Bubble: A Thriller Read online

  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 attention, 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.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Splinters and dust flew up from the floor, and an angry ricochet buzzed off somewhere to his right. Then a dry, dull sound of wood breaking, and suddenly the whole worktable collapsed. A cloud of dust and gunpowder smoke hit him in the face and he took a couple of steps back as he tried to swallow to clear the whistling sound from his ears.

  His heart was speeding on adrenaline, his diaphragm pumping his lungs so hard that his ribs creaked.

  Damn it to hell . . .

  Warily he peered at where the snake had been. The collapsed table was covering most of the floor, but there were signs of blood and sticky black snake entrails among the wreckage. Part of the tail had broken off and lay on its own in the middle of the floor. It was still twitching spasmodically, but the sound was no longer threatening. It sounded more like broken maracas.

  YES!

  Eat shit and die, snake bastard!!

  EAT SHIT AND FUCKING DIE!!!

  It looked like he’d scored a direct hit with the revolver, and then the collapsing table had taken care of the rest. But had Sir Hiss managed to bite him?

  The next moment the pain broke through the adrenaline rush in his brain and he looked down in horror.

  Two tiny red marks were clearly visible on his right sock, right in the hollow between his foot and shinbone.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The Cyprus book had been waiting in an anonymous parcel on the doormat when she got home. She had already glanced through it but wasn’t really much the wiser. The arms smuggling story was dealt with summarily, as a minor and regrettable incident in an otherwise successful mission. The details were relatively thin. Just as Uncle Tage had said, it looked like a couple of Swedish officers hadn’t been prepared to sit by and passively watch while superior forces from one side crushed the surrounded and badly equipped group on the other.

  The whole thing looked like an impulsive act rather than a political statement, and in all likelihood the few weapons they tried to smuggle wouldn’t actually have made any difference at all, apart from salving the Swedes’ consciences. But the consequences of the impulsive act had been dramatic. The two officers were both dismissed immediately and were sent home on the first plane while the rest of the battalion was hastily redeployed to southern Cyprus, away from the danger zone. She couldn’t find any information about the names of the officers, but then she hadn’t really expected to.

  But she had found out one thing, something rather worrying.

  A small photograph of a young officer with a rather hawkish appearance and a jacket decorated with little square badges of honor. Lieutenant Colonel André Pellas, according to the caption. But she was certain the picture was of Uncle Tage.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  He’d never make it to the hospital in time.

  Södermalm Hospital wasn’t far away, but the distance wasn’t his biggest problem. He had no phone, no way of sounding the alarm.

  The bangs had been loud, but the door to the snake room was thick, and he himself was the closest neighbor . . . it was quite possible that no one had heard him.

  All his instincts were screaming at him to go home. Run back to his flat and shut the door behind him. But if he did that, he’d never come out alive again.

  He was already feeling seriously unwell, his foot had started to ache, and he’d found it difficult to make his way out into the living room.

  He had to think of something, right away. Even if he staggered out into the stairwell and screamed for help, banging on doors like a maniac, he doubted whether any of his constipated little neighbors would have the nerve to open their doors.

  At best they’d call the cops, but by the time the boys in blue finally deigned to appear he’d be having a hot date with Rigor Mortis . . .

  And even if, against all expectation, he managed to get to the hospital alive, it was far from certain that they’d have the right serum there. Poisonous Swedish snakes were one thing, but rattlesnake bites probably weren’t the sort of thing that cropped up particularly often in the Stockholm area.

  Basically, whatever he did he was fucked.

  He could feel himself on the verge of tears.

  Fuck, fuck, fuckety fuck!

  He had to slow his pulse down—right now his heart was nothing but a pump spreading poison around his body. If he couldn’t find a way to stop panicking, he’d soon be lying like some dribbling vegetable on this shitty floor.

  He crouched down, checked over his shoulder to make sure that the door to the snake room was closed, and then took a couple of deep breaths.

  His foot was shooting with pain, and the feeling of nausea was getting worse, but at least his heart seemed to be calming down. How much time did he have before he lost consciousness? Five minutes, seven maybe, but hardly much more than that . . .

