Bubble: A Thriller Read online

  “Sorry!” Jeff shouted, his hands still on the other end.

  A moment later the helicopter thundered across the yard, and the pulsing rotor blades practically deafened HP.

  Both he and Jeff crouched down instinctively as they tried to catch sight of the helicopter through the broken barn roof.

  It seemed to be hovering a few meters above the barn.

  HP glanced quickly at the others. Jeff seemed utterly focused on the helicopter, as did Nora. But Hasselqvist slipped quickly inside the van.

  “We need to go, now!” he yelled as he scrambled into the driver’s seat.

  “B-but, we’re not ready . . .” Nora cried.

  The helicopter was still hovering above them, and the downdraft from the blades was making what was left of the roof begin to shake. Slowly at first, then faster and faster.

  Fragments of tiles came loose and fell into the barn.

  “Kent’s right!” Jeff roared. “Any minute now this roof’s going to collapse on top of us . . .”

  A large piece of tile hit the roof of the van with a thud.

  “I’ll open the door, then you lot get going . . . Just drive, don’t stop and wait for me,” Jeff yelled in HP’s ear.

  HP nodded and tried to run toward the van in a crouch.

  A small piece of tile hit him on the head and he raised his arm instinctively to protect himself. There was a loud bang, then another. Probably one of the helicopter’s runners hitting the roof.

  “Come on, Nora!” he shouted when he reached the door of the van.

  But she seemed to be hesitating.

  Jeff roared something at her that HP didn’t hear. He waved his hand toward the van. Another bang, more forceful this time. A large tile crashed to the floor right in front of the van, sending splinters in all directions.

  Hasselqvist started the engine.

  “We have to go, come on!” he yelled again.

  Nora looked in his direction, then back at Jeff again. But he had turned away and was bracing himself against the door. Several more tiles crashed down, sending a shower of fragments up into the van. HP put his arm across his eyes. When he looked up Nora was lying on the floor.

  Shit!

  He leaped out of the van, but she was back on her feet before he could reach her.

  “Into the van, HP, come on!”

  She pushed him in ahead of her. Another thud, then a cracking sound. More tiles rained down and seemed to pull part of the roof with them. Nora’s face was white, and blood was running down her face from a wet patch on top of her head. He pushed her down into one of the seats.

  “Jeff!” she groaned.

  “Never mind your boyfriend, we’ve got to go . . .” he snapped.

  Through the windshield he saw the door slowly open.

  Hasselqvist revved the engine.

  “Brother . . .” she groaned.

  “What?”

  “He’s my older brother, you idiot . . . !”

  Jeff had almost managed to get the heavy door open. His back and neck muscles were straining against his T-shirt, threatening to split it.

  The van suddenly leaped forward.

  Her brother . . .

  He grabbed hold of the headrest of the nearest seat, then hung out the door.

  “Jeeefff!” he roared.

  The mountain of muscle spun around and met his gaze. The van’s wheels were spinning on the dirt-covered concrete floor, trying to get a grip . . .

  HP reached out as far as he could, holding out his hand. Jeff took a couple of quick strides.

  The collapse was spreading across the roof, section after section of tiles was giving way and sending showers of razor-sharp fragments clattering against the body of the van. One piece, big as a hand, flew past HP’s nose but he hardly noticed.

  Jeff leaped forward . . .

  The tires suddenly got a grip and the van shot out of the barn like an arrow. A moment later the entire roof fell in.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The dark car was waiting outside her building when she got home. As she approached, the chauffeur opened the door and got out. But it wasn’t the same man as before, this one was considerably younger, and it took her a few seconds before she could place him.

  “Hello, Rebecca, my name’s Edler, I’m Colonel Pellas’s adjutant . . .”

  He held out his hand.

  “We met very briefly in the flat in Maria Trappgränd . . .”

  “Hello,” she mumbled, shaking his hand.

  He opened the door to the backseat.

