The Complete Game Trilogy: Game, Buzz, Bubble

7

Fair Game

The note was waiting for her when she opened her locker and for a moment she was almost surprised. But then reality caught up with her. A little white post-it note with the police force logo in the top-right corner, just like the others, and fixed to the edge of the little shelf towards the top of the locker.

She touched it, stroking her fingertips over it and silently repeated the words which had been written in red ink. Round, almost childish lettering, yet the message was anything but innocent. Really she ought to pull it off, crumple it up and get rid of it. But she knew that if she did, it would only be replaced with a new one. And why not, really? The note was basically right.

A ‘murdering little whore’, that’s what Dag’s sister had called her at the funeral. Deathly-pale with her arm around her sobbing mother, Nilla had pointed and shouted those very words so loudly that no-one could have missed a single syllable.

‘It’s all your fault, you murdering little whore. You killed him, you and your damn brother! How the hell have you got the nerve to show yourself here?’

The church had fallen utterly silent. Even the priest seemed to be staring at her as she stood there alone in the middle of the aisle, among all the seated black-clad figures.

And she knew that Nilla was right.

She didn’t belong there, she had nothing in common with the people who were mourning Dag’s death. With people who would like nothing more than for him to be alive still instead of in the coffin up at the front by the altar. Because she wasn’t one of them. She was happy, yes, actually happy, that Dag was dead, that he could no longer make her life a living hell. For a moment she was on the point of yelling that at them. That their beloved son, brother, grandchild, relative or great mate was nothing but a fully paid-up fucking psychopath. That he was violent towards women, a rapist, a bully – in short, a complete pig of a human being – and that she was relieved, no, positively overjoyed that it was his broken body in the wooden box up there rather than hers.

But of course she said none of that. Instead she merely nodded curtly at Nilla, turned on her heel and, all eyes on her, walked out of the church and out of her old life.

Two months later she applied to the Police Academy. Took the bull by the horns and confronted her fears, under a different surname as a thin cover for her new, fragile identity. And as time passed her new self grew stronger and stronger. So strong that she had started to think she no longer needed any protection.

At least, she’d believed that up to now.

But Nilla had been wrong about one thing.

Rebecca was responsible, not her little brother. Henke was innocent, but he was still the one who had been punished.

‘It was me who did it,’ he had told the police when they came, and they had believed him. She had wanted to protest, yell at him to shut up, or just simply and calmly explain what had really happened. But it was as if her insides had frozen to ice around an impossibly cold heart. That paused image of Dag’s last seconds alive had taken root inside her head and was stopping her from thinking, speaking or even moving. And then it went on paralysing her through the interviews and later during the trial, while that useless lawyer messed everything up. And, having always been the person who protected him, she just watched as her little brother assumed responsibility for everything. How he protected her and how she let him do it without raising a finger.

She let him throw away his life, his future, all his opportunities, all for her sake.

That little white note was right. Someone like her shouldn’t be in the police. That’s why she left it where it was.

Nilla had been a civilian employee with the Södertälje Police back then. At a guess she was still there, and she was bound to know someone who knew someone … And the story would have got round. That was always the way. The police force was large, but not that large, and police officers loved talking shit about other people, just like everyone else. Really she ought to phone Nilla and explain to her just what sort of person her wonderful big brother was. Put a stop to all the talk and people looking over their shoulders at her. Clear the air once and for all and say what really happened that night, and why.

She had toyed with the idea before, but always came up with some reason not to do it. Maybe it was time now?

She would think about it, think about it properly, she promised herself as she pulled on her bulletproof vest and buttoned her shirt.

When she closed her locker a short while later, the note was still in place.

Okay, he had to admit it. He was disappointed, seriously fucking disappointed, even! After his big moment and his elevation to first Runner-up, he had expected more challenges of the same level as the one he had just accomplished. More chances to end up in the spotlight, to garner points, love and cred on his way to the top.

But instead he had been given a couple of shitty little tasks. Stupid stuff that any nobody with a couple of functioning brain-cells and a tiny pair of balls could have handled.

First he’d had to set up an anonymous internet account and empty a few buckets of bile over a popular blogger on her homepage, which in retrospect turned out to be unnecessary seeing as more than fifty other trolls had already done the same thing. The woman in question had evidently stepped on someone’s toes, she did that pretty much on a daily basis, but why waste his talents on shit like that?

Assignment number two was in the same class, a phone call to a television channel to threaten a famous presenter. Child’s play, and in total he’d only earned four hundred points and had as a result slipped two places on the list. The flow of love that had washed over him after the business in Kungsträdgården had quickly reduced to the Manneken fucking Pis. A pathetic little trickle that stung more than it did any good. And someone else appeared to have replaced him as clip of the week, a clown who had thrown a pie at some world-famous business leader that HP had never even heard of. Ridiculous, a piece of piss, and nowhere near his own achievement.

