Bubble: A Thriller Read online

  By the time she got the cab back into view, the van was already a long way behind them.

  “What the hell are you playing at, Kjellgren?” she snapped as she took a series of shots, almost at random, of the diminishing silhouette in the van.

  “The VIP, Wennergren junior.” He pointed ahead at the little sports car, which was almost out of sight. “He suddenly took off like a scalded troll. Didn’t want to risk losing him.”

  She lowered the camera and sank back into her seat.

  Shit!

  A quick glance in the mirror, but she already knew what it would tell her. The van was gone.

  She clicked through the pictures on the little screen of the camera. The license plate was clearly visible, but just as she suspected, the images of the cab were pretty much useless.

  Damn it to hell!

  Call it police intuition or whatever you like, but there was something about that van that worried her.

  As soon as she got back to the office she’d check the license plate, maybe even make a couple of calls and double-check with Surveillance if the Highways Agency didn’t come up with anything . . .

  She suddenly regretted snapping at Kjellgren. His priorities had been totally correct. The VIP was the most important thing, after all, and she would have done exactly the same if she had been the one driving.

  Kjellgren was an excellent driver, which was one of the reasons why she’d brought him across from the Security Police. He had already made up the distance to the VIP’s car and they were in their customary position immediately behind him.

  “You made exactly the right call, Kjellgren,” she said, doing her best to sound neutral.

  He merely nodded, and for a few minutes they sat in silence as they took turns checking their rearview mirrors.

  “So when did you say we’d be going up to the Fortress?” Kjellgren said eventually, in a rather too friendly voice.

  “That depends a bit on Black’s schedule.” She made an effort to return his smile.

  “Okay. By the way, did you see that article in Dagens Nyheter? A big piece about the new uses people have found for old military installations. Apart from using underground bunkers as server rooms, they’ve also fixed the old communication tunnel to the coast so it brings in water for the cooling system. Seriously advanced stuff.

  “The security’s supposed to be quite something as well.”

  He pulled closer to Wennergren’s car and did a quick swerve to scare off a car that was trying to squeeze in between them.

  “Apparently PayTag wants to retain its status as a high-security installation, which is pretty understandable. Because then their security staff up there can be armed . . .”

  Kjellgren looked away from the car in front to give her a quick sideways glance.

  She could hear the question coming before he had opened his mouth.

  “By the way, how are things going for us on the weapons front, boss . . . ?”

  “The licensing authority is still looking at our application . . .”

  . . . again, she almost added, but her cell phone started to vibrate in her jacket pocket. Number withheld. Probably another marketing call, or some former police colleague fishing for a job . . .

  She moved her thumb toward the red icon to reject the call but changed her mind at the last moment. Kjellgren kept glancing at her, evidently keen to carry on the conversation about weapons licenses. And he wasn’t alone in that.

  Pretty much all of the new recruits to her bodyguard team had taken the job on the assumption that they’d be able to bear arms in the course of their duties. So if the application got rejected . . .

  She quickly pressed the green icon on her phone.

  “Sentry Security, Rebecca Normén,” she said, in an exaggeratedly businesslike tone.

  “Personal Protection Unit, Detective Superintendent Ludvig Runeberg,” her old boss said at the other end.

  “Hi, Ludvig, it’s been a while. Good to hear from you . . .”

  “I’m not sure you’re going to think that by the time we’ve finished, Normén . . .”

  Something in his tone of voice made her straighten up unconsciously.

  “You should probably come up here to Police Headquarters, right away if you can manage that . . .”

  The connection crackled and his voice vanished for a few seconds. But part of her had already worked out what he was going to say. Her stomach contracted into a hard little lump.

  No, no, no . . .

  “. . . your younger brother.”

  2

  OPENING

  HIS BODY WAS slumped motionless across the table. His eyes were shut and it almost looked like he was asleep.

  The last time she saw him his hair had been cropped short, but now it had grown again and was hanging in greasy clumps over his chalk-white face. The fluorescent lighting in the claustrophobic little room made the rings under his eyes look darker than ever against his pale, yellowish skin. As if she were really looking at a wax doll rather than an inert human body through the large glass window.

  She had been worried that this would happen. Ever since Henke threw a rock through her windshield two years ago and almost killed her and Kruse, her colleague, she had been dreading this moment. Well, longer than that, really. Much, much longer . . .

  “He was brought in last night,” Runeberg said somewhere behind her right shoulder, but she hardly heard him.

  “I was only informed an hour or so ago and called you at once. Not quite going by the rules, but I thought you’d want to know straightaway. I know I would if it was my brother . . .”

  She tore her eyes away from the glass and turned to look at him.

  “Thanks, Ludvig, I appreciate it . . .” The words caught in her throat.

  They stood in silence for a while.

  “Terrible business,” he said eventually.

  He put his hand clumsily on her arm.

