“You mean you’d rather have seen me blasted into crispy little atoms all over the E4?” he snapped. “Then that’s your fucking problem! You said you’d wait until I was clear, you promised. Did you really expect me to believe that crap!? Reality is a Game, someone once told me. A seamless fucking phone app where you only show me things you want me to see. Things that will get me to jump when you pull the strings. But now it’s my turn to show you something. Now it’s my turn to pull the strings. It’s time to take a bit of fucking reality to the Game, mofo! Tell the guard he’s got thirty seconds to get out!
“Oh, and one more thing,” he added in conclusion.
“Yes . . . ?”
“Yippee ki-yay, mothafuckers!!!”
He stuffed the phone in his pocket, spun the wheel, and broke straight through the gate, then the grill blocking the entrance to the garage of Torshamnsgatan 142.
The collision made his forehead hit the windshield.
The air bag exploded and threw him back in the seat, the van skidded violently, and he fought furiously to regain control. The back of the vehicle hit a concrete pillar and HP was almost thrown from his seat again, saved this time by the protruding gear stick.
The van lurched in the other direction, hitting another pillar before HP finally regained control of the wildly spinning steering wheel. He slammed on the brakes and the police van screeched to a stop two floors beneath the Game’s holy of holies.
HP staggered out, ran his hands over his body, and discovered much to his relief that he didn’t have any bones sticking out nor any gushing fountains of blood.
The cops seemed to have been smart enough to stay out on the road, because no one had followed him down into the garage. He stared around wildly and discovered an emergency exit facing the patch of forest behind the building, and raced up the steps.
Once he was clear he pulled out Fifty-Eight’s cell and tapped in a number. From ten meters in among the trees he pressed the dial button and in the back of the police van the iPhone suddenly came to life.
Ring-ring!
This one’s for you, Erman! he just had time to think before the pressure wave blew him off his feet and everything went black.
22
AN ACTIVITY FOR RECREATION
THE PACKAGE WAS waiting for her when she opened the door of the flat. A few envelopes and a leaflet from the local supermarket had landed on top of it, and it wasn’t before she gathered everything into a heap that she realized it was a bit thicker than normal.
A flat brown parcel, just the right size to fit through a letter box. Considering its size, it was also pretty heavy.
She recognized the writing at once, but didn’t hurry to open it.
Four days had passed since that night on the E4.
Four tumultuous, completely crazy days.
She had escaped the media, thank goodness. The press office had handled all their questions and her name had been kept out of the story.
The media, with the evening tabloids in the lead, had gone completely bananas.
“Terror Attack Foiled!,” “It Was Al-Qaeda!,” and her own personal favorite:
“Five Seconds from Disaster! ”
Even though the factual information was fairly thin, to put it mildly, as usual all the newsrooms were competing to show who knew most. But this time the experts were surprisingly unanimous.
Even the reporters who took turns conducting staged interviews with each other on television were sticking to the same basic synopsis.
The fact that an attack with potentially disastrous consequences had been thwarted at the last minute thanks to the alertness of the Personal Protection Unit didn’t appear to be under question from anyone—at least not yet, anyway. The current debate seemed to revolve around how the terrorists had managed to get hold of a police van without being caught, and then pack it with enough explosives to turn a two-story brick building into ground zero. And, more obviously, whose fault it was.
Those in positions of responsibility were as usual blaming each other, the PR consultants were working overtime, and in the meantime no one was left any the wiser.
Why the terrorist had decided, once his mission had failed, to bury himself under an office building in Kista was unclear. The owners of the building had confirmed that the premises had been empty and that they hadn’t been aware of any threat, and that was pretty much where the discussion in the media ended.
Rebecca knew that the detectives from the Security Police hadn’t got much further. It would be another few days before the diggers had cleared enough of the rubble from the crater for an investigation of the crime scene to get going seriously, but the Forensics team didn’t sound particularly optimistic.
The same uncertainty applied, in spite of the media’s unshakable confidence, to the identity of the perpetrator. A vague description of a Swedish man in his thirties was all they had to go on, and there were very few other leads.
No one had thought to doubt her own half-true story. That she had seen 1710 earlier that evening and for some reason had thought something wasn’t quite right. And that she had called to check with Mulle and had been reassured by his explanation about it being in for repairs, but then reacted when she saw the van on the access road and sounded the alarm.
It had meant a personal meeting with the national chief of police, Runeberg, and the Secret Service’s European boss. Handshakes, praise, and gratitude, all the things she usually had trouble accepting. But this time it had proved surprisingly easy to handle the praise.
At work she was now met with respectful glances from her colleagues, even Dejan. It was an unfamiliar experience, but actually very pleasant.
