The Game Trilogy (78 page)

‘Actually, I should probably thank you.’ Now he grinned at HP. ‘If you hadn’t got in the way, it might have been me sitting there.’

He nodded at the oversized bunk HP was sitting on.

HP ignored him.

‘Where are we?’ he mumbled at the emo, whose name was evidently Nora.

‘The Life Guards’ veterinary clinic.’

‘What?’

‘Lidingövägen, opposite the Östermalm sports centre. The guards’ stables … I’ve got a key to the gate so we got in the back way.’

‘Okay …’

He drained the bottle of water and tried to make sense of his thoughts. But it was impossible.

His head ached and even if he felt a bit brighter than he had over the past few days, his body still felt like it had been put through a mangle.

‘So which one of you is going to tell me what the fuck I’m doing here?’

‘Look, HP,’ Nora said as she got him a cup of coffee from the large thermos flask on the camping table. ‘We’ve been trying to get hold of you for a while, but you’ve been playing hard to get … Those notes on your door?’ she added when he didn’t seem to get it.

‘Kent and I, and Jeff – you’ll meet him soon – have all
been caught up in the Game. Just like you, we all did things we never would have dreamed of doing when we started …’

‘But then we got kicked out,’ Hasselqvist added. ‘Or replaced by someone else, someone more suitable. A new favourite …’ He glared sullenly at HP.

‘Something like that,’ Nora nodded. ‘Either way, once we sobered up and got over the worst of the withdrawal symptoms from the Game, we all started to figure out that what we’d been involved in wasn’t just wrong, but that we’d also been manipulated. That we’d been nothing but puppets …’

HP drank a quick gulp. The coffee was unexpectedly hot and burned his tongue, but he forced himself to swallow it.

‘We each started trying to find out more about the Game and the Game Master, but as you know it can be dangerous to break …’

‘… rule number one,’ HP muttered.

‘Exactly … We were all warned off, some more than others. But a few months ago we were all brought together by someone else …’

She exchanged glances with Hasselqvist.

‘He used to work for the Game,’ Hasselqvist said. ‘We’re not sure, but we think he …’

‘No matter what we think …’ Nora interrupted, glaring at Hasselqvist, ‘this person did bring us all together.’

‘And now you want revenge,’ HP said. ‘Give the Game Master a bit of payback for the shit he fed you? Stick a spanner in the works so you can all sleep a bit easier …?’

HP shook his head and emptied the cup down his throat.

‘Been there, done that … Thanks for the coffee, but I’ve got much bigger problems …’

‘Sit down, HP!’ Nora said before he’d even got to his feet. To his own surprise he obeyed her at once.

‘We’re not just some bunch of losers wandering around without a plan. We’ve got a source, an insider. Someone who knows how it all fits together, and maybe even knows what’s going to happen next. And, not least, why!’

She looked at him, waiting for the words to sink in.

‘With the Source’s help we can put a stop to the whole thing. Not just individual tasks, but the whole of their fucking Game plan. You get it?’

Before he could answer there was a knock at the door.

‘That’ll be Jeff, I’ll get it.’

Hasselqvist walked over to the door.

‘Who is it?’

He opened the door a crack to look out, but the person on the other side yanked the handle so hard that Hasselqvist almost fell over.

‘Leave it out, Kent, this isn’t some fucking spy story …’ the man chuckled as he came into the room.

He was wearing jeans and a tight t-shirt that bulged impressively over his swollen muscles.

‘Oh, so sleeping beauty’s woken up.’ He nodded quickly at HP as he took off his sunglasses. ‘You managed to mend him then, good work, Doctor!’

The man – Jeff, evidently – smiled a shiny white smile and winked at Nora, but to HP’s satisfaction she ignored him completely. Not that this seemed to upset Muscleman in the slightest. He pulled a chair over towards HP and sat astride it as he scratched the back of his cropped head a couple of times, revealing a serious tribal tattoo on his lower arm.

‘Is there any coffee?’

‘I’ll get it, Jeff!’

Hasselqvist got busy with the thermos.

‘So what do we know?’ Nora asked.

Jeff shrugged.

‘I got rid of the revolver and his phone.’ He nodded towards HP. ‘Black’s in position up at the Fortress. They’re busy cutting the inauguration ribbon right now, at a guess. The city’s still crawling with police cars, even if they don’t seem to have a clue what they’re looking for …’

He turned on HP.

‘You should be fucking grateful I got hold of you, mate,’ he said, pointing a thick index finger at HP. ‘If it wasn’t for us you’d be dead now. That big bodyguard had you in his sights, another two seconds and BANG!’

He added a cocked thumb to the index finger and demonstrated what he meant.

