Buzz: A Thriller (19 page)

The picture intrigued HP, and he walked around the coffee table to take a closer look. The photograph actually looked like . . .

“Marmaris,” a dry voice said behind HP, making him jump.

“Wh-what?”

Philip Argos pointed at the picture.

“That’s the view from my villa in Marmaris. In Turkey,” he clarified. “I go there as often as I can to unwind. It’s a good place to fill your soul with positive energy . . .”

“Aha, okay! I—I was just admiring the colors,” HP muttered.

“Sit yourself down, Magnus.” Philip gestured toward the leather sofa. “Would you like anything to drink? Water, tea?”

HP realized his mouth was bone-dry.

“Water, please.”

He glanced up at Philip, but the expression on his face gave no clue about what was to come.

Philip pulled out his cell phone from a holster on his belt, but instead of dialing a number he just pressed a button on the side, then spoke into it as if it were a microphone.

“Sophie, would you mind bringing in some mineral water for me and Magnus.”

He let go of the button and waited a moment. The cell let out two distinct bleeps.

Philip returned it to its holster and sat down in the armchair opposite HP. He adjusted the journals on the table, crossed one leg over the other, and leaned back. Then he smiled, and for the second time that evening HP couldn’t help shivering.

“Magnus . . . that is your name, isn’t it?”

DAMMIT TO HELL
—his cover was blown!

“Er . . . what?!” he mumbled, trying to win a bit of time.

Philip Argos smiled again—an unsettling, reptilian leer that made the hair on the back of HP’s neck stand up.

“I said, your real name isn’t really Magnus Sandström, is it?”

“Er . . . N-no . . .” HP managed to say as he desperately ran through his options.

He’d been found out and he was stuck on the nineteenth floor. The door was closed and outside stood the society of redheads. Both siblings looked like they would be capable of causing him a fair degree of physical harm—not to mention Philip Argos himself. The man looked like a rattlesnake working out how best to attack an unusually stupid desert rat . . .

“Did you really think we wouldn’t check you out properly? I mean, a person with your sort of reputation and experience . . . ?” Philip chuckled.

HP shrugged and adopted a resigned face to gain a few
more seconds’ thinking time. In the harsh light of hindsight the whole of his undercover project looked more insane than ever.

What the hell had he been thinking? That he could just waltz in through the door in his cheap suit and even cheaper disguise and, hey presto, would suddenly get access to a whole load of secrets?

He glanced over at the door again. Through the frosted glass he thought he could make out the twins’ threatening silhouettes. As if they were waiting out there, ready to jump him the moment their boss pressed the button . . .

“It didn’t take a great deal of digging to unmask you,” Philip Argos went on. “Like I said, you do have something of a reputation . . . We’re very careful here at ArgosEye. Trust is good, but making certain is, as I’m sure you’ve already heard, always preferable . . .”

Philip Argos smiled another rattlesnake smile and HP made a brave attempt to return it.

All aboard! The next train to fucksville is about to depart from platform four!

“Farook Al-Hassan!”

“Wh-what?”

“Farook Al-Hassan, that’s what you’re called these days, isn’t it?”

Philip gave him an encouraging nod.

“S-sure . . .” HP stammered after a couple of seconds of confused thought.

“Of course . . .” he added as his grin grew gradually wider. “But you can carry on calling me Mange if you like. I’m not too fussy about that. When you apply for jobs Mange sounds a bit better, if you see what I mean . . .”

Philip Argos nodded.

“It wouldn’t have made any difference here. We go by people’s abilities, not what their surnames happen to be, but obviously I respect your wishes. To tell you the truth, you impressed me the moment I saw your CV. On paper you were precisely the sort of person we needed here at the company, someone who knows what he’s doing and is prepared to do whatever it takes to grow in line with the business. That’s why I asked the others to take special care of you from day one . . .”

HP really was trying not to, but he still couldn’t stop grinning. His disguise was still intact. His cover wasn’t blown. In fact it even looked as if he might be heading for . . .

