With firm hands he pushed Karim back down.
‘You’re going nowhere,’ he said.
‘You don’t understand,’ Karim said, speaking in English now. ‘She’s still got them. She said they’d die if I broke the rules.’
He began to cry, in a way that Bruce had never seen a man cry; it was deeply disturbing.
Bruce took a deep breath and tried to find the right words.
‘Karim, listen to me. It’s obvious that something terrible has happened, but we can’t help you if you don’t talk to us. Do you understand?’
Karim wiped his face; he looked grey and exhausted. If the doctor came in, the interview would be over.
‘I understand.’
‘Good. Start from the beginning. How did you come into contact with these people?’
Once again, Karim had difficulty speaking.
Patience, Bruce thought. This situation requires patience, which unfortunately I don’t have.
‘Just one. She’s alone.’
‘Who is alone?’
‘The person who did all this. The woman who took my family.’
More tears and, by now, Karim Sassi’s chest was rattling so much that Bruce discreetly gestured to his colleague to close the door, so that he couldn’t be heard out in the corridor.
‘They’re gone,’ Karim whispered. ‘All gone.’
Bruce had seen more liars than he could count. Over the years, he had become highly skilled in seeing how lies altered a person’s face, small details that might escape the untrained eye, but which he noticed immediately.
He could see none of these signs in Karim. Not one. Perhaps it was because of the anaesthetic, perhaps because he was exhausted. Or perhaps he was actually telling the truth, in which case Bruce assumed he must be going through the torments of hell right now.
‘We’re looking for them,’ he said. ‘We won’t give up until we find them.’
They had to move on. He was happy to provide reassurance if it calmed Karim down.
‘She’s always one step ahead, all the time.’
‘Do you know who she is?’
‘No.’
‘She didn’t tell you her name?’
‘No.’
‘But she must have had other people helping her?’
‘I don’t know about that.’
But what about you, Karim? You were one of those people, weren’t you?
As far as Bruce was aware, it wouldn’t change Karim’s situation even if it turned out that he had actually believed his family had been kidnapped. A compassionate judge would regard it as a mitigating circumstance, but nothing more. You couldn’t endanger the lives of over four hundred people in order to save just three.
‘So you don’t know this woman who took your family?’
‘No.’
‘How did she get in touch with you?’
‘She rang me. The previous night. She rang and left a message on my voicemail. Although it wasn’t really a message, just a long silence. So I called back, mainly because I was curious. I thought whoever it was must have left a message, but for some reason it hadn’t recorded. She said she’d got the wrong number. Asked about someone I didn’t know; I said there was no one of that name in our house. I didn’t recognise her voice.’
Karim fell silent.
‘Then what happened?’
Karim closed his eyes, and Bruce thought he had fallen asleep. He gently nudged Karim’s shoulder, and his eyes flew open.
‘Then what happened?’
‘She called again. This morning.’
‘You mean yesterday morning?’
‘Before we took off. She called me before we took off. Said she’d taken my family, that I would be given a task to fulfil, and that I must follow my instructions to the letter. To the letter.’
Karim’s chest rose and fell.
‘And what were these instructions?’
‘She told me over the phone. Told me to write the demands on a piece of paper, then stick it to the wall in one of the toilets.’
‘You were the one who wrote the note?’
‘Yes.’
Bruce thought for a moment. This was all too weird; he couldn’t take it in.
‘Okay, let’s just rewind here. For a start: how did you know that she really had taken your family?’
Fresh tears trickled down Karim’s cheeks. ‘She let me speak to my daughter.’
Bruce felt his pulse rate increase.
How was this possible? How could Karim’s family have been taken hostage without anyone missing them? They’d been in Denmark all day, hadn’t they?
‘And what did your daughter say?’
Karim turned his head so that he was gazing at the window and the black night sky outside.
‘She said she wanted me to come home, that the girl was stupid.’
‘Was she upset?’
Karim nodded, and whispered, ‘It was so short. Much too short.’
‘How long did your conversation last?’
‘Less than a minute.’
‘So you never met her?’
‘No.’
Bruce began piecing the information together, and with the help of the reports he had received from Stockholm during the day, an unpleasant picture began to take shape. There was Karim’s contact with the phone that had also been used to make bomb threats targeting various locations in Stockholm’s inner city. And there was the information from the neighbour who had seen Karim’s youngest daughter speaking to a girl in the street.
Is that how it had happened? Had someone used such a simple ruse to convince Karim that his family had been kidnapped?
‘Didn’t you try to call your wife?’
‘Yes, but she always has her mobile on silent, or switched off. This time I couldn’t get through at all.’
The doctor came in, and when he saw Karim’s dull expression and heard his laboured breathing, he was far from happy.
Bruce cut him off before he could say a word.
‘We’re almost done.’
‘Two more minutes, then I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.’
Bruce turned to Karim, desperate to finish asking his questions.
‘What further instructions did you receive? Apart from the ones you wrote in the note?’
‘None.’
‘So why did you fly to Washington instead of New York?’
Karim turned back to face Bruce, his expression almost one of surprise. As if he had been reminded of something he had forgotten.
‘Sorry, my head’s all over the place. You’re right, she told me that I wasn’t to land in New York under any circumstances; I was to head for Washington, DC.’
‘And where did she tell you to land?’
‘At Dulles airport.’
‘Nowhere else?’
‘No.’
‘She didn’t tell you to crash the plane, regardless?’
Karim’s gaze sharpened.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You heard what I said.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Then let me ask you again: You weren’t told to crash the plane, regardless of whether or not the hijackers’ demands were met?’
Karim looked as if he still didn’t understand the question, even though he had heard it twice.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, definitely not.’
And then he said something that made Bruce stiffen.
‘How could you think that I would have accepted something like that? I love my family, more than anything in the world. But I couldn’t take the lives of over four hundred people for their sake. It would have been a terrible decision to make, but… She said there was a bomb on board, but I didn’t believe her.’
He shook his head.
‘So you wouldn’t have done it?’ Bruce said.
‘No, I wouldn’t.’
Of course he wouldn’t. That information had been given only to the security services involved, to deter them from opposing the hijackers’ demands. Or possibly to provoke a stress reaction.
Which was exactly what had happened.
We were so close to damning ourselves for ever.
The doctor cleared his throat behind Bruce.
‘Your time is up,’ he said.
‘Of course.’
Bruce had just one question left; the rest could wait.