Bubble: A Thriller Read online

“Hang on, I’ll get it.” Nora slipped into the aisle seat and leaned over to help him. “You have to lift them up first, then twist the two flat pieces apart.”

  Her head was right next to his face, he could feel her fingers against his chest, and for a few moments he thought he could smell her shampoo.

  Strange how the artificial scent of flowers could make him feel a bit better . . .

  “There!” Nora said as the straps slipped apart.

  He pulled the backpack off and slid it onto the floor. Just to be on the safe side he leaned it against one of his legs so he’d feel if anything happened to it. Then he leaned back, massaged his aching shoulders, and resisted a sudden urge to close his eyes.

  The train had built up speed and the gentle rocking motion was almost impossible to resist.

  But he was going to try.

  He turned toward Nora. She was just putting a little sachet of chewing tobacco in her mouth, and he waited politely for her to slot it into place under her top lip.

  “We’ll be back in the city in less than two hours,” he said in a low voice. “All we need to put a stop to this is a computer with a decent connection. There’s an Internet café at Hötorget, I’ve used it a couple of times before . . .”

  She nodded as she adjusted the position of the tobacco with her tongue. The movement fascinated him, almost making him lose his thread of thought.

  “That sounds good, HP, we’ll aim for that. Have you thought about what we’re going to do after that?”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t really give a shit. Once the files are out there PayTag will sink like a stone, probably dragging the Game Master down with it, maybe even the whole Game. They’re going to have their hands full trying to save their own skin . . .”

  “And you think they’ll just forget about us?”

  “That remains to be seen . . .”

  He shrugged.

  “So, how about telling me how you got involved in all this?” he said a few moments later, without really knowing why.

  Slowly, she put the pack of chewing tobacco away as she thought about her response.

  “It’s quite a long story . . .” she said.

  “I’m not doing anything for the next hour or so,” he replied, and tried to conjure up his most charming smile.

  “Okay, but it’ll have to be the short version. We could both do with a bit of a rest . . . I used to play top-level handball. It was going pretty well, I even got selected for the national squad. Trained practically every day . . .”

  He nodded to demonstrate his interest, which was easier than he’d expected.

  “I lived for sport, for the camaraderie of the team, the competition. Then I picked up an injury.”

  “Ouch.”

  He could have kicked himself. Time for some serious empathy, and the best he could come up with was “ouch” . . . ?

  But Nora didn’t seem bothered.

  “The cruciate ligament in one knee became detached, and the doctor told me my body just couldn’t handle that amount of training. I was determined to make a comeback, did the whole rehab thing, but it was never the same again. Once you’ve had problems with your ligaments you never get back to where you were. From having been one of the best, I came back as no better than average. So I trained even harder, which was obviously really stupid.”

  She shook her head.

  “So I kept picking up more injuries and ended up spending more and more time on the bench. In the end I decided to quit, before I got dropped . . . I didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction, better to go before I was humiliated—at least that was my reasoning. Now in hindsight that wasn’t particularly smart . . . Can you imagine the withdrawal symptoms?”

  He nodded. His eyelids suddenly felt heavy, but he really did want to hear the rest. He thought he had a pretty good idea where the story was heading.

  “So I directed my energy into my studies instead, got my degree, and started work as a vet. But I missed sports so fucking much. Nothing else even came close. So when the Game Master contacted me, offering me a new sense of belonging, a new game plan . . .”

  She shrugged.

  “How did that come about? I mean, how did he get hold of you, the Game Master?”

  “It started with a simple email, an offer . . .”

  “. . . ‘to take part in a completely unique experience, unlike anything you’ve ever done before’ . . .”

  “Something like that, yes.” She smiled. “It wasn’t until much later that I realized they’d been checking me out. They knew all about who I was, what I’d done. How I worked, what buttons they had to press . . .”

  He nodded.

  “Sounds familiar . . .”

  HP’s head was feeling heavier and heavier, and he had to struggle just to keep his eyes open.

  “Look, that business with the fire in your flat . . .” she went on.

  “We don’t have to talk about that now . . .” he mumbled.

  “I know, but I want to. You’re right, it was me. But you were never supposed to get hurt, I called the fire brigade before I even started the fire. I wanted to be sure they were on their way . . . but obviously that doesn’t make it okay. My only excuse is that I wasn’t thinking straight. All I wanted was to move up that list, get to the top . . .”

  He waved one hand.

  “You really don’t have to explain . . .”

  “Okay, but I feel like I should. I don’t want you to think I—”

  “I don’t, it’s fine. Trust me, the Game Master got me to do far worse things . . .”

  The door at the end of the car suddenly opened and a man in a dark jacket came in.

  He looked around the car in a way that made HP dodge below the back of the seat in front.

  The door opened again and the man was joined by a woman.

  They seemed to discuss something for a moment, then returned to the car they had come from.

  “False alarm,” Nora said. “They were just looking for empty seats . . . Look, what I was saying, I’m sorry about the fire,” she went on. “You’ve got to believe me. I wasn’t thinking straight . . .”

