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Rebecca blushed, feeling simultaneously guilty and pleased. Maybe Dejan’s nose was a bit unfortunate, but on the other hand he had been asking for it with his stupid macho posturing.
She’d done her job, managed to get free on her own. She hadn’t been some helpless victim.
Not like then.
Absolutely not like then!
She was different now, stronger, better, braver. A completely different person.
When she eventually dared to glance up at Vahtola, she saw a faint smile on the other woman’s face.
Birkagatan 32, be there at 18:00.
It wasn’t exactly a difficult instruction, but this time he had at least prepared himself better. In spite of the heat he had dug out an old army jacket that someone, he couldn’t remember who, had left in his flat after a party ages ago. The jacket had loads of pockets which he stuffed with various useful things, and it had straps on the front which would be perfect for holding the phone.
The clip of number twenty-seven had finally made him realize where the camera ought to be to get the best pictures. No more rubbish bouncing at waist-height like on the train or at NK, from now on nothing but head-shots.
The viewers, or fans as he was calling them more and more often, had been impressed with the NK stunt.
Even if he didn’t know who they were, he felt increasingly sure that they were his kind of people, solid guys that he’d be happy to share a chilled beer with if the opportunity arose.
He’d actually tried to find a way to get into the community. He’d tried to find an entrance portal where you could sign up as a member and then play, watch and maybe even chat to the fans. Find out a bit more about who they were and why they liked him in particular.
But he’d failed. The search terms he had used didn’t come up with any links that worked, so membership seemed to be by invitation only. Which was a bit crap, because seeing other players’ clips would have been fucking cool, not to mention the direct contact with the fans, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about it.
The Game was more impartial this way, he reluctantly accepted that.
After his second task he had strolled intentionally slowly along the quayside of Skeppsbron, walking backwards at least half the way so he could enjoy his handiwork as long as possible. By the time he got home to Maria Trappgränd the Game had already put up a professional montage. First his own shaky footage from the inside interspersed with external shots of the clock. Then a split screen with the countdown in the middle. His hand and the buttons on one side, the rotating clock on the other. Three, two, one, click, and time stopped above the centre of Stockholm.
Five hundred lovely points, a personal message of congratulation from the Game Master and a load of new comments, as well as clambering a few notches up the high score list.
To say it was cool didn’t even come close! He’d been forced to wank not once but twice before he could get to sleep.
Up out of the underground at St Eriksplan, into Tomtebogatan and then right at the corner. As he approached the address he could feel his pulse rate go up. He decided to cross over Birkagatan to be able to observe his target in peace and quiet from a doorway almost opposite, and to have a well-deserved fag.
There wasn’t anything odd about the address.
A perfectly ordinary residential building built sometime in the early twentieth century or so, at a guess. Four rows of windows plus the skylights on the roof gave five floors in total. From the look of it, the ground floor seemed to be mostly shops and offices, and presumably the top floor was some sort of luxurious loft apartment.
So what now?
He pulled the phone from the strap on the left shoulder where, after much deliberation, he had decided to attach it, and swept it across the building, zooming in on the front doorway, then out to give the big picture again. When he was finished he noticed the little red light start to flash.
Behind the telephone box next to the Co-op
was all it said, and HP frowned unhappily as a minute or so later he fished out a plastic bag that had been stuffed behind the grey telecom engineers’ box on the other side of the street.
Had he come all the way out to Birkastan to pick up a lousy package?
What sort of shit assignment was this?
But before he had time to look in the bag the light flashed again and when he had read through the third message of the evening he felt his heart starting to race with excitement again.
This was more like it!
He checked that the camera was working, then fastened the phone in its place.
Then he tapped in the door-code he had just been given and heard the lock click.
Lights, camera, action! he thought excitedly as he opened the door and slid in.
The first target spun round like a flash!
‘Off to the right’ her brain registered as her instincts did the rest. She pushed her jacket open with her right hand, pulled her pistol from the holster and as soon as the barrel was free she aimed it in front of her.
She brought her left hand up to meet the gun, put her hand over the casing as she continued to raise her pistol-hand, which made the mechanism feed a bullet into the chamber. The moment her right arm was fully extended, with her left hand supporting the three fingers on the barrel, she fired off two quick shots at the centre of the target.
The entire movement hadn’t taken much more than a second.
Rebecca backed away slowly, still with the Sig Sauer ready to fire, her eyes sweeping in both directions above the barrel. When she had retreated ten metres from her mark, the next target suddenly popped up, this time way off to the left.
