Muhammed glanced at the clock on the wall. The major parliamentary debate on immigration and integration was over, and he had devoted hardly any of his time to it. He realised it was spiteful. Those who criticised immigration could point to no less than two recent guilty verdicts in court, which was very unpleasant ammunition with which to arm themselves if they wished to kill off Sweden’s long tradition of a generous immigration policy.
If Muhammed had not been expecting Fredrika and her boss, he would have done something that he had not done for several years: he would have got down on his knees and prayed for his brothers and sisters. If the government agreed to reduce immigration, to make it more difficult for refugees – as Muhammed himself had once been – to come to Sweden, could he remain in his post as Minister for Justice?
The answer to that question was no. If they closed Sweden’s borders, then Muhammed would step down, because if the anti-immigration elements won, Muhammed would have lost everything he believed in. And that would mean that he could no longer see a future as a politician in Sweden.
But these were major issues. Right now Muhammed must do his duty as Minister for Justice. In the name of democracy, meeting the demands of the hijackers was out of the question. He knew that the US government shared that view.
In which case, the only options were to attempt an emergency landing, or to find those who had set this atrocious plan in motion, before disaster struck. With every passing minute Muhammed was less and less convinced that they would succeed.
20 12:01
A match with the database that looked really bad.
That was what Sebastian had said, and Eden feared the worst.
They met in one of the operational conference rooms. Sebastian and one of his analysts went through what they had found out so far. Eden realised that Sebastian was still angry about her comment on his colleagues, and wondered if Alex had picked up the awkward atmosphere in the room. She didn’t think so. He had nothing to compare it with; he had no way of knowing what was a good or bad atmosphere in their normal working day. But Eden could feel the coldness emanating from Sebastian just as palpably as if he had placed an icy hand on the back of her neck. Fortunately he chose to maintain a pleasant facade in front of Alex.
If only she could have lit a cigarette. It enabled her to think so much better. She ought to get something to eat as well. She would have to send one of her assistants out for a salad later.
‘What have you found?’
All her life she had been told that she was too impatient, so she made an effort to sound neutral.
The screen behind Sebastian flashed into life.
‘A remarkable connection between yesterday’s bomb threats and the threat on the plane, to say the least; this is the last thing we want.’
A list of telephone numbers with various lines between them appeared on the screen. Four were in red.
‘Yesterday’s bomb threats came from these four numbers. As you know they belong to unregistered pay-as-you-go SIM cards and cannot be traced to specific users or subscribers. However, we were able to check whether there had been any other traffic to or from these phones. And there had. Three of the phones don’t appear to have been used before, but two calls had been made from the fourth phone, which was used to make the last bomb threat. One call was made this morning, one yesterday evening.’
Sebastian pointed to one of the numbers that was highlighted in yellow.
‘To this number. A private mobile number, according to our enquiries. It belongs to Karim Sassi.’
One colleague after another passed by outside the glass cube, but Eden couldn’t take her eyes off the numbers on the screen.
Karim Sassi.
The captain of Flight 573 had been in touch with whoever had made bomb threats against four different locations in Stockholm.
It couldn’t be true, for fuck’s sake.
‘And what does this mean?’
It was a rhetorical question; as she spoke, it sounded as if she was thinking out loud.
‘Hang on,’ Sebastian said. ‘There’s more. Karim also called the same number both yesterday and this morning.’
Eden felt the waves of adrenaline surging through her body. She didn’t need to turn and look at Alex to know that he was also fired up by what he had just heard – she could feel it in her bones. The hunt united them, they were the same creatures, they had just been born at different times.
‘Were they long calls?’ Alex asked.
‘The call to Karim this morning lasted for approximately twelve minutes; the others are all between two and three minutes.’
‘Did Karim make the first call yesterday, or was he the recipient?’ Eden said.
‘The call was made to him, then he called back,’ Sebastian said.
‘So our esteemed captain has been in touch with the person or persons who called in with the bomb threat against Rosenbad yesterday. Rosenbad was the final target, wasn’t it?’
‘It was,’ Alex confirmed.
‘That’s too many calls to be a coincidence,’ Eden said.
‘I’d say it’s too few,’ Sebastian said. ‘If there were a thousand calls to different numbers listed on this phone, you could argue that Karim Sassi’s had come up by chance. But there aren’t a thousand calls, and there’s just one number. And it belongs to Karim Sassi.’
‘Is Karim’s phone switched on at the moment?’ Alex said.
‘No, it’s off. We tried to call but it went straight to voicemail. We’re assuming he has it with him on board.’
Eden thought through what she had just been told. She agreed with Sebastian – it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence, but she wasn’t sure what conclusions she could draw. Did the contact between Karim’s mobile and the unknown phone mean that he had been involved in the previous day’s threats, and was therefore probably also involved in the threat against the plane he was now flying? Or did it mean something else?
‘Could Karim have been threatened on a personal level?’ Alex wondered. ‘Is that why he doesn’t want to land the plane?’
That was also a possibility that couldn’t be ruled out, of course, and it could explain a great deal that currently seemed incomprehensible.
‘But in that case, why did he board the plane?’ Sebastian said.
‘Good question,’ Eden replied.
‘Could we ask him over the phone?’ Alex said.
Or would such a conversation do more harm than good?
‘I’m not sure,’ Eden said. ‘But I think the answer is no, we can’t.’
‘Because if he is involved, then we’d be giving away what we know.’
‘Exactly.’
Alex pushed one hand into his trouser pocket.
‘We ought to be able to speak to his family, to his wife,’ he said. ‘The whole story is out there anyway, so I think that’s something we have to do in any case.’
He had hardly finished speaking before he realised what he was saying.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said, leaping to his feet.
Eden understood immediately.
‘Your son’s family,’ she said, looking worried. ‘You haven’t spoken to them yet.’
‘I didn’t even think about them until I started talking about Karim’s family. I need to speak to Erik’s sister. And to Diana, my partner.’
He looked very unhappy.
‘Erik’s family are on a plane to South America,’ he said. ‘I won’t be able to reach them until they’ve landed.’
‘Go and call the people you can reach right away,’ Eden said. ‘And you’re right, we have to speak to Karim’s family too.’
‘We’re also setting up a crisis line for the relatives of the four hundred passengers,’ Sebastian said with a sigh. ‘I spoke to the Foreign Office and the Justice Department earlier, but apparently, it’s the police who are expected to deal with this. The Information Office has already set up an exchange and issued a direct number.’