Jim knew all of this although he’d never been to Sweden before; he had written a blog about it years ago, when he was just a boy; had interviewed one brave woman who had just got back and who described a year of misery, of loneliness, or boredom that was eased only by bullying within the ranks, drinking and abuse often bordering on rape.
He’d been naïve back then, stupidly naïve. He’d wanted to be balanced, believed that there was a free press, free speech, just like they were told there was every day, just like they were told that the sharing of information meant that there could be no more lies, no more dark secrets, no more conflict. He’d believed it all, and he’d believed that he could make the world an even better place by shining a torch on things that others might have missed, to make them better, to make everything better.
So he’d gone to Infotec to get their viewpoint. Milo had met him at the Infotec offices. And just like Frankie, Jim had been warmly received, reassured, flattered. He hadn’t been flirted with, of course, but instead he’d been offered money for his studies and a job at the end of it. A very nice job that he’d been sorely tempted by. He’d very nearly accepted. Only Milo made a mistake. Or perhaps had simply been arrogant enough to think that he had Jim just where he wanted him. Either way, the woman, Jim’s source, had disappeared. Completely and utterly disappeared off the face of the planet, leaving no message, no trace. And she’d disappeared before Jim had accepted the Infotec money. That had been Milo’s mistake. Jim had been suspicious, suspicious enough to call Milo on it, to ask more questions, questions that Milo, it turned out, was not interested in answering. The choice was made clear to him: in or out, join us or take the consequences. Without his source, Jim now had no story, as Milo pointed out with a shrug. And anyway, she’d been troubled, mentally unstable; she was receiving treatment. A second mistake: having claimed no knowledge of the source, Milo then started to fabricate a whole web of lies about her mental health, about treatment that he couldn’t elaborate on, in a health centre he couldn’t name.
Jim never saw the woman again. And he didn’t take the money or the job. And now … Now he felt like he was coming full circle. Sweden had changed his life, changed his outlook, changed everything. He’d discovered that the ‘truth’ was whatever Infotec wanted people to believe, that transparency was a myth, that Infotec had the power to ruin lives if it saw fit. He had been a teenager with brilliant prospects but following his last meeting with Milo he was turned down for every degree course he applied for, and every job. He had never found the woman again; his Swedish story had evaporated and enough rumours started to circulate to make people suspicious of him, to not want to get too close to him, to ensure that his watcher numbers were always around the ‘embarrassingly low’ level.
And so he had slipped into being a second-rate blogger and part-time Infotec saboteur, doing anything and everything he could to help Glen, Sal and anyone else he met along the way. It meant he spent his days always looking over his shoulder, never trusting anyone, sometimes wondering whether he had made a huge mistake all those years ago but generally knowing that he hadn’t, that one day he’d get his own back, that one day he’d get his chance to tell the truth – not just about Sweden but about everything he now knew.
And now, that time had come.
Either that, or he and Glen would be caught, tortured and killed.
One of the two.
He guessed it was probably fifty-fifty which way this was going to go.
‘So,’ he said, a cup of cooling coffee cradled in his hands, leaning forwards so that only Glen could hear him as the train rocketed through Denmark. ‘Why exactly are we going to Sweden and what’s the plan when we get there?’
27
The journey to Stockholm took fifteen hours on the direct shuttle train. Every time the trolley wheeled towards them, Jim felt his stomach clench in fear; every time the train slowed or, worse, stopped, he braced himself for guards boarding and taking them away. But as the rainy landscape was replaced by snow and the world became more hushed, he felt himself relax, allowed his eyes to gaze out of the window, allowed his breath to become deeper as his head started to nod, and he found his eyes closing …
Suddenly he felt Glen tugging at his shoulder. ‘We’re here,’ he whispered.
Jim woke up with a start. It was dark on the train; the few people seated around them were all asleep or trying to be.
‘We are?’ he whispered back.
