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

“Hold off,” she replies.

It’s Therese Olsson.

“We made a mistake, Caisa,” Olsson immediately says. “We misjudged the situation. Of course we should have kept you informed. But it is what it is, and we can’t afford to lose any more time. You know Caroline Thurn, don’t you? With the Criminal Investigation Department? She’s been working on this for a month or so, she knows who’s in the building in Västberga. She has the best chance of being able to handle this.”

Ekblad sighs.

“OK,” she replies, resigned. “I was just talking to Dag Månsson. He’s set up a liaison unit outside.”

“Then I’ll ask Thurn to get in touch with Månsson and the people at the scene.”

Ekblad sighs again. She goes back to Månsson to tell him the bad news.

5:21 a.m.

The buzzing of her cell phone is transmitted through the thick cushions in the alcove. Caroline Thurn can’t hear anything, but she can feel the vibrations. She pulls off her headphones, Zoran Petrovic’s droning stops and she glances down at the display. It’s the national police commissioner, Therese Olsson.

Thurn feels her adrenaline levels spike as she answers.

“Good morning,” she says.

“They pushed it back a week,” she hears Therese Olsson’s dogged voice say. “It’s happening as we speak.”

Thurn understands immediately. She can still hear the echo of Petrovic’s voice in her ears.

The fifteenth of September. That was why he slipped up. That was why he planted that particular date several times. It was the only mistake he made.

Only, it wasn’t a mistake.

He had tricked them.

“The situation is ongoing,” Olsson repeats. “Get out to G4S in Västberga. Call me from the car.”

Caroline Thurn is on her way out.

“Wait!” she shouts down the line.

“What?”

“Is our helicopter airborne?” Thurn asks as she opens the door into the stairwell.

The silence on the other end tells her everything she needs to know.

“Get it in the air!” Thurn shouts at her boss. “Now!”

5:22 a.m.

It went better than he expected.

On the way from Frescati to Västberga, there had been two moments when he’d had to blink, concentrate and fight back the sense of panic he could feel welling, ready to spread through his body as quickly and easily as a drop of blood in a glass of water.

Both times had worked.

Since then, everything has been calm.

After dropping off the robbers and the equipment, Jack Kluger takes the helicopter up to a high altitude again. Bands of thin clouds float across the sky, their edges sharply defined by the moonlight. Far below him, to the northwest, the Essingen Islands and southern Alvik glitter at the far edge of the dark waters of Lake Mälaren. To the northeast, he can see the Liljeholmen industrial area and the deserted office buildings that have been plastered with brightly lit company logos.

Kluger has no goal other than to save fuel. They have agreed to be back on the roof in ten to fifteen minutes, and though he set off with less than a full tank, that gives him good margins.

He lowers the helicopter slightly when he spots the first police car. Its flashing blue lights seem to glide forward over the ground.

Just as Maloof and Sami predicted, the car is approaching from the station on Västberga Gårdsväg. It swings up onto Västberga Allé, followed closely by another car. Kluger watches them from the heavens, two blue will-o’-the-wisps in an otherwise black night. When the first car suddenly skids, spins sideways and comes to a stop, Kluger knows why. Petrovic had told him about the chains, about the caltrops. The American watches the second car slow down, but he can’t tell whether its tires have also been ripped to shreds.

Just then, he spots a string of blue lights approaching on the highway from Stockholm. They’ll take the exit by Midsommarkransen and drive straight into the chains stretched across the road.

Once nine minutes have passed since the drop-off, Kluger allows the helicopter to sink farther, meaning he is now hovering right alongside the building. The chains with the caltrops have delayed the police, but judging by the stream of new cars and blue lights flickering in the darkness, they’ve dealt with the problem. The cars are coming from the north, from the south. He’s lost count. They’re keeping their distance from the building, and it seems to Kluger as though they’re forming some kind of base over by the gas station on the hill, three hundred or so feet away from the entrance to the building.

He feels comfortable in the helicopter, behind the controls. He can’t understand why he was so nervous about it now. It’s like riding a bike. He hasn’t forgotten a thing; in fact, he’s forgotten too little. Flying with the dark sky as a backdrop, it’s as though he never left Afghanistan.

And then he notices the sinking feeling his stomach.

He blinks it away. Once. Once more.

He doesn’t want to remember.

He flies a loop around the building, just for something to do.

He feels a vague sense of unease that the police will open fire. After almost two years in Sweden, he knows that weapons and force are the exception, but he’s still an easy target. That’s why he’s keeping close to the building. He assumes they won’t dare shoot if there’s a risk of him crashing into the cash depot.

The next time he glances at his watch, it’s 5:23. Jack Kluger feels relieved. It’ll soon be over. He peers down at the roof and expects to catch sight of them any moment now. He’s aware that they said ten to fifteen minutes, and it hasn’t even been ten yet, but he just wants to get away. The pulsing blue lights on the ground are making him nervous, but it’s toward the horizon that he keeps glancing anxiously.

If he catches sight of another helicopter, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. Landing on the roof to pick up the robbers would be pointless if that happened. He’d never be able to take off again. The police helicopter would make sure of that. Nothing is stopping him from simply flying off. He decides that if he sees anything coming toward him in the sky, he’ll have to make a run for it.

5:23 a.m.

It’s exactly twenty-three minutes past five when Caroline Thurn pulls out of the garage on Väpnargatan in her Volvo. A white layer of frost covers the ground on Strandvägen, and as she drives toward the red lights on Hamngatan, she grabs her phone, pushes the white headphone into her ear and dials Berggren’s number.

He answers immediately.

“They shifted it back a week.”

She doesn’t need to be any clearer than that.

“Where are you?” he asks.

“It wasn’t Bromma, it was Västberga.”

“Where are you?” he asks for a second time.

“The situation’s ongoing. County police are involved. Local are outside the building with the lights flashing.”

“Where the hell are you, Caroline?” Berggren shouts.

By now, Thurn has made it to the Gallerian shopping center, and she turns left.

“Excuse me,” she says into the earpiece.

She comes close to hitting a homeless woman pulling a shopping cart across a crosswalk.

“I’m on the way,” she says. “To Västberga. Five, ten minutes. Might make it before it’s all over.”

“What the hell’re you going to do there, Caroline?”

She doesn’t have a good answer to that, she’s just obeying orders.

“Get hold of Hertz, Mats,” she says. “Tell him to get in touch with the military.”

Berggren doesn’t know what to say. The military? The robbery is ongoing? Had Bromma never been the target, or did the plans change?