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 emergency 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.