She nodded.
‘To begin with I thought it was just talk. Another one of his stories …’
‘But as time went by you became more convinced?’
‘Yes, especially after I’d talked to …’
She bit her lip.
‘… Magnus Sandström?’ Sammer concluded. ‘Or Farook Al-Hassan, as he calls himself these days.’
She didn’t answer.
‘Don’t worry, Rebecca, we know all about Sandström. We’ve had our eyes on him for quite a while. We know that one of his tasks was to recruit people whom the Game might find useful.’
‘People like Henke, you mean?’
‘Precisely. Your brother is an excellent example of an active participant. But Sandström and his like also recruit other more … passive resources.’
‘Such as?’
He leaned even closer and lowered his voice almost to a whisper.
‘Such as you, for instance …’
17
Game change
They parked in a garage near Södra station.
‘Here.’
Nora handed him a pair of cheap sunglasses.
‘And pull your hood up as well.’
He didn’t really understand why until they passed a tobacconist’s and he saw his own glazed expression from his passport photograph staring out at him from the wall.
SWEDEN’S MOST WANTED MAN! the flysheet screamed, so loudly that he felt like covering his ears.
‘Okay?’ Nora said quietly.
‘Sure …’ he mumbled, without sounding at all convincing. ‘Is it much further?’
She shook her head.
‘We’re heading to Fatbursparken first, then we’re almost there.’
They walked round some portacabins and made their way along a fence surrounding a building site.
The music and noise from the pavement cafés up in Medborgarplatsen were clearly audible.
Jeff stopped for a moment and looked around.
‘Through there,’ he said, pointing to an opening in the fence.
They went down a rough tarmac path, looping downwards in a semicircle. Just as they disappeared below ground level the path turned to gravel and they found themselves in a narrow gulley with rock walls on either side. Weird … he thought he knew Södermalm like the back of his hand, but he’d never given any thought to this particular corner.
He must have crossed the footbridge he could see seven or eight metres above them hundreds of times without ever thinking about what was underneath. Probably because the vegetation growing from the sides of the gulley formed a canopy that blocked the view.
The gulley stopped abruptly at a rock wall. In the middle was a large metal gate, and cool, damp, cave air hit them as they got closer.
Jeff looked over his shoulder again, then glanced up at the buildings just visible above ground level.
‘Okay?’ Nora said.
Jeff nodded.
She took a large key out of one of her jacket pockets and unlocked the gate.
Once they were inside she locked it again.
Jeff pulled out a torch and shone it into the cave.
Ten metres in, there was a folding door.
Nora marched quickly over to it and began fiddling with the lock, but HP didn’t move.
He was tired, exhausted, unable to walk another step, at least not until someone told him where the hell they were going.
‘Come on.’ Jeff tugged at his arm.
He opened his mouth to tell the king of the bodybuilders to go fuck himself, but at that moment a row of lamps lit up on the other side of the door, revealing a long tunnel that led into the rock.
He hesitated a few more seconds, then curiosity got the better of him.
The tunnel was big, judging from its height and width it looked like it had probably once been used for trains. The roof was bricked over, and every fifteen metres there was an old fluorescent light-fitting, giving off just enough light to see by. The sides of the tunnel were mostly bare rock, but here and there water had trickled through, polishing the surface.
The tunnel curved to the left, and the ground sloped gently down. HP’s tired legs were grateful for any help they could get. Their steps echoed off the walls, and once they’d walked about fifty metres the folding door behind them vanished from view.
‘So where are we going?’ he asked Nora. Jeff answered.
‘We told you back on Långholmen. A meeting …’
‘Yes, but I thought …’ He didn’t finish the sentence.
What had he actually thought?
He scarcely knew. His whole system had rebooted, and only now did his head seem to have started working normally.
They had entered the tunnel up by Fatbursparken, and it curved down and to the left. They must have walked about two hundred metres now, which meant they should be somewhere under …
Sankt Paulsgatan.
The chauffeur pulled up in a free parking space. Then, without a word from Sammer, he got out onto the pavement and closed the car door behind him.
‘You must have an awful lot of questions, Rebecca, and believe me, nothing would please me more than to be able to answer them all. But, as I’m sure you can appreciate, that is sadly not possible …’
He looked at her in a way that made her nod unconsciously in agreement.
‘But, because I trust you, I will do my best to satisfy your curiosity. Tell me what you know, and I shall try to fill in the gaps …’
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.
The fact that Sammer was working for both the Palace and Security Police explained a fair amount. But she had plenty more questions, a great deal more, and now she had to try to reformulate them.
‘The safe deposit box …’ she began. ‘You knew there was a gun in it, didn’t you?’
He hesitated for a moment, then nodded slowly.
‘I certainly suspected as much. As I said, your father had begun to act on his own, and made a number of ill-considered decisions. It would be extremely unfortunate if the weapon were to be traced back to …’
He gestured towards the window.