  “Nora, it’s okay.”

  His head suddenly felt as if it were full of porridge and he was having trouble holding it upright.

  “Look, I’m wiped out, how about getting some rest?” he muttered. “We can swap more war stories later . . .”

  “Sure.” She nodded. “No problem.”

  He leaned his head back and she was quick to follow his example.

  A couple of minutes later she cautiously opened her eyes. She listened to his heavy breathing, then leaned forward and gently pulled out the backpack from where he had put on the floor.

  Then she slid silently out of her seat and left the car.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “I’m very pleased to have caught you, Miss Normén.”

  It was Sammer, closely followed by Stigsson and the vaguely familiar man she had glimpsed in the office the previous day.

  “Both I and Superintendent Stigsson are extremely grateful for your cooperation. We are both deeply impressed by the strength of character and loyalty that you’ve shown.”

  She smiled uncertainly, partly because she was having trouble with this whole charade, and partly because she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to react to the unexpected praise.

  “T-thanks,” she managed to say.

  The third man in the group held out his hand.

  “Erik af Cederskjöld, press spokesman for the Palace. Good to meet you. Colonel Pellas speaks very highly of you.” He smiled.

  His handshake felt damp, and his smile only reached halfway to his eyes. She had no difficulty seeing through his fake politeness.

  “Nice to meet you,” she muttered. “I’m afraid I have to go, we’re on our way now.”

  “Of course,” Sammer/Pellas said. “I just wanted to wish you good luck, Miss Normén . . .”

  She met his gaze, and just as the other two men
turned away, he gave her a quick wink.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  He was in a labyrinth, he realized that pretty much straightaway. The pink walls around him didn’t quite reach all the way to the ceiling, and seemed to start and stop without any discernible logic.

  He had no idea how he’d ended up there, nor how he was supposed to know who was chasing him. The passageway behind and in front of him was empty, and there wasn’t a sound to be heard anywhere. Yet he still knew they were out there, that they were making their way toward him on all sides through the maze.

  The straps of the backpack were cutting into his shoulders and the pain was so bad it was making him screw up his eyes, but he kept going. Somewhere inside this labyrinth was the solution to everything, he was convinced of that.

  If only he could get there first, everything would be all right.

  When he turned a corner she was just sitting there. A little girl with a red headband, and he knew at once who she was. She had her hands over her face but looked up as he came closer.

  “Is this the Luttern labyrinth?” she said, and her voice was just as he remembered it.

  “Of course it is,” he heard himself reply. “You can come with me, if you like?”

  He held out his hand but she didn’t take it.

  “I daren’t,” she said. “He says you’re dangerous . . .”

  “Who? The Carer?”

  “No, I don’t know him.”

  The next moment he heard steps approaching. Sounds from all directions. Polished black shoes on tarmac. And he knew who they belonged to. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

  “Come on,” he said to the girl. “You have to come with me . . .”

  She shook her head.

  “If I go with you, we’ll both die.”

  “But you have to. The Carer . . .” All of a sudden his voice sounded whiny, like a small child’s.

  She stood up, and suddenly it was as if they had both changed and swapped roles. She leaned over him, stroked his hair, and kissed his cheek.

  “Forget the Carer. People only come to the Luttern labyrinth for one reason, little Henke,” she whispered. “They come here to die . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  He was sitting two cars away, and as soon as he caught sight of her his face burst into a smile.

  “Well done, Nora, I knew you could do it.”

  “Thanks.”

  She sat down in the empty seat beside him and handed over the backpack. He put it down on the floor without showing the slightest inclination to open it.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she muttered.

  “What about him?”

  No answer.

  “We had no choice, you know that, Nora . . .”

  “Yes, I know . . . How’s Jeff?”

  “Don’t worry about him, he’s perfectly safe where he is. So, how long have we got?”

  “Half an hour, maybe a bit longer. I put half a Rohypnol in his Coke, and together with his lack of sleep . . .” She shrugged.

  “Good, plenty of time. It’s up there.”

  He gestured toward the luggage rack above them.

  “What about her, his sister?” Nora said.

  “She’s exactly where she needs to be . . .”

  He looked at her for a few moments.

  “You like him, don’t you?” he finally said. “HP, I mean . . .”

  Nora didn’t answer.

  Instead she stood up, got the object down from the rack, and put it over her shoulder.

  “He thinks you were manipulated,” she said curtly. “That you meant well, but were deceived also. He’d rather believe that than the alternative, Mange . . .”

  31

  POINT OF NO RETURN

  THEY WERE IN position outside the cathedral.

  Six of them around the carriage. Runeberg in front on the right, with her in the same position on the left.

  Two troops of Horse Guards in ceremonial uniform were grouped around the obelisk in front of the Palace. The horses were stamping anxiously at the cobblestone, the sound of their hooves echoing between the buildings.

  For what must’ve been the tenth time, she ran through her equipment. Baton, radio, pistol. All of it fastened to her belt under her jacket.

