‘How long were you here?’
‘Eight weeks. My parents wanted me to have a different kind of summer holiday that year.’
He passed the picture back to Eden as if he wanted to get rid of it.
‘Who is he?’ she said.
Zakaria picked up the book he had put aside when Eden came in.
‘His name is Karim.’
‘Surname?’
‘Sassi, I think.’
‘How did you meet?’
‘His mother worked at the Ericsson factory too.’
Eden decided to sit down after all.
‘Have you had any contact with this man while you’ve been living in Sweden?’
Zakaria realised that Eden was going nowhere, and closed his book.
‘No, I haven’t seen him since 2002.’
‘And you’re sure of that?’
Zakaria looked annoyed, and opened the book again.
‘Of course I am.’
‘You don’t know what this Karim Sassi is doing nowadays?’
‘No idea. When we met that summer he used to say he wanted to be a pilot, but that’s just the kind of thing you say, isn’t it? I mean, who hasn’t wanted to be a pilot at some stage?’
Me, Eden thought. I wanted to run a circus.
Mind you, she had been ten years old at the time, not twenty. She was going to become the manager of an enormous circus and take it all over Europe. Her heart suddenly felt hollow. The life she lived was a long way from the circus.
She handed the picture back to Zakaria.
‘This is really, really important. Zakaria, I have to know: are you absolutely certain that you haven’t seen Karim Sassi since you moved to Sweden?’
She wanted him to say no, to change his mind and start talking. She wanted a breakthrough, and she wanted it now. But Zakaria refused to deliver. He wouldn’t even look at her.
‘I know who I see and who I don’t see. I haven’t seen Karim Sassi since that summer all those years ago.’
A summer when Zakaria had stayed with his uncle, who knew Karim’s mother. That was something they would have to look into, but Eden was worried that it wouldn’t be enough. Time was passing so quickly, and she could feel the ground trembling beneath her feet. They couldn’t just carry on digging, they had to start taking action. Somehow.
She left Zakaria and went back to the counter-terrorism unit. Karim knew Zakaria. They didn’t really need to know any more. Karim Sassi, the caption of Flight 573, was implicated in the hijacking.
The worst possible scenario.
But there was more to come. Dennis caught up with her.
‘We’ve found Karim Sassi’s fingerprints on one of the phones,’ he said.
There. They didn’t need any more on Sassi. The fact that he had been involved in the previous day’s bomb threats was now beyond all reasonable doubt. If he had been on the ground, Eden would have had him brought in for questioning.
But that wasn’t an option.
‘Call the CIA,’ she said. ‘I want to know how far they’ve got.’
29 WASHINGTON, DC, 08:45
The sun was shining down on the capital city that was regarded as one of the most influential in the world. Bruce Johnson took Green from the CIA along with him and went to see his boss, who had finally deigned to turn up. The chief looked less than pleased to see Green, but Bruce took no notice. They had to discuss the information that had been passed on to Bruce just hours ago, turning the whole investigation on its head before it had even got under way properly. There were indications that Captain Karim Sassi, the commander of Flight 573, was working with the terrorists. It couldn’t get much worse.
Bruce had been completely floored as he tried to understand what the captain’s involvement might mean. He loathed Green for spending so long sitting in the meeting before coming out with the information that so fundamentally upended every other theory they had been working on. Why hadn’t Green told him about Sassi as soon as he walked through the door, for fuck’s sake?
‘So Karim Sassi is working with the terrorists?’ the chief said, having found it extremely difficult to assimilate the information the first time he heard it.
‘According to our sources, that seems to be the case. Karim Sassi is part of the group that implemented this plan, and personally placed the note containing the bomb threat on the plane. And Sassi has been given a supplementary order that is not stated in the note,’ Green said.
‘Which is?’
‘If the Swedish and American governments do not accede to the hijackers’ demands, Sassi will crash the plane into the Capitol building. Here in Washington.’
Bruce’s mouth went dry. He could see that the chief had lost his composure for a moment.
‘Therefore, it is pointless to try to work out who is behind this mess, which the Swedes seem to believe is the way forward. It won’t make any difference. The key player is sitting at the controls, and he’s not going to land that plane unless he hears that the hijackers’ demands have been met. Which isn’t going to happen, as we know.’
Where had they got this information from?
‘Why hasn’t the FBI been told this?’
‘We’re telling you now. And it changes things, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘To say the least. But I’m asking you again – why didn’t you pass this on before?’
It was Green’s turn to look annoyed.
‘Because there was no reason to do so.’
But Bruce’s boss had more questions, and Bruce knew that he was worried. This new information meant that Flight 573 was no longer regarded as part of an armed attack on the United States, and therefore became entirely the responsibility of the CIA and the US Department of Defense.
The FBI would be marginalised.
‘What’s your plan of action?’ Bruce’s boss asked Green.
‘It’s very simple. The plane will not be allowed to land on US soil under any circumstances. When it gets close to US airspace we will contact the captain and tell him to change course. If he fails to comply, we will ask our supreme commander to approve the necessary measures.’
The supreme commander was the President of the United States.
‘You’re escalating the issue to the White House? Why?’
‘I’m happy to answer that question, but this stays between us until further notice. We will inform the Swedes as and when necessary.’
He paused and waited for Bruce’s boss to accept this condition, which he did.
The Swedes would be kept out of the picture for the time being.
‘Okay,’ Green said. ‘We’re elevating this to the White House so that we can do what was not done on 9/11. We have to prevent another attack on American interests.’
Bruce’s boss looked puzzled.
‘And how are you going to do that?’ he said in a voice that exuded weariness.
Green didn’t reply at first.
Nor did he need to, because in the silence that followed, Bruce realised how the CIA were planning to deal with Flight 573.
‘It’s never going to arrive, is it?’ he said.
Green’s face took on the determined expression Bruce had seen so often in those who regarded their desk job as a theatre of war.
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘It will never reach either Washington or New York. Not if the President does what we want, and believe me, he will.’
30 FLIGHT 573
They were flying across Canada now. Earlier, they had passed over Iceland and Greenland. Erik Recht had always wanted to visit Iceland, to bathe in its warm springs and ride Icelandic horses. Claudia would love it. She always enjoyed travelling abroad, discovering the world.
They still had so much to see.
The story of their hijacked plane had evidently been leaked to the media; the police had informed them of this fact. That changed things. Attempting an emergency landing no longer seemed like such a good idea now that the press were following the plane’s journey to New York. That was another thing Erik had tried to bring up with Karim: they ought to change course, stay away from US airspace. The Americans had a different view on the best way to deal with terrorists. There was a serious risk that the plane would get an extremely brutal reception if they ended up within the jurisdiction of the American authorities.