Bubble: A Thriller (12 page)

“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.

“I’m afraid I can’t go into the details . . .”

“You mean he was some sort of spy?”

“No, no, absolutely not.”

He held his hands up in front of him.

“Nothing of that sort, it was mostly courier work. The exchange of services and information. I really can’t say any more than that . . . It’s still covered by the Official Secrets Act . . .”

“But if he needed fake passports . . . ?”

“I know it must sound strange, but you have to understand that times were very different. The Cold War was raging and Sweden was caught between the two superpowers. I’m sure you remember the Swedish DC-3 that was shot down
over the Baltic by the Soviet Union, followed by one of the Catalina planes that was sent to search for survivors. Even the most innocent activities were liable to be misinterpreted by the enemy, so it was important to take whatever precautions were available, especially once Erland had a family . . .”

“B-but Dad had a job, he worked as a salesman, for . . . for . . .”

She tried in vain to remember the name of the company—something beginning with
T,
she was pretty sure of that. He let her think.

“I’d be surprised if any of you knew very much about Erland’s work . . . If he ever told you anything, it was probably only in very general terms, no specifics. Something to explain his absences and long trips abroad, perhaps . . . ?”

She picked up her bottle to refill her glass, but her right hand suddenly twitched a couple of times, making her spill water on the table. She used some napkins to wipe it up as discreetly as she could.

If anyone had suggested only a few days before that her dad had been anything but a perfectly ordinary citizen, she probably just would have laughed. But that was before she opened his safe-deposit box . . .

“I realize that this must all feel a little . . . unreal, Rebecca.”

He leaned forward and put his hand on hers.

“Believe me, I would rather not have had to tell you any of this . . .”

She looked at him carefully, trying to find any indication that he didn’t mean it. But he seemed to be completely genuine.

“S-so, what do we do now . . . ?” she managed to ask. “With the things in the box?” she clarified, dropping her right hand to her lap in an attempt to stop it from shaking.

“Leave that to me. I’ll make sure that everything disappears. The passports, the safe-deposit box, any documentation that could connect them to your father. Just give me all the keys, codes, and anything else necessary, and all your worries will be over.”

She tensed up involuntarily.

“Naturally, I shall make sure that no shadows fall across your father’s memory . . .” He smiled warmly and she paused for a few moments while she considered.

“I’m not sure that’s what I want, Uncle Tage,” she said eventually. “Handing over everything, I mean . . .”

He frowned and gave her a long look.

Then he slowly pulled his hand back and straightened up in his chair.

“In which case I can’t help wondering why not, Rebecca?”

The expression on his face had suddenly changed, becoming harder.