She quickly spun round and without even thinking she fired off another two shots halfway through the movement.
Bang, bang!
Another five-metre retreat, then the final target appeared, low and in the centre, not much bigger than a head. Half a second later this target too had two neat nine-millimetre holes acceptably close to the centre.
‘Stop, cease fire, cartridge out!’
‘Cease fire, cartridge out!’ she repeated back to the firing instructor, took her finger off the trigger, pulled out the magazine and then released the seventh bullet which was already in the chamber.
Once that was all done she put the gun back in her holster, took off her ear-defenders and protective glasses to await the judgement.
‘Nice shooting, Normén, you need slightly better tempo on the first series and less of a pull on the second, but generally, like I said, nice shooting!’ the instructor told her.
Rebecca nodded appreciatively at the critique, she had fumbled slightly with her jacket, lost a fraction of a second and then tried to make up the time on the second series.
‘Squeeze the shot off, don’t pull!’ she told herself as she taped stickers over the holes in the second target, ten centimetres or so higher than she had intended.
She had had trouble with her shooting when she started at Police Academy. The weapon and, above all, the bangs frightened her, and to begin with she had shut her eyes before she fired. Fortunately the academy ran an extra class for anyone not used to guns, and after a few evenings of intensive practice her fear had changed into something entirely different. Once she had got over her distaste and mastered the basic technique, the pistol made her feel safe. As if no-one in the world could get at her as long as she had the Sig in her hand. The size and strength of any opponent suddenly didn’t matter at all for someone holding a firearm.
And if both parties were armed, you had to shoot first and shoot best. So she had practised, properly down in the firing-range in the basement, but just as much at home with the authentic replica of her service pistol that she had bought in a model shop.
Draw, bolt-action, fire.
Draw, bolt-action, fire.
Fifty times each morning, and the same again each evening.
Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull. Over and over again, until it was deeply engrained and there was no-one in her class or even her year who was quicker. She had worn out two replica pistols so far, but it had been worth it!
Even in her current unit she was among the fastest, and when their shooting instructor checked the day’s results for both accuracy and speed, she came second, beaten only by a man from the Western District.
Shortly afterwards she called her answer machine to leave a message reminding her to increase her training that same evening.
The staircase was wide, made of grey marble, reasonably worn after a century or so of use. The banister was polished teak and a small, more recent lift for two people at most had been squeezed into the centre of the stairwell.
He checked out the stairwell carefully before setting off upstairs. He was heading for the second floor. The building evidently had another wing built out into the rear courtyard, seeing as there were doors off in that direction after every half-flight. Single doors to the flats facing the courtyard, double doors to those facing the street, he’d noted by the time he reached the third floor.
Four doors, all of them with neat brass signs and one of them, the second from the left, with the right name combination. So far, so good. By this time his heart was pounding in his chest, and not exclusively because of the stairs.
He looked around the stairwell and landing once more before he got going.
First he pulled an old blue woolly hat over his head – he’d already cut holes in it for his eyes and mouth, just like number twenty-seven. Then he pulled out the things that had been in the bag. The first, a little rubber wedge, he pushed under the door that was his target, kicking it to make sure it was properly inserted. Then he took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell. At the moment the door-handle was pushed down from inside he pulled out the can of red spray-paint which had been in the bag along with the rubber wedge, and set to work.
It took a few seconds for the man in the flat to realize what was happening, and HP had got almost halfway through the text before the man started trying to open the door seriously.
Suddenly the aimless jerking of the handle stopped and a moment later the whole door shook, as if the man inside had given it a real shove. HP noticed to his horror that the wedge had slid out a bit on the slippery stone floor, and that there was now a centimetre-wide gap between the double doors. He caught a glimpse of a furious red face and heard the man inside yelling at him, but it was too late to stop now. Instead he gave the wedge a hard kick which he hoped would make it hold for a few more seconds, long enough for him to complete his task.
‘I’ll get you, you bastard, I’m going to get you, you cowardly little fucker!’ the man inside roared as he kept shoving at the door.
The gap was growing wider and HP felt himself starting to panic. But he couldn’t stop now, he only had a couple of letters left. Nobody loves a fucking quitter, certainly not the fans.
Suddenly he heard a door to his right open and when he turned his head he saw a girl of about twenty peer out. As soon as their eyes met she pulled the door closed again in horror, and he heard the safety-chain rattle behind it.
