The Helicopter Heist Read online

  A dense silence spread through the kitchen, and both visitors felt uneasy.

  The man took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Maloof.

  “You could at least take this? The girl’s personal details. And the rest of her contact details. In case you change your mind?”

  “Thanks,” Maloof replied, taking the slip and shoving it into his jacket pocket. “You never know. You don’t.”

  “I think that you and Sami could achieve something really…interesting if you worked together,” the man added.

  FEBRUARY–MAY 2009

  2

  Michel Maloof had decided to go for a walk through the newly built waterfront area along Hornsbergs Strand. He was wearing a thin black coat over his dark suit, and the smooth soles of his shoes hadn’t been designed for the icy ground. Every now and then he slipped on the path. He was carrying a black briefcase in one hand. It acted as a kind of counterweight, helping him keep his balance when he turned onto the path down toward the canal on the other side of the Ekelund Bridge.

  He was early. The meeting wasn’t until two, meaning he still had twenty minutes to kill. He had parked his pale gray Seat Ibiza right outside the entrance to the G4S offices on Warfvinges Väg. The car was the most anonymous he had ever driven; if he left it in a big car park, he might even walk straight past it. But for Maloof, it was often important not to draw any attention to himself, and the Seat Ibiza seemed to have been designed with that very ambition in mind.

  Even so, he didn’t have the patience to sit and wait in it for almost half an hour.

  He had never come this close before.

  It wasn’t nerves he was trying to shake off during his quick walk, it was excitement.

  The cold weather was back after a warm January, but the narrow canal was still clear of ice. Maybe the city made sure to keep all its channels open? He didn’t know anything about Stadshagen, it wasn’t his neighborhood.

  Michel Maloof had been born in Lebanon. When he was six, his family had fled the country’s bloody civil war and made their way to Italy, via the coast, but for his father, the final destination had always been clear. They were going to Scandinavia, that paradise on earth. How or why his father had come to believe that the Nordic countries were the solution to all their problems, young Michel hadn’t known, but he hadn’t been raised to question his father. Their journey from Italy continued north, and the bright colors and warm winters of the Mediterranean were replaced by cold Norrland seriousness. Maloof’s lasting memory of that time in his life was that he had been freezing. Constantly.

  After their first year in Åsele, in the north of the country, roughly halfway between Östersund and Arvidsjaur, even Maloof’s father had decided that he was fed up with the silence, the darkness and the forests. He made the family pack up their few belongings once again. The dream of Sweden still lived on, but living so close to the Arctic Circle was too extreme. So the family set down roots in the Stockholm suburb of Fittja instead, a place many associated with criminality, poverty and social problems. But it was there that the family had finally found the security they had been searching for, where the positives were so great that the negatives could be ignored. It was where they lived to this day.

  At the foot of the Essingeleden Bridge, Maloof turned to head back. A fine layer of powdery snow was covering the grass on either side of the path, making the gray afternoon seem a little brighter.

  Of all the neighborhoods in Stockholm, Stadshagen, tucked away to one side of the city center, was one of the most anonymous. The district had been an industrial area since the fifties, with no other ambition than to offer cheap square footage and accessible docks. It was only recently that the politicians and town planners had realized that the location was far too good to be an industrial and business wasteland, and they were poised to transform the area into an attractive place to live.

  As Maloof walked back up onto Hornsbergs Strand and saw the signs of the building work, which had been temporarily brought to a halt by the cold, he felt the familiar relief at not living in central Stockholm.

  He liked Fittja and never felt the urge to come into town; in fact, he almost always wanted to get away from it.

  He looked at his watch. Ten to two.

  Maloof took a deep breath.

  * * *

  —

  An older woman with blow-dried blond hair and glasses with black frames was sitting in reception. On the wall behind her, the G4S logo glowed like a religious icon for its employees to bow down to every time they came into the office.

  The woman gave Maloof a stern look as he climbed the stairs from the street.