  He raised his head and looked across the dusty floor.

  As he’d noticed earlier, the footsteps from the front door led straight across the floor to the snake room, with pretty much just two exceptions. The toilet and the fridge. If the Carer had snakes on the loose in his workroom, but was still the sort of person who made advanced bombs demanding total concentration, wasn’t it likely that he had some sort of backup?

  A few syringes of serum, just in case . . . And where would you keep serum, Einstein?

  He got up and swayed for a moment. His right leg was definitely stiffer now. At least the fridge was switched on, he could hear it as he got closer.

  It wasn’t until he put his hand on the handle that he noticed the latch and padlock.

  Damn it!

  He didn’t even try to pull the door open. Instead he staggered back to get the crowbar he had left against the hall wall.

  The poison must already be affecting his muscles, because the crowbar felt unexpectedly heavy and he had to make a serious effort to pick it up from the floor.

  His right leg was scarcely obeying his orders anymore, and he was finding it difficult to breathe.

  He paused for a few seconds, gathering his strength. Then he tried to insert the crowbar between the latch and the fridge door. He failed and almost dropped it. His throat was now starting to feel swollen, his eyelids were burning, and it was getting harder and harder to focus.

  One deep, rasping breath.

  Then another . . .

  This time the crowbar went in, the lock flew off, but the effort still made him lose his balance and collapse on the floor. For a brief moment he contemplated staying there and having a rest—just a little rest.

  But then the fridge door slowly swung open and the bright light from the internal bulb snapped him out of his trance. He struggled to his knees, leaning against the door as he tried to get up.

  The fridge was empty.

  Almost, anyway. In the middle of the top shelf was a neat container holding five preprepared syringes.

  He struggled to his feet, pulled down one of the glass shelves, then another. He reached for the box of syringes, closing his fingers around its cool surface.

  Then everything went dark . . .

  11

  ELECTRIC SHEEP

  THE BLACK PLANE landed two minutes before it was due, but Rebecca was so immersed in her thoughts that she hardly noticed it.
/>   “A Global Express, not bad!”

  “W-what?”

  “Black’s plane, November Six Bravo.”

  Kjellgren pointed at the runway.

  “Can fly nonstop from New York to Tokyo. Someone at work said the plane’s his own, not the company’s. A Global Express can carry twenty passengers, but apparently Black prefers to travel alone . . .”

  “Mmm,” she murmured, squinting to see better.

  Kjellgren carried on about various types of planes, but she was only half listening. It was odd to see a plane that was painted completely black. Most planes were white or gray, so she guessed the color was a statement in itself. The plane turned off onto one of the taxiways and slowly approached its gate.

  She opened the car door and got out. For some reason she was feeling slightly nervous.

  She liked Black right from the start.

  It was impossible not to. Unlike pretty much every other VIP she had worked with, he came straight over to shake her hand and introduce himself—as if that were necessary . . .

  He also asked her to outline the security arrangements, and even asked her what he could do to make things easier for her and the other bodyguards . . .

  She noted that he looked taller in real life than on CNN. Younger too, come to think of it.

  Maybe it was because he smiled more than he did on television, flashing his brilliant white teeth in a way that was immediately infectious.

  Black couldn’t be much more than forty. He was at least one meter ninety tall, but in spite of his lanky body, his double-breasted suit fit him like a glove. His hair was cut short at the back, but his fringe, tinged with gray, hung down rather disobediently, so he occasionally had to run his fingers through it to push it back into place. For some reason, this repeated gesture gave his eyes more presence and intensity.

  For someone who had been flying for ten hours, Black seemed almost indecently smart. Neither his shirt nor his jacket showed the slightest crease, so he must have changed, maybe even had a shower?

  According to her colleague’s outline, Black’s private plane wasn’t exactly lacking in comforts. But both Kjellgren and the folder of advance information she had received were wrong on one point. Black hadn’t traveled alone. A thickset man with cropped hair, a bull neck, loafers, and a poorly fitting, flimsy-looking suit had also been on the plane.