by The Helicopter Heist- A Novel Based on True Events (retail) (epub)
“We know that they are planning a robbery on a cash depot in Stockholm,” said Hertz. “Not a secure transport vehicle, not a courier, the depot itself. The original source was one of the people who would be carrying out the robbery. He’s considered entirely trustworthy, an experienced helicopter pilot from the civil war down there.”
“A helicopter pilot?” Berggren repeated, looking up from his notebook. “The robbers are going to fly helicopters?”
Berggren laughed as though he had told a joke, but he fell silent when he saw the prosecutor’s face.
“Yes,” Hertz said. “According to the information we have, the robbers are planning to fly a helicopter to a cash depot in the Stockholm area. The depot is apparently in a four-story building. They’re going to blow a hole in the roof. They’re also planning to sabotage and neutralize the police helicopter so that they can make their getaway undisturbed.”
The room was silent. Not even Caroline Thurn knew what to say. This kind of detailed information from a reliable source wasn’t something they often had access to.
Hertz smiled. He knew he had won a partial victory. He pushed his fringe to one side again.
“Which cash depots in Stockholm—” Berggren began, but he didn’t have time to finish his sentence before Hertz started speaking again.
The prosecutor knew how to ration information. He had more to reveal.
“Through our unique channels,” he continued, sounding more like he was talking to a large audience than two police officers, “we have also been able to confirm the informant’s information. As a result, we know that the robbery will take place on the fifteenth of September.”
“That’s just over three weeks away!” Berggren panted.
“Yes, correct. Slightly over three weeks. This information is fresh, but it also leaves us with time to prepare.”
“Incredible,” said Thurn.
She was willing to admit that this tip really could be described as sensational. But Hertz wasn’t done yet. He continued, amazing the officers further:
“We know that the helicopter the robbers will use to get to and from the cash depot is likely to be a Bell 206 JetRanger—”
“Surely it can’t be that hard to find one of those?” Thurn interrupted. “What do you think, Mats? There must be some kind of register of helicopters in Sweden?”
But before Berggren had time to reply, Hertz raised his voice a few notches to answer the question and finish off his monologue:
“The register won’t help. That type of helicopter is very common, and buying a helicopter for private use has never required any particular license. Plus, the helicopter they’re planning to use could just as easily have been brought over from one of our neighboring countries, or flown in from Germany. Because this robbery is big. We believe that there are already around twenty people involved in the preparations, and the haul is estimated to be at least ten million euros.”
Thurn and Berggren stared at the prosecutor.
“OK, that’s all.” Hertz nodded.
* * *
—
A new silence descended over the anonymous office of prosecutor Lars Hertz. Mats Berggren’s mouth was open. Thurn was grinning.
“You’re in luck, Lars,” she said.
“Yes. Or rather, what do you mean?”
“The chances of you succeeding in your first criminal case seem pretty good.”
She got up, and Berggren followed her lead.
“We know what the robbers are going to do,” she summed up. “We know when they’re going to do it. So all that’s left is to find out where they’re going to do it. There aren’t all that many options. How long have you been sitting on this information?”
“Since the evening before last,” Hertz replied. “The Serbian police approached us in Belgrade, but there was some delay after the ministers’ meeting.”
“We’ve lost several days?” asked Thurn.
“The Serbian police have been keeping the pressure on,” Hertz reassured her.
“And our Swedish suspect?” said Berggren. “You said the Serbs had been listening to a Swede?”
“Correct,” Hertz confirmed.
“Do we have a name?” asked Thurn.
“Zoran Petrovic. He’s the one who will carry out the robbery,” Prosecutor Lars Hertz replied.
“We’ll have eyes on Petrovic within the hour,” Thurn said, speaking clearly as she stood in front of the prosecutor’s huge desk. “Twenty-four seven. I’d like to bug him too. I want to be able to hear everything he says. I want microphones in his car, wherever he works, in his bedroom. Do you understand, Lars? I want to know who he’s calling, where his mother is from, who he went to school with. Everything. OK, Lars?”
