Bubble: A Thriller (15 page)

“But thanks anyway, Kjellgren.” She forced herself to smile.

“Right, then,” she said, turning quickly toward the other five bodyguards. “You’ve all passed, well done!” She demonstratively made a checkmark in the file, making sure it was angled in such a way that no one could see her right hand shaking.

♦  ♦  ♦

It took him a few seconds to realize where the smell was coming from.

Terrariums.

Large terrariums lined up on wooden frames along the walls, with heat lamps above them. Five lamps in total, one above each tank. Only one of them was lit, but he could feel the heat from several meters away.

In the middle of the room stood a large worktable piled high with clutter.

He aimed the flashlight around the room, then took a couple of tentative steps forward. The door closed silently behind him, but he hardly noticed.

He was wondering what sorts of creatures were lurking behind the panes of glass . . .

He directed the beam of light toward the terrariums, but they all seemed to be empty.

Good!

A sudden rattling sound from off to the right made him jump and drop the torch on the floor.

Shit!

He bent down quickly to get it, and when he straightened up again he found himself looking straight into the eyes of a rat that was so fucking enormous it made the hair on his arms stand up.

It was only a meter or so away, shut inside a cramped metal cage hanging over the side of one of the terrariums, and he could see the animal’s whiskers twitch as it caught his scent.

He hated rats. Vile little bacteria motels with yellow teeth and bald tails . . .

This one obviously wasn’t your average disgusting sewer rat, but one of those black and white ones you could only get from the pet shop.

Damn it!

So what the hell was the rat doing in there?

And the terrariums?

He couldn’t see any sign of microphones or reel-to-reel tape recorders. The only thing that came close to a technical gadget was something that looked like a small radio on the corner of the large worktable.

The display was on, and when curiosity got the better of him and he touched one of the buttons, he heard voices on the radio muttering to each other in a language he didn’t understand. Probably just a perfectly ordinary radio tuned in to some AM frequency . . . He moved the beam of the flashlight around the room a few more times but couldn’t see any trace of the surveillance control room he had been expecting.

Weird . . .

A loud plastic click followed by a faint whirring sound made him jump again, but this time he managed to hold on to the flashlight. He caught a glimpse of movement over by the rat cage and aimed the beam of light at it. One side of the cage was missing, and in its place was a sheet of wood that also formed one side of the terrarium. A small hatch between the cage and terrarium was slowly sliding up, presumably lifted by some sort of electric motor. He leaned down to look under the terrarium and saw a little dark box connected to a timer.

The hatch was almost completely open now, and the rat, which must’ve been seriously pissed off sitting in that cramped cage, was already exploring the opening to the spacious terrarium.

It hesitated for a moment, its whiskers twitching, but evidently something in there smelled good, as it quickly scampered inside.

HP leaned forward to see better. The heat lamp may have been on, but the terrarium still seemed to be empty. All he could see was some sort of climbing frame in one corner, a bowl of water, and a thick layer of sawdust. The rat took a couple of cautious steps through the sawdust, lifted its head, and sniffed at its new surroundings. Behind it the motor began to whirr again and the hatch slowly closed, but neither the rat nor HP noticed it.

The animal took a step forward, then another. A sudden twitch of its whiskers and it stopped. Its little pink nose was quivering . . .

The snake appeared out of nowhere. It leaped out of the sawdust like a coiled spring and bit the rat in the middle of its back with such force that both creatures slammed into the glass right in front of HP’s face.

He tumbled backward onto the floor and the flashlight rolled away as his heart did somersaults in his chest.

But instead of following his initial instinct to run away in panic, he sat there almost paralyzed in front of the terrarium.

The snake was lying there quite still with its jaws clamped onto the back of the struggling rat. Its dead, reptilian eyes seemed to be staring right at him through the glass wall.

HP realized that he was holding his breath . . .

The rat’s fight was short-lived: the wriggling stopped and was replaced by a feeble twitching that soon died away. Then
a couple of jerks in its legs and bald tail. And with that it was completely still.

The snake lay there for a while before it let go. Then it twisted around, slowly put its jaws over the rat’s head, and, with jerky movements, set about swallowing the rodent whole.

HP shuddered.

Seriously fucking disgusting. What kind of sick mind would come up with that business with the timer? Live food . . . What the hell was wrong with a can of Whiskas?

He scrambled up from the floor, grabbed hold of the flashlight, and looked around at the other glass cases. But they all seemed to be empty. No rat cages on their sides, the lamps were all off, and the hatches were all open. Presumably waiting for new tenants.

He went back to the worktable and after a bit of searching found the switch of an old Anglepoise lamp that was attached to one side. There were various tools on the table: small screwdrivers, some unfamiliar-looking tongs, and several electronic gizmos and cables. For a moment he wondered whether he had been right after all, that all this was something to do with the surveillance of his flat, and that all the little measuring instruments and resistors were actually microphones and cameras. But when he had checked the drawings piled up on one side of the table he realized he had been wrong.

Seriously fucking wrong . . .

What was being constructed in there was considerably more scary than that.

♦  ♦  ♦

Hands by her sides.

Deep breaths.

In . . .

Out . . .

Focus now, Normén!

In . . .

The target spun around with a bang. Her hands moved like lightning. One hand clawed to pull back her jacket, then draw, bolt action, double shot. The target turned away. She released the trigger, lowered the gun to waist height, and took a step forward.

Then another.

The target spun around again. She raised the gun, fired two rapid shots. Then lowered it, released the trigger, and took out the spent cartridges.

The target carried on through its preprogrammed routine, but she didn’t bother completing the round. She already knew the result.

The two first shots had felt shaky, and the following two with the hammer uncocked and a harder recoil had probably not even hit the target, let alone the death zone in the middle of the chest.

