The Game Trilogy

by Anders de la Motte

  ‘Of course,’ Elroy grinned, and stepped over to the phone on the desk. ‘One one two is easy to do …’

  HP looked down at the floor. Obviously the greedy fuckers were going to shop him. You wouldn’t get much of a price on the odds of that happening. But as luck would have it, he still had one ace up his sleeve …

  ‘Hello, police? We’ve just caught a thief red-handed. It looks like he was trying to steal confidential business information …’

  ‘Hold on!’ Philip said, raising one hand. ‘Something doesn’t feel right …’

  He gave HP a long look.

  ‘For someone who just lost the game, you seem rather too calm.’

  HP tried to avoid looking at him.

  Shit!

  ‘What were you really doing in reception downstairs?’

  ‘Nothing,’ HP muttered.

  Philip looked puzzled. Then he gestured to Elroy to hand him the receiver.

  ‘Hello, who am I speaking to? Police Sergeant Renko …?’ Philip started to smile.

  ‘And what department do you work in, Sergeant, if you don’t mind me asking? … Surveillance? I’m sorry, but the right answer was central control.’

  He put the receiver down and then dialled some more numbers on the phone.

  ‘You never cease to surprise me, Henrik!’ he went on in an amused tone of voice. ‘You predicted that we’d call the police, and you changed the speed dial number to one of your own. Let me guess, you’ve got two friends waiting in a car out there somewhere, ready to drive over and pick you up? All a bit Ocean’s Eleven, am I right?’

  HP took a deep breath.

  ‘Twelve,’ he muttered. ‘The fake cops rescued them in Ocean’s Twelve.’

  But no-one seemed to be listening.

  Philip turned to the others.

  ‘Let this be a useful lesson to us all. Never underestimate an opponent, even when he seems to be beaten …’

  Philip signalled to Elroy, who pulled out his mobile.

  ‘Hello, is that the police?’

  She ended the call, then looked up another number in her phonebook.

  ‘Good evening, my dear,’ the soft voice said.

  ‘Good evening, Uncle Tage,’ she replied, and noticed her heart beating a bit faster. ‘I know where Henrik is …’

  ‘Excellent, my dear, I’m most grateful to you. Where can I find him?’

  She took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before answering.

  So the game was over.

  Philip and co. had bought his shares, admittedly for rather more than they had anticipated, but still. Finally they had complete control over the company.

  The champagne was no doubt flowing in the office while he and the twins waited like good little children out in reception for the cops to show up.

  The real cops …

  Shit!

  He’d hoped he’d get away with it, that his bluff with the phones would work and that Nox and the Governor would show up and check him out. Then off to Arlanda with lots of nice new money in his account.

  But instead he was going to get arrested for real.

  A prison sentence was really the least of his problems. What worried him most was that the moment his personal details were typed into the police computer system, the warning lights would start to flash and tell the Game Master where he was.

  He was actually somewhat surprised that they hadn’t already found him.

  That Philip and his gang hadn’t already tipped them off about him. But they still didn’t seem to have worked out who he was. Oh well, they’d soon find out …

  A loud knock interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘You were quick,’ Elroy said to the two plain-clothes officers when he opened the door.

  ‘We were just round the corner,’ one of them said.

  ‘I’d like to see your ID,’ Elroy said.

  The men shrugged, then pulled out their police IDs.

  ‘I’ve got all the information here …’ Elroy said, handing a plastic folder to one of the officers.

  ‘Time, place, personal details, you’ll find it all there, as well as a memory stick with the program he was trying to plant in our mainframe.’

  He pointed at HP.

  ‘Our lawyers will be in touch after the holiday with our claim for damages.’

  One of the policemen leafed through the paperwork, then nodded to his colleague.

  ‘Turn round,’ he said, and HP did as he was asked.

  There was a metallic click as the cuffs were put on.

  ‘Okay, let’s go.’ Then, to Elroy: ‘The investigating team will be in touch first thing tomorrow morning if they’ve got any questions …’

  The two police officers led him out towards the lift.

  ‘Hang on,’ Elroy called after them. ‘Which station will it be, in case there’s anything we want to add?’

  ‘Norrmalm,’ the taller of the two officers said.

  ‘Is that round the back of the Central Station?’ Elroy asked.

  ‘No, Kungsholmsgatan 37, we’ve been there a good while now.’

  Elroy grinned happily.

  ‘Just wanted to check …’

  They took the lift down. Neither of the police officers said a word. Their car was parked right outside, a typical cop car, automatic gears and an extra internal mirror.

  The taller one, who seemed to be the boss, sat in the back with HP. The car started, and as they pulled away he took out a mobile phone.

  ‘We’ve got him, and are on our way,’ he said tersely to the person at the other end.

  ‘We’re not going to Kungsholmen, are we …?’ HP muttered.

  But the man didn’t answer.

  45

  Call!

  ‘Well, my friends,’ Philip Argos said. ‘That’s that little unpleasantness out of the way. Sometimes you have no choice but to buy your freedom, even if the price was somewhat higher than we had anticipated … But at least it was the solution that entailed the smallest risk in the long term. We’ll put our lawyers to work on the claim for damages. It ought to be relatively simple now that we have the account number. Either way, we are all going to earn more money that we could ever have dreamed of …’

  He raised his glass.

