The Albanian followed him.
“We’ve got a few new pieces over here,” he said. “If you want… But… what the hell’s that smell?”
“What do you mean?” Sami asked, unconcerned.
“You can’t smell it?” the Albanian said. “Smells like shit?”
Sami had felt it against his arm as they climbed the stairs: the pattering fart and subsequent warmth. He had thought it could wait.
“Can you give me a minute?” he said. “I just need to do something. It’ll be quick.”
Before the Albanian had a chance to reply, Sami was on the way out. He ran down the stairs, out of the building and around the corner. He lay John on his back on the grass next to the parking lot, took out the blanket and wet wipes from the bag and put a clean, dry diaper on his son. On the way back to the Albanian and the automatic weapons, he found a trash can by the ticket machine and threw away the old diaper.
The boy laughed as his father ran up the stairs two at a time.
Sami chose a traditional Kalashnikov that he knew he could handle. He pointed to a couple of pistols and read from the list he had been given by Maloof. It detailed the things Niklas Nordgren had asked for.
“Let’s do it like this,” said the Albanian. “Next time you come here, you bring the dough. We give you a key to one of the stores. The things you’ve asked for’ll be inside. You can pick them up whenever you want, then just leave the key in the lock when you’re done. OK?”
AUGUST 2009
23
One Monday in early August, Niklas Nordgren installed an air-conditioning unit in a shop in Sigtuna and then headed up to Arlanda airport, which was just a fifteen-minute drive away.
Airports were always sensitive targets, classified as high security and guarded around the clock. The police were based in one of the buildings adjacent to the main terminals, but the signs and the building itself were more impressive than the actual staff. The representatives of the law at Arlanda were neither the best educated nor the most heavily armed; their work usually just involved apprehending or ejecting disorderly vacationers who had been trying to drown out their fear of flying with alcohol. Terrorist threats and tips about drug smugglers were handled by other, more suitable units than the Arlanda police.
Nordgren parked his car inside the round multistory parking garage by Terminal 5 and took the glass bridge over the taxi stand to the terminal buildings. He turned left into SkyCity, which linked the international terminal to the domestic ones. It was here that he found the information desk.
A young woman chewing gum looked irritatedly up from her book. Her hair was dyed red and she had a piercing in one eyebrow.
“Excuse me,” Nordgren said, looking at her from beneath the shadow of his cap. “Just a quick question. Where do I find the police helicopter base?”
“Helicopter base?” the woman mumbled, using her middle finger to search the directory she had on the screen in front of her.
Both Michel Maloof and Niklas Nordgren had, each in their own way, used the Internet, police websites, Flashback and other chat forums to try to find out where the police helicopters were based.
They hadn’t had any success, they hadn’t found a single straw to clutch at.
Nordgren was well aware that audacity was something you should use sparingly if you were in the robbery business. But sometimes that method was best, and he was prepared to go further than usual right now.
“Nope, can’t find it,” the woman eventually said. “Give me a second and I’ll call over to the police and ask.”
Nordgren nodded gratefully.
“Hi,” she said once she was connected. “This is Sophie from the information desk in SkyCity. I’ve had a question about the police helicopters. Are they based here somewhere? Terminal Three?”
She continued chewing her gum as she listened to the answer. Then she thanked the person on the other end of the line and hung up.
“Nope,” she said, “the police have never had any helicopters here. We actually have very few helicopters at Arlanda. They said they weren’t sure but that you should try Tullinge.”
“Tullinge? The police said that?”
“That’s what they said,” the woman confirmed, losing interest in him and returning to her book.
Three days later, Michel Maloof was in the passenger seat of Niklas Nordgren’s car, watching the rain fall over Tumba. The nonstop music on the radio provided a perfect accompaniment.
“I still can’t believe it,” Maloof said.
“It was a surprise,” Nordgren agreed. “But a good one.”
“I can’t believe it though. You’re really sure? Completely sure?”
Nordgren was as sure as he could be. He had several contacts within the police force in Stockholm, and none of them had been able to say where a police helicopter depot might be based. But the one thing they did all claim was that there was only one helicopter stationed in the capital.
“They’ve got a helicopter in Norrland,” Nordgren said to Maloof. “One in Malmö, one in Gothenburg and one in Stockholm. It sounds strange, but… when it flies over the city, everyone can see it, and they take it for a couple of spins a day so we think there are more. Apparently they sometimes borrow the one from Gothenburg. If they need it for any particular reason. If we’re unlucky.”
Maloof nodded. If Nordgren said it was so, then that was that.
“Just one helicopter… it’s still so strange.”
They reached Tullinge and turned off toward the old airfield’s only landing strip to take a look around.
“But you don’t… think it’s here?” Maloof asked.
“No,” said Nordgren. “I’m pretty sure. But you never know. The police have apparently been moving the helicopter around for years. Not to be clever, but because no one seems to want it.”
“No.” Maloof nodded. “Why doesn’t anyone want it?”
“No idea,” said Nordgren. “But it doesn’t help.”
In appearance, the two men were very different: the outgoing, always-smiling Lebanese man with thick, glossy hair and a perfectly groomed beard, and the introverted and sullen Swede with no hair at all. They had grown up close to one another—it was no farther than a good goal kick between Nordgren’s Vårby Gård and the Maloof family’s Fittja—and neither had been particularly interested in school. But where Nordgren had discovered a love for extreme sports, Maloof had stuck to the position of center back on the soccer team, something that reflected their personalities well.
Niklas Nordgren’s need for company was limited. He was more interested in electronic circuits than human relationships, and the questioning look with which he studied the world around him from beneath his cap was constant. He didn’t want to label himself a brooder, but the concept of happiness had never seemed definite to him. At times, he struggled with his self-image, and there was no denying the fact that there was a hint of destructiveness in his choice of work.
Michel Maloof was different. He liked sun more than rain, soccer more than hockey; he preferred the solution to the problem. He wasn’t someone who made life difficult for himself. Maloof’s parents were both Christians, and they had forced their children to traipse off to church at regular intervals. But the Christian faith had never managed to take hold in Maloof’s heart, and his siblings were convinced that it was down to his Buddhist orientation. Maloof’s ability to tolerate injustice, to remain indifferent to provocation, to smile at stupidity rather than get worked up, to sit still and listen while someone told the same story for the hundredth time—that was nothing but miraculous. The Dalai Lama claimed that the road to happiness was achieved by replacing every bitter or negative thought with one that was positive and beautiful. That was precisely how Maloof lived his life.