Bubble: A Thriller (19 page)

The patrol car had pulled over and the two police officers were now standing on the sidewalk.

They were standing and talking to the men in suits, and HP took the chance to cross the street.

His Nokia cell phone was in his breast pocket and it took him a minute to get it working.

His heart was beating hard in his chest, his nausea only just under control.

♦  ♦  ♦

“Good morning, Miss Normén.”

“Good morning, Mr. Black,” she replied, meeting his gaze.

No trace of the previous day’s awkwardness. What a relief!

“There’s a larger demonstration outside today,” she said. “Forty to fifty people at the moment, and the number seems to be growing. My suggestion is that we take an alternative evacuation route . . .”

She glanced at Thomas.

“What’s the situation right now?” he asked quickly.

“Calm, but tense. We’ve got two men on the sidewalk and there are also two uniformed police officers on the scene.”

“Media?” This from Black.

“The same as yesterday, possibly slightly more. A few photographers and a television crew.”

Black and Thomas exchanged a look.

A faint tremble ran through her lower right arm, making her fingers twitch.

Shit, not now!

“We don’t want to look like the sort of people who sneak
out the back way, Rebecca,” Thomas said. “Especially not if there are media present. It could be interpreted as an admission that we have something to hide. Openness is an integral part of the PayTag brand . . .”

She nodded, as she carefully clasped her right hand behind her back in an attempt to stop it shaking.

“I understand . . .”

Her cell began to vibrate in her inside pocket but she ignored it.

“Kjellgren, we’re on our way down,” she said into the microphone on her wrist.

♦  ♦  ♦

“It’s me,” he said when her voice mail kicked in. He wasn’t sure what to say next.

“I . . . er . . .”

The cops in suits suddenly leaped into action. One of them opened the door of the first car, and the other took a few steps closer to the rope and the crowd.

The two uniformed officers were fiddling with their belts and didn’t seem altogether sure what to do. As if on command, the demonstrators suddenly began to chant:

Don’t be evil!

Don’t be evil!

He ended the call and put his free hand in his jacket pocket. His fingers grazed the handle of the revolver. Somewhere behind him a heavy car door closed. The sound made him jump.

♦  ♦  ♦

There was quiet music playing in the lift. A panpipe version of “The Winner Takes It All.” Clearly there was some unspoken rule that all Swedish hotels had to play Abba Muzak in lifts . . .

She carefully unbuttoned her jacket and pressed her right arm to her side to check that her pistol and telescopic baton were in place. She really should have been wearing a bulletproof vest. But, against all her usual principles, she had decided not to, mainly because she didn’t want to look hot and sweaty in front of Black.

A mistake, a big one, she now realized.

Bloody hell, she really did have to pull herself together, get a grip on her thoughts . . .

Her mouth felt dry, and her heart was beating faster than she had expected. Her right hand was shaking so much that she had to stuff it into her trouser pocket.

She had been involved in considerably more risky jobs than this, so she really shouldn’t be nervous.

Her cell phone vibrated in her inside pocket again. This was the third time, so whoever it was seemed keen to get hold of her. But they’d just have to wait. Work came first.

The lift stopped at the ground floor and the door slowly slid open. She took a deep breath.

♦  ♦  ♦

The chanting of the crowd was getting louder.

Someone bumped into one of the brass posts, making the rope swing.

The suited man beside the rope suddenly began to shout.

“Back, get back!”

The two uniformed police officers took a few hesitant steps closer.

HP closed his fingers around the handle of the revolver.

There was no going back now.

The main doors opened and the chanting rose to a roar. But it suddenly felt like his ears were blocked.

The carpet of sound around him turned into a faint murmur, and all he could hear was his own heavy breathing.

In . . .

Out . . .

His field of vision shrank, turning into a grainy tunnel, and for a moment he thought he was about to pass out. He squeezed the handle of the revolver even tighter, digging the mesh pattern into his palm. Hundreds of tiny, stinging needle pricks that woke him up and reminded him what he was doing there.