Glen nodded and motioned for him to put his coat on. Then he led him out of the carriage to the connecting passageway. The doors, like all shuttle train doors, were sealed shut; they would open only when the controller released the mechanism. But Glen either didn’t know that or didn’t care.
He moved towards the door, opened a panel and input a code; immediately the red light in the corner turned green and the door slowly slid open. ‘Ready to jump?’ Glen asked, a little smile playing on his lips.
Jim nodded apprehensively.
Glen winked. ‘The snow will break your fall. And you’re wearing a nice padded jacket. You’ll be fine.’
Before Jim could question his logic, Glen opened the door and held out his hand. Jim took it, and immediately felt himself being hurled out of the train; he heard a thud a few seconds later and realised it was Glen, a few metres away.
Jim, who hadn’t had time to put his hood up, felt something trickling down the back of his head; he reached round to feel a gash where he’d hit something hard. He turned to look but it was too dark.
He heard something, felt a light being shone on him. ‘You hit a rock? Bad luck,’ Glen said, sounding genuinely sorry. ‘Let me have a look.’ Too shell-shocked to do much else, Jim let Glen peer at the back of his head. ‘It’s a graze,’ he said. ‘Here.’
He pressed some snow against it; Jim winced in pain but managed to stay silent.
‘We’re in Stockholm?’
‘Near enough,’ Glen said. ‘We’re better off making our own way from here.’
Jim digested this. ‘And the door?’ he asked. ‘How?’
Glen smiled secretively. ‘I kind of banked on them not changing the override code since I designed them,’ he said, his eyes twinkling. ‘Guess they never thought they needed to.’
‘Right,’ Jim said, pulling himself up. ‘So what else did you design when you were at Infotec?’ he asked, trudging after Glen, who had already started to move.
Glen turned round, a little smile playing on his lips. He looked much younger all of a sudden, like he’d suddenly come to life. His face, which had been virtually grey when Jim had seen him for the first time earlier, seemed to glow in the moonlight. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who saw this mission as a chance to do something real, Jim realised. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who’d been frustrated lately.
‘Not much,’ he said. ‘Just most of the place we’re going to. Come on, we’ve still got a long way to go.’
The snow was knee deep; Jim’s trainers were no match for it and so he resigned himself to cold, wet feet and started to follow Jim, his legs doing an odd sort of march that was, he found, the only way to get any kind of pace. Ahead of him, Glen seemed almost oblivious to the environment; he was walking purposefully, quickly, as though the snow didn’t even exist.
‘Come on,’ he called back; Jim did his best to hurry but instead found himself tumbling into a wet blanket of cold. He scrabbled to his feet and started again, cursing his shoes, his trousers, the feeling that he was out of his depth, that he wasn’t helping at all.
And then, suddenly, the ground changed; the snow ended and a path appeared. ‘And now,’ Glen’s eyes scanned the horizon, ‘just about now …’ He looked up and down; Jim’s eyes followed his gaze, but all he could see was the dark sky shimmering with stars, the white snow surrounding the icy white path they stood on. ‘Can you hear that?’
Jim listened; first he heard nothing, and then, then he started to hear it, a rushing sound, some barking, something coming towards them. But what? Who?
The sound got louder; Glen grabbed his arm and turned him around so that he could see the sled careering towards them, pulled by four wolves, an old man sitting on it, his face covered by a big, white beard. Father Christmas, Jim found himself thinking. It was Father Christmas coming to their rescue.
The man pulled on the reins and the wolves stopped. ‘Glen.’ He stood up, shook Glen by the hand. ‘It’s been a long time. I wasn’t even sure it was you. Could be you. I’m glad it was. Glad you’re alive.’
‘For now,’ Glen said grimly, but there was warmth in his eyes. ‘Christopher, I want you to meet Jim, a friend of mine.’
Jim held out his hand and felt Christopher’s clasp it.
‘We’d better get going,’ he said then. ‘There are only another five hours of darkness and we have a long way to go.’
