Bubble: A Thriller Read online

  Blue berets, Cyprus 1964, someone had written on the back in old-fashioned handwriting that looked so much like her dad’s that her heart skipped a beat.

  The focus of the photograph wasn’t great and a lot of the faces were blurred. But one of the men, squatting in the front row, had a very familiar look to his nose and eyes. Had her dad served with the United Nations? And if he had, why hadn’t he ever mentioned it?

  She knew he’d been in the reserves when he was younger, that was how he and Uncle Tage got to know each other, and the meetings of the veterans’ association were one of the few things that used to put him in a good mood. But the fact that he might have served abroad and never mentioned it seemed very odd. Okay, so he hadn’t been the talkative type, but at the very least he ought to have had one of those pennants, certificates, or some other souvenir, like the things all her colleagues who had served with the UN usually adorned their offices with.

  She had been through her childhood home in her head several times now, but couldn’t recall ever seeing anything like that. Mom’s collection of Spanish bullfighter dolls and jubilee plates were pretty much the only ornaments they’d had in the house, and there had been nothing in Dad’s possessions after his death that gave any clue. Apart from his shirts and suits, a few bits of heavy furniture, and his worn-out typewriter, his remaining possessions had fit into a plastic bag.

  She had pretty much given up any idea that the revolver could have been Dad’s old service weapon. Officers in the reserves in the fifties and sixties had been allocated pistols rather than revolvers, as far as she had been able to find out. Besides, the army would have been in touch if his gun had gone missing. Nothing she had found in the safe-deposit box made any sense, and there was really only one person who could help her come to grips with it.

  She pulled the keyboard toward her, logged into her Hotmail account, and opened a new email.

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: UN service

  Dear Uncle Tage,

  ···

  I hope you are well.

  I have recently come across some things of Dad’s that were stored in a safe-deposit box. Among them is a photograph from a UN mission in Cyprus in 1964.

  I didn’t actually know that Dad had served with the UN, and I was hoping you might be able to tell me a bit more?

  Feel free to call me!

  Best wishes,

  Rebecca

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  He raced toward the lift, then realized it was on its way down to the City Museum and changed direction toward the large stone staircase a few meters away.

  He took the steps two at a time, pushing some parents with small children out of the way as he rushed for the main entrance. He had lost a bit of time, but there was a long, glassed-in corridor leading from the lift to the entrance to the museum. There was no way the guy would get to the end of the corridor before he did.

  The sliding doors had barely opened before he was through them.

  Just as he had expected, he got there first.

  He took a couple of deep breaths, then began to walk slowly down the long corridor leading toward the shiny lift doors.

  His jaw was clenched, and he could feel the blood surging behind his eyelids. Any moment now the lift doors would open and he would be standing face-to-face with Erman.

  Because that must have been Erman he saw?

  Clean-shaven, nice and clean, and several kilos lighter. But it was still him, for fuck’s sake.

  So he clearly hadn’t been burned alive out there in the bush at Fjärdhundra, it didn’t look as if the allergy to electricity that had forced him to lead a low-tech life was bothering him anymore.

  Which meant what . . . ?

  Well, that was what he was planning to find out the moment the lift doors opened. Possibly rather more violently than the situation demanded . . .

  He was clenching and unclenching his fists, and could almost taste the adrenaline on his tongue.

  Ten seconds passed.

  Twenty.

  Thirty.

  Okay, so the lift was the slow sort meant for the disabled, but still—it ought to have been there by now.

  He hit the lift button, then looked around, wondering for a moment if he should dash back up to the square again.

  But suddenly the lift made a pinging sound that almost made him jump out of his shoes.

  His heart was doing somersaults in his chest as he raised his fists and got ready.

  The doors slowly opened.

  8

  . . . IT DOESN’T MEAN THEY AREN’T AFTER YOU

  “YES, HELLO?”

  “Good afternoon, my dear friend, or perhaps it’s morning?”

  “Yes, it’s actually morning here. It’s good that you’ve called. Is everything okay?”

  “More or less . . .”

  “What do you mean? Shouldn’t . . . ?”

  “Don’t worry, my dear friend, the pieces are about to fall into place.”

  “I hope so. Failure is not an option.”

  “So I’ve understood . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “My dear Rebecca, how lovely to see you!”

  “Hello, Uncle Tage, good to see you too . . .”

  She was ten minutes early for their meeting, but of course he was already there.

  “I thought you were abroad, when did you get home?” She leaned over the café table and kissed the old man on the cheek.

  He still smelled the same. Shaving cream, aftershave, cigars, and something else very familiar. Something she liked . . .

  “Oh, a few weeks ago. Would you like something? Coffee, tea? No, how silly of me . . . Excuse me!”

  He waved the waitress over.

  “A cappuccino, please, with lactose-free milk, if that’s possible?” she said.

  He smiled at Rebecca, but it took her a few seconds to return his smile.

