The Game Trilogy (54 page)

‘Let me vocalize a thought which has been growing stronger and stronger as you’ve been talking, Henrik …’

HP was nodding furiously.

Vocalize, thought, stronger …

That sounded promising!

‘When I worked in the Military Intelligence and Security Service, we had to deal with infiltrators, or spies as they’re sometimes known …’

HP’s head was still moving up and down, but the movement was gradually slowing down.

‘The very best of them, the ones who are hardest to crack, don’t even know that they’re spies. They believe that what they’re doing is in a good cause, and they don’t understand that everything is just a game. That they’re actually being manipulated by outside forces …’

HP’s nodding died away completely. His mouth suddenly felt as if it were full of sand.

‘Could that be the case, Henrik? That you seriously believe that your intentions are good, but that someone else is actually pulling the strings? Someone who’s manipulating you into doing things?

‘Someone who’s making you see things that might not actually be real?’

She quickly jotted down the information on the screen of her mobile onto the rental-firm label that was dangling from the rear-view mirror.

SALK tennis hall, tomorrow evening, 18.30

That was earlier than she had imagined. But it was just as well to get it over and done with as soon as possible. She folded the note and put it in the pocket of her jeans, then went back to her surveillance.

It was almost half past nine. The red-haired man had been in there for more than an hour but she still hadn’t seen any sign of either Henke or John. The whole district seemed just as sleepy as Östermalm ought to be at that time on a Sunday morning, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling that Henke was in some sort of trouble.

Elroy leaned over him, and for a second he let the jump-leads touch each other right in front of his nose. A flash of blue lightning sparked between them and HP twisted his body to move his head away from them.

Philip hadn’t bought his story, which probably wasn’t all that strange. He hardly knew himself why he had taken the job at ArgosEye.

Where had he actually got the idea from?

‘So, how do you want it?’ Elroy muttered, repeating the trick with the jump-leads in front of his nose.

Another blue flash, larger this time. Then another.

BLINK.

Hallucinations …

BLINK.

Things that didn’t exist …

BLINK.

A

BLINK.

dream?

Elroy attached one of the jump-leads to one of HP’s nostrils, putting an abrupt stop to the screen-dumps in his head. The metal was ice-cold and almost numbed the pain in his skin. Then, with exaggerated slowness, he moved the second lead towards the first.

HP was writhing his body, twisting his head desperately, but all he could manage was to win himself a couple of seconds’ reprieve.

Fuck, fuck, FUCK!!

Elroy put one knee on his chest, locking him to the bed as he waved the loose jump-lead in the direction of his face.

Red.

Which meant that the blue one was already in position.

This time he didn’t get to make the decision.

Both pills at the same time.

Open up and swallow …

The lead was approaching his face. He didn’t exactly have any choice. Double or quits?

Red or blue?

The lead was almost there.

5

4

3

2 …

‘Ghourab Al-Bain!’ he roared just before the leads touched and everything went black.

Voices.

Agitated voices.

‘… did you hear what he said?’

‘Rourab Al-Bain …?’

‘… group we’ve never heard of …’

‘… international connections …’

‘This could jeopardize the whole operation …’

‘We’ll postpone the meeting for a few hours until we know more. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes …’

He kept his eyes closed on purpose, but ran a quick function check. Sight, hearing, arms and legs all seemed more or less okay. His crotch ought to be throbbing with pain, but somewhere along the way his brain seemed simply to have decided to shut down its connection to his groin, because he could hardly feel anything.

He heard the door of the flat slam, then steps returning to the bedroom. But this time the sound seemed to come from just one person and he opened one eye a crack to see if he was right.

True enough, Elroy had been left on guard while his boss went to check this worrying new information. A minute
or so of his best dying swan seemed to do the trick, because he heard steps in the hall, then a tap running in the kitchen.

He carefully opened his eyes.

The room was empty.

The straps around his wrists, which had already shown signs of giving way, hadn’t withstood his convulsions, and it took him just a few seconds to get one hand free. Whichever one of the girl-guides had been responsible for his arms should have her knot badge withdrawn, because he dealt with the second one even quicker. The straps around his ankles were tied rather more tightly, however.

Elroy was clattering about in the kitchen, it sounded like he was busy with the coffee-machine.

With some difficulty, HP managed to untie the third knot. Only one leg left, the only question was would he be able to slip out through the hall and out of the door without the red-haired gorilla catching him?

Two hours’ surveillance without any result whatsoever. But at least she had worked out what to do about her meeting tomorrow. She’d only get one chance, if she hesitated or seemed even slightly uncertain he’d just carry on, assuming that she’d change her mind, the way she had before. But the difference this time was that she really did want to get rid of him.

For good!

Her mobile bleeped.

He tugged at the strap but the last knot refused to budge. But as luck would have it, the girls had only used one long length of fabric at each end, looping it around the frame of the bed to tie both limbs. Even if the knot was tied too tightly round his ankle to undo, at least he was free from the bed.

He wound the strap round his leg a few times, then knotted it loosely to stop him from tripping over it.

Then he stood up laboriously from the bed and took a couple of unsteady steps across the bedroom floor. The connection between his brain and his groin was gradually kicking in again, and he had to bite his lip not to groan out loud from the pain.

He poked his head out into the little hallway, but quickly pulled back. The flat was considerably smaller than he had thought, and Elroy’s back was just a couple of metres away. There was no chance of making it to the front door, certainly not in his current state.

He retreated into the bedroom, went round the double bed and struggled over to the curtained window.

He carefully nudged the curtain aside, and instead of windows there was a glass door leading to a small terrace. He tried the handle gently.

Locked.

Fuck!

But then he discovered the child safety-catch at the top of the handle. He pressed the little button in and tried again.

