Bubble: A Thriller (44 page)

“Good morning,” the guard said in an overly cheerful voice before waving her through.

Just as she passed the gate and was starting to roll down
the tunnel leading beneath Kronoberg, her mobile buzzed.

She waited until she had parked her bike in the garage before checking the message.

Good luck today, Rebecca.

Your father would have been very proud of you!

When this is over, I promise to explain all about him.

Uncle Tage

She couldn’t help but smile. Then she saw that there was another text in her inbox.

Just three words, with no sender’s name or number.

Don’t trust anyone!

She deleted it at once.

Outside the changing room she bumped into Runeberg.

“Have you heard anything?” she said, skipping the preliminaries.

“There was a car chase early this morning north of Uppsala. At least ten cars, helicopter, roadblocks, the works. It took them an hour to put a stop . . .”

“And?” She held her breath.

Runeberg shook his head.

“They got away. They’re probably hiding, lying low up there in . . .”

♦  ♦  ♦

“. . . the forest,” she concluded, but he was only half listening.

They had spent about half an hour trying to find the railway line, then more than two hours walking through the trees along the side of the track. In spite of the thick, padded straps
the backpack was still digging into his neck and shoulders. His legs felt heavy and he’d already managed to fall flat on his face a couple of times after tripping over roots and rocks as they rushed into the trees to hide from passing trains.

He was a child of the tarmac, not some fucking tree hugger, and now that the adrenaline had started to fade, things were starting to fall into place. Things he hadn’t thought about before . . .

They’d chatted a bit at the start, mostly about which way they should go, but for once he had been fairly taciturn and gradually the conversation had died out.

But now she evidently wanted to make another attempt.

“What did you say?” he mumbled.

“I said we should soon be out of the forest. I thought I just heard a church bell . . .”

“Mmm.”

She turned around and gave him a quick glance.

“You look exhausted. When did you last get any sleep?”

He didn’t answer.

They walked on in silence.

“Shame about Mange,” she said eventually.

“W-what?” He looked up and stopped abruptly.

“The Source, Mange. It’s a shame what happened . . .

“With the barn . . .” she added when he just stared at her like an idiot.

“Yeah, okay . . . you’ve said that once already.” He looked away.

“You’re angry with him, aren’t you?”

He didn’t answer, but that didn’t stop her from going on.

“You do get it, don’t you? That Mange shafted us somehow . . . ?”

“I don’t want to talk about it . . .”

“Mind you, you could be right, maybe Mange got shafted
as well? If the Game Master tricked him the same way he tricked us, making him believe he was really doing something good . . .”

“Just a couple of hours ago you seemed pretty convinced that he
was
the Game Master . . .” HP kicked at a stone, then another one.

“I know, I’m sorry about that. Stress makes you say weird things. Mange had the wool pulled over his eyes just like you and me,” she said. “At least that’s how I’m choosing to look at it.”

He was still kicking stones from the track into the undergrowth.

“Mange isn’t the sort who’d sell out a friend . . .” he muttered, but without sounding quite as convinced as he should.

Or
wasn’t,
he silently corrected himself.

Shit, Mange, how did everything get so fucked up?!

With everything that had been happening, he’d hardly had a moment to think about the barn and the explosion. Instead he’d been using his tried and tested method of getting his brain to skip past anything that was too unpleasant to deal with. But right now his superpowers were waning.

High time to change the subject.

He set off again, and she quickly turned around and they ended up walking beside each other.

“One more thing . . .” he said. “I’ve been wanting to ask ever since Medborgarplatsen . . .”

“You want to know if I was the one who set fire to your flat?”

He started, but before he’d worked out how to reply, she’d trotted a few steps ahead.

“Over there, can you see it? A station!”

♦  ♦  ♦

“Okay, good people!”

The police officers gathered in the conference room fell silent at once when Runeberg entered the room.