Lars Hertz nodded. He understood. What he didn’t mention was that he had already requested the relevant background information, but that Zoran Petrovic wasn’t in the police crime database, or in any other register. He didn’t say that. He was keen for their first meeting to end on a positive note.
“I’ll sort it out,” he said. “You can have everything I’ve got.”
29
Michel Maloof pulled over to the side of the road and, from his seat behind the wheel, watched the disturbance unfolding on the southern edge of Kungsträdgården.
Sami ran straight across the road. Cars slammed on their brakes, sounded their horns, people raised their fists. But the boxer saw none of this, he was running as though his life were at stake.
Sitting at a table outside one of the park’s busy cafés was Hassan Kaya, the Turk who had conned Sami out of his money in the shellfish business. The man who had gone underground without a trace. He was here. In the flesh.
Sami wasn’t thinking, couldn’t think; how many nights had he dreamed about finding Hassan Kaya? And finally, here he was.
“YOU BASTARD!” he shouted, running straight toward him with his fists clenched and his eyes black with hate.
As he reached the line of tables closest to the road, Kaya finally realized what was happening. He stared in terror at the furious, sprinting Sami Farhan, and got to his feet with a start. The table he had been sitting at tipped and fell, his plate of food shattering on the gravel, and then Kaya fled, as fast as he could, knocking over several other tables on the way. He ran toward Hamngatan, away from the danger.
Sami’s bulky frame plowed its way between the tables. Rather than taking a detour on the paved footpath where he would have had no trouble running past the office workers, he transformed into a homing missile. He shoved tables to the side, pushed people who got up to protest out of the way. It was like watching a huge combine harvester make its way across an unplowed field, leaving a path of overturned tables and chairs, crying children and confused diners in his wake.
Kaya ran faster than his heavy old body could really manage.
“Stop, you bastard!” Sami shouted.
But his words only made the Turk change gear. He turned right, around the corner of the café with the outdoor seating area, and crossed the road.
Maloof was still waiting by the sidewalk with his engine running. Kaya came charging past. He was only five, six yards away, and if Maloof had wanted to, he could have put the car into gear and rammed straight into the Turk.
But that was the last thing he wanted.
No.
After weeks of searching, he had finally found the police helicopter. Drawing attention to himself was the last thing he needed. And Sami should be thinking the same thing. But as Maloof saw the furious boxer come running after the Turk, who had continued down Arsenalsgatan, he realized it wasn’t consideration controlling the big man’s movements.
* * *
—
Hassan Kaya had reached the entrance to Kungsträdgården subway station, and Sami was hot on his heels. He had realized that the Turk was getting tired. That the burst of explosive energy awoken by his fear had been used up.
Sami was gaining on him.
Inside the subway station,
there were a number of short escalators down to the ticket hall. Kaya took the stairs to the right instead, and then leaped over the high ticket barrier. He almost managed to clear it, but one of his feet got caught, and he stumbled and fell to the floor on the other side. He scrambled back up and hurried toward the escalators down to the platforms. It was clear that his strength was failing him.
That gave Sami a renewed burst of energy. The station was the last stop on the blue line, and in the middle of the day it was practically deserted. Sami had time to use his card to get through the barriers, and then he continued to run.
Now, you bastard.
Kaya had already reached the escalators, but if there was one thing Sami was good at, it was running down stairs. Kungsträdgården was the city’s deepest metro station, almost one hundred feet belowground, and the escalators were endlessly long and steep. Sami felt his confidence grow. The prawn bastard was screwed. Sami ran as though he were a bull and Kaya his red flag, and the distance between them grew smaller.
To Sami’s surprise, Kaya passed the first set of escalators and continued toward the one farthest away. He was so close now that Sami could almost touch him.