  “Good evening, my dear Rebecca,” Tage Sammer said. “I’m sorry to arrive unannounced like this, but I have good news . . .”

  She hesitated and glanced at Edler.

  Sammer seemed to have read her thoughts.

  “We can talk freely, I have no secrets from Edler . . .”

  “Good . . .”

  Then, after thinking for a couple of seconds, she added:

  “Perhaps we should go up to the flat instead? A bit more pleasant than sitting in the car . . .”

  “Thanks for the invitation.” He smiled. “I’d like that, on another occasion, but today I would prefer the car. Inside flats one never knows who might be listening . . .”

  He patted the seat beside him and Rebecca had no choice but to climb in.

  Edler got in behind the wheel, started the car, and pulled away slowly toward Rålambsvägen.

  “Have you found Henke?” she asked before he had time to open his mouth.

  “Not yet, but we think we know where both he and Sandström are. We’re expecting them to be picked up shortly.”

  “Okay, good. Well, good is probably the wrong word . . .”

  “I know what you mean, Rebecca. All this is for Henrik’s own good, and we’re very grateful that you’re helping us. We have to get hold of him before he does anything really silly. You see, this isn’t just about the revolver . . .”

  He glanced toward Edler.

  “We have information about a bomb . . .”

  “What? Then you have to postpone the royal wedding . . .”

  “No, no, that’s out of the question. The Palace is quite clear on that point.”

  “But the risk?”

  He took a deep breath and then shrugged his shoulders.

  “The risk is considered to be acceptable under the circumstances.”

  “Acceptable, seriously? A bomb . . .”

  “The information is as yet unconfirmed. We have too few details to be in a position to suggest anything so drastic as postponing the wedding. Bomb threats are a regular occurrence, and my employers . . .”

  He sighed.

  “There’s a lot at stake, Rebecca, much more than you can imagine. Popular support for the royal family has halved during the past fifteen years, parliament is full of republicans who are simply biding their time, and if the figures continue to decline at the same rate . . .”

  He paused and shrugged once more.

  “Of course, factors of that sort can’t be taken into account when you’re evaluating the level of threat, but you know how that works as well as I do. All large organizations are the same. Somewhere there’s always someone who’s worried about losing his job, and who therefore hesitates to make unpalatable but sometimes necessary decisions.”

  He held his hands out.

  “There’s hardly anything that increases support for the royal family like a wedding, my employers taught me that a few years ago. Unfortunately all the articles in the papers, however wrong they might be, have wiped out almost all of the upturn.”

  “What about the christening? That wasn’t long ago.”

  He shook his head.

  “A christening is far too low key, it doesn’t give the same warm glow. Nowadays I’m afraid there are only two things that raise support for the royal family—weddings and national crises. In other words, it would take a very great deal indeed for anyone to decide to rein in the festivities, let alone postpone them. Anyway, as far as this poten
tial bombing is concerned, we have very few details so far.”

  “So what do you know, can you tell me?”

  “Not really, Rebecca . . .” He paused for a few seconds, exchanged a quick glance with Edler in the rearview mirror before going on.

  “A few hours ago we received a tip-off about a flat. We got a warrant and searched it, and found certain indications that a bomb could have been constructed there . . .”

  “And how is this connected to Henke?”

  Sammer took a deep breath.

  “The flat was in Maria Trappgränd, right next door to Henrik’s . . .”

  Her heart began to beat faster, but she did her best to hide her agitation.

  “Hang on, you’re not suggesting that Henke . . . ? Well, you can drop that idea. He can hardly put together a bookcase, let alone a bomb . . .”

  “I agree with you entirely, my dear Rebecca.”

  He gently patted one of her knees.

  “We don’t believe that Henrik constructed the bomb on his own either. But, on the other hand, it can hardly be a coincidence that the workshop was located in the flat next door to his. And we’ve also found a couple of his fingerprints in there . . .”

