Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Chapter 5


CHAPTER 5
Sunday, 10.iv
Blomkvist had spent Saturday night with Berger. They lay in
bed and talked through the details of the Zalachenko story.
Blomkvist trusted Berger implicitly and was never for a
second inhibited by the fact that she was going to be
working for a rival paper. Nor had Berger any thought of
taking the story with her. It was Millennium’s scoop, even
though she may have felt a certain frustration that she was
not going to be the editor of that particular issue. It would
have been a fine ending to her years at Millennium.
They also discussed the future structure of the magazine.
Berger was determined to retain her shareholding in
Millennium and to remain on the board, even if she had no
say over the magazine’s contents.
“Give me a few years at the daily and then, who knows?
Maybe I’ll come back to Millennium before I retire,” she
said.
And as for their own complicated relationship, why should it
be any different? Except that of course they would not be
be any different? Except that of course they would not be
meeting so often. It would be as it was in the ’80s, before
Millennium was founded and when they worked in separate
offices.
“I imagine we’ll have to book appointments with each
other,” Berger said with a faint smile.
On Sunday morning they said a hasty goodbye before
Berger drove home to her husband, Greger Beckman.
After she was gone Blomkvist called the hospital in
Sahlgrenska and tried to get some information about
Salander’s condition. Nobody would tell him anything, so
finally he called Inspector Erlander, who took pity on him
and vouchsafed that, given the circumstances, Salander’s
condition was fair and the doctors were cautiously
optimistic. He asked if he would be able to visit her.
Erlander told him that Salander was officially under arrest
and that the prosecutor would not allow any visitors, but in
any case she was in no condition to be questioned.
Erlander said he would call if her condition took a turn for
the worse.
When Blomkvist checked his mobile, he saw that he had
forty-two messages and texts, almost all of them from
journalists. There had been wild speculation in the media
after it was revealed that Blomkvist was the one who had
found Salander, and had probably saved her life. He was
found Salander, and had probably saved her life. He was
obviously closely connected with the development of
events.
He deleted all the messages from reporters and called his
sister, Annika, to invite himself for Sunday lunch. Then he
called Dragan Armansky, C.E.O. of Milton Security, who
was at his home in Lidingö.
“You certainly have a way with headlines,” Armansky said.
“I tried to reach you earlier this week. I got a message that
you were looking for me, but I just didn’t have time—”
“We’ve been doing our own investigation at Milton. And I
understood from Holger Palmgren that you had some
information. But it seems you were far ahead of us.”
Blomkvist hesitated before he said: “Can I trust you?”
“How do you mean exactly?”
“Are you on Salander’s side or not? Can I believe that you
want the best for her?”
“I’m her friend. Although, as you know, that’s not
necessarily the same thing as saying that she’s my friend.”
“I understand that. But what I’m asking is whether or not
you’re willing to put yourself in her corner and get into a
you’re willing to put yourself in her corner and get into a
pitched battle with her enemies.”
“I’m on her side,” he said.
“Can I share information with you and discuss things with
you without the risk of your leaking it to the police or to
anyone else?”
“I can’t get involved in criminal activity,” Armansky said.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“You can absolutely rely on me as long as you don’t reveal
that you’re engaged in any sort of criminal activity.”
“Good enough. We need to meet.”
“I’m coming into the city this evening. Dinner?”
“I don’t have time today, but I’d be grateful if we could meet
tomorrow night. You and I and perhaps a few other people
might need to sit down for a chat.”
“You’re welcome at Milton. Shall we say 6.00?”
“One more thing … I’m seeing my sister, the lawyer Annika
Giannini, later this morning. She’s considering taking on
Salander as a client, but she can’t work for nothing. I can
pay part of her fee out of my own pocket. Would Milton
pay part of her fee out of my own pocket. Would Milton
Security be willing to contribute?”
“That girl is going to need a damned good criminal lawyer.
Your sister might not be the best choice, if you’ll forgive me
for saying so. I’ve already talked to Milton’s chief lawyer
and he’s looking into it. I was thinking of Peter Althin or
someone like that.”
“That would be a mistake. Salander needs a totally
different kind of legal support. You’ll see what I mean when
we talk. But would you be willing, in principle, to help?”
“I’d already decided that Milton ought to hire a lawyer for
her—”
“Is that a yes or a no? I know what happened to her. I know
roughly what’s behind it all. And I have a strategy.”
Armansky laughed.
“O.K. I’ll listen to what you have to say. If I like it, I’m in.”
Blomkvist kissed his sister on the cheek and immediately
asked: “Are you going to be representing Lisbeth
Salander?”
“I’m going to have to say no. You know I’m not a criminal
lawyer. Even if she’s acquitted of murder, there’s going to
be a rack of other charges. She’s going to need someone
be a rack of other charges. She’s going to need someone
with a completely different sort of clout and experience
than I have.”
“You’re wrong. You’re a lawyer and you’re a recognized
authority in women’s rights. In my considered view you’re
precisely the lawyer she needs.”
“Mikael … I don’t think you really appreciate what this
involves. It’s a complex criminal case, not a straightforward
case of sexual harassment or of violence against a woman.
If I take on her defence, it could turn out to be a disaster.”
Blomkvist smiled. “You’re missing the point. If she had been
charged with the murders of Dag and Mia, for example, I
would have gone for the Silbersky type or another of the
heavy-duty criminal lawyers. But this trial is going to be
about entirely different things.”
“I think you’d better explain.”
They talked for almost two hours over sandwiches and
coffee. By the time Mikael had finished his account, Annika
had been persuaded. Mikael picked up his mobile and
made another call to Inspector Erlander in Göteborg.
