So what now?
He pulled the phone from the strap on the left shoulder where, after much deliberation, he had decided to attach it, and swept it across the building, zooming in on the front doorway, then out to give the big picture again. When he was finished he noticed the little red light start to flash.
Behind the telephone box next to the Co-op
was all it said, and HP frowned unhappily as a minute or so later he fished out a plastic bag that had been stuffed behind the grey telecom engineers’ box on the other side of the street.
Had he come all the way out to Birkastan to pick up a lousy package?
What sort of shit assignment was this?
But before he had time to look in the bag the light flashed again and when he had read through the third message of the evening he felt his heart starting to race with excitement again.
This was more like it!
He checked that the camera was working, then fastened the phone in its place.
Then he tapped in the door-code he had just been given and heard the lock click.
Lights, camera, action! he thought excitedly as he opened the door and slid in.
The first target spun round like a flash!
‘Off to the right’ her brain registered as her instincts did the rest. She pushed her jacket open with her right hand, pulled her pistol from the holster and as soon as the barrel was free she aimed it in front of her.
She brought her left hand up to meet the gun, put her hand over the casing as she continued to raise her pistolhand, which made the mechanism feed a bullet into the chamber. The moment her right arm was fully extended, with her left hand supporting the three fingers on the barrel, she fired off two quick shots at the centre of the target.
The entire movement hadn’t taken much more than a second.
Rebecca backed away slowly, still with the Sig Sauer ready to fire, her eyes sweeping in both directions above the barrel. When she had retreated ten metres from her mark, the next target suddenly popped up, this time way off to the left.
She quickly spun round and without even thinking she fired off another two shots halfway through the movement.
Bang, bang!
Another five-metre retreat, then the final target appeared, low and in the centre, not much bigger than a head. Half a second later this target too had two neat nine-millimetre holes acceptably close to the centre.
‘Stop, cease fire, cartridge out!’
‘Cease fire, cartridge out!’ she repeated back to the firing instructor, took her finger off the trigger, pulled out the magazine and then released the seventh bullet which was already in the chamber.
Once that was all done she put the gun back in her holster, took off her ear-defenders and protective glasses to await the judgement.
‘Nice shooting, Normén, you need slightly better tempo on the first series and less of a pull on the second, but generally, like I said, nice shooting!’ the instructor told her.
Rebecca nodded appreciatively at the critique, she had fumbled slightly with her jacket, lost a fraction of a second and then tried to make up the time on the second series.
‘Squeeze the shot off, don’t pull!’ she told herself as she taped stickers over the holes in the second target, ten centimetres or so higher than she had intended.
She had had trouble with her shooting when she started at Police Academy. The weapon and, above all, the bangs frightened her, and to begin with she had shut her eyes before she fired. Fortunately the academy ran an extra class for anyone not used to guns, and after a few evenings of intensive practice her fear had changed into something entirely different. Once she had got over her distaste and mastered the basic technique, the pistol made her feel safe. As if no-one in the world could get at her as long as she had the Sig in her hand. The size and strength of any opponent suddenly didn’t matter at all for someone holding a firearm.
And if both parties were armed, you had to shoot first and shoot best. So she had practised, properly down in the firing-range in the basement, but just as much at home with the authentic replica of her service pistol that she had bought in a model shop.
Draw, bolt-action, fire.
Draw, bolt-action, fire.
Fifty times each morning, and the same again each evening.
Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull. Over and over again, until it was deeply engrained and there was no-one in her class or even her year who was quicker. She had worn out two replica pistols so far, but it had been worth it!
Even in her current unit she was among the fastest, and when their shooting instructor checked the day’s results for both accuracy and speed, she came second, beaten only by a man from the Western District.
Shortly afterwards she called her answer machine to leave a message reminding her to increase her training that same evening.
The staircase was wide, made of grey marble, reasonably worn after a century or so of use. The banister was polished teak and a small, more recent lift for two people at most had been squeezed into the centre of the stairwell.
He checked out the stairwell carefully before setting off upstairs. He was heading for the second floor. The building evidently had another wing built out into the rear courtyard, seeing as there were doors off in that direction after every half-flight. Single doors to the flats facing the courtyard, double doors to those facing the street, he’d noted by the time he reached the third floor.
Four doors, all of them with neat brass signs and one of them, the second from the left, with the right name combination. So far, so good. By this time his heart was pounding in his chest, and not exclusively because of the stairs.
He looked around the stairwell and landing once more before he got going.
First he pulled an old blue woolly hat over his head –he’d already cut holes in it for his eyes and mouth, just like number twenty-seven. Then he pulled out the things that had been in the bag. The first, a little rubber wedge, he pushed under the door that was his target, kicking it to make sure it was properly inserted. Then he took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell. At the moment the door-handle was pushed down from inside he pulled out the can of red spray-paint which had been in the bag along with the rubber wedge, and set to work.
