Литагент HarperCollins - The Complete Game Trilogy - Game, Buzz, Bubble

Then he settled down and she could tell from his breathing that he was sleeping soundly.

Thank goodness!

Time to go. Had she got everything?

She did a quick check of her jeans pockets.

Keys – yep, police badge – yep, mobile phone – missing …

She looked quickly around the dimly-lit bedroom, eager to get going. There it was, on the desk. Relieved, she picked it up, noticing that his mobile was next to it. A smart design, all thin and brushed steel, no bigger than the palm of her hand, with nothing but a touchscreen. A little flashing red light was the only indication that it was switched on. She couldn’t remember ever seeing one of that model before, or this one in particular, come to that. He must have only just got it. Probably cost a fortune, she thought as she carefully closed the front door behind her.

When HP opened the left-luggage locker at Central Station at first he didn’t realize what he was staring at. The green, cylindrical object reminded him of an aerosol-can and for a moment he almost felt disappointed. Was there another rat who needed a reminder of rule number one? He’d been expecting something better.

He stuffed the object into the bag he’d brought with him, and because the underground was full of people he wasn’t able to take a closer look at it until he’d shut the door of his flat behind him. He felt like he’d been taken for a ride, the assignment had started so promisingly with the key to the locker taped under a table in a branch of Wayne’s Coffee on the steep part of Götgatan. Sitting there among all the unsuspecting latte-slurpers, it was classic spy-film stuff, the anxiety of feeling under the table, and the excitement when his fingers touched something hard.

He already had an idea of what the key was for before the mobile told him where to find the lock it fitted.

So why all this James Bond cloak and dagger shit, just for a can of spray-paint?

But now that he had the chance to inspect his find, everything suddenly got more exciting. He perceived almost at once that it wasn’t an aerosol. It was actually a bit ridiculous that he’d ever been thinking along those lines. You only had to see the handle halfway along one side and the pin at the top to know that this was far more dangerous than a can of paint. And suddenly his pulse started to race with anticipation.

‘M84 Stun Grenade’ it said in military lettering, and a quick check in Wikipedia was enough to confirm what something like that was used for. The grenade, which was also known as Flash & Bang, was a so-called ‘non-lethal weapon’. For anyone who didn’t understand faggy military speak or play Counterstrike, it was a weapon that was not used primarily to kill people.

Unlike ordinary hand-grenades, the M84 didn’t fire out shrapnel that mutilated and killed those around it, but instead it produced a hell of a big bang and a flash of light that made the sun look like a 15-watt light-bulb. The point of the grenade was to knock out your enemy by blinding and deafening him and making him crap himself long enough for you to pick him up alive. Most anti-terrorism and police forces in the civilized world seemed to have M84s in their arsenals, and the descriptions of the grenade’s effectiveness were overwhelmingly positive: ‘very powerful’, ‘extremely useful’ or ‘highly efficient’ were some of the glowing reviews that various users had given the M84, and now HP suddenly had one of his own.

A real one!

The only question was: what did the Game Master want him to do with it?

From:Game Control

To:Game Master

Subject:Extracts from police report 0201-K246459-10 (candidate 128, assignment 1006-09)

On the above date, patrol car 1054 with Police Inspector Janson and Police Constable Modéer was ordered to the junction of Kungsträdgårdsgatan and Arsenalgatan as a result of an as yet unclassified incident involving the Horse-Guards. A number of patrols and ambulances were despatched simultaneously to the same location and Police Inspector Janson was appointed as acting head of the police operation.

At the location the patrol met Lieutenant Arne Wolff from the Svea Life Guards’ dragoon battalion who told them the following:

Wolff was ordered to form a mounted escort, comprising twelve officers and a total of forty conscripts, for a cortège from the Royal Stables to the Royal Palace. This was an official event on the occasion of the state visit from Greece.

The cortège contained the President of Greece and his wife, as well as Their Majesties the King and Queen.

Wolff reports that they left the Royal Stables in the following formation:

First went two mounted police officers who were primarily responsible for dealing with any traffic issues. Then came the head of the escort and his adjutant and the colour guard (2 + 4 men), then the first troop of the escort (2 + 20 men), of which Wolff was acting commander from a position at their rear.

Behind Lieutenant Wolff followed the first carriage of the cortège containing the President and His Majesty the King, then the second carriage with the President’s wife and Her Majesty the Queen. Behind the royal carriages came two further mounted police officers and then the second escort troop, this too consisting of two officers and twenty soldiers.

Usually the route would follow Nybroplan, Hamngatan, Regeringsgatan, reaching Norrbro bridge via Gustav Adolfs torg, then Skeppsbron to the Palace. But because the bridge is closed for repairs an alternative route was chosen, via Kungsträdgårdsgatan and crossing the water by Strömbron instead.

When HP had finally received his instructions, he knew at once that this assignment was more difficult by an order of magnitude than any he had carried out before. There was a risk of him getting caught, and if he did he would have considerably more trouble with the judicial system than for switching off a clock, spray-painting a door or removing a few wheel nuts. This here was some serious shit, and he didn’t exactly have an unblemished criminal record to fall back on. He’d end up behind bars for this if anything went wrong …

Really he should have turned it down, but he could already feel the excitement bubbling inside him. This would provide fucking good pictures. World class stuff, maybe clip of the week material! He’d never heard of anyone doing anything like it, so he’d be the first. And he couldn’t just back out of a challenge like that.

An offer you can’t refuse …

It would be important to plan the operation carefully. Complete the assignment, get good pictures and find some way of getting away without anyone working out who he was. He thought he had a pretty good idea of how it could work but he needed to get a few things together.

When the first escort troop was level with Wahrendorffsgatan, Wolff noted from his position in the procession that an object was rolled out towards them from somewhere in the crowd of onlookers along the left-hand pavement. The object appeared to be some sort of metal cylinder, somewhat reminiscent of a can of spray-paint, and it stopped in the middle of the front part of the troop, whereupon a number of horses jerked and caused some anxiety in the ranks.

The Goat’s moped was a stroke of genius. HP had borrowed it before and his amiable neighbour and court supplier had never been interested in what he wanted it for.

‘Just take it, no problem, here’s the key,’ was as usual the response he got, and half an hour later he nicked a decent black helmet with a dark visor from a motorbike parked in the square down at Medborgarplatsen.

He’d checked the route of the cortège on the net, then he went down to do a recce and came to the conclusion that the end of Wahrendorffsgatan was the best place to carry out the assignment.