  ‘To the future!’

  A mobile started to ring.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Frank said.

  He took the phone from the holster on his belt and left the room.

  ‘So do we know who he was really working for? Henrik, I mean …?’ Beens asked.

  Philip shook his head.

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. I might have my suspicions, but we’ll never know for sure …’

  ‘You’re thinking of Anna?’

  Philip shrugged.

  ‘All the information we’ve managed to gather suggests that Henrik was basically working on his own. We certainly haven’t been able to find any link between him and our competitors. It’s possible that Anna employed him before …’

  He gestured with his hand.

  ‘… or, more likely, that her sister did, considering the whole business with the shares. But we’re rid of them now, at least, the shares are ours, entirely legally and by the book, so there’s no longer anything or anyone that can threaten our plans.’

  Frank came back into the room. He was still holding the phone in his hand, so tight that his fingers were turning white.

  ‘We’ve got a problem …’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘That was Gitte down in the Filter. Half the fucking blogosphere seems to be buzzing about us. About us, the way we work, the trolls, the blogs, the register, you name it … Everything seems to have got out …’

  He swallowed hard and pointed towards the door.

  ‘And there are two uniformed police officers in reception wondering where our burglar is.’

  Philip glanced at Dejan.

  ‘Not a chance.’ Dejan held his hands up as if in self-defence. ‘The laptop wasn’t connected to the net, and it was basically empty anyw
ay. That trojan didn’t go anywhere.’

  ‘This isn’t good …’ Rilke whimpered.

  ‘Quiet!’ Philip snapped.

  He turned to Elroy.

  ‘What did he do while you were waiting out there? Did you let him near any of the computers?’

  Elroy and Sophie shook their heads in tandem.

  ‘He went to the toilet, that’s all,’ Sophie said. ‘He had to do something about the cut he got when he …’

  She stopped herself and glanced anxiously at her brother.

  ‘When he what?’ Philip snarled.

  ‘… hit his head on my desk,’ she concluded in a toneless voice.

  They drove down Strandvägen, then through Diplomad-staden and out towards Gärdet – in the opposite direction to Police Headquarters.

  The lights on the Kaknäs Tower were flashing through the mist off to their left, and for a few moments he thought that was where they were going.

  But they passed the tower and turned off onto a little gravel track that seemed to lead out into the middle of nowhere. Hadn’t there once been a shooting range out here somewhere?

  ‘Are you real policemen?’ he asked.

  The man beside him shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘How long have you been watching me?’

  ‘A while …’

  ‘How did you know … I mean … who put you onto me …?’

  ‘Who do you think, Henrik? I mean, if you really think about it …?’

  Something in the man’s tone made his heart plummet like a stone.

  Philip yanked open the office door and, closely followed by the others, ran over to Sophie’s desk. The computer was on the floor, but the USB ports at the front of it were empty.

  ‘False alarm,’ Beens said with relief. ‘If he didn’t manage to get the trojan in somewhere, then everything going on out there is just loose gossip. He could have told his friends, arranged for them to spread the story at a particular time regardless of whether or not the trojan was feeding them information. Without any proof the story will be stone-dead in a couple of days …’

  ‘Hold on!’

  Dejan crouched down and picked at one of the little card-slots just above the USB ports.

  A moment later he pulled out a tiny memory card, barely the size of a postage stamp.

  Someone had written on the front of it: Ykay A mofos!

  The lights from the nearest buildings were getting further and further away. The car seemed to be floating over the snow-covered ground, just swerving slightly when they hit hidden dips and potholes. For a few seconds it almost felt like being back in the desert. But that was just another of all the weird déjà vu moments his life seemed to have turned into.

  When they finally came to a stop they were close to the edge of the forest. He could see small, flickering points of light in there among the trees, and it took him a while to realize what they were.

  Cemetery candles.

  They’d reached the old pet cemetery.

  The men got out of the car, and the open doors let the cold night air in. Obviously he ought to try to escape. Make a mad rush for it, aiming for the streetlights on the far side of the field. But he had no energy left for running. Enough was enough.

  ‘Is this where it ends?’ he asked the men, but neither of them said anything. ‘Surely it wouldn’t hurt to tell me what’s going to happen?’

  ‘I thought you’d already realized,’ one of the men said as he unlocked his handcuffs.

  HP nodded.

  ‘Yes, but I’d still like to hear you say it.’

  The man didn’t answer. Instead he pulled his jacket up and tucked the handcuffs back in position on his belt, next to his pistol.

  ‘You can start walking,’ the other man said.

  He stood there for a moment, looking at them, but it was impossible to make out their faces in the darkness.

  So he started to walk. The candles were flickering from inside the forest, no more than twenty metres or so away.

  It was almost totally silent. Only a distant rumble and the pink sky behind him let on that the city was actually there, close by.

