Bubble: A Thriller

by Anders de la Motte

  He nodded to Runeberg, who changed the picture.

  A photograph appeared on the projector screen, and she bit her lip unconsciously.

  “Henrik Pettersson, alias HP, or number 128. Pettersson is known to the police, not least for a conviction for manslaughter. He is suspected of being behind the attack in Kungsträdgården two years ago, and is, as you may know, wanted in connection with a failed attack at the Grand Hotel one week ago.”

  She saw the officers around her nod and did her best to look unconcerned.

  “The other person is a more recent acquaintance.”

  Runeberg changed the picture again.

  “Magnus Sandström, also known in some circles as Farook Al-Hassan. Sandström is probably the brains behind an autonomous group known as the Game. He’s extremely intelligent, very manipulative, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous. We are currently trying very hard to locate these two gentlemen, and we believe that we are closing in on them. So there is a good chance that we will have apprehended them before the wedding tomorrow, but if for some reason we should fail, you will all be issued with their pictures.”

  He looked at Runeberg.

  “Their pictures are actually in the folders in front of you, along with maps, the official schedule, and various contact numbers, including Colonel Pellas’s cell phone number,” Runeberg said.

  “Thank you, Superintendent. Well, allow me to wish you all the very best of luck for tomorrow, and to add that I personally, along with the Marshal of the Realm and His Majesty the King, are extremely grateful for your efforts. Let us hope that we have a calm and peaceful day ahead of us . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Eyes like saucers, mouths wide open, pale faces.

  Jeff pushed the technician aside and took several firm steps down the narrow staircase leading to the floor of the room. His revolver was still pointing at the ceiling.

  “Who’s in charge here?”

  “I am.” A thickset man in a short-sleeved white shirt, with a pen case in his top pocket, stood up from his chair.

  “Sit down!” Jeff aimed the revolver at the man.

  He hesitated for a moment, then obeyed.

  Jeff carried on down the steps until he reached the man’s desk. HP followed slowly, looking around the whole time. No cameras in here, just as he had suspected . . .

  The unions didn’t like it if you filmed people at their desks . . .

  A couple of the operators exchanged glances, then nervous smiles . . .

  Jeff had stopped beside the manager’s computer. HP hung back a bit while Jeff slowly pulled at the Velcro to open one of the breast pockets of his overalls.

  “Here.”

  He pulled out a chunky USB memory stick and put it on the desk next to the man.

  “Plug that in, then open the file entitled Bigboy.exe. Then you’ll receive new instructions . . .”

  “Okay . . .”

  The man in charge put his hand on the USB stick and slowly pulled it toward him. HP glanced quickly over his shoulder. He caught the looks on the other operators’ faces.

  Fear?

  Maybe, but that wasn’t the dominant feeling. More like . . .

  Anticipation . . . !?

  The manager leaned over toward the USB ports on the side of one of the screens.

  Jeff’s Adam’s apple was performing a vigorous dance. The hand holding the revolver was shaking noticeably.

  From the corner of his eye HP noticed Jochen the technician slowly moving closer. The manager turned the stick the right way up and moved it closer to the USB port. As he leaned forward his shirtsleeve rode up, revealing the lower portion of a tattoo. A drop of sweat freed itself from one of the man’s sideburns and slowly trickled down his cheek.

  “Stop!” HP suddenly said.

  The manager jumped and dropped the stick on the desk.

  “W-what?” Jeff turned toward him.

  “Don’t put that stick in! Don’t you get it . . . ?” HP snapped as the man picked up the USB stick from the desk.

  “B-but wait. Big Boy . . . ?” Jeff began.

  “Do you seriously think it’s possible to plug in a stick containing a virus, just like that?”

  HP stepped forward and snatched the USB stick from the man’s hand.

  “Tell us what would happen . . .” he said to the man in charge.

  “W-what?!”

  HP pulled the taser from his pocket and pressed the trigger halfway in, making the blue lightning perform its jerky dance between the metal prongs.

  “Tell us what would happen if you plugged that stick into the system, otherwise I’ll send fifty thousand volts up your fat ass!”

  “Er, wait, I mean . . .” the man protested.

  HP jabbed the prongs at the man’s chest, and he immediately began to jerk wildly.

  “Aaaargh!!”

  HP pulled the taser away and let the man slip onto the floor. His body continued to convulse for a couple of seconds before lying still. A faint smell of burned hair spread through the room.

  HP turned around slowly and pointed the taser at the technician, who backed away at once.

  “What the fuck are you doing, HP?!” Jeff’s face was ghostly pale, but HP ignored him.

  The atmosphere inside the room had suddenly changed, and the fear was now almost tangible.

  He took a few steps up toward the closest operator and raised the taser.

  “What would have happened if we’d plugged the stick in?”

  “The system would have shut down at once . . .” the man replied instantly.

  “Excellent! What else . . . ?”

  “Er, the lights would have gone out, the electricity would have shut off, the lifts would have stopped. The alarm would have gone off, then the guards . . .”

  The man gulped a couple of times but HP waved the taser in front of him to encourage him to go on.

  “Guards, cops, the military . . . the whole lot!”

