When Zakaria’s uncle didn’t reply, Fredrika went on: ‘It’s for Zakaria’s sake. We think she might be able to help us. Quite a lot.’
That was what they thought, wasn’t it? Why else would they want to talk to her?
‘Help you in what way?’
‘Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to go into that, but I can assure you that anything you can tell us would be extremely useful at this stage.’
She wished he would stop dithering, that she could convince him, because she couldn’t cope with soft-soaping him much longer.
‘Sofi,’ Moussa said at last. ‘Her name is Sofi Khelifi.’
‘Thank you. Thank you so much. Do you know where we can find her?’
‘No. When she’s in Sweden she usually stays with various close friends. And she’s stayed with Zakaria and his girlfriend now and again.’
Fredrika thought about what he had just said.
‘When she’s in Sweden? Does that mean she doesn’t live here on a permanent basis?’
But at that point, Moussa Khelifi decided he had had enough.
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ he said. ‘I only see her a few times a year. If you want more detailed information you’ll have to speak to someone else; I can’t tell you any more.’
Shortly afterwards, Fredrika ended the call with a request for a picture of Sofi. Moussa agreed that they could have one, but they would have to come and fetch it themselves. Fredrika organised that, then looked at the name she had written down. Sofi Khelifi. A sister who sometimes lived in Sweden, sometimes elsewhere.
She picked up her notebook and went to see Sebastian, who was talking to a colleague.
‘I’ll check it right away,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’
Fredrika followed him into his office, where he logged onto his computer and started a series of searches on Zakaria’s sister. Fredrika peered over his shoulder, but there were no matches. Sofi Khelifi didn’t exist. Or at least she wasn’t visible, and that said something about her that Fredrika didn’t like. It was difficult to make yourself invisible in a country like Sweden.
‘Could she be using a different name?’
‘That’s possible,’ Sebastian said. ‘Plus, you said her uncle indicated that she doesn’t live here all the time, which means that she could be based in another country covered by the Schengen Agreement and travel in and out of Sweden as often as she likes without coming to our attention.’
‘Can we put out a call for her?’
‘I’m not so sure about that; we don’t suspect her of any crime. But we could ask some of our partners if they know who she is.’ He swallowed and stared at the screen. ‘Although of course that means there’s a significant risk that we won’t get a response until it’s too late.’
Fredrika drew her jacket more tightly around her. Exhaustion had crept up on her, threatening to paralyse her. The investigation had no direction, it was spreading out like a fan. And now they were looking for someone who could be anywhere.
‘Is Eden back?’
‘No.’
Fredrika thought Alex had been right: they were putting their energy into the wrong aspects of this case. On the other hand, it seemed ridiculous to ignore the reasons behind the hijacking.
Alex. Where had he gone? She hadn’t heard from him for a long time.
‘We ought to speak to Zakaria as well,’ she said. ‘And his girlfriend. One of them must know where we can get hold of his sister, if we think it’s necessary.’
Sebastian didn’t move; he was lost in thought.
‘That’s up to Eden,’ he said.
So they waited for Eden to come back to the office.
The evening pressed down on Stockholm and Kungsholmen like an impenetrable lid. Fredrika gazed at all the committed souls, single-mindedly working away at the investigation. She liked what she saw; there was nothing frivolous or disorganised about Säpo. Everyone seemed to know their place, everyone fulfilled their role with something that looked like professional pride, at least on the surface. And there was something else: a warmth and a sense of community that she hadn’t seen in any other workplace. Not necessarily between staff and bosses, but between colleagues. Säpo also seemed to have made significant progress when it came to recruiting civilian personnel. Someone had mentioned that they used to have a trainee scheme, and Fredrika remembered seeing the adverts. She had considered applying for one of the posts, but had changed her mind. By that stage she had already been working for several years, and couldn’t face the idea of starting all over again from the beginning.
Sebastian excused himself to go to the toilet, and Fredrika thought about Zakaria’s uncle. Zakaria had a sister that no one on the investigating team had met, a sister who hadn’t come forward at any stage during the legal proceedings. She could of course have fallen out with her brother and therefore wished to distance herself from him, but Fredrika had the distinct feeling that there was another explanation for her silence.
Sebastian came back a few minutes later, accompanied by one of his analysts.
‘One of the numbers you suggested we should contact to check if Zakaria’s phone used to belong to someone else is an unregistered pay-as-you-go SIM card, and can’t be identified. Another belongs to a person whom we absolutely do not want to contact. But the third ought to work.’
Fredrika felt something that resembled gratitude. As far as Zakaria was concerned, the key issues were his phone and his sister. And now they were getting close to an answer to at least one of those issues.
47 19:55
On the floor where GD had his office, Säpo looked somewhat different. The walls were painted in a colour reminiscent of a private medical practice, and there was no open-plan office; everyone had a room of their own. Eden said hello to Henrik, the head of counter-espionage, when they met in the corridor outside GD’s door. He gave a start when he saw her, but smiled politely. Why the hell would he be stressed?
‘I guess you’re pretty busy today?’ he said.
‘Yes, we’re under a fair amount of pressure,’ Eden replied as she knocked on GD’s door.
She couldn’t get her head around Henrik or his boring job.
GD didn’t seem particularly pleased to see her.
‘I presume you’re here to discuss our response to the information we received at Rosenbad?’
Before she had time to say anything, he went on:
‘As I see it, we ought to consider contacting Karim Sassi by phone in order to make it clear that he’s not going to get away with his plan. The demands will not be met, nor will he get the chance to stage his spectacular finale by crashing the plane into the Capitol building in Washington, DC. We no longer have anything to gain by not confronting him.’
He hadn’t asked Eden to sit down, but she did so anyway.
‘That’s an interesting idea,’ she said. ‘But there’s a better option.’
‘Such as?’
‘We ask the co-pilot, Erik Recht, to take over the plane and land it.’
She had thought about it for a long time, and had reached the conclusion that they had no choice. The plane simply had to be brought down.
‘And we can be sure that this guy is on our side?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘What happens if he fails? That means Karim will know he’s been exposed. But then of course he’d realise that if we called him anyway.’
‘Exactly,’ Eden said. ‘It doesn’t seem to me that we’re risking any more by letting Erik try to take control of the plane than by confronting Karim.’
GD seemed to agree with her, but Eden could see that something else was bothering him. Something he didn’t want to share with her right now.
She shook off her unease. There was something else she wanted to discuss, but GD was still talking about the hijacking.
‘Do we think there’s a bomb on board?’
‘No. At least, I don’t believe there is, particularly now that we know Karim is involved. A bomb seems unnecessary if the pilot is on the side of the hijackers.’