. Waiting for the explosion. He tries to tell himself that if the police had been given orders to shoot them down, it would have already happened by now. But still, he’s waiting for the rocket. The sound of the blast, followed by the sensation of falling. Weightlessness. Emptiness.
But there is no blast, there is no explosion. Maloof slowly sits upright. He opens his eyes. Nordgren is half-lying across the seat next to him. Diagonally in front, he can see the outline of Sami’s face beneath the anonymizing polyester of his balaclava. The blood is still pounding in Maloof’s neck, but the stillness around him comes suddenly. Is it over? He looks out the window. The sky is grayish black, he’s flying.
Is it over?
* * *
—
Niklas Nordgren is on his stomach on top of one of the mailbags. He had thrown himself into the helicopter, onto the seat behind the pilot and next to Michel Maloof. The way he landed means he can see out through the window in the door, and down on the ground a swarm of swirling blue lights continues to search for opportunities. There are several dozen emergency vehicles on Västberga Allé and Vretensborgsvägen, gathered in three distinct groups.
It looks like a still life, Nordgren thinks, as though someone had placed the cars there to create drama in an otherwise sleepy business park.
Along the streets crisscrossing the Västberga industrial area, the sharp white light of the streetlamps is painted like street crossings on the ground. The six-lane highway alongside it is still relatively empty. And with each second that passes, the helicopter takes them farther and farther away from the looming tower and its glowing glass pyramid on the roof.
It’s over, Nordgren thinks, but he still can’t take it in. He can feel the cold metal of the ladders beneath his palms, in the arches of his feet, but his muscle memory is clearer than his other senses.
Did we do it?
We did it, he thinks.
* * *
—
Despite the stubborn blinking light, Kluger carries out the planned diversionary maneuver. He makes it shorter, tighter, saving them just over a minute. His powerful jaw muscles seem to be chewing something, possibly a piece of gum that has long since lost its taste. Not once, despite his cursing, has he given his three passengers as much as a glance.
He cuts across the park in Årsta. They’re barely a hundred and fifty feet off the ground, and each of them gasps when Stockholm’s southern neighborhoods suddenly loom up in the distance, the illuminated Globe Arena—an enormous, abandoned golf ball—a clear navigation point in the foreground. Right beside it, Kluger spots the rows of red buses in Gullmarsplan. Waiting for the first departure of the morning. He takes in the proud arc of the Johanneshov Bridge, allowing the cars to roll dramatically down toward the gaping mouth of the South Way Tunnel, and higher up, to the left, the huge hospital complex like a cluster of dark, gloomy blocks. He puts the helicopter into a sharp right turn and the bright city lights disappear from view. Along the road toward Älvsjö, all that is beneath them is forest.
* * *
—
Sami is next to Kluger, and is staring out the window. The sky is still dark. It’ll be another half an hour before daylight starts to reveal the thin strips of cloud that are currently no more than gray shadows high in the sky, but Sami can already make out a faint glow on the horizon. The helicopter sweeps across the treetops. The Gömmaren nature reserve sweeps by beneath them in dark silence; a spellbound world of trees, paths and thickets hiding wild animals and abandoned cars.
Sami turns on his phone. It has been off since before they went into the building. He calls Team 2 at the gravel pit in Norsborg, but he can’t hear a thing, the roar of the helicopter drowns out any sound from his phone. He glances at the display. The call seems to have gone through.
“Turn on the lights!” he shouts.
/>
He can’t hear whether anyone answers. He ends the call and tries again.
“Turn on the lights!”
If the team on the ground doesn’t turn on the headlights, it’ll be impossible for the helicopter to land in Norsborg. The gravel pit might be big, but the forest around it is dense.
“Turn on the lights!” he shouts.
Now that he has given the instructions three times, he feels satisfied. They’ve been waiting for his call, and he knows it went through. That’s enough.
Sami unbuckles his seat belt and turns around. Maloof is diagonally behind him. He nods, pulls his balaclava up over his nose, scratches his beard and grins.
