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

Up on the roof, Sami runs over to the helicopter to throw the money into the cabin. When he opens the door, he’s met by a furious pilot.

Jack Kluger is shouting loud enough to overpower the sound of the engine.

“You said fifteen minutes! Where the hell have you been? We’re out of juice!”

The fuel warning is still blinking away with its ominous red light.

5:44 a.m.

If the robbers had placed bombs outside the helicopter hangar in Myttinge, the chances of their having done the same at the cash depot in Västberga were high. And Caroline Thurn didn’t want to be responsible for ordering a police officer to open a door that then exploded in his or her face.

Shouting and gesturing wildly, she manages to get the riot squad to stop before they make it to the entrance. The enormous commanding officer climbs out of the first van. He’s wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet, and he is furious. He strides toward Thurn and stops dead right in front of her. He’s standing so close that he is actually looking down at her. The muscles in his neck are taut.

“It’s probably best if you back off,” he hisses. “We’re going in now.”

The sound of the helicopter hovering directly overhead is now so loud that they have to raise their voices.

“It might be booby-trapped!” Thurn shouts.

She imagines she can smell gasoline. It could be coming from anywhere: the helicopter, the riot vans, the gas station.

The heavily armed commanding officer looks suspicious, and then he turns to look at the entrance. One floor up, in the CCTV room, the guards are sitting in front of screens showing the same images that Palle Lindahl has on his laptop. Could they have missed someone planting bombs in the building?

“Booby-trapped?” the aggressive officer repeats, sounding like he doesn’t believe it. “I can’t see anything.”

“We have reason to believe so.”

“You do? Meaning we shouldn’t go in?” he asks, sounding incredibly disappointed.

“We need to make sure that—”

But before Thurn has time to finish her sentence, the sound of the helicopter becomes deafening, and a second later they see it lift off.

“They’re leaving!” Thurn shouts, feeling the panic rise. “They’re getting away.”

Two police officers carrying rocket launchers throw themselves out of the van. They run onto the grass, squat down with the weapons on their shoulders, and point them up at the helicopter.

The commanding officer stares at Thurn. “Give the order!” he hisses.

Thurn looks up at the helicopter.

“The order!” the riot squad leader barks. “Give me the order!”

Other than the robbers, she has no idea who is inside the helicopter. Is the pilot being forced, or is he complicit in the robbery? Do they have hostages on board?

“Give the order!” the officer screams at her. His face is red, a vein bulging on his neck.

Thurn stares at the two officers squatting down with their weapons ready. Then she looks up into the air and realizes it’s already too late, the helicopter has made it too far.

“Shit!” the officer shouts as he realizes the same thing, and he starts running back toward his vehicle, closely followed by the two men who had been on their knees on the grass.

“Follow them!” Thurn shouts to the riot squad leader, and she starts running in the opposite direction, back toward her car up by the Statoil station.

As she’s halfway there, her phone rings. She answers the call without slowing down.

“Caroline? Caroline?” Berggren shouts into her ear. “It’s me. Hertz got in touch. The military says they have two fighter jets in the air, roughly where you are.”

Thurn tries to gather her thoughts.

“The robbers just flew off,” she shouts. “I’ve got a riot van following them. Could you make sure I can keep in touch with the van, Mats? Fighter jets? How would they help?”

“I don’t know,” Berggren replies. “Could they shoot down the helicopter?”

Thurn has made it to the parking lot. Without knowing who is on board, she can’t even think about shooting down the helicopter. Could the answer be in Lindahl’s CCTV cameras? Did any of the cameras capture who went on board?

“Give me a minute,” she pants down the line.

“What should I say to the jets?”

“Tell them to stand by,” Thurn replies. “Stand by.”

She runs over to the police van, but before she manages to speak to Lindahl, Berggren calls back.

“Counterorders, Caroline,” he says.

“What does that mean?”

“Olsson found out about the fighter planes. It’s illegal.”

“What’s illegal?”

“The military’s not allowed to get involved in police activity. There’s a law… Olsson gave the counterorder. The planes have gone back to their original course.”

“Politicians,” Thorn says with a snort, but she feels a certain relief at not having to take responsibility for a Swedish combat fighter attacking a private helicopter within the capital’s airspace.

“Is the helicopter showing up on any radars?” she asks.

“Not even when it took off,” says Berggren. “The military’s looking. Us too. No one can see a thing.”

“They’re flying too low.”

“Exactly. They’re flying too low. But surely that means the riot squad should be able to see them from the highway?”

Thurn nods. Berggren is right. Since the robbers aren’t only choosing to fly low, but also have probably turned off all communication equipment, they’ll have no choice but to stick to well-lit roads for navigation. Thurn can see daylight approaching on the horizon, but it’s no more than a thin line against the dark sky. From her own experience, she knows that through the thick windowpanes of a helicopter, the world seems even darker.

“Let me talk to the riot squad,” she says to Berggren. “Patch me through. Maybe I can help them.”

5:35 a.m.

Tor Stenson yawns and runs his hand over his stubble.

The night shift was always long and boring. His had started at midnight, as usual, when the intensity of the newsroom is at its worst. Deliveries to the printers have begun, and the next day’s paper is starting to take shape. People run down corridors, phones ring, articles are added and taken away, and discussions about the front-page headlines, kickers and puff boxes reach frantic levels. Tor Stenson has nothing to do with any of that. He is one of the younger members of the staff, and is employed by one of the recruitment companies owned by the paper. There has been a freeze on any new reporters in the newsroom since 2001; its current employees enjoy job security, but things are different for the people hired by the recruitment company. Though Stenson’s work focuses on the Web—in the tabloid world, everyone under the age of thirty-five is an online guru—he never knows whether his job will exist from one month to the next.

Stenson always begins his shift by exchanging a few words with his colleagues on their way home. Is there any Hollywood gossip to follow up on? He goes through their competitor’s site. Do they have anything he’s missed? All around him, the newsroom empties out, and after an hour or so the rows of desks in the open-plan room fall quiet.

When the phone rings, it’s already after five thirty. Stenson jumps. In the early hours, the flow of news is minimal, meaning the call is unexpected.

“Stenson,” he answers

It’s someone calling in a tip from the police command center.

What he has to say is incredible. Sensational, even.

Stenson’s pulse picks up as he listens. Robbers in a helicopter. Breaking into a cash depot through the roof. And making their getaway—with an unimaginable sum of money—in the same helicopter.