The Game Trilogy

by Anders de la Motte

  Then there was Håkan Berglund, the guy she’d so rudely given the brush off.

  That business with the faded flowers had undeniably been a bit weird, so Håkan could probably be a suspect, especially as Henke seemed to think MayBey wasn’t actually in the police.

  The last name on the list made her feel a bit sick.

  Micke …

  Unlike the others on the list, he had both the skill and the right contacts to be able to take care of the technical side of MayBey, and he had plenty of reasons for wanting to cause her grief. But, as with Nina Brandt, she was having trouble thinking of Micke as a genuine suspect. He might have had every right to be angry with her, more than anyone else on the list, in fact. But still …

  Anyway, he’d helped her to track down MayBey.

  He had helped her, hadn’t he?

  She didn’t believe him at first, not until he showed her his contract with Monika and the printout from the Patent and Registration Office. After that her tone got a bit more conciliatory. Not that she asked him right into the flat, but at least she agreed to go and get him a glass of water.

  There were removal boxes in the hall, so presumably she had actually bought the apartment they had looked round. Maybe the plotters had already received an advance from PayTag?

  There were several jackets hanging from the coat rack, and a couple of designer handbags, and beneath them a long row of shoes.

  He ran his fingers over the leather of one of the handbags. Soft and pale brown, almost cream-coloured. Just like her skin. For a moment he felt a pang in his chest, and when she reappeared with his glass of water shortly afterwards he was surprised by an impulse to touch her. But he resisted.

  ‘So, what’s your proposal … Henrik?’

  Her tone was cautious but considerably less hostile.

  ‘It’s very simple …’

  He took a few sips of water as he kept his eye on her. God, she was pretty, even in jogging pants and a t-shirt she was still a clear ten-pointer. Funny to think that he’d been in a relationship with her, properly.

  Well, almost …

  He lowered the glass and looked at her.

  ‘I’ve got forty percent, you’ve got ten. Together we control half the company. If you can think of anyone else who could be persuaded to support us …’

  He took a deep breath.

  ‘… then we could take over ArgosEye. Get rid of Philip as MD, and run the business however we want.’

  He fell silent and stared at her. For a few seconds everything was almost back to normal, and once again he had to fight the urge to put his hand out and touch her.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ she said, slowly shaking her head.

  ‘Maybe. Prising Philip away from the helm wouldn’t be easy, but we could manage it together. You and me, baby! What do you say?’

  He tried to muster up an enthusiastic smile.

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant …’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘What I meant is that you must be crazy if you think I’d betray Philip. After all he’s done for the company, for us, for me personally. Do you really think I’d risk that for someone … like you?’

  Her anger was back again, but there was something else in her voice, something he didn’t like.

  ‘Congratulations, Henrik, if that is your real name. You managed to trick Monika into selling you her shares, so now you own forty percent of a company where one hundred percent of the employees hate you!’

  She took a step closer to him.

  ‘My advice to you is to call Philip and sell your shares to him. If you’re lucky you’ll make a profit and can crawl back under whatever stone you came from, with a bit of extra money in your pocket. Because you’re absolutely right about one thing …’

  She poked him in the chest with her index finger, and even though HP was a head taller than her he still took a step back.

  ‘… Philip would never let anyone else take over control of ArgosEye, not a chance. He’d kill anyone who even dared to try!’

  She realized something was wrong when she heard the letterbox rattle. The post ought to have come a long while ago, and the bloke who delivered advertizements to her block didn’t usually ignore the ‘No adverts’ sticker on the door.

  She walked quickly out into the hall to see the little brown envelope land on the doormat. She picked it up and felt a hard little object through the paper.

  A key, the sort that usually fitted a padlock. But which lock? And who had put it though her letterbox?

  She pulled her shoes on and raced down the stairs. She heard the front door slam two floors below, but by the time she reached the darkened street there was no-one in sight.

  Okay, now he was officially heartbroken.

  It was probably the first time since primary school.

  Rilke despised him, to her he was nothing but a bottom feeder, a disgusting insect that deserved to be trodden underfoot. It actually hurt more than he could have imagined.

  Usually he didn’t give a flying fuck what anyone thought about him. But with her it was different. Even if he had worked out that the odds weren’t on his side, on some level he still hadn’t been able to stop himself hoping that she might be willing to support his little palace coup.

  Change sides for his sake – the way women usually did in Bond films.

  Instead she had probably leapt at the phone the moment the door slammed on his heartbroken sorry arse. And by now Philip must be aware that ArgosEye had a new partner, which only meant that the hunt for him would be stepped up another notch …

  But he could take comfort in the fact that his plan could still work.

  Tomorrow was New Year’s Eve, and the office would be running at minimum strength. And thanks to the passcard he had pinched from Rilke’s bag in her hall, he wouldn’t have any problem getting in.

  ‘Listen, HP, there’s something I’ve been thinking.’ Disciple number one, the one called Wedge.

