Bubble(19)

Thanks for your help! she wrote, then pressed send.

Just a few minutes later the answer appeared.

Dont mention it, glad I was able to help!

Have you had time to think over my proposal regarding your find?

Best wishes, Uncle T.

She started a reply but stopped herself halfway through. Obviously it would be best to hand everything over to Uncle Tage. He seemed capable of dealing with most things, and the revolver was worrying her more than she cared to admit. Yet it didnt feel right to let it all go until she knew more about her dads past.

She erased her reply and wrote a new one instead.

Need more time to think!

Then she went over to the computer to spread the good news.

He peered cautiously behind the roller-blind. Obviously he ought to wait until it got dark, but the semi-darkness of the Swedish summer wouldnt descend until eleven at night, and there was no way he could wait that long!

He carefully opened his creaking front door and listened for noises in the gloom of the stairwell. Somewhere below him he could hear the faint sound of a television, but that was all.

He took a couple of paces in his stockinged feet and put his ear to his neighbours door. Silent as the grave.

For the first time in several days, which might reasonably suggest that the flat was empty.

Even Stasi spies probably had families waiting for them at home.

He crouched down and cautiously opened the letterbox. Dark, much darker than the stairwell, which meant that the windows were covered. The smell hadnt changed from the previous times he had checked. Sawdust. They must have done some serious work in there  …

He straightened up, then took a couple of paces and checked down the stairs one more time, just to be sure.

Then he felt inside the sleeve of his jumper and pulled out the little crowbar.

It was surprisingly straightforward. The pointed end into the crack, just above the lock, a bang with his palm to wedge it in place, then a sharp jerk and pop goes the weasel!

It wasnt so strange, really. Unlike his own door, this one was wood, old wood. Fifty or sixty years drying out had shrunk the wood badly, giving plenty of room to play with between it and the frame.

One muffled noise when the crowbar went in, then a louder one as the bolt of the lock popped out.

Open Sesame!

There was hardly a mark on the door.

HP stood still for a moment and listened. Apart from the television downstairs, there still wasnt any noise, neither from the stairwell nor the flat. He scuffed a few little splinters of wood away with one sock, nudging them up against the wall so they wouldnt stand out against the stone floor. Then he pulled a small torch out of one of his pockets, stepped inside the flat and carefully shut the door behind him as best he could.

The smell of sawdust was stronger in the flat, as he stood there for a moment fiddling with the torch.

An image suddenly popped into his head. He and Becca in front of a fire. No, a fireplace.

Sparks crackling, shooting out onto a tiled floor  …  Him chasing them, trying to catch them before they went out. Her laughter  …

The sudden light from the torch made him jump. Pull yourself together, for fucks sake! Memory lane can wait.

He swept the beam of the torch around the dark little hall. The flat looked like his, the layout was pretty much the same. He must have seen it at least a hundred times when the Goat was living there. But now it felt weirdly unfamiliar, and he padded about carefully as he let the torch light up the empty floor.

No furniture at all, not a single chair or cardboard box. The whole flat felt oddly abandoned, but he could still feel his heart beating faster. He squatted down and shone the torch over the floor, just like they did in CSI.

There were clear footprints in the dust. An obvious highway through the middle of the room, with hardly any deviation. He turned round and shone the torch in all directions. The footsteps led from the front door, through the hall and on towards the bedroom door, through the living room. He could make out at least three different types of shoe, two that looked like different types of trainer, and a third that seemed smoother, like a smarter sort of shoe.

All the visitors appeared to have been heading for the bedroom, which was rather odd seeing as that was the room furthest from his own flat. That must be where they had been doing most of the work, because in spite of the smell he hadnt seen a single trace of sawdust.

As he got closer he suddenly noticed a faint glow beneath the door. He froze and got ready for a rapid retreat. Then he realized that the light was far too faint to come from any ordinary lamp. Besides, it was red, so he guessed it probably came from a digital display on some electronic gadget.

He took a few cautious steps and put his ear to the bedroom door.

Silence.

The smell of sawdust was so strong that it almost stung his nostrils. Somewhere under the sweet, woody smell was something more acrid that he didnt recognize.

