Game: A Thriller

by Anders de la Motte

  The setup was basically the same for each job, regardless of who they were protecting. You just added more people and equipment if the threat level was higher. You also had to plan for basic requirements such as toilet breaks, coffee, and meals. The subjects’ timetables and schedules were always changing, and lunch and dinner could suddenly fall by the wayside. One older colleague had taught her always to have a few protein bars with her, and she had been grateful for that advice on more than one occasion when her blood-sugar levels had gone through the floor.

  Bodyguards were important to democracy, more so in recent years since attacks on politicians had become more common. The subjects she had encountered so far had been pleasant, almost grateful for their service, and had been careful to follow all instructions. But on the other hand, she hadn’t yet had the “honor” of working in the royal protection unit . . .

  That business in Kungsträdgården had been completely crazy . . .

  After the first few days of hysteria the media had calmed down, and it had been a while since she last read an article confidently identifying the purpose of the attack.

  Seeing as the attack had been aimed at the head of state, the Security Police were in charge of the investigation, but to judge by Vahtola’s and Runeberg’s comments they didn’t exactly have any red-hot leads. “Single perpetrator on a moped, heading toward Birger Jarlsgatan,” had been the first description that had been circulated, and she suspected that that single sentence pretty much summed up the extent of the investigation so far.

  His Royal Highness had apparently been absolutely furious about what had happened, and hadn’t exactly minced his words to his bodyguards. Evidently they hadn’t been close enough to protect him, which was actually rather ironic, seeing as His Majesty usually wanted the officers as far away from his royal personage as possible. Ideally they should be invisible, or at least out of sight, but he seemed to have to changed his tune now . . .

  The door to the conference room opened and Rebecca stood up at once. But it was only one of the assistants coming out to fetch some more bottled water.

  She glanced at the time and sat down on her chair to wait a bit longer. It was another three hours before the next shift came on duty.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The cottage wasn’t such a bad idea! It had electricity and running water. And Mange had loaned him a laptop with television reception that could crack all the coded channels. Okay, he’d have to shit in a little outhouse in the corner of the allotment, but that was no biggie. As long as he had HBO he could squeeze one out on a flower bed if he had to.

  He’d been damn careful when he came out here, packing just a few things in a rucksack. A pillow, sleeping bag, and a bit of food, as well as the bag of grass he’d bought with the five hundred that Mange guiltily gave him as compensation for his failing hospitality. The miserable witch had looked pleased when HP left, but he didn’t care. Now at least he was his own man.

  He had taken the subway to Slussen, then changed to the green line and headed all the way out to Fridhemsplan. Once he got there he pulled an old spy trick, waiting until the doors were about to close, then jumping straight onto a train heading back into the city.

  Just to be sure he repeated the stunt at the Central Station before carrying on to Zinkensdamm, where he stole a ramshackle woman’s bicycle and made his way up into Tantolunden.

  Finding the right place had been easy, yellow wooden paneling with white windows and two big apple trees in the plot. He hadn’t been out here since he was a teenager and his gang used to hang around the mini-golf course to check out the girls and smoke the menthol cigarettes he’d nicked off his mom. Happy days . . .

  Back then he had mainly thought that allotment cottages were pathetic, but now he was grown up he had to admit that having a miniature house wasn’t such a stupid idea, especially if you needed somewhere to hide away from the rest of the world. If the Game was going to find him here, they’d have to put in a bit of effort. He grinned, taking a deep drag of a fat joint.

  Pretty nice living like this, close to nature. A bit of birdsong and a solitary lawn mower were the only sounds. If he concentrated he could just make out the sound of traffic in the distance from Hornstull and Ringvägen, but otherwise it just seemed to fade into the background somehow.

  He lazed about for a while on the rib-backed sofa in what was supposed to be the kitchen, but which, apart from the sofa and table, consisted of one cupboard and a tiny little sink. The sun was shining in through the leaded window and he actually felt far more relaxed here than in Mange’s flat out in the suburbs.

