Buzz: A Thriller

by Anders de la Motte

  On a chart he carefully jotted down which trolls had had an outing, and on which forums. Which ones had been engaged in heated discussions in defense of which clients, and which ones were currently inactive. He couldn’t help being impressed by the whole setup. If a client’s trademark was getting a hammering somewhere, you just had to choose a suitable troll and deploy it.

  Clicking to like something, or writing a few positive contributions. More or less as he was about to do on the travel site. Evidently the hotel’s average score had fallen below an acceptable level, and needed some positive feedback to get the average up again.

  Simple!

  Frank had told him about a consultancy firm that got into trouble a few years ago and had been stupid enough to get its employees to write comments in defense of the company under entirely new usernames. It only took a couple of days for the blogosphere to yank the idiots’ trousers down and wreck the trademark to the extent that the company had had to change its name.

  It was different with tame trolls. Because they were already established out in cyberspace, no one could call into question where they had appeared from. So they could be used to clients’ advantage without risking the indignant fury of the Internet. Smart. Really smart, actually!

  But if he could choose, he would probably rather work at the other end. Causing trouble and trying to get undesirable discussions to spin so far out of control that the moderator had to shut them down. Unfortunately he hadn’t been allocated an attack troll yet. They were managed by his colleagues at the bank of desks to his right.

  Not that he’d had that many jobs, but this was one of the best of them, if not the best.

  His workmates were okay, the money was more than decent, and he got on pretty well with Frank. As he found his feet, his fear of being uncovered gradually subsided. The only person who still gave him bad vibes was Philip Argos. He was an imposing figure, no doubt about that, and he seemed sharp as a razor. Everyone who had spent any time working with Philip had something like admiration on their faces when they talked about him. Maybe that wasn’t so odd—Philip Argos was clearly a charismatic leader. But not just that, he was also really . . .

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Unnerving! That was the best word she could think of to describe him.

  Even though she had basically only seen his back and met his gaze in the mirror, he radiated something that both scared and appealed to her.

  Control.

  That was it.

  This man had complete control—both over himself and over the world around him. He was usually already on the treadmill by the time she arrived at the gym just after seven, which meant he was an early riser. Her exercise session usually lasted just under an hour, and on most occasions the man was still there when she left. At least one and a half hours on the machine, in other words, which at the speed he went must mean something like thirty kilometers of concentrated running.

  Only once had she seen him interrupt his session. She had been warming up on one of the ellipticals, and when she glanced over at him as she usually did, he suddenly stepped off the machine. For a moment she thought he’d seen her looking and was on his way over to her. But before she had time to analyze what she felt about this impending contact, he had turned away to answer a cell phone that had been in front of him.

  It must have been an important call to make him interrupt his session, and she couldn’t help switching off her iPod and trying to listen to what he was saying. But to her disappointment he was talking quietly, almost whispering, and in a language she didn’t understand too.

  It sounded like French . . .

  15

  BEE HANDLERS

  Pillars of Society forum

  Posted: 27 November, 17:44

  By: MayBey

  . . . yanked open the driver’s door and emptied the pepper spray in his face. Then dragged him onto the road. Baton out. Almost bent it. Then we let the dog loose.

  The bastard shat himself. God, what a stink. Had to wrap him in the vomit sheet.

  And drive in with the windows down.

  Instant justice, you could say.

  This post has 69 comments

  “SURE—NO PROBLEM, Frank, I’ll find it . . . See you there!”

  He ended the call, tossed his cell on the bed, and dashed for the little wardrobe. Beige chinos and a neatly ironed shirt—that was the sort of thing his Mange character would wear for a bonding session with his workmates.

  It was Friday evening and he’d been starting to wonder if he ought to get in touch with Becca. He missed her more than he was prepared to admit. But last time he got her mixed up in the Game he almost managed to kill her—quite literally, in fact.

  Talking of the Game . . .

  That morning when he woke up the phone was on the little writing desk.

  After a few moments of blind panic he suddenly remembered that he’d taken it out when he’d got up for a pee during the night. But he couldn’t quite remember why . . .

  Damned lucky that there was no charge left in it anyway . . .

  He was suddenly interrupted by a cautious knock at the door.

  Strange: he hadn’t ordered any grub, and the cleaner only came once a week.

  He put the safety chain on and carefully opened the door. A skinny little man in oversized pilot’s glasses, Brylcreemed gray hair, and a Hep Stars T-shirt nodded at him.

  “Hi. I’m out of cigarettes and got no money. Wondered if I could bum a couple of cigs . . . ?”

  HP looked at the man in amusement. Who the hell was this? Rock granddad?

  The guy seemed distinctly unthreatening, and for some reason it just didn’t feel right to slam the door shut in his face.

  “Sure, come in . . .”

  He took the safety chain off and opened the door wide.

  “Cheers!” The man nodded when HP, in a sudden attack of generosity, handed him an unopened packet of Marlboros.

