Hostage (31 page)

‘You mean Zakaria?’

‘Yes. If he’s got nothing to hide, then why won’t he give us the name of the person who used to own the phone?’

‘Perhaps because he does have something to hide,’ Eden said; like everyone else, she had asked herself that question over and over again. ‘Or to protect someone. Or
both.’

GD got up and went over to the window. Eden wasn’t sure why; it wasn’t as he if he had a lovely view. He stood with his back to her for what felt like several minutes. Something was
bothering him. A lot.

Eden fiddled with a bunch of keys in her pocket. The keys to her house.

She wondered if Mikael was still angry. He probably was. He had never understood what was important in life. Or to be more accurate – what was most important.

Making a difference for other people, not just yourself and your family.

‘Do you know why I appointed you, Eden?’ GD said.

His voice was rough, as if anger was making his vocal cords contract. For some reason it made her feel nervous.

What was this all about?

‘Because you knew I was the best.’

GD turned to face her.

‘Partly. But mostly because you had a reputation for being loyal, and for having great integrity. Integrity and loyalty, that’s what I was looking for.’

Eden held her breath for a moment before she replied: ‘And that’s what you found, at the highest level.’

GD nodded slowly.

‘There you go then.’

Nothing else. Just ‘there you go then’.

Eden was almost angry. If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was game playing. What reason did GD have to question her loyalty?

Without stopping to think, she said, ‘If you have questions about my loyalty, let me say this: my loyalty lies exclusively with the assignment we are recruited to carry out. Not with
Säpo. Not with you. Not with the Americans, and not with the government. With the
assignment
. And if that doesn’t suit you, just say the word. I can be out of here in less than
ten minutes.’

It was true, and it had happened before – when she resigned from her first summer job in a nursing home, where the staff treated the elderly residents so badly that Eden would always be
afraid of growing old. And when she resigned from her summer job on a newspaper while she was a student. A newspaper where everything was about increasing circulation, whatever it took, sending
Eden out on stories so cheap that she was ashamed to call herself a human being.

And when she resigned from MI5. But that was the last thing she intended to discuss with GD.

She thought she could detect something resembling sorrow in his expression.

‘I definitely don’t want to lose you,’ he said. ‘I just want you to do your very best to resolve this hijacking.’

‘You have my word on that,’ she said. ‘I’ll be devoting all my time to doing my job. To the best of my ability.’

GD stroked his chin as he watched her turn to walk away.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then we’re in agreement.’

She hoped so, because she had been honest with him.

The assignment was the only important thing, and it took precedence over everything else. And that included freeing those who were innocent.

‘I want to question Ellis again,’ she said, turning back. ‘We have to find out why he retracted his statement identifying Zakaria as a collaborator.’

GD nodded in agreement. Ellis was easy to tackle; Karim was more difficult.

Eden was also thinking about Captain Sassi. How did you hold someone who was no longer on the ground accountable for their actions?

She had no answer to that question.

‘D
ad, it’s me.’

‘Sorry?’

Alex sounded annoyed.

Erik pressed the back of his hand to his forehead, praying that his father would be able to hear him.

‘It’s Erik,’ he said, trying to speak more clearly without raising his voice. ‘Dad, it’s Erik.’

It took a second, but then his father spoke.

‘Thank God.’

It was no more than a faint whisper.

‘Dad, are you there?’

‘I’m here. How are you?’

Fucked.

‘I’m fine. We all are. But I don’t know how long I can talk.’

‘I understand. Where are you?’

The question told Erik a great deal about what Alex already knew. He assumed that Erik wasn’t calling from the cockpit.

‘In first class.’

‘So Karim can’t hear you?’

Further confirmation that Erik had been right in his assessment of the situation.

Karim is flying us straight to our deaths.

‘No. Dad, I need some advice.’

‘I’m listening.’

I’m listening.

The words echoed through Erik’s mind. Had he ever turned to Alex for advice? He didn’t think so. Because Alex never listened, he just came up with solutions to problems that Erik
didn’t have. Because he easily –
so very easily
– resorted to bullying tactics.

Alex had never earned Erik’s trust.

Until now.

‘Are you tired, Erik?’

Erik dashed away the tears.

‘I can cope.’

I can I can I can.

He gathered his strength.

‘But we have a problem on board,’ he said. ‘Or several, it would appear. Karim isn’t himself. He’s been behaving oddly all day. I think . . .’

He felt sick, thought he might throw up.

‘I think he’s involved. I don’t know how or why, or in what way, and I know it sounds illogical, but I’m absolutely certain.’

The words were coming faster now; he couldn’t stop himself.

‘He insists on staying close to the US border and circling until we run out of fuel. If he isn’t granted permission to carry out an emergency landing, we’re going to crash into
the sea or be shot down by the Americans.’

Erik shuffled lower in his seat, hoping that the passengers weren’t following the conversation, that he wasn’t attracting too much attention.

‘He’s fucking crazy, Dad. He seems disorientated; he started babbling about Washington as our destination instead of New York.’

Alex raised his voice.

‘
Washington?
For fuck’s sake, Erik, did you say Washington?’

Erik had heard that level of fear in his father’s voice only once before. When his mother was entering the final phase of her illness, and a courageous doctor delivered the news to Alex,
Erik and his sister.

‘We’ve done all we can,’ the doctor had said. ‘We’ve tried everything possible, but that’s it. We’re not getting anywhere. Lena isn’t going to get
better; she probably won’t make it to Christmas.’

There was nothing Erik hated remembering more about his mother’s illness and death than that dreadful day. And his father’s voice haunted him night after night, long after it was all
over, long after the funeral.

‘
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.

T
he 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.