He had about as much chance of surviving intact as a girl with big tits in a horror movie, but he still had to give it his best shot. Because those fuckers couldn’t be allowed to get away with this.
NFW!
Who’d have thought it would take two media-fixated schoolkids to work the whole thing out. The Data Retention Directive—of course!
Big brother EU wanted to force all Internet providers to save all traffic from every user. Every single page you visited, every link you clicked, every forum you posted on. Everything would be saved and stored for at least a year, even if there was no suspicion at all of any wrongdoing.
Up to now Sweden had objected, but now the subject was up for debate in Parliament again.
“In the event that crime-fighting authorities need the information” was apparently the justification, and in the past few days they had added “in the fight against terrorism.”
In the aftermath of the blast on Drottninggatan the amount of opposition was bound to shrink. Storing all data traffic from all users wasn’t an effective way of preventing terrorism, Philip Argos himself had explained that to him. But it was the perfect way to map patterns of consumption, Internet behavior, and user networks, down to the very smallest detail, and over a lengthy period of time. The Stasi’s wet dream, just twenty years too late!
Big business would drool over that type of information, and would be prepared to do almost anything to get hold of it. Only the future would show which side of the law they would stick to.
The first step was getting the directive passed. And with the help of ArgosEye and a failed suicide bomber, they were well on the way.
Unless someone stopped them . . .
He cruised through the narrow streets, checking over his shoulder every so often. Everything seemed okay, there were a few hours left before midnight, and the majority of ordinary Swedes were busy having their New Year’s Eve dinner.
He reached the main entrance and looked around one last time before opening his shoulder bag and taking out the pass card.
Shit, even on a photograph the size of a postage stamp Rilke still looked like a million dollars. On the subject of money, Monika Gregerson had been over the moon about his proposal, and thank God for that. Now she had loads of cash and a chance to deal out a bit of farewell payback to Philip. But forty percent wasn’t enough to stop Philip’s plans to join the PayTag Group. Anna had worked that out, and had tried to find another way instead.
And in all likelihood it had cost her her life.
But now it was his turn to try . . .
He slowly raised the pass card to the reader, and noticed that he was holding his breath. What if Rilke had noticed, what if she’d checked her bag and seen that the card was missing? What if she’d made a call and got the twins to block it . . . ?
In that case he was . . .
The reader bleeped and flashed green, then the lock began to whirr.
♦ ♦ ♦
Something was going on, she was sure of that. That key was hardly a coincidence. MayBey had put his or her plan into action, but all she could do was wait. In time she was bound to find out what was expected of her. Until then, she could work on her own plans.
She had managed to check out a theory that had started to bubble in her head, and so far she hadn’t found anything that contradicted it. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Facebook was undeniably a fantastic tool for making yourself visible.
But including every last detail of your life also had its risks . . .
She switched windows and clicked the icon to update the page, but it didn’t change.
No new messages from MayBey.
Not yet. But she was sure it wouldn’t be long.
She went out into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water.
♦ ♦ ♦
He took the lift up.
The eighteenth floor of a possible nineteen. The reception area was of course closed, but Rilke’s card worked perfectly.
He crept carefully past the meeting room, pulled his cap down over his face, and kept close to the wall in an attempt to avoid the camera in the ceiling as best he could. But like so many other surveillance systems he had come across, he doubted anyone was actually sitting and watching the pictures live, and especially not on New Year’s Eve. Tomorrow morning they would check the recordings and realize that they had had an unauthorized intruder, but by then it would be too late.
He stopped at the reception desk and leaned over for the telephone. He picked up the receiver and opened the phone’s menu of options. He tapped in a number, then clicked Save.
Then he tried the speed-dial number.
“Hello?”
“It’s me, Nox. I’m in—everything’s okay.”
“Okay, boss, understood. Be careful!”
♦ ♦ ♦
By the time she got back to the computer the new post was already a minute old.
I have your brother, Regina. Come and get him if you dare!
She had been right. The opening move had been made. The game had begun.
Time for her response. She picked up her cell and pressed the speed-dial option.
“It’s me,” she said when the person at the other end answered.
♦ ♦ ♦
So far, so good!
He popped his head into the open area behind the reception desk. It was completely deserted, but the light from a few computer screens flickered from over in the glassed-off part of the office. The night shift in the Filter, maybe two or three people, but he wasn’t too worried about them.
Even if he did bump into any of them, they probably wouldn’t recognize him and would just say hello or possibly glance at the pass card he had fixed to his belt. There was no way they’d be able to see that the picture didn’t match the person wearing it.
But the team leader was a different matter. Rilke wasn’t working over New Year, he remembered that from when they were still together, which meant that Beens, Dejan, Stoffe, or Frank was working that night. He had no great desire to run into any of them.
He turned left, into the darkened corridor that led toward the other three departments.