  HP turned his head toward Jeff. But Muscles didn’t seem to be keeping up.

  “This is a trap, Jeff. They knew we were coming. Didn’t you?”

  He moved the taser closer to the operator’s face and once again made sparks crackle between the prongs.

  “Not like this . . .” The man held up his hands and leaned as far back in his chair as he could. “T-the tunnel, you were supposed to come through the tunnel . . . It was all . . .”

  “It was all what?!” Jeff seemed to have regained the power of speech.

  “A t-test, some sort of exercise. That’s what they said. Not . . .”

  The operator glanced over the railing at the his floored boss, who was now curled up and sobbing quietly.

  “. . . like this.”

  “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!!”

  Jeff didn’t seem to know what to do with himself.

  HP gave him a couple of seconds to calm down.

  “It’s all fucked! If we can’t plug the virus in, we might as well . . .”

  Jeff slowly shook his head. He lowered the arm holding the revolver toward the floor and HP noticed Jochen the technician creeping gradually closer.

  “Take it easy, Jefferson,” HP muttered. “We’re not finished yet. Just keep an eye on our little hero over there.”

  He put the taser in his pocket, turned away from Jeff, and began to fiddle with the oversized catch of his backpack.

  Jeff looked up at Jochen, realized that he had moved, and quickly raised the revolver again.

  “Get back!” he snarled.

  Jochen held his hands up in front of him.

  “Take it easy, mate, you’ve got no chance,” he said in a sterner and considerably less jocular tone of voice than before. “You managed to get in, against all the odds—congratulations. But our response unit will be in place upstairs now. The alarm will have gone out by now . . .”

  He took half a pace forward.

  “Jeff, that’s your name, isn’t it? Listen, Jeff. You’ll never manage to sabotage the system. It’
s idiot-proof, the slightest attempt to introduce anything into the system makes it shut down. Anyway, there’s nowhere for you to go . . .”

  Another half step.

  “The best thing you can do now is give up!”

  Jeff’s arm was trembling even more than before.

  “The response unit will be on their way down the stairs by now. They’ll be breaking in any moment, and I’m not sure I’d want to be holding a gun when that happens, if you get what I mean . . . ?”

  Jochen was trying to establish eye contact with Jeff and took another pace forward. He reached his hand toward the barrel of the revolver.

  “Come on, Jeff. I promise I’ll help you. Everything will be . . . Gaaargh!!!”

  The electric shock made the man shake like a pneumatic drill. His mouth opened and closed, and his eyes rolled back until only the whites were visible.

  HP held the taser against Jochen’s arm for a good five seconds before letting go.

  All of the man’s muscles stopped working at once and his body collapsed to the floor. A smell of urine quickly spread through the room.

  “That was a really stupid thing to do,” HP said coldly to the unconscious technician as he nudged him with one shoe.

  “Probably military, or used to be . . .” he said to Jeff, who seemed too shocked to react at all. “I’ve never seen a technician with such clean hands. No dirt under his nails, no ingrained oil. Perfect radio procedure, and he talked in that stilted military way. My dad used to sound like that. ‘Securing authorization, gentlemen’—who the fuck talks like that? And obviously the idiot thought he had to act the hero . . .”

  Jeff still didn’t say anything. HP shrugged and put his backpack on the desk.

  After a couple of attempts he successfully undid the fiddly combination lock and managed to open the stiff lid.

  “Here!”

  He pulled out a bottle of water and tossed it to Jeff, who caught it and for a moment seemed unsure what to do with it. Then his brain finally switched track, and he opened it with his teeth and took a couple of deep gulps.

  “Mind you, he probably had a point,” HP said, looking up at the large clock on the far wall. “The response unit is bound to be on its way, so we’ve probably got less than ten minutes.”

  He pulled out a rubber-padded portable hard drive from the backpack, then a pair of handcuffs.

  “Could I suggest that you put your musket away, Jeff? These guys seem to have realized we mean business—isn’t that right?”

  None of the operators said anything, but the terror in their eyes was enough of an answer.

  HP put the hard drive on the desk in front of the nearest operator.

  “Plug this in, please.”

  The operator reached for the square hard drive. His hands were shaking so much that he had trouble getting hold of the lead sticking out from the back of it.

  “W-wait!” Jeff finally spoke again. He put the revolver in one of the pockets of his overalls, then took a couple of steps toward HP. “We can’t put anything into the system. You just said that. The alarm . . .”

  HP nodded to the operator, waving the taser to underline his order. The man leaned forward and plugged the lead in. The screens on the desk in front of him flickered. Everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath. The second hand on the clock ticked forward one second.

  Two.

  And carried on . . .

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Good to have you back, Normén.” Runeberg grinned as they headed down the corridor. “But I still don’t quite get it. I mean, Henrik Pettersson is . . .” He paused while they walked past a couple of other bodyguards. “. . . your brother. Why do you want to . . . ?”

  “It’s pretty straightforward, really, Ludvig. No one knows Henke better than I do, no one else knows how he works . . .”

  “Sure, there’s a certain logic to that, but what happens if . . .”

  They passed an open door and she caught a glimpse of Stigsson and Sammer inside, together with a third man whom she recognized vaguely from television.

