Game: A Thriller (36 page)

Time to get going. He cast an anxious glance over his shoulder, but to his relief his partner in crime didn’t seem bothered about anything but his own laptop. The guy deserved a bit of credit for his discretion, at least . . .

He touched the mouse with his hand and the screens woke up at once.

Unfortunately what they were showing was pretty much as interesting as the rest of the room. A perfectly ordinary NT log-in window—Username and Password.

He pulled Erman’s note from his back pocket.

Now to see if any of the old administrator accounts still worked.

♦  ♦  ♦

She could hardly remember how she got home. But she must have made it somehow. Because now she was standing in her dark hallway with her keys in her hand. The light on the answering machine was the only source of light. But she couldn’t be bothered to listen to it. She knew perfectly well what was on the tape . . .

Silence . . .

Just a faint noise of traffic over on the Essinge expressway. She could certainly do with a bit of peace and quiet, but not like this. A cacophony of thoughts was bouncing around in her head so loudly that she could hardly bear it. Like a mental Ping-Pong match from hell.

But she knew how to get all the crap to shut up. The bathroom cabinet, a little white envelope. Four knockout pills, brush teeth, piss, good night!

Everything was bound to look much clearer in the morning, she muttered to herself as her bedroom faded into a gray fog.

♦  ♦  ♦

He had three different sets of usernames and passwords to choose from. They may have been grouped in pairs, but in theory he had nine different possible combinations.

He guessed the system wouldn’t give him too many attempts. Three at most, possibly fewer.

In other words, it was important to get it right first time.

He glanced at the note, but none of the combinations exactly leaped out at him and volunteered. Typical computer nerd logins: Prince$$L3iA, Andr0!dsDnGn, MstlYHarml3$.

The passwords were more or less the same sort of thing. Might as well have been Mange who came up with them.

So which to choose?

He took a chance on the Android in the middle. Usually he was pretty quick at typing, but this time he made a real effort so that all the characters were right.

He pressed Enter and the hourglass appeared.

That looked promising.

Then:

The username and password are incorrect. You have one more try before this machine is locked out.

Shit! Only one more chance, so what should he try now?

The Jedi princess or the Hitchhiker’s fucking Guide to the Galaxy?

His instincts said to stick with the chick, but on the other hand it was partly a chick’s fault that he was in this mess. MILFy Mia from Märsta, she was partly to blame for this. It was her fault he was on that fucking train. So that left the nerds’ bible.

He typed in the words, pressed Enter, and held his breath.

The hourglass rotated a couple of times.

Then Alice had suddenly returned to Wonderland . . .

♦  ♦  ♦

The moment before she fell asleep—just as the gray fog was starting to fade to black—the feeling unexpectedly hit her. That Henke somehow needed her help, that he was in danger and that only she could save him.

If only she could stay awake a bit longer, she’d find out more, a little voice inside her head whispered. Salvation was just a few seconds away, a different voice said.

And she really did try to resist. She struggled with her eyelids, tried to get out of bed. But her limbs didn’t seem to want to obey her. The chemical curtain in her head was falling relentlessly, silencing all the voices. Before long she was sound asleep.

She never heard the telephone ring.

♦  ♦  ♦

The left-hand screen was showing an interactive world map. Each country was marked in one of four colors, and it took just a few seconds for him to figure out how it worked. More than half the countries were gray, and according to the key in one corner that meant
no activity
. Another quarter or so were marked green, which evidently meant that recruiting was under way.

Almost all the remaining countries, with just two exceptions, were yellow. This meant that the Game was under way, if you bought what the key said, which HP was having no problem doing.

But most interesting were the countries marked in red, just two of them at the moment. Red meant End Game. One in the USA, and the other, surprise, surprise, in Sweden. His End Game, or what should have been his . . .

He moved the cursor toward Scandinavia and it turned into a finger. Double click on dear old Sweden, and then . . .

The other screen suddenly came to life, making him jump.

