Jonas Bonnier - The Helicopter Heist - A Novel Based on True Events

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 drive 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.

“Right, right,” Maloof agreed. “Or… anything?”

“When I get home, it’ll take me five minutes to check,” Petrovic swore. “Five minutes.”

“Right, right. Five minutes.”

Maloof dropped off the tall Yugoslavian on Upplandsgatan. Petrovic nonchalantly crossed the street, trying to use his body language to show that he had the situation under control, but the minute the door swung shut behind him he ran up the stairs.

He found his Montenegrin phone on the desk in his office and called his uncle in Podgorica. He got straight to the point, setting out the situation for him.

It was his uncle’s responsibility to track down Filip Zivic, since it was through his contacts that the pilot had been signed up in the first place.

The uncle promised to look into it. When Petrovic said he needed answers that same evening, his uncle laughed and explained that it wasn’t going to happen. He was going to a soccer match and then planned to go out for a beer. It was Sunday.

Petrovic didn’t have the energy to argue. Instead, he made a few more calls to Montenegro, and by evening he had five different people trying to find out what had happened to Filip Zivic.

But no one he put on the job managed to get ahold of Zivic that night. Petrovic grew more and more anxious. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to.

He fell asleep around dawn and was woken by the sound of his Montenegrin phone ringing the next morning.

Without getting out of bed, he fumbled for his phone and answered without opening his eyes.

“Mmm?”

“He’s gone.”

It was his uncle on the line.

Petrovic sat up in bed. He was wide awake.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s gone. Filip’s missing. Him, his family, wife and boy, the lot of them are gone.”

Rage rose up inside him. He stared straight ahead, the blood pounding in his temples.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“Their place is empty. No one saw them leave. No one knows where they are. It’s a few weeks since anyone saw them.”

Zoran Petrovic threw the phone across the room. It broke into a thousand pieces against the radiator beneath the window. His shout woke the people living in the apartment above his.

It was five in the morning when Niklas Nordgren and Sami Farhan climbed out of the car Michel Maloof had parked on Malmskillnadsgatan, just around the corner from Mäster Samuelsgatan. They were only a stone’s throw from the absolute center of Stockholm, but it was so quiet that they could hear their own breathing.

Maloof hadn’t told Nordgren and Sami about the missing helicopter pilot yet. Petrovic had said there was still a chance he would turn up, and without definitive answers, Maloof didn’t want to worry the others.

The city center was deserted. Other than the odd summer temp, the office buildings around Sergels Torg would be empty all day. Sweden had slowly adapted to European practice, and August was now one long, drawn-out run-up to autumn. During summer, native Stockholmers fled the inner city; if you could afford to live in the center of town, you could also afford a summer house in the archipelago or one last charter holiday to Greece. Behind them, they left closed, dug-up streets that the authorities took the opportunity to repair when there was no one but German trailer campers, American cruise passengers and families with small children from the south of Sweden to annoy with the traffic jams and chaos. In a week’s time, normality would resume, the roadwork would end and the summer temps would be sent home, but so far the summer calm was still holding sway over the capital.