“One last run-through before we go live. The ceremony in the cathedral ends at thirteen thirty, and the cortege will set off shortly after that. We’ll be heading down Slottsbacken, then around to Norrbro. Then right toward Kungsträdgården, and into Kungsträdgårdsgatan . . .”

He paused for a moment and several of the bodyguards exchanged glances.

“We’ve got extra plainclothes officers stationed along Kungsträdgårdsgatan, in case anyone fancies trying a copycat attack . . .” Runeberg went on. “Then left into Hamngatan, to Sergel’s Square, then right onto Sveavägen, as far as the Concert Hall . . . Any questions so far?”

“Any news about the suspects?” one of the bodyguards at the front asked, probably one of the new ones.

“Pettersson and Al-Hassan, I mean,” he went on in a confident tone of voice.

“I was going to take that later, but since you ask,” Runeberg muttered, clearly annoyed at having to change the subject.

“A fair bit has happened since yesterday and overnight. Farook Al-Hassan, or Magnus Sandström as he’s also known, is believed to be dead. His car was found at the site of an explosion in a barn north of Uppsala, along with remains that forensics are fairly sure are his. There were also traces of explosives and chemical fertilizer at the scene, so it may be that a homemade bomb accidentally detonated early. We’ll be hearing more about that shortly.”

Runeberg nodded toward Tage Sammer, who was sitting on one of the chairs closest to the door. Stigsson was sitting next to him, and when Runeberg started talking again Stigs
son leaned forward and whispered something in Sammer’s ear. Rebecca felt a lump in her throat and swallowed hard a couple of times to get rid of it.

“As far as the others are concerned, we have recently apprehended an individual in a stolen police van. But two of the suspects are still at large, including our other prime suspect.”

Runeberg glanced in her direction.

“By that I mean Henrik Pettersson, also known as HP.”

♦  ♦  ♦

They were in luck. The next train to Stockholm was only ten minutes away, giving just enough time for Nora to buy tickets and get something to eat from the station’s vending machine.

HP stayed hidden behind one of the pillars on the platform, keeping an eye out for pursuers.

He gulped down two Snickers bars as he stood there, and just had time to wash down these delicacies with the half bottle of Coke that she passed him before the train pulled into the station.

Once they’d found two empty seats he was so tired that he forgot to take the backpack off before crashing down onto the window seat. To make matters worse, the metal catch was acting up, and he swore so loudly that several of the other passengers glared angrily in their direction.

“Hang on, I’ll get it.” Nora slipped into the aisle seat and leaned over to help him. “You have to lift them up first, then twist the two flat pieces apart.”

Her head was right next to his face, he could feel her fingers against his chest, and for a few moments he thought he could smell her shampoo.

Strange how the artificial scent of flowers could make him feel a bit better . . .

“There!” Nora said as the straps slipped apart.

He pulled the backpack off and slid it onto the floor. Just to be on the safe side he leaned it against one of his legs so he’d feel if anything happened to it. Then he leaned back, massaged his aching shoulders, and resisted a sudden urge to close his eyes.

The train had built up speed and the gentle rocking motion was almost impossible to resist.

But he was going to try.

He turned toward Nora. She was just putting a little sachet of chewing tobacco in her mouth, and he waited politely for her to slot it into place under her top lip.

“We’ll be back in the city in less than two hours,” he said in a low voice. “All we need to put a stop to this is a computer with a decent connection. There’s an Internet café at Hötorget, I’ve used it a couple of times before . . .”

She nodded as she adjusted the position of the tobacco with her tongue. The movement fascinated him, almost making him lose his thread of thought.

“That sounds good, HP, we’ll aim for that. Have you thought about what we’re going to do after that?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t really give a shit. Once the files are out there PayTag will sink like a stone, probably dragging the Game Master down with it, maybe even the whole Game. They’re going to have their hands full trying to save their own skin . . .”

“And you think they’ll just forget about us?”

“That remains to be seen . . .”

He shrugged.

“So, how about telling me how you got involved in all this?” he said a few moments later, without really knowing why.