“ . . . promotion,” Philip Argos went on. “From what I saw down in the mine this evening, it would be foolish of me not to give you the chance to develop further. My job as a boss is to seek out talented individuals and help them to reach their full potential. That’s how you build up a successful enterprise . . .”

HP was nodding as if he knew exactly what Philip Argos meant. His grin was still glued to his face, but not only because he felt so relieved. There was something about Philip’s style and way of talking that appealed to him.

“I’m going to let you move around a bit, find out how everything works, then when an opportunity arises you’ll be in the front of the line to take the step up,” Philip went on, before being interrupted by a short knock.

The door opened and the tall redhead whose name was evidently Sophie came in with a tray. As she put the glasses and bottles on the table she gave HP a quick but considerably less hostile look than before, and HP caught himself extending his vulpine grin in her direction.

“Thanks, Sophie,” Philip Argos said when she was almost finished.

He took hold of her elbow with one hand. An odd gesture that seemed simultaneously intimate and stern, and she turned her face toward her boss at once, almost like a dog waiting for orders from its master.

“You can tell Elroy to have the car ready in ten minutes. We’ll be dropping off Fa—I mean Magnus here on the way home.”

Sophie nodded and gave HP another glance before she left the room. This time he could have sworn the woman gave him a hint of a smile.

♦  ♦  ♦

She undid all three locks on the door of the flat, taking the opportunity to inspect both the door and frame. But, just as before, there were no signs of any attempted break-in.

She locked the door behind her and peered into the living room. The mattress and bedclothes were still on the floor where they had left them. She rolled the whole lot up into a bundle and tied it up with a length of nylon rope.

She had no intention of ever using any of them again, so it would be just as well to dump the whole lot down in the garbage room in the basement. A fitting end to the affair. Fucking a colleague on a thin mattress in an empty flat, and—even worse—a notorious ladies’ man whom she had seduced at a staff party. Things really didn’t get any more sordid than that.

She put the rolled-up mattress in the hall and took a last walk around the flat. The bedroom door was closed and when she opened it a waft of stagnant air hit her. She took a couple of steps toward the window to air the room, and was about
halfway there when she realized that there was another sort of smell in there.

It reminded her of aftershave.

♦  ♦  ♦

He had asked them to drop him off by a 7-Eleven some way from the hotel, claiming he had to get some shopping. Elroy the gorilla was in the driver’s seat, with his twin sister beside him. HP and Philip Argos were sitting next to each other on the capacious backseat.

“Thirty thousand terabytes, do you know how much that is? Of course you know, Farook, how stupid of me. I almost forgot who I’m talking to!” Philip chuckled. “Thirty million billion bytes, that’s how much information flows through the Internet every hour, at least according to some sources. Thirty million billion letters, numbers, and other signifiers, carrying all manner of information. Three thousand hours of new film clips on YouTube, over five thousand new blog posts on tweets. Two hundred thousand new user profiles on all sorts of social forums. All in just one measly little hour. It’s a dizzying thought, isn’t it?”

HP nodded.
Dizzying
was one word for it . . .

He was feeling giddy, almost a bit high.

“Most people, including politicians and leaders, have no idea about how astonishingly comprehensive the torrent of information out there actually is,” Philip went on. “But if anyone dares even breathe the word
surveillance
there are instant, massive protests. Of course people always think of the National Defense Radio Center, the National Security Agency, and other state organizations . . .”

He shook his head.

“But of course that’s actually completely wrong, in democratic countries, at least. The state is usually only bothered about what a tiny little group have to say on a certain, extremely narrow subject area. But big business, on the other hand . . .”

He waved his hand toward the world outside the car.

