Buzz: A Thriller (42 page)

“Don’t let me fall, dammit!”

His buttocks were slowly slipping across the ledge as Elroy continued to push him.

Nineteen floors below the street was full of New Year revelers.

“And what were you going to do with it, dear little Henrik?” Sophie again, right next to his ear.

“Plug it into the server, upload a trojan,” he sniffed. “Please, please, don’t let . . .”

Suddenly his backside lost contact with the concrete and he slid over the edge.

But just as he started to scream in terror Elroy caught him and dragged him back up onto the roof. They left him lying there while they searched him.

The USB stick was the first thing they took.

♦  ♦  ♦

She had been right about most of it.

MayBey and Tobbe were connected.

But instead of a muscular cop in a dark uniform, her Internet nemesis turned out to be two spotty little eighteen-year-olds who had watched too much television. It was the film quotes that had put her on the right track.

Judge Dredd, Clint,
Taxi Driver
. The whole thing felt like some teenage boy’s bedroom fantasy. Once Jonathan Lundh’s name occurred to her, she only had to look up his profile on Facebook, and sure enough all the films were there, neatly listed on his personal details page, along with the fact that he was attending a high school that specialized in IT.
On the Internet you might be able to pretend to be whoever you like,
she thought.
But the truth is also out there, if you know where to look for it.

Talking about looking . . .

She pulled out her cell and dialed a number.

“Where are you?” she asked when the man at the other end answered.

♦  ♦  ♦

They were herding him between them like a sheep.

Elroy was holding his upper arm, but there was no need for that at all. Even though they had cut the plastic binder strap from his wrists, he was finished. He could still feel the aftereffects from the Taser they’d zapped him with, making his movements sluggish, and the whole nightmare scenario up on the roof had basically broken him.

He rubbed his eyes with the bottom of one arm to get rid of the tears that persisted in leaking out.

When they reached the large, open room they could hear voices from Philip’s office. He could make out silhouettes through the frosted-glass walls. The clink of glasses, then the bubbling laughter that he recognized so well . . .

Without warning his legs suddenly gave out and he collapsed. His head hit the edge of Sophie’s desk and he felt the skin on his forehead break.

They made no attempt to pick him up, and just left him crawling around on the floor for a few moments.

Grinning while he fumbled with his hands under the desk.

Then he got hold of the office chair and used it to clamber laboriously to his feet. He could feel a warm trickle of blood seeping slowly through his eyebrow.

“Here,” Elroy muttered, pressing a tissue into HP’s hand as he shoved him forward.

A moment later the door opened and they were inside.

Six people in the room, all the section heads, all holding glasses of champagne.

“Welcome, Henrik, we’ve been waiting for you,” Philip Argos said cheerfully.

By his side, a little too close, Rilke was smiling her most beautiful smile.

“Here.”

Elroy put the little USB stick down on Philip’s desk.

“Dejan, would you mind?” Philip nodded.

Dejan walked across the room, picked up the stick, and plugged it into a laptop on the desk.

“Workless network off . . .” He chuckled cruelly, firing a quick look at HP. “After all, we don’t want to risk any infection . . .”

The other team leaders, with the exception of Rilke, gathered around the screen. HP couldn’t help glancing over at her. But she wasn’t even looking at him.

He pressed the tissue harder against the cut in his forehead, but the blood wouldn’t stop.

“Ooh, look at that!” Beens said, peering over Dejan’s shoulder. “Not bad at all!”

Dejan clicked the mouse, then typed in a few quick commands.

“Yes, I can only agree with Beens. Whoever put this spy program together knew what he was doing.”

He typed in a few more commands, then stood up and pulled the USB stick out.

“If the trojan had got into the mainframe we’d have been in trouble . . . Looks like it would have started sending confidential information to an external client. Customer information,
user IDs, blog aliases, you name it. God knows what might have happened if he’d succeeded.”

He held the stick out to HP.

“You really did try to sink us, lad . . .” he said in a voice that sounded almost surprised.

Suddenly everyone in the room seemed to be staring at him.

