Buzz: A Thriller Page 9

  Moussad’s face was bright red, and he was clenching and unclenching his fists. He was a head taller than Aziz, and from HP’s lowly perspective he looked even bigger and more unpleasant.

  But Aziz wasn’t letting himself be intimidated—instead he took another half pace forward so that the shirts of the two men’s uniforms were almost touching.

  For a moment it looked as if the pair of them were about to start fighting.

  HP and the guards held their breath.

  Then Moussad slowly stepped back.

  Aziz roared another order, louder this time, and a moment later HP found himself sitting on the interview chair while one of the guards reluctantly undid his cuffs.

  “Tell me more,” Aziz said curtly once the cell door closed and they were alone.

  9

  FATA MORGANA

  “HELLO?”

  “Good evening, my friend. Has everything gone well?”

  “Everything has gone excellently, entirely according to plan—but of course you already know that.”

  “Any pain?”

  “No more than necessary.”

  “Good, and the retreat?”

  “No problems there either. How have things been going with . . .

  “The Player? It’s a little too early to say yet. I’ll keep you informed.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  They came in the middle of the night. Four Guantánamo gorillas, and just like last time they dragged him off the bunk and cuffed his hands behind his back. This time he couldn’t summon up the energy to put up a fight.

  He was Nick Orton, Thomas Andersen, Charles Herman, and so many other names that he could hardly even remember them.

  Imaginary characters that he had made real, at least for as long as he needed them.

  So why not Vincent Sinclair?

  The hood was pulled on while they were still in his cell, but the guards seemed to notice how apathetic he was and didn’t bother to tie his legs. They led him, stumbling, down one flight of steps, and then another.

  His body felt heavy as lead.

  More steps—he tripped and the guards had to catch him to stop him falling. But they didn’t stop to put him back on his feet. Instead they grabbed him under his arms and picked him up, so high that the tips of his toes just touched the ground. And then the steps came to an end.

  The room they entered was larger, so large that the strained grunts from the guards echoed drily off the walls. Had they really come this way before?

  A faint smell of gasoline and exhaust fumes filtered in under the hood and all of a sudden he felt completely sure. They weren’t on their way to the torture chamber!

  A moment later he was put down in a seat and a heavy car door slammed on him.

  A squeal of tires, a sudden jolt, and they were on their way.

  HP was trying desperately to get his exhausted brain to take in this new information. Someone was sitting to his left in the backseat, because he kept getting whiffs of aftershave. And the car had to have a driver as well.

  So in other words there had to be at least two people apart from him in the vehicle—possibly as many as three—but none of them was saying a word.

  Wherever it was they were going, the driver appeared to be in a hurry. The big engine was roaring and the vehicle’s movements were so abrupt that he kept sliding around on the leather seat.

  Then he noticed a change in the road surface as they switched from smooth tarmac to gravel. A few minutes later the noise disappeared almost entirely and the vehicle began to slip and slide in a very familiar way. HP’s stomach got the message much quicker than his brain, and the panic-stricken lump down there slowly turned into nausea. More lurching, and the hiss as sprays of sand hit the windows.

  They were on their way out into the desert!

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “You’ll see, Becca, it’ll all be fine. I mean, it’s not as if you’ve done anything wrong . . .”

  Micke put his arm around her on the sofa and she fought a sudden urge to shove it off. And to grab hold of the nearest solid object and smash his head in.

  It’ll all be fine, you’ll see . . . If she had twenty kronor for each time she’d heard that comment over the past week. Ludvig, Nina Brandt, and a whole load of other well-meaning souls.

  Was that really the best people could come up with whenever someone was in the shit?

  “Of course I haven’t done anything wrong,” she snapped, unable to stop herself. “What, don’t you believe we were being attacked either?”

  “Of course I do,” he replied quickly, but she took her chance to straighten up and shake off his arm.

  “I just mean that this is bound to blow over soon—”

  She interrupted him with a snort.

  “I wouldn’t bet on that. There are enough people who want to get at me, who don’t actually have to do much more than keep their mouths shut and just watch the show. Gladh, Malmén, Modin, and the others in the team . . .”

  “Don’t forget Gladh’s assistant . . .”

  “Berglund? No, not him!”

  She bit her tongue but it was too late.

  “Why not? I mean, it would make sense for Gladh to ask his assistant to look after something unpleasant like this, wouldn’t it?”

  “Sure,” she muttered, shrugging her shoulders.

  She slid back down in the sofa and locked her eyes quickly on the television.

  “I was thinking of making some tea, do you want a cup?” she said in a far gentler voice a minute or so later.

  “Mmm,” he replied.

  On her way out into the kitchen she surreptitiously picked up her cell from the hall table.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  They had been rolling around for a quarter of an hour or so, and finally the pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place.

  There weren’t going to be any more questions.

  Just as Aziz had said, he had a previous conviction for murder, had entered the country on a false passport, and appeared to be closely connected to the crime. No one believed he was innocent.