“ . . . is interested in what almost everyone has to say, especially if it’s got anything to do with patterns of consumption or perception of their cherished trademarks. That type of information is everywhere out there, the whole net is basically overflowing with it, and why? Because most people hand out that sort of information entirely voluntarily by clicking a little box at the bottom of a page, or, even better, by taking the initiative and posting their opinions and preferences on one of the plethora of forums available to them. In other words, modern, freedom-loving, integrity-cherishing human beings map out themselves down to the most private little detail. Not even George Orwell could have predicted a scenario like this . . .”

A short bleep from Philip’s belt holster signaled that he’d got a message, but he had warmed to his theme so much that he didn’t even seem to notice.

“The Internet is positively groaning with information that people are forcing on each other. Favorite television programs, films, and books, religious and political opinions, the kids’ Christmas presents, or what they made for dinner. And why? Well, all because the vast majority of us are longing for just one thing.”

“Affirmation,” HP muttered.

“Exactly! We’re getting more and more dependent on having other people tell us how smart or attractive or clever we are. What a wonderful life we’ve built up, with our lovely
partners and wonderful children, and how happy our lives are in comparison to other people’s. People who have the wrong sense of humor, eat the wrong food, wear the wrong clothes, live in the wrong sort of house, raise their children wrong, or simply have the wrong opinions in general . . .”

He leaned over to HP’s side of the seat.

“Basically anything that’s worth knowing is already out there, and all you need is a way of filtering the torrent for the type of information that could be of use to potential clients.”

HP was nodding with more and more interest.

“The advantage that the authorities and those in power have had for almost four hundred years when it comes to information has been demolished. Information no longer flows from the top down, but in every other direction as well.

“Thousands upon thousands of people can communicate directly with each other within a matter of seconds, without having to ask anyone for permission. None of the old truths apply anymore, everything can be questioned, changed, or rejected. The rules of the game have changed forever, and anyone who doesn’t realize this is doomed to fall. Just look at North Africa.”

Philip paused briefly and glanced out of the window before going on.

“What we offer our clients is a way of handling and preventing crises by constantly monitoring everything that is said about them, and by whom. Giving them a way to stop any snowball before it turns into an avalanche, if you see what I mean?”

He gestured toward the snow outside, which seemed to be falling harder now.

Oh yes, HP understood all right, but Philip’s pause was so
brief that he didn’t have time to say anything. Instead he went on listening with growing fascination.

“But,” Philip went on, “once our clients have got detailed information about the mechanisms at work on the net, the daily mechanisms that have a direct effect on the bottom line of their accounts, it doesn’t usually take long before they ask for the next step . . .”

“Control,” HP suggested.

“Exactly, my friend!” Philip Argos grinned another of his reptilian smiles. “And that’s where our unique services come into the picture. Because when you strip away all the fine words, the policy documents and elegant phrases, that’s exactly what it all comes down to in the end . . .”

♦  ♦  ♦

Control!

That was what she was lacking. Lacking—and longing for!

She had let the situation control her instead of the other way around. Clearly she should have behaved differently at her interview, that much was almost painfully obvious now . . . She hadn’t done anything wrong, and had actually probably saved a whole lot of people’s lives.

And how had the world thanked her?

By suspending her and accusing her of various offenses—colleagues looking askance at her, and, last but by no means least, a boss who hadn’t exactly put much effort into supporting her. On the contrary, he had actually contributed to making her position even worse. It was high time to take matters into her own hands, and try to work out how all the pieces fitted into the puzzle.

She had put off doing so for too long.

She really ought to start with Henke. But that was impossible. She hadn’t heard from him in over a year. Not since he sent her that package. Six bolts. Six rusty bolts that turned her whole life upside down. And made her lose her grip.

None of the phone numbers he used to have seemed to work anymore.

The same thing applied to his email and Messenger . . .

She stamped the snow from her boots and closed the door of the flat behind her. Right now Micke was the only good thing in her life, and seeing as Henke wasn’t around she would have to start there if she was going to stand any chance of getting back on her feet. Even if she hadn’t exactly been treating Micke well, he had at least always been there for her.