He could practically feel the hatred in their eyes.

Frank took a step forward, fists clenched, but HP stood perfectly still. The blow wasn’t even particularly hard, a stomach punch that he more or less managed to steel himself against before it struck. Knees on the carpet, a sigh as the air went out of him. The guy didn’t even have the guts to punch him in the face . . .

“That’s enough, Frank,” Philip said curtly as Sophie and her brother dragged HP to his feet. “I think Henrik has already realized the seriousness of his position—haven’t you?”

HP nodded mutely.

“You, a convicted criminal, broke in here with a stolen pass card with the intention of stealing confidential company information.”

He took the memory stick from Dejan and waved it in HP’s face.

“Aggravated theft, or industrial espionage, probably a year or two in prison, I’d guess. And I don’t suppose that will do your sister’s future career prospects any good at all . . .”

HP started.

“Don’t involve my sister in this!” he muttered.

Philip smiled.

“So there is something you care about after all, Henrik. In other words, you’re not entirely without morals . . .”

Frank, Dejan, and the others grinned, but he didn’t care.

“Get to the point, Philip.” He sighed. “I’ve got something you want, haven’t I? Otherwise the cops would be busy scraping me off the pavement by now. After all, you don’t seem too bothered if you have to step over a few dead bodies . . .”

He raised his head and looked them in the eyes for the first time. This time it was their turn to look away.

All except Philip. He gestured toward Elroy.

“Is he . . . ?”

“Completely clean, no microphones or transmitters.”

“Good!”

He turned back to HP again.

“You’re quite right, Henrik. I want your shares. You can sell them to me at an acceptable market rate so that no one can claim afterward that you were put under undue pressure. So I’m prepared to offer you twice what you managed to scrape together to pay Monika.”

He gave a sign to Stoffe, who took out a plastic folder and started to lay several documents out on the desk.

“And there are plenty of witnesses here who can testify that the purchase took place perfectly legally.”

HP nodded wearily.

“Okay, I get it . . .”

He took a deep breath, to give himself time to think.

“But I want to add one condition to the deal.”

“You’re hardly in a position to make demands, Henrik, but let’s hear it . . .”

“I’ll sign your forms and go off into the sunset as long as
you agree not to call the cops. I’m not exactly keen to do time again.”

Philip nodded.

“That sounds like it might be worth considering, doesn’t it?”

He turned toward the others, but none of them had any comment.

“So what do we do about the money?” HP said.

“We’ve opened a Western Union account for you. The money will be transferred the moment you sign the forms.”

“No need, I’ve got a numbered account we can use.”

Philip met his gaze for a few seconds. Then he smiled.

“You planned for this eventuality, didn’t you?”

HP shrugged his shoulders.

“In that case it would seem that I didn’t entirely misjudge you, Henrik. No plan is so good that doesn’t need a backup.”

He shook his head.

“You could have gone far with us, Henrik, further than you could ever imagine . . .”

“Well . . .” HP replied. “We’ll never know, will we?”

Philip nodded.

“So, Henrik, seeing as you were prepared for this scenario, I daresay you have a price in mind. How much did you manage to scrape together to persuade Monika to sell? I offered her a million, but I can imagine that she gave you a good discount. So what was it—fifty, one hundred?”

“Five!”

Philip grinned.

“So you managed to persuade my sister-in-law to sell her shares to you for a measly five thousand. Either you’re a brilliant
negotiator or she must really hate me . . . Oh well, we’ll transfer ten thousand to your account.”

HP slowly shook his head.

“Not five thousand . . .”

He left a dramatic pause. Then he smiled.

“Five
million
 . . . !”

IN THE STREETS
outside calm had descended and only a few lingering plumes of fireworks shot up sporadically into the night sky. He was made to wait for a while, before being bundled off to the toilet to tidy himself up. The cut over his eye wouldn’t stop bleeding and he asked for a roll of tape to try to hold it together. Just as he was finished the office door opened.

“You can come back in now, Henrik . . .”