  What with all the bling, he’d forgotten that the country was actually a dictatorship. A poor, helpless Western woman—kidnapped and murdered out in the desert. That sort of thing could scare off tourists and big business alike. It would cost millions of dollars in bad PR and lost business deals. Much better to put a lid on it and pretend the whole thing never happened. All they had to do was get rid of the last remaining loose thread and literally bury the story where it started.

  In the sand . . .

  He could feel tears of panic bubbling in his chest and bit his bottom lip to stop them escaping.

  Suddenly the car stopped and he heard the driver’s door slam shut.

  This train terminates here—all change, please!

  Damndamndamndamndamndamn!!!

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  She shouldn’t really let it bother her.

  So what if someone was talking shit about her? It had probably happened plenty of times before. The only difference this time was that she had the chance to follow what was being said.

  Most of them probably didn’t even know her, had no idea who she was or what she’d done. But what if she was wrong?

  What if they were fellow officers, colleagues she’d said hello to in the corridors, or even worked closely with?

  Obviously she should just ignore it all, forget the website, and leave the idiots to say whatever they wanted. But she still couldn’t keep away.

  She kept making little trips to the bedroom to wake the computer from standby mode and check if anything new had appeared.

  Wallowing in the muck, picking at the scab, and tormenting herself with every detail, every single comment until her stomach was a tightly clenched lump and she could hardly breathe the air inside the flat.

  She clattered deliberately noisily with the teapot in an attempt to drown out her thoughts, but it didn’t really work. She’d decided not to tell Micke about the forum. This rubbish was bad eno
ugh, but she was worried that other rumors would start to appear. Rumors that happened to be true . . .

  Everything looked so good on paper. Promotion, her own bodyguard team, and a considerate boyfriend. A villa, a dog, and a Volvo waiting around the corner. All the stuff that had plagued her for years—that had sat like a tight band over her chest—was finally history. It hadn’t been her fault, so she no longer had any reason to torment herself. It ought to be straightforward. Child’s play . . .

  So why couldn’t she do it?

  Was it really so hard just being happy?

  While the kettle boiled she glanced quickly into the living room.

  Micke was still concentrating on the television.

  She took out her cell.

  Wednesday at seven

  Usual place

  Then she pressed Send.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “You’re a fortunate man, Mr. Pettersson,” a clean-shaven Moussad smiled from the seat beside him, in English that was almost as perfect as Anna Argos’s.

  HP’s brain crashed and while it was rebooting he missed the start of Moussad’s story.

  “A clean fingerprint on the lighter and enough traces of skin to check for mitochondrial DNA. We heard from Interpol this morning; they both match a Bruno Hamel, a French-Canadian citizen with an interesting reputation, to put it mildly . . .”

  The police officer paused long enough for HP’s synapses to make at least one functioning connection.

  “Wh-what?”

  “Evidently Monsieur Hamel has made a career for himself as a contract killer. There are at least four open cases that have been put down to him. Would you care to guess what his speciality is?”

  Another smile.

  HP nodded silently.

  “Single women . . .”

  HP suddenly felt his nausea rising.

  All the blood rushed from his head and he was forced to lean forward so as not to pass out.

  Even though Moussad was sitting right next to him, his voice seemed to be coming from far away.

  “What Colonel Aziz didn’t tell you during your conversations was that Mrs. Argos had received death threats. We got confirmation of that when we contacted the police in her home country.”

  “C-Colonel . . . ?” HP stammered, confused.

  Moussad chuckled.

  “It’s a little trick we sometimes use to get quick results. For some reason, unshaven Arabic men who don’t speak English seem to prompt the majority of Westerners to cooperate. Colonel Aziz is my boss, and he’s actually in charge of the whole of the Royal Dubai Criminal Investigation Division.”

  The police officer took a deep breath and held it for a couple of seconds while he waited for HP to straighten up.

  “You understand, Mr. Pettersson, everything seemed crystal clear. The blood, the witnesses, your relationship with Mrs. Argos, and so on . . . But there was one thing that didn’t quite make sense . . .”

  He waved one hand to underline what he was saying.

  “No genuine witness statements fit together a hundred percent, Mr. Pettersson. People simply perceive things differently. But all five of the French citizens who gave statements against you told the same story—exactly the same story, down to the very smallest detail. Do you understand?”

  He went on without waiting for an answer.

  “We suspected something was wrong, and in the end you gave us the evidence we had been looking for,” Moussad continued.

  “Imagine the Frenchmen’s faces when we showed them Interpol’s pictures of Hamel—a professional hit man wanted in several countries, and someone they had done all they could to protect . . .”

  He smiled again, then paused as if he was waiting for some sort of reaction from HP.

  “Someone had Mrs. Argos murdered . . .” Moussad went on, with almost exaggerated clarity, when he didn’t get any response.

  “ . . . and this someone also went to great lengths to frame you, Mr. Pettersson.”

  HP’s world was lurching, and suddenly his nausea got the better of him. As if on a given signal, the car door was opened from outside.

  A moment later he was on all fours and throwing up onto the desert sand.

  Déjà vu!

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The reply came within a minute or so.