A list, a high-score list that reminded him of the one he’d seen on his phone. But the design was different, more professional.
Less bling and flashy banners, more sober and down to business.

It also contained just five players. The number at the top was an old acquaintance . . .

Good old Fifty-Eight was still in the lead, and had now scraped together twelve thousand points, almost two thousand more than the people chasing him. HP couldn’t help clicking on Fifty-Eight’s profile. Who was he, and what great deeds had he accomplished to get to number one?

Maybe they had even met?

When the images appeared he was surprised. The guy seemed like an ordinary guy, round about his own age. A little goatee beard, a hint of a double chin, and his hairline definitely heading north.

Was this a picture of a champion, Mr. King-of-the-Hill-A-Number-One? The bloke looked pretty damn ordinary, a complete fucking nobody! And his name was Hasselqvist!

Hasselqvist, with a
q
and a
v
—like some jumped-up middle-management jerk or something. All that was missing was the mint-green Crocs and a case of oh-so-medium-strength lager.

What a letdown!

HP shook his head as he scrolled through Fifty-Eight’s profile. Flat near Hornstull, ordinary McJob with some IT company, liked online poker and hanging at Cosmopol and other gaming clubs.

Boooriiing . . . !

But a bit farther down the page things got considerably more interesting.

There were small thumbnails indicating video clips, something like twenty in all, at a guess, Fifty-Eight Hasselqvist’s collected works.

The first image that jumped out at him was of an expressway bridge, and he began to suspect something. One double click later and his suspicions were confirmed.

The Essinge expressway, the overpass at Lindhagens. So Fifty-Eight really had been involved in setting him up, just as he’d thought!

But the images didn’t quite fit, the light in the clip was different, the nuances darker. The bridge was the same, as was the view toward Traneberg. The traffic, the flashing blue lights, the cop cars racing at speed toward the camera; it all looked just like his own disaster scenario. But when the cortège reached the bridge nothing happened. He saw the cars swerve at the last minute, presumably because they’d seen the cameraman up above. But then they just swept on past the bridge, over the roundabout, and on toward the city. When the clip stopped he got an explanation.

According to the date and time, it had been filmed that day, just an hour or so before. Why the fuck would they send such a solid player as Fifty-Eight to film a police convoy, especially in the same place where another player had already filmed a far ballsier assignment? It didn’t make any sense.

He quickly skimmed through a few other clips and realized that he could sort them into date order with a couple of clicks.

Before
Lindhagensplan—The Sequel
there was another clip that was just a day or so old. He opened it. Fifty-Eight was standing in a shop, a garage or car rental company from the look of it. The camera must been at chest height to judge from the angle. The guy went through the door, turned left, and went over to a counter marked “workshop.”

“Hello, Stigsson, Western District!” Hasselqvist with a
q
and a
v
said to the well-fit bitch behind the counter, flashing a little black folder in her direction.

“I’m here to pick up 1710, I was told it’s ready?” Fifty-Eight said without the slightest hesitation in his voice, and was rewarded with a smile.

Shortly afterward he was given a car key and he was on his way out to the secure compound, still with the camera rolling.

Number 1710 turned out to be a police van, one of those VW things the cops seemed to like driving about in. Fifty-Eight jumped in and started it up, and the clip ended a few seconds after he’d rolled out through the gates.

So Hasselqvist had nicked a police van! Fifty-Eight must have been given loads of inside information. All he had to do was show up at a garage, play at being a cop for a couple of minutes, then drive off.

A trained monkey could have done that . . .

But once again he had to tip his cap at the Game. Evidently they had Ants inside the cops, just as Erman had said.

And now they had at least one police vehicle . . .

“Ahem . . . !”

HP jerked when Rehyman cleared his throat somewhere behind his back.

“What?” he snarled over his shoulder.

“The guard’s started his next round; according to his last circuits we’ve got four minutes before he gets here.”