He paused for a few moments.

Five.

Ten.

Then he put his hand on the handle, took a deep breath, and carefully opened the door.





10





Snake eyes




The six guns went off so close together that the blasts almost merged into one. Double shots with just a few milliseconds between them. The targets turned away with a short hydraulic hiss.

The sound of empty magazines hitting the floor, followed by a short metallic rattle as the gunmen quickly replaced them with new ones.

The targets turned forward again.

Single shots this time, then all the weapons clicked more or less simultaneously. But none of the six bodyguards seemed at all surprised. Rapid bolt actions slid the green blanks that Rebecca had slipped into their magazines onto the ground.

Then more shots, until the clock ticked and turned the targets away again.

Cease fire and unload! Rebecca ordered as she removed her ear defenders.

The expensive ventilation system was doing its job, she noted. Even though sixty shots had been fired in the past minute down in the firing range, the smell of gunpowder was scarcely noticeable.

She pressed a button on the remote and the targets turned forward. Six figures made of brown card, the size and shape of real people.

But instead of a drawing of a threatening gunman, these targets merely had a round circle the size of a saucer drawn on the front. In the middle of the chest  –  heart, lungs, spine.

One shot in that circle on an unprotected body would in all likelihood be fatal. Two would guarantee it.

She didnt need to go up to the targets to check the results.

None of her team needed to retake the test.

All ten shots were within the circles, direct hits in the death zone, and not even the interruption to their firing towards the end had made them lose their focus.

Nice shooting, all of you! she said curtly as she noted the results in her file.

Practice makes perfect, boss, Mrsic grinned at her. Nice to know it wasnt wasted  …

She let the comment pass. She really ought to be pleased. She had designed everything down here herself, everything from the layout of the range to the demands made of each marksman.

The whole thing had cost upwards of two million kronor, and if she hadnt managed to secure the licence, that money would basically have been wasted. But Uncle Tage had come to her rescue again.

Do you want to get your own test done, Rebecca? I can look after the targets. Kjellgren held out his hand for the remote.
 
 

 

No thanks, she said, slightly too quickly. Its getting late, Ill do it early tomorrow morning, she added, pretending to look at her watch.

But thanks anyway, Kjellgren. She forced herself to smile.

Right, then, she said, turning quickly towards the other five bodyguards. Youve all passed, well done! She ticked the file demonstratively, making sure it was angled in such a way that no-one could see her right hand shaking.

It took him a few seconds to realize where the smell was coming from.

Terrariums.

Large terrariums lined up on wooden frames along the walls, with heat lamps above them. Five lamps in total, one above each tank. Only one of them was lit, but he could feel the heat from several metres away.

In the middle of the room stood a large work-table piled high with clutter.

He aimed the torch around the room, then took a couple of tentative steps forward. The door closed silently behind him, but he hardly noticed.

He was wondering what sort of creatures were lurking behind the panes of glass  …

He directed the beam of light towards the terrariums, but they all seemed to be empty.

Good!

A sudden rattling sound from off to the right made him jump and drop the torch on the floor.

Shit!

He bent down quickly to get it, and when he straightened up again found himself looking straight into the eyes of a rat that was so fucking enormous it made the hair on his arms stand up.

It was only a metre or so away, shut inside a cramped metal cage hanging over the side of one of the terrariums, and he could see the animals whiskers twitch as it caught his scent.

He hated rats. Vile little bacteria motels with yellow teeth and bald tails  …

This one obviously wasnt your average disgusting sewer rat, but one of those black and white ones you could only get from the pet shop.

Bollocks!

So what the hell was the rat doing in there?

And the terrariums?

He couldnt see any sign of microphones or reel-to-reel tape-recorders. The only thing that came close to a technical gadget was something that looked like a small radio on the corner of the large work-table.

The display was on, and when curiosity got the better of him and he touched one of the buttons, he heard voices on the radio muttering to each other in a language he didnt understand. Probably just a perfectly ordinary radio tuned into some AM frequency  …  He moved the beam of the torch around the room a few more times, but couldnt see any trace of the surveillance control room he had been expecting.