CHAPTER 7
Monday, 11.iv – Tuesday,
12.iv
At 5.45 p.m. on Monday Blomkvist closed the lid on his
iBook and got up from the kitchen table in his apartment on
Bellmansgatan. He put on a jacket and walked to Milton
Security’s offices at Slussen. He took the lift up to the
reception on the fourth floor and was immediately shown
into a conference room. It was 6.00 p.m. on the dot, but he
was the last to arrive.
“Hello, Dragan,” he said and shook hands. “Thank you for
being willing to host this informal meeting.”
Blomkvist looked around the room. There were four others
there: his sister, Salander’s former guardian Holger
Palmgren, Malin Eriksson, and former Criminal Inspector
Sonny Bohman, who now worked for Milton Security. At
Armansky’s instruction Bohman had been following the
Salander investigation from the very start.
Palmgren was on his first outing in more than two years. Dr
Sivarnandan of the Ersta rehabilitation home had been
less than enchanted at the idea of letting him out, but
Palmgren himself had insisted. He had come by special
transport for the disabled, accompanied by his personal
nurse, Johanna Karolina Oskarsson, whose salary was
paid from a fund that had been mysteriously established to
provide Palmgren with the best possible care. The nurse
was sitting in an office next to the conference room. She
had brought a book with her. Blomkvist closed the door
behind him.
“For those of you who haven’t met her before, this is Malin
Eriksson, Millennium’s editor-in-chief. I asked her to be
here because what we’re going to discuss will also affect
her job.”
“O.K.,” Armansky said. “Everyone’s here. I’m all ears.”
Blomkvist stood at Armansky’s whiteboard and picked up a
marker. He looked around.
“This is probably the craziest thing I’ve ever been involved
with,” he said. “When this is all over I’m going to found an
association called ‘The Knights of the Idiotic Table’ and its
purpose will be to arrange an annual dinner where we tell
stories about Lisbeth Salander. You’re all members.”
He paused.
“So, this is how things really are,” he said, and he began to
make a list of headings on Armansky’s whiteboard. He
talked for a good thirty minutes. Afterwards the discussion
went on for almost three hours.
Gullberg sat down next to Clinton when their meeting was
over. They spoke in low voices for a few minutes before
Gullberg stood up. The old comrades shook hands.
Gullberg took a taxi to Frey’s, packed his briefcase and
checked out. He took the late afternoon train to Göteborg.
He chose first class and had the compartment to himself.
When he passed Årstabron he took out a ballpoint pen and
a plain paper pad. He thought for a long while and then
began to write. He filled half the page before he stopped
and tore the sheet off the pad.
Forged documents had never been his department or his
expertise, but here the task was simplified by the fact that
the letters he was writing would be signed by himself. What
complicated the issue was that not a word of what he was
writing was true.
By the time the train went through Nyköping he had already
discarded a number of drafts, but he was starting to get a
line on how the letters should be expressed. When they
arrived in Göteborg he had twelve letters he was satisfied
with. He made sure he had left clear fingerprints on each
sheet.
At Göteborg Central Station he tracked down a
photocopier and made copies of the letters. Then he
bought envelopes and stamps and posted the letters in a
box with a 9.00 p.m. collection.
Gullberg took a taxi to City Hotel on Lorensbergsgatan,
where Clinton had already booked a room for him. It was
the same hotel Blomkvist had spent the night in several
days before. He went straight to his room and sat on the
bed. He was completely exhausted and realized that he
had eaten only two slices of bread all day. Yet he was not
hungry. He undressed, stretched out in bed, and almost at
once fell asleep.
Salander woke with a start when she heard the door open.
She knew right away that it was not one of the night
nurses. She opened her eyes to two narrow slits and saw a
silhouette with crutches in the doorway. Zalachenko was
watching her in the light that came from the corridor.
watching her in the light that came from the corridor.
Without moving her head she glanced at the digital clock:
3.10 a.m.
She then glanced at the bedside table and saw the water
glass. She calculated the distance. She could just reach it
without having to move her body.
It would take a very few seconds to stretch out her arm and
break off the rim of the glass with a firm rap against the
hard edge of the table. It would take half a second to shove
the broken edge into Zalachenko’s throat if he leaned over
her. She looked for other options, but the glass was her
only reachable weapon.
She relaxed and waited.
Zalachenko stood in the doorway for two minutes without
moving. Then gingerly he closed the door.
She heard the faint scraping of the crutches as he quietly
retreated down the corridor.
