“Månsson.” Thurn suddenly hears a deep, calm voice in her ear. It doesn’t tell her anything about the police officer’s decision-making abilities, of course, but it still sounds reassuring.
“Task Force Leader Caroline Thurn,” she says. “Give me an update.”
“Well, nothing’s happening right now. Maybe that’s why the helicopter flew off?”
“It’s gone?”
Thurn is confused. She had always assumed that the robbers were planning to get away in the helicopter.
“We can still hear it,” says Dag Månsson, “but we can’t see it. Wait… is that you?”
At that very moment, Thurn catches sight of the police van parked by the gas station, and she ends the call, leaving the earpiece in her ear.
She parks up next to the van and opens the door.
“Where’s Månsson?” she asks as she climbs out of the car.
A tall, well-built officer in uniform jumps out of the van and comes forward to meet her.
“Dag Månsson,” he introduces himself, shaking Thurn’s hand.
“Have you requested backup?” she asks.
There is a sea of blinking lights outside the G4S depot, but Thurn can see only ordinary patrol cars, no specialists.
“Backup?” Månsson asks. “What do you mean?”
“Are the riot squad on the way? Did National confirm?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Månsson replies in his deep voice.
“OK, make sure you check,” Thurn says.
“We haven’t had time,” Månsson mutters, sounding annoyed. “We were clearing crap from the access roads so you’d be able to make it over here with your wheels intact.”
78
5:25 a.m.
Everything has been carried down from the roof to the balcony on the fifth floor, and Nordgren is busy setting up the ladder to the floor above. He leans it against the reinforced glass, but he can barely get any angle, the balcony is too shallow.
Still, up he climbs. He has one of the explosive frames in his hand. Balanced on the ladder, he fixes the frame to the glass, fills it with explosives, pushes in the detonator capsule and attaches the long detonation cable.
Once Maloof and Sami see that Nordgren has everything in place, they start to climb the long ladder back up to the roof. Nordgren has made it down to the balcony, but he holds the ladder steady for the others before he makes the ascent himself.
They won’t need much of a charge to break the glass, but considering the shards will rain down onto the balcony on the fifth floor, the three of them have no choice but to climb out of the way.
Back up on the roof, Nordgren gets to work with his cable and the motorbike battery. As a result, he doesn’t notice what Sami has already seen.
Down on the street, there is a police van and a sea of cars with flashing blue lights. They’re already here. Sami decides to take no notice of it. There’s no other way to handle it.
A second later, the explosion cuts through the atrium.
“Quick now,” says Nordgren.
He’s already on his way back down the long ladder.
79
5:26 a.m.
“What was that, Claude?”
Everyone in Counting hears the explosion, and Ann-Marie isn’t the only one to look questioningly at Tavernier.
But when nothing happens after the first blast, they return to bundling and locking the notes into the cages in the middle of the room.
Everyone but Ann-Marie. She is staring expectantly at Claude Tavernier, demanding an answer.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know,” says Tavernier.
He dials the number for the guardroom on the second floor, and Valter answers immediately. The guard is following the unfolding events on his CCTV monitors.
“Have the police arrived?” Tavernier asks.
Valter doesn’t know. But he does have around eighty video cameras watching over the majority of areas inside the building, and he tells Tavernier what he knows. That a helicopter landed on the roof, that the robbers have smashed a window in the skylight. He can’t see where they are right now, and he hasn’t heard any explosions from where he is on the second floor.
Valter falls silent, as though he is deliberating with himself, but then he says:
“They’re heavily armed. But the police will probably be getting here any moment,” he adds, in an attempt to dampen the drama.
Tavernier hangs up.
“The police will be here soon,” he tells Ann-Marie, something that has an immediate calming effect on her.
The fear in her wide eyes seems to lessen slightly.
“They got in through the roof, didn’t they?” she asks.
Tavernier nods. It’s something everyone working at G4S in Västberga has discussed. The new information spreads across the room. They knew it. That damn glass skylight is like a beacon for all the country’s would-be criminals at night.
They get back to work.
“Anyone who’s finished, come over here,” Tavernier says.
He is already standing in the area of the room that could be described as the center. The so-called safety position where they’re meant to gather to wait for the police or guards. All in line with the instructions of Security Chief Palle Lindahl, instructions that he took from one of the international conferences G4S holds for its security chiefs every year. At these events, the combined experiences of over a hundred different countries come together. Stay in the room until help arrives, that’s the message. Don’t start running around a building full of armed criminals. They’ll be searching the corridors and won’t appreciate any surprises in the shape of confused staff members trying to find a way out.
Everyone knows the drill.
One by one, they finish their work and move over to Tavernier and Ann-Marie, who are already standing in position.
All that’s left now is to wait until it’s over.
It seems obvious to Tavernier that the robbers will be making their way toward the vault on the second floor.
80
5:28 a.m.
The hole in the reinforced glass is big enough for Nordgren to use the crowbar to break an opening they can get in through.
On the other side is a room that seems to be used as some kind of storage area, but right now it’s empty. The door is open, meaning they are now wall-to-wall with Counting.
Maloof points to the fire door they were expecting. Nordgren goes over and studies the frame. The door is on a metal runner, meaning it can automatically move to one side if the fire alarm sounds. At the very top right, tucked in beneath the ceiling, he spots the cable controlling the door. He doesn’t have any wire cutters with him, but a powerful tug is all it takes to pull it from its connection. Then they just need to push the door to the side. It moves smoothly in its tracks, revealing a steel-clad security door behind it.
It’s the last barrier between them and the money.
Nordgren pulls a Coca-Cola can from his backpack. It’s been cut in the middle, filled with explosives and a magnet has been attached to the bottom. He pushes the detonation capsule into the explosive putty and fixes the can to the door, an inch beneath the handle. With one hand, he gestures for Sami and Maloof to go back into the storeroom by the reinforced glass. The concave base of the can will direct the explosion inward and away. It’s something Nordgren has done many times before.
He deliberately chooses a smaller charge. He doesn’t know how much it will take, and he doesn’t know what’s on the other side of the door. Where the money is located, where the workstations are.
Nordgren clamps the long detonation cable onto the capsule and joins Maloof and Sami in the storeroom. He moves quickly and confidently. He touches the cable to the poles of the battery, the charge explodes, and he runs back out to the door.