The other team leaders, with the exception of Rilke, gathered around the screen. HP couldn’t help glancing over at her. But she wasn’t even looking at him.
He pressed the tissue harder against the cut in his forehead, but the blood wouldn’t stop.
“Ooh, look at that!” Beens said, peering over Dejan’s shoulder. “Not bad at all!”
Dejan clicked the mouse, then typed in a few quick commands.
“Yes, I can only agree with Beens. Whoever put this spy program together knew what he was doing.”
He typed in a few more commands, then stood up and pulled the USB stick out.
“If the trojan had got into the mainframe we’d have been in trouble . . . Looks like it would have started sending confidential information to an external client. Customer information, user IDs, blog aliases, you name it. God knows what might have happened if he’d succeeded.”
He held the stick out to HP.
“You really did try to sink us, lad . . .” he said in a voice that sounded almost surprised.
Suddenly everyone in the room seemed to be staring at him.
He could practically feel the hatred in their eyes.
Frank took a step forward, fists clenched, but HP stood perfectly still. The blow wasn’t even particularly hard, a stomach punch that he more or less managed to steel himself against before it struck. Knees on the carpet, a sigh as the air went out of him. The guy didn’t even have the guts to punch him in the face . . .
“That’s enough, Frank,” Philip said curtly as Sophie and her brother dragged HP to his feet. “I think Henrik has already realized the seriousness of his position—haven’t you?”
HP nodded mutely.
“You, a convicted criminal, broke in here with a stolen pass card with the intention of stealing confidential company information.”
He took the memory stick from Dejan and waved it in HP’s face.
“Aggravated theft, or industrial espionage, probably a year or two in prison, I’d guess. And I don’t suppose that will do your sister’s future career prospects any good at all . . .”
HP started.
“Don’t involve my sister in this!” he muttered.
Philip smiled.
“So there is something you care about after all, Henrik. In other words, you’re not entirely without morals . . .”
Frank, Dejan, and the others grinned, but he didn’t care.
“Get to the point, Philip.” He sighed. “I’ve got something you want, haven’t I? Otherwise the cops would be busy scraping me off the pavement by now. After all, you don’t seem too bothered if you have to step over a few dead bodies . . .”
He raised his head and looked them in the eyes for the first time. This time it was their turn to look away.
All except Philip. He gestured toward Elroy.
“Is he . . . ?”
“Completely clean, no microphones or transmitters.”
“Good!”
He turned back to HP again.
“You’re quite right, Henrik. I want your shares. You can sell them to me at an acceptable market rate so that no one can claim afterward that you were put under undue pressure. So I’m prepared to offer you twice what you managed to scrape together to pay Monika.”
He gave a sign to Stoffe, who took out a plastic folder and started to lay several documents out on the desk.
“And there are plenty of witnesses here who can testify that the purchase took place perfectly legally.”
HP nodded wearily.
“Okay, I get it . . .”
He took a deep breath, to give himself time to think.
“But I want to add one condition to the deal.”
“You’re hardly in a position to make demands, Henrik, but let’s hear it . . .”
“I’ll sign your forms and go off into the sunset as long as you agree not to call the cops. I’m not exactly keen to do time again.”
Philip nodded.
“That sounds like it might be worth considering, doesn’t it?”
He turned toward the others, but none of them had any comment.
“So what do we do about the money?” HP said.
“We’ve opened a Western Union account for you. The money will be transferred the moment you sign the forms.”
“No need, I’ve got a numbered account we can use.”
Philip met his gaze for a few seconds. Then he smiled.
“You planned for this eventuality, didn’t you?”
HP shrugged his shoulders.
“In that case it would seem that I didn’t entirely misjudge you, Henrik. No plan is so good that doesn’t need a backup.”
He shook his head.
“You could have gone far with us, Henrik, further than you could ever imagine . . .”
“Well . . .” HP replied. “We’ll never know, will we?”
Philip nodded.
“So, Henrik, seeing as you were prepared for this scenario, I daresay you have a price in mind. How much did you manage to scrape together to persuade Monika to sell? I offered her a million, but I can imagine that she gave you a good discount. So what was it—fifty, one hundred?”
“Five!”
Philip grinned.
“So you managed to persuade my sister-in-law to sell her shares to you for a measly five thousand. Either you’re a brilliant negotiator or she must really hate me . . . Oh well, we’ll transfer ten thousand to your account.”
HP slowly shook his head.
“Not five thousand . . .”
He left a dramatic pause. Then he smiled.
“Five million . . . !”
44
THE GAME IS UP
IN THE STREETS outside calm had descended and only a few lingering plumes of fireworks shot up sporadically into the night sky. He was made to wait for a while, before being bundled off to the toilet to tidy himself up. The cut over his eye wouldn’t stop bleeding and he asked for a roll of tape to try to hold it together. Just as he was finished the office door opened.
“You can come back in now, Henrik . . .”
The party atmosphere seemed to have subsided somewhat. He hadn’t been able to avoid hearing parts of the heated discussion while he was waiting.