To make matters even worse, he was running out of money.

He’d soon have to take up Manga’s offer of doing some casual work in the computer-shop to pay the bills.

He needed a new mission.

A task that challenged him, something more in line with what he was capable of. And he needed it soon, because right now this shit was fucking useless!

‘Okay, attention, Alpha One!’

Vahtola stepped into the room and the chatter among the six bodyguards died away instantly.

‘Welcome to today’s assignment,’ she began curtly. ‘You’ll be deployed as follows: one plus three will reinforce the Prime Minister’s group, he’s due to land at 20:45 at Bromma, and, as you all know, after Kungsträdgården we’re doubling up.’

Nods of agreement from the whole group, no-one could object to the logic of that following the warning shot that the royal party had quite literally been subjected to a week or so before.

‘Bengtsson, you can have Kruse, Savic and Normén. Take two standard cars, the Prime Minister has his armoured vehicle plus one, so you’ll be a total of four vehicles. Channel twenty-eight as usual. Questions?’

Bengtsson, a wiry man somewhere in his forties with thinning hair, Vahtola’s second in command, merely shook his head quickly.

‘Good, you can get going at once,’ Vahtola concluded, and a few minutes later they were sitting in the cars.

Bengtsson had made it easy for them by letting them divide up among themselves before they set off, and Rebecca had intentionally kept close to Kruse, a sturdy man from Gothenburg who had been in Alpha since the group was formed. She hadn’t spoken to Dejan since the incident in the self-defence class, even though she knew she should probably apologize to him. After all, he was the one who ended up getting hurt, not her. But for some reason it hadn’t happened and now too much time had passed.

The injury was still visible from the plaster supporting the bridge of Dejan’s nose, and he shot sullen looks in her direction whenever he got the chance.

Macho prat!

Kruse, on the other hand, was more like a kindly uncle, he didn’t really give her any sort of looks at all, usually spoke about his wife and their almost grown-up kids back home in Gothenburg, whom he only saw when he had time off. She’d asked him why he hadn’t tried to get a post closer to home, but he had only laughed:

‘Once a bodyguard, always a bodyguard, Normén. You’ll realize that soon enough. Besides, Iréne doesn’t want me cluttering the place up during the week.’

They booked out an ordinary black Volvo S60 and set off after Bengtsson and Dejan’s Suburban. Quarter of an hour or so later they were out at Bromma Airport.

Finally it had arrived!

He had almost given up hope, and had been toying with the idea of giving up altogether and getting rid of the mobile to the Greek when the light finally started to flash.

Three days in Manga’s shop had been quite okay. Washing the floor, running cables, and playing World of Warcraft whenever he got the chance. And five hundred tax-free kronor in his hand if the till could spare it, so it wasn’t all bad.

The customers were pretty okay as well. Mostly a load of nerds who wanted advice about various gadgets, and seemed to look up to Manga as if he was some sort of holy guru.

Everywhere else Mangalito was small-fry, completely lost, but in the dark little shop he was clearly the Boss, the Geeks’ very own Godfather, and he seemed to enjoy the role.

It was actually pretty cool, and he had to admit that he might have to reconsider his opinion of the Mangster. He’d managed IRL to put together a pretty nice set-up with both his job and his family.

But he himself wasn’t the nine to five type. Not your average loser who was going to be happy with any shitty McJob. He needed something more, something that all his efforts so far had failed to give him. A challenge, some excitement and a bit of fucking action!

‘Really I should have been a cop,’ he grinned to himself as he headed west on the Goat’s moped and the familiar feeling started to build inside him. This could turn out to be pretty damn cool.

The official government plane landed on schedule and everything went according to plan. They had time for a quick coffee with two of the Prime Minister’s regular protection team who had met them at Bromma, and they had agreed their route and formation before it was time to glide in through the gates and cruise over towards the hangar.

The Prime Minister, his female assistant and two bodyguards arrived with the plane. They switched quickly into the armoured black BMW, then they were ready to set off towards his official residence in the Sagerska Palace. Rebecca and Kruse went first in the Volvo, then the two regular guards in a similar car, then the Prime Minister’s vehicle, with Bengtsson and Dejan bringing up the rear in their Suburban.

Flashing lights on and full speed towards the city centre.

Hornsgatan, heading west, a bit of weaving around the red lights at Hornstull, then out across the Western Bridge. In contrast to his previous triumph, for the time being he had very few details about this assignment. But he wasn’t too worried about that. NK and Birkagatan had also been on a need-to-know-basis right up until things kicked off. All he needed to know was where he was going and that whatever awaited him there was going to give him three thousand fucking points!