“Hello, it’s Blomkvist again.”
“I don’t have any news on Salander,” Erlander said, plainly
irritated.
irritated.
“Which I assume is good news. But I actually have some
news.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, she now has a lawyer named Annika Giannini. She’s
with me right now, so I’ll put her on.”
Blomkvist handed the mobile across the table.
“My name is Annika Giannini and I’ve been taken on to
represent Lisbeth Salander. I need to get in touch with my
client so that she can approve me as her defence lawyer.
And I need the telephone number of the prosecutor.”
“As far as I know,” Erlander said, “a public defence has
already been appointed.”
“That’s nice to hear. Did anyone ask Lisbeth Salander her
opinion?”
“Quite frankly … we haven’t had the opportunity to speak
with her yet. We hope to be able to do so tomorrow, if she’s
well enough.”
“Fine. Then I’ll tell you here and now that until Fröken
Salander says otherwise, you may regard me as her legal
representative. You may not question her unless I am
representative. You may not question her unless I am
present. You can say hello to her and ask her whether she
accepts me as her lawyer or not. But that is all. Is that
understood?”
“Yes,” Erlander said with an audible sigh. He was not
entirely sure what the letter of the law was on this point.
“Our number one objective is to discover if she has any
information as to where Ronald Niedermann might be. Is it
O.K. to ask her about that … even if you’re not present?”
“That’s fine … you may ask her questions relating to the
police hunt for Niedermann. But you may not ask her any
questions relating to any possible charges against her.
Agreed?”
“I think so, yes.”
Inspector Erlander got up from his desk and went upstairs
to tell the preliminary investigation leader, Agneta Jervas,
about his conversation with Giannini.
“She was obviously hired by Blomkvist. I can’t believe
Salander knows anything about it.”
“Giannini works in women’s rights. I heard her lecture once.
She’s sharp, but completely unsuitable for this case.”
“It’s up to Salander to decide.”
“I might have to contest the decision in court … For the
girl’s own sake she has to have a proper defence, and not
some celebrity chasing headlines. Hmm. Salander has also
been declared legally incompetent. I don’t know whether
that affects things.”
“What should we do?”
Jervas thought for a moment. “This is a complete mess. I
don’t know who’s going to be in charge of this case or if it’ll
be transferred to Ekström in Stockholm. In any event she
has to have a lawyer. O.K … ask her if she wants Giannini.”
When Blomkvist reached home at 5.00 in the afternoon he
turned on his iBook and took up the thread of the text he
had begun writing at the hotel in Göteborg. When he had
worked for seven straight hours, he had identified the most
glaring holes in the story. There was still much research to
be done. One question he could not answer – based on
the existing documentation – was who in Säpo, apart from
Gunnar Björck, had conspired to lock Salander away in the
asylum. Nor had he got to the heart of the relationship
between Björck and the psychiatrist Peter Teleborian.
Finally he shut down the computer and went to bed. He felt
as soon as he lay down that for the first time in weeks he
could relax and sleep peacefully. The story was under
control. No matter how many questions remained
unanswered, he already had enough material to set off a
unanswered, he already had enough material to set off a
landslide of headlines.
Late as it was, he picked up the telephone to call Berger
and update her. And then he remembered that she had left
Millennium. Suddenly he found it difficult to sleep.
A man carrying a brown briefcase stepped carefully down
from the 7.30 p.m. train at Stockholm Central Station. He
stood for a moment in the sea of travellers, getting his
bearings. He had started out from Laholm just after 8.00 in
the morning. He stopped in Göteborg to have lunch with an
old friend before resuming his journey to Stockholm. He
had not been to Stockholm for two years. In fact he had not
planned to visit the capital ever again. Even though he had
lived there for large parts of his working life, he always felt
a little out of place in Stockholm, a feeling that had grown
stronger with every visit he made since his retirement.
He walked slowly through the station, bought the evening
papers and two bananas at Pressbyrån, and paused to
watch two Muslim women in veils hurry past him. He had
nothing against women in veils. It was nothing to him if
people wanted to dress up in costume. But he was
bothered by the fact that they had to dress like that in the
middle of Stockholm. In his opinion, Somalia was a much
better place for that sort of attire.
He walked the three hundred metres to Frey’s Hotel next to
the old post office on Vasagatan. That was where he had
stayed on previous visits. The hotel was centrally located
and clean. And it was inexpensive, which was a factor since
he was paying for the journey himself. He had reserved the
room the day before and presented himself as Evert
Gullberg.
When he got up to the room he went straight to the
bathroom. He had reached the age when he had to use the
toilet rather often. It was several years since he had slept
through a whole night.
When he had finished he took off his hat, a narrow-brimmed, dark-green English felt hat, and loosened his tie.
He was one metre eighty-four tall and weighed sixty-eight
kilos, which meant he was thin and wiry. He wore a
hound’s-tooth jacket and dark-grey trousers. He opened
the brown briefcase and unpacked two shirts, a second tie,
and underwear, which he arranged in the chest of drawers.
Then he hung his overcoat and jacket in the wardrobe
behind the door.
It was too early to go to bed. It was too late to bother going
for an evening walk, something he might not enjoy in any
case. He sat down in the obligatory chair in the hotel room
and looked around. He switched on the T. V. and turned
down the volume so that he would not have to hear it. He
thought about calling reception and ordering coffee, but
thought about calling reception and ordering coffee, but
decided it was too late. Instead he opened the mini-bar and
poured a miniature of Johnny Walker into a glass, and
added very little water. He opened the evening papers and
read everything that had been written that day about the
search for Ronald Niedermann and the case of Lisbeth
Salander. After a while he took out a leather-bound
notebook and made some notes.