  Suddenly and without warning the door opened and a skinny man in his sixties with thinning hair walked in. He was carrying a file of papers under one arm and, even though it was summer, he was wearing a dark three-piece suit topped off with a perfectly centered tie. The man nodded curtly to Runeberg, then turned to Rebecca.

  “You must be the sister.”

  “Rebecca Normén,” she said, holding out her hand.

  But instead of taking her hand, the man pulled out a pair of narrow reading glasses from the pocket of his vest, planted them firmly on the end of his nose, and then opened the file.

  “You said she used to work for the firm, Runeberg?”

  “Still does, at least officially, Stigsson,” her former boss replied in an ingratiating tone that she didn’t recognize at all.

  “Normén is on leave of absence until the end of the year, then she has to make up her mind what she prefers. The Security Police or private enterprise . . .” Runeberg attempted a smile, but the other man’s face didn’t move a muscle.

  “I see . . .” Stigsson turned his head and looked at Rebecca over the frames of his glasses.

  “Seeing as you’re still employed by the Security Police, Normén, your security clearance still applies, as does the oath of confidentiality that you signed when you first joined. Whether or not you’re his sister, everything you hear in here is confidential, and any attempt to communicate it to anyone else is strictly forbidden, is that understood?”

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “Of course,” she added when he didn’t seem happy with her response. “So, what’s this all about, then?”

  On the other side of the glass a door suddenly opened and two people, a man and a woman in dark suits, walked into the room. For a few seconds no one in the room moved. Then Henke opened his eyes.

  He raised his head, sat up in the chair, and then stretched, slowly and elaborately, as if he had just woken up. He said something that she couldn’t hear through the glass, and she was seized momentarily with an urge to burst in and give him a good slap.

  St
igsson’s bone-dry voice changed her mind.

  “Your brother is suspected of conspiracy, and possibly planning a gross act of terrorism.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Well, Henrik, as we said before, you are suspected of planning and possibly making preparations for a crime intended to seriously destabilize or disrupt the fundamental political, constitutional, economic, or social structures of the country,” said the lead interviewer, a woman with short, dark hair, somewhere around forty, as she fixed her eyes on him.

  But HP hardly noticed her. His weary brain was still trying to make sense of everything. At least there was one thing he was reasonably sure of. Unlike two years ago, when he thought he had been arrested but was actually the victim of a huge hoax, this time every single detail was right, from the armed unit’s break-in to his flat down to the scorched taste of the instant coffee in the brown plastic cup on the table next to him. It all seemed genuine. Was genuine, in all likelihood. Which meant . . . ?

  The subject is conspiracy theories, and here comes your thousand-kronor question . . .

  “Mmm . . .” he muttered, seeing he was evidently expected to say something. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples to buy himself a bit of thinking time. What the fuck was the woman going on about? Destabilizing the political what . . . ?

  “I’ve already told you at least a dozen times, I want a lawyer present during the interview,” he said quietly.

  The woman, whose name was Roslund or Roskvist, something like that, exchanged a quick glance with her colleague.

  “Yes, we realize that, Henrik,” the policeman said. HP had already forgotten his name. “But we thought we might start by getting some of the formalities out of the way before your lawyer shows up.

  “He is coming, isn’t he? We’ve been waiting several hours now. How many law firms have you called?” He tilted his head and smiled in a way that left no room for misinterpretation.

  “Of course there’s one coming . . .” Henrik mumbled.

  “Well then, how about making a start anyway? To save us all a bit of time,” the policeman added with another smile.

  “Unless there’s anyone else you’d like to call? Someone close to you—”

  “No!” HP interrupted, slightly too loudly, as he sat himself up.

  He saw the look in their eyes. Damn, he’d been trying to play it cool . . .

  “I’ve got all the time in the world, and I’m not going to say anything until I’ve got a lawyer,” he said as calmly as he could, staring down at the tabletop.

  “But by all means—feel free to talk away . . .” he muttered a couple of seconds later, mainly to break the oppressive silence.

  “Good suggestion, Henrik.” The male police officer, whose name HP still couldn’t remember, pulled out a chair and sat down. He took out a little digital recorder from the pocket of his jacket and put it on the table between them.

  “Interview with Henrik Pettersson, known as HP, third of June, time fifteen thirteen. Officers present, Police Inspectors Roswall and . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “. . . Hellström.”

  Stigsson had pressed a button next to the window and suddenly the lead interviewer’s voice could be heard from the speakers.

  “So what exactly is Henke supposed to have done?” Rebecca said to no one in particular, while Hellström went on talking to the recording device.

  She was doing her best to sound calm, as if she weren’t that worried about the answer.

  “We’ve received information that suggests your brother is planning some sort of terrorist attack against the state, possibly connected to the princess’s wedding . . .”

  “You’re kidding!” she exclaimed, unable to stop herself.

  Stigsson gave her a quick look and she bit her tongue. Obviously, this was all just a big practical joke, the Security Police were renowned for their sense of humor, and Stigsson here was a brilliant stand-up comedian . . .

  Pull yourself together, for God’s sake, Normén!