Just as he was approaching the Troll Mine he saw the door open. Quick as a flash he darted behind one of the cupboards lining one side of the corridor.
“ . . . okay, see you in a bit, I’m just going to grab something to eat,” he heard Frank say to someone inside.
Shit!
He had just passed the door to the overnight lounge, which meant that Frank would have to walk right past him.
HP slid down onto the floor and pressed up against the side of the cupboard. He heard steps coming toward him and tried to make himself as small as possible. Suddenly the lights came on and someone let out a whistle.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Okay, let’s say that, then.”
She ended the call and put the cell down on the kitchen table.
Then she went out into the hall and began to put her outdoor clothes on.
This time she left her extending baton in its holster, and fixed the whole thing to her belt at the small of her back. She was ready for MayBey’s next move.
If her suspicions were correct, and if he was the man she thought he was, it wouldn’t be long coming.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Frank!”
“Yeah, what is it?” he heard Frank say, probably no more than a meter away from him.
“The database just chucked me out, can you unlock it . . . ?”
“Sure,” he heard Frank sigh.
Then footsteps moving away.
The door to the Troll Mine clicked, then everything was quiet.
HP carefully poked his head out into the corridor. Empty. He let out a sigh of relief.
That was close, damned close, even . . .
But now he had a problem.
He had counted on being able to get out to the fire escape through the emergency exit in the Troll Mine, but now that way was blocked.
Those stairs were his best hope of getting up to Philip’s office and the server room, but now he’d have to find another way to get to them.
He jogged back to reception, ducked down behind the desk, and pulled out the plan he had stolen from the fire cupboard on the ground floor.
The fire escape was the emergency exit for all nineteen floors, and ran all the way down to the basement. That was a hell of a lot of stairs to clamber up, but he didn’t have much choice.
He would have to try the route through the basement.
♦ ♦ ♦
Her cell phone rang. Number withheld, and for some reason she hesitated for a couple of seconds before answering.
“Hello, Rebecca Normén,” she said as calmly as she could.
There was a man’s voice at the other end.
♦ ♦ ♦
It was damned creepy down there.
The garage started right outside the lifts, and because it was a holiday, and night as well, only something like one in every four lights was lit. It was bound to be some stupid green scheme to save energy. But at least the weak lighting was enough for him to see where he was going.
He slipped between the few cars parked down there and double-checked on the plan that he was going the right way.
A sudden noise made him jump. He took a couple of quick steps and dodged down between two cars, then put his head up slowly and tried to see through the car windows. Nothing, not the slightest movement out there in the gloom. Maybe a fan, or some other bit of service machinery coming on? Just to be sure, he waited another minute or so.
But everything was quiet.
He stood up and carried on to the corner where the staircase ought to be, but couldn’t help glancing back over his shoulder a few times.
He found the door pretty much exactly where he expected it to be. Unfortunately it was locked. It could probably only be opened from the other side, which was perfectly logical considering that it was only supposed to be used by people going in one direction. But there was a card reader beside the door. A silver-colored box with a keypad, like the one on the main door upstairs. He tried Rilke’s card, and got a double bleep in response. The little light flickered between green and red, and it took him a couple of seconds to realize why. The pass card was fine, but the reader was waiting for him to tap in some sort of code.
Shit!
The main door had never asked for any sort of fucking code, a card alone was enough.
He tried four zeros but got a firm red light in reply.
Come on—think!
It was Rilke’s card, and presumably they all picked their own individual pin number. Four digits, most likely. So what would she have chosen?
Her birthday, the battle of Lützen, the French Revolution?
He tried all three, without success.
But what if that wasn’t how the reader worked? Maybe there was just one code for this particular box, and you could get in as long as you had a card for the building and the shared code?
In which case there was a chance that . . .
Suddenly everything went pitch-black.
For a few panic-stricken moments he had to fight the urge to drop everything and run back to the lifts. But instead he felt in his bag for his flashlight.
He heard a faint rustling sound somewhere off to his right and the noise made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It could have been a rat . . .
Unless it was something else, a dark, shapeless figure creeping up on him, reaching out its clawed hands and . . .
His fingers touched something cylindrical and he yanked the flashlight out so hard that several other things flew out with it. His sweaty fingers felt for the switch, then . . .
The beam of light put a stop to his racing imagination and he moved it around in every direction just to be sure.
There was nothing there, nothing but parked cars and the things he’d just dropped on the floor.
He crouched down and put everything except a little spray can back in his bag. The flask containing the ballistic gel, which he planned to use to fool the fingerprint reader, just like Rainman Rehyman had taught him out in Kista. The little crowbar for breaking open the door to the server room, and the earmuffs that would make it possible to put up with the noise from the intruder alarm.
He took a quick look at the time.
