Bubble: A Thriller Read online

  For a few moments she thought he was a steward. But then their eyes met and she changed her mind at once. Bullneck was obviously in the same branch as her.

  The man stayed in the background, but she could see he was listening intently to their conversation.

  Once she had installed Black in the backseat of the car, and double-checked that all the luggage was in place, Bullneck took her discreetly aside.

  “Thomas,” he said without further pleasantries, and she wasn’t sure whether it was his first or last name. “Chief Security Officer at PayTag,” he went on. “Pleased to meet you, Rebecca. I’ve heard a lot about you . . .”

  She gave a brief nod as they shook hands.

  Sadly I can’t say the same, she thought.

  No one’s mentioned you at all.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  He was running.

  As fast as he could, straight ahead toward an exit at the far end of the corridor.

  But even though he was trying as hard as he could, even though the office doors on either side of him were rushing past so quickly that he could hardly see them, he didn’t seem to be getting any closer to his goal. He could feel his pursuers gaining on him . . .

  The gray linoleum floor beneath his feet was spongy, getting softer with every step he took.

  Almost like . . .

  Sand.

  He carried on running.

  Knew they were still after him. Could hear their breathing cut through the desert night.

  The snakes came out of nowhere. Leaping up from their lairs with their jaws open and teeth glinting. Dozens of them, maybe even hundreds. He did his best to avoid them, zigzagging over the sand dunes to make himself a more difficult target.

  But it was impossible.

  He felt teeth bite into his thigh.

  Once, twice, three times . . .

  More . . .

  Then all of a sudden the snakes were gone.

  He glanced back quickly over his shoulder and saw them getting closer. Hundreds of men in suits, racing over the sand. The bowler hats on their heads were pulled down low, almost to their eyebrows, but where their noses and mouths should be they had nothing but large green apples.

  The men were gaining on him, the sand was flying up around their well-polished shoes. His chest felt like it was about to burst and his legs suddenly felt as heavy as lead, but he forced them to do as he commanded.

  Onward!

  Upward.

  Toward the top.

  He could see the drop opening out ahead of him and tried to change direction. But his legs were no longer obeying him. Instead they carried on straight ahead, forcing him closer to the steep edge of something that was no longer a sand dune but the roof of a building.

  He could see birds waiting far below. Thousands of black desert ravens with glossy feathers and beaks the shape of scimitars.

  Unless his eyes were deceiving him?

  Were they actually sharp, oily rocks?

  He fell.

  Slowly at first.

  Then faster and faster.

  The ground was getting closer.

  He knew it was going to hurt. More than anything he had ever experienced before. And at the precise moment that the pain shot through his body, making his limbs contract in a violent spasm, he heard their voices.

  “Do you want to play a game, Henrik Pettersson?!”

  Wanna play a . . .

  GAME?

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The word was still echoing through his head when he woke up.

  It took him a few moments to remember where he was, then a few more to remember what had happened. Then came the panic. He opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but his body wouldn’t do as he wanted.

  And it was dark.

  Pitch black.

  Paralyzed, then.

  Blind.

  Soon to be dead . . .

  So this was how it was going to end, on a filthy kitchen floor in an abandoned flat. Tears began to stream from his eyes, and he tried to blink them away as best he could.

  But suddenly he noticed a subtle change in the pitch-black darkness. A pale gray streak that got stronger and stronger until he was able to make out certain details. A ceiling, a lamp. Then a window covered by a roller blind, and a crooked pine dresser in one corner. The feeling was gradually returning to his limbs and he suddenly realized he wasn’t lying on a hard kitchen floor. Instead he seemed to be at home, in his own bedroom.

  Howthehell . . . ?

  He made a fresh attempt to sit up, and this time it went rather better.

  Yep, his suspicions were confirmed. He was in his own fucking bed, with something that felt like the mother of all hangovers. His body ached absolutely everywhere, from the tips of his toes to the top of his scalp. His headache was so bad it was throbbing against his eyeballs, almost making him blink in time with it. He could feel the pressure building, so he got to his feet and stumbled toward the toilet.

  Unfortunately he didn’t quite make it, but at least he managed to catch most of the vomit in his hands. With a great deal of effort he clambered into the bathtub, turned on the taps, and lifted his head toward the wonderful, liberating torrent of water.

  He sat in the bath for more than an hour, just letting the water wash over his body. He only moved to throw up a couple of more times into the drain in the floor beside the bath, and his skin had started to wrinkle by the time he had come around enough to pull his clothes off and do an inventory of the damage.

  His body was shaking like mad, switching between shivering and hot flushes, but at least he was still alive, in spite of everything . . .

  His ankle looked like an American football, and the two small holes made by the snake’s teeth were clearly visible. So why wasn’t he dead?

  He found the answer higher up on the side of his thigh.

  A couple of bruises the size of large coins, and a few drops of congealed blood. He must have managed to inject himself with the syringes containing the antidote after all. It looked as if he’d rammed in all five of them, then crawled back to his own flat. Saving himself at the last fucking second! Nice work, HP!!