  He unconsciously straightened the knot in his tie, quickly pushed his long hair behind his ears and ran a hand over his neat beard. Then he smiled broadly.

  “I have a meeting with Anders Mild at two?”

  The woman wasn’t falling for his charms. She nodded reluctantly and told him to sit down to the right of reception while she called Mild’s secretary.

  The minimalist sofa was even less comfortable than it looked, and as Maloof sat down, he was reminded of just how much he disliked wearing a suit. The modern cut felt tight across his shoulders. He had bought a dark red tie the day before, and it had taken twenty minutes of increasing frustration to manage a nice knot. How was anyone supposed to feel successful with a noose around his neck?

  Maloof leaned forward and peered down the corridor of offices. The man he was waiting for, Anders Mild, was the managing director and head of G4S in Sweden. Without Zoran Petrovic’s help, Maloof would never have managed to arrange this meeting, and as Mild’s secretary came down the corridor toward him, Maloof realized how Petrovic had managed it.

  Mild’s secretary was very young and very cute.

  Maloof got to his feet. He realized he was clutching the handle of his black attaché case far too hard. He shook the girl’s hand.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked as she showed him into a large meeting room with a view out onto the roofs of the surrounding buildings and the treetops down by the canal. “Water? Coffee?”

  “Sure,” said Maloof. “That’s fine, thanks.”

  He pulled out a chair in the middle of the long table and set down his briefcase on the one next to it.

  “Do you need to use the projector?” the girl asked, still not sure whether her guest had said yes or no to the offer of coffee.

  At first, he didn’t know what she meant.

  “For the presentation?” she explained. “You’re giving a presentation to Anders, no?”

  Maloof shook his head. “Right, right. Yes…no projector today,” he said, patting his briefcase with a smile. “This is my presentation.”

  She nodded, not caring what he meant, and then left him with the door open while she went to fetch her boss.

  Maloof was far too worked up to sit down.

  * * *

  —

  Along with Zoran Petrovic, Maloof had done a lot of research. G4S was the world’s biggest security company. Operating in 125 countries, it was also one of the largest private employers, with over 600,000 staff globally. The company’s humble origins could be traced back to Copenhagen, where, around the same time as fireworks lit up the night sky to celebrate the dawn of the twentieth century, a small firm that hired out night guards had been born. A few decades later, the company was renamed Group 4 Falck, but it would be a while before its growth really took off.

  “It’s all about money,” Petrovic had explained to Maloof. “You can chug away for year after year without anything really happening. I mean, who hasn’t run a security company? But without resources, you’re not going to get anywhere.”

  Some time after the dawn of the next century, the venture capitalists had suddenly turned their attention to the security industry. They opened their coffers, brandished their whips, changed the company’s name to Group 4 Securicor and launched an extensive takeover plan. In Sweden, the once state-owned ABAB fell victim to the
growing firm, and Petrovic turned nostalgic and told a long, pointless story about how he used to trick ABAB guards in an industrial area.

  Group 4 Securicor, or G4S, grew rapidly on the London Stock Exchange and eventually split into two distinct business areas: G4S Secure Solutions, which dealt with surveillance, and G4S Cash Solutions, which handled the secure transport of valuables.

  * * *

  —

  Anders Mild was responsible for G4S Cash Solutions in Sweden, and he didn’t leave Michel Maloof waiting for more than a moment or two in the meeting room. Mild was blue eyed and average height, with a neck that barely seemed able to support his head, and he was dressed in a shiny gray suit and an exclusive pale blue shirt that was unbuttoned at the collar. He moved energetically around the conference table, shook Maloof’s hand and nodded toward the older man who had come in behind him, but who had chosen to remain on the other side of the table.

  “This is Rick Almanza,” Anders Mild said, introducing his colleague. “Rick here is responsible for our European activity, Michel. He’s my boss. I told him about our meeting, and he thought it sounded so interesting that he flew over from London to join us. Is it OK if we continue in English?”

