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 had 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.