  “I’m Nox. You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  HP opened his mouth to reply, but after a couple of seconds’ reflection he shut it again without saying anything but an indistinct mumble. However much he might have liked to chat to this funny little gnome, he realized that this wasn’t the time. If this whole undercover routine was going to work, he had to avoid making up any more lies than was strictly necessary. It was hard enough to keep track of the ones he was juggling at work, and now all of a sudden he regretted opening the door. He seemed to have a serious problem with his impulse control . . .

  “Okay, cool, man. You’re not the type of guy who wants to say much, I respect that.”

  Nox, as Rock Granddad evidently wanted to be called, put his hand to his chest.

  “But if there’s anything you need, just knock on my door, down at number twenty-four.”

  He gestured along the narrow corridor.

  “I’m one of the regulars, yeah . . .”

  HP nodded thoughtfully.

  Maybe he could squeeze something useful out of this little Nescafé visit.

  “I suppose you have a pretty good idea of who lives here . . . ?” he began. “ . . . Who comes and goes, I mean?”

  “Of course! You, for instance, have been here almost three weeks, and social services came past with a couple of new arrivals the day before yesterday . . .”

  “Great, look, maybe you can do me a favor and keep an eye out for me? If anything unusual happens, I mean. People who don’t seem to fit it, and so on . . .”

  “Only people who don’t fit in live in a place like this . . .” Nox grinned. “But I get what you mean.”

  HP tossed him another packet of cigarettes and the funny little man caught it midair. On his way out he tapped his nose with one finger.

  “Just say if you need anything, man, Nox is at your service!”

  “Okay,” HP said hesitantly. “Well, maybe I could ask another favor . . . ?”

  Nox stopped in the doorway.

  “It might be worth a couple of cartons.”

&nbs
p; “Sure, you name it! . . .”

  “You see, I need help to store something. There’s something I need to get out of the house, if you get what I mean . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Aren’t you Rebecca? Rebecca Pettersson? Erland’s daughter?”

  He was standing on the pavement right in front of her and she had no choice but to stop. An older gentleman in a dark overcoat and hat.

  “Normén,” she mumbled as she tried to work out who the man was.

  “Of course, yes, how silly of me. You changed your name after your mother . . . You don’t recognize me, do you?”

  She looked at him carefully. He was slightly taller than her, around 1.80 meters, and at a guess somewhere around sixty.

  There was, undeniably, something familiar about the man’s posture and stiff features, but she couldn’t quite place him. He was probably one of her father’s colleagues from the reserve unit.

  “Tage, Tage Sammer, but you and your brother used to call me Uncle Tage. You came to stay at my summer cottage up in Rättvik years ago, if you remember?”

  He smiled and something in his look made her do the same.

  “Of course, yes,” she said through her smile. “Uncle Tage, how are you?”

  “Very well, thanks. I was just going to ask you the same thing.”

  “Fine, thanks,” she lied.

  “Are you still working for the Security Police?”

  She was taken aback, and he seemed to notice.

  “Your father had a lot of friends, Rebecca, and we’ve done our best to keep an eye on you both. As a last favor to Erland. He would have been so proud of you, you were always his favorite.”

  He smiled again and suddenly she felt a little lump starting to form in her throat.

  She swallowed to get rid of it.

  “By the way, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your mother’s funeral,” he went on. “We sent a wreath, I hope it arrived.”

  She nodded; she could remember the wreath clearly.

  “A last farewell from your old friends.”

  “I was on service abroad in Africa. Unfortunately I was injured and was unable to travel . . .”

  He nodded at his leg, and only now did she notice the stick in his right hand.

  “A very sad story, both your dad and your mom,” he went on. “Erland didn’t deserve to be taken from us so early. And certainly not under those circumstances . . .”

  She frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but he interrupted her.

  “Well, it was very nice to bump into you like this, Rebecca.”

  He put his hand in his inside pocket and took out a neat little business card.

  “Feel free to get in touch. It would make an old man very happy.”

  “I promise, Uncle Tage.”

  They shook hands, then, acting on impulse, she took a step forward and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. He smelled of cigars and aftershave, almost exactly the same smell as her dad, and for a few seconds the lump was back again.

  “By the way,” he said just before they parted. “Your brother, Henrik, do you ever hear from him?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “So, Mange, Frank says you’re our new hotshot down in the mine . . .”

  They had been put in a separate room some way from the entrance, which suited HP perfectly.

  His role as Mange may have been good enough to fool strangers, but he wasn’t sure if people who knew him would be as easily deceived. But on the other hand neither his nor Mange’s friends tended to hang out at posh places like this.

  They had finished eating, and had already got through several beers. Apart from HP and Frank, all the departmental bosses except for the Goth Queen were there. Unfortunately HP had arrived too late to be able to sit next to Rilke. Instead he had to make do with Beens, who seemed to have warmed up already with a few pints.

  But it didn’t matter much. The guy obviously liked talking almost as much as he liked drinking beer.