Almost an hour left until midnight, when the streets would be full of firework-watching drunks who’d make life bloody difficult for any security guards and cops trying to make their way to a tricky central address like this.
Plenty of time, in other words . . .
He gave the keypad on the card reader a quick spray with the aerosol, waited a moment, then pressed the button on the flashlight. The light switched from white to violet and when he shone it at the keypad big white stains showed up on four of the buttons. 1350.
He held the card up again, then pressed the keys in numerical order.
Red light.
He stopped to think for a moment. Then he tried the more symmetrical 0135. A green lamp came on and he heard the lock whirr.
YES!
The moment he touched the handle a burst of pain flashed through his body and for a few seconds his limbs shook uncontrollably. Then everything went black.
41
CAPTURE THE FLAG
“YES, HELLO, CAN you tell me, whose number is this?” the man at the other end of the line said.
“Rebecca Normén’s . . .”
“In Palace admin or . . . ?” The man sounded hesitant.
“Sorry . . . I don’t understand. Who am I talking to?”
“My name’s Sandberg, Captain Sandberg of the Life Guards. I’m in charge of the guard up at the Palace tonight and we’re standing in front of a door we suddenly find we can’t open. If you change the locks, normal procedure requires that you inform—”
“Hang on a minute,” she interrupted. “Where did you get my cell number?”
“There’s a sticker on the lock. What . . . don’t you work in Palace admin? I thought . . .”
“Wait there, Captain. I’m on my way!”
She jogged down the stairs with the phone still pressed to her ear.
“Where does the door lead?”
“What?”
“The locked door . . .” she clarified as she pulled her boots on. “Where does it lead?”
♦ ♦ ♦
Someone was carrying him.
Or more than one, surely? One under each arm, his hands tied behind his back and a hood over his head.
Déjà vu!
He wondered briefly if this was all just a dream. That he was still in the garage in Dubai and the orcs were dragging him off to some Guantánamo pit.
His legs were moving, more or less, but the rest of his body still felt numb. The last few minutes were chopped into little fragments of memory. He had a feeling he had been taken somewhere, in some sort of vehicle. But that was more a feeling than a fact. As if the world around him had moved while he himself had been lying still.
They were dragging him up some sort of staircase. He heard a door squeak. Dry, cold air, but still not outdoors. Like some sort of huge attic . . .
♦ ♦ ♦
She braked hard in the outer courtyard of the Palace and the car slid another meter or so on the slippery cobbles.
“Halt,” the downy teenager in the sentry box said, holding up one hand.
“The officer in charge of the Guard,” she said quickly as she showed him her police ID. “Captain Sandberg, where can I find him?”
♦ ♦ ♦
Up another narrow staircase, and the person in front practically had to drag him.
Cold night air, voices, city noises in the distance revealed that they were definitely outside now. Stumbling steps across a slippery, slushy surface. Then hands pushing him down into a sitting position, pushing his legs over some sort of ledge. His feet were suddenly dangling freely and a gust of cold air blew up the legs of his trousers.
; Like so many times before, his stomach was quicker than his brain. A roof! He was on some sort of roof.
♦ ♦ ♦
Three guns in total, two automatic rifles, and the officer’s holstered pistol. For some reason they made her feel uneasy. The Guard may be largely ceremonial, but she couldn’t help wondering.
Not dangerous, dangerous?
She guessed at the latter . . .
They were jogging up what seemed, strangely enough, to be a perfectly ordinary stairwell. Captain Sandberg in front of her, and two soldiers in camouflage uniforms just behind her. There were apartment doors on the landings, and a faint smell of cooking. She would never have imagined that people actually lived in the Palace, behind ordinary brown doors with letter boxes and nameplates, just like any other address in the city.
But on the other hand this was the western wing, a fair way from the royal apartments, the Palace church, the museums, and all the other bits.
They stopped in front of a metal door at the very top of the stairwell.
“There,” Sandberg said, pointing at a bar across the door with a padlock hanging from it. “We only realized something was wrong when our key wouldn’t fit.”
On the lock was a small sticker with a phone number. It took her a fraction of a second to see that it was hers.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t call the police . . . I mean, the uniformed police,” he corrected himself.
“Not yet . . .” she replied curtly.
She pulled the key from her jeans pocket and saw at once that it was the right size.
She put it in the lock and tried turning it. The lock clicked open straightaway, and one of the soldiers removed the bar and opened the door. She was hit by a cold smell of old wood and dust.
“Where does this lead . . . ?”
She pointed into the darkness.
“The attic? It runs the whole length of the Palace. We use it to get to the flag . . .”
“The flag?”
“Yes, the three-tailed flag, the one that flies from the roof of the Palace when the king is in the country.”
♦ ♦ ♦
What the hell had actually happened?
Buzz: A Thriller Page 31