‘… events in the past.’
He fell silent and looked at her.
‘A safe deposit box is in many ways a sort of bubble, Rebecca. A place where time has stopped and all the normal rules have ceased to apply. But as you already know, bubbles have one thing in common …’
‘Sooner or later they’re bound to burst,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘And the passports?’
‘There’s less risk attached to them, but I’d still be grateful if you could let me have them, along with the gun. Not least to protect your father’s memory …’
She didn’t answer, and tried instead to put her questions together into something resembling a narrative.
‘That piece of paper you gave Henke, out in the cemetery. You said you wanted to give him a message, that that was why you needed to get in touch with him …’
Sammer didn’t respond immediately, and seemed to be waiting for her to say more. She waited silently for an answer to her question.
Finally, he let out a sigh.
‘I promised your father that I’d look after you. Both you and Henrik. When we started to receive information which suggested that Henke was seriously involved in the Game, I decided to break the rules …’
‘Something happened out there by the Kaknäs Tower, didn’t it …?’ she persisted.
He glanced briefly out of the window.
‘I suppose you could say that I decided to use rather unorthodox methods …’
‘Come on, this is my little brother we’re talking about! You have to tell me, Uncle Tage!’
He lowered his voice and leaned forward.
‘Henrik doesn’t like me, does he? He doesn’t like the fact that you and I are close?’
‘Er … what?’ The question took her by surprise. ‘Well, maybe not. But not because of you.�
�
‘I’m afraid it is, Rebecca …’
He took a deep breath and appeared to think for a few moments.
‘Let me explain. Most participants in the Game become afflicted sooner or later by severe paranoia. They have difficulty seeing the difference between fantasy and reality, and begin to see conspiracies round every corner …’
He paused, and she couldn’t help nodding.
‘Just as I feared, I’m afraid this applies to Henrik. He has long since passed the point where it was possible to appeal to his common sense …’
She went on nodding, more firmly now.
‘Unfortunately, the only way to save him is to make use of his condition. It’s not something I would do if there was any other way of reaching him, Rebecca, I hope you can understand …’
‘But what did you do?’
‘I managed to persuade Henrik that I was actually the Game Master.’
‘W-what …?!’
He held up his hand to stop her.
‘Rebecca, I thought my deception was the only way to save him. It was a shock tactic. I gave him a task, one that was so unthinkable that Henrik would be unable even to consider carrying it out. He would be jolted into a return to reality, so to speak, and would feel a need to break free of the Game’s grasp. Then he would once again be reachable, possibly even …’
‘Willing to cooperate!’ she interrupted. ‘You wanted to get him to spill the beans about the Game, to become an informer. Was that why he was pulled in by the Security Police?’
Sammer nodded slowly.
‘But Eskil acted a little prematurely. Henrik wasn’t ready, and once that lawyer showed up …’
‘… Stigsson got cold feet and let Henrik go.’
She took a deep breath.
‘So the plan was to put Henrik under so much pressure that he’d jump ship. But instead you pushed him over the edge, and for some reason he ended up trying to attack Black. And now you’re worried it’s all going to get out. That’s why you wanted to get to Henrik first, to make sure he didn’t give you away …’
He held up both hands as if to prevent her finishing the sentence.
‘No, no, absolutely not, you misunderstand, my dear Rebecca, you really must believe me when I say that I only want the best for you both. You and Henrik. Erland was a friend, a trusted comrade who was always loyal to me and our cause. The fact that I wasn’t in a position to save him from himself is one of my greatest regrets in life. The forces that have got their claws into Henrik are closely related to Erland’s fate, and that is why I chose to take such drastic measures …’
Her heart suddenly began to beat faster.
‘You mean that Dad was also being used by the Game?’
Sammer grimaced.
‘You can’t answer that, can you?’ she said.
He glanced out of the window again.
The chauffeur was still standing a short distance away on the pavement, and to judge by his body-language the night air was pretty cold.
‘We don’t have much time left, Rebecca,’ Sammer went on.
‘What was the task?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The task you gave Henrik out at the pet cemetery, the “unthinkable task.” What exactly was it?’
He was looking out of the window. The chauffeur had turned round and was on his way back to the car. Just as he was about to open the door, Sammer leaned closer to her, so close she could smell his aftershave.
‘He was supposed to carry out an attack on the royal wedding.’
They had gone another two hundred metres or so, and the tunnel was sloping downwards more steeply.
There were noises now, a vague rumble from a ventilation system. A large grille in the right wall of the tunnel suddenly blew out a gust of air, and a few seconds later an underground train rattled past on the other side.
In the distance he could hear the announcement from the platform.
Far ahead in the tunnel he could make out what looked like builders’ huts. One on each side of the tunnel.
And suddenly he realized where they were going.
Bloody hell!
He stopped dead and looked back quickly over his shoulder. Nora had locked the gate up there, and the key was in her jacket pocket. And he’d never be able to run all the way back.