  The guys had closed the shop and pulled down the shutters the moment he crept in through the door.

  ‘Fire away.’

  HP took a deep toke on the joint, then passed it to his right while he carried on staring at the little patch of damp on the ceiling that had been absorbing their attention over the past few minutes.

  ‘That whole story about ArgosEye, the bomb and everything …’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Marky, who was lying on the floor next to him, took a drag and then coughed violently.

  ‘You’re still rushing it too much, M. You need to dare to hold onto the smoke, feel the taste of Morocco, yeah?’

  Marky half sat up and tried to nod between coughs. Wedge waited until the noise had stopped and Marky had lain back down before going on.

  ‘Well … Marky and I have been thinking about what you said. That they set the bomb off to try to hide something else. We’ve been doing a bit of a project, looking at the flow of information on the net, so we gave it a try. Wait till you see what we found.’

  He got up and stumbled across to one of the computers through the semi-darkness. Then the screen flickered into life.

  ‘Okay, check this out. We looked at all the main news sites and listed the subjects that were most read or linked to during the days after the bombing. Like this, for instance …’

  He moved the mouse onto a heading and clicked on it. A timeline popped up, with a red line showing the traffic on the subject.

  ‘This is the debate about Swedish troops in Afghanistan cooperating with an American assassination unit. Hot as hell for two days or so, and top of almost every forum until the bomb went off, and then …’

  The line that had been heading straight up suddenly dive-bombed down towards the bottom of the screen.

  ‘Shit,’ HP muttered.

  ‘And look at this,’ Wedge went on.

  He went back to the list of news subjects, picked another heading, and a blue timeline showed up.

  ‘Looks like someone high up in
Volvo is going to be charged about the illegal export of weapons to Iraq. The newspapers picked up the story and it was red hot for about a day, then GONE …’

  The line had hardly got going before it dived towards the bottom of the screen.

  ‘You can choose pretty much whatever subject you like. Over the past ten days debate and speculation about the bomb has completely dominated all the media. Every other story is basically stone-dead, especially anything that’s a bit complicated. Your theory fits perfectly so far.’

  HP nodded.

  ‘But have you managed to work out what the massive story is that they’re trying to hide? The big Kahuna?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Wedge said. ‘But we did come up with another idea.’

  He glanced at Marky, then leaned closer to HP.

  ‘What if there isn’t a massive story?’ he whispered.

  ‘What?’

  HP sat up.

  ‘Okay, try this,’ Marky said. ‘What if they weren’t just trying to shift the focus …’

  ‘… but?’

  ‘… because that was actually the debate they really wanted.’

  HP shook his head.

  ‘But who would stand to gain from that? I mean, what vested interests would be willing to pay to promote tougher anti-terrorism laws in a miniscule country like Sweden?’

  Mackan and Kilen exchanged satisfied glances.

  ‘That depends what the law is about. Have you ever heard about the Data Retention Directive, HP?’

  40

  Let the games begin

  Pillars of Society forum

  Posted: 31 December, 22:03

  By: MayBey

  To be really sure, you have to know everything …

  This post has 221 comments

  Okay, time to go through the list.

  Passcard – check.

  USB memory stick – check.

  Plans – check.

  Flask of ballistic jelly – check.

  Two dopey accomplices – check there as well, unfortunately.

  He was sitting in the car in one of the narrow streets round the corner from the office. The exhausted air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror stood no chance against the Chief’s BO – but right now body odour was the least of HP’s problems.

  If this whole thing was going to work, he’d have to do a Clooney in more senses than one, but unlike both him and Francis Albert, he didn’t have ten razor-sharp accomplices to help him. Instead his team consisted of an exiled technical guru and Islamic convert, a petty criminal Elvis impersonator, and, last but not least, the swamp monster from the stinking lagoon …

  He had about as much chance of surviving intact as a girl with big tits in a horror movie, but he still had to give it his best shot. Because those fuckers couldn’t be allowed to get away with this.

  NFW!

  Who’d have thought it would take two media-fixated schoolkids to work the whole thing out. The Data Retention Directive – of course!

  Big brother EU wanted to force all internet providers to save all traffic from every user. Every single page you visited, every link you clicked, ever forum you posted on. Everything would be saved and stored for at least a year, even if there was no suspicion at all of any wrongdoing.

  Up to now Sweden had objected, but now the subject was up for debate in parliament again.

  ‘In the event that crime-fighting authorities need the information’ was apparently the justification, and in the past few days they had added ‘in the fight against terrorism’.

  In the aftermath of the blast on Drottninggatan the amount of opposition was bound to shrink. But storing all data traffic from all users wasn’t an effective way of preventing terrorism, Philip Argos himself had explained that to him. But it was the perfect way to map patterns of consumption, internet behaviour and user networks, down to the very smallest detail, and over a lengthy period of time. The Stasi’s wet dream, just twenty years too late!

