Suddenly five-eight seemed to remember rule number one, and his jaw snapped shut like a mousetrap.
HP shrugged his shoulders, then gave him a kick in the balls. After allowing a few seconds for Hasselqvist to recover, he leaned over him.
‘I know all about the Game, my dear little fifty-eight, including rule number one. But if I were you I’d be considerably more worried about making it through the next couple of minutes than about our mutual friend the Game Master getting pissed off about you squealing, right?’
Hasselqvist just nodded stiffly in reply as he clutched his crown jewels.
‘Good! So, am I right in thinking that your assignment was to film the girl and her boyfriend?’
Hasselqvist nodded again.
‘So do you know him, this Micke?’
Hasselqvist shook his head, but not very convincingly.
‘You’re lying!’
HP raised his foot and took aim to deliver another kick.
‘Wait!’ Hasselqvist whimpered, holding one hand up to defend himself.
He cleared his throat and went on.
‘I don’t know him, but I recognized him. He only lives a couple of blocks from me. I’ve seen him on the bus, I think.’
‘Is he mixed up in the Game?’
Another shake of the head, considerably more convincing this time.
HP breathed out.
Micke and fifty-eight weren’t the same person!
They just happened to live in the same area and looked a bit similar, but that was it. Becca wasn’t mixed up in the Game. She was safe!
They had just started the sweeping left-hand bend around Sollentuna. The convoy was well spaced, the road ahead was completely clear.
This was going like clockwork.
‘So what’s this assignment all about?’ HP asked, dangling the billiard ball in the sock in front of Kent fifty-fucking-eight Hasselqvist’s face.
More sniffing. The tear-gas must have gone by now, but the bloke seemed to the world’s biggest cry-baby. What a fucking loser they’d chosen! Was this shrimp-dicked twat really the best they could come up with?
Someone who had what it took for an End Game?
HP shook his head in exasperation and bumped Hasselqvist with the billiard ball.
‘Okay, do you want to do this the easy way, or would you rather have a number eight ball on your ass?’
He swung the sock round his head a couple of times and it made a terrifying swishing sound.
‘Just park the van here and wait for instructions,’ Hasselqvist snorted. ‘That’s all, I promise!’ he howled when HP gave him a sceptical look. ‘It was just a Game, a cool thing, yeah? I’m a nobody, just an ordinary bloke,’ he said as he tried to grab HP’s feet in supplication. ‘Please, don’t kill me,’ he sobbed to HP’s already soaked sneakers.
HP spun the sock a couple more times, then lowered it.
‘Fuck off!’
‘What?
Hasselqvist looked up with his red, tear-streaked face.
‘You heard, fuck off!’ HP snarled, nodding towards the trees. ‘If you’re not gone in five seconds I’m going to smash your skull in, get it?’
He didn’t need further explanation. Hasselqvist rushed headlong into the undergrowth and to judge by the speed he was going, he probably wouldn’t slow down until he reached the centre of Kista.
What to do now?
Suddenly he heard a ringtone. He patted his breast pocket and was about to pull out his new Sony when he realized it was the wrong ringtone. The ringing was coming from inside the police van.
Of course, fifty-eight’s mobile!
It was on the floor, Hasselqvist must have dropped it when he got a face-full of tear-gas.
The screen was lit up and a short message said that an incoming call was waiting.
For some reason, he didn’t really know why, he pressed the icon for ‘answer’ and slowly lifted the mobile to his ear.
‘Hello?’
‘Good evening, my dear HP, this is the Game Master speaking,’ the voice at the other end said.
‘Alpha 101 passing Sollentuna,’ she reported to Control.
‘Understood, Alpha 101,’ the operator replied.
She glanced at Wikström. Hands on the wheel, quarter to three, eyes fixed well ahead. Speedometer stuck on 120.
He was a good colleague, a real pro, she thought.
HP opened his mouth but it was like he was chewing thin air and no words came out.
‘You’ve certainly been working hard tonight, my friend. But I’m afraid you’ve got a bit more work ahead of you before you can get some well-deserved rest.’
