by The Helicopter Heist- A Novel Based on True Events (retail) (epub)
It’s time for Palle Lindahl to prove that being able to open doors from his computer wasn’t just talk.
The riot squad leader is already striding back toward his van. Thurn glances at her watch. Why hasn’t the helicopter pilot called?
87
5:41 a.m.
Jack Kluger is breathing too quickly. He’s hyperventilating. And because his body isn’t getting enough oxygen, his hands are shaking. He’s been through this before. Many times. He knows he needs to calm down. He needs to breathe more deeply, draw air into his lungs.
But it’s impossible.
Nothing is happening. The green light from his watch is glowing fiercely on his wrist. Almost thirty minutes have now passed. Thirty minutes. Something must have happened. How long should he wait, how long should he just sit in position above the roof, waiting for them? Would it be better to just leave?
He has no way of communicating with the robbers inside.
What are they waiting for?
* * *
—
And right then, the fuel-warning light starts to blink. In the darkness inside the helicopter, the red light pulses with unrelenting arrogance. The countdown is serious now. The light’s blinking matches the pounding of the blood in Kluger’s temples. Beneath him, on the dark ground, the flashing blue lights of the police cars cast long, licking beams of light onto the cash depot, which lies heavy and calm. The building’s powerful brick walls and dimly lit windows give no indication of anything in particular going on inside.
In the bright glow of the light on the roof, Jack Kluger is at no risk of making a mistake. He gently tilts the helicopter forward a fraction and stares down at the ladder that is still sticking up through the broken window.
No movement, no shadows, nothing.
The roof is empty.
The red fuel-warning light illuminates his face. His blue eyes reflect the blue light from the police cars over by the gas station. It’s getting more and more crowded down there, new cars keep arriving all the time.
The helicopter pilot doesn’t notice that he’s sweating. He is no longer thinking about his breathing being too quick or too shallow.
* * *
—
Suddenly, something new happens down by the Statoil station. Kluger spots it out of the corner of his eye, and he turns the stick to the right so that the helicopter twists in the air. He sees the two riot vans arrive.
Having done small jobs for Balik in Södertälje for over a year now, Jack Kluger knows that riot vans are a bad sign. They’re full of the kind of police officers he remembers from Texas. People who aren’t afraid of firing a weapon, people who don’t care.
Again and again, Kluger stares toward the southern horizon. He expects to see the police helicopter approaching at any moment, and he makes up his mind: If it appears, it’s over. He’ll fly away.
But maybe that has to happen sooner.
They took off from Norrtälje with less than a full tank of fuel to avoid being overweight. He realizes now that that was a mistake. The indicator has been at the bottom for a minute or two now.
He swears loudly.
His breathing is quick.
One more minute, he thinks. Then I’m off.
88
5:39 a.m.
Jakob Walker is behind the wheel.
He’s sticking to forty miles an hour, he doesn’t dare go any faster through the dense forests of Värmdö. He also doesn’t want to admit how tired he is. They landed at two, managed to get a couple of hours’ sleep and then the call came in.
The car’s headlights cast a bluish glow onto the pines and spruce. They pass low, rocky outcrops and suddenly appearing fields. Jakob has driven between the station and the hangar hundreds of times before, but at night he’s always surprised by the many tight bends.
“Maybe we could go a bit faster?” says Larsson.
Jakob turns his head. He has never really got to know Conny Larsson. They’re too different. Larsson is a quiet, solitary man in his sixties, from the far north of the country, while Jakob was born and bred in Stockholm.
“Better to make it there in one piece than end up with an elk through the window,” he says.
As expected, Larsson doesn’t reply.
* * *
—
Last week, they had been stationed at the National Task Force base in Solna, taking the helicopter up into the air once an hour despite the fact that absolutely nothing was happening. Jakob has never done military service, but he imagines that his night in the army-like police department is as close as he’ll ever get. They had been given a quick briefing about the robbers’ plans the night before; how a helicopter would land on the roof of the Panaxia cash depot in Bromma and then, in all likelihood, be used again for the getaway.
The night had been an emotional roller coaster. The mood in the briefing room was tense, serious, and it had felt as though all the men with the powerful jawlines around him were preparing for war.
The task was, and still is, Jakob assumes, to obstruct or possibly pursue a Bell JetRanger helicopter. He knows the model well. The 206 was the first in the series, a type of helicopter originally developed for the Americans and then successfully marketed to the civilian population once the US Air Force changed its mind and decided not to order any.
Both the Swedish military and police had used the model, or variants of it, anyway. It was actually a JetRanger II in which Jakob had taken his helicopter pilot’s license. These days, they tended to fly the ordinary Airbus Eurocopter. To an outsider, the only visible difference was the encased fantail, Eurocoptor’s pride and joy, for which it held the global patent.
* * *
—
In the distance, they finally spot the lights illuminating the hangar at Myttinge, and Jakob steps on the accelerator for the last quarter mile. Conny Larsson sighs. What he means by that remains to be seen.
