Alex poured himself a cup of coffee. Fredrika had always thought he had lovely hands, but that was yet another thing he would never know.
‘If you think it will change anything, then go for it.’ He shrugged and took a sip of his coffee.
Fredrika suddenly felt a wave of tiredness. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean what I say,’ Alex replied. ‘We’re fiddling about, doing a little bit here, a little bit there. Following leads in a thousand directions and getting precisely nowhere. Like the Keystone Kops.’
‘Everything has happened so fast, Alex. And we have so little time.’
Alex put down his cup with a bang. ‘We’ve got to decide which direction we’re going in,’ he said, sounding agitated. ‘Either we save the plane and everyone on board, or we investigate the question of who’s to blame. One or the other, you choose. We can’t do both at the same time. And if we choose to focus on who’s to blame, which is obviously what we are doing, then the plane is doomed.’
‘You don’t think we can stop this by finding whoever is behind the whole thing?’
‘We already know who’s behind it; he’s sitting at the controls on board the plane!’
Alex turned away.
I don’t need to see your anger, Alex; I can feel it anyway.
‘So what do you suggest?’
‘That we forget about everything else and concentrate on one thing, and one thing only – getting that bloody plane down by letting Erik take over.’
It was difficult to contradict him.
‘But that’s what we’re doing,’ Fredrika said, lowering her voice as she did when she was talking to her children, trying to calm them down. ‘None of us believes that Karim is the only person behind all this, which means that none of us knows how everything fits together, and how best to proceed.’
Fredrika was still thinking about Zakaria.
Zakaria and Tennyson Cottage.
What was the connection?
‘Is Zakaria Khelifi the main focus here, or Tennyson Cottage?’ she wondered.
‘The bomb threats came before the government’s decision to deport Zakaria.’
‘But the hijacking came after.’
Fredrika reached for a glass and filled it with water. There was a link between Zakaria Khelifi and Tennyson Cottage, just as there was between the bomb threats and the hijacking – there had to be. And they wouldn’t get anywhere until they worked out what it was.
It was like wading through glue. The investigation had been going on for less than one full working day, but Fredrika was as exhausted as if it had been going on for weeks.
‘We’re getting nowhere,’ she said.
‘That’s exactly what I said,’ Alex replied, his voice hoarse and subdued. ‘I don’t understand what kind of breakthrough we’re supposed to be waiting for. The plane has been hijacked, and the person responsible is in control of the cockpit. That’s the situation, and we have to act accordingly.’
Fredrika nodded and put down her glass. Alex was right, but she wasn’t ready to support his suggestion that Erik should take over.
‘I’ll go and check those phone records.’
She went back to her desk, leaving Alex alone in the kitchen. The lack of time wasn’t their biggest problem. The real issue was that they had no strategy for what they were going to do when time ran out.
Trying to stop the plane from using up fuel was like trying to stop the sand from trickling through an hourglass.
It took Eden Lundell less than a minute to realise that the case of the hijacked plane had taken a different turn. They met in a windowless room at Rosenbad: Eden and GD from Säpo, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Justice, plus a handful of civil servants from the relevant departments.
‘Sit down,’ the PM said.
His voice was harsh and impatient, as if he had asked them several times to sit down without anyone taking any notice. Everyone immediately did as they were told. The door leading to the corridor was already closed. Eden noticed that not one but two people checked to make sure it was locked.
What the hell is going on here? And why are we on the back foot?
The PM wasted no time.
‘We were contacted by the US government less than an hour ago. As expected, the hijacking of Flight 573 has caused consternation on the other side of the Atlantic, not least because of information indicating that the pilot is working with the hijackers. The US authorities have already contacted Karim Sassi to inform the crew that the plane will not be allowed to enter US airspace under present circumstances, and that they must therefore remain in international airspace until the situation is resolved. If the captain decides to attempt to land the plane within the jurisdiction of some other country, the Americans have no problem with that; the only thing they will not accept is a violation of US airspace.’
Eden raised her hand a fraction, requesting permission to speak.
‘What information have the Americans given Karim Sassi? Does he know we believe he’s involved in the hijacking?’
‘No,’ the PM said. ‘According to the Americans, they have been very low key in their communication with the aircraft. All they’ve said is that under the present circumstances they regard the plane as a security risk, and are therefore instructing the pilot to remain outside US airspace.’
Eden thought that sounded logical. However, she also thought the hijackers had already foreseen the US reaction, and wondered what would happen next.
Which raised the question of why the hijackers hadn’t made direct contact with either the police or the government. They had heard nothing. What did that suggest? That they expected their demands to be met in full? Or the reverse – that they knew they would be rejected, and therefore didn’t need any channels of communication?
This hijacking was running contrary to all previous experience. Hijackers usually lost patience, insisted on negotiations, fought for what they wanted. They would also try to speed up the process, raise the stakes in order to force the authorities to make concessions. But in the case of Flight 573, the stakes were not being raised at all. Everything was on the table already.
Over four hundred passengers at thirty thousand feet.
‘So what does that mean in words of one syllable?’ GD asked.
‘What?’ said the PM.
‘The fact that the plane won’t be allowed into US airspace.’
‘If Karim Sassi has any sense at all, he will obey their orders and stay in international airspace.’
Only then did Eden realise why they had been summoned to Rosenbad at such short notice, and why the Americans had passed on their message to the Swedish government rather than Säpo.
But GD didn’t get it.
‘Sooner or later, the plane will run out of fuel,’ he said. ‘And they already know that the pilot is working with the hijackers, yet they still expect Karim to obey their orders?’
Eden felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Without thinking about what she was doing, she placed a hand on GD’s shoulder.
‘Not necessarily,’ the PM said grimly; his face had lost all its colour. ‘We have to understand the American perspective, even if we don’t sympathise with it. It’s ten years since 9/11. They will never risk such an attack happening again. Not if they have the chance to prevent it, which they believe they have in this case.’
GD had nothing to say this time. When the Prime Minister spoke again, Eden already knew what he was going to say.
‘If Karim Sassi decides to defy the order to stay away from US airspace, they will shoot down the plane as soon as it crosses the US border.’