“We’ve checked what you said,” Philip began, “and it looks as though you did somehow manage to get hold of five million. Obviously, we’re very interested to hear how that came about—”
“Lottery win,” HP said, cutting him off.
He saw them look at each other.
“In that case we have a proposal,” Philip said curtly. “Six million, that’s as much as we can get hold of at such short notice.”
“Seven!” HP retorted quickly.
Philip took a deep breath and from the corner of his eye HP saw Elroy shuffle his feet.
“Okay, six, then!” he said. “As long as we can get it out of the way. But remember, no police!”
“Good,” Philip said. “Dejan has the transfer up on the screen.”
He nodded to Dejan, who had set up a new laptop to replace the infected one.
“He’ll transfer the money once all the papers are signed, then you can log into the account yourself and double-check.”
HP nodded.
Stoffe put the papers in front of him on the desk, and he signed them, one after the other.
Then Philip did the same, before Stoffe and Frank witnessed the signatures.
“Okay, you can transfer the money now,” Philip commanded once they were done.
Dejan tapped at his keyboard, then supervised HP while he double-checked the transaction. ArgosEye’s entire current account must have been pretty much cleared out.
Buying shares with the company’s own money, wasn’t that sort of thing illegal? But obviously that presupposed that anyone cared.
“Happy?”
HP nodded.
“Good. Then it’s time for us to go our separate ways.” Philip smiled. “You may be a wealthy man, but it will be a while before you c
an enjoy your money. And obviously we’ll put in a serious claim for damages. I would imagine the amount will run to something like six million. What do the rest of you think?”
The others leered scornfully and suddenly all seemed much happier.
“Elroy, would you be so kind as to call and arrange transport for Henrik?”
“Of course.” Elroy grinned, and stepped over to the phone on the desk. “One one two is easy to do . . .”
HP looked down at the floor. Obviously the greedy fuckers were going to inform on him. You wouldn’t get much of a price on the odds of that happening. But as luck would have it, he still had one ace up his sleeve . . .
“Hello, police? We’ve just caught a thief red-handed. It looks like he was trying to steal confidential business information . . .”
“Hold on!” Philip said, raising one hand. “Something doesn’t feel right . . .”
He gave HP a long look.
“For someone who just lost the game, you seem rather too calm.”
HP tried to avoid looking at him.
Shit!
“What were you really doing in reception downstairs?”
“Nothing,” HP muttered.
Philip looked puzzled. Then he gestured to Elroy to hand him the receiver.
“Hello, who am I speaking to? Police Sergeant Renko . . . ?”
Philip started to smile.
“And what department do you work in, Sergeant, if you don’t mind me asking? . . . Surveillance? I’m sorry, but the right answer was Central Control.”
He put the receiver down and then dialed some more numbers on the phone.
“You never cease to surprise me, Henrik!” he went on in an amused tone of voice. “You predicted that we’d call the police, and you changed the speed-dial number to one of your own. Let me guess, you’ve got two friends waiting in a car out there somewhere, ready to drive over and pick you up? All a bit Ocean’s Eleven, am I right?”
HP took a deep breath.
“Twelve,” he muttered. “The fake cops rescued them in Ocean’s Twelve.”
But no one seemed to be listening.
Philip turned to the others.
“Let this be a useful lesson to us all. Never underestimate an opponent, even when he seems to be beaten . . .”
Philip signaled to Elroy, who pulled out his cell.
“Hello, is that the police?”
♦ ♦ ♦
She ended the call, then looked up another number in her phonebook.
“Good evening, my dear,” the soft voice said.
“Good evening, Uncle Tage,” she replied, and noticed her heart beating a bit faster. “I know where Henrik is . . .”
“Excellent, my dear, I’m most grateful to you. Where can I find him?”
She took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before answering.
♦ ♦ ♦
So the game was over.
Philip and co. had bought his shares, admittedly for rather more than they had anticipated, but still. Finally they had complete control over the company.
The champagne was no doubt flowing in the office while he and the twins waited like good little children out in reception for the cops to show up.
The real cops . . .
Shit!
He’d hoped he’d get away with it, that his bluff with the phones would work and that Nox and the Chief would show up and check him out. Then off to Arlanda with lots of nice new money in his account.
But instead he was going to get arrested for real.
A prison sentence was really the least of his problems. What worried him most was that the moment his personal details were typed into the police computer system, the warning lights would start to flash and tell the Game Master where he was.
He was actually pretty surprised that they hadn’t already found him.
That Philip and his gang hadn’t already tipped them off about him. But they still didn’t seem to have worked out who he was. Oh well, they’d soon find out . . .
A loud knock interrupted his thoughts.
“You were quick,” Elroy said to the two plainclothes officers when he opened the door.
“We were just around the corner,” one of them said.
“I’d like to see your ID,” Elroy said.
The men shrugged, then pulled out their police IDs.
“I’ve got all the information here . . .” Elroy said, handing a plastic folder to one of the officers.