  He didn’t seem to have noticed her reaction.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch before, Rebecca, dear, but since I got home my calendar has been completely full . . . These are hectic times, but of course you know that as well as I do.”

  He smiled again, then sipped his coffee.

  “Of course,” she mumbled. “Absolutely,” she added in a clearer voice.

  The waitress returned with her cappuccino, and she took a quick sip.

  “So, how’s your new job, Rebecca? I can imagine it’s rather different from working for the Security Police?”

  “It’s good, thanks. We’ve had a bit of trouble getting everything set up—equipment, staff, licenses, and a whole load of other things. The paperwork has taken much longer than I expected.”

  “The wheels of Swedish bureaucracy turn very slowly . . .”

  “You can say that again!” This time his smile was easier to return.

  “In which case I would guess that you’ve applied to be allowed to bear weapons in the course of your work. It’s not usually particularly straightforward for private companies to get approval for that. The state is very precious about its monopoly on violence . . .”

  She opened her mouth to say something but closed it again at once. Instead she merely nodded. She shouldn’t really be surprised. Uncle Tage had always seemed to know almost exactly what she was doing, even when she worked for the Security Police, and nothing seemed to have changed just because she had a new job. The idea that he was somehow watching over her made her earlier disappointment disappear completely.

  “Perhaps I might be able to help? As you know, I still have a number of contacts . . .”

  “That would be great!”

  She remembered very well how his contacts had helped her the previous winter. He had managed to get her cleared of suspicions of misuse of office, and saved her from getting fired. She really shouldn’t be exploiting his willingness to help in such a paltry matter, but he had volunteered, and she had already had two applications for a weapons
license rejected.

  The members of her team were complaining more loudly now, and it was only a matter of time before their grumbling reached the bosses. And that was something she could do without . . .

  “If it isn’t too much trouble, I mean . . . ?” she added.

  “Not at all, I’ll make a couple of calls on Monday. No guarantees, of course, but I shall do what I can. What else are friends for, if not to help each other . . . ?”

  “Thanks very much, I really appreciate it, Uncle Tage.”

  He put his cup down and gently pushed it aside.

  “Now, to the matter you were asking about. As I said, I didn’t really want to discuss it by email. Some things are better dealt with face-to-face . . .”

  She nodded.

  “I’m very happy to tell you about my and your father’s shared past, but first it’s my turn to ask you for a small favor, Rebecca . . .”

  “Anything, Uncle Tage, you know that . . .”

  “Good.”

  He lowered his voice and leaned across the table.

  “You mentioned a safe-deposit box that had belonged to your father, and an old photograph?”

  “Yes, that’s right . . .”

  He leaned forward even further.

  “I want you to tell me exactly what you found, Rebecca. It’s very important that you don’t leave anything out!”

  She was taken aback by the sudden sharpness in his voice and leaned back slightly.

  “Some documents,” she replied, fingering her coffee cup.

  “What sort of documents, Rebecca?” His stare seemed to go right through her and she took an exaggeratedly slow sip of coffee to have a reason to look away. Tage Sammer was one of her dad’s oldest friends, someone she trusted. Yet she still felt suddenly hesitant.

  “I understand that this is rather sensitive. We are talking about your father, after all.”

  His tone was softer now, more personal.

  “Let me see if I can’t help you a little, Rebecca, my dear . . .”

  He glanced quickly at the next table, then lowered his voice a bit more.

  “Might the documents possibly have been passports—foreign passports containing your father’s photograph?”

  She hesitated for a few more seconds, then nodded slowly.

  “I understand . . .” he repeated, and this time his voice sounded almost sad.

  They sat there in silence while he seemed to ponder the matter.

  “A safe-deposit box is actually a sort of bubble, has that occurred to you, Rebecca? Life outside goes on, things change, but in there time stands still. Much like life itself. We create our own reality, small spheres where we imagine we control what happens. In actual fact the feeling of control is just an illusion, and those spheres are nothing more than bubbles. But all bubbles are doomed to burst sooner or later, aren’t they?”

  He shook his head.

  “You must promise to keep what I’m about to tell you to yourself, Rebecca,” he went on.

  She nodded.

  “You mustn’t share it with anyone, not even your brother. As you know, Henrik isn’t capable of keeping a secret in the same way as you or I, and if what I’m about to say were to get out, there would be consequences, serious consequences. Do you understand?”

  “Of course, Uncle Tage. You can trust me.”

  “Yes, I know I can, Rebecca. You’re more like your father than you realize . . .”

  He gave her a wry smile that made her heart skip a beat.

  “It all started in 1964, in a small village in northern Cyprus. I was the company commander, and your father was one my four platoon leaders. We already knew each other from Officer Training College and got on well. Erland might not have been the most natural leader, but he made up for it by being extremely well prepared for any possible scenario. And he was reliable and loyal, qualities that are becoming harder and harder to find these days . . .”

  He turned his coffee cup gently.

