The Game Trilogy (93 page)

9150, they’re heading straight for you, over.

Copy that!

Hasselqvist slammed on the brakes, spun the wheel and slid the van into a side track. Say what you like, but the guy could drive …

Control, 9127, they turned left, now heading north …

Copy that, 9127, all cars from control, now heading north, towards Nybygget
… The radio operator in the Regional Communication Centre sounded considerably less excited than the officers taking part in the chase.

The van’s engine was roaring and the track in front of them narrowed to a thin line. But Hasselqvist didn’t seem particularly concerned.

‘In two hundred metres I’ll be turning sharp left, so hold on …’ he yelled.

‘How the fuck do you know where …?’ HP managed to splutter as he clung on as best he could.

‘I did some rally driving up here a few years ago …’ Hasselqvist replied.

He slammed the brakes on and did a controlled handbrake turn.

Control, 9127, they’ve just turned off, we’ve lost … hang on.

HP held his breath.

No, we’ve got contact again, now heading west.

Copy that, 9127, the helicopter’s on its way.

‘If the helicopter picks us up we’re finished,’ Hasselqvist snarled through his teeth.

He spun the van into another side track.

‘There’s only one option,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘You’ll have to jump out.’

‘What?!’

‘YOU’LL HAVE TO JUMP OUT!’ Hasselqvist shouted, without taking his eyes off the track. ‘I’ll stop and let you out, then I’ll carry on. There’s half a tank left, and I can keep going for at least another half hour, forty minutes. If they don’t figure out where you jumped, they’ll never find you …’

‘B-but, we’re in the middle of the forest …’ Nora began.

‘The railway line’s over there.’

Hasselqvist gestured towards the window beside her.

‘Find it, then head south. It’s a couple of hours’ walk to the nearest station. Then you can just catch the train back into the city.’

‘But we can’t just leave you …’

‘Kent’s right. We don’t have a choice,’ HP interrupted. ‘If we get caught, the hard-drive will be in the Game Master’s hands in less than an hour, and then everything, all this, will have been in vain …’

Nora bit her lip.

‘Okay,’ she conceded. ‘Just tell us what you want us to do, Kent.’

‘We need a bit of breathing space, some sort of diversion so I can stop for a moment …’

Control to all cars, the helicopter will be with you in approximately five minutes.

They’re currently heading west. It looks like they’re listening in, so we’ll switch to the backup frequency. Backup frequency from now on, over and out!

The radio bleeped and suddenly went silent.

‘The fire extinguisher …’ Nora turned to HP and nodded at the floor.

It took him a moment to catch on.

He loosened his belt, braced himself against the seat and leaned over. There was a fire extinguisher on the floor
on the side of the van. He quickly untied the rubber straps and pulled it loose.

At the same time Nora scrambled back over her seat.

‘Open the door!’ she yelled, and he did as she said.

The heavy sliding door slipped from his grasp and flew open.

He stared through the opening at the trees flying past just a metre or so away.

‘Don’t worry!’ she yelled. ‘I’ll keep hold of you!’

But he hesitated.

‘The helicopter’s almost here,’ Hasselqvist shouted from the front of the van.

HP closed his eyes.

Now or never.

He loosened the nozzle of the extinguisher and pulled out the safety catch.

Then he stood up.

Nora grabbed hold of his belt.

‘Hold on, I’ll slow down and let them get closer …’

Hasselqvist took his foot off the gas and suddenly they could hear the sirens of the cars behind them.

‘Now!’ Hasselqvist shouted.

HP put one foot on the step, then leaned the top half of his body out of the van.

His belt cut into his left kidney and he felt Nora’s grip tighten against his hip.

The first police car was only ten metres away.

He raised the nozzle of the extinguisher, took aim …

Suddenly the wheels on one side of the van hit a pothole, the van lurched and his head slammed against the roof. He lost his balance and for a couple of weightless seconds was floating free.

Then Nora grabbed his arm and dragged him into the van.

Fuck, that was close!!

‘Now, now, NOW!!’ Hasselqvist screamed from the driver’s seat.

HP stood up again, leaned his torso out through the door and braced himself against the step.

He raised the nozzle and slammed the lever down.