  Rebecca shook her head reluctantly.

  “As I said before, Henrik is in dangerous company at the moment. Extremely dangerous company. The people he has surrounded himself with are experts at manipulating other people, they’ve done it many times before. And sadly Henrik is, as you know, rather . . .”

  “Gullible . . .”

  “Precisely.”

  The car stopped at a red light on the roundabout at Lindhagensplan, and they sat in silence for a moment.

  They were only a couple of hundred meters from the place where the car she and Kruse were in crashed after Henke dropped a rock through the windshield from the expressway bridge above. Admittedly, Henke hadn’t known she was in the car, but that was fairly irrelevant. Someone had manipulated him into doing it, getting him to completely ignore the inevitable conclusion that other people would be hurt as a consequence of his actions. Could that really happen again?

  Under the right circumstances—absolutely.

  “So what do you want me to do, Uncle Tage?” she said as the car approached the expressway bridge.

  His voice sounded sad:

  “A lot of people’s lives are at risk, Rebecca. If we don’t manage to catch Henrik tonight, then we will all have to do whatever we can to stop him. And I do mean whatever, if you understand me?”

  He paused briefly.

  “Obviously, you can choose not to accept the assignment. No one would blame you. I can have a word with Eskil Stigsson . . .”

  They passed under the bridge and she couldn’t help glancing up at the railing above. For a few moments she imagined she could see someone up there. A dark-clad figure in a hood.

  “No!” she said, a little too loudly, and saw Edler looking at her in the rearview mirror.

  “No thanks, Uncle Tage. That won’t be necessary,” she said, as calmly as she could. “Just as you say, there’s too much at stake. I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done already . . .”

  “Don’t mention it. We need the right people in the right positions. People we can rely on. We all agree on that, Stigsson, my employers, and I.”

  He patted her knee again.

  “You’re so like your father, Rebecca, have I already said that? Conscientious, loyal, reliable, no matter what the circumstances. Those qualities are getting harder and harder to find in today’s egocentric society . . .”

  She couldn’t help blushing.

  In the gloom of the back of the car, if she squinted slightly Uncle Tage looked very much like Dad. His posture, his slightly archaic way of speaking, even the way he smelled was almost the same.

  Cigars, aftershave, and something else.

  Something that brought a rather sad lump to her throat.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  He was pinned down on the floor, with Jeff lying motionless on top of him. The van was bouncing and lurching along on the gravel track, making the strut holding one of the seats dig into his leg. Weirdly, he couldn’t hear any sounds around him above the high-pitched whistling tinnitus noise that seemed to be rebounding around his head. He pressed his hands against the floor and tried to pry himself free.

  Suddenly he felt Jeff move, and a moment later the heavy body rolled off him.

  At the same time his hearing returned.

  “What the fuck happened?” he yelped.

  “The barn!” Nora shouted.

  “W-what?” He tried to get up off the floor.

  “The barn exploded,” she yelled, trying to wedge herself against one of the side windows.

  “The roof fell in, then there was an explosion . . . The sky was full of smoke and there was no sign of the helicopter. Don’t know what happened!”

  “The explosives . . .” Jeff coughed. “The explosives and detonators were in the Polo, next to the welding tubes. The trunk was open. And there was chemical fertilizer in those white sacks in the corner . . .”

  HP struggled up into the seat next to Jeff. The big man’s eyes were closed and HP could clearly see his muscular chest rise and fall under his soaking-wet T-shirt.

  The van flew over a bump and HP found himself on the floor again.

  There was a thud, then the van veered sharply to the left, and suddenly the sound of the road changed.

  “Nice driving, Kent!” Nora yelled toward the front seats, and Kent muttered something in reply.

  “We’re out on the main road,” she said, helping HP up.

  “How’s your . . . ?” He nodded to her blood-streaked face.

  She put her hand to her head, then stared at the blood on it.

