MemoRandom: A Thriller Read Online Free Page B

the barrier didn’t move.
    Cannot read card.
    He swore silently to himself and tried again. “Come on, come on . . .”
    He thought he could hear a noise, something that sounded like a distant scream, and glanced quickly in the rearview mirror. Everything seemed okay behind him. The sound must have come from out in the street.
    The barrier started to move, slowly and jerkily. Just an inch at a time, as if it didn’t really want to let him go.
    Stenberg turned the stereo on and tried to find something to lift his mood. The intro kicked in and the stereo began to count the seconds.
    0.01.
    0.02.
    0.03.
    As soon as the gap under the barrier was big enough he sent the car rolling. Relief radiated through his body. He sloweddown just before the ramp reached street level. His hands were still shaking, making it hard for him to fasten his seat belt.
    The music stopped abruptly, making Stenberg raise his head. The timer had stopped but the play symbol was still illuminated. Odd. Something white fluttered at the corner of his eye, hovering in the air just above the hood of the car.
    A plastic bag, he found himself thinking. But the object was far too large. The stereo was still silent, the time on the display static. And all of a sudden Stenberg realized what was happening. He realized where the car was, and what the large, white, fluttering object in the air actually was.
    He shut his eyes, clutched the steering wheel, and felt an icy chill spread from his stomach and up through his chest. The timer on the stereo suddenly came back to life and the music carried on. It was only drowned out by the sound of Sophie Thorning’s body as it thudded into the hood of the car.

ONE
    Atif leaned back in the uncomfortable chair. In spite of the snow and cold outside, the air in the windowless little room felt stuffy. The smell of burned coffee, various bodily excretions, and general hopelessness was very familiar. You could probably find the same thing in police stations all over the world.
    He was hungry, and his neck and shoulders were stiff after the long journey. He hated flying, hated putting his life in other people’s hands.
    “Name?” the policeman sitting opposite him asked.
    “It says in there.” Atif nodded toward the red passport on the table between them. The policeman, a fleshy little man in his sixties with thinning hair, who had introduced himself as Bengtsson, didn’t reply. In fact he didn’t even look up, just went on leafing through the folder he had in his lap.
    Atif sighed.
    “Atif Mohammed Kassab,” he said.
    “Age?”
    “I’m forty-six, born June nineteenth. Midsummer’s Eve . . .” He wasn’t really sure why he added this last remark. But the policeman looked up at last.
    “What?”
    “June nineteenth,” Atif said. It had been several years since he had last spoken Swedish. The words felt clumsy, his pronunciation seemed out of synch, like all the dubbed films on television back home. “Once every seven years it’s Midsummer’s Eve.”
    The policeman stared at him through his small readingglasses. The smell of polyester, sweat, and coffee breath was slowly creeping across the table. Atif sighed again.
    “Okay, Bengtsson, it’s been over an hour since you stopped me at passport control. I flew in from Iraq so you suspect my passport is fake, or that it’s genuine but not mine.”
    He paused, thinking how much he’d like a hamburger right now. The look on the policeman’s face remained impassive.
    “I’m tired and hungry, so maybe we could do the quick version?” Atif went on. His voice felt less out of synch already, the words coming more easily.
    “My name is Atif Kassab, and I was born in Iraq. My dad died when I was little and my mom brought me to Sweden. She got married again, to a relative. When I was twelve he went off to the USA, leaving me, Mom, and my newborn younger brother. But by then at least we were Swedish citizens so we didn’t get thrown out.”
    “So you say.”