She had proved to the world that she had what it took—but, far more important, she had proved it to herself.
That realization was what made the praise and the medal considerably easier to swallow.
She hadn’t said anything to Micke, not yet, anyway. But he seemed to have understood anyhow.
“You seem different somehow,” he had said when they met up in the days after the incident. “I don’t know what it is, but I like it,” he had added, giving her hand an extra squeeze.
And for a little while everything had felt good, as if it was all going to be all right and that she actually deserved to be happy.
But then she started thinking about Henke and realized that happy endings weren’t meant for people like her.
Still no sign of life from him.
Not until now.
Even so, she had never really doubted that he was okay. People like Henke were always okay. Whoever had been driving that van, it wasn’t him, she was sure of that. Henke was a lot of things, but he was no terrorist.
The question now was whether or not she wanted to know what was in the parcel?
She let it sit there for a few minutes, then she couldn’t help taking a closer look. It was postmarked in Frankfurt, and there was obviously no sender’s address. When she shook it she could hear a faint rattle.
She made a decision, took a deep breath, then tore the parcel open in a single movement, so hard that its contents spilled onto the kitchen floor with a metallic clatter.
For a few seconds she just stared down at the objects. Let her brain absorb what they were, and, more gradually, what they meant.
And once she had done that, she fell to her knees, stretched out her hands, and, with tears running down her cheeks, gathered them together, and clutched them to her chest.
Six bolts.
Six rust-brown bolts that had once been attached to a balcony railing in a suburb south of Stockholm.
In spite of the years that had passed, you could still make out tool marks on their heads. As if the person who had removed them hadn’t had quite the right tool, or had been forced to work at an uncomfortable angle.
It must have taken determination to get them out. A hell of a lot of determination, anger, maybe even burning hatred, before they came loose.
But for some reason she was still convinced
that the power that had finally persuaded the concrete to let go was . . . love.
She sat on the black-and-white tiled floor for a long time, just crying.
Her tears were heart-wrenching, liberating, and unhurried.
Then, quite suddenly, she stopped.
She got up slowly, opened the bin, and carefully dropped the bolts in. Then she wiped her eyes, rinsed her face over the sink, and went toward the bedroom. On the way she stopped in the hall, pulled the wire out of the answering machine, and watched as the little red light slowly faded.
No more messages, she thought with a wry smile as she carried on into the bedroom.
In the middle of the desk lay a red pen and alongside it, right next to it so as to be close at hand, a block of white Post-it notes with the police-force logo on them.
The ink had gone through the paper and you could make out parts of the words that had been written on the sheets above.
Familiar handwriting, with round, almost childish lettering.
“Deserve it,” she could just make out, and she took that as a sign.
She picked them up and opened the bedroom window, filled her lungs with air, and then threw them as far away as she could.
The pen disappeared into the darkness at once, but the notes came apart from each other, splitting up and turning into little white sails against the night sky. They swirled around for a moment, almost as if they were saying good-bye, then blew off in the wind.
Free.
♦ ♦ ♦
That was exactly how he felt.
Free.
Even though there were loads of people around him, cars, exhaust fumes, and a cacophony of different sounds, he felt liberated. As if some unknown burden had been removed, lifted from his shoulders so he could suddenly stand up straight.
An absolutely incredible feeling!
He’d done it. He’d shown those bastards, once and for all.
Henrik “HP” Pettersson had saved them all. Not just Becca and all those cops or the American big cheese. Fuck, he’d basically managed to save the whole world and live to tell the tale.
Ditched the dark side, told the evil emperor to go fuck himself, and then blew the Death Star to pieces!
And even though his heroic efforts weren’t generally known and admired, it didn’t really matter at all. Comments and scores were completely unnecessary.
He knew who he was, and that was more than enough.
The Game Master had actually been right about one thing. His life would always be split into two parts. Before and After the Game.
If you don’t change, then what’s the point of anything happening to you?
Shit, he couldn’t have said it better himself!
Even though he was battered and bruised, jet-lagged, and his hearing still hadn’t come back properly after the explosion, the change was pretty remarkable.
He was actually a totally new person!
A genuine, real-life, goddamn superhero, and the feeling was beyond words. And, just like all the proper superheroes, he was planning to hold on tight to his secret identity from now on. Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker, Clark Kent, and Henrik “HP” Pettersson.
Not a bad posse!
Life was good.
Life was fucking bloody extraordinary!
He was planning to hang about here for another couple of days, basking in the afterglow, until he got his passport. Then a quick trip to Thailand in his new role as Nick Orton, Canadian backpacker. Lottery-winning Jesus would welcome him with open arms, they went way back. He could think about how to support himself later.
