Game: A Thriller (6 page)

Grinning, he started searching the bookcases, running his fingers along the books until he found the one he was looking for.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, the reference bible for all film buffs. He pulled out the book and leafed through the pages, and when he made his discovery he noticed to his surprise that he was so excited that he almost dropped the white plastic card on the floor. “Floor 5, 18:55” was written on it in ink, but otherwise the card was blank.

HP frowned. He knew the department store inside out; it was unbeatable for distracted tourists, or if you just wanted to kill a couple of hours people-watching. He was one hundred percent sure there were only four floors. A quick glance at the Casio told him he had three minutes to solve the mystery.

The staircase was opposite the lifts, and once again he kept clear of the eye in the sky, just in case. Marble and brass, smart as anything.
Trip trap, trip trap.
“Clever billy goat Gruff, trip-trapping over the troll’s bridge . . .” He giggled.

Yes, he was right. The fourth floor was the top one, at least for mere mortals.

The sign made that very clear. But behind a locked door the stairs carried on at least one more floor up.

He fumbled with the plastic card, pressed it against the card reader beside the door, and heard a bleep. But the door remained locked. Then he saw the little sticker.

“Card plus code,” it said, and his mood fell like a stone.

What fucking code?

After a couple of moments’ thought he tried tapping “1855” into the keypad, but it protested instantly with an angry double bleep. He glanced anxiously around but everything was okay. The floor seemed completely deserted.

So what now?

He released the cell from his belt, but the screen was blank. No help from the phone, then.

Unless . . . It had to be worth a try.

He pressed the card to the reader once more and tapped in the number 128, then added a zero after a moment’s hesitation.

A simple single bleep, then the lock clicked.

With his heart pounding he opened the door and carried on up to the fifth floor.

A metal door and another card reader confronted him there.

A quick glance over his shoulder, a bleep from the reader, and then he was in. His senses were on high alert; he could
taste the adrenaline in his mouth. All that was missing were some dramatic strings, otherwise it was perfect!

Up here there was a narrow corridor with a sloping ceiling, flickering lights, and a series of more metal doors along one side. Much less stylish than on the floors below. So what happened now?

Just as he finished the thought the cell started flashing again—almost as if it were reading his mind. Kind of spooky!

He pulled the cell free from his belt and was about to read the message when a voice made him jump and he dropped the phone on the concrete floor.

Ladies and gentlemen, the shop will be closing in five minutes. Thank you for your custom. We are open again at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. The food hall will remain open until eight o’clock.

Christ, it startled him! He must have been standing right under one of the loudspeakers. Almost time to change his underwear.

Muttering, he picked up the cell and checked the message.

Third door on the left.

The white rabbit worked for the third time and suddenly he was standing in a bare concrete room full of humming boxes, cable runs, and other equipment. There was a smell of electricity and warm metal.

Far wall, black box, press Ready when you’re in position.

There were loads of boxes, but as luck would have it there was only one black one. An old thing made of Bakelite that stuck out badly among all the other anonymous gray metal boxes. Two plastic-covered buttons on the front, one blue, one red.

He pressed Ready.

Well done, HP!

For tonight’s assignment you get to choose between the buttons. When the countdown reaches zero I want you to press one of them.

If you choose the blue, everything will carry on as usual, you will get your money and further tasks of the more basic sort. A steady, secure income, spiced with just enough excitement. But if you choose the red button the clock will stop on your old life and you will enter an entirely new experience, the like of which you have never even dared to dream of. The risks are greater here, but so too are the rewards, of course. Only a very small number of people are qualified for this level. The question is: Have you got what it takes?

The choice is yours, neither of the options is wrong, and regardless of which choice you make, you will have passed this evening’s assignment.

Do you understand?

He clicked Yes.

Excellent, HP!

Think carefully and then make your decision. You have twenty-five seconds as of now.

Good luck!

The Game Master

The message vanished and was replaced by a countdown.

24

23

22

This was utterly fucking supercool! Talk about his cup of tea! So which should he choose, the blue pill or the red one?

Evidently they were both right, but it looked like only one of them would have any sort of real effect?

12

11

10

He could feel his heartbeat in his temples.

Play it safe or go all in?

6

5

Obviously there was only one answer.

Adventure without risk was fucking Disneyland! Time to find out exactly how deep this rabbit hole really goes!

2

1

He pressed the red button.

The box clicked, then there was a faint rumble. The lights in the ceiling flickered.

HP held his breath.

♦  ♦  ♦

When she had finished her report she took a stroll around the Crime unit to see if any of her former colleagues was on duty. Seeing as the Personal Protection Unit was only a secondment, she still had her basic post. But the corridor was empty, which wasn’t so surprising seeing as it was almost seven o’clock in the evening. The few poor bastards who weren’t off on holiday would at least have had the sense to finish work on time.

After her interview with Anderberg she had been driven home in a patrol car, so her bicycle was still down in the garage of the police station. The quickest way down was through the lift in the custody section, so she took the stairs down to “the beige kilometre,” as some bright spark had christened the long corridor.

Down there everything was in full swing, as usual on a Friday evening. All the holding cells were already full, and a couple of tired detectives were dashing between the numerous rooms where several patrols were giving their reports. One particularly troublesome drunk, escorted by two sturdy uniformed officers, took up most of the available space in front of the duty officer’s glass cubicle.

Friday nights, all the drinking and fighting, had doubtless been useful experience, but she didn’t exactly miss it . . .

One of the uniformed officers nodded in acknowledgment as she passed and she returned the greeting. On the way out to the lift she could hear his police radio crackle to life:

Control to all units!

