‘I refuse to accept this. You can’t just stand there and tell me she’s going to die and I’ll be left alone. Do something. Anything. Do something!’
But the doctor had merely shaken his head and Alex had yelled and yelled and Erik’s sister had cried and cried and in the end everything was so fucking unbearable that Erik had just wanted the ground to swallow them up so that they could all die together.
That was several years ago, and this time Alex didn’t need any help in order to pull himself together.
‘Erik, I’ll be brief,’ he said. ‘We’ve come to the same conclusion as you. I can’t tell you exactly how we got there; that wouldn’t alter your situation. The fact that you’ve mentioned Washington is an ominous sign. We’re extremely worried about Karim’s involvement and what he might do. Has he said anything about the bomb that’s supposed to be on board?’
Erik really wanted to hear more about the Washington angle, but there was no time for questions.
‘Several times. He seems to be completely convinced that there’s a bomb in the hold, but I find that very strange. It’s virtually impossible, given the security measures that apply to transatlantic flights, and Karim knows that as well as I do. And yet he still refuses to go against the hijackers’ instructions.’
‘We have reason to believe that Karim is not going to change his mind on that point,’ Alex said. ‘We think he’s going to do exactly what the note told him to do.’ Alex fell silent, then went on: ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’
He didn’t need to say any more. Alex and his colleagues knew things that Erik could only guess at, but the key point was that they had reached the same conclusion: Karim was a danger to himself and his passengers.
‘I don’t believe there is a bomb,’ Erik heard himself saying. ‘I think we could land the plane.’
‘But Karim’s not going to do that,’ Alex said. ‘You do understand that, don’t you?’
Erik understood everything and nothing. Almost.
‘What’s the problem with Washington?’
The line crackled and Erik straightened up.
‘Dad?’
‘I’m here, Erik. We don’t have time to go into that right now.’
‘But . . .’
‘We don’t have time,’ Alex repeated. ‘You have to take over the plane. Right away. Do you hear me?’
‘I hear you. And that’s exactly what I was intending to do.’
‘Karim’s bigger than you.’
‘I’ll sort it, no problem.’
‘Don’t hesitate, just do what you have to do. And remember, you’ll only get one chance.’
Erik nodded without speaking.
‘Can you land the plane?’
‘Of course. That’s why I’m on board, after all.’
Erik thought his father was smiling.
‘I know, I just wanted to hear you say it.’
Then their time was up. Erik had to go back to the cockpit. Overpower Karim and take control of the plane.
I’ll hit the bastard over the head with a bottle of wine.
‘I’ll speak to you soon,’ he said.
‘Good,’ Alex replied.
Erik put down the phone. If this was their last conversation ever, they would both regret the abrupt ending.
Erik left his seat; he went back to Lydia in the bar and asked her for a bottle of wine in a plastic bag. She looked somewhat taken aback, but didn’t ask any questions. Erik strode up the stairs to the upper floor and the cockpit.
When he reached the door, he waited for a moment before pressing the button to request admission. This was it.
Time to put an end to the nightmare.
49
WASHINGTON, DC, 13:55
The plane would be shot down and history would be made. Bruce Johnson wasn’t surprised when the news reached him from the CIA. Karim Sassi couldn’t be persuaded – he was not prepared to move away from the US border, and he had no intention of landing anywhere other than the United States.
What the hell was wrong with the guy?
It wasn’t that Bruce lacked ideals. There were many things he held sacred; the love he felt for his family and his country were two examples. God help anyone who came near those he held dear with the intention of harming them. The very thought made him shudder. There was no weapon on this earth he wouldn’t use against the enemy who threatened those he loved.
But this. The way Karim and others like him behaved. Taking innocent people hostage, or sacrificing them in acts of violence in an attempt to change the politics or core values of another country. Killing people they had never even met, people they couldn’t possibly have a grudge against. He just didn’t understand it. And he really had tried hard, for a long time.
When Bruce was a child, his father had taught him that you should always try to meet the other person halfway if you had a problem.
‘It’s never one person’s fault if two people are quarrelling,’ he had said.
