“A possible robbery ongoing in Västberga. We’ve got reports of a helicopter landing on the G4S cash depot roof.”
“A helicopter?” Ekblad repeats.
“The building’s practically next door to the police station.”
Månsson has reached the garage, and he climbs into his car.
“The robbers arrived in a helicopter?” Ekblad repeats. She doesn’t want any misunderstandings.
“Apparently. This is no ordinary alarm.”
“I’ll call Olsson,” the county police commissioner says, instinctively sensing that robbers in helicopters aren’t something that should be handled by the local police force.
“Do it,” Månsson agrees.
“I’ll call you again as soon as I can,” Ekblad says.
“Same.”
Månsson ends the call as he pulls out onto the Essingeleden highway.
The relationship between the chief commissioner for Stockholm County and the national police commissioner operated as the circumstances demanded. They kept their distance from one another. Two female police officers in a male-dominated environment, two careerists surrounded by bureaucrats, two experienced officers now in primarily administrative roles, the women did actually have quite a lot to learn from one another. But Ekblad’s and Olsson’s fields of power weren’t compatible. It was more a case of personal chemistry than it was of women competing more with one another than with the men on the force.
“Shit,” is the national police commissioner’s first reaction.
The county commissioner notices the complete lack of surprise in Therese Olsson’s tone; she detects only anger.
“You knew about this?” she asks.
“This is ours, Caisa,” Olsson says, dodging the question. “We’ll take it from here. Ask your people to cut off the exits. Get a couple of patrol cars out there, with the lights on, and we’ll take care of the rest.”
“Sorry, but I don’t know… This is happening now, and it’s happening practically on the doorstep of Söderort station. It’ll probably be quicker if we carry on than if you try to take over.”
“We’ve been working on this for a month, Caisa. It’s too big for you.”
“A month?” the county commissioner exclaims, sounding surprised. “Without informing me?”
Olsson is silent for a moment, and then she says: “It had nothing to do with you.”
Ekblad explodes. With suppressed rage, and with a level of clarity she would usually reserve for talking to a five-year-old, she explains that a robbery being planned in the Stockholm area is very much to do with the Stockholm County commissioner. If Olsson can’t understand that, then perhaps the Police Authority should be made aware at the next meeting that its commissioner is illiterate.
“Caisa, I—” Olsson begins.
But Ekblad ends the call without listening to Olsson’s excuses. She is still in bed, but she angrily tears back the covers and heads into the bathroom. That’s when she hears her cell phone ring, followed shortly afterward by the house phone. She doesn’t answer. By the time she makes a quick trip to the bathroom and heads down to the garage, the worst of her anger has abated.
She calls Månsson for an update from the car. He confirms what the guard reported; the robbers are still in the building. He has set up a liaison unit in a police van by the Statoil gas station opposite G4S.
“We’ve already got enough people here. Should we go in?” Månsson asks.
It’s a good question.
The display on her phone flashes, indicating an incoming call. Ekblad realizes she has to take it.
“Hold off,” she replies.
It’s Therese Olsson.
“We made a mistake, Caisa,” Olsson immediately says. “We misjudged the situation. Of course we should have kept you informed. But it is what it is, and we can’t afford to lose any more time. You know Caroline Thurn, don’t you? With the Criminal Investigation Department? She’s been working on this for a month or so, she knows who’s in the building in Västberga. She has the best chance of being able to handle this.”
Ekblad sighs.
“OK,” she replies, resigned. “I was just talking to Dag Månsson. He’s set up a liaison unit outside.”
“Then I’ll ask Thurn to get in touch with Månsson and the people at the scene.”
Ekblad sighs again. She goes back to Månsson to tell him the bad news.
75
5:21 a.m.
The buzzing of her cell phone is transmitted through the thick cushions in the alcove. Caroline Thurn can’t hear anything, but she can feel the vibrations. She pulls off her headphones, Zoran Petrovic’s droning stops and she glances down at the display. It’s the national police commissioner, Therese Olsson.
Thurn feels her adrenaline levels spike as she answers.
“Good morning,” she says.
“They pushed it back a week,” she hears Therese Olsson’s dogged voice say. “It’s happening as we speak.”
Thurn understands immediately. She can still hear the echo of Petrovic’s voice in her ears.
The fifteenth of September. That was why he slipped up. That was why he planted that particular date several times. It was the only mistake he made.
Only, it wasn’t a mistake.
He had tricked them.
“The situation is ongoing,” Olsson repeats. “Get out to G4S in Västberga. Call me from the car.”
Caroline Thurn is on her way out.
“Wait!” she shouts down the line.
“What?”
“Is our helicopter airborne?” Thurn asks as she opens the door into the stairwell.
The silence on the other end tells her everything she needs to know.
“Get it in the air!” Thurn shouts at her boss. “Now!”
76
5:22 a.m.
It went better than he expected.
On the way from Frescati to Västberga, there had been two moments when he’d had to blink, concentrate and fight back the sense of panic he could feel welling, ready to spread through his body as quickly and easily as a drop of blood in a glass of water.
Both times had worked.
Since then, everything has been calm.
After dropping off the robbers and the equipment, Jack Kluger takes the helicopter up to a high altitude again. Bands of thin clouds float across the sky, their edges sharply defined by the moonlight. Far below him, to the northwest, the Essingen Islands and southern Alvik glitter at the far edge of the dark waters of Lake Mälaren. To the northeast, he can see the Liljeholmen industrial area and the deserted office buildings that have been plastered with brightly lit company logos.
Kluger has no goal other than to save fuel. They have agreed to be back on the roof in ten to fifteen minutes, and though he set off with less than a full tank, that gives him good margins.
He lowers the helicopter slightly when he spots the first police car. Its flashing blue lights seem to glide forward over the ground.
Just as Maloof and Sami predicted, the car is approaching from the station on Västberga Gårdsväg. It swings up onto Västberga Allé, followed closely by another car. Kluger watches them from the heavens, two blue will-o’-the-wisps in an otherwise black night. When the first car suddenly skids, spins sideways and comes to a stop, Kluger knows why. Petrovic had told him about the chains, about the caltrops. The American watches the second car slow down, but he can’t tell whether its tires have also been ripped to shreds.
Just then, he spots a string of blue lights approaching on the highway from Stockholm. They’ll take the exit by Midsommarkransen and drive straight into the chains stretched across the road.