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

And right now, the entire thing hinges on him.

Ezra smiles. He glances at the speedometer. The risk isn’t that he’s driving too fast, it’s that he’s driving too slowly in his attempts to seem law abiding.

The lights are green all the way to Roslagstull, and he drives straight on toward the university and Frescati. They had scoped out the place a few weeks earlier, and since then Ezra has swung by a few times at this time of night. He’d never seen another living soul there, not a single dog owner or taxi driver stopping for a piss.

He passes the turnoff to the university and drives on, via Svante Arrhenius Väg, so that he’s approaching Stora Skuggans Väg from the north. After a thousand feet, he turns onto a small forest road he would never have noticed in the dark. He parks. Kills the engine and immediately starts unloading the car. He runs the items from his trunk into the woods in batches. It’s quite a long way from the car to the meeting place, but that’s how it has to be. Discovering the car can’t be the same as discovering them.

It’s a few minutes after midnight.

Ezra Ray takes out his phone and dials the number saved on it.

Sami answers immediately.

“I’m here,” Ezra says.

11:58 p.m.

The phone rings again. It’s the fourth call in an hour.

This time, TEAM 2 flashes on the display.

Team 2 is responsible for moving the huge rock used to block the entrance to the gravel pit in Norsborg. It’s there that the getaway cars will be waiting once it’s all over. It’ll still be dark then, so Team 2 also has to make sure that the helicopter pilot can see where he’s landing.

“Yeah?” Sami answers.

“We’re here,” says the voice on the other end.

“Thanks,” Sami replies, hanging up.

It’s time to get changed.

He goes into the bedroom and takes off his sweatpants and T-shirt. He shoves these, along with his toiletries, into the small bag his sister will pick up tomorrow afternoon. She’s also promised to tidy up after him.

Sami picks up the waist pouch he bought. He fastens it around himself after checking the documents for the tenth time that evening. Inside the small pouch, his passport and a plane ticket to Punta Cana. His plan is to head straight to Arlanda from the gravel pit in Norsborg and then kill some time in one of the cafés in SkyCity. The plane takes off seven hours later, which might seem like a long time, but it’s considerably less than he’s waited already today.

On top of the waist pouch, he pulls on a thin black sweater. Over that, he’ll be wearing a tight black windbreaker. His trousers are a pair of black jeans. They’ve agreed to wear black, all three of them, with one exception. Sami has to be wearing his white sneakers. Adidas. They bring him luck.

Once he’s ready, he goes back out into the living room and waits for the next call. It should have already come in, but maybe they rang at the exact same time as Team 2, maybe they got the busy signal?

The minutes tick away.

By the time the display reaches 12:05, Sami can’t sit still in the armchair any longer. He gets up, grabs the phone and goes into the bedroom. He moves around his bag, which he placed on the floor by the bed, and then goes back out into the living room. He repeats this twice. It’s 12:09, and his phone still hasn’t rung.

Team 3’s number is saved in his phone, but he knows he isn’t meant to make any calls from this SIM card. If they’ve run into trouble, a vibrating phone in their pocket isn’t going to help.

Sami composes himself. Moves behind the armchair and peers out the window. When the living room is dark, the glow from the streetlights on Kocksgatan seems even brighter.

His phone rings. It’s 12:18.

Team 3. They’re in Myttinge on Värmdö. It’s Team 3 that is responsible for keeping the police helicopters on the ground, a prerequisite for being able to carry out the job in Västberga tonight. If any of the chain teams fail, it’s unlucky, but it’s not critical.

Team 3, on the other hand, has to succeed.

Sami answers.

“Hello?” he hears a voice say on the line.

“Yeah?” Sami replies.

“It’s not here,” says the voice.

“What do you mean?”

“The hangar’s empty. The helicopter’s not here.”

12:50 a.m.

Michel Maloof sees the car approaching through the kitchen window. It’s the first one to drive down Billborgsgatan, in the heart of Norrtälje, in over half an hour. The nightlife in the town could hardly be called pulsing. The car slows down and finds an empty parking space right outside his door.

Zoran Petrovic unfolds himself from the driver’s seat. It’s a new BMW, it looks black from Maloof’s window, but it could just as easily be dark blue. The passenger’s side door opens. It’s the American, Jack Kluger. This is the first time Maloof has seen him. The man on the sidewalk reminds him of a quarterback from an American football team, he’s knock-kneed and his upper body is oversized in relation to his lower half. In all likelihood, he has no real idea where he is right now.

Petrovic and the American step into the building, and a few seconds later the buzzer rings. Maloof opens the door.

“Been a while,” Petrovic says, stepping into the apartment.

Maloof grins. “Right,” he says. “Been a while. Hi, hi.”

He shakes the American’s hand. Kluger’s grip is strong and dry. Reassuring.

“Where’s the food?” Maloof asks.

“Shit,” says Petrovic. “I forgot it.”

“You forgot it?” Maloof repeats, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. He scratches his cheek. “But, I can’t… you can’t have forgotten it?”

They’re speaking Swedish. The American doesn’t seem to care what they’re talking about. Or maybe he understands Swedish but isn’t letting on. According to Petrovic, Kluger has been living and working in Sweden for a few years now.

“Sorry,” Petrovic says again.

Maloof struggles to seem indifferent. He smiles and shrugs. All the same, he can’t understand how Petrovic can have forgotten to drive by McDonald’s. They’ve been working together for so long now that he should know better.

“No, no,” Maloof says. “No, it’s OK. No problem. We can go now instead.”

He glances at the helicopter pilot and adds, in English: “We need some food.”

Maloof doesn’t wait for a reply. He goes out into the hall and pulls on his shoes and coat.

“You’re not serious?” Petrovic says.

“He’s coming. The weapons are in the bedroom. We can’t leave him alone with the weapons…”

When Maloof took the bus up to Norrtälje a few days earlier, he had walked past a McDonald’s on Stockholmsvägen. It was one of the few places that stayed open until one in the morning. They didn’t have much time.

“Come on, come on,” he says when he notices that the American is hesitating.

Maloof wouldn’t call himself superstitious. He’s not even religious. But there is also no point tempting fate.

He always eats a large meal from McDonald’s before a job.

It’s nonnegotiable.

1:15 a.m.

In the end room in the apartment on Strandvägen, there is a deep alcove, and it is in this alcove that Caroline Thurn has placed an enormous armchair. It isn’t visible unless you actually step into the room. The soft embrace of this armchair is where Thurn sometimes spends her nights, her legs on the matching footstool or her knees drawn up to her chin, staring out across Nybroviken. She can either turn to face the roof and masts of the Vasa Museum, next to the silhouettes of the roller coasters of Gröna Lund, or else the other way, toward the center of town and the heavy stone facades of Nybrokajen leading up to Raoul Wallenbergs Torg.