The Complete Game Trilogy: Game, Buzz, Bubble. Литагент HarperCollins USD

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       16

       Who is playing who?

      She’d reached the third bend when it happened. She was going about a hundred and had just got past the obstacle when the front tyre blew and the steering wheel began to shudder madly in her hands.

      Even though she had been expecting it, her pulse was racing as she struggled to regain control of the vehicle. Braking hard, the jolt on the pedal telling her that the ABS was working.

      ‘Stop the skid, steer into the direction you want to go in, don’t fight it,’ the instructor said beside her.

      When the car had stopped at the side of the road she realized she was wet with sweat.

      ‘Good! No problems at all, Normén!’ the instructor summarized.

      She nodded in response and tried to look calm and composed.

      Driving instruction out at Tullinge airfield was obligatory, so she just had to grit her teeth and get through it even if her heart had started doing panic-stricken somersaults in her chest the moment she sat in the driver’s seat.

      The tyre blow-out at speed was the last task of the day, and she’d be heading home immediately after the debrief. Which suited her fine.

      Kruse was better, considerably better, in fact. It looked like he was going to make a full recovery.

      It was a hell of a relief, and made everything a bit easier to cope with, now that she knew who had thrown the stone through the windscreen, and possibly even why. But obviously she couldn’t tell anyone that whole story about the Game. Not even Anderberg would manage to stay quiet about something like that, she was sure of that.

      So she’d just have to deal with her demons the way she always had. With shock therapy.

      What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and all that macho bullshit … If you were terrified, you ought to join the police. If you felt insecure, you should become a bodyguard, and if you had a car-crash you just had to jump back in the driving seat as soon as you could. Take the bull by the horns and put your foot hard on the pedal.

      Yippikayee! as Henke would have put it.

      She wondered what he was doing now?

      He ought to have arrived in Thailand by now, but she hadn’t heard anything.

      Not that that was much of a surprise,

      They’d hidden themselves away well, he had to give them credit for that. The building looked completely normal at first glance. An ordinary brick office-building, standard Swedish design, nothing fancy. Just like all the others along the road. Two storeys, a main entrance, underground parking and a small, glassed-in security booth. A couple of tatty pennants drooped in front of the entrance, their cords whipping rhythmically in the summer breeze.

      Bang-bang-bang-bang.

      Fucking smart move, actually, hiding in plain sight like this, where everyone could see, but no-one did. Much better than some secret fortress which would only provoke a load of questions.

       The best trick the devil ever pulled …

      Getting a car hadn’t been a problem. A Saab 900 from the long-stay carpark at Arlanda. You could start those with a lollypop stick if you knew what you were doing. The barrier of the carpark was just as easy. Mr Sensible had naturally left the ticket in the ashtray to make sure he didn’t lose it while he was getting drunk in Mallorca. He just had to pay a bit of cash into the machine, then drive out entirely legally. Two hundred and fifty kronor for a car with a full tank that wouldn’t be reported stolen for at least six days. And that was a fairly decent price, a hell of a lot less than Hertz, and a lot less hassle, particularly for someone who didn’t want to be seen. And who didn’t actually have a driving licence …