Bubble: A Thriller

by Anders de la Motte

  She closed her eyes, rested her head in her hands, and massaged her temples.

  God, what a story!

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Did you get far up the rankings?” he gasped toward her legs. “I was first runner-up, Player number 128. I was actually in the lead for a while, but I suppose you know all that . . .”

  No answer.

  She really was playing hard to get . . .

  Without any warning Nora suddenly stopped and he almost hit his head on her backside. Not that that would have been a wholly unpleasant experience.

  He was about to open his mouth to say something clever when she cut him off.

  “Shhhh!”

  Now he suddenly noticed the faint light ahead of them.

  It was coming through the roof of the tunnel, through some sort of grille or something. There was a vague sound of voices in the distance.

  “What time is it?” he hissed.

  “Half past five.”

  For a moment he thought she meant in the evening. That they had spent a whole day crawling through the darkness. But that obviously wasn’t the case. They’d picked him up from Långholmen in the middle of the night, then they’d walked through the tunnel just in time to see the last trains rumble home before the system shut down.

  Add a few hours for talking and crawling, and it would soon be time for breakfast.

  Nora carried on moving forward carefully, stopping just below the grating. She got up into a crouch and carefully stretched out, reaching toward the light. Her head disappeared from view and for a moment, even though he could see the rest of her body, he felt strangely abandoned.

  Then she was back.

  “Come on!”

  She waved him forward.

  “Quick!” she added when he failed to move fast enough.

  He crept forward and got up beside her, so close he could feel her breath on his cheek.

  “Medborgarplatsen subway station.” She pointed upward. “The platform’s empty, but the station must be opening any time now because I can hear voices. We have to get up before they let in the morning rush . . .

  “Otherwise it would look a bit odd, wouldn’t it?” she added, when he didn’t seem to get what she meant. “Two shabby-

  looking people crawling out of a hole in the ground . . . ?”

  “Sure, of course,” he mumbled.

  God, he was being slow!

  She stood up, flicked some sort of catch, and then raised the grating.

  She did a little jump and climbed out.

  “Here!”

  She reached one hand down toward him.

  For a moment he considered ignoring it, because obviously he could get himself out of a fucking hole without any help. But his body was completely exhausted and he had no desire to get stuck halfway up, like some geek doing circuit training. So he took her hand, pushed off from the floor, and jumped toward the hole. She pretty much pulled him out onto the platform.

  “Come on, they’ve started letting people in, I heard someone rattling keys . . .”

  She held on to his hand and pulled him up on his feet, then dragged him after her toward the middle of the platform.

  From the staircase leading down from the entrance at the far end they could hear a metallic sound that seemed to be getting closer. But there was still no sign of any early-morning passengers.

  Two pairs of legs in blue trousers appeared in their field of vision.

  Then weapons belts with jangling handcuffs, followed by blue uniform jackets and two capped heads.

  Cops—one male, one female.

  Heading straight for them!

  Shit!

  For a moment he was seized by an instinct to run. But Nora was still holding his hand, forcing him to calm down.

  “Pull your hood up,” she whispered, then slowly began to slip toward the nearest flight of steps up from the platform. There seemed to be voices coming from up there.

  He did as she said and slowly pulled his hood over his head.

  “We’ll already late, get a move on!” someone above them growled.

  Presumably station staff, about to open up.

  HP glanced cautiously over his shoulder. The cops were getting closer, gaining on them with every step.

  They seemed to be aiming straight for them.

  Suddenly he realized how filthy his hooded top was. Dirty stains all over it and brown scorch marks along one sleeve. Nora was in a similar state. It was hardly surprising that the cops seemed interested, they looked like a couple of down-and-outs.

  Nora squeezed his hand and he found himself squeezing back. The stairs were still ten meters away, and the cops were much closer than that.

  They weren’t going to make it. Unless they ran for it . . .

  He tensed his body, tried to free his hand and get ready to sprint.

  But she wouldn’t let go.

  Just as the cops caught up with them she pulled him to her, pressed her lips to his, and started kissing him hard.

  The kiss took him completely by surprise, but after a couple of seconds he got used to the idea and started kissing her back. Her lips and tongue were just as soft as he had imagined, even if the faint but not unpleasant taste of tobacco surprised him.

  He put one arm around her lower back and pulled her toward him.

  A gust of wind from the tunnel caught her hair, and it tickled him on the cheek.

  But he hardly noticed.

  “Get a room . . .” The female cop smirked as they walked past.

  A few seconds later a train thundered into the station.

  People came running down the stairs, forcing their way past them even though the subway car doors hadn’t opened yet.

  Nora pulled back and let go of his neck and hand.

  “Here,” she said, fishing a crumpled envelope out of her trouser pocket.

  “Take the train out to the Woodland Cemetery, Kent’s sorted out a flat there. The key and address are in the envelope. We’ll be in touch in a couple of days.”

  “Er, okay,” he mumbled, not sure what he was expected to say, or do, for that matter.

