‘Perhaps someone was asked to leave it in there. Someone who had access to the plane.’
Erik didn’t understand. He didn’t understand why this particular flight had to be dragged into some kind of bomb threat, and he didn’t understand how the piece of paper had got into the toilet. If they were lucky, the whole thing would turn out to be a really bad joke. If they weren’t, then it was a serious threat, and in that case none of them knew if they would live to see tomorrow.
‘What do we do now, Karim?’ he asked.
Karim read the note again. Or rather he looked at the words, his gaze sweeping across the paper, back and forth.
‘We have to do as they say.’
Erik stared at him.
‘Do as they say?’
‘But that’s impossible,’ Fatima said.
‘And what’s the alternative? It specifically states that they will blow the plane to pieces if we don’t follow their instructions.’
‘How would they know?’ Fatima said.
Absurd. It was absurd. The whole thing. Erik tried to gather his thoughts.
‘If the threat is genuine, and according to security regulations we have to act as if it is, then we ought to follow the instructions,’ he said. ‘Obviously. But we have to call airtraffic control and SAS to ask for help on how to proceed. And we need to tell them what the message says. I mean, it’s clearly not aimed at us.’
The message is not aimed at us, we are the hostages.
For the first time, Erik felt afraid. Something else occurred to him.
‘What if one of the passengers left the note in the toilet?’ he said slowly.
‘Yes?’
‘That means he or she is still on the plane, monitoring our actions.’
Fatima stood there with her arms wrapped around her and leaned – or slumped – against the wall. If she started to cry, Erik would lose all respect for her. But she didn’t.
‘Did you show this to anyone else on the crew?’ Erik asked.
‘No.’
‘Keep it to yourself for the time being,’ Karim said. ‘We’ll call ATC and tell them what’s happened, then we’ll decide how to proceed.’
Fatima straightened up.
‘I’d better get back.’
She left the cockpit and slammed the door shut behind her.
Karim put on his headset and called Arlanda.
‘This is Karim Sassi, the captain on Flight 573. We have received a bomb threat; it was written on a piece of paper and left in one of the toilets on board. The content is as follows: Unless the USA shuts down Tennyson Cottage immediately, this plane will be blown up. The same applies unless the Swedish government revokes its decision to deport a man by the name of Zakaria Khelifi. If the plane attempts to land before these decisions have been made and implemented, it will be blown up. As captain, I am instructed to fly the plane for as long as the fuel lasts. That’s the time the two governments have in which to act. They will determine how this ends. When the fuel runs out, the time runs out.’
11 STOCKHOLM, 09:45
The control tower received the information from flight 573 just after the plane had taken off. It was immediately passed on to the central communications office at the National Bureau of Investigation, RKC, to SAS, and to the Transport Agency. The National Bureau of Investigation was still working on the bomb threats made the previous day, targeting locations in central Stockholm, but the message was given top priority. For the second time in twenty-four hours, Alex Recht was sitting there with a bomb threat on his desk.
He could hardly believe his eyes as he read the memo from RKC.
A Boeing 747 that had taken off from Arlanda twenty minutes ago had received a bomb threat, and was therefore classified as hijacked, indirectly. The captain had contacted air-traffic control and informed them of the situation.
In the light of the previous day’s events, the threat must be taken seriously. Alex had read the morning papers and knew who Zakaria Khelifi was. Apparently, Säpo had taken him into custody and were going to deport him. That was the extent of Alex’s knowledge.
After speaking to his boss, he called Eden Lundell.
‘This Zakaria Khelifi is one of yours, isn’t he?’
‘That’s right.’
Eden had already received a copy of the memo, and was in a meeting with one of her deputies. She promised to call Alex back.
He spent the next few minutes going through the key details of the message. The plane had taken off with plenty of fuel. There were a couple of empty seats in first class, but otherwise it was full. There was a crew of ten, including the captain and co-pilot. When the plane ran out of fuel, time was going to be up for the Swedish and US governments.
Alex could understand the demand that had been made of the Swedish government, but what the hell was Tennyson Cottage? Eden probably knew the answer to that question. During his years in the police force, Alex had dealt with a number of bomb threats aimed at planes on their way to or from Sweden, but they had never turned out to be anything but a hoax.
Could this one be different? Was there a danger that there really was a bomb on board Flight 573? If that was the case, it meant that someone had checked in a bag containing explosives, and was now sitting among the passengers. Unless the bomb had been smuggled into someone else’s luggage, which Alex thought was highly improbable. The most likely scenario was that there was no bomb on board.
Alex’s boss appeared.
‘We have to go down and brief the government. Or rather you, not we,’ Hjärpe said.
‘Nobody’s done that yet?’
‘They know about the bomb threat, but not the details. We wanted to assimilate all the information we had first of all. I’ve called and told them we’re on our way. We need to get a move on – it’s only a matter of time before the press get hold of this.’
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.