Shit!

Good job she’d had the sense to send the others home.

Shooting had always been her thing, something for which she’d almost always been at the top of the class. Ever since she got over her fear of guns at the Police Academy, by practicing with a replica until her fingers ached.

But now she wouldn’t even get a pass. Partly it was her own fault, of course. She’d designed the test herself, making it harder than the one for the Security Police.

And now she was going to fail her own test . . .

Ironic.

She held the gun up in front of her, both hands clasped around the handle. Right arm held out straight, the left slightly
bent so that it pulled the gun back toward her body. Usually the Weaver stance meant that the gun was aimed almost perfectly still at the target. But right now the barrel was bobbing all over the place and she had to fight hard to get the sights and the target to line up for more than half a second.

More practice,
she tried to convince herself.

She spent too long sitting behind her desk; a few more hours on the firing range were bound to solve the problem. But she could hear how hollow the excuse sounded. Her trembling hands had nothing to do with a lack of practice.

Nothing at all.

♦  ♦  ♦

A bomb.

He was absolutely certain of it. He was a long way from understanding all the strange drawings and symbols on the plans, but that didn’t matter. Whoever owned that worktable, the tools and the snakes, was busy designing a bomb—a big one. For some reason he didn’t understand it was also going to be round. A perfect circle, 1106.1 millimeters in diameter, and 224.3 millimeters thick, with a black grille on the base. Judging by all the electronic gadgetry, this wasn’t going to be any ordinary bomb, if there was such a thing. No fuse or cell phone to detonate it remotely, like the one he had set off out in Kista.

The batteries, processor, and the little hard drive he thought he could see on the plans could only mean one thing. This little fucker was going to have its own AI and would be able to make its own decisions depending on circumstances. A bomb with a brain . . .

There was a pattern in the corner of the plans. Orange-pink, 3-D shapes with blue edges, linked together in a row.

Luttern labyrinth,
someone had scrawled down one side.

So through the wall he’d almost heard right.
Luttern,
not
gluten.

But what the fuck did it mean, and who the hell was the
Carer
?

Of course it could just be a code name for the bomb maker with the snake fetish who usually hung out in there . . .

He couldn’t help jumping at another noise behind him, even though by now he knew what was going on. The snake must have been starving, because the rat was more than halfway down its throat now, and it was slowly rolling back and forth in order to squeeze the rest in.

Did snakes actually have throats?

Unless that was pretty much all they had?

He couldn’t help giggling out loud.

Shit, he was seriously strung out.

The snake was still staring at him with its dead eyes, and he gave it the finger before going back to the plans. The bomb fascinated him. The
Carer,
or whoever it was who was putting it together, was no idiot . . .

He leafed through the pile of papers, leaning forward to see better. His foot hit something under the table. A thick, long object, and for a moment he thought it was a large rope.

The rattling soon made him change his mind . . .

He leaned back cautiously and peered under the table.

The snake was large, its zigzag-patterned body had to be ten centimeters across at its thickest point. It was lying curled up right next to his sock-clad right foot. The arrow-shaped head was raised and the creature was flicking its tongue irritably as the sound from the rattle at the end of its tail got louder and louder.

The hair on the back of HP’s neck was standing to atten
tion, his heart pounding against his rib cage, and for a moment he thought he was going to wet himself. But at the last moment he got control of his bladder.

Run, you fool!

But the bastard snake was in the way. It was between him and the door, and he had no desire whatsoever to go any further into the room.

He had assumed that the four open and unlit glass cases were empty, but there was every chance that their occupants were somewhere in the room, hiding in the darkness under the terrariums where the light didn’t reach. He began to move his right foot backward extremely slowly. The rattling sound got even louder.

Fuck!

How poisonous was a rattlesnake, on a scale of one to ten?

Presumably poisonous enough to have had to develop its own damn audible warning system . . .

Don’tcomenearmebecauseifyoudoyou’refuckingdead-ssss!!!

He needed a weapon of some sort, something to hit it with. But the worktable didn’t have much to offer. Not one of the tools on there was any bigger than his own pathetic little flashlight. He needed something serious, like a hammer, or the crowbar he’d left next to the front door . . .

Oh . . . fucking great!

But there was a drawer just under the tabletop.

He gently moved one hand toward it, a centimeter at a time. The rattling continued unabated as the snake stared at his filthy sock.

Good snake.

Nice and eeeasy . . .

His fingers reached the drawer and closed around the handle. The snake still seemed to be concentrating on his foot.

Carefully he pulled the drawer out a few centimeters.

Then a few more . . .

It took him several seconds before he realized what he was staring at. He’d been hoping for some sort of tool.

But this was better.

Much
better!

He put his hand inside the drawer, closed his fingers slowly around the handle, and felt the mesh pattern against his palm. He had to make a serious effort not to snatch his hand back.

Nice and eeeasy . . .

The snake was still rattling but didn’t seem to have made up its mind yet. He glanced at it from the corner of his eye and saw it move its head a bit closer. His right foot was only fifteen, twenty centimeters away from its mouth. Its tongue was flicking in and out, faster now.

HP twisted his hand carefully and then pulled it back toward him. The rattling was getting louder, and the snake had drawn its head back. Getting ready . . .

He shifted his weight to his left leg and turned his body slightly. Five more seconds, just five fucking seconds, that was all he needed . . .

Suddenly the snake’s head shot forward.

HP yanked his foot back, yanked his hand out of the drawer, and squeezed. The bang was so loud it jarred his ears and he shut his eyes instinctively, turned his head away, and screamed out loud in terror. But in spite of all that he carried on pulling the trigger of the revolver.