Read Online Hostage by Kristina Ohlsson - Free Book Online

really bad joke. If they weren’t, then it was a serious threat, and in that case none of them knew if they would
live to see tomorrow.
    ‘What do we do now, Karim?’ he asked.
    Karim read the note again. Or rather he looked at the words, his gaze sweeping across the paper, back and forth.
    ‘We have to do as they say.’
    Erik stared at him.
    ‘Do as they say?’
    ‘But that’s impossible,’ Fatima said.
    ‘And what’s the alternative? It specifically states that they will blow the plane to pieces if we don’t follow their instructions.’
    ‘How would they know?’ Fatima said.
    Absurd. It was absurd. The whole thing. Erik tried to gather his thoughts.
    ‘If the threat is genuine, and according to security regulations we have to act as if it is, then we ought to follow the instructions,’ he said. ‘Obviously. But we have to call
airtraffic control and SAS to ask for help on how to proceed. And we need to tell them what the message says. I mean, it’s clearly not aimed at us.’
    The message is not aimed at us, we are the hostages.
    For the first time, Erik felt afraid. Something else occurred to him.
    ‘What if one of the passengers left the note in the toilet?’ he said slowly.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘That means he or she is still on the plane, monitoring our actions.’
    Fatima stood there with her arms wrapped around her and leaned – or slumped – against the wall. If she started to cry, Erik would lose all respect for her. But she didn’t.
    ‘Did you show this to anyone else on the crew?’ Erik asked.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Keep it to yourself for the time being,’ Karim said. ‘We’ll call ATC and tell them what’s happened, then we’ll decide how to proceed.’
    Fatima straightened up.
    ‘I’d better get back.’
    She left the cockpit and slammed the door shut behind her.
    Karim put on his headset and called Arlanda.
    ‘This is Karim Sassi, the captain on Flight 573. We have received a bomb threat; it was written on a piece of paper and left in one of the toilets on board. The content is as follows:
Unless the USA shuts down Tennyson Cottage immediately, this plane will be blown up. The same applies unless the Swedish government revokes its decision to deport a man by the name of Zakaria
Khelifi. If the plane attempts to land before these decisions have been made and implemented, it will be blown up. As captain, I am instructed to fly the plane for as long as the fuel lasts.
That’s the time the two governments have in which to act. They will determine how this ends. When the fuel runs out, the time runs out.’

11
STOCKHOLM, 09:45
    T he control tower received the information from flight 573 just after the plane had taken off. It was immediately passed on to the central
communications office at the National Bureau of Investigation, RKC, to SAS, and to the Transport Agency. The National Bureau of Investigation was still working on the bomb threats made the previous
day, targeting locations in central Stockholm, but the message was given top priority. For the second time in twenty-four hours, Alex Recht was sitting there with a bomb threat on his desk.
    He could hardly believe his eyes as he read the memo from RKC.
    A Boeing 747 that had taken off from Arlanda twenty minutes ago had received a bomb threat, and was therefore classified as hijacked, indirectly. The captain had contacted air-traffic control
and informed them of the situation.
    In the light of the previous day’s events, the threat must be taken seriously. Alex had read the morning papers and knew who Zakaria Khelifi was. Apparently, Säpo had taken him into
custody and were going to deport him. That was the extent of Alex’s knowledge.
    After speaking to his boss, he called Eden Lundell.
    ‘This Zakaria Khelifi is one of yours, isn’t he?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    Eden had already received a copy of the memo, and was in a meeting with one of her deputies. She promised to call Alex back.
    He spent the next few minutes going