  “Shit!” she said. “I hadn’t noticed, must be the adrenaline. I’ve got the first-aid box in the front . . .”

  She clambered past him and slipped into the front passenger seat.

  He leaned forward to ask whether she needed help, but a hand pulled him back.

  Jeff had his eyes open.

  “Thanks,” he said quietly.

  “No worries,” HP mumbled.

  Jeff nodded, then shut his eyes again.

  “There’s a gas station up ahead, can you pull in there?” Nora said to Hasselqvist.

  HP leaned over to look out the side window. A large plume of smoke was clearly visible above the forest, but there was no sign of the helicopter.

  “There’s a car-wash shed around the back, pull in there. We can lie low till it gets dark,” Nora went on.

  Hasselqvist drove around the building and slipped inside the shed, a corrugated metal box with a row of vacuum cleaners and buckets along one wall. A lone pensioner was washing the windshield of his old Saab, but otherwise it was empty. Hasselqvist stopped the van and they sat in silence for a few moments.

  Nora was using the mirror behind the sun visor to inspect the wound to her head.

  “Ow, shit . . .” she muttered as she used a pair of tweezers to pull a razor-sharp splinter the size of a one-krona coin from the wound.

  “Can you press here, please, HP?”

  “Sure.”

  He leaned over her head.

  “Right, take this compress and hold it down, as hard as you can.”

  He did as she said, trying to get his hands to stop shaking from the adrenaline rush.

  “We’re fucked,” Hasselqvist suddenly blurted out. “They know where we are, what van we’re driving. We’ve got no chance . . .”

  No one said anything.

  “Because surely no one thinks it was a coincidence that that fucking helicopter showed up?” Hasselqvist’s voice was steadier now. “If we set off now, we can be back in the city by midnight. We can come up with a new plan, find another way to—”

  “There is no other way, Kent!” Nora snapped. “And you know that perfectly damn well! If we give up now, we might as well not bother. And that means the Game will win. Is that what you want?
”

  Hasselqvist didn’t answer.

  “We haven’t got any stuff, Nora, all our equipment just went up in smoke,” Jeff muttered. “Without it we don’t stand a chance of getting into the Fortress . . .”

  Total silence descended inside the van.

  “Actually, we do,” HP said after a while, but they all seemed too upset to hear what he said.

  “You asked me to put together a backup plan, remember?”

  He looked at Nora and finally got a reaction.

  “I know how we can get in, but it means you’ll have to do as I say . . .”

  Far in the distance they could hear sirens getting closer. It sounded like several of them.

  “We have to go,” Hasselqvist whimpered.

  “Hang on,” HP said. “The cops always switch their sirens off when they get close to their target . . .

  “So they don’t scare the bad guys away . . .” he added when no one seemed to get what he meant.

  “So as long as the sirens are still on, they haven’t got to where they’re going. Get it?”

  The sirens were close now, at least three of them, maybe more.

  Nora glanced at HP.

  Hasselqvist moved his hand to the ignition key.

  HP put his hand on his shoulder.

  “Just relax, Kent. It’s the fire brigade, I swear,” he said quietly.

  The sirens were so close that the sound echoed around the little tin shed, making the old boy look up from his insect-smeared windshield. Then they slowly diminished in strength. Thirty seconds later they vanished altogether.

  “You can get moving now, Kent,” HP said, patting Hasselqvist on the shoulder. “Head north . . .”

  He leaned back in his seat and tried to gather his thoughts.

  “By the way, there’s something we’ve forgotten . . .” he said as they pulled out onto the main road.

  “Did anyone see how Mange got out?”

  26

  GAME CHANGE

  THE NEW VAN smelled of Car-Freshner. Jasmine. Or possibly just new-car smell . . .

  It had taken him ten minutes or so to steal it from a multistory parking lot, which meant he was losing his touch. As an extra precaution he had nicked a couple of license plates from another car, in case the van’s owner was quick to report it stolen.