The Game Trilogy (61 page)

HP shook his head.

‘But who would stand to gain from that? I mean, what vested interests would be willing to pay to promote tougher anti-terrorism laws in a miniscule country like Sweden?’

Mackan and Kilen exchanged satisfied glances.

‘That depends what the law is about. Have you ever heard about the Data Retention Directive, HP?’

Okay, time to go through the list.

Passcard – check.

USB memory stick – check.

Plans – check.

Flask of ballistic jelly – check.

Two dopey accomplices – check there as well, unfortunately.

He was sitting in the car in one of the narrow streets round the corner from the office. The exhausted air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror stood no chance against the Chief’s BO – but right now body odour was the least of HP’s problems.

If this whole thing was going to work, he’d have to do a Clooney in more senses than one, but unlike both him and Francis Albert, he didn’t have ten razor-sharp accomplices to help him. Instead his team consisted of an exiled technical guru and Islamic convert, a petty criminal Elvis impersonator, and, last but not least, the swamp monster from the stinking lagoon …

He had about as much chance of surviving intact as a girl with big tits in a horror movie, but he still had to give it his best shot. Because those fuckers couldn’t be allowed to get away with this.

NFW!

Who’d have thought it would take two media-fixated schoolkids to work the whole thing out. The Data Retention Directive – of course!

Big brother EU wanted to force all internet providers to save all traffic from every user. Every single page you visited, every link you clicked, ever forum you posted on. Everything would be saved and stored for at least a year, even if there was no suspicion at all of any wrongdoing.

Up to now Sweden had objected, but now the subject was up for debate in parliament again.

‘In the event that crime-fighting authorities need the information’
was apparently the justification, and in the past few days they had added ‘in
the fight against terrorism’.

In the aftermath of the blast on Drottninggatan the amount of opposition was bound to shrink. But storing all data traffic from all users wasn’t an effective way of preventing terrorism, Philip Argos himself had explained that to him. But it was the perfect way to map patterns of consumption, internet behaviour and user networks, down to the very smallest detail, and over a lengthy period of time. The Stasi’s wet dream, just twenty years too late!

Big business would drool over that type of information,
and would be prepared to do almost anything to get hold of it. Only the future would show which side of the law they would stick to.

The first step was getting the directive passed. And with the help of ArgosEye and a failed suicide bomber, they were well on the way.

Unless someone stopped them …

He cruised through the narrow streets, checking over his shoulder every so often. Everything seemed okay, there were a few hours left before midnight and the majority of ordinary Swedes were busy having their New Year’s Eve dinner.

He reached the main entrance and looked round one last time before opening his shoulder-bag and taking out the passcard.

Shit, even on a photograph the size of a postage stamp Rilke still looked like a million dollars. On the subject of money, Monika Gregerson had been over the moon about his proposal, and thank God for that. Now she had loads of cash and a chance to deal out a bit of farewell payback to Philip. But forty percent wasn’t enough to stop Philip’s plans to join the PayTag Group. Anna had worked that out, and had tried to find another way instead.

And in all likelihood it had cost her her life.

But now it was his turn to try …

He slowly raised the passcard to the reader, and noticed that he was holding his breath. What if Rilke had noticed, what if she’d checked her bag and seen that the card was missing? What if she’d made a call and got the twins to block it …?

In that case he was …

The reader bleeped and flashed green, then the lock began to whirr.

Something was going on, she was sure of that. That key was hardly a coincidence. MayBey had put his or her plan into action, but all she could do was wait. In time she was bound to find out what was expected of her. Until then, she could work on her own plans.

She had managed to check out a theory that had started to bubble in her head, and so far she hadn’t found anything that contradicted it. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Facebook was undeniably a fantastic tool for making yourself visible.

But including every last detail of your life also had its risks …

She switched windows and clicked the icon to update the page, but it didn’t change.

No new messages from MayBey.

Not yet. But she was sure it wouldn’t be long.

She went out into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water.

He took the lift up.

The eighteenth floor of a possible nineteen. The reception area was of course closed, but Rilke’s card worked perfectly.

He crept carefully past the meeting room, pulled his cap down over his face and kept close to the wall in an attempt to avoid the camera in the ceiling as best he could. But like so many other surveillance systems he had come across, he doubted anyone was actually sitting and watching the pictures live, and especially not on New Year’s Eve. Tomorrow morning they would check the recordings and realize that they had had an unauthorized intruder, but by then it would be too late.

He stopped at the reception desk and leaned over for the telephone. He picked up the receiver and opened the
phone’s menu of options. He tapped in a number, then clicked save.

Then he tried the speed dial number.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s me, Nox. I’m in – everything’s okay.’

‘Okay boss, understood. Be careful!’

By the time she got back to the computer the new post was already a minute old.

She had been right. The opening move had been made. The game had begun.

Time for her response. She picked up her mobile and pressed the speed dial option.

‘It’s me,’ she said when the person at the other end answered.

So far, so good!

He popped his head into the open area behind the reception desk. It was completely deserted, but the light from a few computer screens flickered from over in the glassed off part of the office. The nightshift in the Filter, maybe two or three people, but he wasn’t too worried about them.

Even if he did bump into any of them, they probably wouldn’t recognize him and would just say hello or possibly glance at the passcard he had fixed to his belt. There was no way they’d be able to see that the picture didn’t match the person wearing it.

But the team leader was a different matter. Rilke wasn’t working over New Year, he remembered that from when
they were still together, which meant that one of Beens, Dejan, Stoffe and Frank was working that night. He had no great desire to run into any of them.