Fuck, he’d almost forgotten that he had the balaclava over his head!
There was another shove to the door and this time HP could see the wedge sliding back on the stone floor. All the target had to do was pull the door back and it would be free. A muscular tattooed arm and a shaved head were visible through the gap between the doors and in a sudden flash of inspiration he raised the spray-can and fired off a blast of paint at the furious face. He was rewarded with a roar in response as the door closed again.
Direct hit!
With two quick gestures he completed his work of art and had just turned towards the stairs when all hell broke loose behind him. Without looking back he threw himself down the stairs.
He took the first flight in two strides and when he reached the landing halfway down he heard the man up above take up the chase with a roar. Two more strides, first floor, two more to the next landing, then just one more flight of steps left to freedom. He could hear thuds and heavy breathing behind him, but not close enough to stop him getting away. But when he turned the corner to the last flight down to the exit he saw that his escape route was blocked. A woman was just squeezing a bulky pram through the front door and there was no way he could slip past. The gorilla behind him seemed to have worked out what was going on because he let out a triumphant roar somewhere just behind HP.
‘I’ve got you now, you little fuck!’
Panic welled up inside him, but instead of running straight ahead and getting caught like a rat by the pram, HP spun round past the lift and carried on towards the back door out into the courtyard.
He raced out into the walled yard without slowing down, and took aim at the carpet-beating frame off to one side. The gorilla was gaining on him, he was literally at his heels, so close that he could hear his laboured breathing.
HP leapt up onto the frame and from there jumped up towards the top of the wall high above. He managed to grab the edge with both hands, and kicked wildly with his legs against the wall to get his upper body up to the top.
It worked!
He struggled hard to get to the strip of tin crowning the wall, and managed to swing one leg over. But just as he was about to pull up the other one he felt someone grab hold of his trouser-leg and he was left sitting astride the wall, clinging on for dear life.
From the corner of his eye he could see his pursuer and could feel the man trying to get a better grip around his ankle.
Panicking, HP started to kick his left leg wildly in an effort to get free. Suddenly his foot hit something solid and he heard a grunt, and the grip on his ankle let go. It came as such a shock that HP lost his balance and tumbled helplessly into the flowerbed on the other side of the wall.
He landed face down and got a mouthful of soil.
When he got up a couple of seconds later and began to stagger towards a gateway that he guessed must lead out onto St Eriksgatan, he could still hear the gorilla roaring on the other side of the wall.
Once he was out on the street he decided against the closest underground station and sprinted off instead along Karlbergsvägen towards Odenplan. When he reached the entrance four minutes later and reduced his speed, he realized that his whole body was shaking.
Congratulations, HP!
the screen said once he had sat down in an underground carriage and got control of his trembling hands.
You have successfully completed
your third assignment, worth 700 points.
I have also decided to award you 100 extra points for an accomplished performance. Your film clip is expected to be ready in 23 minutes.
Greetings from
TheGame Master
So in other words he would just have time to get home to watch everything repeated, and wallow in the love of the fans. Fuck, this was seriously cool!
When the door of the flat closed behind Rebecca she was almost too tired to go through her new routine. For a moment she toyed with the idea of not actually bothering this time, that everything was good enough as it was. But then her anxiety took over and she spent almost three minutes locking, unlocking, and then relocking all of the four locks that were attached to the door.
When she was finally happy, sufficiently convinced that everything worked and that the flat was secure, she threw her soaking wet gym clothes in the little washing-machine, staggered into the living room and collapsed on the sofa.
‘Hello!’ she said in the direction of the bedroom, but no-one answered.
It had been a long time since there had been anyone there.
Yet she couldn’t help saying something, anything, so as not to feel so alone.
‘Hello …’ a voice suddenly answered, and her heart skipped a beat before she heard it continue and realized that she was listening to her own voice.
‘… you’ve called Rebecca. I’m not home right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you.’
She threw herself at the phone and just picked up the receiver before the answer phone bleeped, but whoever it was who had called had already hung up.
Hell! She’d put the phone on mute while she was doing yoga the previous evening and must have forgotten to reset it.
Oh well, they’d call back if it was important.
The odds were fairly short that it would be a call from work about some overtime, something which for once she didn’t feel inclined to do.
The intense training of the past few days had left her worn out and tonight she just wanted to sleep. She might do a short session in the gym tomorrow, but she was planning to spend the rest of her day off catching up on a bit of well-deserved rest.
She went through her messages. The following were all reminders from herself:
