Free Hostage by Kristina Ohlsson Page A

one stone, so to speak.’
    ‘True,’ Eden said, grateful for Sebastian’s contribution. ‘That could of course be the case. But then the question remains: how does this person know about Tennyson
Cottage? I mean, it’s not particularly well known.’
    One of the investigators raised his hand.
    ‘I think you can find it if you do an Internet search. Well, I know you can. I just tried it myself.’
    ‘I did the same thing,’ Sebastian said. ‘But there weren’t many matches – less than a handful. It doesn’t seem like a place you would just come across unless
you knew what you were looking for.’
    ‘Which takes us back to square one,’ Eden said. ‘How did the person or persons who made the threat know about Tennyson Cottage?’
    Was this the right angle of attack? Eden was doubtful. She was finding it difficult to work out how to react to the two different demands contained in the note. Was Tennyson Cottage the most
important thing for the hijacker or hijackers, or was it Zakaria Khelifi? Why decide to challenge two governments rather than just one? Surely, whoever it was must realise that the USA would never
accept a hostage situation. They didn’t negotiate with terrorists, and there was no way they would shut down Tennyson Cottage during the time it took a jumbo jet to use up its fuel.
    As far as Zakaria Khelifi was concerned, Eden thought the same applied. The Swedish government was not going to revise its decision because of a bomb threat. If they did, it would open the
floodgates for a surge of hostage situations and bomb threats. Besides which, they still didn’t know if this was a hoax, and that bothered Eden more than anything else.
    ‘Let’s just ignore the demands for a while and focus on the actual threat instead,’ she said. ‘The bomb that’s supposed to be on the plane. What do Arlanda say,
first of all?’
    ‘I’ve been in touch with them,’ one of the investigators said. ‘They reckon it’s virtually impossible to smuggle a bomb on board these days, either in hand luggage
or in baggage that’s been checked in. At least with flights that have the USA as their final destination.’
    ‘Because the Americans insist that everything has to be X-rayed?’
    ‘Exactly. Every single thing is X-rayed.’
    ‘And what do they do if they see something suspicious in baggage that’s been checked in? Do they open it? I can think of countless occasion when people have been asked to open their
hand luggage to show what they’re carrying, but I’ve never heard of anyone having to open a suitcase after it’s been checked in. And most people lock their cases these days, so
what happens then? Do they break them open? I can’t recall ever seeing that either.’
    Sebastian broke in, sounding slightly impatient.
    ‘Isn’t this exactly what this kind of threat is aiming to achieve?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘They want us to sit here trying to guess whether or not there really is a bomb. The fact that we can’t be sure makes the answer irrelevant, because we can’t afford to take the
risk. Therefore, it’s not a good idea to mess with people who threaten a plane that’s actually in the air.’
    Eden nodded thoughtfully. ‘We can compare this situation with the threats we dealt with yesterday. We were given times and locations for four bombs; we were able to get there, evacuate
each location and carry out a search for any possible explosives. In the case of a plane that’s already in the air, with the threat that it will be blown up if it tries to land, that’s
impossible. Even if we sent one of the crew down into the hold to search the baggage, it would be impossible. There are far too many bags to go through, and they don’t have the necessary
equipment.’
    ‘This claim that the plane will be blown up if it comes in to land tells us something else,’ Sebastian said.
    ‘Yes,’ Eden agreed. ‘So far, not one word has leaked out to the press, so in order for whoever