There must have been some kind of misunderstanding, something on the news about a plane heading for New York, and his parents must have thought it was his flight. For God’s sake, there were several flights a day to New York. Weren’t there?
Joakim looked around. Everything seemed fine, and the crew hadn’t made any alarming announcements. If their flight was in some kind of trouble, surely they would have said something? They wouldn’t just leave people sitting there, unaware that they were heading towards death?
A stewardess was just passing his row.
‘Excuse me,’ Joakim said.
She stopped and Joakim leaned forward so that he could see past the smelly man.
‘I was just wondering… Have there been any problems with this plane?’
‘No, absolutely not. You have my word.’
But she wasn’t smiling the way stewardesses usually do when they speak to passengers.
‘Are you afraid of flying, sir?’
Joakim forced a smile.
‘No, no. I just wanted to check.’
The stewardess moved on, and Joakim felt his cheeks redden. ‘I just wanted to check.’ What a stupid thing to say. Check what? If the plane was expected to crash?
‘Listen, plane crashes are incredibly rare,’ the man beside him said. ‘Driving a car or riding a motorbike is much more dangerous.’
‘Thanks, I know that,’ Joakim said.
Once more, he turned away and opened his phone, but there was no coverage. He read his mother’s message over and over again. The tone and the choice of words communicated absolute despair. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became. The stewardess who couldn’t bring herself to smile had been lying.
39 STOCKHOLM, 18:30
They had to decide how to proceed. The plane would pass its planned arrival time in just fifteen minutes, and from then on it would be using up its additional fuel supply. Alex Recht sensed an air of indecision when he came back from his meeting with Zakaria Khelifi’s uncle. It bothered him. They had to move on, take decisive action.
Everyone had gathered for a meeting in Säpo HQ, including Alex’s boss and several other officers from both the National Bureau of Investigation and the Stockholm city police.
Eden began by talking about the call to the TT news agency, and Säpo’s theory that whoever had tipped off the media about the hijacking was actually involved in some way.
‘The call to TT was made from a mobile phone with an unregistered pay-as-you-go SIM card, so that won’t get us anywhere,’ she said. ‘What interests me more, however, is the fact that the person who took the call was initially sceptical as to whether it should be taken seriously.’
‘Why?’ Fredrika asked.
‘Because the caller sounded like Donald Duck.’
Hjärpe, Alex’s boss, let out a low whistle. ‘Voice distortion again.’
‘That’s right.’
Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What kind of a clown were they chasing here?
‘So that’s another dead end,’ he said.
‘No,’ Eden said. ‘But at least we know we were right when we guessed that the caller was involved.’
‘Why was it so important to inform the media?’ Hjärpe said.
‘I would guess that the caller wanted to be sure that the plane was following the instructions in the note, and he or she can only know that if the media are monitoring the story.’
The calculated execution of the hijacking made Alex go cold all over.
Eden quickly moved on.
‘What is it that’s driven Karim Sassi to hijack the plane he’s actually flying? What’s his motive?’ she said.
‘Have we completely ruled out the idea of other perpetrators?’ Alex replied.
‘We don’t believe there are others, so we are assuming that Karim had help with his preparations, and that the person or persons concerned are now helping him on the ground. With regard to yesterday’s bomb threats, all we know is that his fingerprints were on one of the phones. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that he made one of the calls.’
‘Then again, there are no prints at all on any of the other phones,’ Alex said. ‘And there’s nothing from the tracking to suggest that the calls were made by more than one person. All the threats were made in the same area between Stockholm and Arlanda.’
‘Several people could have been travelling in one car,’ Eden said.
Alex nodded. ‘True.’
Sebastian, the head of analysis, indicated that he had something to say.
‘I think we ought to talk about a possible motive, which you mentioned just now. What is making Sassi do this? He’s not a practising Muslim, which is very interesting. That takes out any connection with Islamic extremism, which I think we all presumed was behind this, and his motive becomes incomprehensible.’
‘Exactly,’ Eden said. ‘I have to admit that this worries me more than anything. Worries is the wrong word, but it bothers me that I don’t understand what’s driving him. No one close to him seems to have noticed any kind of change of personality recently, nor has anyone mentioned a burning social conscience. He has no background as an activist, and he hasn’t even been a member of any voluntary organisation.’
‘Exactly,’ Sebastian said. ‘It would have been a different matter if we’d been able to track down a clear commitment to asylum issues, for example; we could have assumed that was why Khelifi’s deportation in particular had provoked him to such an extent.’
‘I’m meeting the German liaison officer when we’re done here so that I can find out what they know,’ Eden said. ‘But they’ve already forewarned us that they don’t have anything specific on Karim, just on the hijacking.’
As Alex listened to Sebastian and Eden, his doubts grew. He couldn’t understand why they thought the situation would change if they could work out Karim’s motives.
Eden noticed his pensive expression.
‘What do you think, Alex?’
Her voice was different from when she was speaking to Sebastian or Fredrika. Softer, as if she wanted to show that Alex was someone she liked.
‘I think it’s going to be bloody difficult to understand Karim’s motives without talking to him,’ he said.
The words came more quickly than he had expected.
‘Talking to him? You mean we should contact the plane and let him know we’re aware of his involvement?’
‘That’s exactly what I mean.’
In spite of the fact that he hadn’t really thought things through, he carried on: ‘We’re not getting any further, and the clock is ticking. In just a few hours the plane will either crash or be blown to pieces, if the hijackers are serious. Since it’s in the air, we can’t physically go in. The only thing we can do is to call the cockpit and hope we can reason with Karim, appeal to his good sense.’ Alex paused for effect. ‘Unless of course we want to go for the option we mentioned earlier: contact the co-pilot and ask him to take control of the plane.’
By this stage, everyone in the room knew that the co-pilot was Alex’s son. But that didn’t matter, because they also knew that he was right.
‘What if we speak to Karim and the conversation causes him to panic?’ Eden said. ‘Since we don’t know what’s driving him, we don’t know what values are at stake as far as he’s concerned. Confronting him could put all the crew and passengers in mortal danger.’
‘In that case, we have to contact the co-pilot.’
‘And if he fails? The effect could end up exactly the same. Karim realises he’s been exposed, and takes drastic measures. What are Erik’s chances of overcoming Karim, in practical terms?’
Alex pictured Erik in his mind’s eye. As a child. Tall and thin, almost skinny. Passionate, full of ideas about how to make life more exciting. His temperament was more evenly balanced since he had grown up, but he still looked for kicks that brightened the dullness other people simply regarded as everyday life.