The Game Trilogy

by Anders de la Motte

  WRONG! Ten thousand!

  But, even so, he still sank to his knees and reached slowly under the bed. He was trying in vain to stop his hand trembling. His fingers brushed against it, slowly closing around the rectangular metal object …

  ‘Hello?’ he croaked.

  There was silence on the line, and for a few moments he thought the person at the other end had hung up.

  Then he heard music. In the distance, and he pressed the phone hard against his ear to try to work out what it was. Organ music, like a church.

  It took him a few more seconds to work out what he was listening to.

  The wedding march.

  9

  Guns, guards and gates …

  She still didn’t know what to think. The whole of Uncle Tage’s story obviously sounded completely unbelievable, and if it had come from anyone else she would immediately have dismissed it as utter rubbish.

  But right now his story was the only explanation she had. And in a lot of ways it fitted very well. It explained both the photograph and the fake passports, and also cast a certain light over other things, not least the bitterness that seemed to have consumed her dad from within, turning him into a different person, a person it was increasingly difficult to like. And she really had tried. Doing all she could to please him, longing for the smallest sign of approval …

  But there were still far too many gaps in the story. According to Uncle Tage, Dad had been dismissed sometime in the mid-eighties. But as far as she knew he had gone on working, still going off on his business trips for almost another ten years before he finally came home from Spain in a coffin.

  She hadn’t asked Uncle Tage about that, hadn’t raised any of the details surrounding Dad’s death. Nor, in spite of his prompting, had she said anything about the revolver in the safe deposit box.

  But the more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that he already knew about it. And that it was actually the gun he was most anxious to get hold of.

  That was also why she wanted to wait before asking any more questions, at least until she’d had time to check out his story. Put a bit more meat on the bones.

  But, if she was honest, her reluctance was probably just as much to do with the fact that she was worried about the answers.

  Or that her brain was already full of other, considerably more pressing matters. Like the weird circumstances of Henke’s arrest and Mark Black’s impending visit, now only four days away.

  And she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that van that had been following them. She had just found the response from the Highways Agency in her pigeon-hole. The van was a rental vehicle registered to a new company set up out in the western suburbs. Groundstone Ltd, a standard name allocated whenever the person registering a new business hadn’t supplied a company name. The address was a post office box, just like thousands of other businesses. Altogether, the information in the letter didn’t really help either to dismiss or reinforce her suspicions.

  But at least the van hadn’t shown up again, which was obviously something of a relief.

  There was something else which was starting to worry her more and more though: the way her hands kept shaking, particularly the right one. Since she had almost lost hold of the bottle of water in the café, the shakes had returned a couple more times. It was probably due to lack of sleep, as her doctor had suggested. Or it could be a temporary side-effect of her new pills.

  It’ll take a few weeks for your body to get used to them, Rebecca, you’ll just have to be patient …

  She hadn’t said anything to Micke, or anyone else for that matter. The dose she had been given was mild, but antidepressants were hardly something she wanted to boast about.

  She walked along the corridor towards her office, passing Micke’s door on the way.

  It was closed, but she could see his back through the small glass window.

  Like most mornings, he had got up early and had got to work while she was still in bed.

  They spent far too little time together, she was all too aware of that, but this time it wasn’t her fault alone. She’d taken the job at Sentry partly in an attempt to make things up with him after her affair with Tobbe Lundh. So that they would share more, see more of each other.

  That had been the theory …

  But for herself, she would probably rather they had had a fight about it, with him calling her terrible things, all of which she would have deserved. Slamming doors and not speaking to her for weeks, until she begged and pleaded for forgiveness.

  And maybe not even then …

  But obviously his behaviour had been far more mature. She had made a mistake, and he had forgiven her. End of story.

  Much more sensible than throwing a load of accusations at her and slamming doors. But also kind of unnatural …

  She shut the door of her office behind her and started up her computer.

  While it was booting up she found herself glancing at the desk drawer.

  A couple of minutes could hardly hurt. Besides, it looked like her computer was updating …

  She opened the drawer and carefully took out the photograph. Then she switched on the desk-lamp, adjusted the beam and took the magnifying glass she had just bought out of her handbag.

  The resolution of the picture wasn’t great, and the almost fifty years that had passed since it was taken hadn’t done anything to improve things.

  But the man in the middle of the front row, who, unlike the others, was only smiling slightly, not showing his teeth, certainly looked very much like her dad.

  She examined him carefully through the magnifying glass. The same pointed nose as her, the same prominent cheekbones and dark eyes. But it was impossible to be absolutely certain. The beret the man was wearing was pulled down low over his forehead, making the proportions of his face look rather squashed. And it also hid his hair, making him even harder to identify.

  She moved on to the other men grouped around the armoured car.

  Sixty-nine of them in total, all somewhere in their twenties, dressed in light khaki uniforms and berets. One of the men in the back row also looked rather familiar.