Patrol cars to Hamngatan and the NK department store . . .

Nothing happened. Not that he knew exactly what he’d been expecting, but still? Surely there should have been some sort of response? After the dramatic buildup, surely some flashing warning lights or wailing sirens was the least he could expect? People running along the corridor, maybe some angry banging on the door?

But this . . . ? A whole load of nothing.

Disappointed, big-time!!!

He waited another minute or so, then left the room dejectedly and slouched down the stairs. It wasn’t until he crossed the street and made it as far as the trees in the King’s Garden that he slowly began to get it.

“. . . just stopped,” one bloke was saying in surprise to another, pointing up at the building that HP had just come out of.

“Isn’t it usually lit up as well?” he heard a couple of passersby say.

Then he saw people holding up their cells, and soon there was a mass of people taking pictures. So he looked up in the same direction as them to see what had caught their interest, and suddenly his disappointment was blown away and replaced by an entirely new, indescribable feeling that he had never come anywhere close to before.

His heart was doing backward double somersaults inside his chest. His feet almost left the ground and he felt his jeans tighten over his crotch.

This was so totally fucking brilliant! Talk about mission accomplished!

High up above the copper roof, the huge, illuminated NK clock, which had rotated above the city for fifty years almost without interruption, had suddenly stopped.

The hands of the dark clock face were pointing at seven o’clock precisely. And he realized that the Game Master had been right. A new age had just begun!

SOMETIMES, USUALLY WHEN
she was dreaming, she could still see his face in front of her, the way it looked the very last time their eyes met. First the fury, then surprise, and finally the terror in his eyes when he realized what was happening—that he was about to die.

She always relived the moment as a film running in increasingly slow motion. The way he hung there, almost weightless between heaven and earth, between life and death, while his arms moved slowly in circles, flailing, initially to regain his balance, then to grab at salvation. But for a short while physics seemed to have made an exception and allowed him to balance on the edge even though he ought to have fallen already. As if the laws of gravity had left him there long enough for Rebecca to have time to see the terror and accusation in his eyes. She on the floor, just a meter or so from his feet, close enough to be able to reach, to stretch out a hand to rescue him.

Like so many times before the whole sequence of events slowed down until everything was entirely still, almost like someone had pressed a pause button. And for a single intense moment it was actually there, for real, the chance for her to
reach out her hand and try to undo what had been done. Save him. If she wanted to.

But even though she tried to convince herself that she loved him, that she regretted it and certainly didn’t wish him any harm, it didn’t help. Because deep down inside her, in a place that reason couldn’t reach, she still wanted—even though more than thirteen years had passed since that night—nothing more than for him to fall. That his face should be smashed beyond recognition, that his arms and legs be broken like matchsticks, and his hands, the soft hands that she had loved and feared more than anything else in the whole world, crushed to bloody fragments against the solid ground far below.

And at the moment when the hatred once again broke free inside her, someone pressed Play and her wishes came true.

Often that was when she woke up, at the moment when he disappeared from sight, and she avoided having to hear the sound of his body hitting the ground five floors below.

But not always.

Not today.

The muffled, soft sound was still echoing in her ears as she gulped down a quick breakfast by the kitchen sink. It was almost drowned out by the sound of traffic as she cycled fast along Rålambsvägen, but was still echoing weakly at the back of her mind as she made the mountain bike jump the curb on Drottningholmsvägen, and still hadn’t vanished completely by the time she pulled up breathless beside the guard’s box by the cellar entrance at Fridhemsplan.

She stopped at the barrier, showed her police badge to the guard inside, who waved her past absentmindedly, evidently more interested in the cell phone he was fiddling with instead of concentrating on his job.

Yet another incompetent idiot, she thought angrily before she rolled down through the tunnel beneath the Kronoberg complex, its cool darkness effectively shutting off the outside world and all of its sounds.

♦  ♦  ♦

“Come on, put a bit of effort in, for God’s sake! This isn’t a housewives’ exercise class!”

Sweat was pouring from the six bodyguards. Five men, one woman. Down on the floor, ten push-ups, quickly up on your feet again, ready, kick, punch, punch. Then down again. Twenty sit-ups and back up into position again. Ten reps in total, then switch with your partner. A firm grip around the waist, kick, punch, punch.

Her sparring partner was strong and his blows almost penetrated the padded shield in Rebecca’s arms.

Bang, bang, bang.

Three more, then change again.

The self-defense instructor was living up to his name today. Peter Pain hadn’t got his nickname simply because he was British.

The first training class for the rookies in the Alpha group. Evidently Vahtola had requested a serious session to challenge the newcomers to her group. Rebecca could see their boss watching them from the glass passageway above the self-defense room.

Approximately forty-five minutes had passed and the tempo had been relentless so far. Even though they were all in good shape, more than one of them was starting to flag now.

“Okay, stop, gather ’round.”

Peter Pain beckoned them all over. There was a collective sigh of relief and Rebecca noticed to her delight that several of
her male colleagues had to rest their hands on their knees to catch their breath. She was tired, but not as tired as the biggest of the men.

That’s the advantage of having a bit less muscle, boys; it takes less oxygen to keep it going.
She smirked silently before Pain’s new orders interrupted her.

“Restraint and release, groups of three, two holding, one trying to get loose. Questions? Okay, get going, and I want to see some speed! Go, go, go!”

She ended up with two big men who she knew slightly already. Stefan and Dejan, the former a muscle-bound guy about one meter ninety tall, the latter only a bit smaller.

“I’ll start,” Dejan said and gestured to Rebecca to grab him from behind while Stefan took up position to lock Dejan’s arms from the front.