  Maloof smiled and nodded.

  Could it be true? What exactly had Zoran Petrovic said? Anders Mild didn’t know a thing about Maloof, who hadn’t even used his real surname when he booked the meeting, to avoid any problems with Google. Did people really fly over from London on such vague grounds? Was it a trap?

  Suspicion was precisely what he needed. He felt his racing heart slow, his nerves give way to energy and this new challenge sharpen his focus. This was how he worked.

  He was only ever nervous before the task itself, never while he was sorting it out. He nodded and enthusiastically shook Rick Almanza’s hand over the table.

  “English. No problem. I’m truly honored.”

  Anders Mild went back over to his boss’s side of the table and sat down.

  Maloof debated whether to move over to the whiteboard, but decided against it. It wasn’t like he had anything to draw on it, anyway.

  He glanced at the lapel on Mild’s jacket, where there was a small G4S logo badge. Michel Maloof had been robbing secure transport vehicles bearing that same logo since his early teens. Did the two men opposite realize that they had just let one of Sweden’s most notorious robbers into the boardroom of the world’s biggest security firm?

  3

  Out in the hallway, Sami Farhan tied his boots, pulled on a thick, dark green down jacket over his polo shirt and was just about to step into the stairwell when he heard John wake.

  He paused in the doorway, his fingers silently drumming the handle, listening tensely. The cot was in their bedroom, by the window. Since it was only six in the morning, he had pushed the door shut to avoid waking Karin or the boy. He stood completely still for a moment, and the babbling seemed to stop, but then he heard an expectant gurgle that gradually increased in volume.

  The baby was definitely waking up.

  Sami gently closed the front door and quickly made his way back down the hall and into the bedroom, still wearing his coat and boots. Karin was sleeping, but she turned anxiously in the big double bed. She had been up at least two or three times during the night, he wasn’t exactly sure. Sami lifted the tiny body from the cot and held the boy against his soft down jacket, gently rocking and lulling the little bundle. But his efforts were doomed to fail. John was hungry, and no amount of rocking would fix that.

  “What time is it?”

  Karin mumbled into the pillow. Sami carefully lowered the baby onto the bed next to her. The scent of breast milk practically made John howl, and Karin pulled back the covers, revealing her round, pregnant belly as she uncovered her breast.

  “Where are you off to so early?” she asked, still not knowing what time it was.

  Sami was sweating under his thick coat. He stood there irresolutely, rocking nervously, as though he were still holding the baby. He couldn’t tear his eyes from them. The pregnant woman breastfeeding the tiny child. His family. The scent of bodies filled the room. Skin, closeness.

  “Are you going to school?” she asked.

  He grunted. It could be interpreted as a confirmation without actually being one.

  “What’s the time?”

  The minute Karin opened her eyes and turned her head, she would see the digital clock on the bedside table. He told the truth.

  “Five past six.”

  “Have they started doing dawn lectures or something?”

  She smiled, but her eyes were still closed. The baby guzzled.

  Sami was enrolled at the Kristineberg culinary school, in his second semester. He had always been good at cooking, but now he was going to learn the trade from scratch. He had promised her. When she got pregnant for the first time, she had given him an ultimatum. In her usual clear way, she had explained that if there was a risk that the father of her child would end up in prison, she would find a new one, one who had different ambitions in life. Either Sami stopped using his days to plan one spectacular robbery or break-in after another, or he could clear off right then, before he became emotionally attached to the baby. And vice versa.

  There had been no question for Sami, it had been obvious. He was willing to do anything for Karin’s sake.

  That was why he had applied to Kristineberg. He had finally decided to get himself a real job.

  “The whole class is going out to Frihamnen to meet the boats coming in with shellfish,” he answered, bending the truth slightly.

  Like always, he talked with the help of his arms and hands. He showed the direction of Frihamnen, mimicked the boats moving into the harbor and made a gesture that might have represented some kind of shellfish.