Sami turns again and glances at Niklas Nordgren. His black balaclava doesn’t reveal any expression, but he nods too.
Sami turns back to face forward.
He can no longer hear the noise of the rotor blades.
They did it.
They did it.
Thoughts of how his brothers will react when he throws the bundles of cash at them fill his mind. Payback. He can already feel people’s eyes on him in town, everyone knowing that he has fulfilled his promises. He can just see them coming over to say hello without looking him in the eye as he’s eating a meal at some fancy restaurant. And Karin. She’s in front of him, with John clinging onto one leg and the baby on her hip at the other side. He won’t need to say a word. Their eyes will meet and she will know it’s all over. He’s the man who kept his word.
* * *
—
Jack Kluger is flying low, no more than 100 or 120 feet above the treetops. He assumes they have six or seven minutes of fuel left. As the forest comes to an end and the water begins, the blinking fuel light is replaced by a steady red glow. He flies straight above the treetops on the south side of Lake Alby and continues north, toward the glittering lights of the E4 road.
94
5:51 a.m.
Detective Chief Inspector Caroline Thurn drives out of the industrial area in Västberga, leaving the sea of blue flashing lights behind her. She isn’t responsible for the fact that Central Command seems to have directed all the patrol cars in the county to G4S. Thurn’s initial order not to shoot at the helicopter has now become the official line—meaning that the only thing the fifty or so frustrated and slightly bored officers at the scene have done is to stand and watch as the robbers lifted off and flew away.
Thurn is still experiencing an adrenaline rush when she reaches the entrance ramp to the highway. She brakes and hesitates. She still hasn’t heard from the riot squad and has to guess where the helicopter might be heading.
The question is whether she should go north or head south on the E20. There are plenty of exits and on-ramps around Västberga, so whatever she decides, she can quickly change her mind.
No Swedish police officers have experience chasing helicopters at night. But after all the years Caroline Thurn has spent hunting robbers, she has developed a keen sense of intuition. And the minute her hands grip the wheel as hard as she can, swinging up the on-ramp heading north, back into Stockholm, her intuition tells her that it’s too late. It’s just a vague feeling, she hasn’t even formulated the thought, but there’s no ignoring the emptiness burning in her stomach.
She hears a ringing sound in her ear, and accepts the call.
“Thurn?” It’s Berggren. “I have Olsson here. She wants to talk to you.”
Before she has time to protest, the national police commissioner’s voice comes on the line.
“Have we lost them, Caroline?”
At first, she doesn’t reply.
“We’ve got a riot squad chasing them,” she eventually says.
The line is silent.
“Is that a flying riot squad, Caroline?”
Thurn hates sarcasm. She passes the turnoff to Årsta and blindly continues along the Essingeleden. The helicopter full of robbers could just as easily be heading south, toward Södertälje.
“Caroline, I have Ekblad ringing me every third minute. The papers have already published pictures of the helicopter, and it’s not just our own damn broadcasters we’ve got camped out there in Västberga, we’ve got people from all over the world. Der Spiegel, the BBC. We’re not going to get away from this one, Caroline. It reeks of official statements and press conferences.”
Thurn dislikes press conferences even more than sarcasm. The traffic into Stockholm is still sparse, but in just a few hours’ time it’ll be at a standstill.
“Ekblad will explain that the police made a unique effort, as always,” Olsson continues, “which is something people should remember when we need increased funding for the police force in general and Stockholm in particular in the next budget. You know the script.”
Thurn isn’t listening. She isn’t stupid. She knows that Olsson is asking her to prepare for the inevitable questions. How much they knew in advance, why they didn’t manage to stop it.
“Caroline?”
Berggren is back on the line. Olsson falls silent. She can hear him too.
“I have the riot squad leader on the line. Want to take it?”
A second later, the call with Olsson has been ended and reality fills Caroline’s ears.
“Thurn here,” she says when she hears the static of the riot van’s communication equipment. “Give me an update.”