He had a task to carry out.

His last one . . .

And suddenly he saw him.

The snake himself.

Mark Black . . .

♦  ♦  ♦

The roaring started the moment they opened the doors. The crowd pushed forward, she had time to notice the masks, the white overalls, the worried look on Kjellgren’s face. Then the quick movements of the uniformed police officers as they extended their telescopic batons.

Leaving through this exit had been a big mistake.

“Back, we’re going back,” she shouted at Thomas’s thick neck.

But he didn’t seem to hear her and carried on toward the car, closely followed by Black.

One of the posts holding the rope toppled over, dragging the others down with it.

And a moment later the demonstrators had broken through.

Thomas immediately floored the first person with an elbow in the face. It sounded like a whip cracking as the mask broke,
sending a shower of blood and saliva over the white overalls of the nearest protestors. Thomas didn’t seem remotely concerned and merely shoved the limp body backward to clear some space. He dealt another blow, then another.

Then she saw him bring his hand back and reach under his jacket in a way that she recognized all too well.

She grabbed the top of Black’s arm with her left hand and pulled him toward her. She felt on her belt for her baton . . . Her hand was shaking so much she had trouble finding it. And then she heard Thomas yell.

♦  ♦  ♦

He looked almost exactly like he had on television.

High forehead, pointed nose, and backswept, graying hair. At close quarters the reptilian feeling was even more obvious. He imagined he could see a little forked tongue dart out between the narrow lips. Getting the scent of his surroundings, preparing to attack.

The crowd was roaring now, forcing its way through the cordon. HP went with the flow. Sweat was pouring down his back.

There was a crash, and one of the white-clad figures in front of him fell backward, leaving a gap.

The mask fell off, revealing a shocked and very pale woman’s face. Blood was streaming from her nose, soaking the front of her white overalls.

A moment later he caught sight of Becca. Right behind Black with her hand on his arm.

Far too close . . .

Slowly he began to pull his hand out of his pocket . . .

♦  ♦  ♦

“GUUUUN!!” Thomas roared, and she saw him draw his gun. Among the white-overalled figures she caught sight of a dark figure. Baseball cap, sunglasses, a scruffy beard . . .

Hands were tugging at her clothes, trying to grab hold of Black . . .

♦  ♦  ♦

The shout came from his left.

A guttural roar that he hardly heard. He didn’t turn his head. Instead he went on raising his hand, his eyes fixed on Black.

♦  ♦  ♦

All of a sudden everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. She could make out every little detail in the scene playing out around her. The white-clad demonstrators whom Thomas had just pushed over, the blood on their overalls.

Then Thomas’s silver revolver slowly emerging from its holster.

The demonstrators in front of him raised their hands, trying to defend themselves.

She could see the suspect clearly in the crowd. The cap, the mirrored glasses, the dark camouflage jacket. The hand that was halfway out of his pocket . . .

Then her view of him was blocked briefly. Her hand reached for her own pistol and closed around the handle.

The shaking hadn’t stopped. Alarm bells were going off in her head, drowning out her thoughts. Something about this whole situation felt wrong . . . The hands were still grabbing at her, trying to pull Black from her grasp.

Thomas’s gun was out now, the barrel aimed directly at the man in the camouflage jacket. But the demonstrators seemed
to be blocking his line of fire. He moved sideways, trying to find a gap.

The alarm bells went on ringing like mad.

Wrongwrongwrong!

Suddenly a gap opened up through the protestors. The man in the military jacket was standing motionless just five meters away. He was staring straight at Black, straight at her. His hand emerged from his pocket. She caught a glimpse of a dark object.

Instinct took over. Quick, practiced movements.

Draw,

bolt action,

fire!

♦  ♦  ♦

The sound came from in front of him.

Close enough for him to feel the pressure wave on his face.

A hard blow to the stomach. The next moment his knees gave way. Screaming, falsetto voices on all sides.

Someone grabbed him around the neck, dragging him backward. Everything went black.

