‘No.’
‘But now…’
‘Now we have a very strange situation, because, yes, if the Swedes release Khelifi, then theoretically we could achieve the impossible, and meet the hijackers’ demands at short notice. But the probability that the hijackers would accept that what we say is true is ridiculously low.’
‘So Sassi would crash the plane anyway?’
‘That’s our assessment of the situation, which is why we have decided not to release the information that Tennyson Cottage has been shut down.’
The sweat was pouring down Bruce’s back.
‘So what’s the alternative?’
Because surely we can’t shoot down the plane?
‘We land the plane.’
‘You land the plane?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘And who exactly do you mean by “we”?’ Bruce said.
‘By “we”, I mean one of our colleagues who happens to be on board Flight 573. His background means that he would be able to land the plane with a certain amount of support, if he can just take over the controls.’
Bruce couldn’t believe his ears.
‘You have a pilot on board?’ his boss said.
‘Yes. But he belongs to one of our secret units, which makes the whole thing a little delicate. And he’s travelling in a private capacity; he’s been visiting friends in Stockholm.’
‘Does he know what’s going on?’ Bruce asked.
‘Sassi has made an announcement to the passengers, saying that their arrival will be delayed by several hours because of problems on the ground in the USA. Apparently, he said something about communication issues at the airport, which was when our colleague pricked up his ears and contacted us to ask if we could check out the situation. Needless to say, we then told him what was happening.’
Crazy. This was a crazy story. From start to finish.
‘How did he contact you?’
‘He’s travelling first class, so he used the phone in the arm rest. He also has a mobile that works from time to time, though not very often.’
‘But why drag someone else into this? There’s a co-pilot sitting next to Captain Sassi; he’s perfectly capable of landing the plane, if he can just get Sassi out of the way, which shouldn’t be particularly difficult.’
‘That’s true, but how do we get in touch with the co-pilot without Sassi finding out what’s going on?’
The dark-haired man folded his arms.
‘We believe the best option is for our man on the plane to speak to one of the stewardesses and ask her to help him get into the cockpit, where he can quickly deal with Sassi.’
It slowly became clear to Bruce what kind of operative was sitting on that plane. One who was trained to ‘deal with’ other people without hesitation.
‘So he approaches a stewardess, shows her some kind of ID, then gives her whatever information is necessary to get her to make some excuse to go into the cockpit?’
‘Exactly. Because in this situation it is unlikely that Sassi will allow anyone apart from his crew through that door.’
Bruce understood the plan more clearly now, and thought it might well succeed.
‘What happens if there’s a bomb on board?’ his boss said.
‘There isn’t,’ the dark-haired man stated. ‘Not possible. The bomb threat was made purely to draw attention away from Sassi.’
‘When will your colleague act?’ Bruce said.
The man from the Pentagon looked at his watch.
‘We should be hearing from him at any minute.’
Bruce looked down at his hands.
Zakaria Khelifi might be released.
Tennyson Cottage had already been shut down.
And soon Flight 573 would be in the hands of the Pentagon.
As long as their operative managed to get into the cockpit.
50 STOCKHOLM, 20:10
They gathered around Fredrika Bergman’s desk. They had a name for Zakaria’s sister, but that was all. And the interview with Ellis, who had been convicted of terrorism offences and had named Zakaria as a collaborator, had lasted less than ten minutes. He wouldn’t say a word about why he had retracted his statement.
‘Who can help us?’ Eden said.
Her fingers beat an impatient tattoo against the hard surface of the desk, and Fredrika suppressed an urge to ask her to stop.
‘Have you spoken to the Germans yet?’ Sebastian asked.
‘I’ve got a meeting with them in fifteen minutes. They’ve been waiting for this for quite some time. I’d like you to come with me.’
‘Okay.’
‘I can speak to Zakaria’s girlfriend,’ Fredrika suggested, keen to find herself a job before Eden came up with something else. ‘About his sister.’
‘Indeed you can,’ Eden agreed. ‘But you’re not employed by the police any longer, so you need to take one of the investigating officers with you. We’re running out of time now, so if you could do that as soon as possible…’
They’d been running out of time all day; Fredrika didn’t understand why Eden had said ‘now’. The pressure had never eased.
‘Why is Ellis refusing to talk?’ Sebastian said to Eden.
‘You tell me.’
‘Could he have been threatened?’
‘If so, it must have happened while he was in isolation in the custody block, which suggests that the answer to your question is no.’
Sebastian stroked his beard.
‘In that case, it seems even more strange that he named Khelifi in the first place.’
‘He could have changed his mind without having been threatened,’ Eden said. ‘I’ve read through the transcripts; he didn’t hesitate for a second when he informed on Zakaria Khelifi.’
‘That’s exactly what I mean.’ Sebastian sounded frustrated. ‘None of us had any doubt that he was telling the truth. And he provided a lot of detail – names, events, times, again without any hesitation.’
Fredrika listened to their discussion, not knowing what to say. There could be hundreds of reasons why a person would wrongly accuse an acquaintance of being involved in a crime, but considerably fewer reasons why he would then retract such an accusation. A threat was of course a possibility, but in that case how had it been communicated to Ellis?
They would never know.
‘Have you told the Justice Department about the phone records?’ Eden asked.
‘Yes, and they were worried to say the least,’ Fredrika replied. ‘They said they’d call me within the hour.’
‘They’re intending to review the deportation order? Before we even know for sure whether he’s lying or telling the truth?’
‘I don’t think so, but if we don’t manage to establish the facts as far as the phone is concerned within the next few hours, they will probably feel compelled to give him the benefit of the doubt.’
Eden snorted.
‘And what if we find out tomorrow that it was his phone all along? Will they expect us to pick him up again? Because that’s not happening.’
Sebastian spoke up: ‘There’s a great deal we don’t know at the moment; let’s just take one thing at a time.’
The strain was showing on Eden’s face.
‘You could also say that we’re making too many assumptions, which isn’t helping us at all.’ She looked from Fredrika to Sebastian. ‘We think we might have misjudged Zakaria’s background, but we don’t know. We think the fact that he has a sister in Sweden could be important, but we don’t know why. We think yesterday’s bomb threats are highly significant in terms of what has happened since then, but we don’t know how. And we think that Karim Sassi is involved, but there are inconsistencies in the evidence that haven’t really been explained. Leaving that aside, we still have absolutely no idea why he’s doing what he’s doing.’
‘Plus, we don’t think there’s a bomb on board the plane, but we don’t know for sure,’ Sebastian added.
‘There you go, yet another thing.’
In fact, there were still more things they didn’t know – things that were too difficult to talk about. How were they going to bring down the plane? How were they going to rescue the passengers on Flight 573?