  Sure—thought you were going to back out ;)

  She began to write a sarcastic reply but changed her mind. She heard Micke moving on the sofa and quickly deleted the received text.

  The water had boiled and she put two mugs and some biscuits on a small tray.

  When she sat back down on the sofa he put his arm around her and pulled her to him.

  “Good to have you home again,” he muttered.

  She didn’t answer.

  “By the way . . .” she said after a short pause.

  “Hmm?”

  “I won’t be home on Wednesday evening. I thought I might go to the cinema with Nina. I need to clear my head a bit . . .”

  “Okay.”

  He didn’t even look away from the television, which made the lie easier.

  “We might go for a drink afterward, so you don’t have to wait up. I mean, you don’t have to hang around here if you’d rather sleep at yours . . .”

  He turned and gave her a quick sideways glance, and for a moment it looked like he was going to say something. Then he sank back onto the sofa and went on staring at the television.

  “Okay, have fun . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  They shepherded him like a sheep between the indoor palms of the vast terminal building. Moussad on one side of him, the driver on the other. People on the moving walkway hurried to get out of the way, presumably thinking he was a mass murderer or something.

  When he saw the familiar blue-and-white sign he almost burst into tears.

  For a few terrified seconds he was scared they were going to carry on past it. That all this was yet another trick to break his fragile mental state. But they got off the walkway at the right place, went up to the desk, and Moussad handed over a ticket and some documents to the woman behind the SAS counter.

  He didn’t understand a word that was said, but a minute or so later they were standing in the smoking booth by the gate and Moussad was offering him a cigarette from a little flat metal case. HP’s hands were shaking so much he had trouble getting the cigarette lit.

  Then wonderful, deep lungfuls of smoke . . .

  None of them said anything for a while.

  “Wh-what about the Frenchmen?” HP eventually muttered. “What’s going to happen to them?”

  “We’ll hold them for a few weeks while their rich daddies pull every string they can to get them home. In the end I’m sure we’ll find a solution that works for everyone. After all, the ones we’re really after are Monsieur Hamel and his employer . . .”

  HP nodded. Perjury really didn’t matter that much in the greater scheme of things.

  Business is money.

  God, he was so sick of this damned place!

  “Have they said anything about why . . . ? I mean, why they agreed to try to frame me?” he clarified in a monotone.

  Moussad nodded and took a drag on his cigarette.

  “Apparently they met Monsieur Hamel in Goa just a few days before they met you.” He waved his cigarette, sending smoke rising toward the ceiling in little spirals.

  “Just after you left them the Indian police made a raid and a number of the group were found in possession of various illegal substances. Hamel solved the situation there and then, without any of them having to call home to Daddy and making a fool of themselves. My guess is that he actually staged the whole thing to make them feel indebted to him. These people have their own rules, Mr. Pettersson . . .”

  “So the Frenchmen paid the drivers enough for them to go home to Yemen and drop off Vin . . . I mean Hamel at the airport on the way back?”

  “Something like that.” Moussad nodded. “A name matching one of Hamel’s aliases was used t
o leave the country shortly afterward. We’re not entirely sure it was him; the camera footage from the airport isn’t good enough for a hundred percent identification, but it seems likely.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Moussad accompanied him on board, even helping him to stash his luggage in the overhead locker before holding out his hand in farewell.

  “Well, good-bye, Mr. Pettersson.”

  HP hesitated for a couple of seconds, then shook the man’s hand. Strangely enough, the gesture seemed to make the police officer more relaxed.

  “If you hear anything about Mrs. Argos back home in Sweden, anything you think might be of use to the investigation, I’d appreciate it if you got in touch . . . Someone hired Hamel to murder Mrs. Argos, and we’re very keen to get hold of whoever that was.”

  He pulled out a little white business card from the pocket of his neatly pressed shirt.

  HP nodded mutely, and tucked the card away without bothering to look at it.

  The police officer had got as far as the door before HP’s addled brain finally caught up.

  “Moussad . . . ?”

  The man turned around.

  “What makes you think I might hear anything about Anna Argos back home?”

  “So you didn’t know?” Moussad smiled.

  “What?”

  “That Anna Argos was Swedish?”

  10

  HIDE AND SEEK

  Pillars of Society forum

  Posted: 14 November, 16:19

  By: MayBey

  Lying, misleading and manipulation are natural talents for a psychopath.

  The rest of us have to practice to get good at it . . .

  This post has 45 comments

  NOW, IN HINDSIGHT, she seemed to recall having seen the man the first time she went to the gym. Just as they were about to leave Nina had bumped into one of the owners, someone she’d dated for a while. It was while they were kissing each other on the cheek and exchanging small talk—a discussion that had ended with Rebecca being given a month’s free membership—that she thought she had seen him.

  A man with cropped hair on one of the treadmills, not much taller than her. Fit, in the sinewy way she preferred over the gym-pumped version. But it wasn’t primarily the man’s appearance that made her notice him. It was the way he was running. Determined, focused, as if he were pushing for the line in the Olympics.