It took a few seconds for the man in the flat to realize what was happening, and HP had got almost halfway through the text before the man started trying to open the door seriously.
Suddenly the aimless jerking of the handle stopped and a moment later the whole door shook, as if the man inside had given it a real shove. HP noticed to his horror that the wedge had slid out a bit on the slippery stone floor, and that there was now a centimetre-wide gap between the double doors. He caught a glimpse of a furious red face and heard the man inside yelling at him, but it was too late to stop now. Instead he gave the wedge a hard kick which he hoped would make it hold for a few more seconds, long enough for him to complete his task.
‘I’ll get you, you bastard, I’m going to get you, you cowardly little fucker!’ the man inside roared as he kept shoving at the door.
The gap was growing wider and HP felt himself starting to panic. But he couldn’t stop now, he only had a couple of letters left. Nobody loves a fucking quitter, certainly not the fans.
Suddenly he heard a door to his right open and when he turned his head he saw a girl of about twenty peer out. As soon as their eyes met she pulled the door closed again in horror, and he heard the safety-chain rattle behind it.
Fuck, he’d almost forgotten that he had the balaclava over his head!
There was another shove to the door and this time HP could see the wedge sliding back on the stone floor. All the target had to do was pull the door back and it would be free. A muscular tattooed arm and a shaved head were visible through the gap between the doors and in a sudden flash of inspiration he raised the spray-can and fired off a blast of paint at the furious face. He was rewarded with a roar in response as the door closed again.
Direct hit!
&n
bsp; With two quick gestures he completed his work of art and had just turned towards the stairs when all hell broke loose behind him. Without looking back he threw himself down the stairs.
He took the first flight in two strides and when he reached the landing halfway down he heard the man up above take up the chase with a roar. Two more strides, first floor, two more to the next landing, then just one more flight of steps left to freedom. He could hear thuds and heavy breathing behind him, but not close enough to stop him getting away. But when he turned the corner to the last flight down to the exit he saw that his escape route was blocked. A woman was just squeezing a bulky pram through the front door and there was no way he could slip past. The gorilla behind him seemed to have worked out what was going on because he let out a triumphant roar somewhere just behind HP.
‘I’ve got you now, you little fuck!’
Panic welled up inside him, but instead of running straight ahead and getting caught like a rat by the pram, HP spun round past the lift and carried on towards the back door out into the courtyard.
He raced out into the walled yard without slowing down, and took aim at the carpet-beating frame off to one side. The gorilla was gaining on him, he was literally at his heels, so close that he could hear his laboured breathing.
HP leapt up onto the frame and from there jumped up towards the top of the wall high above. He managed to grab the edge with both hands, and kicked wildly with his legs against the wall to get his upper body up to the top.
It worked!
He struggled hard to get to the strip of tin crowning the wall, and managed to swing one leg over. But just as he was about to pull up the other one he felt someone grab hold of his trouser-leg and he was left sitting astride the wall, clinging on for dear life.
From the corner of his eye he could see his pursuer and could feel the man trying to get a better grip around his ankle.
Panicking, HP started to kick his left leg wildly in an effort to get free. Suddenly his foot hit something solid and he heard a grunt, and the grip on his ankle let go. It came as such a shock that HP lost his balance and tumbled helplessly into the flowerbed on the other side of the wall.
He landed face down and got a mouthful of soil.
When he got up a couple of seconds later and began to stagger towards a gateway that he guessed must lead out onto St Eriksgatan, he could still hear the gorilla roaring on the other side of the wall.
Once he was out on the street he decided against the closest underground station and sprinted off instead along Karlbergsvägen towards Odenplan. When he reached the entrance four minutes later and reduced his speed, he realized that his whole body was shaking.
Congratulations, HP!
the screen said once he had sat down in an underground carriage and got control of his trembling hands.
You have successfully completed your third assignment, worth 700 points.
I have also decided to award you 100 extra points for an accomplished performance. Your film clip is expected to be ready in 23 minutes.
Greetings from
The Game Master
So in other words he would just have time to get home to watch everything repeated, and wallow in the love of the fans. Fuck, this was seriously cool!
When the door of the flat closed behind Rebecca she was almost too tired to go through her new routine. For a moment she toyed with the idea of not actually bothering this time, that everything was good enough as it was. But then her anxiety took over and she spent almost three minutes locking, unlocking, and then relocking all of the four locks that were attached to the door.
When she was finally happy, sufficiently convinced that everything worked and that the flat was secure, she threw her soaking wet gym clothes in the little washing-machine, staggered into the living room and collapsed on the sofa.
‘Hello!’ she said in the direction of the bedroom, but no-one answered.