The party atmosphere seemed to have subsided somewhat. He hadn’t been able to avoid hearing parts of the heated discussion while he was waiting.

“We’ve checked what you said,” Philip began, “and it looks as though you did somehow manage to get hold of five million. Obviously, we’re very interested to hear how that came about—”

“Lottery win,” HP said, cutting him off.

He saw them look at each other.

“In that case we have a proposal,” Philip said curtly. “Six million, that’s as much as we can get hold of at such short notice.”

“Seven!” HP retorted quickly.

Philip took a deep breath and from the corner of his eye HP saw Elroy shuffle his feet.

“Okay, six, then!” he said. “As long as we can get it out of the way. But remember, no police!”

“Good,” Philip said. “Dejan has the transfer up on the screen.”

He nodded to Dejan, who had set up a new laptop to replace the infected one.

“He’ll transfer the money once all the papers are signed, then you can log into the account yourself and double-check.”

HP nodded.

Stoffe put the papers in front of him on the desk, and he signed them, one after the other.

Then Philip did the same, before Stoffe and Frank witnessed the signatures.

“Okay, you can transfer the money now,” Philip commanded once they were done.

Dejan tapped at his keyboard, then supervised HP while he double-checked the transaction. ArgosEye’s entire current account must have been pretty much cleared out.

Buying shares with the company’s own money, wasn’t that sort of thing illegal? But obviously that presupposed that anyone cared.

“Happy?”

HP nodded.

“Good. Then it’s time for us to go our separate ways.” Philip smiled. “You may be a wealthy man, but it will be a while before you can enjoy your money. And obviously we’ll put in a serious claim for damages. I would imagine the amount will run to something like six million. What do the rest of you think?”

The others leered scornfully and suddenly all seemed much happier.

“Elroy, would you be so kind as to call and arrange transport for Henrik?”

“Of course.” Elroy grinned, and stepped over to the phone on the desk. “One one two is easy to do . . .”

HP looked down at the floor. Obviously the greedy fuckers were going to inform on him. You wouldn’t get much of a price on the odds of that happening. But as luck would have it, he still had one ace up his sleeve . . .

“Hello, police? We’ve just caught a thief red-handed. It looks like he was trying to steal confidential business information . . .”

“Hold on!” Philip said, raising one hand. “Something doesn’t feel right . . .”

He gave HP a long look.

“For someone who just lost the game, you seem rather too calm.”

HP tried to avoid looking at him.

Shit!

“What were you really doing in reception downstairs?”

“Nothing,” HP muttered.

Philip looked puzzled. Then he gestured to Elroy to hand him the receiver.

“Hello, who am I speaking to? Police Sergeant Renko . . . ?”

Philip started to smile.

“And what department do you work in, Sergeant, if you don’t mind me asking? . . . Surveillance? I’m sorry, but the right answer was Central Control.”

He put the receiver down and then dialed some more numbers on the phone.

“You never cease to surprise me, Henrik!” he went on in an amused tone of voice. “You predicted that we’d call the police, and you changed the speed-dial number to one of your own. Let me guess, you’ve got two friends waiting in a car out there somewhere, ready to drive over and pick you up? All a bit
Ocean’s Eleven,
am I right?”

HP took a deep breath.

“Twelve,”
he muttered. “The fake cops rescued them in
Ocean’s Twelve
.”

But no one seemed to be listening.

Philip turned to the others.

“Let this be a useful lesson to us all. Never underestimate an opponent, even when he seems to be beaten . . .”

Philip signaled to Elroy, who pulled out his cell.

“Hello, is that the police?”

♦  ♦  ♦

She ended the call, then looked up another number in her phonebook.

“Good evening, my dear,” the soft voice said.

“Good evening, Uncle Tage,” she replied, and noticed her heart beating a bit faster. “I know where Henrik is . . .”

“Excellent, my dear, I’m most grateful to you. Where can I find him?”

She took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before answering.

♦  ♦  ♦

So the game was over.

Philip and co. had bought his shares, admittedly for rather more than they had anticipated, but still. Finally they had complete control over the company.