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

Soon, he’ll be able to look her in the eye without having to worry that she can see straight through his pupils and into his soul, finding him out. Over the past few weeks, he was worried she would be working tonight, that for some reason he would bump into her in Västberga in the middle of it all. But a week or so ago, he learned that Alexandra’s night shifts didn’t start until Thursday, meaning she would be at home in Hammarby Sjöstad tomorrow morning. That was an enormous relief.

Soon, everything will be different.

Soon, he won’t have to lie to her about what he’s doing anymore. Never telling her what he did won’t be a problem for him; it’s the basis for every relationship Maloof has ever had.

He sinks into daydreams and mentally ticks off the list of things that could go wrong tonight and tomorrow morning. There are so many that he no longer has the energy to care. He hears Sami talking about his “plan F” and smiles. When reality gets its teeth into their plans—as it always does—it’s the ability to improvise that separates the pros from the amateurs. That’s why he’s working with Sami Farhan and Niklas Nordgren: they both know how to improvise.

All three set up filters earlier that week. Went underground. Nordgren calls it “ducking.” A week or so before a big job, you vanish from the radar. Then you find somewhere to lie low, alone, for a few days.

It’s not just because of the police, it’s also because of their own families and friends. If no one knows where they are, no one can give them away or accidentally reveal anything important.

Maloof sighs. It’s as much a sigh of satisfaction as it is of fear. He hates these last few hours of passive waiting ahead of a job. During the planning phase, he’s always calm and methodical. He makes lists in his head and ticks off the points one by one. And once things get started, it’s as though he transforms. With a mask covering his face, it’s like he rediscovers his true identity. His senses are heightened, he breathes more calmly and thinks more clearly.

But this period of limbo between planning and action is unbearable.

He throws his phone onto a cloth on top of the dishwasher, tips the last of the cold coffee out of the pot and refills it with water to brew a fresh batch.

Petrovic isn’t coming until one. Maloof smiles at the thought of his tall friend and the way he made the Swedish police think the robbery would be taking place on the fifteenth.

Petrovic enjoyed doing that, and he spoke extensively about how he did it. He said it’s hints that are reliable, not loud statements.

And he was right.

10:50 p.m.

The old man in the hat walking northward toward Karusellplan in Västberga could, without doubt, have lived in one of the three-story buildings in the area, and though it was approaching eleven at night, he wasn’t drawing any attention to himself.

Nor had he done so earlier that day, when he spent just over an hour tending to his car at the gas station overlooking the G4S cash depot. Or when he sat down on the grass behind the depot reading a book in the still-warm sunshine. He just looked like an old man taking care of his old car, someone who liked to read old books.

He turns off into the Västberga industrial park, a place people don’t tend to go for a late-night stroll.

He isn’t worried about being seen. He isn’t doing anything illegal, he has no criminal record, and tomorrow morning he’ll head back to Åkersberga, where he lives.

In his jacket pocket, he has two cell phones. One of them is his, and the other has been loaned to him. Only one number has been saved in that phone, and his job is to call it and report on the situation.

If he sees anything out of the ordinary.

Police officers out on patrol, guards that don’t seem to belong in the area. Or any unusual activity around the building itself.

He’s even meant to call if everything seems fine.

Just to report that.

11:05 p.m.

The phone rings.

Though he has been waiting for the call, the sound still surprises Sami. He jumps up from the sofa and runs into the kitchen. He has four phones, lined up in a perfect row on the table, each loaded with a brand-new SIM card. The vibration from the ringing phone makes the others tremble in anticipation. He had programmed the numbers he would need that night and early morning the previous Sunday.

TEAM 1, he reads on the screen. That’s how he’s labeled them, with different numbers, and that’s what he’s planning on calling them. Nordgren had pointed out that a “team” needs more than one member. Sami explained that this isn’t some grammar exercise.

He picks up the phone and answers.

“Still quiet,” says Team 1.

“Good.”

That’s all.

The afternoon has been a long one. It felt endless. Sami Farhan has been in the apartment on Kocksgatan in Södermalm for three days now, two floors up, facing the courtyard. This is where he has been lying low ever since driving back from Hamburg.

He hasn’t been out during the day. Instead, he has watched TV, slept and eaten. His sister had left food for him in the fridge and the freezer; the apartment belongs to one of her friends, currently traveling around Asia. The friend has no idea that her place is currently being used by a robber who, for the past few days, has turned his sleeping patterns on their head in order to be able to perform at his best during a night that has been six months in the planning.

Three days have passed since Sami went underground and vanished from the police and his friends’ radars, heading for Arlanda. He hasn’t spoken to Karin since, he hasn’t been in touch with his mother, Michel Maloof or Niklas Nordgren; he hadn’t touched a cell phone in a week.

Throughout his thirty-year life, Sami has involuntarily had plenty of experience of loneliness and inactivity, both in custody and in prison. But lying low means that the boredom is self-inflicted, which makes things only slightly better. The closer to the finishing line he comes, the harder it is to keep his cool.

His lift won’t arrive until twelve thirty. He has, in other words, just over an hour to kill.

He thaws a couple of square chunks of fried chicken in the microwave and then stares at them on his plate, completely uninterested. Ketchup won’t make them any more appealing. Even food requires planning. He knows how much he can drink every hour without having to go to the toilet. After having spent days and weeks planning the helicopter route and the strength of the explosives, it would have been idiotic not to chart his own body’s processes. He knows he shouldn’t eat any more solids after a quarter past eleven.

He leaves the kitchen after throwing away the remains of his meal, turns off the light in the living room and sits down in an armchair. He tries to focus.

11:15 p.m.

Niklas Nordgren takes the last boat to Stavsnäs at dinnertime. He is the only person waiting on the jetty on Runmarö, but it doesn’t matter if the captain can point him out at a later date. Having been on Runmarö isn’t incriminating evidence.

With each day that has passed, he has become increasingly stiff from sleeping in the slightly too-short bed in the playhouse on Runmarö. He has flipped his normal routine upside down, and spent his days asleep. Though the house is on the east of the island, and dangerous reefs off the coast prevent any boats from getting too close, he didn’t want to move around on the plot of land during the day. At this time of year, there are barely any tourists left in the archipelago, and the boats that do pass belong to the year-round residents, people who keep an eye on where there are guests and where there should be empty houses in the middle of September. Instead, he took quick runs in the woods after midnight, constantly afraid of stepping on a snake or coming face-to-face with a badger. But he knew that he needed to keep moving, otherwise he wouldn’t be ready when the time came.