Last week, they had discussed the risk that the robbers might open fire and came to the conclusion that if they hovered above the robbers’ helicopter, only an idiot would risk bringing down a police chopper on top of himself.
And, as Jakob understands it, the robbers are far from idiots.
He pulls up by the fence in the darkness, a short walk from the entrance. They climb out into the dark night and move quickly toward the gate. With just a few yards to go, and Jakob already fumbling with the key for the padlock, Larsson shouts. A second later, Jakob spots the same thing.
On the other side of the fence, just outside the doors into the hangar, there are two square, black boxes with blinking red lights on top of them.
Bombs.
“Stop, for God’s sake!” Larsson shouts.
But Jakob is already still. “What the hell are those?”
The two on-duty pilots stare at the bombs. It feels so strange, to be in such a familiar place, radiating a sense of peaceful stillness, and to be staring at something straight out of an American action film.
“This was what they meant,” Larsson says as he slowly backs away from the fence.
“What?”
“It’s why we were moved to Solna last week. It’s a way of making sure we can’t get into the air. Those damn things are probably on a timer. They’ll go off any moment.”
The pilots continue backing up toward the car.
“What the hell do we do?”
89
5:43 a.m.
“Are you in the air?”
Thurn is standing next to the gas station with Dag Månsson and the G4S security chief, Palle Lindahl. The riot vans are making their way toward the cash depot. For the first time since she got into the car that morning, Thurn feels in control. In just a couple of minutes, the riot squad will storm the building and the helicopter from Myttinge will arrive to block the robbers’ getaway.
But that isn’t what Jakob Walker has to tell her.
“We’re not in the air, we’re still on the ground,” the pilot says into Thurn’s earpiece.
Thurn is listening, but she doesn’t understand. “Could you repeat that?”
“There are two bombs outside the doors into the hangar,” the helicopter pilot continues. “We don’t know how they’ve been constructed. We’re waiting by the gates until help arrives.”
“Bombs?” Thurn says. “Is it—”
“My colleague is just calling it in to Control,” Jakob interrupts, glancing at Larsson, who, sure enough, has the control center on the line. “They’ll have to send someone who knows how to handle this. We need to wait until the danger is over. If it happens quickly, maybe we can—”
Thurn rips the headphone from her ear and starts running. Straight over the grass toward the riot vans and the G4S depot. Her hands cut through the air like knives, her long legs pound the ground. She runs quickly.
She shouts out as the riot vans draw closer and closer to the building.
“Abort! The buildings might be booby-trapped!”
90
5:43 a.m.
Nordgren is climbing the longer of the two ladders, up toward the roof. He’s carrying a thick rope that loops back down to the balcony on the fifth floor. The first thing he sees when he steps out into the dark dawn is the sea of blinking blue lights on the ground below.
The second thing he sees is the helicopter hovering above him.
It feels like hours have passed since he was sitting in it.
He starts pulling on the rope. Maloof has hooked one of the full mailbags to it. Nordgren backs up, backs up, backs up. It’s not quite as heavy as he expected. When he stops to catch his breath, he turns around to check where he is.
He’s an inch from the edge of the roof.
No time to get scared or to think about that now.
With the mailbag acting as a counterweight, he moves back over to the broken window and quickly hauls it up the last part of the way.
Behind him, the helicopter lands.
* * *
—
While Maloof holds the ladder, Sami climbs up to the roof to help Nordgren with the bags. Maloof stays behind on the balcony on the fifth floor, fastening a couple of bags at a time to the rope, to make things go more quickly. He feels exposed on the tiny ledge. He knows that the police could storm the building at any moment, if they aren’t already inside. He’s visible from every floor below, and the ladder is his only escape route, making him an even easier target.
He glances at his watch.
The fifteen minutes they had planned have turned into thirty.
It can’t take any longer. He decides to leave the last few bags they still haven’t managed to haul up and starts climbing.
Up on the roof, Sami runs over to the helicopter to throw the money into the cabin. When he opens the door, he’s met by a furious pilot.
Jack Kluger is shouting loud enough to overpower the sound of the engine.
“You said fifteen minutes! Where the hell have you been? We’re out of juice!”
The fuel warning is still blinking away with its ominous red light.
91
5:44 a.m.
If the robbers had placed bombs outside the helicopter hangar in Myttinge, the chances of their having done the same at the cash depot in Västberga were high. And Caroline Thurn didn’t want to be responsible for ordering a police officer to open a door that then exploded in his or her face.
Shouting and gesturing wildly, she manages to get the riot squad to stop before they make it to the entrance. The enormous commanding officer climbs out of the first van. He’s wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet, and he is furious. He strides toward Thurn and stops dead right in front of her. He’s standing so close that he is actually looking down at her. The muscles in his neck are taut.
“It’s probably best if you back off,” he hisses. “We’re going in now.”
The sound of the helicopter hovering directly overhead is now so loud that they have to raise their voices.
“It might be booby-trapped!” Thurn shouts.