“Okay, okay,” HP muttered, scrolling quickly through the rest of the clips.

He knew more or less all he needed to know about Fifty-Eight. He had enough to tip off the media if he chose to take that path, which was looking more and more logical.

He could certainly let them have a stolen police van and a
prime suspect, and seeing as it was the height of summer the evening tabloids would be delighted with anything that could help stop them putting some new diet on the front page. If he could just find out the number of the bank account he’d have achieved his goal. And the Game could fuck right off!

He discovered a tab marked Transactions and moved the cursor toward it.

But just as he was about to lift his finger and click, from the corner of his eye he saw a thumbnail with another familiar image—and for a second or two it was like he’d turned to ice.

You must have seen wrong,
a soothing voice whispered inside his head.
Click and get in the money, baby! Thailand here we come!

His index finger was still hovering over the mouse button. A quick click and he could be halfway to Arlanda. There must be some sort of night flight, it didn’t matter where to.

Hasta la vista, baby!

But he knew the voice was lying to him. He hadn’t seen wrong.

And even though part of him was protesting wildly, he moved the cursor and opened the clip.

“Hi, Micke!” his sister said before something covered the lens and everything went black.

♦  ♦  ♦

Shit, shit, shit,
was the only coherent thought his head could come up with. But after a few seconds he was able to reboot his system and regain control.

How in the name of holy fuck could Fifty-Eight have recorded his sister?

When had he filmed it?

More important—why?

The clip gave no decent answers. It was just a few seconds long, and had no information about date and time. It probably wasn’t even a proper assignment, because if it was it would be considerably longer and contain more information.

So what was it, then?

Had he just left his cell running, or hit the button by mistake and happened to film someone he didn’t even know?

Unlikely!

What were the odds on Fifty-Eight of all the people in the entire city just happening to bump into his sister, the very same person who just a few weeks before had been involuntarily caught up in the Game? Besides, from the tone of her voice they already knew each other. “Hi, Micke,” she had said.

Was Hasselqvist’s first name really Micke?

Just as he was scrolling back up the screen to double-check, Rehyman put his hand on his shoulder.

“The guard’s on his way up the stairs,” he said, and his neutral tone of voice was actually trembling a bit.

“Fuuuck!” HP snarled through his teeth.

What was he going to do now?

After thinking for a few seconds, he realized he’d have to prioritize his mission.

He could talk to his sister tomorrow, but the bank account was only available now. He’d only have one chance at the jackpot.

Reluctantly he abandoned his scrolling and clicked on Transactions.

“We’ve got to go now!” Rehyman said, just as the information began rolling across the screen.

Information was cascading over him, and HP scanned it as
quickly as he could. In-payments, recipients’ accounts, dates, amounts—but where the hell was the sender’s account?

“We’ve got to go NOW!” Rehyman nagged, tugging at HP’s shoulder.

He shook the hand off.

“A couple more seconds.”

There it was!

Right at the bottom of the page, in its own little box. The numbered account from which all the cash was filtered out into the Game.

The pot of gold.

The mother lode!

Twelve numbers, all that was needed to start withdrawing money.

HP had double-checked online. There really were accounts where you just needed the number, just like Erman had said. No ID, no secret passwords, just a simple fucking account number.

And here it was!

He needed something to write with, fast as fuck.

Rehyman was still leaning over his shoulder, and to judge from the look on the guy’s face it was getting seriously urgent. HP patted his clothes with his hands.

Shit!

“A pen!” he almost shouted at Rehyman, who had started tugging his shoulder again.

“Never mind that, we have to leave!”

“I need a pen, for fuck’s sake, have you got a pen?!”

Rehyman just shook his head.

“Can you write numbers down on your laptop?”

No answer.

Fuck! He was so close, and it was all coming apart because he didn’t have a bastard pen!

If you split them into four groups of three figures, it was almost like a little rhyme. He tried humming them to himself. 397 461 212 035 397 461 212 035. This could actually work!