Gullberg, formerly Senior Administrative Officer at the
Security Police, was now seventy-eight years old and had
been retired for thirteen years. But intelligence officers
never really retire, they just slip into the shadows.
After the war, when Gullberg was nineteen years old, he
had joined the navy. He did his military service first as an
officer cadet and was then accepted for officer training. But
instead of the usual assignment at sea that he had
anticipated, he was sent to Karlskrona as a signal tracker
in the navy’s intelligence service. He had no difficulty with
the work, which was mostly figuring out what was going on
on the other side of the Baltic. But he found it dull and
uninteresting. Through the service’s language school,
however, he did learn Russian and Polish. These linguistic
skills were one of the reasons he was recruited by the
Security Police in 1950, during the time when the
impeccably mannered Georg Thulin was head of the third
division of Säpo. When he started, the total budget of the
secret police was 2.7 million kronor for a staff of ninety-six
secret police was 2.7 million kronor for a staff of ninety-six
people. When Gullberg formally retired in 1992, the budget
of the Security Police was in excess of 350 million kronor,
and he had no idea how many employees the Firm had.
Gullberg had spent his life on his majesty’s secret service,
or perhaps more accurately in the secret service of the
social-democratic welfare state. Which was an irony, since
he had faithfully voted for the moderates in one election
after another, except for 1991 when he deliberately voted
against the moderates because he believed that Carl Bildt
was a realpolitik catastrophe. He had voted instead for
Ingvar Carlsson. The years of “Sweden’s best government”
had also confirmed his worst fears. The moderate
government had come to power when the Soviet Union was
collapsing, and in his opinion no government had been
less prepared to meet the new political opportunities
emerging in the East, or to make use of the art of
espionage. On the contrary, the Bildt government had cut
back the Soviet desk for financial reasons and had at the
same time got themselves involved in the international
mess in Bosnia and Serbia – as if Serbia could ever
threaten Sweden. The result was that a fabulous
opportunity to plant long-term informants in Moscow had
been lost. Some day, when relations would once again
worsen – which according to Gullberg was inevitable –
absurd demands would be made on the Security Police
and the military intelligence service; they would be
expected to wave their magic wand and summon up well-
expected to wave their magic wand and summon up well-placed agents out of a bottle.
*
Gullberg had begun at the Russia desk of the third division
of the state police, and after two years in the job had
undertaken his first tentative field work in 1952 and 1953
as an Air Force attaché with the rank of captain at the
embassy in Moscow. Strangely enough, he was following in
the footsteps of another well-known spy. Some years
earlier that post had been occupied by the notorious
Colonel Wennerström.
Back in Sweden, Gullberg had worked in Counter-Espionage, and ten years later he was one of the younger
security police officers who, working under Otto
Danielsson, exposed Wennerström and eventually got him
a life sentence for treason at Långholmen prison.
When the Security Police was reorganized under Per
Gunnar Vinge in 1964 and became the Security Division of
the National Police Board, or Swedish Internal Security –
S.I.S. – the major increase in personnel began. By then
Gullberg had worked at the Security Police for fourteen
years, and had become one of its trusted veterans.
Gullberg had never used the designation “Säpo” for
Säkerhetspolisen, the Security Police. He used the term
Säkerhetspolisen, the Security Police. He used the term
“S.I.S.” in official contexts, and among colleagues he would
also refer to “the Company” or “the Firm,” or merely “the
Division” – but never “Säpo”. The reason was simple. The
Firm’s most important task for many years was so-called
personnel control, that is, the investigation and registration
of Swedish citizens who might be suspected of harbouring
communist or subversive views. Within the Firm the terms
communist and traitor were synonymous. The later
conventional use of the term “Säpo” was actually
something that the potentially subversive communist
publication Clarté had coined as a pejorative name for the
communist-hunters within the police force. For the life of
him Gullberg could never imagine why his former boss P.G.
Vinge had entitled his memoirs Säpo Chief 1962–1970.
It was the reorganization of 1964 that had shaped
Gullberg’s future career.
The designation S.I.S. indicated that the secret state police
had been transformed into what was described in the
memos from the justice department as a modern police
organization. This involved recruiting new personnel and
continual problems breaking them in. In this expanding
organization “the Enemy” were presented with dramatically
improved opportunities to place agents within the division.
This meant in turn that internal security had to be
intensified – the Security Police could no longer be a club
of former officers, where everyone knew everyone else,
of former officers, where everyone knew everyone else,
and where the commonest qualification for a new recruit
was that his father was or had been an officer.
In 1963 Gullberg was transferred from Counter-Espionage
to personnel control, a role that took on added significance
in the wake of Wennerström’s exposure as a double agent.
During that period the foundation was laid for the “register
of political opinions,” a list which towards the end of the
’60s amounted to around 300,000 Swedish citizens who
were held to harbour undesirable political sympathies.
Checking the backgrounds of Swedish citizens was one
thing, but the crucial question was: how would security
control within S.I.S. itself be implemented?
The Wennerström debacle had given rise to an avalanche
of dilemmas within the Security Police. If a colonel on the
defence staff could work for the Russians – he was also
the government’s adviser on matters involving nuclear
weapons and security policy – it followed that the Russians
might have an equally senior agent within the Security
Police. Who would guarantee that the top ranks and middle
management at the Firm were not working for the
Russians? Who, in short, was going to spy on the spies?