If you added those to the five thousand two hundred he’d already scraped together, that was enough to take him past number fifty-eight and into the lead, that very evening!

The thought made him so ecstatic that for a moment he almost swerved into the railing of the bridge.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new leader, number one-twenty-eight!’

His comments section would easily stretch to more than ten pages.

HP, Master of the Game.

All he needed to do was get to Lindhagensplan and wait for new instructions.

His cock was already at half-mast.

He could hardly wait!

Ulvsundavägen was behind them now, after a bit of neat zigzagging from Kruse at the red lights at the junction with Drottningholmsvägen, where the ordinary, law-abiding Svenssons had moved their cars out of the way of their flashing blue lights. They were heading towards the Traneberg Bridge, then on to Lindhagensplan.

She glanced at the time, 21:12. If everything carried on like this they’d make their delivery at Sagerska and be done by half past nine. That would give her plenty of time for a session in the gym once the debriefing was over. The boys would probably want to play indoor hockey as usual. It was probably best to join in, even if she didn’t really like ball-games. Important to be one of the team.

Okay, he was in position right at the designated time, 21:12.

The western side of Lindhagensplan, on the bridge crossing Drottningholmsvägen, exactly according to instructions.

There was even a little map attached, which was handy seeing as there were several flyovers to choose from, and he had drive round a bit before he found the right place.

The moped was perfect for stuff like this, you could just swing round and ride back along the hard-shoulder against the flow of traffic if you made a mistake. Okay, so the law-abiding Svenssons in their little socialist boxes blew their horns and flashed their lights at him, but you had to ignore that.

He was sitting astride the moped waiting for instructions. A few metres below him the cars flew past heading into the city. In front of him, high above his head, hung the double bridges of the Essinge motorway. Traffic noise practically drowned out the moped’s engine when it was idling.

So what happened now?

The LED light started to flash.

They were approaching the end of the bridge. Kruse was driving seeing as he had been in the service much longer and therefore got first dibs on the jobs.

Rebecca was sitting beside him in the passenger seat. She glanced up at the extra rear-view mirror on her side. The entire convoy was driving in close formation down the left-hand carriageway, at a speed of about a hundred, exactly as agreed. No problems.

‘Crossing Traneberg, heading for Lindhagen,’ she reported to Control over the radio.

If she looked out to the right and tried to see past the trees, she’d soon be able to see her own little house up ahead on the right.

The flyovers of the Essinge motorway were coming closer and closer. She squinted at their layered dark silhouettes. It almost looked like there was someone standing up there on one of the lower bridges.

Pull up the bag, the message said.

So he did.

A blue-striped PE bag, it turned out. Tied to the outside of the railing, and almost exactly the same as one he had made many years ago in sewing-class. Even the colour of the cord was the same.

It was a pretty neat coincidence, really. He seemed to remember that his was hanging in his wardrobe at home. Weren’t his old football boots still in it? They must have been there a couple of years by now, he could hardly remember the last time he’d used them. Maybe the summer before last, something like that?

He felt the bag. It was heavy. He undid it, full of anticipation.

Yes, there was definitely someone standing on one of the lower bridges, and there certainly shouldn’t be anyone there!

They were all motorways up there, no pedestrians allowed. Kruse didn’t seem to have noticed anything, but he was mainly concentrating on the traffic in the right-hand lane. She raised the microphone to her mouth but stopped halfway. The bridge was approaching fast and she could see the person up there moving. Her instincts were screaming at her to sound the alarm, order the convoy to halt and turn back.

But what if she was wrong?

A stone, a big one, maybe three or four kilos. Sharp edges too. Black, with a slightly rough surface that still felt warm against the palm of his hand. A patch of something sticky almost made his fingers slip. He moved the stone to his left hand and wiped off whatever it was on his jeans.

His heart was pounding in his chest. So what happened now?

When he saw the blue lights coming towards him along Drottningholmsvägen he knew in his gut this was what his task was all about. With the stone back in his right hand he leaned cautiously over the railing.

The light flashed again. He had guessed right.

Lights, camera, action, he thought excitedly before he dropped the stone from the bridge.

Either Kruse didn’t hear her or else the warning came so late that he simply didn’t have time to react. Because suddenly there was a crash as if lightning had struck the windscreen and the world ahead of them turned milky-white.

Glass sprayed into the car and she felt her face stinging.

‘Shit!’ she heard Kruse roar. ‘Fucking shit!’

He rammed his heavy foot instinctively on the brake-pedal and wrested the car to the right so they wouldn’t be hit by the escort vehicle behind them.