He turned left, into the darkened corridor that led towards the other three departments. Just as he was approaching the Troll Mine he saw the door open. Quick as a flash he darted behind one of the cupboards lining one side of the corridor.

‘… okay, see you in a bit, I’m just going to grab something to eat,’ he heard Frank say to someone inside.

Shit!

He had just passed the door to the overnight lounge, which meant that Frank would have to walk right past him.

HP slid down onto the floor and pressed up against the side of the cupboard. He heard steps coming towards him and tried to make himself as small as possible. Suddenly the lights came on and someone let out a whistle.

‘Okay, let’s say that, then.’

She ended the call and put the mobile down on the kitchen table.

Then she went out into the hall and began to put her outdoor clothes on.

This time she left her extending baton in its holster, and fixed the whole thing to her belt at the small of her back. She was ready for MayBey’s next move.

If her suspicions were correct, and if he was the man she thought he was, it wouldn’t be long coming.

‘Frank!’

‘Yeah, what is it?’ he heard Frank say, probably no more than a metre away from him.

‘The database just chucked me out, can you unlock it …?’

‘Sure,’ he heard Frank sigh.

Then footsteps moving away.

The door to the Troll Mine clicked, then everything was quiet.

HP carefully poked his head out into the corridor. Empty. He let out a sigh of relief.

That was close, fucking close, even …

But now he had a problem.

He had counted on being able to get out to the fire escape through the emergency exit in the Troll Mine, but now that way was blocked. Those stairs were his best hope of getting up to Philip’s office and the server room, but now he’d have to find another way to get to them.

He jogged back to reception, ducked down behind the desk and pulled out the plan he had stolen from the fire cupboard on the ground floor.

The fire escape was the emergency exit for all nineteen floors, and ran all the way down to the basement. That was a hell of a lot of stairs to clamber up, but he didn’t have much choice.

He would have to try the route through the basement.

Her mobile phone rang. Number withheld, and for some reason she hesitated for a couple of seconds before answering.

‘Hello, Rebecca Normén,’ she said as calmly as she could. There was a man’s voice at the other end.

It was fucking creepy down there.

The garage started right outside the lifts, and because it was a holiday, and night as well, only something like one in every four lights was lit. It was bound to be some stupid green scheme to save energy. But at least the weak lighting was enough for him to see where he was going.

He slipped between the few cars parked down there and double checked on the plan than he was going the right way.

A sudden noise made him jump. He took a couple of quick steps and dodged down between two cars, then put his head up slowly and tried to see through the car windows. Nothing, not the smallest movement out there in the gloom. Maybe a fan, or some other bit of service machinery coming on? Just to be sure, he waited another minute or so.

But everything was quiet.

He stood up and carried on to the corner where the staircase ought to be, but couldn’t help glancing back over his shoulder a few times.

He found the door almost exactly where he expected it to be. Unfortunately it was locked. It could probably only be opened from the other side, which was perfectly logical considering that it was only supposed to be used by people going in one direction. But there was a card reader beside the door. A silver-coloured box with a keypad, like the one on the main door upstairs. He tried Rilke’s card, and got a double bleep in response. The little light flickered between green and red, and it took him a couple of seconds to realize. The passcard was fine, but the reader was waiting for him to tap in some sort of code.

Shit!

The main door had never asked for any sort of fucking code, a card alone was enough.

He tried four zeros but got a firm red light in reply.

Come on – think!

It was Rilke’s card, and presumably they all picked their own individual pin number. Four digits, most likely. So what would she have chosen?

Her birthday, the battle of Lützen, the French Revolution?

He tried all three, without success.

But what if that wasn’t how the reader worked? Maybe there was just one code for this particular box, and you could get in as long as you had a card for the building and the shared code?

In which case there was a chance that …

Suddenly everything went pitch black.

For a few panic-stricken moments he had to fight the urge to drop everything and run back to the lifts. But instead he felt in his bag for his torch.

He heard a faint rustling sound somewhere off to his right and the noise made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It could have been a rat …

Unless it was something else, a dark, shapeless figure creeping up on him, reaching out its clawed hands and …

His fingers touched something cylindrical and he yanked the torch out so hard that several other things flew out with it. His sweaty fingers felt for the switch, then …

The beam of light put a stop to his racing imagination and he moved it round in every direction just to be sure.

There was nothing there, nothing but parked cars and the things he’d just dropped on the floor.

He crouched down and put everything except a little spray-can back in his bag. There was the flask containing the ballistic gel, which he planned to use to fool the fingerprint reader, just like Rainman Rehyman had taught him out in Kista; the little crowbar for breaking open the door to the server room; and the earmuffs that would make it possible to put up with the noise from the intruder alarm.

He took a quick look at the time.

Almost an hour left until midnight, when the streets would be full of drunks watching fireworks who’d make
life bloody difficult for any security guards and cops trying to make their way to a tricky central address like this.

Plenty of time, in other words …

He gave the keypad on the card reader a quick spray with the aerosol, waited a moment, then pressed the button on the torch. The light switched from white to violet and when he shone it at the keypad big white stains showed up on four of the buttons. 1350.

He held the card up again, then pressed the keys in numerical order.

Red light.

He stopped to think for a moment. Then he tried the more symmetrical 0135. A green lamp came on and he head the lock whirr.

YES!

The moment he touched the handle a burst of pain flashed through his body and for a few seconds his limbs shook uncontrollably. Then everything went black.