  Sweet!

  A ping from the laptop woke him from his lethargy. Seeing as he’d left the cell in the shop and hadn’t had time to get a new one, right now Messenger was his only contact with the outside world, and the only person who had his address was the Mangster, a.k.a. Farook.

  Farook says: Salaam alaikum, brother HP!

  Badboy.128 says: Hi Mange.

  Farook says: How are things out in the model village?

  Badboy.128 says: Pretty good, actually, say thanks to your aunt!

  Farook says: will do!

  Farook says: Have talked to some mates and one of them knows a guy who might be able to help us.

  Badboy.128 says: Sweet, should I call?

  Farook says: No, you can’t get hold of him, only way is to meet him. Supposed to be a bit odd. Clever as fuck but a bit odd, yeah?

  Badboy.128 says: Computer nerd?

  Farook says: Yes and no, a real wiz a couple of years ago, I’ve actually heard of him, but these days he lives somewhere in the back of beyond off the grid, supposed to be allergic to electricity, that’s why no one can call him.

  Badboy.128 says: Doesn’t sound too damn promising . . .

  Farook says: My mate says this guy was involved in that server I found in the cell, that he configured it and organized the whole setup.

  Badboy.128 says: Okay, I’m in!

  Badboy.128 says: So what do we do?

  Farook says: My mate’s going to contact the guy and sort something out, he’s a bit of a recluse as well but my man thinks it’ll work. I’ll MSN you instructions when it’s sorted.

  Badboy.128 says: ok fine.

  Farook says: one more thing . . .

  Badboy.128 says: Shoot, mr. Pathfinder!

  Farook says: please please don’t send me that file with the bouncing smileys, I have to reboot the machine just to get rid of them!!!!

  Badboy.128 says: you mean these?

  She read the message over and over again, without really understanding it.

  Rebecca,

  I and my family have nothing to say to you.

  Pernilla

  Nilla had replied to her email. And was blowing her off, pretty much as she’d expected. But there was just one problem. She’d never sent the email, just saved it in her Drafts folder to think about it. But when she checked, the email had gone and she found it in the Sent folder, fired off yesterday afternoon apparently, just before they had shooting practice.

  Nilla,

  There’s something I’d like to talk to you about, something I’ve put off for far too long.

  Could we meet for a short chat at a time and place that suits you?

  Sincerely,

  Rebecca Normén (formerly Pettersson)

  Her own words, exactly as she remembered them, down to the last comma.

  How the hell had that happened?

  She remembered that she had the computer on yesterday, but could an email really send itself? Was there some sort of automated function that sent drafts after a day or so?

  She didn’t think there was, but on the other hand you never knew with the police computer system.

  So what should she do now? She didn’t really have much choice. The notes were pretty clear. If she wanted to get to the bottom of everything, she’d have to talk to Nilla, whether Nilla wanted to or not.

  Just to be on the safe side she phoned her answering machine
to explain to herself why she shouldn’t just back down.

  11

  NAME OF THE GAME

  ANOTHER BASTARD BOILING-HOT day! Global warming must be on overtime judging by how long this heat wave’s been going on, HP thought as he tugged his sticky T-shirt away from his chest.

  The northbound commuter train, a couple more stations, and then a bus.

  But then what?

  He had the name of the bus stop on a bit of paper, “get out and wait” was the instruction. In the middle of nowhere, you could hardly find it even on Google Maps. HP sighed and rubbed his sweaty neck.

  The guy he was going to see didn’t seem to have a complete set of cutlery in his drawer, but on the other hand this was HP’s best and actually only chance of getting somewhere and making any sort of sense of this whole fucking mess.

  He got off the train and peered cautiously along the platform. Another three passengers had got off with him. An elderly couple and a fifteen-year-old homeboy with a back-to-front cap and his trousers halfway down. HP waited on one of the benches for them all to leave, then, when he was entirely alone, he wandered off toward the bus station.