♦  ♦  ♦

People were screaming in panic, throwing themselves to the ground.

She saw Thomas’s head turn, and he stared at her as the figures in white scattered all around him.

In a flash she holstered her gun, grabbed Black’s arm, and shoved him ahead of her as fast as she could toward the edge of the sidewalk and the waiting cars.

Kjellgren caught up with her and helped get Black in place. Then quickly into the car.

“Drive,” she snapped at Kjellgren.

“What about him?”

Thomas was still standing on the sidewalk with his revolver in his hands, sweeping the barrel over the crowd as if he was looking for someone.

One of the uniformed police officers shouted something that she couldn’t quite hear, then aimed his own weapon at Thomas.

“He’ll have to look after himself, drive, drive!”

Kjellgren put his foot down and they shot away from the sidewalk with a screech of tires.

“What the fuck was that all about?” he snarled when they reached Strömbron.

♦  ♦  ♦

Swaying, lurching movement, so familiar.

He was lying in the back of a vehicle, a van of some sort, driving fast. Very fast.

A sharp corner pushed him up against one side, making him whimper in pain.

“He’s awake,” he heard a female voice say somewhere behind his head.

He tried to turn his head, but the effort made everything go black once more.

“No, he’s gone again . . .” was the last thing he heard.

SHE DIDN’T LIKE
traveling by helicopter. The jerky movement of the machine felt unnatural. Nothing like an airplane gently riding the currents. If the engines of a plane suddenly stopped, nothing much would happen. The pilot would lower the nose and glide for a while as they tried to deal with the problem.

But if a helicopter’s engine stopped, you wouldn’t be able to defy gravity for too many seconds.

She shook off her discomfort and looked at her watch.

“Ten minutes to go . . .”

Black looked up from his BlackBerry.

“Okay, thanks . . .”

“Have you heard anything from Thomas?”

“Yes, he says everything’s been sorted out with the police and that he’ll be joining us by car later in the day.”

“Good . . .”

She took a deep breath.

“So how are you feeling,” she asked.

“Fine,” he said, a little too quickly. “Absolutely fine,” he
added. “I’m sorry, Rebecca, I should have thanked you for what you did back there. What exactly was going on?”

He was trying to sound calm, but she had no trouble at all discerning the faint tremble in his voice. And he also seemed to have switched to calling her Rebecca instead of Miss Normén.

“I’m not entirely sure. The demonstration obviously got out of hand, but after that everything’s rather unclear. I had hoped that Thomas might call me to clarify . . .”

“He’s been busy with the police . . .”

“Yes, I can appreciate that. Gun laws in Sweden are very strict, I’d have been happy to explain them to him if he’d asked. But he never told me he was actually armed . . .”

“No, that probably wasn’t a wise move. Thomas is very loyal. He only wants what’s best for me and the company.”

She merely nodded in response.

Black straightened up and crossed his legs.

“But he didn’t shoot, did he, which must count in his favor, mustn’t it?”

“That’s right,” she said. “I was the one who opened fire.”

“Is that going to cause trouble for you? For us?”

“I don’t know yet. We’re licensed to bear arms, and I called the duty superintendent in Stockholm to explain what happened and how the police can contact me. We’ll just have to see . . .”

That last bit was a lie.

She’d have a hell of a job explaining what she had done, she knew that already. Whether or not you had a license, you couldn’t just go around firing a gun, and certainly not in the middle of the city. The regulations governing warning shots were the same as for firing at a target: there had to be an immediate and serious threat to life and limb.

But obviously there had been.

The man in the jacket had a gun, just as Thomas had shouted, and it was quite clear that he was focused on Black.

Yet she still had only fired a warning shot . . .

She had been acting entirely on instinct, and in hindsight she couldn’t really explain why she had done what she had.

In order to make the best of a potentially disastrous situation,
she tried to convince herself.

It had all felt so wrong. Thomas’s view had been blocked, with no opportunity to act. The gun, the attacker, the whole thing was almost a textbook example of an extreme emergency.