That expression had become one of the tenets that had shaped Bruce as a man and a person. His mother, a devoted churchgoer, had added the lesson of turning the other cheek. At university Bruce had written essays criticising the Americans’ unilateral attitude to the rest of the world, and the USA’s inability to co-ordinate its foreign policy with anyone else’s. Back then he had thought the USA shouldn’t attempt to police the world, either on its own initiative or that of others. Instead, the USA should turn to the United Nations and seek broader international support for its policies. It was important to understand the value of establishing a firm basis for one’s actions, Bruce had argued. Otherwise there was a risk that policies could become counter-productive, endangering US security instead of strengthening it.
On 10 September 2001, Bruce celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday with his family and his girlfriend. They had dinner at Bruce’s favourite pizzeria, then went bowling. The next morning, he went out for a run. It was eight thirty when he set off for the university, where he was in the first year of his doctorate.
It was a day that changed him forever.
The planes that crashed straight into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon destroyed so much of everything he had believed in that he was no longer the same person when he went to bed that night. The following year he had left university and got a post with the FBI. He was no longer able to motivate himself to write meaningless assignments on US security policy. He wanted to make a difference, for himself and for others.
‘Why don’t you join the army?’ his grandfather had said.
Bruce hadn’t wasted any time thinking about that suggestion. He wasn’t the kind of man who took up arms.
And that, it turned out, was one of the major differences between him and many of his friends and colleagues. Bruce wasn’t the only one who had changed after 9/11. Loud voices screamed for revenge.
In Afghanistan.
In Iraq.
In every fucking corner of the world where they thought a terrorist might be hiding, or be hidden by someone else.
The pendulum swung the other way for Bruce. This wasn’t how he had thought things would be. There had to be another way to make the world safe, other than letting the blood flow in the narrow channel of the River Tigris.
Or maybe not.
Another plane was on its way to the USA. Flight 573. With Karim Sassi in charge. A man with a secret mission: to crash the plane into the Capitol building, once again using violence against American pride and self-esteem.
No fucking way was it going to to happen again.
But to shoot down a jumbo jet with over four hundred passengers on board . . . What would they say to the relatives?
‘Sorry, but we had no choice.’
Was that true? Wasn’t there always a choice?
Bruce went through the notes he had made during the course of a working day that already felt long, even though it was still early afternoon. He had been in touch with Säpo in Stockholm and spoken to Ed
en Lundell. Bruce found it incomprehensible that someone like her could have been appointed head of counter-terrorism in Sweden, but what did he know? Perhaps the Brits hadn’t had the sense to inform their Swedish colleagues about what kind of monster they had taken on.
However, she had had valuable information to pass on to Bruce. Valuable and interesting.
Karim Sassi was not a Muslim.
And there may well be elements that needed to be cleared up in the case of Zakaria Khelifi.
What did the fact that Sassi was not a Muslim actually mean? Everything and nothing. Bruce was one of those who was very clear about the fact that being a Muslim was not synonymous with being a terrorist, and that there were also many terrorists who were not Muslims. But in that case, what was Karim’s interest in Zakaria Khelifi and Tennyson Cottage? He could of course be a particularly committed citizen who had lost his way due to his convictions and was now in the middle of a horrific crime, but there wasn’t much in Karim’s background to suggest that this was a likely scenario.
Bruce picked up a photograph of Sassi. Dark, broad-shouldered, looking straight into the camera with a dazzling smile; he had the same air of assurance, the same certainty of victory as an American football player.
Who are you? Bruce thought. Who are you, and why are you doing this?
His boss interrupted his thoughts with a knock on the door.
‘We have visitors from the Pentagon who would like to speak to us.’
Bruce put down the photograph and followed his boss along the corridor to a Spartan conference room where their visitors were waiting. Two men, one dark-haired and one fair-haired, who introduced themselves with their surname and rank. Bruce didn’t bother trying to remember them. He didn’t really have time for this, and hoped it wouldn’t take long.
And his prayers were answered.
‘We’ve come to talk about Tennyson Cottage,’ said the dark-haired man.
‘We know the CIA have already been here for the same reason,’ his colleague went on, ‘but we have fresh information that we think you should be aware of.’