Glen motioned for Jim to get into the sled, then sat beside him. ‘You’ll think you’re going to fall out,’ he warned him. ‘But try not to.’ He tapped Christopher on the shoulder. ‘Is the pass still clear? They haven’t closed it?’
Christopher shook his head. ‘You’d be surprised how little has changed,’ he said with a little shrug. ‘They pay us little attention up here. So long as we leave them alone.’
‘You’re lucky,’ Glen said, then gripped the rope in front of him. Jim did likewise and was pleased he had because at that very moment the sled moved off and only by holding on for dear life did he prevent himself from spinning right out of the back.
It was a good ten minutes before Jim trusted himself to speak. ‘Who … is this guy?’ he managed to shout eventually, his voice almost disappearing in the wind rushing past.
Glen turned to face him. ‘A friend,’ he said.
Jim raised an eyebrow. ‘I get that,’ he shouted. ‘But who is he? How is he a friend? How did he know to come and get us just now? Where did he come from?’
He saw a little twinkle in Glen’s eyes and realised how much the man he’d revered was enjoying this. He had only ever known Glen as a shadowy figure, too important to meet, the guy running the show, the guy who knew everyone, knew everything. He could arrange for people to disappear; he always seemed to know what Infotec were planning next. But Jim had never thought of him as a person, as someone who might get frustrated, who maybe wanted to get out more, who missed living in the open air. The man next to him was no longer a man of mystique; he was a man, a man who was looking at him now, his eyes suddenly deadly serious.
‘Christopher was one of the builders of the site,’ Glen shouted over the noise of the sled. ‘He led the crew; he knew the terrain, knew what was possible and what wasn’t. But Infotec reneged on its promise to him. It paid him half of what he was owed. To my shame, I believed head office when it told me there were discrepancies, that Christopher had lied. I refused to listen to him. But when I realised the truth about Infotec, realised what was going to happen to me, I tracked him down and apologised. And paid him what he was due. He said to let him know if I ever needed him. And now … Now, we need him.’
He told the story matter of factly, with little drama, but Jim could see that Glen’s misplaced trust in Infotec agitated him still; he realised that his determination to bring Infotec down was personal as well as ideological. It had used him; it made him a lesser man.
‘And the path you talked about?’ he asked Glen.
‘It was the path the builders used to pull equipment in. More dependable than the roads. Hidden from view every time it snows, but it’s been kept operational just in case.’
Jim considered this. ‘You were here how long ago?’ he asked.
‘Ten years.’
‘And whose idea was it to keep the path operational? Why? What for?’
Glen smiled again, looking suddenly boyish, pleased with himself. ‘Because you never know,’ he shouted, a little glint in his eye. ‘Because when I left this place, Christopher and I promised ourselves that one day …’
‘One day?’ Jim asked when he realised Glen had stopped talking. But he didn’t get an answer; Glen was staring at his hand.
‘They’re searching for you,’ he said to Jim grimly. ‘They know you were at the station. It’s not going to take them long to put two and two together.’
Jim’s heart skipped a beat. ‘So?’
‘So we’d better get there quickly and not screw up,’ Glen said, his face suddenly grim as he turned to Christopher and the dogs.
It was her. Milo squinted at the grainy image. Dark, cropped hair – that had to be a wig. And she looked pale. But it was definitely her.
He’d come to a dead end at first; had seen her running down the street, meeting her friend Jim, walking with him, then leaving him outside a café and walking off. And it had made no sense, none at all. He couldn’t trace any messages between them, couldn’t work out how she had even arranged to meet him, unless perhaps she’d arranged it before, earlier that day, not knowing what was going to happen. But after, after she’d left him, she seemed to disappear.
