in Kungsträdgården had quickly reduced to the Manneken fucking Pis. A pathetic little trickle that stung more than it did any good. And someone else appeared to have replaced him as clip of the week, a clown who had thrown a pie at some world-famous business leader that HP had never even heard of. Ridiculous, a piece of piss, and nowhere near his own achievement.
To make matters even worse, he was running out of money.
He’d soon have to take up Manga’s offer of doing some casual work in the computer-shop to pay the bills.
He needed a new mission.
A task that challenged him, something more in line with what he was capable of. And he needed it soon, because right now this shit was fucking useless!
‘Okay, attention, Alpha One!’
Vahtola stepped into the room and the chatter among the six bodyguards died away instantly.
‘Welcome to today’s assignment,’ she began curtly. ‘You’ll be deployed as follows: one plus three will reinforce the Prime Minister’s group, he’s due to land at 20:45 at Bromma, and, as you all know, after Kungsträdgården we’re doubling up.’
Nods of agreement from the whole group, no-one could object to the logic of that following the warning shot that the royal party had quite literally been subjected to a week or so before.
‘Bengtsson, you can have Kruse, Savic and Normén. Take two standard cars, the Prime Minister has his armoured vehicle plus one, so you’ll be a total of four vehicles. Channel twenty-eight as usual. Questions?’
Bengtsson, a wiry man somewhere in his forties with thinning hair, Vahtola’s second in command, merely shook his head quickly.
‘Good, you can get going at once,’ Vahtola concluded, and a few minutes later they were sitting in the cars.
Bengtsson had made it easy for them by letting them divide up among themselves before they set off, and Rebecca had intentionally kept close to Kruse, a sturdy man from Gothenburg who had been in Alpha since the group was formed. She hadn’t spoken to Dejan since the incident in the self-defence class, even though she knew she should probably apologize to him. After all, he was the one who ended up getting hurt, not her. But for some reason it hadn’t happened and now too much time had passed.
The injury was still visible from the plaster supporting the bridge of Dejan’s nose, and he shot sullen looks in her direction whenever he got the chance.
Macho prat!
Kruse, on the other hand, was more like a kindly uncle, he didn’t really give her any sort of looks at all, usually spoke about his wife and their almost grown-up kids back home in Gothenburg, whom he only saw when he had time off. She’d asked him why he hadn’t tried to get a post closer to home, but he had only laughed:
‘Once a bodyguard, always a bodyguard, Normén. You’ll realize that soon enough. Besides, Iréne doesn’t want me cluttering the place up during the week.’
They booked out an ordinary black Volvo S60 and set off after Bengtsson and Dejan’s Suburban. Quarter of an hour or so later they were out at Bromma Airport.
Finally it had arrived!
He had almost given up hope, and had been toying with the idea of giving up altogether and getting rid of the mobile to the Greek when the light finally started to flash.
Three days in Manga’s shop had been quite okay. Washing the floor, running cables, and playing World of Warcraft whenever he got the chance. And five hundred tax-free kronor in his hand if the till could spare it, so it wasn’t all bad.
The customers were pretty okay as well. Mostly a load of nerds who wanted advice about various gadgets, and seemed to look up to Manga as if he was some sort of holy guru.
Everywhere else Mangalito was small-fry, completely lost, but in the dark little shop he was clearly the Boss, the Geeks’ very own Godfather, and he seemed to enjoy the role.
It was actually pretty cool, and he had to admit that he might have to reconsider his opinion of the Mangster. He’d managed IRL to put together a pretty nice set-up with both his job and his family.
But he himself wasn’t the nine to five type. Not your average loser who was going to be happy with any shitty McJob. He needed something more, something that all his efforts so far had failed to give him. A challenge, some excitement and a bit of fucking action!
‘Really I should have been a cop,’ he grinned to himself as he headed west on the Goat’s moped and the familiar feeling started to build inside him. This could turn out to be pretty damn cool.
The official government plane landed on schedule and everything went according to plan. They had time for a quick coffee with two of the Prime Minister’s regular protection team who had met them at Bromma, and they had agreed their route and formation before it was time to glide in through the gates and cruise over towards the hangar.
The Prime Minister, his female assistant and two bodyguards arrived with the plane. They switched quickly into the armoured black BMW, then they were ready to set off towards his official residence in the Sagerska Palace. Rebecca and Kruse went first in the Volvo, then the two regular guards in a similar car, then the Prime Minister’s vehicle, with Bengtsson and Dejan bringing up the rear in their Suburban.
Flashing lights on and full speed towards the city centre.
Hornsgatan, heading west, a bit of weaving around the red lights at Hornstull, then out across the Western Bridge. In contrast to his previous triumph, for the time being he had very few details about this assignment. But he wasn’t too worried about that. NK and Birkagatan had also been on a need-to-know-basis right up until things kicked off. All he needed to know was where he was going and that whatever awaited him there was going to give him three thousand fucking points!
If you added those to the five thousand two hundred he’d already scraped together, that was enough to take him past number fifty-eight and into the lead, that very evening!
The thought made him so ecstatic that for a moment he almost swerved into the railing of the bridge.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new leader, number one-twenty-eight!’
His comments section would easily stretch to more than ten pages.
HP, Master of the Game.
All he needed to do was get to Lindhagensplan and wait for new instructions.
His cock was already at half-mast.
He could hardly wait!
Ulvsundavägen was behind them now, after a bit of neat zigzagging from Kruse at the red lights at the junction with Drottningholmsvägen, where the ordinary, law-abiding Svenssons had moved their cars out of the way of their flashing blue lights. They were heading towards the Traneberg Bridge, then on to Lindhagensplan.
She glanced at the time, 21:12. If everything carried on like this they’d make their delivery at Sagerska and be done by half past nine. That would give her plenty of time for a session in the gym once the debriefing was over. The boys would probably want to play indoor hockey as usual. It was probably best to join in, even if she didn’t really like ball-games. Important to be one of the team.
Okay,
