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

Stenson immediately knows that this is front-page news. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest. This is his chance to bag that permanent position.

“Pictures?” he asks. “Do you have any pictures?”

The police officer gives him the number of the guard who called in the robbery from Västberga.

“Shit,” Stenson swears to himself as he dials the guard’s number and waits for the call to go through. “Shit.”

He swears aloud, though he doesn’t know why.

Yes, the guard has taken pictures of the white helicopter lifting off from the roof of the G4S building and disappearing into the black night sky. Deep down, Stenson is celebrating, but he tries to sound as indifferent as he can when the guard begins to negotiate on price.

It’s 5:48 when Tor Stenson uploads the first fuzzy images to the website. He quickly checks whether the paper’s rivals have done the same, but he can’t see anything yet.

After that, Stenson calls the paper’s news editor at home, waking him up. Stenson repeats his name a few times to begin with, making sure the editor is perfectly clear about exactly who has broken the story. And then he tells him about the helicopter.

The news editor mumbles something, hangs up and then calls the deputy editor, who reluctantly calls and wakes the editor in chief.

“Were you asleep?” the deputy asks.

“I never fucking sleep,” the editor in chief slurs, clearly emerging from some kind of pleasant dream. “I’m the editor of a tabloid. I don’t get paid to sleep.”

The deputy quickly explains what has happened.

“A helicopter robbery?” the editor in chief sums up, already sitting on the edge of his bed, pulling on his underwear. “Is there a more concise way of saying that? Whatever, doesn’t matter, we’ll see. I’m on my way in. Send people out to Västberga to interview the police at the scene. Are there any hostages?”

The deputy has no idea about hostages, but the Web editor Tor Stenson, the one who got ahold of the pictures they now have online, claims the witness heard pops coming from inside the building.

“Pops? What the hell does that mean? Were the robbers making popcorn?” the editor in chief hisses, grabbing a half-stale cinnamon bun from a plate in the kitchen and heading for the door. “We need details!”

5:47 a.m.

The fuel-warning light continues to blink. It’s all Kluger can see, all that exists in that moment; the red light fills the dark cabin like a constant, fateful reminder that they’ll soon run out of fuel.

“Where the hell were you?” he shouts as he angles the rotor blades forward a few degrees, allowing the metal bubble to cut through the air, away from the glowing glass pyramid on top of the building at Västberga Allé 11. “We said fifteen minutes?! It’s been… thirty-four. This isn’t going to fucking work!”

The sweat is running down his forehead, and the drops that don’t get caught on his eyebrows roll down into his eyes. He tries to blink them away. No one can hear him, the loud thudding of the machine is overpowering everything else, and they can’t communicate using their headsets, because they have chosen not to put them on. All nonessential electronics have been switched off. They don’t want to be caught on the military or police radars. They’re flying dark, with a red blinking warning light constantly reminding them of reality.

“Fucking idiots!” Kluger shouts again, though no one hears him.

Maloof is in the seat behind Jack Kluger. He leans forward with his eyes closed. Waiting for the explosion. He tries to tell himself that if the police had been given orders to shoot them down, it would have already happened by now. But still, he’s waiting for the rocket. The sound of the blast, followed by the sensation of falling. Weightlessness. Emptiness.

But there is no blast, there is no explosion. Maloof slowly sits upright. He opens his eyes. Nordgren is half-lying across the seat next to him. Diagonally in front, he can see the outline of Sami’s face beneath the anonymizing polyester of his balaclava. The blood is still pounding in Maloof’s neck, but the stillness around him comes suddenly. Is it over? He looks out the window. The sky is grayish black, he’s flying.

Is it over?

Niklas Nordgren is on his stomach on top of one of the mailbags. He had thrown himself into the helicopter, onto the seat behind the pilot and next to Michel Maloof. The way he landed means he can see out through the window in the door, and down on the ground a swarm of swirling blue lights continues to search for opportunities. There are several dozen emergency vehicles on Västberga Allé and Vretensborgsvägen, gathered in three distinct groups.

It looks like a still life, Nordgren thinks, as though someone had placed the cars there to create drama in an otherwise sleepy business park.

Along the streets crisscrossing the Västberga industrial area, the sharp white light of the streetlamps is painted like street crossings on the ground. The six-lane highway alongside it is still relatively empty. And with each second that passes, the helicopter takes them farther and farther away from the looming tower and its glowing glass pyramid on the roof.

It’s over, Nordgren thinks, but he still can’t take it in. He can feel the cold metal of the ladders beneath his palms, in the arches of his feet, but his muscle memory is clearer than his other senses.

Did we do it?

We did it, he thinks.

Despite the stubborn blinking light, Kluger carries out the planned diversionary maneuver. He makes it shorter, tighter, saving them just over a minute. His powerful jaw muscles seem to be chewing something, possibly a piece of gum that has long since lost its taste. Not once, despite his cursing, has he given his three passengers as much as a glance.

He cuts across the park in Årsta. They’re barely a hundred and fifty feet off the ground, and each of them gasps when Stockholm’s southern neighborhoods suddenly loom up in the distance, the illuminated Globe Arena—an enormous, abandoned golf ball—a clear navigation point in the foreground. Right beside it, Kluger spots the rows of red buses in Gullmarsplan. Waiting for the first departure of the morning. He takes in the proud arc of the Johanneshov Bridge, allowing the cars to roll dramatically down toward the gaping mouth of the South Way Tunnel, and higher up, to the left, the huge hospital complex like a cluster of dark, gloomy blocks. He puts the helicopter into a sharp right turn and the bright city lights disappear from view. Along the road toward Älvsjö, all that is beneath them is forest.

Sami is next to Kluger, and is staring out the window. The sky is still dark. It’ll be another half an hour before daylight starts to reveal the thin strips of cloud that are currently no more than gray shadows high in the sky, but Sami can already make out a faint glow on the horizon. The helicopter sweeps across the treetops. The Gömmaren nature reserve sweeps by beneath them in dark silence; a spellbound world of trees, paths and thickets hiding wild animals and abandoned cars.

Sami turns on his phone. It has been off since before they went into the building. He calls Team 2 at the gravel pit in Norsborg, but he can’t hear a thing, the roar of the helicopter drowns out any sound from his phone. He glances at the display. The call seems to have gone through.

“Turn on the lights!” he shouts.

He can’t hear whether anyone answers. He ends the call and tries again.

“Turn on the lights!”

If the team on the ground doesn’t turn on the headlights, it’ll be impossible for the helicopter to land in Norsborg. The gravel pit might be big, but the forest around it is dense.