  Suddenly he heard a bird cry in the distance. A dry croaking sound that he recognized. He couldn’t help shuddering. Ten metres left to the edge of the forest. The snow crunched softly beneath his feet. He held his arms out from his sides and waited.

  Five metres.

  His heart was beating so hard he thought he could actually hear it.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two.

  One …

  46

  ORLY?

  Suddenly he was in amongst the trees.

  Surprised, he turned back towards the men. They were leaning against the car and seemed to be having a conversation.

  He didn’t get it.

  ‘Keep going!’ one of them called when he realized HP had stopped.

  He turned round and tried to peer in among the trees. The cemetery candles were casting ghostly flickering shadows between the trunks. Then he heard car doors open and close, then an engine start up.

  He took a few stumbling steps into the forest, tripped over a little, snow-covered headstone and fell flat in the snow. He got to his feet and brushed the worst of the snow off his clothes.

  The car was already halfway back to Kaknäsvägen.

  Were they really just letting him go?

  Just like that?

  He suddenly felt a sharp pain in one knee, and when he put his hand down to see he found his trouser-leg was wet with blood. It was impossible to judge the extent of the injury in the darkness, so he set off towards the candle that was burning brightest.

  It wasn’t until he was almost there that he realized there was someone standing by the grave.

  ‘Welcome, Henrik,’ the man said. ‘We’ve been looking for you for a very long time. You’re not an easy man to get hold of …’

  HP opened his mouth but couldn’t get a word out.

  ‘Can I offer you a cup of coffee?’

  The man raised his stick and pointed at the gravestone, which was actually a large, horizontal block of stone. On top of it, next to the large candle, stood a check-patterned flask and two cups. The man passed one of the cups to HP, who took it without speaking. The coffee was strong and scalding hot. They sipped at it in silence.

  ‘So what happens now?’ he finally managed to say.

  ‘That’s up to you.’

  ‘H-how?’

  ‘I have a task for you, Henrik,’ the man said slowly. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to complete it, a whole year, to be precise.’

  He put his hand inside his coat, and for a moment HP stiffened.

  But instead of a gun, the man pulled out an oblong envelope and handed it to HP.

  ‘Interesting place, this,’ he said as HP opened the envelope and unfolded a sheet of paper.

  ‘Are you aware of its history, Henrik?’

  HP shook his head, he was completely absorbed in reading.

  ‘The cemetery was started sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century by the author August Blanche, when he buried his dog out here. Other Stockholmers dutifully followed his example. Loyalty is a wonderful quality, don’t you think, Henrik?’

  ‘Mmm,’ HP replied distantly.

  He was halfway through the text but he had already worked out how it was all going to end.

  His brain was spinning at high speed, his heart pounding in his chest. This was incredible! Completely insane!

  ‘So what do you say, Henrik? Are you prepared to accept the task?’ the man smiled. ‘Yes or no?’

  HP opened his mouth.

  ‘Yes or no, to what?’

  ‘Rebecca!’ The man held out his free hand. ‘How nice of you to join us!’

  Rebecca stepped out of the darkness and walked slowly up to the gravestone.

  HP tucked the sheet of paper away at once. What the fuck was Becca doing here? Now? Did they know each other?<
br />
  ‘Yes or no to what, Henke?’ she repeated, stopping beside him.

  ‘Oh, I’ve just asked your brother for his assistance with something. It’s to do with what we discussed before …’ the man said with a smile.

  ‘About Dad?’

  ‘You could say that. By the way, I really am most grateful for your help in arranging this little meeting. Your colleagues acquitted themselves in an exemplary fashion.’

  She nodded curtly.

  HP’s brain felt like it was going to explode.

  Arranging?

  Colleagues?

  What in the name of holy fuck was going on?

  ‘You’ve arrived at just the right time, Rebecca, Henrik and I have just finished our little chat.’

  The man tipped the last of the coffee from the cups, then put them and the flask away in a little camping box he’d kept hidden in the shadows beside the gravestone.

  ‘My car is over there.’ He pointed into the darkness with his stick.

  ‘Well, it was nice to meet you both again,’ he said, raising his hat in farewell. ‘Goodbye, my friends!’

  ‘But you’ll stay in touch, Uncle Tage?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Rebecca,’ he replied in an almost amused tone of voice. ‘You’ll be hearing from me again. I promise.’

  A few moments later he was swallowed up by the darkness.

  ‘Explain!’ HP said as they trudged through the snow. ‘Quick, before I go completely mad!’

  She couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘Uncle Tage helped me with something, something important. In return I promised to help him arrange a meeting between the two of you. I’ve been a bit worried about you, so for the past few days a couple of my colleagues have been keeping an eye on you. They were the ones who picked you up at Hötorget. I’ve been keeping in touch with Malmén, the tall one, every now and then. So, didn’t you recognize him?’

  ‘Er, who?’

  ‘Uncle Tage, we went to stay at his summer cottage up in Rättvik when we were little.’

  She tucked her hand under his arm.

  ‘The blue clogs with our names on, don’t you remember? You never wanted to take them off …’

  He just shook his head.

  She emerged from the forest and headed over towards her car.

  ‘So, what was it he wanted you to do?’ she asked.