“We’ve lost it.”
The detective swings into the right lane and pulls in behind a slow truck with Estonian plates. She passes the exit for Gröndal.
“What happened?” she asks.
“We were following it toward Årsta,” the voice replies. “Then it turned across the park. We couldn’t follow, so we lost it.”
“Which direction did it turn?”
“South. Down toward Älvsjö.”
Thurn nods. She swings back into the left-hand lane and steps on the accelerator. It isn’t far to the next exit. But as she reaches ninety miles an hour and her knuckles turn white, she can’t fool herself any longer.
It’s over.
“Caroline? Are you still there?” Therese Olsson’s voice has reappeared in her ear. “What’s happening?”
95
5:51 a.m.
Kluger holds up a finger.
They are less than one minute away from the first meeting place, he signals. He has a GPS unit in his hand.
Sami brushes his fantasies to one side. He turns around. Nordgren and Maloof have already managed to tie the mailbags to the rope. There are five bags in total, but there’s no way of knowing how much money they grabbed. Didn’t they haul more than five bags out of Counting?
Sami doesn’t have time to think any further than that before the pilot slows down and allows the helicopter to move even closer to the ground. They are now flying lower than the treetops around them, across the north end of Lake Alby. Along Masmovägen, running parallel to the beach, there is a row of simple wooden cottages. Summer houses to some, something to be torn down to others.
* * *
—
Zoran Petrovic had docked the boat by the jetty, as agreed, a few days earlier.
It wasn’t a particularly spectacular vehicle. A typical metal archipelago motorboat with a cabin at the front, big enough to hide ten or so mailbags full of money. The two outboard motors at the stern would be able to keep anyone following them at a distance, if necessary. Going at a speed of ten knots, no more, you passed through two narrow straits, first beneath the Botkyrkaleden Bridge and then beneath the E20, and that would bring you out in the Vårbyfjärden Strait. From there, you could either choose to go northward, toward Stockholm, or turn south, toward Södertälje. It would all depend on the movements of the police.
Maloof opens the side door of the helicopter, and the cold wind forces its way into the cabin. The helicopter is hovering directly above the boat.
Together, Nordgren and Maloof lower the mailbags with the rope they just used on the roof in Västberga. Once they are sure that the first has landed in the middle of boat, t
hey let go and allow the remainder of the money to fall from the heavens.
Before Maloof has even closed the cabin door, the boat has pushed off from the jetty and started its journey north. Kluger quickly guides the helicopter higher, and they continue toward Norsborg.
96
5:53 a.m.
It’s barely two minutes from Lake Alby to the gravel pit in Norsborg. They are still flying low, and now the American is checking his GPS every ten or so seconds. Sami, sitting next to him, doesn’t need to ask about the red light.
After about a minute, they spot the lights of the cars. They’re arranged in a triangle, just like the flashlights at the takeoff site in Stora Skuggan a few hours earlier.
Sami points and the American nods.
The landing happens quickly, without any drama.
Ezra comes running from one of the cars with a couple of gas cans. He puts them down next to the helicopter, whose engine has just been turned off, and Sami then runs back to the car with him.
They drive away without saying goodbye to anyone.
Nordgren quickly hugs Maloof. The feeling of having succeeded has started to creep through his body, no matter how much he tries to fight it. He isn’t back in Lidingö yet, he’s still not out of the woods.
But he’s close.
He runs over to the car where Jonas Wallmark, one of his childhood friends, is waiting. It’s not the first time Wallmark has been the driver in this kind of situation.
Maloof and Kluger are left alone by the helicopter. The American is busy refueling from one of the cans, and he nods. He’s calmer now.
“It felt good to be up in the air again,” he says.
Maloof nods. He doesn’t know what the pilot means, but he doesn’t care. When Kluger lifts off in the white helicopter a few minutes later, disappearing toward a horizon that is slowly turning blue, Maloof knows he will never see or hear of the man again.