Hasselqvist handed him a cup of coffee.

‘Anyway, how the fuck did you come up with the idea of shooting Black? That wouldn’t have solved a bloody thing …’

HP muttered something inaudible into his coffee cup. He had to admit that the mountain of muscle in front of him had a point. As the horse medicine did its thing, he was starting to regain control of his brain. But even though he kept rewinding and playing the tape in his head, he still couldn’t really explain what had happened. It all felt very distant.

As if nothing he had experienced over the past twenty-four hours had actually happened, and had just been a dream. Correction – a nightmare …

‘Have we heard any more from the Source?’ Jeff grunted.

‘He sent all the plans …’ Hasselqvist began, but Nora cut him off.

‘Not yet. First we have to find out if he wants to work with us.’

She nodded to HP.

‘Okay, I am actually here, you know,’ he said. ‘Look … I’m grateful to you for helping me, but I’ve actually got a shit-load of my own prob …’

‘Is one of them your sister, by any chance?’ Nora interrupted. ‘The one who works for Sentry?’

‘What? Her job’s with the Secur … What did you say?’

He saw them exchange a glance, and didn’t like that.

‘Your sister heads up a bodyguard unit for Sentry Security, to look after business bigwigs. Sentry was bought up last year by a company called PayTag. And presumably you already know a bit about them, seeing as you just tried to shoot their managing director …’

HP opened his mouth to reply, but Nora didn’t give him the chance.

‘Good, then maybe you also know that PayTag is constructing a number of huge server farms around the world? Well, perhaps server hotels would be a better description. Here in Sweden they’ve built a massive installation in one of the military’s old underground bunkers just outside Uppsala. The place is called the Fortress, and it’ll soon be storing data for pretty much every company and government body across the whole of northern Europe …’

HP nodded again, more forcefully this time, and suddenly he couldn’t help smiling.

Becca was Black’s
bodyguard.

Of course!

She was indirectly working for the Game, which was obviously still bad news. But in his fucked-up state he had misunderstood the whole thing. He’d thought Becca was in a relationship with Black.

Epic fail!

Christ, he could be really thick at times …

The others were staring at him.

‘Well, what do you say?’

‘Er, what?’

Jeff leaned forward on the chair, making its plastic back creak. Suddenly HP realized that there was something familiar about the angular face. They too had met before somewhere …

‘Are you going to help us?’

‘To do what?’

More glances, dubious this time.

Eventually Nora broke the silence.

‘Shut down the Fortress!’

‘Hello?’

‘Good evening, dear friend.’

‘Ah, it’s you, splendid. Is this line secure?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘In that case I would be grateful for an explanation of what happened.’

‘I can understand that …’

‘I don’t appreciate it when binding agreements are broken. Recent events …’

‘Aid our cause in the long run, believe me!’

‘In what way?’

‘In every way …’

‘Now listen, I don’t appreciate this sort of prank. You can call yourself the Game Master all you like, but don’t forget who’s paying for your activities.’

‘Naturally, my clients’ interests are always at the top of my priority list, my dear friend.’

‘I should hope so! If we could try for a moment to look beyond this … incident. How is everything going with the rest of the plan?’

‘Splendidly. We’re just about to begin. You won’t be disappointed, Mr Black.’

The lift had taken them down to the viewing level. A glassed-in hub with five spokes extending fifty metres straight into the rock on all sides around them. And, if she’d understood correctly, there were a number of similar levels below them.

The control room that they were looking down on, through the large glass window opposite the lifts, was undeniably impressive.

She’d been inside a couple of underground bases before, when she was working for the Security Police. The one occupied by the emergency services call centre beneath the Johannes Church in Stockholm was probably the most impressive. But that was nothing compared to this.

Thirty or so workstations were grouped in three semicircular rows above one another, so that everyone had a clear view of the gigantic screens down in the centre.

Every workplace had three connected screens, along with a mouse, keyboard and a headset neatly hung up alongside. The whole thing looked rather like the Regional Communication Centre in Police Headquarters in Stockholm, but was obviously much more up-to-date and vastly more expensive.

The control room was empty and all the screens were switched off.

‘At full capacity we’ll have thirty operators working in three shifts. They’ll all be experts in IT security. If necessary we can reinforce them with a further ten …’ the site manager bubbled, looking as if he might burst with pride at any moment.

Maybe that wasn’t so strange …

The invited reporters, local politicians and members of parliament seemed just as impressed with the setup as Rebecca was. One of them asked something that she didn’t hear, but it must have been funny seeing as they all burst out laughing.