‘Are you coming, or what?’ Jeff took a step closer.
HP leaned forward and put his hands on his knees.
‘Wait a moment,’ he muttered, trying to sound exhausted, which wasn’t exactly difficult. His pulse had been racing for a while and it felt like the air was getting harder to breathe.
He needed to buy himself some time, get a few moments to think.
They had been veering left the whole way, and had been going down, which meant that the underground station he could hear had to be Slussen.
So those huts up ahead had to be right underneath …
‘We’re going to meet the Source, aren’t we?’ he said, looking up.
Neither of the others had much of a poker face.
‘Come on,’ Jeff said, taking another step closer.
HP didn’t move.
‘Your source is called Erman. I met him a long time ago. Back then he was hiding out in the bush and claiming to have been thrown out of the Game.’
He spat a gob of saliva onto the floor of the tunnel.
‘Erman’s working for the Game Master. I saw them together just a few hours ago with the cops. And before that I saw him go down in the lift that comes out over there.’
He gestured towards the huts.
Jeff tried to say something but HP ignored him. Instead he stared straight at Nora, trying to catch her eye.
‘This whole thing is a trap, Nora …’ he said as calmly as he could. ‘At best the Source has sold you out, getting you to run errands for the Game …’
She didn’t respond, but a little frown had appeared above her nose.
‘… or else you’ve been working for the Game Master all along.’
He couldn’t quite make out the expression on Nora’s face, but he was still pretty convinced that she was just as disconcerted as he was. But right now that really didn’t matter.
‘Either way, the Game’s been trying to find me. They’re desperate to get hold of me at any cost. And you’re about to deliver me to them, exactly as they want. Don’t you get it?’
He paused for breath.
‘Bollocks,’ Jeff growled. ‘So you expect us to believe that you’ve met the Source and the Game Master?’
He grinned and tilted his head towards Nora.
‘We’ve got a real heavyweight here, eh …?’
‘What does he look like?’
It took HP a moment to realize that Nora was talking to him.
‘W-what? Who?’
‘The Game Master, of course, who do you think?’
‘Er, well … he’s around seventy, well dressed, walks with a stick … A typical grey old man …’
He slowly straightened up.
‘He calls himself Tage Sammer.’
‘And you’ve met?’
HP nodded. Her tone of voice and the expression on her face reinforced his theory. There was no way she was consciously working for the Game.
‘I even had coffee with him out at the pet cemetery just beyond the Kaknäs Tower. He had a check-patterned flask in a little camping box, typical old man stuff …’
‘And you seriously expect us to believe that?’
Jeff again, but HP ignored him.
It was Nora he had to convince, and not just for the simple reason that he didn’t want to be handed over to Erman and the Game Master. He actually wanted her to believe him.
Properly.
‘Well, what do you say?’
He held his arms up towards Nora and fired off his most charming smile.
‘You’re right,’ she said, and he noticed Jeff twitch. ‘The Source wants to meet you. He’s waiting down there …’
She
gestured over her shoulder, towards the huts.
‘He’s usually incredibly cautious, but as soon as we told him you were backing out, he wanted to set up a meeting. That has to mean something …’
‘It just means he wants to get hold of me …!’
Without warning Jeff suddenly grabbed HP by the arm and tried to get him in some sort of police hold.
But HP was ready. He resisted for a fraction of a second, then took aim and spun round to the right.
Just before they collided he raised his left leg and planted his knee hard into Jeff’s crown jewels.
The man collapsed like a house of cards, almost taking HP down with him as he fell. But at the last moment HP managed to pull free.
He took a couple of stumbling steps, then regained his balance and started running towards the huts.
Nora stuck out her arms in an attempt to stop him, but the tunnel was wide enough for him to dart past without any problem.
Fifty metres to the huts and lift.
His heart was already pounding in his chest.
Running straight towards danger wasn’t exactly the best idea, but he didn’t have any other options.
With a bit of luck Erman was hiding in one of the huts not daring to look out.
Thirty metres, and suddenly he could hear steps behind him.
It had to be Nora, Jeff would hardly be in a fit state to run.
‘HP, stop!’ she yelled, and he fought the urge to look back.
Twenty metres now.
Fifteen.
His throat was burning, shrinking to the size of a drinking straw.
The footsteps were getting closer.
Ten metres left.
The tunnel narrowed to a path between the huts, and beyond that there was a pale rectangle in the rock-face that had to be the door of the lift.
It was open!
‘HP, stop!’
Her voice was sharper now, and this time he couldn’t resist the urge to turn his head.
She was six or seven metres behind him, close, but still further away than he had imagined.
It might just work …
It was going to work!
The next moment he saw movement from the corner of his eye.
He started turning his head to the front again, and just had time to see the door opening right in front of him.
Then everything went dark.
The Game Trilogy Page 85