  “I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to stop Henke and the people behind him,” she said, rather too forcefully. “But I’m afraid I need to ask a favor, Ludvig,” she added once they were past the door. “A very big favor . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Nothing happened.

  “Open the Excel file called R-day. Then do a search for the ID numbers listed there,” HP said, as calmly as he could. His heart was pounding so hard he imagined he could see his overalls moving.

  “Use the databases kept at the bottom of the bunker. Criminal records, search engine results, parking fines, texts, telecom records, emails, Facebook, medical records, their supermarket loyalty cards—I want the whole fucking lot!”

  The operator opened his mouth to say something but HP interrupted him.

  “If I were you, I’d protest a bit less and work a bit more . . .”

  He made the taser crackle just in front of the man’s face.

  The operator thought for a moment, then pursed his lips and nodded. He typed in a couple of commands on the keyboard.

  “You see, Jeff, we aren’t going to introduce anything into the system. That’s exactly what they’re expecting,” HP went on, trying to sound a lot calmer than he actually was. “So, instead of following our original plan, trying to put a stop to something that can’t be stopped and then sticking our hands up, we’re going to do something completely different. We’re going to take something with us when we leave, something seriously fucking valuable. Something this place is crammed with. Get it?”

  HP raised his eyebrows in an encouraging grimace.

  “Information,” Jeff muttered. “But how’s that going to help us? How can a bit of stolen information put a stop to PayTag?”

  “Look, there must be five hundred names on this list,” the operator interrupted.

  “Almost right, my good man.” HP smiled.

  “The first tab has a hundred names. All the leader writers for every newspaper in Sweden, as well as the heads of news for every radio and television station you can think of, and a few people whose surnames just happen to be Bonnier or Wallenberg.”

  “And the others?” Jeff suddenly looked a bit brighter.

  “The other list contains three hundred and forty-nine names. Exactly three hundred and forty-nine. Are you starting to get the idea now?”

  28

  NINJAS

  “READY FOR THE final act?”

  Jeff nodded.

  “Okay, let’s get going. Keep your fingers crossed!” He put the hard drive in the backpack, locked the lid, and fastened it around his chest. He attached the pass card with the technician’s photograph to one of the straps. The blue top was a couple of sizes too big, and the uniform trousers were soaked in piss, but they’d have to do.

  “Guys, the best thing you can do now is lie still under your desks for about ten minutes and try to breathe through your noses,” he called out to the men in the room.

  He pulled the protective mask over his face, took out the smoke grenade, removed the safety catch, and set it off. In less than thirty seconds the room was full of thick, irritating smoke.

  He opened the steel door, set off another grenade, and tossed it into the lobby in front of the lifts.

  They waited a few seconds. An alarm went off somewhere in the distance.

  “Now!”

  They went out into the smoke-filled lobby. They could hardly see as far as their hands, and their masks weren’t exactly making things any better.

  Jeff reached up on tiptoe and smashed the little round camera in the ceiling with the butt of the revolver. They felt their way to one corner of the hall, sat on the floor, and pressed their backs to the wall.

  Right beside them was a metal door with the symbol of a staircase on it, and a green sign marked Emergency Exit.

  They could hear noises on the other side of the door, boots clanging on steps, radios crackling.

&nb
sp; “Any minute now,” HP hissed. He pulled the handcuffs from his pocket.

  “Fire at will, Jeff!”

  Jeff aimed the revolver at the ceiling and let off a couple of shots. The stone-clad surfaces of the room served to amplify the noise and make it even more deafening.

  “Shots!” someone on the other side of the door shouted. “Get ready to go in!”

  Jeff slid the gun away across the floor and put his hands behind his back.

  HP quickly slipped the handcuffs on but left the key in the lock. A moment later the door flew open in their faces, shutting them in the corner.

  Through the crack in the door HP watched as a number of armed, dark-clad men in protective masks and helmets stormed in.

  He and Jeff carried on pressing themselves against the wall, trying to make themselves as invisible as they could. The men disappeared into the smoke, and they heard clipped commands over by the metal door leading to the control room.

  “Go!” someone shouted. There was a crash as the door to the control room was smashed open, and at that moment HP and Jeff got to their feet, rounded the door, and ran out into the stairwell.

  They raced up the stairs, two at a time.

  “We’ve got a couple of minutes at most before they work it out,” HP hissed through his mask.

  The door to the ground floor was open and they could hear voices and radios crackling above them.

  They paused to catch their breath on the last floor before the surface.

  HP pulled Jeff’s mask off.

  “Last bit, are you ready?”

  “Yep, we’d better get going before they find Jochen with no clothes on . . .”

  He nodded toward HP’s baggy uniform and looked as if he was about to say something, but HP had already begun to drag him up the stairs with a firm grasp on the handcuffs.

  Three men dressed in black were clustered around the door. As HP and Jeff approached they raised their assault rifles.

  “One captive,” HP roared as loudly as he could through the protective mask. “The second is still at large. Keep the door covered so he doesn’t sneak out!”

  The men stared at HP, glancing from his clothes, to the ID card on his chest, to Jeff’s cuffed hands.