YES!

The handle went down and he opened the door as carefully as he could. One centimetre at a time, until the gap was wide enough for him to squeeze through.

Fuck, it was cold!

He had almost managed to suppress the fact that he
was still naked. It had to be five, maybe ten degrees below freezing, and there was a stiff wind. He glanced quickly over his shoulder, but so far his escape seemed to have gone unnoticed. He peered over the railing of the terrace.

Shit! That was a serious drop! Five floors down to street level, and no sign of life below. Fucking Östermalm! The majority of its inhabitants already had one foot in the grave, and the rest were probably away ‘in the country’ for Christmas, which presumably meant some small castle in Södermanland or an old merchant’s villa out in the archipelago …

And where were the cops when you actually needed one for once?

With a sudden crash the terrace door flew open behind him.

The news from Micke sounded promising, but right now she had matters of a more practical nature to think about. She had been desperate for a pee for a while now, and her bladder was so uncomfortable that she could no longer sit still. There were no shops open nearby, and the thought of squatting down in the gutter when it was minus six degrees outside wasn’t particularly appealing.

So she would have to leave her post, at least for fifteen minutes or so. Not ideal, but she didn’t have much choice.

She started the car, put it in gear and rolled slowly away from the edge of the pavement. She drove past the red-haired man’s illegally parked Mercedes, and was just about to turn right, down towards Strandvägen, when she suddenly changed her mind.

She did a u-turn and stopped right behind the big Merc. Call it police instinct or whatever, but something was
telling her it would be a good idea to take a closer look at the car before she left.

She pulled on the handbrake and took out her mobile.

Elroy raced through the terrace door, heading straight for him.

Without even thinking, HP climbed over the railing. There was a balcony a couple of metres below him, slightly to one side of him, and if he dangled from the railings he might be able to lower himself down.

He turned to face the building, struggled to lock his hands around the railings, then, as Elroy lunged at him, he did a little jump and let his body fall.

But he had misjudged his speed. His cold fingers couldn’t quite take the strain and instead of dangling from his arms from the bottom of the railing, he found himself falling helplessly.

He landed on a small pile of snow, but the force was still enough to knock the air from him. It took him to a few moments to catch his breath, and when he looked up at the roof terrace there was no longer anyone in sight.

Quick, time to move!

The balcony was long, stretching most of the way along the front of the building. He ran past several windows until he reached a door. The cold was making his skin sting, his body ached both from the hard landing and the electric shocks earlier as he threw himself at the glass and banged on it with both fists.

A scared old lady’s face appeared on the inside.

‘Open up!’ he screamed. ‘Open up!’ For fuck’s sake, you old bag!

The old lady didn’t move.

Would he have opened the door to a completely naked man who had suddenly landed on his balcony?

‘Please, let me in …’ he tried.

Suddenly the woman was gone. He took a couple of steps back and peered over the edge.

A similar balcony two floors below. Could he …?

He returned to the door, pressed his face against the glass and raised his hand to bang on it again. But instead he jerked back towards the balcony railing. Philip Argos was suddenly staring at him through the glass.

‘Don’t do anything stupid, now, Henrik,’ Philip said, trying the door handle.

The old lady’s face appeared, she seemed to be showing Philip how to release the safety-catch. Another dark figure came into view behind her. Presumably Elroy.

HP laboriously swung one leg over the wrought-iron railing, His body was getting stiffer and stiffer, and he could feel that he was losing the sensation in his fingers.

‘Stop and think about this, Henrik …’ Philip’s muffled voice cajoled from the other side of the door.

He was right, this was never going to work. It had to be six or seven metres down, and even if – against all reasonable expectation – he managed to dangle from his arms this time, there was a still a long way to drop.

Philip and the old lady seemed to be almost fighting over the door handle. He had just a matter of seconds to make up his mind.

Suddenly he caught sight of the length of velvet wound round his ankle. He leaned over to get it off. Weirdly it slipped off his foot almost with ease. Must have been the cold.

He looped the strap around the railing and then wound the ends around his wrists. Then he clambered over the railing and squatted down.

The door flew open with a crash.

Bodies tumbling out into the cold. Feet slipping, swearing, hands reaching out for him.

He jumped …

A rattling sound made her look up, but the view through the windscreen was limited and all she could see was falling snow.

She had just spoken to central command. A check on the car number-plate hadn’t produced much. A company car registered to ArgosEye Ltd, with an address in one of the skyscrapers at Hötorget. Maybe there’d be something more interesting inside the car. She opened the door and got out of the driver’s seat.

A clump of snow landed on the pavement a few metres away, but she paid no attention to it.

The jolt was hard, and made the narrow velvet strap cut into his frozen wrists. He could feel someone pulling at it, and looked up to see Elroy hanging over the railing a couple of metres above him. For a few seconds he dangled in front of the building like some naked fucking puppet as they tried to pull him back up.

Then he managed to get his hands free, and fell the last few metres onto the balcony below. The landing was considerably softer this time, but by now his feet were numb with cold and he barely noticed the difference. He didn’t waste any time banging on windows. His pursuers weren’t stupid, and in the unlikely event of him being let into the apartment, he’d still have to deal with them in the stairwell.

The street was still at least six metres below him, but the balcony he was on now was the lowest one. He stumbled along the building trying in vain to find a way out.

Then he noticed the awning of the restaurant on the ground floor.

She tried to look in at the back seat through the tinted windows, but even though she had her hands cupped round her eyes it was all but impossible. The front seats were no problem, but sadly there was nothing interesting there. A couple of paper cups and the previous day’s evening paper, and that was all.

The cold was making her want to pee more than ever and she made up her mind to leave.

A moment later a naked body landed on the roof of the car.