  Another attack of the shakes made his teeth chatter, and he turned the temperature dial further to the red. The hot water stung his skin, but he was still finding it hard not to shiver.

  He turned off the taps, wrapped himself up in a couple of towels, then staggered stiff-legged out into the hall, almost tripping over the crowbar on the floor. Over by the doormat he could see the torch. So he’d evidently managed to drag everything back with him from the snake flat and not leave any evidence behind.

  Job well done!

  Then he caught sight of the revolver lying right beside the door.

  He picked it up carefully. It felt much heavier than he remembered. The acrid smell of powder was still obvious.

  He peered out at the landing through the spyhole, but everything seemed quiet.

  And the door to the neighboring flat was closed as well—good!

  Even in his moment of direst need, he had had the sense to shut the bastard snakes in . . .

  So basically he had saved the lives of his stuck-up neighbors.

  Housing Association block number 6 would like to inform all residents about the presence of one or more snakes apparently at large on the premises . . .

  He tried to laugh, but all that came out of his mouth was a sad croak that made his brain slosh against his skull, so he stopped abruptly. He shuffled back into the kitchen and drank four glasses of tepid tap water.

  He left the revolver in the drainer section of the sink.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Black carried on chatting to her almost the whole way into the city. Asking questions about Sweden and Swedish culture, and she found herself telling him about paid parental leave and strange midsummer rituals before they reached the Grand Hotel.

  Thomas didn’t say a word. He sat there in the back next to Black and spent most of the journey fiddling with his BlackBerry. B
ut she noticed that he was carefully following all that was going on inside the car.

  There were about a dozen reporters loitering outside the hotel, and she spotted them from a distance.

  “The press are here,” she said. “We can use the rear entrance if you’d rather avoid them . . .”

  Thomas looked as if he was about to say something, but Black got there first.

  “No, no, we’ll take the main entrance. I presume we’re in safe hands, Miss Normén . . .”

  “Main entrance,” she said into her wrist microphone, and got a clipped “Copy that” from the car behind.

  They stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and she allowed a few seconds for the two men in the following car to stop and get out before she opened her own door.

  There were something like ten, twelve people there. None of them seemed particularly enthusiastic or aggressive. They kept at a respectful distance as they waited.

  Mrsic from the other car had already taken up position on the steps. He looked around and then gave her a short nod. She opened Black’s door and the flashes of the cameras started to go off. But there was no great wave of them, just a few dutiful clicks, and she guessed that most of the photographers were there to take pictures of wedding guests rather than of her VIP.

  She walked in front, with the two men a meter or so behind her.

  They could have been inside within ten seconds, but Black caught sight of the television camera.

  “Miss Johansson,” he said a little too loud, shaking the female reporter’s hand.

  “Of course I’ve got a moment,” she heard him say. Rebecca regrouped immediately and positioned herself to one side just behind Black. Thomas carried on into the hotel, however, and she watched as Mrsic held the door open for him.

  Two people in what looked like white overalls suddenly appeared on the edge of the crowd right next to the side of the building, and she saw them doing something with a bag they had brought with them. Probably workmen, but for some reason their presence felt slightly unsettling.

  She raised the wrist with the microphone to her mouth, ready to speak into it. She vaguely recognized the blonde television reporter as an economics specialist for one of the channels, and the woman must have said something funny because Black laughed out loud. The couple in overalls, a man and a woman in their twenties, were still occupied with their bag. Rebecca turned her head to call Mrsic over to her, but the door was unguarded. He must have gone inside with Thomas and not noticed that they had stopped . . .

  “Well, Miss Johansson, PayTag exists for one single, very simple reason,” she heard Black say. “We want to make a difference. We want to help our clients here in Sweden and around the world to store sensitive material in a way that is one hundred percent secure. Dealing very firmly with the risks inherent in the management of information. Obviously we ourselves have no interest in our clients’ data . . .”

  The movements of the pair in overalls seemed to be getting jerkier, more agitated. There was still no sign of Mrsic. She pressed the transmit button on her microphone. Her right hand had suddenly started to shake.

  “Kjellgren, two people in white overalls over by the wall, they’re doing something, can you see them?”

  “I see them, on my way!”

  From the corner of her eye she saw the car door open. Kjellgren was stepping onto the sidewalk when the pair in overalls spun around.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Obviously he ought to flee the city.

  Get away, a fuck of a long way away, somewhere no bastard would ever find him.

  Any time now the Carer or whatever his name was would get back from his break and discover that someone had made snake stew out of one of his little darlings, nicked his revolver, and used up all the serum in the fridge.

  He hoped he hadn’t left any fingerprints, and with a bit of luck the blood hadn’t soaked through his sock, so the cops wouldn’t have anything on him. Not that it mattered, seeing as he already knew the Carer would never involve the cops. No, he’d track down the closest suspect, with the emphasis on closest . . . and the ensuing little visit wouldn’t involve asking to borrow a cup of sugar.