  A mistake—this was clearly some sort of huge mistake. They must have got Henke mixed up with someone else, got the information mixed up and broken into the wrong flat. It would hardly be the first time, after all . . .

  “We’ve also been made aware that this is by no means the first time your brother has been involved in this sort of criminal activity—”

  “You mean that business with Dag,” she cut him off. “That wasn’t actually Henke’s fault, he was only trying to protect me. Besides, that was almost fifteen years ago . . .”

  Stigsson shook his head.

  “No, no, not the incident in which your boyfriend was killed, even if that isn’t entirely without interest as part of the bigger picture . . . This is about something else entirely. See for yourself.”

  He gestured toward the interview room, where one of the officers had just switched on a video projector. A recording from a shaky handheld camera appeared on one wall, blue sky and some dark buildings. Then slender trees and a row of sidewalk cafés. Kungsträdgården, more specifically: Kungsträdgårdsgatan. In the background there was a clattering sound that was getting louder and louder. It took her a few moments before she suddenly realized what it was. Horses’ hooves . . . a lot of horses’ hooves on tarmac. When the royal cortege appeared in frame she noticed she was trembling . . .

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  He recognized the film at once. Kungsträdgårdsgatan, exactly two years ago, the cortege with the royal couple and the Greek president.

  The soldiers bobbing along on their horses, the spectators on the sidewalk fiddling with their cell phones. He’d seen it on film hundreds of times, recognized every face, every expression. The guy with the dog, the woman in the white hat, the German tourists with their huge backpacks . . . He knew the rest of it by heart. Any moment now a flash would bleach the image, and a bang like the one he had experienced in his flat would make the hand holding the camera shake. Then complete chaos, galloping horses, soldiers on the ground, people screaming in panic.

  But instead of focusing on the cortege as he had expected, the camera suddenly began to pan around. It wavered for a few seconds, then slid along the crowd lining one side of the road.

  And it came to rest on a familiar figure, then zoomed in slowly until the person filled almost the entire screen.

  HP couldn’t help squirming. Suddenly he felt a bit sick.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  A man dressed in black sitting on an EU moped. The tinted helmet was obscuring his face, but Rebecca had no trouble recognizing him. His posture, jerky movements, the way he held his head slightly tilted. There was no doubt at all . . .

  She had suspected it at the time, but had deliberately not asked because she hadn’t wanted to know the answer . . .

  The man on the screen reached into a plastic bag that was hanging from the handlebar, pulled out a cylindrical object, and started to fiddle with it. The noise of horses’ hooves got steadily louder as the cortege approached. The camera zoomed in even closer. The man looked up, waiting for a moment with the object in both hands. Then he suddenly jerked one hand and raised his arm. She already knew what he was about to throw.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The blast from the grenade made this film shake as well, but the cameraman didn’t shift his focus from the moped. According to the timer in one corner of the screen, he sat there impassively for ten seconds, watching the effects of what he had done, before putting the bike into gear, making a sharp U-turn, and disappearing down Wahrendorffsgatan.

  The film stopped abruptly and the room fell silent. HP shifted in his chair and swallowed unconsciously a couple of times. A couple of clicks on the computer and suddenly a still of him covered the whole screen. A freeze-frame image of the precise moment when he threw the grenade.

  His arm in the air, his body coiled like a spring. When you added the tinted helmet, he looked pretty alarming, to put it mildly.

  “So, Henrik,” Hellström began, in a considerably less friend
ly tone of voice than before. “Is that . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “. . . your brother on the screen?” Stigsson and Runeberg were both looking at her now, and for a few seconds her head was completely blank. Her blouse was sticking to her skin, and the air in the little room suddenly felt stale and difficult to breathe. Their eyes seemed to be boring right through her.

  She glanced at the interview room, but there was total silence in there as well. She had to try to gain a bit of time, get a chance to think things through . . . But to judge from the looks on both men’s faces, they were expecting an immediate answer.

  So what was she supposed to do? Lie, or tell the truth?

  Make a decision, for God’s sake!

  She gulped a couple of times to clear the lump in her throat.

  “Well . . .” she began.

  “You don’t have to answer, Henrik!”

  The door to the interview room opened and a tall man with slicked-back gray hair walked in. The man unbuttoned the gold buttons on his blazer with a flourish and then sat down on the empty chair beside Henke. At that moment Rebecca realized that she knew him.

  “My client declines to answer that question,” the man said, this time looking at the police officers as he put his briefcase on the table and took out a folder, putting it down next to HP’s coffee cup.

  “Well, now I’d like to know why this interview has already started even though my client clearly stated that he wished to have his legal representative present. As I’m sure you are aware, this is in breach of chapter twenty-one of the Penal Code . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Johan Sandels!”

  Runeberg’s surprised exclamation drowned out the rest of the lawyer’s speech.

  “How the hell did your brother manage to get hold of a heavyweight like that at such short notice?”

  “I’ve got no idea,” Rebecca replied with a shrug.

  That much was completely true.