Kaya awkwardly reached the top of the escalator. Along the far wall, which was made of red mesh, there were a number of advertising boards, and Kaya desperately tore one of them loose, a poster encouraging people to drink juice.
Sami couldn’t work out what the Turk was playing at. He didn’t care. He lunged at him just as Kaya threw himself forward, the sign beneath him like some kind of sled, and started to slide downward on the metal surface between the escalators. Not even the ridges, which stuck up at regular intervals, could stop him; they made distinct clicking sounds as he passed, but the Turk quickly gained speed.
“What the hell…?”
Sami rushed down the escalator without letting the Turk out of his sight. The metal sled picked up speed as though it had been shot from a catapult. Kaya flew toward the platform. Soon enough, there would be no way for the Turk to slow down. He was going too fast.
“Shit,” Sami swore, not knowing exactly what he meant. “Shit!”
His legs pumped away like two sewing machine needles as he raced down the escalator.
“Shit!”
And below him, at the very bottom, Kaya disappeared from view.
Had Sami lost him again?
* * *
—
But when he made it down to the empty platform a minute or two later, he found Hassan Kaya in a bloody heap on the concrete floor. He was several yards away from the escalator, beneath a replica of an ancient Greek statue. There was no sign of the metal sled, which spoke volumes about the journey through the air that must have ended his ride.
Sami stopped. Glanced around. There was no one else about. Slowly, he walked forward, squatted down and carefully turned over the Turk.
“I don’t have it,” Kaya mumbled.
Those were his first words. His face was covered in blood, his eyes closed. When he opened his mouth, blood trickled down his chin.
“You lost five, but I lost ten mill,” he groaned. “The fucking captain bought his fucking freezers and then vanished. He screwed us all.”
The Turk’s voice grew fainter and fainter. Sami leaned in so that he could hear his final words, which came out as a faint whisper.
“I didn’t dare…I thought you’d kill me…I’m sorry…”
And then he lost consciousness.
* * *
—
As Sami took the escalator back upstairs, he could still see Kaya’s chest rising and falling. He would live.
Up on Kungsträdgården, Maloof was waiting in the car. Sami jumped in.
“And that was really necessary, was it?” Maloof asked. “Today, of all days?”
30
“You look worried,” Zoran Petrovic said mockingly.
Michel Maloof’s smile was as wide as usual, but Petrovic had detected a rare flash of uncertainty in the eye of his short friend.
“Right, right,” Maloof replied, quickly running his hand over his beard. “No…it’s just…don’t worry. Course we’re going to do this. And your pilot…”
“Zivic.”
“Zivic. He’s good. Right?”
Petrovic smiled.
They were standing next to the launchpad at the helicopter hangar in Roslagen, just south of Norrtälje. Maloof hadn’t told Petrovic about Sami and the way he chased Hassan Kaya. The impulsivity of it still bothered him; it wasn’t something Petrovic needed to know.
It was a beautiful Sunday. The breeze was making the waters of Lake Limmaren glitter temptingly, the sky was pale blue and the bank of white clouds was keeping to a reasonable distance, far out over the Baltic. Still, the difference between today and when they had last been there at night, with Manne Lagerström, was smaller than you might imagine. There was an entire summer between the two occasions, but there was still a beauty and tranquility to the place.
As long as you stood with your back to the industrial area on the other side of the road.
“We could fly over to a couple of my friends on Blidö,” Petrovic suggested. “I know a guy who owns a mink farm on the island. I think he’s started with polecats too. Makes forty thousand an animal. I helped him take the first pair over there. Long time ago now. We hid them in the rubber hoses we used when we built the wet rooms for that area in Nacka, you know? They can be thin as worms, mink. Polecats too, I guess.”
Maloof nodded, and Petrovic got lost in a long story about what had happened when the load of building materials had crossed the border between the Soviet Union and Finland and one of the animals had started squealing. Without listening too closely, Maloof flashed an extra-wide smile whenever it seemed appropriate.