“Time, place, personal details, you’ll find it all there, as well as a memory stick with the program he was trying to plant in our mainframe.”
He pointed at HP.
“Our lawyers will be in touch after the holiday with our claim for damages.”
One of the policemen leafed through the paperwork, then nodded to his colleague.
“Turn around,” he said, and HP did as he was asked.
There was a metallic click as the cuffs were put on.
“Okay, let’s go.” Then, to Elroy: “The investigating team will be in touch first thing tomorrow morning if they’ve got any questions . . .”
The two police officers led him out toward the lift.
“Hang on,” Elroy called after them. “Which station will it be, in case there’s anything we want to add?”
“Norrmalm,” the taller of the two officers said.
“Is that around the back of the Central Station?” Elroy asked.
“No, Kungsholmsgatan 37. We’ve been there a good while now.”
Elroy grinned happily.
“Just wanted to check . . .”
They took the lift down. Neither of the police officers said a word. Their car was parked right outside, a typical cop car, automatic gears, and an extra internal mirror.
The taller one, who seemed to be the boss, sat in the back with HP. The car started, and as they pulled away he took out a cell phone.
“We’ve got him, and are on our way,” he said tersely to the person at the other end.
“We’re not going to Kungsholmen, are we . . . ?” HP muttered.
But the man didn’t answer.
45
CALL!
“WELL, MY FRIENDS,” Philip Argos said. “That’s that little unpleasantness out of the way. Sometimes you have no choice but to buy your freedom, even if the price was somewhat higher than we had anticipated . . . But at least it was the solution that entailed the smallest risk in the long term. We’ll put our lawyers to work on the claim for damages. It ought to be relatively simple now that we have the account number. Either way, we are all going to earn more money than we could ever have dreamed of . . .”
He raised his glass.
“To the future!”
A cell started to ring.
“Excuse me,” Frank said.
He took the phone from the holster on his belt and left the room.
“So do we know who he was really working for? Henrik, I mean . . . ?” Beens asked.
Philip shook his head.
“No, I’m afraid not. I might have my suspicions, but we’ll never know for sure . . .”
“You’re thinking of Anna?”
Philip shrugged.
“All the information we’ve managed to gather suggests that Henrik was basically working on his own. We certainly haven’t been able to find any link between him and our competitors. It’s possible that Anna employed him before . . .”
He gestured with his hand.
“ . . . or, more likely, that her sister did, considering the whole business with the shares. But we’re rid of them now, at least, the shares are ours, entirely legally and by the book, so there’s no longer anything or anyone that can threaten our plans.”
Frank came back into the room. He was still holding the phone in his hand, so tight that his fingers were turning white.
“We’ve got a problem . . .” he said, almost in a whisper. “That was Gitte down in the Filter. Half the blasted blogosphere seems to be buzzing about us. About us, the way we wo
rk, the trolls, the blogs, the register, you name it . . . Everything seems to have got out . . .”
He swallowed hard and pointed toward the door.
“And there are two uniformed police officers in reception wondering where our burglar is.”
Philip glanced at Dejan.
“Not a chance.” Dejan held his hands up as if in self-defense. “The laptop wasn’t connected to the net, and it was basically empty anyway. That trojan didn’t go anywhere.”
“This isn’t good . . .” Rilke whimpered.
“Quiet!” Philip snapped.
He turned to Elroy.
“What did he do while you were waiting out there? Did you let him near any of the computers?”
Elroy and Sophie shook their heads in tandem.
“He went to the toilet, that’s all,” Sophie said. “He had to do something about the cut he got when he . . .”
She stopped herself and glanced anxiously at her brother.
“When he what?” Philip snarled.
“ . . . hit his head on my desk,” she concluded in a toneless voice.
♦ ♦ ♦
They drove down Strandvägen, then through Diplomat City and out toward Gärdet—the opposite direction to Police Headquarters.
The lights on the Kaknäs Tower were flashing through the mist off to their left, and for a few moments he thought that was where they were going.
But they passed the tower and turned off onto a little gravel track that seemed to lead out into the middle of nowhere. Hadn’t there once been a shooting range out here somewhere?
“Are you real policemen?” he asked.
The man beside him shrugged his shoulders.
“Does it matter?”
“How long have you been watching me?”
“A while . . .”
“How did you know . . . I mean . . . who put you onto me . . . ?”
“Who do you think, Henrik? I mean, if you really think about it . . . ?”
Something in the man’s tone made his heart plummet like a stone.
♦ ♦ ♦
Philip yanked open the office door and, closely followed by the others, ran over to Sophie’s desk. The computer was on the floor, but the USB ports at the front of it were empty.
“False alarm,” Beens said with relief. “If he didn’t manage to get the trojan in somewhere, then everything going on out there is just loose gossip. He could have told his friends, arranged for them to spread the story at a particular time regardless of whether or not the trojan was feeding them information. Without any proof the story will be stone-dead in a couple of days . . .”
Buzz: A Thriller Page 33