Bubble: A Thriller (30 page)

A second reactor out at Älta, just outside the city, was intended to develop high-grade plutonium. Just like the Iranians were attempting to do, fifty years on.

But it had turned out to be more difficult than anticipated. So the military had begun to procure plutonium from other sources. And this was where Wikipedia started to get really interesting.

On April 6, 1960, the US National Security Council decided that American policy would not support Swedish nuclear armament, nor any Swedish program to develop nuclear weapons, because it was thought more beneficial to the defense of the West against the Soviet Union if Sweden were to devote its limited resources to conventional weapons rather than a very costly nuclear weapons program.

In other words, the Americans had formally rejected the L-program. So, no help from them with nuclear weapons. But the following paragraphs made the hair on her arms stand up.

In spite of the policies outlined in 1960, Swedish representatives in contact with the US military were granted access to confidential information during the 1960s, partly regarding nuclear weapon tactics and the demands these made on surveillance resources and rapid decision making, and partly regarding other data about nuclear physics.

Among other things, Swedish representatives were able to inspect the MGR-1 Honest John missile system, which could be armed with the W7 and W31 nuclear warheads. The USA had also developed the W48 shell to be fired from 155 mm howitzers, with an explosive effect of 0.072 kilotons. No plans for such small-scale Swedish nuclear weapons have ever been found, however.

♦  ♦  ♦

Honest John.

Earnest John.

John Earnest . . .

John Earnest from Bloemfontein, South Africa, with loads of entry stamps from the United States in his passport. And whose photograph was a picture of her dad . . .

That could hardly be a coincidence.

♦  ♦  ♦

They must have been crawling through the pitch blackness for at least three-quarters of an hour.

The floor of the tunnel beneath him was rough, and his hands and knees were protesting increasingly loudly. To the left of him ran a number of thick pipes, and one of them was seriously damn hot.

He’d already burned his left arm a dozen times, and sweat was starting to drip down his back and face. He could have done with a break several minutes ago, but he had no great inclination to appear pathetic to Nora. If she could do it, then so could he!

He was keeping as close to her as he could, listening for her movements and breathing in the tunnel ahead of him.

He felt movement over the back of one hand and for a mo
ment he thought he’d got too close to her. Then he realized that it didn’t feel like a leather boot but something damp and furry.

A tickling motion against the inside of his calf made him jerk and bang his arm against the hot pipe again.

“Shit!” he yelled.

“Are you okay?”

A faint bluish light appeared ahead of him, then swung around toward him. She was using her cell phone as a flashlight.

“A fucking rat,” he muttered. “I hate rats . . .”

“We can stop for a bit if you like?”

“No, no, it’s fine. Let’s carry on.”

But Nora seemed to have realized how tired he was. She turned around and sat across the passageway, pulling her legs up and pressing her boots against the hot pipe. Out of her trouser pocket she pulled a pack of chewing tobacco and, without showing the slightest sign of offering any to him, tucked one of the tiny pouches under her lip.

“We probably haven’t got far left . . .” She put the pack back in her pocket.

“Where to? The station at Slussen or what?”

He stretched his stiff limbs and tried to sit in the same position as she.

“I thought that to start with, but the tunnel’s curving in the wrong direction. We’re heading south. I think we must be getting close to Medborgarplatsen . . .”

“Okay . . . and when we get there, where do we go after that? Where’s this flat Mange mentioned?”

“You’ll see . . .”

He tried to look hard at her, but the cell phone was facing toward him and her face was in shadow. She was actually pretty cool. Clearly the smart one of the group.

Kent Hasselqvist was a pathetic little approval junkie, and Muscleman Jeff lived up to all his prejudices about tattooed gym freaks with cropped hair. But Nora was different.

“So, what was your role in the Game?” he said in a tone of voice that was supposed to sound relaxed and not uncomfortably interested.

“I mean, were you a Player or an Ant?” he added rather less confidently when she didn’t answer. “Or some sort of Functionary like Mangelito?”

Still no answer.

“Okay, Greta Garbo. Sorry I asked . . .” he muttered, and resumed the crawling position.

“Shall we?” He nodded at the tunnel ahead of them.

She sat still for a moment longer.

Then she shifted around and switched off her cell.

“A Player, just like you,” she said, and began to crawl away.

♦  ♦  ♦

Rebecca carried on scrolling down the page. Most of the information seemed to come from the Royal Library, so a visit there felt like a natural next step.

In 1968, four years after her dad was fired from the military and, according to Sammer/Pellas, started work as a consultant, Sweden signed the nonproliferation treaty and gradually began to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, which officially ended in 1972. But the following section on Wikipedia appeared to contradict that:

However, activities related to nuclear weapons continued at the National Defense Research Establishment even after the dismantling work had been concluded in 1972, albeit on a considerably smaller scale. (Resources in 1972 were
approximately one-third of the 1964–65 level.) Research into ways of protecting against the effects of nuclear weapons, unconnected to any research into active construction or an independent capability, continued.

All of this fit perfectly with what Uncle Tage had said. A large, top-secret research project requiring clandestine contact with other countries. A project that was later closed down but continued on a smaller scale, even more secretly than before. Rumbling on below the surface with the tacit approval of those in power.

In 1985, however, a newspaper article attracted a lot of attention and the Palme government suddenly got cold feet. An official investigation was set up and took two years to conclude that there were no conclusions to conclude, since all research into nuclear weapons really had stopped in 1972, just as the government had been claiming all along.

Two years allowed plenty of time to shut things down, cut off all contacts, and erase all traces for good. A solution that suited all parties. Or at least
almost
all . . .

If she was right, if the L-program and its even more secret successor had been Sammer’s and, by extension, her dad’s project, then this would mean that they were both conclusively removed from it in 1985 or 1986.

The safe-deposit box contract had been signed in 1986, and that was also the period when Dad began to change. He became bitter, angry—and considerably more violent. Was that when he got hold of the revolver, or had he had it much longer, possibly from Uncle Tage, as a form of security?

The nuclear weapons program was originally under the auspices of the air force, and in contrast with the army, their personnel were issued with this sort of revolver, .38 caliber.

That would explain why Uncle Tage was so keen to get hold of the gun, apart from wanting to keep it away from Henke.

He wanted to get rid of the revolver for good.

Before it could be traced back to events in the past . . .

Now what had he meant by that?

Then there were his cryptic words toward the end of the conversation that she hadn’t really taken in before she was out of the car. Something about
not letting history repeat itself.

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.