  Big business would drool over that type of information, and would be prepared to do almost anything to get hold of it. Only the future would show which side of the law they would stick to.

  The first step was getting the directive passed. And with the help of ArgosEye and a failed suicide bomber, they were well on the way.

  Unless someone stopped them …

  He cruised through the narrow streets, checking over his shoulder every so often. Everything seemed okay, there were a few hours left before midnight and the majority of ordinary Swedes were busy having their New Year’s Eve dinner.

  He reached the main entrance and looked round one last time before opening his shoulder-bag and taking out the passcard.

  Shit, even on a photograph the size of a postage stamp Rilke still looked like a million dollars. On the subject of money, Monika Gregerson had been over the moon about his proposal, and thank God for that. Now she had loads of cash and a chance to deal out a bit of farewell payback to Philip. But forty percent wasn’t enough to stop Philip’s plans to join the PayTag Group. Anna had worked that out, and had tried to find another way instead.

  And in all likelihood it had cost her her life.

  But now it was his turn to try …

  He slowly raised the passcard to the reader, and noticed that he was holding his breath. What if Rilke had noticed, what if she’d checked her bag and seen that the card was missing? What if she’d made a call and got the twins to block it …?

  In that case he was …

  The reader bleeped and flashed green, then the lock began to whirr.

  Something was going on, she was sure of that. That key was hardly a coincidence. MayBey had put his or her plan into action, but all she could do was wait. In time she was bound to find out what was expected of her. Until then, she could work on her own plans.

  She had managed to check out a theory that had started to bubble in her head, and so far she hadn’t found anything that contradicted it. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  Facebook was undeniably a fantastic tool for making yourself visible.

  But including every last detail of your life also had its risks …

  She switched windows and clicked the icon to update the page, but it didn’t change.

  No new messages from MayBey.

  Not yet. But she was sure it wouldn’t be long.

  She went out into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water.

  He took the lift up.

  The eighteenth floor of a possible nineteen. The reception area was of course closed, but Rilke’s card worked perfectly.

  He crept carefully past the meeting room, pulled his cap down over his face and kept close to the wall in an attempt to avoid the camera in the ceiling as best he could. But like so many other surveillance systems he had come across, he doubted anyone was actually sitting and watching the pictures live, and especially not on New Year’s Eve. Tomorrow morning they would check the recordings and realize that they had had an unauthorized intruder, but by then it would be too late.

  He stopped at the reception desk and leaned over for the telephone. He picked up the receiver and opened the phone’s menu of options. He tapped in a number, then clicked save.

  Then he tried the speed dial number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me, Nox. I’m in – everything’s okay.’

  ‘Okay boss, understood. Be careful!’

  By the time she got back to the computer the new post was already a minute old.

  I have your brother, Regina. Come and get him if you dare!

  She had been right. The opening move had been made. The game had begun.

  Time for her response. She picked up her mobile and pressed the speed dial option.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said when the person at the other end answered.

  So far, so good!

  He popped his head into the open area behind the reception desk. It was completely deserted, but the light from a few computer screens flickered from over in the glassed off part of the off
ice. The nightshift in the Filter, maybe two or three people, but he wasn’t too worried about them.

  Even if he did bump into any of them, they probably wouldn’t recognize him and would just say hello or possibly glance at the passcard he had fixed to his belt. There was no way they’d be able to see that the picture didn’t match the person wearing it.

  But the team leader was a different matter. Rilke wasn’t working over New Year, he remembered that from when they were still together, which meant that one of Beens, Dejan, Stoffe and Frank was working that night. He had no great desire to run into any of them.

  He turned left, into the darkened corridor that led towards the other three departments. Just as he was approaching the Troll Mine he saw the door open. Quick as a flash he darted behind one of the cupboards lining one side of the corridor.

  ‘… okay, see you in a bit, I’m just going to grab something to eat,’ he heard Frank say to someone inside.

  Shit!

  He had just passed the door to the overnight lounge, which meant that Frank would have to walk right past him.

  HP slid down onto the floor and pressed up against the side of the cupboard. He heard steps coming towards him and tried to make himself as small as possible. Suddenly the lights came on and someone let out a whistle.

  ‘Okay, let’s say that, then.’

  She ended the call and put the mobile down on the kitchen table.

  Then she went out into the hall and began to put her outdoor clothes on.

  This time she left her extending baton in its holster, and fixed the whole thing to her belt at the small of her back. She was ready for MayBey’s next move.

  If her suspicions were correct, and if he was the man she thought he was, it wouldn’t be long coming.

  ‘Frank!’

  ‘Yeah, what is it?’ he heard Frank say, probably no more than a metre away from him.

  ‘The database just chucked me out, can you unlock it …?’

  ‘Sure,’ he heard Frank sigh.

  Then footsteps moving away.

  The door to the Troll Mine clicked, then everything was quiet.

  HP carefully poked his head out into the corridor. Empty. He let out a sigh of relief.