  He stopped on purpose at the wrong bus stop, saw his bus come, and it was only when it was about to pull away that he sprinted over the road and forced the irate driver to brake hard and let him on. If anyone had been following him, he’d have lost them by now, either here or when he did the platform trick at the South Station half an hour or so before. Even so, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.

  After thirty-five minutes on the bus he was there. But even though he had been counting the bus stops and, just to make sure, had asked the driver, he still wasn’t sure he was in the right place. Because this truly was the middle of fucking nowhere. An isolated bus stop on a narrow seventy-kilometers-per-hour road, open fields in all directions, and hardly a building in sight.

  There was a smell of dry earth, straw, and something else natural that HP couldn’t quite identify. And of course there was no one there to meet him . . .

  He lit a cigarette and chilled for a while, but the sun was burning the back of his neck and soon his already grimy T-shirt was clinging to his back with sweat.

  He must remember to nick a pair of shorts.

  A few cows were mooing in the distance, and over on the horizon he watched a little yellow plane come gliding over the treetops. The plane was pulling a long banner and HP couldn’t help smiling.

  He hadn’t seen that sort of advertisement since he was little. Hadn’t the Internet and commercial television killed off advertising like this? But, on the other hand, this was the ass end of nowhere and you could probably get away with anything around here.

  “Fjärdhundra Market 28–31 July,” he read on the banner as the plane came closer.

  He grinned again. Fjärdhundra Market! Bound to be a load of morons in dungarees trying to guess the weight of a pig, toppling cows over, and trying to get off with their fifteen-year-old cousins. A banjo solo, maybe? Dingelingdingdingdingsdingding ding . . .

  How the hell anyone would choose to live like that instead of in the city like a proper Homo sapiens was beyond him.

  “Yeehaa, Farthundra!” he yelled, waving at the plane as it passed. But even though the pilot must have seen him as he stood there in the middle of the road among the new-mown fields, HP didn’t get a hint of a response. Not even a little dip of the wings.

  “Fuck you, then, shithead,” he muttered with the cigarette dangling from his mouth as he switched to other less friendly gestures instead before the plane disappeared from sight.

  When the sound of the engine had died away he heard another, angry-sounding motor coming toward him. It turned out to be a flatbed moped, and the man riding it looked like some sort of UFO.

  Long fair hair, a scruffy matching beard, and on top of all that one of those old leather flying helmets with built-in goggles. Blue overalls that had definitely seen better days and a pair of old army boots completed the outfit, and yet again HP had trouble holding back his laughter.

  A bit odd, yeah, right!

  Fuck, this was serious Candid Camera stuff!

  The moped man stopped sharply in front of him and grappled with the gears.

  “Are you HP?”

  “No, I’m just a tourist who likes cows and fields, what the hell do you think?” HP muttered.

  “Whassat?” The moped muppet leaned forward.

  “Yes, that’s me. Nice with all these cows and fields you’ve got out here,” HP replied, this time louder so the man could hear him over the noise of the two-stroke engine.

  “Erman,” the guy said in reply, and nodded. “Jump on!”

  HP hesitated for a moment, then, still grinning, jumped up on the flatbed. Of course, it was the only thing missing really, a little ride on a flatbed moped to reinforce all his prejudices about the countryside. The banjo duel in his head got even louder and he hummed along, safe in the knowledge that his driver couldn’t hear him over the clatter of the engine.

  Erman followed the road for a couple of kilometers, then turned off, heading straight across the fields on an almost invisible gravel track.

  As they approached the tree line the track got even bumpier, but HP’s chauffeur made no attempt to ease up on the gas, and by the time they pulled up outside the little cottage hidden in among the fir trees, the whole hillbilly thing had almost stopped being fun.

  While Erman parked the moped HP stretched and massaged his sore backside.

  Where the fuck had he ended up now?