  “This is your train,” she said with a smile, pointing toward the subway a meter or so away.

  “Er, okay.”

  Same words again. He really did have the gift of gab today. A real ladies’ man.

  The Woodland Cemetery, of all places. Almost back on home territory. The little basement where the Fenster ran his stolen goods racket, where HP had financed pretty much the whole of his adult life.

  He stepped into the subway car and turned around.

  For a few moments they stood there looking at each other.

  “Fires,” she said just as the doors began to bleep.

  “What?”

  “You asked what I did for the Game.”

  “Right . . .”

  The doors slowly started to close.

  “I started fires . . .”

  20

  A FRIEND

  A SCARF AROUND her head, big black sunglasses, gloves, and a blue raincoat. Like something out of a fifties magazine, and definitely not her. But, on the other hand, that was the whole point of this little masquerade.

  She said hello to the guard in reception and held out her pass card. It was a different man from last time, or at least she thought it was.

  “You can go through,” he said once he’d swiped her card through the reader.

  “Thanks.”

  She carried on to the air lock. The large beach bag she was carrying over her shoulder was chafing slightly, but she gritted her teeth. She used her card again and tried to stop herself from glancing up at the little round camera in the ceiling.

  The plan was simple: open the new locker, put the green metal box in the bag, and disappear out the door, never to return.

  There was no time to lose. Sooner or later Stigsson and his henchmen would get hold of the pass card register and connect the dots. She couldn’t let them find the revolver, because they’d l
ink it to events at the Grand and use it as incontrovertible evidence that Henke really had meant to kill Black. The simplest solution would be to hand the gun over to Uncle Tage, just as she had more or less promised. But right now that thought didn’t feel quite as appealing as it had during their conversation in the car. Oh well, she could decide later, once she’d managed to get the revolver out of the bank.

  The door at the other end of the air lock opened and she stepped inside the vault.

  It looked exactly the same as last time, but just to be sure she stood still beside the door, listening for any sound of other visitors.

  Everything was silent, and after a few seconds she headed off down the central passageway.

  She walked slowly at first, then sped up, as if she was afraid she wasn’t going to make it in time. The sound of her heels bounced off the walls and created odd echoes in the rooms off to each side of the main path.

  As she passed the gate leading to the room containing the old box, she couldn’t help looking over at it. The hole in the brass door where the lock had once been was clearly visible.

  She fought a sudden urge to stop and take a closer look. Instead she carried on, past two more gates, until she reached the one with its green lamp illuminated. Her heart started to beat faster and she paused for a couple of seconds to look around. One of the dark, spherical cameras was almost immediately above her head, and she had to make a real effort not to look up.

  As soon as she got inside the little room and found the door to her own safe-deposit box, she felt much calmer. Everything was okay, the lock was intact, and there was no sign that anyone had tried to force it open.

  She put the key in the lock, then looked over her shoulder one last time just to be sure. Then she turned the key.

  It took several seconds for her to register what she found.

  The tin box was gone, and the locker was all but empty. Empty except for the little round object in the middle of it. A small glass sphere, maybe five centimeters in diameter.

  She carefully took it out, holding it between her thumb and forefinger. Her right hand suddenly began to shake and for a moment she was worried she was going to drop it.

  She quickly switched hands, then held the sphere up to the light and examined it carefully as she tried to wrap her head around the situation. Everything suddenly felt very unreal, almost dreamlike. She could see right through the sphere as she carefully rolled it between her thumb and forefinger.

  At its center floated a small bubble.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The flat couldn’t have been more than twenty-five square meters in size.

  A tiny kitchen that reeked of frying, and another room with a spongy cork-matting floor, fitted out with a folding bed from Ikea and a roll of wank paper. Not exactly the Hilton. And it was also hot as hell.

  The morning sun was blazing down on the windows, and the roller blinds seemed to be absorbing the heat rather than deflecting it.

  He held up the transparent little pill bottle in front of him and shook it. Five big pills bounced around inside. For what must be the tenth time in the past five minutes, he popped the lid open and pulled one of them out.

  Obviously he really ought to clamber out of bed, pour himself a glass of lukewarm water from the wonky tap in the kitchen, and swallow the bastard.

  Long overdue too, for that matter, since he’d spent almost twenty-four hours asleep in there, so he was behind on his medication. His head was aching in a rather disturbing way, and in spite of the heat he had found himself shivering a few times.

  Yet still he hesitated.

  She must have put the bottle of pills in his pocket while they were kissing. That was the only realistic explanation he could think of.

  He put the pill back in the bottle, fished out the box of Marlboros he had picked up on the way from the station, and lit one.

  I started fires . . .

  Nice girl . . .

  Really nice . . .

  There were a number of fires to choose from. Erman’s cottage. Mange’s shop. Not to mention his own flat . . . Take your pick, basically . . .

  The first time he took one of those horse pills he got ill. He’d had food poisoning before, but this had felt different, he realized now in hindsight. And his involuntary stomach pump out in the water of Pålsundet had made him feel better almost immediately, which definitely wasn’t what usually happened after an overdose of kebabylococcus.