  His face was shadowed by the men in front of him, which made it even harder to make out any details. But it could very well be Uncle Tage …

  Her computer bleeped and she put the magnifying glass down and typed in her username and password.

  Then she opened the search engine and typed in a few search terms.

  Weapon smuggling, UN, Cyprus.

  More than 50,000 hits.

  The first took her to a Swedish military history archive, and after a bit of searching she found what she was after:

  In December 1963 fighting broke out between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, which led to the UN sending peace-keeping troops to the island. Under pressure from the UN, Sweden recruited a battalion of 955 men which was deployed to difficult terrain in the west of Cyprus. The battalion was allocated a large area with 35 observation posts, and equipped with armoured personnel vehicles to patrol the area. Late in the summer of that year the situation deteriorated and the Swedish troops found themselves caught between the warring parties and were forced to evacuate the Turkish civilian population. It was at this point that Greek Cypriot soldiers discovered that a small number of Swedish soldiers were smuggling arms to the Turkish Cypriots. The guilty men were punished and some officers replaced, stricter discipline was imposed and the Swedish battalion moved to the Famagusta region.

  She leaned back in her chair, took a deep breath and laced her fingers together behind her neck. So far Uncle Tage’s story seemed to fit. But how could she find more details?

  She tried some of the other search results, but none of the sites was any great help.

  She changed the search terms, but to no avail. But she did find a number of books about Swedish UN missions, and decided to order a couple of them. Just as she was finished there was a knock at her door.

  ‘Come in!’

  Kjellgren lo
oked in.

  ‘Morning, boss, everything okay?’

  ‘Hmm, did you want anything particular?’

  ‘Sanna said you wanted to talk to me about next week’s rota …?’

  ‘Of course, yes, take a seat …’

  She gestured to a chair as she swept the photograph and magnifying glass into the top drawer of her desk.

  Time to rearrange her list of priorities.

  He was holding the phone in his hand. He could feel its cool surface against his palm as he gauged how heavy it was. He ran his fingers over the embossed numbers on the back for the umpteenth time.

  1 – 2 – 8

  He had been the first runner-up, the Ayatollah of Fuck’n’Rolla, the coolest dude in the Game. Just thinking about it still gave him a bit of a hard-on. Fuck, he really did have a seriously selective memory!

  All the rest of it – the way they’d deceived him, making him think that he was a winner, daring him to do whatever they wanted, getting him to cross all his boundaries and then dumping him – was almost forgotten. Maybe even forgiven … A bit like when old blokes bang on about what a great time they had doing military service and how the bastard sergeant was actually quite a decent bloke really …

  But the Game wasn’t just a training exercise, it wasn’t playing at war, firing blanks and planning everything around a lunch of pea soup and pork chops. It was totally real, one hundred percent!

  He couldn’t deny that holding the phone certainly felt good. Just for a few seconds feeling part of something bigger, something the average Swede would never get anywhere close to.

  But in spite of all that, he couldn’t go through with the task, he wasn’t that sort of person.

  Everything that had happened down in Bagarmossen was something else entirely. Self-defence, you could almost say.

  Dag or Becca. Not exactly a difficult choice …

  What the Game Master was asking him to do now was an entirely different matter. Crystal clear and straight to the point. But he couldn’t do it.

  He wasn’t a murderer.

  Not like that …

  They were trying to manipulate him, he could see that. The cops, the message on the computer, the surveillance, the articles in the papers. The phone call, the wedding music.

  It was all part of one big mind-fuck, intended to brainwash him. Make him malleable. Make him do what the Game Master wanted.

  He had to regain the initiative, get the upper hand … Slowly he put the phone down and covered it up with some newspapers. Then he went and got his crowbar.

  ‘Okay, if no-one has any more questions, we’ll stop there. We’ll meet up at 06.00 on Monday for a final run-through before we set off. As you all know, plenty of people will be watching us, which makes this an excellent opportunity to show what we can bring to the organization as a whole.’

  The rest of the team nodded in agreement. No-one seemed to have anything to add.

  ‘Good.’ She stood up and gathered her papers, the signal to the others that they could leave the table. Her hands were behaving perfectly, no trace of any trembling.

  It must have been something temporary, like her doctor had said.

  She took out her mobile and switched it from silent to normal. The screen flashed a couple of times, then turned blue. She muttered to herself, then pressed to switch it off. The third time this week, she really should have got it fixed before Black’s visit, but if she left it on and didn’t mess about with the settings it ought to work okay. Besides, they did most of their internal communication by radio.

  When she got back to her office the letter was on her desk. She realized what it was at once and eagerly tore the envelope open.

  Application for weapons licence: Sentry Security.

  Then a load of officialese and a large stamp in the bottom right corner.

  Approved.

  Yes!

  That meant they were now authorized to carry guns on duty, just as she had in the Security Police, and that they could now take the pistols they had used down in the firing range with them when they went out.

  One worry sorted, and a big one at that. The pressure in her chest eased slightly.