  The wire from the radio ran up her back and turned into a curly little telephone cable above her collar before reaching the earpiece in her left ear.

  In the other ear she had the speaker connected to the cell phone in her inside pocket.

  She tried jogging a few steps down the slope in front of the Palace.

  No problem, everything was where it should be.

  She glanced at the time.

  Forty minutes left.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Wake up, HP!” She shook him gently on the shoulder.

  He opened his eyes reluctantly, and it took him a few seconds to realize where he was.

  “We’re almost there,” she said.

  “Okay.” He sat up, rubbed his eyes, then looked down at the floor for the backpack.

  It was gone!

  Panic-stricken, he leaned down so quickly that he banged his head on the seat in front. Then he realized it had just slid under his seat slightly.

  “You were talking in your sleep,” Nora said.

  “Oh?” He sat up again, rubbing his head.

  “The same words, over and over again.”

  “What words?”

  “ ‘The Luttern labyrinth.’ What does that mean?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “You tell me. I’ve been trying to work it out for weeks now. Luttern is a region in northern Germany, in Westphalia, to be more precise. That’s all I’ve managed to find out.”

  “Okay, well, that explains the street name . . .”

  “What?”

  “Westphalia was Swedish once, that’s why they named a street after it.”

  “Hang on, what are you talking about? There’s no Lutternsgatan in Stockholm . . .”

  “No, not anymore there isn’t. They got rid of it when they built Kungsgatan. They did away with another road at the same time, Hötorgsgränd . . .”

  She was interrupted by an announcement over the loudspeaker.

  We will shortly be arriving at Stockholm Central Station. The platform will be on the left-hand side of the train, facing the direction of travel.

  We at Swedish Railways would like to welcome you to Stockholm, and once again, we apologize for the late arrival of this train . . .

  Nora stood up from her seat.

  “Time to go . . .”

  He stretched, then squeezed out of the window seat.

  “So where was it, then, Lutternsgatan?”

  “Where Malmskillnadsgatan crosses Kungsgatan, I think.

  “I did a unit on the architecture of Stockholm at university, in case you’re wondering . . .” she added. “The only reason I remember Lutternsgatan is that we were given half the day off to go and take pictures of the sign . . .”

  The train was slowing down jerkily, making the car sway.

  “The sign?” He pulled the backpack on.

  “There’s a sign under the Malmskillnad Bridge . . .” She helped him with the straps. “ ‘To commemorate the breaching of the Brunkeberg Ridge and the successful union of separate districts of the city,’ something like that. It was part of the test . . .”

  The train slowed down a bit more.

  She carefully fastened the metal catch across his chest and pulled up the hood of his jacket. The other people in the car were starting to make their way to the exits, but Nora took his hand and forced her way through to one of the doors. The train pulled slowly into the platform.

  They saw the men at once. Two of them in dark suits and sunglasses, standing at one end of the platform. Then another two in the middle of the platform. Their earpieces were clearly visible. Nora squeezed his hand.

  “Ready?” He nodded.

  She turned toward him a
nd started fiddling with the thick flap of material above the catch of the backpack, adjusting the Velcro several times before she was satisfied. It felt bulky against his chest, as if it had grown while he was asleep.

  “There, now you’ll be able to run without it rubbing.”

  The train made a few last jolts.

  “If we get separated, don’t wait for me,” she said. “The mission comes first, so whatever happens you have to get to that Internet café, okay?”

  He nodded.

  “Good.”

  Just as the door began to bleep, she leaned forward, put her hand behind his back, and kissed him.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Thirty minutes to go, are you ready?”

  She nodded to Runeberg as he marched toward her over the cobblestone, but he didn’t respond.

  “Over here, everyone.”

  The other four bodyguards joined them.

  “We’ve just received new information. The two remaining suspects from the chase up in the forest outside Uppsala may have managed to get back to Stockholm.”

  “Are we canceling the cortege?” one of the other bodyguards asked.

  Runeberg shook his head. “Apparently the threat isn’t serious enough . . .”

  He gave Rebecca a quick look.

  “Someone really wants this cortege to go ahead. At almost any cost, it would seem . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  She let a few eager passengers out first before pulling him onto the platform.

  The train on the other side of the platform must have just arrived as well, because the platform was soon full of people heading in all directions.

  They zigzagged their way forward, trying to keep their heads down.

  The exit was getting closer.

  A loud cry behind them made him look back.

  Two men in suits were heading straight for them.

  “Come on!”

  Nora dragged him after her, forging ahead faster and faster.

  Off to the left in front of them two more men were trying to elbow their way through the crowd of passengers. Nora broke into a run, pushing a couple of people straight at the two men. One of the passengers fell over right in front of the suits. But Nora didn’t stop. She pulled his hand harder, sped up, and found a gap along the edge of the platform.

  The exit was getting nearer.

  Then he caught sight of the man from the Fortress. His square frame was unmistakable. The security chief, the man he’d almost run over . . .