  If he hadn’t suddenly fallen ill, he’d be a long way away by now. He’d have taken off to the countryside and hidden himself away in a hole deep enough to make Saddam Hussein jealous. But instead he had ended up wandering around Långholmen, feeling like shit until he came up with the bright idea of having a nap on a boat.

  And then all they had to do was reel him in, basically.

  And now he was here in their flat. Exactly where they wanted him.

  And all thanks to Mange.

  Fucking Mange, who had obviously shafted him royally. No, empirically! But now he was expected to just forget everything that had happened and swallow the story that he had been doing the Game’s bidding the whole time.

  Fuck!!

  He threw the bottle of pills at the ceiling, where it made a dent in one of the plasterboard tiles before bouncing over toward the front door.

  If only he’d had a computer, he could have done a bit of googling and checked out some of the details of the shit soup Mange was trying to feed him.

  But here he was instead, with no broadband, telephone, or even a damn television.

  Like a suburban variation of Erman the Hermit.

  Ah yes, Erman . . .

  The Game Master’s little buddy, who was clearly one of the people who used that underground office when he needed to. An outcast who had come in from the cold and had managed to carve out a place for himself right next to the stove.

  If he had ever really been frozen out, of course.

  Mange had been the reason he had hooked up with Erman in the first place. Mange, who he thought he knew inside out. The same Mange whose first Commodore 64 HP had been procured from the Fenster in exchange for three stolen car stereos.

  Mange, who always helped out no matter how much you took the piss . . .

  OhfortheloveofGod . . . !

  He flew up from the bed, trying desperately to find something to take his frustration out on, but ended up just pacing up and down the worn floor. His headache got worse with every step.

  A decision.

  He basically just had to make a decision.

  Swallow the pill, and with it Mange’s story that he, Nora, Hasselqvist, and Muscles were the good guys. That they had formed a resistance group to depose the Game Master.

  Or else he didn’t buy it . . .

  Time to make a decision, Mr. Pettersson.

  Red

  or

  Black?

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The revolver was gone. Someone had opened her safe-deposit box without leaving any trace and had removed both the gun and the tin box. Apart from her, there was only one person who had known where the gun was. So he had decided not to wait, or, even worse: he didn’t trust her.

  All bubbles are doomed to burst sooner or later . . .

  She took her phone out of her bag, scrolled through the contacts until she found the right number.

  “Hi, it’s Rebecca,” she said when the voice mail kicked in at the other end. “I know I’m only supposed to call this number in absolute emergencies.”

  She paused for a moment and drew a deep breath.

  “But I think Henke’s in trouble. Really bad trouble, and I’ll do anything I can to help him. Anything at all . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The noise made him leap out of bed. At first he couldn’t remember where he was, but once he’d figured it out, and what he was doing there, he tried to work out what the noise was.

  It had come from the hall. The doorbell, of course.

  He took a few cautious steps t
oward the front door, but before he got to it someone opened the letter box. He stopped automatically, then took a couple of steps back into the living room.

  The flat was on the third floor, too high to jump.

  If there was a fire, he was fucked.

  “It’s me . . .” a voice hissed through the letter box. “Kent.”

  HP breathed out. He went into the hall and unlocked the door.

  Hasselqvist with a Q and a V slipped in and squeezed quickly past him. An acrid burst of nylon-shirt sweat hit HP’s nostrils.

  “Don’t worry,” he said before HP had time to open his mouth. “I wasn’t followed, I pulled every trick in the book.”

  He went into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of water, and gulped it down.

  Then another glass.

  “Here,” he panted, putting a supermarket bag on the draining board. “Thought your supplies were probably starting to run out.”

  HP opened the bag.

  Milk, baked beans, ready meals, some vegetables, and—yes!—cigarettes! Christ, what a relief! He suppressed a sudden urge to kiss Hasselqvist, tore open a pack, and pulled out a Marlboro.

  “So, what’s happening?” He took a couple of deep drags.

  Hasselqvist didn’t answer, just gave HP a disapproving look.

  “If you have to smoke, stand under the extractor fan . . .”

  “Sure . . .”

  HP shrugged and moved a bit closer to the cooker.

  “The others are on their way,” Hasselqvist said. “They’ll be here in the next hour or so. You’ll find out more then. Jeff’s got a plan to get us into the Fortress.”

  “Okay. So you haven’t dropped that idea yet . . .”

  “Why would we do that? If we can shut down the Fortress, it’s all over . . .”

  “Yeah, right . . .”

  HP took another drag.

  “W-what do you mean?”

  “Nothing, Kent, we can talk about it later. I’m going to heat up some grub, do you want anything?”

  “No thanks, had a hot dog on the way.”

  “Okay, your loss . . .”

  HP chucked the Findus version of a hamburger into the microwave and blasted it with full force.

  “By the way, I’m not pissed off.”