* * *
—
A certain amount of activity was going on in front of them. After a few blustery weeks in early August, the meteorologists had finally been able to promise a calm, beautiful weekend. Several of the owners of the private helicopters parked in the hangar had taken that as an opportunity to finally get up in the air after a long summer break.
Petrovic and Maloof had made sure they weren’t in the way. They were standing a few yards away from the opening in the hangar, at the edge of the woods, watching the simple tractor reversing the huge flying machines out of the hangar. The helicopters looked like angry bees, their antennae drooping toward the ground.
“Toys for people who already have everything,” said Petrovic.
“Right, right,” Maloof agreed.
“I’d rather buy a Bentley, you know?”
“Right.” Maloof nodded, though he had absolutely no interest in cars.
Michel Maloof had never been in a helicopter before, and he had figured that he needed to get up in the air at least once before the big day. How big was the inside of a helicopter? What was the storage space like? Navigating at night didn’t seem to be a problem, but with the normal communications systems shut off to reduce the risk of being spotted on radar, how well would an ordinary GPS system work up in the air?
Maloof wasn’t the only one who had thought that the day’s trip was necessary. Filip Zivic, the Serbian combat pilot Petrovic had already paid, had also insisted that they carry out a few test flights over the summer. There was nothing strange about that. Every aircraft had its quirks, Zivic had explained, and both Maloof and Petrovic had appreciated what they saw as dedication and diligence on the part of the pilot.
Petrovic had contacted Manne, who promised they would be able to borrow the white helicopter for a few hours without any trouble. Manne could write the usual pilot’s name in the logbook, and, if anyone asked—which was unlikely—he could just say he had made a mistake. That kind of thing had happened before.
Maloof was also looking forward to meeting the pilot and looking him straight in the eye. This job would succeed or fail on the helicopter pilot’s skill, and that was why Maloof had been eager.
“If you can dri
ve ninety miles an hour under the bridges in Croatia, and I mean under the bridges, I promise you can also land a helicopter on a roof in Västberga,” Petrovic had said.
“Right, right,” Maloof had replied. “But…no…you don’t actually know that?”
He glanced at his watch.
“It’s twenty past two.”
He gave a quick laugh, almost like he was apologizing for pointing it out, but then he scratched his beard nervously.
“It is strange,” Petrovic admitted. “When we met in Montenegro, he came dead on time.”
“OK,” said Maloof.
“I’ll call and check.”
Petrovic had saved Zivic’s number under “P” for “Pilot” in his phone. But it didn’t ring, Zivic’s phone was switched off.
Petrovic hadn’t just bought the plane ticket to Sweden, he had also arranged a room for Zivic at the August Strindberg Hotel on Tegnérgatan. Petrovic knew the night porter, and in exchange for certain services he could have one of the rooms for free whenever he wanted.
He called the hotel.
“What was the name?” the receptionist asked.
“Filip Zivic,” Petrovic replied, speaking excessively clearly. “He checked in yesterday, late afternoon.”
There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the line, and then the receptionist’s voice returned.
“I’m sorry, but that particular guest never checked in.”
“What?”
Petrovic instinctively turned away from Maloof to hide his reaction.
“I can see that we were expecting a guest by that name,” the receptionist continued, “but no one named Zivic ever checked in. I…don’t know any more.”
* * *
—
Michel Maloof didn’t get his helicopter ride that afternoon.
Instead, the two men returned to Stockholm in the Seat. On the way Zoran Petrovic came up with at least a dozen reasonable explanations as to what might have happened. Maybe Filip Zivic was ill. A stomach bug from the food on the plane from Croatia, one so bad that he couldn’t even make it out of bed to call and cancel their meeting. Or maybe something had happened on the way to the airport in Dubrovnik. Petrovic had booked a plane from there because he wanted a direct flight. He might’ve been ambushed on the way, struck down and robbed of his phone, passport and money. He could be lying in a rock crevice somewhere along the Croatian coast, with no way of getting in touch.