She imagines she can smell gasoline. It could be coming from anywhere: the helicopter, the riot vans, the gas station.
The heavily armed commanding officer looks suspicious, and then he turns to look at the entrance. One floor up, in the CCTV room, the guards are sitting in front of screens showing the same images that Palle Lindahl has on his laptop. Could they have missed someone planting bombs in the building?
“Booby-trapped?” the aggressive officer repeats, sounding like he doesn’t believe it. “I can’t see anything.”
“We have reason to believe so.”
“You do? Meaning we shouldn’t go in?” he asks, sounding incredibly disappointed.
“We need to make sure that—”
But before Thurn has time to finish her sentence, the sound of the helicopter becomes deafening, and a second later they see it lift off.
“They’re leaving!” Thurn shouts, feeling the panic rise. “They’re getting away.”
Two police officers carrying rocket launchers throw themselves out of the van. They run onto the grass, squat down with the weapons on their shoulders, and point them up at the helicopter.
The commanding officer stares at Thurn. “Give the order!” he hisses.
Thurn looks up at the helicopter.
“The order!” the riot squad leader barks. “Give me the order!”
Other than the robbers, she has no idea who is inside the helicopter. Is the pilot being forced, or is he complicit in the robbery? Do they have hostages on board?
“Give the order!” the officer screams at her. His face is red, a vein bulging on his neck.
Thurn stares at the two officers squatting down with their weapons ready. Then she looks up into the air and realizes it’s already too late, the helicopter has made it too far.
“Shit!” the officer shouts as he realizes the same thing, and he starts running back toward his vehicle, closely followed by the two men who had been on their knees on the grass.
“Follow them!” Thurn shouts to the riot squad leader, and she starts running in the opposite direction, back toward her car up by the Statoil station.
As she’s halfway there, her phone rings. She answers the call without slowing down.
“Caroline? Caroline?” Berggren shouts into her ear. “It’s me. Hertz got in touch. The military says they have two fighter jets in the air, roughly where you are.”
Thurn tries to gather her thoughts.
“The robbers just flew off,” she shouts. “I’ve got a riot van following them. Could you make sure I can keep in touch with the van, Mats? Fighter jets? How would they help?”
“I don’t know,” Berggren replies. “Could they shoot down the helicopter?”
Thurn has made it to the parking lot. Without knowing who is on board, she can’t even think about shooting down the helicopter. Could the answer be in Lindahl’s CCTV cameras? Did any of the cameras capture who went on board?
“Give me a minute,” she pants down the line.
“What should I say to the jets?”
“Tell them to stand by,” Thurn replies. “Stand by.”
She runs over to the police van, but before she manages to speak to Lindahl, Berggren calls back.
“Counterorders, Caroline,” he says.
“What does that mean?”
“Olsson found out about the fighter planes. It’s illegal.”
“What’s illegal?”
“The military’s not allowed to get involved in police activity. There’s a law…Olsson gave the counterorder. The planes have gone back to their original course.”
“Politicians,” Thorn says with a snort, but she feels a certain relief at not having to take responsibility for a Swedish combat fighter attacking a private helicopter within the capital’s airspace.
“Is the helicopter showing up on any radars?” she asks.
“Not even when it took off,” says Berggren. “The military’s looking. Us too. No one can see a thing.”
“They�
�re flying too low.”
“Exactly. They’re flying too low. But surely that means the riot squad should be able to see them from the highway?”
Thurn nods. Berggren is right. Since the robbers aren’t only choosing to fly low, but also have probably turned off all communication equipment, they’ll have no choice but to stick to well-lit roads for navigation. Thurn can see daylight approaching on the horizon, but it’s no more than a thin line against the dark sky. From her own experience, she knows that through the thick windowpanes of a helicopter, the world seems even darker.
“Let me talk to the riot squad,” she says to Berggren. “Patch me through. Maybe I can help them.”
92
5:35 a.m.
Tor Stenson yawns and runs his hand over his stubble.
The night shift was always long and boring. His had started at midnight, as usual, when the intensity of the newsroom is at its worst. Deliveries to the printers have begun, and the next day’s paper is starting to take shape. People run down corridors, phones ring, articles are added and taken away, and discussions about the front-page headlines, kickers and puff boxes reach frantic levels. Tor Stenson has nothing to do with any of that. He is one of the younger members of the staff, and is employed by one of the recruitment companies owned by the paper. There has been a freeze on any new reporters in the newsroom since 2001; its current employees enjoy job security, but things are different for the people hired by the recruitment company. Though Stenson’s work focuses on the Web—in the tabloid world, everyone under the age of thirty-five is an online guru—he never knows whether his job will exist from one month to the next.
Stenson always begins his shift by exchanging a few words with his colleagues on their way home. Is there any Hollywood gossip to follow up on? He goes through their competitor’s site. Do they have anything he’s missed? All around him, the newsroom empties out, and after an hour or so the rows of desks in the open-plan room fall quiet.