‘It’s not really fresh information,’ the dark-haired man said. ‘But it is sensitive, and when the CIA came here a few hours ago, we hadn’t decided whether it could be passed on to you.’
‘And now we’ve made up our minds.’
Bruce looked from one to the other, thinking that the whole thing was a joke. If they kept on taking it in turns to speak, there was no way he could take them seriously.
‘What is this information you’ve kept from us?’ Bruce’s boss said, sounding furious.
‘We haven’t kept it from you,’ the dark-haired man said. ‘We’ve simply been cautious with it.’
Bruce linked his hands on the table in order to keep them still.
‘Whatever,’ said his boss.
The fair-haired man looked annoyed, but said nothing. His colleague continued:
‘I don’t know how much the CIA told you about what goes on at Tennyson Cottage. As I said, it’s a sensitive issue, even if everyone knows we have detention facilities in Afghanistan.’
Yes, Bruce thought. Indeed they do.
‘After the second of May everything became even more sensitive, as I’m sure you realise. We evacuated and cleared a number of our facilities. Tennyson Cottage was one of the places we decided to shut down.’
Bruce blinked.
The fair-haired man smiled at his surprise.
‘Pardon me for interrupting,’ Bruce said. ‘But are you sitting here telling us that Tennyson Cottage has been shut down since the second of May?’
The day Osama bin Laden was shot dead by American special forces in Pakistan.
‘That’s right. So you could say that whoever has hijacked Flight 573 doesn’t exactly have up-to-date information.’
Bruce tried to grasp the significance of what the man from the Pentagon was saying. Then something else occurred to him.
‘It’s possible that the Swedes might release Zakaria Khelifi; there is some suggestion that they might have made errors in the investigation that led to the government’s decision to deport him.’
The dark-haired man was picking at a cuticle.
‘So we heard.’
‘And now you tell us that Tennyson Cottage is already closed? That means everything is sorted – both the hijackers’ demands have been met!’
Bruce’s boss cleared his throat.
‘It’s not quite that simple,’ he said.
‘You mean we’d rather shoot down a plane with American citizens on board than reveal that Tennyson Cottage has been shut down?’
‘He means we can’t just announce that Tennyson Cottage no longer exists,’ the dark-haired man said. ‘Above all, we can’t negotiate with terrorists. Just imagine what a precedent that would set. Hijackers would be lining up to get their demands met.’
Bruce just had to protest.
‘But there’ll be an inquiry. This will never blow over. People will keep on asking questions about why it was necessary to sacrifice so many lives rather than negotiate with terrorists.’
The dark-haired man gazed wearily at Bruce.
‘Surely you don’t think we intend to shoot down the plane if there’s an alternative? Of course there will be questions afterwards, and then we’ll be able to put all our cards on the table. Imagine how incredibly calculating we will appear. In a positive way. The message will be very clear: forget about using violence to change the world, because it won’t work. Besides, we have fresh intelligence to take into consideration.’
‘Fresh intelligence? From whom?’ Bruce’s boss wanted to know.
Bruce himself sat in silence, trying to take in what the guy from the Pentagon had said. They would appear calculating. In a positive way. Was he serious?
‘From the same source as before. The Swedes will be informed as soon as they decide to hold a meeting with their German colleagues.’
‘And what is this new intelligence?’ Bruce said.
‘The Germans have received another email stating that Karim Sassi’s mission does not depend on whether or not the hijackers’ demands are met. He is going to crash the plane into the Capitol building regardless of whether they get what they want.’
It couldn’t be true. There was no logic in what Bruce had just heard, none at all.
The fair-haired man clarified: ‘Think about what’s happened today. A jumbo jet takes off from Stockholm, heading for New York. During the time it will take the plane to use up the fuel it has on board, two governments are faced with two equally impossible tasks. Even if we were to agree to their demands, we would never have time to action that agreement in the time available. The Swedes might manage it, but there is no way we could do it.’
‘So we were never meant to succeed?’
The dark-haired man shook his head, his expression grim.
‘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 coul
dn’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.’
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