A shower of powder flew out of the hose, got caught in the van’s slipstream and landed in the middle of the police car’s windscreen like a big white blanket.

The driver put his foot on the brake but HP carried on spraying powder until the police car vanished in a cloud of smoke behind them.

Then he threw the extinguisher out and let Nora drag him back inside the van.

Hasselqvist put his foot down.

‘There’s another side track in a hundred metres,’ he yelled. ‘Jump out when I slow down to turn. Then just lie low until they’ve gone past …’

‘Copy that!’ HP moved closer to the door again.

‘Good luck, Kent. You’re hot shit when it comes to driving!’ he yelled at Hasselqvist, and got a quick wave in response.

‘Don’t forget the rucksack,’ Nora said close to his ear.

Of course … shit!

If he’d jumped without the hard-drive … Epic Fail!

He snatched the rucksack from the floor, and pulled it onto his back.

‘Straps!’ Nora said, pointing at his chest.

He muttered something to himself, but did as she said, fastening the clumsy metal catch between the two straps.

The van slowed down, then turned sharply to the right.

‘NOOOW!’ Hasselqvist yelled.

She cycled slowly along Rålambsvägen, then turned off into the park, following the path across the grass.

Seagulls and crows were squabbling as usual over the previous night’s rubbish and leftover food, but a team of cleaners from the council had already arrived.

The city had to put its best face on now that at least part of the world would be watching it.

Apart from them, the only people in sight were a couple of dog-walkers and an early-bird jogger.

She changed down the gears to get up the steep slope leading to the bridge over Norr Mälarstrand. An empty bus with blue and yellow flags on its roof passed below her.

She carried on up to Fridhemsplan, wove her way through the red lights and stopped next to the gatehouse. The feeling of pulling her police ID from her pocket was unexpectedly comforting.

‘Good morning,’ the guard said in an over-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.

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

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

She deleted it at once.

Outside the changing room she bumped into Runeberg.

‘Have you heard anything?’ she asked, skipping the preliminaries.

‘There was a car chase early this morning north of Uppsala. At least ten cars, helicopter, road blocks, 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’d chatted a bit at the start, mostly about which way they should go, but for once he had been fairly taciturn and 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.’

It had taken half an hour to find the railway line, then they’d spent more than two hours walking through the trees along the side of the track. In spite of its thick, padded straps the rucksack was digging into his neck and shoulders. His legs felt heavy and he’d already fallen 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 treehugger …

She turned round and gave him a quick glance.

‘You look knackered. When did you last get any sleep?’

He didn’t answer.

Now that the adrenalin had faded things were starting to fall into place. Things he hadn’t thought about before.

They walked on in silence.

‘Shame about Manga,’ she said eventually.

‘W-what?’ He looked up and stopped abruptly.

‘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 going on.

‘You do get it, don’t you? That Manga shafted us somehow …?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it …’

‘Mind you, you could be right, maybe Manga 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. Manga 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.

‘Manga isn’t the sort who’d sell out a mate …’ he muttered, but without sounding quite as convinced as he should.

Or
wasn’t
, he silently corrected himself.

Shit, Manga, 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 round 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 13.30, and the cortege will set off shortly after that. We’ll be heading down Slottsbacken, then round to Norrbro. Then right towards Kungsträdgården, and into Kungsträdgårdsgatan …’

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

‘We’ve got extra plain-clothed officers stationed along Kungsträdgårdsgatan, in case anyone fancies trying a copycat attack …’ Runeberg went on. ‘Then left into Hamngatan, to Sergels torg, 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 subject.

‘A fair bit has happened since yesterday. 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 towards 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 Stigsson 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 rucksack off before crashing down onto the window seat. To make matters worse, the metal catch was playing 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 rucksack 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 towards 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. ‘There’s an internet café with a decent connection at Hötorget, I’ve used it a couple of times before. I can send from there.’

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

‘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.

She put the lid back on her tub of chewing tobacco and slowly put it 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 ploughed my energy into my studies instead, got my degree and started work as a vet. But I missed sport
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 carriage suddenly opened and a man in a dark jacket came in.

He looked round the carriage 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 carriage 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 like it was 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 …’