In August 1964 Gullberg was summoned to an afternoon
meeting with the assistant chief of the Security Police, Hans
Wilhelm Francke. The other participants at the meeting
were two individuals from the top echelon of the Firm, the
were two individuals from the top echelon of the Firm, the
assistant head of Secretariat and the head of Budget.
Before the day was over, Gullberg had been appointed
head of a newly created division with the working title of
“the Special Section”. The first thing he did was to rename
it “Special Analysis”. That held for a few minutes until the
head of Budget pointed out that S.A. was not much better
than S.S. The organization’s final name became “the
Section for Special Analysis,” the S.S.A., and in daily
parlance “the Section,” to differentiate it from “the Division”
or “the Firm,” which referred to the Security Police as a
whole.
“The Section” was Francke’s idea. He called it “the last line
of defence”. An ultra-secret unit that was given strategic
positions within the Firm, but which was invisible. It was
never referred to in writing, even in budget memoranda,
and therefore it could not be infiltrated. Its task was to
watch over national security. He had the authority to make
it happen. He needed the Budget chief and the Secretariat
chief to create the hidden substructure, but they were old
colleagues, friends from dozens of skirmishes with the
Enemy.
During the first year the Section consisted of Gullberg and
three hand-picked colleagues. Over the next ten years it
grew to include no more than eleven people, of whom two
were administrative secretaries of the old school and the
remainder were professional spy hunters. It was a structure
remainder were professional spy hunters. It was a structure
with only two ranks. Gullberg was the chief. He would
ordinarily meet each member of his team every day.
Efficiency was valued more highly than background.
Formally, Gullberg was subordinate to a line of people in
the hierarchy under the head of Secretariat of the Security
Police, to whom he had to deliver monthly reports, but in
practice he had been given a unique position with
exceptional powers. He, and he alone, could decide to put
Säpo’s top bosses under the microscope. If he wanted to,
he could even turn Per Gunnar Vinge’s life inside out.
(Which he also did.) He could initiate his own investigations
or carry out telephone tapping without having to justify his
objective or even report it to a higher level. His model was
the legendary James Jesus Angleton, who had a similar
position in the C.I.A., and whom he came to know
personally.
The Section became a micro-organization within the
Division – outside, above, and parallel to the rest of the
Security Police. This also had geographical consequences.
The Section had its offices at Kungsholmen, but for
security reasons almost the whole team was moved out of
police headquarters to an eleven-room apartment in
Östermalm that had been discreetly remodelled into a
fortified office. It was staffed twenty-four hours a day since
the faithful old retainer and secretary Eleanor Badenbrink
was installed in permanent lodgings in two of its rooms
was installed in permanent lodgings in two of its rooms
closest to the entrance. Badenbrink was an implacable
colleague in whom Gullberg had implicit trust.
In the organization, Gullberg and his employees
disappeared from public view – they were financed through
a special fund, but they did not exist anywhere in the formal
structure of the Security Police, which reported to the
police commission or the justice department. Not even the
head of S.I.S. knew about the most secret of the secret,
whose task it was to handle the most sensitive of the
sensitive.
At the age of forty Gullberg consequently found himself in
a situation where he did not have to explain his actions to
any living soul and could initiate investigations of anyone
he chose.
It was clear to Gullberg that the Section for Special Analysis
could become a politically sensitive unit and the job
description was expressly vague. The written record was
meagre in the extreme. In September 1964, Prime Minister
Erlander signed a directive that guaranteed the setting
aside of funds for the Section for Special Analysis, which
was understood to be essential to the nation’s security.
This was one of twelve similar matters which the assistant
chief of S.I.S., Hans Wilhelm Francke, brought up during an
afternoon meeting. The document was stamped top secret
and filed in the special protocol of S.I.S.
and filed in the special protocol of S.I.S.
The signature of the Prime Minister meant that the Section
was now a legally approved institution. The first year’s
budget amounted to 52,000 kronor. That the budget was
so low was a stroke of genius, Gullberg thought. It meant
that the creation of the Section appeared to be just
another routine matter.
In a broader sense, the signature of the Prime Minister
meant that he had sanctioned the need for a unit that
would be responsible for “internal personnel control”. At the
same time it could be interpreted as the Prime Minister
giving his approval to the establishment of a body that
would also monitor particularly sensitive individuals outside
S.I.S., such as the Prime Minister himself. It was this last
which created potentially acute political problems.
Evert Gullberg saw that his whisky glass was empty. He was
not fond of alcohol, but it had been a long day and a long
journey. At this stage of life he did not think it mattered
whether he decided to have one glass of whisky or two. He
poured himself the miniature Glenfiddich.
The most sensitive of all issues, of course, was to be that
of Olof Palme.*
Gullberg remembered every detail of Election Day 1976.
For the first time in modern history, Sweden had voted for a
For the first time in modern history, Sweden had voted for a
conservative government. Most regrettably it was
Thorbjörn Fälldin who became Prime Minister, not Gösta
Bohman, a man infinitely better qualified. But above all,
Palme was defeated, and for that Gullberg could breathe a
sigh of relief.
Palme’s suitability as Prime Minister had been the object of
more than one lunch conversation in the corridors of S.I.S.
In 1969, Vinge had been dismissed from the service after
he had given voice to the view, shared by many inside the
Division, that Palme might be an agent of influence for the
K.G.B. Vinge’s view was not even controversial in the
climate prevailing inside the Firm. Unfortunately, he had
openly discussed the matter with County Governor
Lassinanti on a visit to Norrbotten. Lassinanti had been
astonished and had informed the government chancellor,
with the result that Vinge was summoned to explain himself
at a one-on-one meeting.