  “On one occasion we were dispatched to protect a Turkish Cypriot village that was coming under constant fire from superior and considerably better armed Greek Cypriot forces.

  “Unfortunately our presence didn’t put a stop to hostilities and we were forced to watch as the Turkish Cypriot village was blown to pieces. Your father and a couple of his colleagues had great difficulty accepting that we had no mandate to intervene in order to protect the weaker party. Erland was a man of firm principles . . .”

  She nodded.

  “Well, unfortunately their frustration led to them loading up two of our UN-marked vehicles with a couple of heavy machine guns and several boxes of ammunition, with the intention of driving them over to the Turkish Cypriots. The idea was presumably to even out the fight, if only slightly. It wasn’t a declaration of political intent, and even if they had succeeded in delivering the arms, I doubt they would have made much difference . . .”

  He shook his head slowly.

  “But they were stopped at a Greek Cypriot roadblock, and all hell broke loose . . . There was a thorough investigation, your father and his colleagues were relieved of duty immediately, and the whole Swedish contingent of UN forces was reallocated at once to the southern part of the island. Erland took the whole thing very hard. He believed that he had merely been acting to protect the weaker party, according to orders. I can’t pretend that I didn’t sympathize with him, but the regulations were crystal clear and not only had he broken them, he had also damaged confidence in the whole UN mission.”

  “So what happened?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Instant dismissal from both the UN and the Swedish Army. As his immediate superior I was forced to sign the papers. A sad day. A very sad day . . .”

  He paused for a few seconds as he went on toying with his empty coffee cup.

  “You see, Rebecca, your father liked being an officer, part of a larger context, surrounded by peers. He had been looking forward to a long and successful career in the military. And when this was suddenly taken away from him, he became . . .”

  “Bitter . . .”

  He looked up.

  “I was thinking of saying ‘a different man,’ but of course you’re right. Erland was never quite himself again . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Empty!

  The bastard lift had been fucking empty! He still couldn’t work out how it had happened.

  Not in the lift, not in the corridor, not in the entrance to the museum. So where the hell had the guy gone? After all, he couldn’t have pulled some magic trick and disappeared in a puff of smoke, could he?

  But he knew what was going on. The bastards were messing with his head! Not content with keeping track of his every move and listening through the walls, now they were playing mind games on him. Sneaking into the flat when he was out, planting the phone and that message. Getting him to chase a ghost halfway across Södermalm.

  Well, they weren’t going to break him that easily! He’d started piling furniture against the door at night, and on the few occasions he went out, he stuck strands of hair across the crack of the door so he could see whether they’d been in. But he’d much rather just not go out.

  The whole of his living room floor was covered with pizza boxes and newspapers and magazines. He’d pretty much stripped the shelves at the newsstand, and the signs were unmistakable. Weird shit was going on all over the place: computer systems shutting down for no reason, stopping chemists from issuing prescriptions, closing the barriers in the tunnel network of the Southern Link Road, or switching off the landing lights at Arlanda Airport. People going out to buy cigarettes but never coming home. Things simply vanishing—like that flag out at Kastellholmen that’s always supposed to fly in peacetime. Yesterday morning it was suddenly missing, and Stockholm’s pensioners blocked the army’s telephone exchange with worried calls. The newspapers seemed to think it was great fun. An innocent prank ahead of the royal wedding . . .

  As usual, the world full of average
Swedes had no idea.

  No flag—no peace.

  In other words, war!

  Well, if it was war they wanted, they could have it!

  Big-time!

  He got up from the floor and scratched his beard as he marched over to the fridge. Time to check his supplies: four low-strength lagers, six Gorby pies, half a tube of fish roe.

  The top shelf of the pantry increased his assets by three slices of crispbread and a can of frankfurters. The second shelf was full of silver duct tape. Sixteen rolls, to be precise. He did a quick calculation on his fingers. Another three days, possibly four, before he needed to go out again.

  Good!

  He had a lot to sort out, things to do . . .

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “So where do the passports come in?”

  He took a deep breath, then slowly let the air out again.

  “What I’ve told you so far isn’t particularly sensitive. You can find it all on the Internet or in various books about the history of the UN. But what I’m about to say is strictly confidential. I hope you understand that?”

  She nodded.

  “After the Cyprus mission I continued my career in the military. We were in the middle of the Cold War and the army was larger and far more influential than it is today. Erland and I kept in touch, mostly at my initiative because I felt a certain degree of guilt about what had happened. I had been both his friend and his commanding officer, yet I still hadn’t been able to help him. But as my career in the military developed, I realized that there was always a need for loyal, decisive men like Erland. I began to use him for a number of . . . small consultancy tasks, I suppose you could call them. Would you like anything else to drink, by the way? Some mineral water, perhaps?”

  He waved the waitress over and ordered two bottles of Ramlösa, which she brought over at once.

  “These consultancy jobs, what did they involve?” Rebecca asked after taking a drink.