Black was standing slightly off to one side, flanked by two people from the local management team and a dark-haired woman in her forties whom Rebecca had met in the office a couple of times, one of their new foreign bosses, Anthea Ravel. She didn’t seem particularly pleasant, and spoke that sort of dry, patronizing English that made you feel like a lowly servant. She’d also had such a tight facelift that almost all of her facial expressions were the same.

Some people in the office had taken to calling her the Ice Queen, which was a fairly appropriate nickname.

‘Good question. Naturally, we take the security of the installation very seriously indeed,’ the site manager said.

‘Amongst other things we’ve applied to be classified as a high security area, which would give our security personnel additional powers. And we’re also planning a big exercise together with the National Rapid-Response Unit. Security is our main priority …’

Black suddenly turned his head and met Rebecca’s gaze. Then he leaned to the side and whispered something to the Ice Queen, which made her look in Rebecca’s direction as well.

The woman put her hand on Black’s upper arm and leaned forward. She whispered something, so close that her lips were almost touching Black’s ear. She went on whispering for a few seconds, before slowly pulling back. Whatever it was the Ice Queen had said, it seemed to amuse both of them, and Rebecca couldn’t shake the feeling that they were obviously talking about her.

She forced herself to ignore them and shifted her focus back to the site manager.

‘Well, the big moment has arrived,’ he suddenly announced in English. ‘I’d like to invite our Managing Director, Mark Black, to step forward and press the button.’

The crowd of spectators parted to let Black through to the observation window.

One employee handed Black a small box with a large red button, and Black spent a minute or so posing with this over-emphatic symbol as the cameras flashed.

‘I hereby declare this installation open,’ he then said.

He pressed the button and down in the control room all the screens suddenly came to life.

He should have left at once, thanked them for their help and just toddled off home. Instead he had let them show him the plans. They told him about the electrified fence, the cameras, the guards patrolling the area. He had listened with half an ear. But he noticed one thing very clearly. None of them had said a word about how they were going to get past it all, which could have had two obvious explanations:

Either they didn’t quite trust him and wanted to know if he was onboard before sharing their ingenious plan with him.

Or, much more likely: these amateurs didn’t actually have a plan …

Two years ago he had broken into a similar establishment, but that one had been considerably smaller, much less protected, and he’d also had the help of Rehyman the genius to get past all the obstacles.

‘Well, what do you think?’

He saw the expectant looks on their faces and for a moment he wondered if he should hold back slightly to
soften the blow. But there was no point. These muppets needed to hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

‘Seriously? You’re all fucking mad!’ He shrugged. ‘Do you really think you’re going to be able to get in there?’ He put his finger in the middle of the control room. ‘And even if by some miracle you do manage to get through, what are you going to do there, and – maybe even more importantly – how are you planning to get out again?’

‘Never mind about that,’ Muscleman Jeff said in a way that made HP’s alarm bells ring even louder. He’d definitely seen the bloke before, but where?

‘If you help us get inside, we’ll take care of the rest,’ Nora said.

‘The Source said you’d be able to do that, he said you’ve done stuff like this before,’ Hasselqvist added. ‘That you’re some sort of expert in this area …’

HP nodded.

‘Maybe …’ He turned it all over in his head for a few moments. Sure, it was tempting, and certainly felt very familiar. But, to start with, he already had a shit load of his own problems to deal with, and, what’s more, he trusted this little trio about as much as they trusted him.

The horse doctor seemed more or less okay, but Hasselqvist was a slippery fucker, and the gorilla made him feel uneasy in more ways than one.

But at the same time they had something he might be able to make use of, something that might actually help him understand his own situation.

He took a deep breath.

‘Okay,
if
I’m even going to consider helping you, I want something in return first …’

‘You mean apart from us saving your life …?’ Nora said before either of the others had even opened their mouths.

HP shrugged his shoulders. A vein was starting to throb in the mountain of muscle’s forehead. They glared at each other for a few seconds.

‘This
Source
of yours …’ HP drew a pair of weary quotation marks in the air. ‘I want to talk to him directly …’

‘No-one talks directly to the Source,’ Hasselqvist interrupted. ‘We’ve only met him once, all communication is done …’

Nora raised her hand and he fell silent at once.

‘So what does he look like?’ HP did his best not to sound too curious.

There was a brief silence, then Nora shrugged.

‘Ordinary …’ she said, and held up her hand again, this time to stop the other two from protesting. ‘Short hair, average height, not quite forty. A typical suit, I’d say …’

HP nodded.

‘Do you know what his role is in the Game?’

‘Not exactly, but Kent and Jeff have a theory …’

She turned to Hasselqvist.

‘Well … it’s just a feeling. Some of the phrases he uses. I think he’s involved in the technical side of it. Communication, servers, something like that. The plans contain a whole load of technical details. Don’t they, Jeff?’