It still rankled that he hadn’t managed to get any money for himself like he’d hoped, but what the hell . . .
It would have been extra sweet not just to blow the Game to kingdom come, but to nick their money as well. He could have paid his sister back and given that poor cop who’d been half killed at Lindhagens a little something to ease the pain. But some things were just not meant to be . . .
He still had the laptop Mange had given him, but this was going to be its last mission. From now on he was going to be low-tech only. Keep his head below the radar and lie low for a few years. Then he’d see . . .
He turned off into a side street and picked one of the ten or so different Internet cafés along it at random. A few minutes later he was online.
A little farewell greeting and a couple of emails to the evening papers, then Henrik Pettersson would be a ghost rider, a myth, a spook, a story told by other people.
And with that . . . poof, he was gone!
♦ ♦ ♦
Badboy.128 says: Are you there Farook?
Farook says: Salaam alaikum brother HP all well?
Badboy.128 says: All good thanks, had to get out of Dodge for a while, as you can probably understand . . .
Farook says: Yes, got that. A little demolition party out in Kista, eh?
Badboy.128 says: Something like that!
Farook says: I knew it!!!! Shit, you really gave the bastards a kick in the balls!
Farook says: way 2 go! ;-) !!
Badboy.128 says: no comment! ;-)
Badboy.128 says: Just wanted to let you know everything’s okay, you won’t hear from me for a while. Planning to lie low and low-tech for a while with our mutual friend the savior . . .
Farook says: Ok, understood. My lips are sealed! :-x
Badboy.128 says: Cheers!
Badboy.128 says: Thanks for all the help, man, you’re a true friend, a BFF!
Farook says: YW, de nada!
Badboy.128 says: No I really mean it!!! Big fucking thanks! Without you . . . All this, well, it’s made me look at things differently, somehow.
Badboy.128 says: That I have to get my shit together, yeah??? you really have helped me!
Farook says: I get you, good 4 U bro!
Badboy.128 says: Anyhow that’s it for me, g2g, take care, bfn!
Farook says: Take it easy, HP!
Badboy.128 says: U2 bro!
Farook says: btw one last thing
Badboy.128 says: Shoot, Mr. Pathfinder!
Farook says: Saw Rehyman in mosque the other day.
Badboy.128: Shit, how’s my main man?
Farook says: Good, he gave me a message 4 U, made me write it down so I got it right.
Badboy.128 says: Okay . . . ? ?
Farook says: Bit weird but he said you’d know what he meant.
Badboy.128 says: The tension’s killing me }:-s . . . what’s my man say?
Farook says: That the numbers you couldn’t remember were 397 461 212 035.
Farook says: U still there????
Farook says: HP??
Badboy.128 says: WTF :-0 :-0 !!
Farook says: Good thought I’d lost you. No idea what Rehyman meant, but you seem to get it . . . promised not to pry. There was one more thing he told me to say.
Badboy.128 says: ??
Farook says: That he’s telling you even though you didn’t ask!
The screen filled with bouncing smileys.
Farook shook his head before he bent forward and restarted the computer. A two-tone bleep from the machine alongside indicated that it had just received an email.
He changed places, woke up the dormant screen, and opened the inbox. Two new messages, one each to the tip-off email addresses of the evening tabloids.
Both from the address [email protected], and sent just a minute or so before.
He skimmed through the identical messages.
Dear evening paper,
About four weeks ago I found a cell phone on a commuter train. A shiny one in brushed steel, with a glass touch screen. It dragged me into a chain of events that reached its climax in Torshamnsgatan a few days ago, and I’d like to share it with you now . . .
Farook had set up HP’s laptop so that no matter what address he emailed, it would route all outgoing mail to one of his own anonymous email accounts. A smart insurance policy, as it turned out.
He highlighted both emails, th
en pressed Shift, Delete.
“Are you sure you want to delete these messages?” the computer asked.
He clicked Yes.
Then he closed the program, picked up his jacket, and got ready to go home.
Betul would have dinner ready, and he knew better than to be late.
This evening they had something to celebrate. The path God had shown him had been far from straightforward. But now his penance was over and his debt finally repaid.
Ma’a salama, brother HP, you’ve definitely earned your Reward, he thought with a smile as he switched off the lights in the shop.
Just before he left the darkened premises, he picked up his cell phone. A shiny one in brushed steel.
At one end a little red light was flashing.
ANDERS DE LA MOTTE is a former police officer and was until recently director of security at one of the world’s largest IT companies. He now works as an international security consultant in addition to being Sweden’s most exciting and innovative new thriller writer.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Game: A Thriller Page 31