To Gullberg’s frustration, the question of Palme’s possible
Russian contacts was never resolved. Despite persistent
attempts to establish the truth and uncover the crucial
evidence – the smoking gun – the Section had never found
any proof. In Gullberg’s eyes this did not mean that Palme
might be innocent, but rather that he was an especially
cunning and intelligent spy who was not tempted to make
the same mistakes that other Soviet spies had made.
Palme continued to baffle them, year after year. In 1982
Palme continued to baffle them, year after year. In 1982
the Palme question arose again when he became Prime
Minister for the second time. Then the assassin’s shots
rang out on Sveavägen and the matter became irrelevant.
1976 had been a problematic year for the Section. Within
S.I.S. – among the few people who actually knew about the
existence of the Section – a certain amount of criticism had
surfaced. During the past ten years, sixty-five employees
from within the Security Police had been dismissed from
the organization on the grounds of presumed political
unreliability. Most of the cases, however, were of the kind
that were never going to be proven, and some very senior
officers began to wonder whether the Section was not run
by paranoid conspiracy theorists.
Gullberg still raged to recall the case of an officer hired by
S.I.S. in 1968 whom he had personally evaluated as
unsuitable. He was Inspector Bergling, a lieutenant in the
Swedish army who later turned out to be a colonel in the
Soviet military intelligence service, the G.R.U. On four
separate occasions Gullberg tried to have Bergling
removed, but each time his efforts were stymied. Things
did not change until 1977, when Bergling became the
object of suspicion outside the Section as well. His became
the worst scandal in the history of the Swedish Security
Police.
Criticism of the Section had increased during the first half
of the seventies, and by mid-decade Gullberg had heard
several proposals that the budget be reduced, and even
suggestions that the operation was altogether
unnecessary.
The criticism meant that the Section’s future was
questioned. That year the threat of terrorism was made a
priority in S.I.S. In terms of espionage it was a sad chapter
in their history, dealing as they were mainly with confused
youths flirting with Arab or pro-Palestinian elements. The
big question within the Security Police was to what extent
personnel control would be given special authority to
investigate foreign citizens residing in Sweden, or whether
this would go on being the preserve of the Immigration
Division.
Out of this somewhat esoteric bureaucratic debate, a need
had arisen for the Section to assign a trusted colleague to
the operation who could reinforce its control, espionage in
fact, against members of the Immigration Division.
The job fell to a young man who had worked at S.I.S. since
1970, and whose background and political loyalty made
him eminently qualified to work alongside the officers in the
Section. In his free time he was a member of an
organization called the Democratic Alliance, which was
described by the social-democratic media as extreme right-wing. Within the Section this was no obstacle. Three others
wing. Within the Section this was no obstacle. Three others
were members of the Democratic Alliance too, and the
Section had in fact been instrumental in the very formation
of the group. It had also contributed a small part of its
funding. It was through this organization that the young
man was brought to the attention of the Section and
recruited.
His name was Gunnar Björck.
It was an improbable stroke of luck that when Alexander
Zalachenko walked into Norrmalm police station on Election
Day 1976 and requested asylum, it was a junior officer
called Gunnar Björck who received him in his capacity as
administrator of the Immigration Division. An agent already
connected to the most secret of the secret.
Björck recognized Zalachenko’s importance at once and
broke off the interview to install the defector in a room at
the Hotel Continental. It was Gullberg whom Björck notified
when he sounded the alarm, and not his formal boss in the
Immigration Division. The call came just as the voting
booths had closed and all signs pointed to the fact that
Palme was going to lose. Gullberg had just come home and
was watching the election coverage on T. V. At first he was
sceptical about the information that the excited young
officer was telling him. Then he drove down to the
Continental, not 250 metres from the hotel room where he
found himself today, to assume control of the Zalachenko
found himself today, to assume control of the Zalachenko
affair.
That night Gullberg’s life underwent a radical change. The
notion of secrecy took on a whole new dimension. He saw
immediately the need to create a new structure around the
defector.
He decided to include Björck in the Zalachenko unit. It was
a reasonable decision, since Björck already knew of
Zalachenko’s existence. Better to have him on the inside
than a security risk on the outside. Björck was moved from
his post within the Immigration Division to a desk in the
apartment in Östermalm.
In the drama that followed, Gullberg chose from the
beginning to inform only one person in S.I.S., namely the
head of Secretariat, who already had an overview of the
activities of the Section. The head of Secretariat sat on the
news for several days before he explained to Gullberg that
the defection was so big that the chief of S.I.S. would have
to be informed, as well as the government.
By that time the new chief of S.I.S. knew about the Section
for Special Analysis, but he had only a vague idea of what
the Section actually did. He had come on board recently to
clean up the shambles of what was known as the Internal
Bureau affair, and was already on his way to a higher
position within the police hierarchy. The chief of S.I.S. had
position within the police hierarchy. The chief of S.I.S. had
been told in a private conversation with the head of
Secretariat that the Section was a secret unit appointed by
the government. Its mandate put it outside regular
operations, and no questions should be asked. Since this
particular chief was a man who never asked questions that
might yield unpleasant answers, he acquiesced. He
accepted that there was something known only as S.S.A.
and that he should have nothing more to do with the
matter.
Gullberg was content to accept this situation. He issued
instructions that required even the chief of S.I.S. not to
discuss the topic in his office without taking special
precautions. It was agreed that Zalachenko would be
handled by the Section for Special Analysis.