The mountain of muscle hesitated for a moment, then nodded slowly.

‘These plans are like the ones we use at work for IT projects. If he was involved in construction, there’d be ventilation ducts, plumbing, stuff like that, but there’s nothing of that sort on these plans. Only details of the IT infrastructure …’

‘So you think the Source is some sort of IT guru? Someone who was involved in setting the whole thing up?’ A tingling sensation was slowly spreading from HP’s stomach.

The two men nodded.

‘And how do you know you can really trust him?’

‘We’re not stupid, HP …’ Nora replied. ‘Obviously we were suspicious as well to start with, but the Source has delivered on everything. He brought us together, he’s supplied plans, information about Sentry and PayTag, and – not least – he helped us locate and get hold of you before you were killed or arrested. He’s taken big risks for our sake, and it doesn’t feel like he’s lying. All of that put together means that we’ve decided to trust him, even if we’re still wary. But, like Kent said, we only met the Source once, right at the start. So we couldn’t take you to him even if we wanted to …’

‘I see …’ HP looked down at his lap for a few seconds while he tried to sort out his poker face.

He needed to look a bit disappointed, make it seem like he was backing down.

‘I need to think about it,’ he said. ‘Just for a couple of days. How can I contact you?’

‘Here!’

Jeff took out a mobile phone and put it on the table.

‘Pay as you go, can’t be traced. Call the number for
dry cleaning
in the contacts and leave a message.’

‘Okay.’

HP picked up the phone, then stood up and headed towards the door.

‘Hang on,’ Hasselqvist shouted, and he stopped. ‘Don’t forget your medicine.’

Hasselqvist tossed a white plastic container to HP.

‘Well done, Kent,’ Nora said. ‘I’d forgotten that. Take two a day for five days, HP.’

‘Okay, thanks.’ He waved the pills in farewell and tried to keep a straight face. ‘I’ll be in touch!’

She was sitting outside one of the meeting rooms in the main building, slowly turning a bottle of water in her hands.

The press had left, leaving just a few of the politicians and various managers from both the Fortress and Sentry.

Right now they were having lunch further along the corridor, and a short while ago Black and the Ice Queen had both left the gathering to hold a conference call in the small room behind her.

She glanced at the time. Kjellgren and Thomas ought to be there any minute now.

For the third time in the past five minutes she took out her mobile.

No new messages, from either Kjellgren or Micke.

She pressed the call button again, but just like last time was put straight through to Micke’s voicemail. Not that that was particularly unusual …

For the last week or so she’d hardly had time to talk to him at all, maybe even longer than that.

Often neither of them got home till late, and then they just crashed out on the sofa.

She hadn’t told him about her meeting with Uncle Tage, and only selected details about the safe deposit box. She’d said it contained a few old papers: marriage and birth certificates, a few worthless shares. He hardly ever asked her about what she got up to these days. He was probably trying to prove that he trusted her. And she was repaying the confidence by lying to him again …

She looked at the time, then took a little tub of pills from her bag, checked they were the right ones and fished out one tablet. She glanced around quickly before swallowing it down with a swig from the bottle.

Using antidepressant medication is nothing to be ashamed of, Rebecca …

Yeah, right!

That statement might make sense in the reality her doctor lived in. But in her world you couldn’t show the slightest sign of weakness.

But in her private life, she at least she knew it wasn’t her fault alone that her relationship with Micke wasn’t working.

She had actually taken on her job at Sentry for Micke’s sake, to be in the same world as he was, and she had done her best to understand what he was involved in. But it wasn’t entirely straightforward trying to follow all the technical ins and outs. A whole load of different companies and official bodies were having problems with various targeted hacker attacks, she had understood that much.

DDoS
–
Distributed Denial of Service
– was something she knew about from the time the police website had been attacked. Someone, or several people, had managed to get hundreds, and possibly thousands, of different computers to fire a mass of requests at the same server at exactly the same time, so many that it eventually stopped working.

And she understood viruses as well.

But there were loads of other security threats.

DoS attacks were related to DDoS, and then there were trojans, worms, spyware and a whole load more whose names and functions she had already forgotten.

Hacker attacks had been going on for years, but according to Micke they had become much more intensified. Most companies were worried about viruses and other hostile attacks that could affect their day to day activities. But what really scared them, and what made them turn to Sentry for help, was the risk that outsiders might gain access to their customer details: dates of birth, credit and debit card numbers, medical records, insurance history, purchasing patterns, criminal records, bank
account information. The list of information hidden away in supposedly secure databases was practically infinite. And if any outsider got hold of that information, the company or official body in question would suffer a massive loss of public confidence.