  “Go,” Karin whispered with a smile. “Get going. We might fall asleep again…”

  He nodded. Tapped his foot like he was keeping time with a techno tune at double speed. But still, he couldn’t move. John was feeding noisily. Karin could sense his hesitation. She opened her eyes and looked at him, standing fully dressed in front of her.

  “You’re so damn handsome.” She smiled. “Don’t just stand there being so ridiculously handsome, get going.”

  He smirked, nodded again and freed himself from the spell by turning abruptly and heading back out into the hall. He ran down the uneven stairs of their old building on Högbergsgatan. Those thousands of hours in the ring during his teenage years had left their mark; he practically flew down them.

  As he stepped out into the cold February air, he allowed himself to fill with pride. During all their meetings and discussions last autumn, he had kept the feeling to himself. There had been so many loose ends that he hadn’t wanted to talk about it in advance. But now he finally dared believe it was actually going to happen.

  * * *

  —

  Sami jogged down the street. The snow that had fallen during the night would blow away as the day wore on. When he turned the corner onto Katarina Västra Kyrkogata, the bare trees in the churchyard were like black silhouettes against the dark gray sky. The sun wouldn’t rise for hours yet.

  The plan was to be back home with Karin by lunch, after a quick stop at Systembolaget to buy a magnum of Moët to celebrate.

  When he reached the car, he sat down behind the wheel with a smile on his face. Without Karin and John, he reminded himself, he would never have made it this far. Without them, maybe he wouldn’t have even tried.

  He drove toward Katarinavägen, thinking about all the warnings he had been given over the years. Bitter former bachelors who missed their carefree lives. Those who knew enough to say that babies meant no sleep to begin with, then no sex, followed by no life. He would say they were partly right. He was sleeping badly and his sex life was nothing to boast about.

  But John was a miracle who outweighed it all.

  Change was always difficult. People stayed in the same jobs for year after year because they didn’t dare try
anything else. They hung out with childhood friends they had long since grown apart from, who were easier to call up than finding anyone new. Sami’s childhood had been one long journey of discovery through the southern Stockholm suburbs. If it had been twenty or forty different addresses in the end, he had no idea, but it didn’t matter. In his day, the segregation hadn’t been what it was today. Back then, people had just been lumped together, Muslims, Christians and Jews. Turks, Iraqis and Yugoslavians. He had learned to get along with everyone, had found it easy to talk and become friends with both Finnish migrants and African refugees. He had become a chameleon, been forced to learn how to quickly adapt to new situations.

  It was something he made use of now. He had thought it before, but this time it was real. For Karin’s and the kids’ sake, both born and unborn, he would leave the criminal life behind him. He would shed his skin. Not delete any of the thousands of names in his contacts list, but add some new ones instead.

  It wasn’t the easiest way to go about it, but it was his way.

  * * *

  —

  Sami Farhan drove across Skeppsbron and through Blasieholmen. It was Tuesday morning, and the traffic in central Stockholm was still sparse. Across the water, he could see Af Chapman, the ship that had been turned into a youth hostel. Its illuminated white hull lay quietly in the water, which was as black as a pool of ink.

  He was out in good time. What he called being careful, others might call a need to be in control.

  He really was going to Frihamnen. But he was going there alone, not with his classmates from Kristineberg. For him, the hours behind a school desk were over, there wouldn’t be any more lectures on cooking. He would never be able to give his family the life they deserved by slicing cucumber for cold buffets or pouring béarnaise sauce over filet mignon.

  Today, that morning, was the first day of their new lives. And, like always, it was luck that had given him this chance. It hadn’t been easy to find the money. He had gone in with everything he had, all the cash he’d been able to withdraw. Plus he had brought in other financiers. His brothers, first and foremost. They had mocked him, doubted him and called him “the fishmonger.” But they had still made the investment, like so many of his other friends and acquaintances. Karin’s uncle had even stepped up, and all without her knowing a thing. Clean money being placed into a lawful business.