The voice was soft, almost tender. Swedish, with a hint of an accent. A faintly metallic note which suggested the caller was using some sort of voice distortion device, or possibly one of those translation gadgets? He’d always assumed that the Game Master was male, but this voice could just as easily belong to a woman.
‘This evening’s assignment is worth 25,000 points. If you succeed, you will have accumulated 33,200 in total, and because we have reached the end of this round, that means you will be our winner and that the Reward will therefore be yours.’
‘W-w-what!?’ HP spluttered, trying to absorb this new information.
‘Soo, if I do this, if I help you, you’ll let me back in? I mean … let me back into the Game?’ he said after a few seconds of bewildered thought.
‘HP, HP, HP,’ the Game Master chuckled, and for some reason the laughter made the hairs on the back of HP’s neck stand up.
‘What makes you think you ever left us?’
Everything was going smoothly, the convoy was still neatly grouped behind them. Almost perfect safety distance. Next the Kymlinge junction, then past the Police Academy, Järva Krog, and they’d practically be in the city.
Ten minutes to go, max.
‘Look around you, my friend. Look at where you are! Right at the centre of events.
‘The setting for the culmination of the drama. And why? Well, because you have put yourself here. Entirely of your own accord! A quite exceptional achievement, as all of us who have been following your adventures agree. And obviously you must be rewarded accordingly!’
The voice was smooth as honey and HP couldn’t help lapping up its message.
‘The central role is yours, HP, you’ve gone all the way, as you would doubtless put it. This is your End Game, your richly deserved chance to write yourself into the history of the Game, not to mention humanity itself.’
The Game Master paused and HP tried in vain to digest what he had just been told and what it meant. But he just couldn’t manage it, this was total information overload!
‘Now listen carefully, HP, because this is your final assignment. This is what will turn you into a living legend,’ the Game Master went on. ‘For 25,000 points you must park the police van as close to the carriageway of the motorway as possible. You will open the back door and there you will find a cable which you will plug into this phone. When you have done that I suggest that you get yourself to safety. We will take care of the rest. Time is starting to run out, so it’s a matter of some urgency, but of course we will wait until you have got far enough away. Your safety is our first priority. Have you understood the assignment, HP?’
‘Y-yes,’ he muttered as his head started spinning at double and then triple speed.
This was totally absurd!
Fucking Twilight Zone on steroids!
But at the same time it was everything he had ever wanted – and more!
He was … speechless!
‘Good. I would like to conclude by pointing out that the choice is yours. Just like before, you yourself must decide if you want to carry out the assignment or not. The ball’s in your court, HP. Win, or fade away?
‘In other words, you have a very important decision to make, and I wish you the best of luck!’
The line abruptly went dead.
He stood where he was for a couple of seconds, then took a few stumblin
g steps towards the back doors of the police van. As soon as he saw the black duffle-bags he realized what the Game actually wanted him to do.
This was some mothafuckin’ freaky ass shit!
The flyover of the Kymlinge junction was approaching, and in the distance she could make out blue lights. It looked like there was a police vehicle at the bottom of the exit slip-road. A minibus to judge by the headlights. Suddenly, and for no good reason, she started to feel uneasy. There was something about that image that didn’t make sense, but it took her a few seconds before she worked out what it was.
He pulled down the zip of one of the bags and his suspicions were confirmed at once. Dynamex, it said in red lettering on the little packages. The bag was full to bursting, there must be at least fifty kilos in there in all.
He pulled the zip back up. Fifty kilos in each bag, a total of one hundred kilos, which would give … well, what? One hell of a big bang, that much was obvious! So what were they trying to blow up?
When he saw the blue lights approaching he suddenly realized just how deep this rabbit-hole really was …
Déjà vu!
The tumble-dryer’s speed control had slipped into the red zone.
A police van facing towards them. Hardly the way she would have parked it for a standard roadblock. But it was considerably more troubling that there had been no other vans parked like that until now, right on the edge of the motorway. They were too far away for her to be able to see its number with her naked eye, but she remembered that they had binoculars in the glove compartment. It took a few seconds before she located the van and adjusted the focus.