The outgoing Prime Minister was certainly not to be
informed. Because of the merry-go-round associated with a
change of government, the incoming Prime Minister was
fully occupied appointing ministers and negotiating with
other conservative parties. It was not until a month after the
government was formed that the chief of S.I.S., along with
Gullberg, drove to Rosenbad to inform the incoming Prime
Minister. Gullberg had objected to telling the government at
all, but the chief of S.I.S. had stood his ground – it was
constitutionally indefensible not to inform the Prime
Minister. Gullberg used all his eloquence to convince the
Prime Minister not to allow information about Zalachenko to
Prime Minister not to allow information about Zalachenko to
pass beyond his own office – there was, he insisted, no
need for the Foreign Minister, the Minister of Defence or
any other member of the government to be informed.
It had upset Fälldin that an important Soviet agent had
sought asylum in Sweden. The Prime Minister had begun
to talk about how, for the sake of fairness, he would be
obliged to take up the matter at least with the leaders of
the other two parties in the coalition government. Gullberg
was expecting this objection and played the strongest card
he had available. He explained in a low voice that, if that
happened, he would be forced to tender his resignation
immediately. This was a threat that made an impression on
Fälldin. It was intended to convey that the Prime Minister
would bear the responsibility if the story ever got out and
the Russians sent a death squad to liquidate Zalachenko.
And if the person responsible for Zalachenko’s safety had
seen fit to resign, such a revelation would be a political
disaster for the Prime Minister.
Fälldin, still relatively unsure in his role, had acquiesced.
He approved a directive that was immediately entered into
the secret protocol, making the Section responsible for
Zalachenko’s safety and debriefing. It also laid down that
information about Zalachenko would not leave the Prime
Minister’s office. By signing this directive, Fälldin had in
practice demonstrated that he had been informed, but it
also prevented him from ever discussing the matter. In
also prevented him from ever discussing the matter. In
short, he could forget about Zalachenko. But Fälldin had
required that one person in his office, a hand-picked state
secretary, should also be informed. He would function as a
contact person in matters relating to the defector. Gullberg
allowed himself to agree to this. He did not anticipate
having any problem handling a state secretary.
The chief of S.I.S. was pleased. The Zalachenko matter
was now constitutionally secured, which in this case meant
that the chief had covered his back. Gullberg was pleased
as well. He had managed to create a quarantine, which
meant that he would be able to control the flow of
information. He alone controlled Zalachenko.
When he got back to Östermalm he sat at his desk and
wrote down a list of the people who knew about
Zalachenko: himself, Björck, the operations chief of the
Section Hans von Rottinger, Assistant Chief Fredrik Clinton,
the Section’s secretary Eleanor Badenbrink, and two
officers whose job it was to compile and analyse any
intelligence information that Zalachenko might contribute.
Seven individuals who over the coming years would
constitute a special Section within the Section. He thought
of them as the Inner Circle.
Outside the Section the information was known by the chief
of S.I.S., the assistant chief, and the head of Secretariat.
Besides them, the Prime Minister and a state secretary. A
Besides them, the Prime Minister and a state secretary. A
total of twelve. Never before had a secret of this magnitude
been known to such a very small group.
Then Gullberg’s expression darkened. The secret was
known also to a thirteenth person. Björck had been
accompanied at Zalachenko’s original reception by a
lawyer, Nils Erik Bjurman. To include Bjurman in the special
Section would be out of the question. Bjurman was not a
real security policeman – he was really no more than a
trainee at S.I.S. – and he did not have the requisite
experience or skills. Gullberg considered various
alternatives and then chose to steer Bjurman carefully out
of the picture. He used the threat of imprisonment for life,
for treason, if Bjurman were to breathe so much as one
syllable about Zalachenko, and at the same time he offered
inducements, promises of future assignments, and finally
he used flattery to bolster Bjurman’s feeling of importance.
He arranged for Bjurman to be hired by a well-regarded law
firm, who then provided him with a steady stream of
assignments to keep him busy. The only problem was that
Bjurman was such a mediocre lawyer that he was hardly
capable of exploiting his opportunities. He left the firm after
ten years and opened his own practice, which eventually
became a law office at Odenplan.
Over the following years Gullberg kept Bjurman under
discreet but regular surveillance. That was Björck’s job. It
was not until the end of the ’80s that he stopped monitoring
was not until the end of the ’80s that he stopped monitoring
Bjurman, at which time the Soviet Union was heading for
collapse and Zalachenko had ceased to be a priority.
For the Section, Zalachenko had at first been thought of as
a potential breakthrough in the Palme mystery. Palme had
accordingly been one of the first subjects that Gullberg
discussed with him during the long debriefing.
The hopes for a breakthrough, however, were soon
dashed, since Zalachenko had never operated in Sweden
and had little knowledge of the country. On the other hand,
Zalachenko had heard the rumour of a “Red Jumper,” a
highly placed Swede – or possibly other Scandinavian
politician – who worked for the K.G.B.
Gullberg drew up a list of names that were connected to
Palme: Carl Lidbom, Pierre Schori, Sten Andersson, Marita
Ulfskog, and a number of others. For the rest of his life,
Gullberg would come back again and again to that list, but
he never found an answer.
Gullberg was suddenly a big player: he was welcomed with
respect in the exclusive club of selected warriors, all known
to each other, where the contacts were made through
personal friendship and trust, not through official channels
and bureaucratic regulations. He met Angleton, and he got
to drink whisky at a discreet club in London with the chief of
M.I.6. He was one of the elite.
M.I.6. He was one of the elite.
He was never going to be able to tell anyone about his
triumphs, not even in posthumous memoirs. And there was
the ever-present anxiety that the Enemy would notice his
overseas journeys, that he might attract attention, that he
might involuntarily lead the Russians to Zalachenko. In that
respect Zalachenko was his worst enemy.