  Being armed was important – without weapons they could only ever be lightweight bodyguards, little better than the gym-pumped gorillas trying to keep the fans away from celebrities and pop stars. With weapons they were professionals, specialists who could defend themselves and their charges as far as was physically possible.

  The letter of approval gave no indication why the issuing body had changed its decision, but that didn’t really matter. She already knew.

  Her phone seemed to have woken up and she scrolled through her contacts until she found the right name.

  Thanks for your help! she wrote, then pressed send.

  Just a few minutes later the answer appeared.

  Don’t mention it, glad I was able to help!

  Have you had time to think over my proposal regarding your find?

  Best wishes, Uncle T.

  She started a reply but stopped herself halfway through. Obviously it would be best to hand everything over to Uncle Tage. He seemed capable of dealing with most things, and the revolver was worrying her more than she cared to admit. Yet it didn’t feel right to let it all go until she knew more about her dad’s past.

  She erased her reply and wrote a new one instead.

  Need more time to think!

  Then she went over to the computer to spread the good news.

  He peered cautiously behind the roller-blind. Obviously he ought to wait until it got dark, but the semi-darkness of the Swedish summer wouldn’t descend until eleven at night, and there was no way he could wait that long!

  He carefully opened his creaking front door and listened for noises in the gloom of the stairwell. Somewhere below him he could hear the faint sound of a television, but that was all.

  He took a couple of paces in his stockinged feet and put his ear to his neighbour’s door. Silent as the grave.

  For the first time in several days, which might reasonably suggest that the flat was empty.

  Even Stasi spies probably had families waiting for them at home.

  He crouched down and cautiously opened the letterbox. Dark, much darker than the stairwell, which meant that the windows were covered. The smell hadn’t changed from the previous times he had checked. Sawdust. They must have done some serious work in there …

  He straightened up, then took a couple of paces and checked down the stairs one more time, just to be sure.

  Then he felt inside the sleeve of his jumper and pulled out the little crowbar.

  It was surprisingly straightforward. The pointed end into the crack, just above the lock, a bang with his palm to wedge it in place, then a sharp jerk and pop goes the weasel!

  It wasn’t so strange, really. Unlike his own door, this one was wood, old wood. Fifty or sixty years’ drying out had shrunk the wood badly, giving plenty of room to play with between it and the frame.

  One muffled noise when the crowbar went in, then a louder one as the bolt of the lock popped out.

  Open Sesame!

  There was hardly a mark on the door.

  HP stood still for a moment and listened. Apart from the television downstairs, there still wasn’t any noise, neither from the stairwell nor the flat. He scuffed a few little splinters of wood away with one sock, nudging them up against the wall so they wouldn’t stand out against the stone floor. Then he pulled a small torch out of one of his pockets, stepped inside the flat and carefully shut the door behind him as best he could.

  The smell of sawdust was stronger in the flat, as he stood there for a moment fiddling with the torch.

  An image suddenly popped into his head. He and Becca in front of a fire. No, a fireplace.

  Sparks crackling, shooting out onto a tiled floor … Him chasing them, trying to catch them before they went out. Her laughter …

  The sudden light from the torch made him jump. Pull yourself t
ogether, for fuck’s sake! Memory lane can wait.

  He swept the beam of the torch around the dark little hall. The flat looked like his, the layout was pretty much the same. He must have seen it at least a hundred times when the Goat was living there. But now it felt weirdly unfamiliar, and he padded about carefully as he let the torch light up the empty floor.

  No furniture at all, not a single chair or cardboard box. The whole flat felt oddly abandoned, but he could still feel his heart beating faster. He squatted down and shone the torch over the floor, just like they did in CSI.

  There were clear footprints in the dust. An obvious highway through the middle of the room, with hardly any deviation. He turned round and shone the torch in all directions. The footsteps led from the front door, through the hall and on towards the bedroom door, through the living room. He could make out at least three different types of shoe, two that looked like different types of trainer, and a third that seemed smoother, like a smarter sort of shoe.

  All the visitors appeared to have been heading for the bedroom, which was rather odd seeing as that was the room furthest from his own flat. That must be where they had been doing most of the work, because in spite of the smell he hadn’t seen a single trace of sawdust.

  As he got closer he suddenly noticed a faint glow beneath the door. He froze and got ready for a rapid retreat. Then he realized that the light was far too faint to come from any ordinary lamp. Besides, it was red, so he guessed it probably came from a digital display on some electronic gadget.

  He took a few cautious steps and put his ear to the bedroom door.

  Silence.

  The smell of sawdust was so strong that it almost stung his nostrils. Somewhere under the sweet, woody smell was something more acrid that he didn’t recognize.

  He paused for a few moments.

  Five.

  Ten.

  Then he put his hand on the handle, took a deep breath, and carefully opened the door.

  10

  Snake eyes

  The six guns went off so close together that the blasts almost merged into one. Double shots with just a few milliseconds between them. The targets turned away with a short hydraulic hiss.