  But there were two reasons why he couldn’t just leave. To begin with, the cops had seized his passport and told him not to go anywhere. Which wasn’t that much of a problem, he could always move freely among the Schengen countries. And it was always possible to conjure up a fake passport if you had the money. But the thought of ending up as an international fugitive wasn’t exactly appealing . . .

  Reason number two was considerably more serious. He was basically in too bad a state to travel. The snake poison combined with the serum cocktail he had injected himself with seemed to have aged him about sixty years, and even the short walk from the bed to the sofa left him utterly exhausted.

  So he had no choice but to carry on hiding in his flat like some fucking Anne Frank.

  A sudden rattle from the door made him start. A metallic scraping sound, as if someone was trying to open the letter box.

  He struggled up from the sofa and stumbled out into the hall.

  There was no immediate danger. He’d fixed the letter box just after the cops had smashed the door in.

  He’d screwed it down so it couldn’t be opened more than a couple of millimeters.

  Too little for anyone to be able to push anything flammable through. That was the idea, anyway.

  And it was also snakeproof.

  Well, he thought it probably was.

  All he could see was the corner of a letter, and after hesitating a few seconds he carefully pulled at it. A window envelope with some sort of official logo.

  He opened it with one finger as he laboriously returned to the sofa.

  Interview Summons

  Henrik Pettersson is summoned to an interview in the matter of case number K-345456-12 . . .

  He crumpled up the letter and sent it flying at the wall. If the cops wanted to talk to him, they’d have to come and get him.

  He slumped deeper into the sofa, found the remote, and zapped slowly through the channels until he found a news bulletin.

  “Erik af Cederskjöld, former head of communications strategy for the Moderate Party and newly appointed press spokesman for the Palace: what’s your view on the record-low popularity ratings of the royal family? Don’t they cast a rather negative light over preparations for the wedding . . . ?”

  He changed the channel before the slimy jerk on-screen had time to answer.

  A laundry detergent ad . . .

  Trust Vanish . . .

  ZAPP

  Emmerdale.

  ZAPP

  Another channel, another interview with another dull bastard, and he zapped again. But just before the picture changed he managed to read the caption.

  He practically flew up from the sofa. He hammered on the remote, making the plastic creak. Mark Black, Managing Director, PayTag Group.

  He raised the volume until the red gauge on the screen was at maximum. But he still had trouble hearing what was being said. It felt like his ears were blocked and all he could hear was a vague mumble of unfamiliar voices. Fragments of sentences that didn’t seem to fit together.

  PayTag’s only aim is to help . . .

  Merely providing what the market wants . . .

  A more secure world . . .

  Preventing terrorism . . .

  Don’t understand the criticism . . .

  High time that Sweden got modern legislation properly adapted to reality . . .

  He crept closer to the television, close enough to touch the screen. He stared at it with the same horrified fascination with which he’d studied the snake’s consumption of the rat. And suddenly he realized that the snake and Black were actually the same sort of creature.

  Monsters with ice-cold, unmoving eyes, in the process of gulping down an unsuspecting prey.

  He stared at Black, at the perfect suit, the neatly ironed shirt, and the unpleasantly reassuring reptilian smile on th
e man’s lips. But most of all he was staring at the woman holding on to his arm.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  PayTag kills Internet freedom, it said on the banner that the couple in overalls unfurled between them. Neither of them said anything, they just stood there in complete silence behind the creepy white Guy Fawkes masks they had pulled on. Kjellgren had almost reached them, but she could see him hesitating. Neither of the demonstrators made any attempt to move.

  Black half turned toward her and gave her a look that immediately made her drop the hold she had just taken of his upper arm.

  “Perhaps it’s time to go in now?” she murmured, but he ignored her.

  “Sorry, Miss Johansson.” He turned back toward the television reporter. “Would you mind repeating that last question?”

  “Never do that again, Miss Normén,” he said calmly as they were walking into the hotel lobby a few minutes later.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Four paracetamols.

  Three glasses of water.

  Two cigarettes.

  One revolver.

  He was ready. This task would be his last, he already knew that. But he had no choice.

  Black was a poisonous snake, a monster created by the Game Master. Sent out to consume the whole world.

  And he was going to start with Becca . . .

  The scene was so familiar. Her hand on his upper arm, her steady gaze.

  Becca and Dad.

  Becca and Dag.

  Becca and Black.

  Obviously the Game Master was behind the whole thing. He had made sure Black got his claws into Becca. And, just as with that wife-beating bastard Dag, there was only one way to save her. The difference was that this time he had a proper weapon and didn’t have to rely on a sabotaged balcony railing.

  He pulled his jacket on, the same old army surplus coat he had used for his second task. That felt like a hundred years ago.

  As for himself, he felt more than a hundred years old. More suited to a nursing home than a man on a mission.

  The revolver fit snugly into one of the deep side pockets.