During the first year, the defector had lived in an
anonymous apartment owned by the Section. He did not
exist in any register or in any public document. Those
within the Zalachenko unit thought they had plenty of time
before they had to plan his future. Not until the spring of
1978 was he given a passport in the name of Karl Axel
Bodin, along with a laboriously crafted personal history – a
fictitious but verifiable background in Swedish records.
By that time it was already too late. Zalachenko had gone
and fucked that stupid whore Agneta Sofia Salander, née
Sjölander, and he had heedlessly told her his real name –
Zalachenko. Gullberg began to believe that Zalachenko
was not quite right in the head. He suspected that the
Russian defector wanted to be exposed. It was as if he
needed a platform. How else to explain the fact that he had
been so fucking stupid.
There were whores, there were periods of excessive
drinking, and there were incidents of violence and trouble
drinking, and there were incidents of violence and trouble
with bouncers and others. On three occasions Zalachenko
was arrested by the Swedish police for drunkenness and
twice more in connection with fights in bars. Every time the
Section had to intervene discreetly and bail him out, seeing
to it that documents disappeared and records were altered.
Gullberg assigned Björck to babysit the defector almost
around the clock. It was not an easy job, but there was no
alternative.
Everything could have gone fine. By the early ’80s
Zalachenko had calmed down and begun to adapt. But he
never gave up the whore Salander – and worse, he had
become the father of Camilla and Lisbeth Salander.
Lisbeth Salander.
Gullberg pronounced the name with displeasure.
Ever since the girls were nine or ten, he had had a bad
feeling about Lisbeth. He did not need a psychiatrist to tell
him that she was not normal. Björck had reported that she
was vicious and aggressive towards her father and that
she seemed to be not in the least afraid of him. She did not
say much, but she expressed in a thousand other ways her
dissatisfaction with how things stood. She was a problem in
the making, but how gigantic this problem would become
was something Gullberg could never have imagined in his
wildest dreams. What he most feared was that the situation
wildest dreams. What he most feared was that the situation
in the Salander family would give rise to a social welfare
report that named Zalachenko. Time and again he urged
the man to cut his ties and disappear from their lives.
Zalachenko would give his word, and then would always
break it. He had other whores. He had plenty of whores.
But after a few months he was always back with the
Salander woman.
That bastard Zalachenko. An intelligence agent who let his
cock rule any part of his life was obviously not a good
intelligence agent. It was as though the man thought
himself above all normal rules. If he could have screwed
the whore without beating her up every time, that would
have been one thing, but Zalachenko was guilty of
repeated assault against his girlfriend. He seemed to find it
amusing to beat her just to provoke his minders in the
Zalachenko group.
Gullberg had no doubt that Zalachenko was a sick bastard,
but he was in no position to pick and choose among
defecting G.R.U. agents. He had only one, a man very
aware of his value to Gullberg.
The Zalachenko unit had taken on the role of clean-up
patrol in that sense. It was undeniable. Zalachenko knew
that he could take liberties and that they would resolve
whatever problems there might be. When it came to Agneta
Sofia Salander, he exploited his hold over them to the
Sofia Salander, he exploited his hold over them to the
maximum.
Not that there were not warnings. When Salander was
twelve, she had stabbed Zalachenko. His wounds had not
been life-threatening, but he was taken to St Göran’s
hospital and the group had more of a mop-up job to do
than ever. Gullberg then made it crystal clear to
Zalachenko that he must never have any more dealings
with the Salander family, and Zalachenko had given his
promise. A promise he kept for more than six months
before he turned up at Agneta Sofia Salander’s place and
beat her so savagely that she ended up in a nursing home
where she would be for the rest of her life.
That the Salander girl would go so far as to make a
Molotov cocktail Gullberg had not foreseen. That day had
been utter chaos. All manner of investigations loomed, and
the future of the Zalachenko unit – of the whole Section
even – had hung by a thread. If Salander talked,
Zalachenko’s cover was at risk, and if that were to happen
a number of operations put in place across Europe over
the past fifteen years might have to be dismantled.
Furthermore, there was a possibility that the Section would
be subjected to official scrutiny, and that had to be
prevented at all costs.
Gullberg had been consumed with worry. If the Section’s
archives were opened, a number of practices would be
archives were opened, a number of practices would be
revealed that were not always consistent with the dictates
of the constitution, not to mention their years of
investigations of Palme and other prominent Social
Democrats. Just a few years after Palme’s assassination
that was still a sensitive issue. Prosecution of Gullberg and
several other employees of the Section would inevitably
follow. Worse, as like as not, some ambitious scribbler
would float the theory that the Section was behind the
assassination of Palme, and that in turn would lead to even
more damaging speculation and perhaps yet more insistent
investigation. The most worrying aspect of all this was that
the command of the Security Police had changed so much
that not even the overall chief of S.I.S. now knew about the
existence of the Section. All contacts with S.I.S. stopped at
the desk of the new assistant chief of Secretariat, and he
had been on the staff of the Section for ten years.
A mood of acute panic, even fear, overtook the unit. It was
in fact Björck who had proposed the solution. Peter
Teleborian, a psychiatrist, had become associated with
S.I.S.’s department of Counter-Espionage in a quite
different case. He had been key as a consultant in
connection with Counter-Espionage’s surveillance of a
suspected industrial spy. At a critical stage of the
investigation they needed to know how the person in
question might react if subjected to a great deal of stress.
Teleborian had offered concrete, definite advice. In the
event, S.I.S. had succeeded in averting a suicide and
event, S.I.S. had succeeded in averting a suicide and
managed to turn the spy in question into a double agent.