Slowly, she put the pack of chewing tobacco away as she thought about her response.

“It’s quite a long story . . .” she said.

“I’m not doing anything for the next hour or so,” he replied, and tried to conjure up his most charming smile.

“Okay, but it’ll have to be the short version. We could both do with a bit of a rest . . . I used to play top-level handball. It was going pretty well, I even got selected for the national squad. Trained practically every day . . .”

He nodded to demonstrate his interest, which was easier than he’d expected.

“I lived for sport, for the camaraderie of the team, the competition. Then I picked up an injury.”

“Ouch.”

He could have kicked himself. Time for some serious empathy, and the best he could come up with was “ouch” . . . ?

But Nora didn’t seem bothered.

“The cruciate ligament in one knee became detached, and the doctor told me my body just couldn’t handle that amount of training. I was determined to make a comeback, did the whole rehab thing, but it was never the same again. Once you’ve had problems with your ligaments you never get back to where you were. From having been one of the best, I came back as no better than average. So I trained even harder, which was obviously really stupid.”

She shook her head.

“So I kept picking up more injuries and ended up spending more and more time on the bench. In the end I decided to quit, before I got dropped . . . I didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction, better to go before I was humiliated—at least that was my reasoning. Now in hindsight that wasn’t particularly smart . . . Can you imagine the withdrawal symptoms?”

He nodded. His eyelids suddenly felt heavy, but he really did want to hear the rest. He thought he had a pretty good idea where the story was heading.

“So I directed my energy into my studies instead, got my degree, and started work as a vet. But I missed sports so fucking much. Nothing else even came close. So when the Game Master contacted me, offering me a new sense of belonging, a new game plan . . .”

She shrugged.

“How did that come about? I mean, how did he get hold of you, the Game Master?”

“It started with a simple email, an offer . . .”

“. . . ‘to take part in a completely unique experience, unlike anything you’ve ever done before’ . . .”

“Something like that, yes.” She smiled. “It wasn’t until much later that I realized they’d been checking me out. They knew all about who I was, what I’d done. How I worked, what buttons they had to press . . .”

He nodded.

“Sounds familiar . . .”

HP’s head was feeling heavier and heavier, and he had to struggle just to keep his eyes open.

“Look, that business with the fire in your flat . . .” she went on.

“We don’t have to talk about that now . . .” he mumbled.

“I know, but I want to. You’re right, it was me. But you were never supposed to get hurt, I called the fire brigade before I even started the fire. I wanted to be sure they were on their way . . . but obviously that doesn’t make it okay. My only excuse is that I wasn’t thinking straight. All I wanted was to move up that list, get to the top . . .”

He waved one hand.

“You really don’t have to explain . . .”

“Okay, but I feel like I should. I don’t want you to think I—”

“I don’t, it’s fine. Trust me, the Game Master got me to do far worse things . . .”

The door at the end of the car suddenly opened and a man in a dark jacket came in.

He looked around the car in a way that made HP dodge below the back of the seat in front.

The door opened again and the man was joined by a woman.

They seemed to discuss something for a moment, then returned to the car they had come from.

“False alarm,” Nora said. “They were just looking for empty seats . . . Look, what I was saying, I’m sorry about the fire,” she went on. “You’ve got to believe me. I wasn’t thinking straight . . .”

“Nora, it’s okay.”

His head suddenly felt as if it were full of porridge and he was having trouble holding it upright.

“Look, I’m wiped out, how about getting some rest?” he muttered. “We can swap more war stories later . . .”

“Sure.” She nodded. “No problem.”

He leaned his head back and she was quick to follow his example.

A couple of minutes later she cautiously opened her eyes. She listened to his heavy breathing, then leaned forward and gently pulled out the backpack from where he had put on the floor.

Then she slid silently out of her seat and left the car.

♦  ♦  ♦

“I’m very pleased to have caught you, Miss Normén.”

It was Sammer, closely followed by Stigsson and the vaguely familiar man she had glimpsed in the office the previous day.