The chip she’d had in was found in some other girl’s bag; Milo had smiled at that, at her cleverness; few people knew that Infotec kept tabs on each and every person through their chip, that chips stored every message, every journey; that they communicated everyone’s co-ordinates 24/7. People didn’t need to know; they only cared that it opened up the latest technology to them, enabled them to type messages in the air, update their status and communicate with their Watchers on a constant basis. But how had Frankie known to be so clever? Where had she got the other chips? And how had she disappeared off the radar in the most-watched city in the world?
He’d been stumped. And then he’d extended his search. Twenty miles outside Paris. And that’s when he’d found her. With her new cropped hair. With two other people.
And that’s when he’d known that things had moved to a whole new level. Because they weren’t just people that she was with. One was dead, for starters. And the other one was the most wanted man on the planet.
He watched the grainy film, watched them making their way towards a disused industrial site. A place that could mean only one thing.
He closed his eyes. None of this made any sense at all. This was Frankie. Frankie the party girl. Frankie his girlfriend. She was spirited, yes; she liked to think that she had important things to say. But she wasn’t this person. What could have induced her to hook up with terrorists? With people who wanted to bring everything that Infotec had worked so hard for crashing down? Who wanted to destroy the peace and security that made the world a great place to live?
He sat back against his chair, his mind whirring. Why had she run?
How had she run? There were two Inforcers with her, and she was strong for a girl but not so strong she could see off two athletic men.
What had happened after he’d lost sight of her in her apartment, after the replacement Frankie had taken her chip to teach her a lesson?
Milo leant forward, but before he could do anything a message flashed up. ‘Drones ready to depart in six days’ time 0800 hours. Please message back to confirm.’
Milo read it several times, then looked at the images of Frankie, at the industrial site. He knew exactly what it was. Knew exactly what Frankie and her new friends were planning to do, where they were planning to go.
In some ways it made everything cleaner. In some ways it was better like this.
He closed his eyes. Thomas was right; Frankie was replaceable. Everyone was replaceable. People were nothing nowadays; they were vessels of technology, mini-robots who could be manipulated, led, told what to do. Hadn’t he done exactly that with Frankie? Told her how to dress, how to act; told her how to be seen, how to work her Watchers? She was his creation, nothing more. He could do the same with anyone else, any time he chose.
He looked back at the screen. Except she didn’t. She didn’t do what he told her to. She wouldn’t let him control her. Not completely. That’s what had always made her so attractive to him; her independence, the spark in her eye.
&nbs
p; And that’s what had led to her downfall.
It was kind of ironic.
He took a deep breath. He had to do this; had to stop thinking. There was nothing to think about. Nothing at all.
‘Confirm,’ he wrote back, waited a couple of seconds, then pressed send. Then, heavily, he walked away from his desk.
They travelled the rest of the way in silence. As they hurtled through the snow, Glen remembered the first time he’d come to this beautiful land, the first time he’d seen this huge, exposed landscape and wondered what he was doing here, wondered why they had chosen such a remote place for such a complex build. It had been Thomas’s idea, of course; everything was Thomas’s idea. First he cleared the land, closing the national park, putting up signs warning of contamination, moving those who lived nearby to apartments in Stockholm, just as he had moved whole swathes of people from other remote areas of the world. For safety, he told them; for security. And if there were protests, Glen saw little of them. But then the work had commenced and it had become clear that the builders brought over from Paris were out of their depth here, where snow fell daily, where temperatures dipped to minus twenty-two, where morning sometimes failed to arrive. And so a group of local men were brought back to work, to build this place that would house the mainframe, the centre of everything that Thomas had created. Here, in the cold snow, the mainframe would whirr, watch, control; here no one would know.
And Glen had been happy that they had this secret place; had thought how great it was to have something so important so tucked away. Here, in the peace and silence of northern Sweden, he would help to keep the world safe.
He took a deep breath; they were nearly there. The wind was beginning to howl around them; a storm was coming. He knew that inside the Infotec building, Protocol 23 would be being followed: windows checked, doors checked, the water butts checked, drains cleared. If it was a bad storm, the windows may not open for days.