  The house was small, maybe just fifty or sixty square meters or so, so not much bigger than Auntie Berit’s allotment cottage. The façade had once been red, but most of the planks were now gray, with just a few hints of pink where the sun and rain hadn’t got to them. The drooping concrete-fiber roof was green with moss and algae and the cottage was surrounded by meter-high nettles. The whole thing looked ready to collapse at any moment.

  “Go on in,” Erman muttered, nodding toward the entrance as he closed the door of the little outhouse. HP did as he was told and discovered that the inside of the shack looked considerably better than he had been expecting.

  The kitchen and small living room were clean and tidy; there was a smell of detergent and in one corner there was a cozy crackle from a cast-iron stove. In spite of that the house was cool, probably because it was shaded by the surrounding firs.

  “You followed the instructions, I hope?” Erman said abruptly as he came into the kitchen a few seconds later.

  “Yep,” HP said. “No cell, paid cash for all tickets, and did a bit of James Bond stuff before catching the train, so your little paradise is safe from discovery.”

  Erman grunted and tossed the flying helmet onto a kitchen chair.

  To his surprise HP realized that his host wasn’t some old guy like he’d first thought, but at a guess was just a few years older than him.

  Erman gestured to him to sit down on the kitchen sofa, then put an old-fashioned coffeepot on the stove and started to get cups out.

  “So you’re allergic to electricity, how do you get that?” HP began in an exaggeratedly friendly tone, but got a quick snort in reply.

  “Twenty-five years with computers, magnetic fields, radio waves, and all the other shit flying around through the air. Then you wake up one day covered in a rash and can hardly breathe.”

  He poured them both coffee and HP took a quick, scalding sip. Boiled coffee, he hadn’t drunk that since his grandmother had died, he recognized as he managed to swallow the burning liquid and blink a tear from his eye. Apart from the temperature, it was actually pretty good.

  The porcelain cup was wafer thin and the handle so finely made that he had to hold it Lidingö style, with his ring and little fingers sticking out. The coffee set had to be at least as old as the house, if not even older.

  He swirled the coffee around, blowing on it, then took another cautious sip as he peered at his host.

  “So you w
ant to know more about a server I installed?” Erman said, glowering suspiciously at him across the table. “I don’t usually talk to people I don’t know, or with anyone at all these days, come to that.”

  No shit! HP thought, grinning into his coffee cup.

  “But an old friend said you were okay and I owe him, big-time you could say. If he says you’re all right, then you’re okay in my book. So what do you want to know, and why?”

  HP had worked out his strategy while he was on the bus and made an effort to sound nonchalant.

  “Just who you installed the server for and where it is. I’m the art director of a small advertising agency and they’ve got some visual material I’m interested in.”

  Erman gave him a long look and HP did his best to look like he thought a hardworking art director would.

  Then his host grinned and threw out his arms.

  “Well, I never, an art director!”

  HP smiled and nodded.

  “And there I was thinking that you were a Player who’d fucked up and was desperately trying to work out the identity of the juggernaut that ran over you, and why.”

  Erman burst out into a roar of laughter and HP had to cough several times to get the scalding coffee out of his windpipe.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Another boiling-hot day! A day in the office at work, which meant a bit of paperwork, reading up on current threat analysis and the preliminary program for the next round of the EU presidency. Plenty of time to clear stuff from her desk.

  She got a glass of water from the kitchen, took a deep breath, and tried to shift the tension in her neck and jaw.

  Even though it was still early, her shirt was already wet under the arms. The building may have been air-conditioned, but seeing as every reorganization of the police force seemed to require new walls and office partitions, practically all the cool air ended up in a few rooms at the far end of the corridor. To get at least an illusion of coolness, Rebecca had been forced to buy a fan that was now stirring up the hot air in the office she shared with three other bodyguards. She settled down behind her desk and shut her eyes, letting the blast of air cross her face a couple of times as she tried to gather her thoughts.