There was a cable sticking out of one of the bags. A mini-USB, he just had to plug it in and drive the van a few metres closer to the carriageway, then run off into the woods. The Game Master would take care of the rest. One last call, ring-ring in the bag, then …
KA-BOOM!!
And after that?
‘To the victor, belongs the spoils’, according to lard-arse Bacala in The Sopranos. All his dreams would come true. He was going to be fucking well famous, at least if he could believe the Game Master.
The only question was: did he?
The blue lights were getting closer.
He didn’t have much time.
The decision was really very simple. He’d realized that a few days ago, but it hadn’t sunk in before now. That there was only one alternative. The blue button or the red? Safe or all in? Win or fade away?
Ladies and gentlemen, the clock is ticking, please place your bets …
He pulled out his new Sony from his pocket, plugged in the cable and slammed the rear doors.
Then he raced round to the driver’s seat, put it in gear and slammed his foot down hard on the accelerator.
‘Stop!’ she yelled all of a sudden.
‘What?’ Wikström said, twisting his head to look questioningly at her.
‘Stop, for fuck’s sake, stop the car!’ she shouted, grabbing the radio mic.
The slip-road was getting closer and closer, and now you could read the number without binoculars, 1710, the van that was supposed to be in the workshop. The one Henke claimed had been stolen. Either way, the bastard thing wasn’t supposed to be here! Not now!
Absolutely not!
‘All cars stop!’ she shouted into the microphone, as Wikström slammed the brake-pedal down. As the seatbelt jerked and caught her, she watched as the police van began to move towards them.
Blinking is supposed to be the fastest movement the human body is physically capable of.
Even so, it hardly compares to the brain’s electrical synapses.
‘Not now!’ was the thought that flashed through his head when the light hit him.
And, from his point of view, he was absolutely right. There ought to be more time, plenty of time – that was what he had been promised. After all, he had followed the instructions to the letter, had done exactly what he had been told to do.
So this shouldn’t be happening. Not now! Absolutely not!
So when the mobile phone’s screen suddenly lit up and the ringtone started up, he was actually taken aback.
But not, however, particularly surprised!
‘Threat ahead, reverse and retreat!’ she commanded, and both Wikström and the drivers of the other vehicles all obeyed her immediately.
The convoy went into reverse, rolled some hundred metres and then, almost as if on command, the cars began to spin round all at once. They were going so fast that they never actually stopped before carrying on, now heading back the way they had come.
‘Alpha 102, take the lead,’ she concluded once the manoeuvre was complete and they were heading north again.
He spun the wheel, performing a screeching U-turn, then gunned back up the slip-road with the engine howling. A sharp right-hander with the flares playing around the wheels, then he was back on the Kymlinge link-road.
He could see the blue lights of the van flashing against the dark trees. A few seconds later they were joined by more.
Her hands were shaking, but she was having no problem controlling them. They had already gone past Sollentuna.
‘Control, we have a stolen police van, 1710, heading along the Kymlinge link-road towards Kista. Suggest you put our uniformed colleagues onto it, but tell them to keep a safe distance, over!’
The patrol car that had been guarding the roadblock was already tailing him, and soon there would be more.
But he didn’t give a flying fuck. Fifty-eight’s mobile was still ringing on the passenger seat, and the ghostly light from the screen was lighting up the whole cab. He took the turn-off into Kista on two wheels, steering furiously to avoid the grass mound at the centre of the roundabout, finally regaining control before putting his foot on the floor down the straight.
The mobile was still ringing.
Without taking his eyes off the road he reached for it.
The Game Master’s voice was cold.
‘You’re disappointing us, HP!’
‘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 …?’
‘Yippikayee, 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.
In the collision his forehead hit the windscreen.
The airbag exploded and threw him back in the seat, the van skidded violently and the back of it hit a concrete pillar. HP was again almost thrown from his seat, 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 mobile and tapped in a number. From ten metres in among the trees he pressed the dial button and in the back of the police van the Sony Ericsson suddenly came to life.
<
br /> 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 letterbox. 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 favourite:
‘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-storey 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.
The Game Trilogy Page 30