It had been a long time since there had been anyone there.
Yet she couldn’t help saying something, anything, so as not to feel so alone.
‘Hello …’ a voice suddenly answered, and her heart skipped a beat before she heard it continue and realized that she was listening to her own voice.
‘… you’ve called Rebecca. I’m not home right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you.’
She threw herself at the phone and just picked up the receiver before the answer phone bleeped, but whoever it was who had called had already hung up.
Hell! She’d put the phone on mute while she was doing yoga the previous evening and must have forgotten to reset it.
Oh well, they’d call back if it was important.
The odds were fairly short that it would be a call from work about some overtime, something which for once she didn’t feel inclined to do.
The intense training of the past few days had left her worn out and tonight she just wanted to sleep. She might do a short session in the gym tomorrow, but she was planning to spend the rest of her day off catching up on a bit of well-deserved rest.
She went through her messages. The following were all reminders from herself:
‘Rebecca, remember to book a time in the laundry-room and pay the Nespresso bill, it’s due on the twenty-fifth.’
‘Step up the training regime with the Sig, Normén.’
‘This evening there’s that documentary about serial killers that you ought to watch. Discovery, eight o’clock.’
She gave a wry smile at her own orders as she deleted the messages. It was odd how strange her own voice sounded when she heard a recording of it. Almost like another person on the tape. A distant relative with a few common features, but more stern and cold. But then the sound quality wasn’t very good. She actually thought it was rather a silly habit to use the machine like this. Maybe it was time to get a new mobile? Then she could type up her reminders instead of carrying on with all these endless calls. A suitable project for the next time she had a few days off.
She picked up the phone and reset the ringtone, and fought a sudden impulse to call Henke. She actually missed him, more than she cared to admit. But that would have to be tomorrow now, or sometime over the next few days, she promised herself before she put the phone down and switched on the television.
A few minutes later she was lost in a deep, dreamless sleep.
The clip exceeded all expectations! It looked as if someone had set up a camera on the landing, because he couldn’t see a single movement that suggested a human hand behind the images which had been posted alongside his own under his profile. Even though the events had only taken place an hour or so before, everything actually seemed even more dramatic than he remembered it.
The door shaken by the gorilla’s shoves, the terrified girl poking her face out, and not least his own masked figure tagging the entire door. He looked at least as cool as twenty-seven had done when he sorted out that cop-car!
And the text on the door looked pretty damn good:
REMEMBER
RULE
NUMBER
ONE!
That was a message the grass inside was guaranteed never to forget. A little reminder from the Game Master about what the rules were, basically. Silence is golden …
Bloody hell, he was a body-builder or something, because he looked pretty fucking solid when he came storming out onto the landing.
The sequence from the yard was almost as good. Because he’d only been half-lying on top of the wall, the camera had been pointing in the right direction and he could get a better idea of the effects of his kicking.
You could make out a powerful lower arm and parts of a furious face sliding in and out of shot, then his own size forty-three Nike landing in the middle of the gorilla’s face before everything became a mess of sky and soil when he fell down the other side of the wall.
At a guess, the orc had been too pumped up on steroids to get over the wall.
Too bad, sucker!
Time to cut back on the anabolics.
He grinned broadly and pressed repeat one more time.
The fans liked it when you fried rats. The comments had already started to appear and his average rating had crept closer to four stars. With a bit more exposure he should have passed the boundary to ‘good’ by the morning.
And why not? After all, he was pretty much born for this. A hitman in the service of the Game Master!
The jacket had been a stroke of genius, the new clip was a hell of a lot better than the previous ones. You could even watch the run down Karlbergsvägen without feeling seasick, and he made a note to remember to pull off the balaclava sooner next time. It wasn’t until a couple of old women had screamed in terror somewhere near Hälsingegatan that he had remembered that he still had his face covered.
He’d make sure he did better next time.
Because there was definitely going to be a next time!
6
All the king’s horses …
From: Talent Acquisition
To: Game Master
Subject: Candidate Evaluation 128
Name: Henrik Pettersson
Alias: HP
Age: 31
Height: 179 cm
Weight: 72 kg
Build: Slight
Hair: Medium blond
Eyes: Blue (see attached passport photograph)
Status: Unmarried
Family: One sibling (a sister with whom he has only sporadic contact)
Both parents deceased
Profession: Various, currently unemployed
Address: Maria Trappgränd 7, Södermalm, Stockholm, a two-room flat which he inherited from his mother
Number of completed assignments: 5
Total points: 2200
Current ranking: 23
Current level: 3
Method of recruitment: Recommendation
Education: 9 years of basic Swedish schooling, mixed grades
Started but did not complete 3-year course in economics in Swedish high school
Has twice started but never completed adult education courses
Other qualifications: None
The Game Trilogy Page 6
