Driving down the empty highway at 120 miles an hour that bright September night, the steering steady, Petrovic feels pure joy. The car isn’t swaying in the slightest, the engine nothing but a low whirr, and he turns on the radio. He needs music for this. “Run This Town,” by Jay-Z and Rihanna. The radio stations have been playing it all summer. He turns up the volume.
And that’s when he notices it.
The blue lights loom up in his rearview mirror. He has no idea where the police car has come from, he hasn’t overtaken any, but there’s no doubt it’s him they’re after. There aren’t any other cars on the road.
The goggles the helicopter pilot recently turned down are lying on the seat next to Petrovic. He realizes that he probably has traces of gunpowder on his clothes and his hands from checking the weapons earlier. And he also knows that if he doesn’t turn up at the agreed meeting point in time, there’ll be trouble.
He stares into the rearview mirror.
He still hasn’t slowed down. In fact, according to the speedometer, he is now doing 140 miles an hour.
The police are gaining on him. He won’t be able to lose them on the highway. But turning off now?
Petrovic doesn’t even know where he is.
68
5:02 a.m.
Since Ezra Ray returned with the cable for the detonators, not much has been said in the woods out in Stora Skuggan. He had found the cable lying beneath a plastic bag full of empty bottles.
At regular intervals, Sami walks over to the open field where the helicopter will land and squints up at the sky. He knows he will be able to hear it before he can see it, but he can’t sit still. The grass is damp with dew, and he can already feel the adrenaline building. It’s lying in wait to start pumping around his body in the next half an hour or so. Ideally, he would like to go for a quick run around the field, but he decides not to.
Nordgren has managed to find a stump that is more comfortable than the rock he was sitting on earlier. His weariness has vanished, but he doesn’t feel either nervous or expectant. It’s hard to explain. He can spend weeks and months planning something that, from the very beginning, is a real challenge; where every problem that he solves leaves him with a deep sense of satisfaction. But when the time finally comes, all that’s left is his desire to get it done. Nothing else.
“You’re not sleeping, are you?” Ezra asks from his rock a few yards away.
It’s a joke.
“No chance,” Nordgren replies quietly.
It’s two minutes past five when Sami’s phone rings. He is halfway back to the woods and he knows Nordgren will have heard it. Maloof’s voice is drowned out by the sound of the engine. Sami can’t hear what he’s saying, but from the context, it’s clear why he is calling.
They’re on their way.
A minute later, and the silence over Frescati and Stora Skuggan is broken.
It’s no more than a low whirring sound at first, way in the distance, but it completely possesses them.
Niklas Nordgren gets up and stands perfectly still.
Sami and Ezra, who had been going to bring the equipment to the field, stop where they are.
Listening.
Allowing the sound of the helicopter to grow louder.
It’s as though someone had turned the volume far above what the speakers can handle.
And, as though on command, Sami and Ezra drop the equipment and run with Nordgren into the dark field. They stop. They had measured out the triangle an hour or so earlier. They turn on the torches.
The helicopter comes in low. The sound is deafening, but Sami experiences it as pure joy. Euphoria. The white machine seems to almost glide in above the treetops, toward where they’re standing.
Slowly, the pilot attempts to find the right position above the three lights. For a few seconds, the helicopter is completely still, hanging freely in the air, but then he lowers the machine to the ground. The wind makes the trees rustle and the bushes lie flat.
Sami and Ezra pull on their balaclavas.
Neither plans to let the pilot see their faces.
Jack Kluger lands, kills the engine and the rotor blades come to a halt. Maloof jumps out of the helicopter. He hugs Nordgren and Sami, but they don’t say much to one another. There’ll be time for that later.
Each of them is aware that the clock has started ticking. It’s not unlikely that someone has seen or heard the helicopter, either on the way down from Norrtälje or on a radar screen somewhere.
While Maloof, Nordgren and Ezra run into the woods to grab the equipment and load it on board, Jack Kluger moves around the helicopter, showing Sami the minimal storage space. There’ll barely be room for a single mailbag. They’ll have to use the main cabin instead.
Maloof and Nordgren fasten the ladders to the landing skids using cable ties. It’s much easier than they had thought it would be, the short ladder isn’t too short and the long ladder not too long. While they do that, Sami and Ezra load the rest of the gear into the cabin.
When the helicopter takes off a few minutes later, things are cramped. They plan to abandon a lot of what they brought with them in Västberga, leaving room for the bags of money.
Nordgren and Sami are in the seats behind Kluger and Maloof. The pounding inside the cabin is loud and rhythmic. It’s almost ten past five in the morning when they feel the power of the liftoff and the helicopter swings up into the air. The movement feels at once incredibly light and unbelievably heavy.
Kluger puts the machine into a sharp turn, and the dark contours of the woods by the university are heading straight toward them from one side until he straightens up again. Beneath their feet, the silent black expanse of Haga Park spreads out. To the north, Solna glitters like a small town, and to the south, the Wenner-Gren Center towers over the buildings around it, a reminder that Stockholm is a low-lying city. The red and white lights of the cars on Uppsalavägen are like drops of water rolling along a viaduct.
Sami, Maloof and Nordgren struggle into their bulletproof vests in silence, pulling on black plastic masks on top of their balaclavas. Before they climbed on board, both had taped up any openings in their clothes, around their gloves and shoes, to make sure they don’t leave any DNA behind.
Nordgren pulls on his cap. The equipment makes them less mobile, but they have no idea what might be awaiting them inside the building. The explosives are a risk. That’s the reason they’re wearing headlamps. If the electricity cuts out for any reason, they’ll need lights of their own to be able to move freely.
Kluger turns across the water. At high speed, and flying low, he follows the line of the highway south, past the Essinge Islands, where the beautiful houses are bathed in darkness at the top of the rocks, cars parked tightly along the narrow streets. The cloud cover breaks, the winds are strong at that height this morning. But lower down, it’s no more than a few miles per hour.
Nordgren checks the explosives, cables, batteries and soda cans in his backpack once more. He has the detonators in one of the pockets on his vest.
Sami checks his gun.
Maloof glances at his watch. They have plenty of time, the question is whether they’re moving too quickly. Will Zoran Petrovic make it? Should he ask him to send a text once he arrives, just to stay on the safe side? Maloof isn’t sure. And then his thoughts drift to Alexandra Svensson, who would be shocked if she could see him right now, in his black balaclava. He doesn’t feel guilty at not having told her everything about himself; leaving out certain details isn’t the same as lying. He has two different lives, and he wonders whether they could merge into one. Could Alexandra, he wonders as thin veils of cloud sweep by like anxious ghosts outside the helicopter, become a permanent part of his life? Could he imagine her sitting in the kitchen at his mom and dad’s house in Fittja, actually enjoying herself there? He hopes so. If everything goes to plan over the next hour or so, he’ll be able to be more open about himself in the future, once the money is clean and life is simpler. Maloof nods imperceptibly. That’s what he has been longing for, to make life more simple.