  “Yep, it’s going pretty well. Interesting company, ArgosEye!” HP gave Beens a crooked smile and tried to sound humble.

  “Mmm, the company’s quite an unusual workplace, but I’m sure you’ve already worked that out. Hardly anyone ever leaves—at least not voluntarily. All of us here have been there from the start.”

  Beens pointed at the others around the table.

  “Dejan and Rilke have worked with Anna for almost ten years, and Stoffe, who’ll be back in a couple of weeks, came over with Philip from Burston. Frank and I worked together for another company but Anna recruited us at roughly the same time. Our little gang has more or less built ArgosEye from the ground up. We’re actually all partners—Philip’s idea.”

  Beens’s garlic breath was no trifling matter, and to make matters worse he was the sort who liked to lean a bit too close when he talked, but HP grinned and bore it.

  “I don’t think I got the chance to meet Anna . . . ?” he attempted, then held his breath.

  Dejan shook his head and took a couple of gulps from his glass of beer.

  This was the first time anyone had even mentioned Anna’s name, and HP hadn’t been able to resist the temptation. Damn, this clearly wasn’t the right moment to start talking about the dead . . .

  Beens put his glass down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “No, we don’t see much of her since she and Philip got divorced . . .”

  HP jerked involuntarily and shuffled on his chair in an attempt to disguise the fact.

  “Ouch. The bad sort of divorce?” he went on, trying to project just the right level of interest.

  “You could say that. Neither of them is really the compromising type . . .”

  The waitress walked past and HP gestured to her to bring another round.

  Did Beens really not know that Anna was dead, or was he just putting it on?

  It was impossible to tell.

  “So did things get better once Anna pulled out?” he went on, as neutrally as he could.

  Beens shrugged his shoulders.

  “I’m not sure that she pulled out, exactly, but with her gone Philip can run the company the way he wants.

  “The way we all want,” he added, draining his glass. “The only problem is that Anna still owns a share of the company. As long as that’s the case, we can’t . . .”

  Beens stopped abruptly and HP noticed Rilke giving him a quick look. The others around the table also seemed to have heard the comment seeing as the conversation around them had suddenly died away. But instead of staying quiet Beens tried to make good his mistake.

  “Look . . . don’t get me wrong. Anna’s been bloody important for the company. But, I mean, really . . .”

  He held his hands out in front of him, as though hoping the others would agree with him.

  “ . . . in purely business terms, everyone stands to gain if she vanished for good.”

  16

  WHISPERS, RUMORS, AND REPORTS

  Pillars of Society forum

  Posted: 30 November, 10:53

  By: MayBey

  Little Regina Righteous has really messed things up for herself.

  Rumor suggests her boss had an affair with the wife of a certain Internal Investigator. If I were Regina, I’d have a lot of trouble sleeping these days . . .

  This post has 23 comments

  REBECCA READ THE post several times before the words actually sank in.

  She pushed her chair back a couple of feet, then sat there rocking on it as she made up her mind.

  What a fucking mess she’d got caught up in. Okay, so she only had herself to blame for most of it. Instead of simply showing up quietly at the interview, she ought to have taken along the union and a sharp lawyer. And put a bit of pressure on those Internal Investigation vultures right from the start, not played along with their little game. Then she’d most likely have escaped this whole disaster.

  And she should have stood her ground much more firmly up in the department, particular
ly after they got home. She should have insisted on them doing the debriefing together as a team, whether or not she was suspected of any wrongdoing. But, just like when Runeberg persuaded her to take the job as head of the unit, she had been too busy proving what a good girl she was. Nodding and not saying anything and sticking to her role as overachieving Rebecca, the way everyone expected her to, while the rest of the world evidently did whatever they felt like.

  God, she was so sick of herself!

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Can you stay on this evening, Mange? There’s a big job on the way and we need to start by rolling out a bit of artificial grass.”

  HP had no idea what his boss was talking about, but nodded anyway. But Frank picked up on his hesitation.

  “Artificial grass, Astroturf, yeah? We roll out a carpet of opinion via a number of different channels, and try to get other people to play along, as part of the plan, on our turf, so to speak . . .”

  “Cool!” HP said, even though he still wasn’t quite sure what this was all about. “So what’s the message?”

  “Lower VAT leads to more jobs. You can probably guess who the client is.” Frank grinned.

  “No problem, I’m up for it. I can go all night if necessary!”

  “Great! Philip usually comes down to check, so tonight we really need to be on top of our game.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “So you lied to me about Westergren . . . !?”

  He flew up from his chair behind the desk, rushed past her, and closed the door to his office.

  “Calm down, for God’s sake, Rebecca, people can hear you!” he hissed, taking hold of her arm.

  She shook his hand off.

  “I’ve got no intention of calming down until you tell me what the hell you’re up to. You lied to me about Westergren. You and his wife . . .”

  His eyes suddenly turned black and she stopped. For a couple of seconds they stood facing each other, exchanging angry glares.

  “Sit down,” he ordered, pointing at a chair.

  Rebecca folded her arms.