Hostage
Authors: Kristina Ohlsson
KRISTINA OHLSSON is a political scientist and, until recently, held the position of Counter-Terrorism Officer at OSCE. She has previously worked at the Swedish Security Service,
the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Swedish National Defence, where she was a junior expert on the Middle East conflict and the foreign policy of the European Union. Her debut novel,
Unwanted,
was published in Sweden in 2009 to terrific critical acclaim and all her novels have since been bestsellers. Kristina lives in Stockholm.
Also by Kristina Ohlsson
Unwanted
Silenced
The Disappeared
MARLAINE DELARGY has translated works by many writers, including John Ajvide Lindqvist, Åsa Larsson, Anne Holt, Michael Hjorth / Hans Rosenfeldt, and Johan Theorin, with
whom she won the CWA International Dagger in 2010.
First published in Sweden by Piratförlaget under the title
Paradisoffer,
2012
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2014
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Kristina Ohlsson, 2012. All rights reserved.
Published by arrangement with the Salomonsson Agency.
English translation copyright © Marlaine Delargy, 2014
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Kristina Ohlsson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
TPB ISBN: 978-1-47111-519-6
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47111-521-9
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon Cr0 4YY
One day earlier
MONDAY, 10 OCTOBER 2011
I
t is early evening as Flight 573 heads towards the USA. An endless network of runways stretches into the distance beyond the control tower where
Bruce Johnson is waiting for news. The room is silent, and he scarcely notices that he is holding his breath. They still don’t know if the plane will be given permission to land.
Bruce can see police cars and other emergency vehicles lined up next to one of the runways. A whole fleet of ambulances and fire engines. No one knows how this drama will end. Whether the whole
thing will go disastrously wrong. He can’t see the men from the armed-response unit, dressed all in black, but Bruce knows they are waiting in the darkness with their guns at the ready. A
thought passes through his mind:
We shoot the hostage. That’s rule number one.
He doesn’t know where that thought just came from. Shooting the hostage has never been a rule. No one in the FBI would ever think or act according to such a counter-productive principle.
Rule number one is that we never, under any circumstances, negotiate with terrorists.
And that applies right here and now. Their refusal to compromise has guided their actions ever since the plane took off from Arlanda airport just outside Stockholm, a city that Bruce has wanted
to visit for a long time. But he doesn’t really believe he will ever get there. Why would someone like him ever travel to Sweden?
The plane is a 1989 jumbo jet. It is carrying over four hundred passengers. Now it has run out of fuel, and the pilot is begging for permission to land.
Bruce isn’t sure what is going to happen next. He is still waiting for instructions from his boss. In Sweden, it must be almost eleven thirty at night. Bruce knows what a lack of sleep can
do to a person, and he is keeping that in mind. No doubt his colleagues in Stockholm are thinking along the same lines, but they have been left with no choice. During all the hours that have
passed, he has been in touch with the same group of people in Sweden; it has been too intense to bring in replacements. Someone mentioned something about the light in Sweden, the fact that the sun
is up for such a long time in the summer, and therefore, the Swedes sleep less, even when it is autumn, as it is now. Perhaps that’s true.
No other planes are using the airspace above the airport. All incoming flights have been diverted to other cities, and all outgoing fights have had to delay their departure times. The media have
been banned from the complex, but Bruce knows that they will be on-site: far away, beyond the perimeter fence, using telephoto lenses that enable them to see all the way to China, snapping one
blurred image after another.
The sound of the telephone ringing makes him jump. It’s his boss.
‘They’ve made a decision. It’s bad news.’
Bruce puts down the phone and reaches for another handset. He sits there, holding it in his hand for a few moments, before keying in the number he now knows by heart, then waits for Eden to pick
up.
The sentence has been passed – the plane will not reach its destination.
They have opted for the rule that did not exist.
The hostage will die.
MONDAY, 10 OCTOBER 2011
1
STOCKHOLM, 12:27
O
nce innocence was lost, it could never be regained.
He had thought this on countless occasions. As far as Sweden was concerned, it had begun with the assassination attempt on Drottninggatan right in the middle of the Christmas-shopping rush in
Stockholm. Sweden had its first suicide bomber, and the shock waves spread throughout the whole country. What next? Would Sweden become one of those countries whose citizens dared not venture out
for fear of terrorist attacks?
No one had been more worried than the Prime Minister.
‘How do we learn to live with this?’ he had asked over a glass of cognac late one night in Rosenbad, the government offices in the city centre.
There was no clear answer to that.
The consequences had been devastating. Not from a material point of view – physical things could be repaired. However, many emotional and moral values had been shattered. As the newly
appointed Minister for Justice, he had been astonished to see the shaken individuals demanding new laws in order to make society safer, and had treated them with caution. The government party that
opposed immigration capitalised on the situation and made one statement after another.
‘We have to take a firm approach on the issue of terrorism,’ the Foreign Secretary had said when the government met for the first time after the attack.
As if she was the only one who realised this.
They had all looked hopefully at the new Minister for Justice, who had taken up his post only weeks after the terrorist attack in Stockholm.
Muhammed Haddad.
Sometimes he wondered if they had known what was to come, and had handpicked him for the post. As an alibi. As the only person who could take necessary action without anyone being able to call
him a racist. Sweden’s first Muslim Minister for Justice. A newcomer to the party who had never met any opposition during his short career. Sometimes it sickened him. He knew that he was
given preferential treatment because of his ethnic and religious background. Not that he didn’t deserve his success. He had been a brilliant lawyer, and had realised at an early stage that he
wanted to devote himself to criminal law. His clients had dubbed him the miracle worker. He wasn’t satisfied with winning; he also demanded redress. He had been fifteen years old when he came
to Sweden; now he was forty-five and knew that he would never return to his homeland, the Lebanon.
His secretary knocked and stuck her head around the door.
‘Säpo called. They’ll be here in half an hour.’
He had been expecting the call. The Security Service, known as Säpo, wanted to discuss a high-security matter, and Muhammed had made it clear that he wished to take the meeting in person,
even though this was not common practice.
‘How many of them are coming?’
‘Three.’
‘And Eden Lundell?’
‘She’s coming too.’
Muhammed felt calmer. ‘Show them into the large conference room. Tell the others we’ll meet there five minutes beforehand.’
12:32
‘I
need to go soon. There’s a meeting I have to attend.’
Fredrika Bergman looked at her watch, then at her former boss, who was sitting opposite her.
Alex Recht shrugged.
‘No problem, we’ll have a longer catch-up some other time.’
She smiled at him warmly.
‘I’d really like that.’
One of the disadvantages of no longer working at Police HQ in Kungsholmen was the lack of decent places for lunch. At the moment, they were in a mediocre Asian restaurant on Drottninggatan.
Alex’s choice, not hers.
‘Next time, you can decide where we meet,’ Alex said, as if he could read her mind.
Which he could. Fredrika was rarely good at hiding her feelings.
‘There aren’t that many places to choose from.’
She pushed away her plate. The meeting was due to begin in half an hour, and she ought to be back fifteen minutes beforehand. She tried to interpret the silence that had descended over their
table. Perhaps they had already dealt with everything there was to say – straightforward matters that couldn’t possibly lead to unnecessarily painful discussions. They had talked about
Alex’s new job with the National Bureau of Investigation. About how much Fredrika was enjoying her temporary post with the Justice Department. About her year on maternity leave in New York
with her second child, Isak; Spencer, her husband, had been given a research post there.