After Salander’s attack on Zalachenko, Björck had
surreptitiously engaged Teleborian as an outside
consultant to the Section.
The solution to the problem had been very simple. Karl
Axel Bodin would disappear into rehabilitative custody.
Agneta Sofia Salander would necessarily disappear into an
institution for long-term care. All the police reports on the
case were collected up at S.I.S. and transferred by way of
the assistant head of Secretariat to the Section.
Teleborian was assistant head physician at St Stefan’s
psychiatric clinic for children in Uppsala. All that was
needed was a legal psychiatric report, which Björck and
Teleborian drafted together, and then a brief and, as it
turned out, uncontested decision in a district court. It was a
question only of how the case was presented. The
constitution had nothing to do with it. It was, after all, a
matter of national security.
Besides, it was surely pretty obvious that Salander was
insane. A few years in an institution would do her nothing
but good. Gullberg had approved the operation.
This solution to their multiple problems had presented itself
at a time when the Zalachenko unit was on its way to being
at a time when the Zalachenko unit was on its way to being
dissolved. The Soviet Union had ceased to exist and
Zalachenko’s usefulness was definitively on the wane.
The unit had procured a generous severance package
from Security Police funds. They had arranged for him to
have the best rehabilitative care, and after six months they
had put him on a flight to Spain. From that moment on,
they had made it clear to him that Zalachenko and the
Section were going their separate ways. It had been one of
Gullberg’s last responsibilities. One week later he had
reached retirement age and handed over to his chosen
successor, Fredrik Clinton. Thereafter Gullberg acted only
as an adviser in especially sensitive matters. He had
stayed in Stockholm for another three years and worked
almost daily at the Section, but the number of his
assignments decreased, and gradually he disengaged
himself. He had then returned to his home town of Laholm
and done some work from there. At first he had travelled
frequently to Stockholm, but he made these journeys less
and less often, and eventually not at all.
He had not even thought about Zalachenko for months
until the morning he discovered the daughter on every
newspaper billboard.
Gullberg followed the story in a state of awful confusion. It
was no accident, of course, that Bjurman had been
Salander’s guardian; on the other hand he could not see
Salander’s guardian; on the other hand he could not see
why the old Zalachenko story should surface. Salander was
obviously deranged, so it was no surprise that she had
killed these people, but that Zalachenko might have any
connection to the affair had not dawned on him. The
daughter would sooner or later be captured and that would
be the end of it. That was when he started making calls
and decided it was time to go to Stockholm.
The Section was faced with its worst crisis since the day he
had created it.
Zalachenko dragged himself to the toilet. Now that he had
crutches, he could move around his room. On Sunday he
forced himself through short, sharp training sessions. The
pain in his jaw was still excruciating and he could manage
only liquid food, but he could get out of his bed and begin
to make himself mobile. Having lived so long with a
prosthesis he was used enough to crutches. He practised
moving noiselessly on them, manoeuvring back and forth
around his bed. Every time his right foot touched the floor,
a terrible pain shot up his leg.
He gritted his teeth. He thought about the fact that his
daughter was very close by. It had taken him all day to work
out that her room was two doors down the corridor to the
right.
The night nurse had been gone ten minutes, everything
was quiet, it was 2.00 in the morning. Zalachenko
laboriously got up and fumbled for his crutches. He listened
at the door, but heard nothing. He pulled open the door
and went into the corridor. He heard faint music from the
nurses’ station. He made his way to the end of the corridor,
pushed open the door, and looked into the empty landing
where the lifts were. Going back down the corridor, he
stopped at the door to his daughter’s room and rested
there on his crutches for half a minute, listening.
*
Salander opened her eyes when she heard a scraping
sound. It was as though someone was dragging something
along the corridor. For a moment there was only silence,
and she wondered if she were imagining things. Then she
heard the same sound again, moving away. Her
uneasiness grew.
Zalachenko was out there somewhere.
She felt fettered to her bed. Her skin itched under the neck
brace. She felt an intense desire to move, to get up.
Gradually she succeeded in sitting up. That was all she
could manage. She sank back on to the pillow.
She ran her hand over the neck brace and located the
fastenings that held it in place. She opened them and
fastenings that held it in place. She opened them and
dropped the brace to the floor. Immediately it was easier to
breathe.
What she wanted more than anything was a weapon, and
to have the strength to get up and finish the job once and
for all.
With difficulty she propped herself up, switched on the
night light and looked around the room. She could see
nothing that would serve her purpose. Then her eyes fell
on a nurses’ table by the wall three metres from her bed.
Someone had left a pencil there.
She waited until the night nurse had been and gone, which
tonight she seemed to be doing about every half hour.
Presumably the reduced frequency of the nurse’s visits
meant that the doctors had decided her condition had
improved; over the weekend the nurses had checked on
her at least once every fifteen minutes. For herself, she
could hardly notice any difference.
When she was alone she gathered her strength, sat up,
and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She had
electrodes taped to her body to record her pulse and
breathing, but the wires stretched in the direction of the
pencil. She put her weight on her feet and stood up.
Suddenly she swayed, off balance. For a second she felt
as though she would faint, but she steadied herself against
as though she would faint, but she steadied herself against
the bedhead and concentrated her gaze on the table in
front of her. She took small, wobbly steps, reached out and
grabbed the pencil.
Then she retreated slowly to the bed. She was exhausted.
After a while she managed to pull the sheet and blanket up
to her chin. She studied the pencil. It was a plain wooden
pencil, newly sharpened. It would make a passable weapon
– for stabbing a face or an eye.
She laid it next to her hip and fell asleep.

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