By the smallest possible margin the car behind them got past, but Kruse’s swerve was so sudden that they slammed into the concrete barrier on the right-hand side. The Volvo rebounded out into the left-hand carriageway where the Prime Minister’s BMW was just manoeuvring to get past. The driver swerved wildly to the left to escape what looked like an unavoidable collision.

‘Shit,’ Rebecca managed to echo before Kruse did what any bodyguard in his position would have done. He let go of the brake, put his foot down on the accelerator and wrenched the wheel to the right. The front wheels regained their grip on the road and they shot away from the Prime Minister’s car like an arrow, missing by a hair’s breadth the metal arrow marking the turn-off to Lindhagensplan, and ploughed straight into the railing facing the park.

A violent smash, then a feeling of floating. A second of weightlessness when all that could be heard was the roaring engine.

Then everything went black.

What a fucking circus!

The stone hit perfectly in the middle of the windscreen and when he looked over the other side of the bridge he saw the Volvo swerving violently between lanes, its blue flashing light streaking. It almost rammed another car with a blue light flashing in the left-hand carriageway, but suddenly lurched sharply to the right before shooting through the side railing and carrying on, rolling wildly, into the park where it finally came to rest upside down.

He quickly kicked the moped into gear and crossed the carriageway, then, stopping on the other side of the bridge, he pulled off the camera and zoomed in on the smoking wreck in amongst the trees. The Volvo was completely still now and there was no sign of movement from it at all.

But who the hell cared about that!

Because now he was the new number one, the Master of the Game!

Mission accomplished, he thought ecstatically. Three thousand fucking points and almost twenty-five thousand nice new kronor in his account, apart from anything else. He wondered who the fuck had been in that car? At a guess, some big-shot, but who? Oh well, he’d probably find out as soon as he switched on his computer. Now he had to get home and gratefully accept the adoration of the masses!

He put the moped into gear, glanced quickly over his shoulder and did a tearing start out into the carriageway.

The car came screeching out of the shadows. The collision was so hard that he bounced back into the railing, then the moped’s front wheel, which had suddenly been smashed into a shapeless lump, locked instantly and he just had time to put his hands up to protect himself as he flew head-first onto the tarmac.

He felt his palms scraping over the road-surface and a burning pain shot up one arm before the rest of his body hit the ground. The helmet made a cracking sound as it shattered, then the air was knocked out of him.

But he didn’t lose consciousness, at least not properly. He could hear voices and screaming, probably from the stupid fucker who had driven into him. Where the hell had he come from, anyway?

Got to get up, he thought. Got to get away from here.

But his body wouldn’t obey. He couldn’t even lift his head from the tarmac. All of a sudden his skull seemed full of cement, impossible to move or even turn. Was he paralysed? A cripple?

Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!

Slowly he tried to open his mouth to get a bit of air. It was like trying to breathe porridge yet everything seemed to be happening in ultra-rapid time. The voices were coming closer, getting clearer.

‘… bastard … threw something … the Volvo down there … called the cops.’

Suddenly his paralysis eased and he managed to take a deep breath.

The pain came from everywhere at once. His head, his legs, and his hands more than anything else hurt like hell, but the agony, surprisingly, made him feel better. If you could feel things, you weren’t paralysed, that seemed fairly logical.

His vision cleared slightly and from the corner of his eye he could make out several dark silhouettes leaning over him where he lay with his face embedded in the tarmac.

From somewhere in the distance there was the sound of sirens.

He tried to get up and this time it went a bit better. He raised one hand towards the men to get some help, but none of them moved. Then a flashing blue light was right alongside him.

‘It was him!’ one of the shadowy figures yelled, but HP was still having trouble focusing enough to see which one. With an effort he heaved himself up into a kneeling position. Then someone suddenly grabbed hold of his arms and a moment later he was lying across a car bonnet.

‘Take it easy, lad,’ said the voice of authority in his ear.

‘You’re under arrest on suspicion of attempted murder.’

And for a few seconds he thought he was eighteen again.

8

Hardball

Flashing blue lights, she remembered them. But that was pretty much it.

Rebecca had only vague memories of the rescue operation. She had almost no recollection of the early part of it, when the firemen rolled the car the right way up and cut the roof off to get them out. She remembered fragments of a trip in an ambulance, probably to St Göran’s Hospital. An oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, a plastic collar round her neck. Pain in her head, chest and face. People in white and green coats. The sounds of running and urgent shouting. Occasionally she thought she could hear familiar voices among all the strangers, but she wasn’t altogether sure. She made an effort to hear what they were saying, but no matter how hard she tried the words merged together into a single monotonous mumble. The world didn’t start to get clearer until she was eventually wheeled into a room in the hospital, whichever one it was, and the doctor started to examine her.