Five minutes later she propped herself up on her right
elbow, reached for the glass, and took a long drink of
water. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and
pulled the electrodes off her arms and chest. With an effort
she stood up and swayed unsteadily. It took her about a
minute to gain control over her body. She hobbled to the
minute to gain control over her body. She hobbled to the
door and leaned against the wall to catch her breath. She
was in a cold sweat. Then she turned icy with rage.
Fuck you, Zalachenko. Let’s end this right here and now.
She needed a weapon.
The next moment she heard quick heels clacking in the
corridor.
Shit. The electrodes.
“What in God’s name are you doing up?” the night nurse
said.
“I had to … go … to the toilet,” Salander said breathlessly.
“Get back into bed at once.”
She took Salander’s hand and helped her into the bed.
Then she got a bedpan.
“When you have to go to the toilet, just ring for us. That’s
what this button is for.”
Blomkvist woke up at 10.30 on Tuesday, showered, put on
coffee, and then sat down with his iBook. After the meeting
at Milton Security the previous evening, he had come home
and worked until 5.00 a.m. The story was beginning at last
and worked until 5.00 a.m. The story was beginning at last
to take shape. Zalachenko’s biography was still vague – all
he had was what he had blackmailed Björck to reveal, as
well as the handful of details Palmgren had been able to
provide. Salander’s story was pretty much done. He
explained step by step how she had been targeted by a
gang of Cold-Warmongers at S.I.S. and locked away in a
psychiatric hospital to stop her blowing the gaff on
Zalachenko.
He was pleased with what he had written. There were still
some holes that he would have to fill, but he knew that he
had one hell of a story. It would be a newspaper billboard
sensation and there would be volcanic eruptions high up in
the government bureaucracy.
He smoked a cigarette while he thought.
He could see two particular gaps that needed attention.
One was manageable. He had to deal with Teleborian, and
he was looking forward to that assignment. When he was
finished with him, the renowned children’s psychiatrist
would be one of the most detested men in Sweden. That
was one thing.
The second thing was more complicated.
The men who conspired against Salander – he thought of
them as the Zalachenko club – were inside the Security
them as the Zalachenko club – were inside the Security
Police. He knew one, Gunnar Björck, but Björck could not
possibly be the only man responsible. There had to be a
group … a division or unit of some sort. There must be
chiefs, operations managers. There had to be a budget.
But he had no idea how to go about identifying these
people, where even to start. He had only the vaguest
notion of how Säpo was organized.
On Monday he had begun his research by sending Cortez
to the second-hand bookshops on Södermalm, to buy
every book which in any way dealt with the Security Police.
Cortez had come to his apartment in the afternoon with six
books.
Espionage in Sweden by Mikael Rosquist (Tempus, 1988);
Säpo Chief 1962–1970 by P.G. Vinge (Wahlström &
Widstrand, 1988); Secret Forces by Jan Ottosson and Lars
Magnusson (Tiden, 1991); Power Struggle for Säpo by Erik
Magnusson (Corona, 1989); An Assignment by Carl
Lidbom (Wahlström & Widstrand, 1990); and – somewhat
surprisingly – An Agent in Place by Thomas Whiteside
(Ballantine, 1966), which dealt with the Wennerström affair.
The Wennerström affair of the ’60s, not Blomkvist’s own
much more recent Wennerström affair.
He had spent much of Monday night and the early hours of
Tuesday morning reading or at least skimming the books.
When he had finished he made some observations. First,
When he had finished he made some observations. First,
most of the books published about the Security Police were
from the late ’80s. An Internet search showed that there
was hardly any current literature on the subject.
Second, there did not seem to be any intelligible basic
overview of the activities of the Swedish secret police over
the years. This may have been because many documents
were stamped Top Secret and were therefore off limits, but
there did not seem to be any single institution, researcher
or media that had carried out a critical examination of
Säpo.
He also noticed another odd thing: there was no
bibliography in any one of the books Cortez had found. On
the other hand, the footnotes often referred to articles in
the evening newspapers, or to interviews with some old,
retired Säpo hand.
The book Secret Forces was fascinating but largely dealt
with the time before and during the Second World War.
Blomkvist regarded P.G. Vinge’s memoir as propaganda,
written in self-defence by a severely criticized Säpo chief
who was eventually fired. An Agent in Place contained so
much inaccurate information about Sweden in the first
chapter that he threw the book into the wastepaper basket.
The only two books with any real ambition to portray the
work of the Security Police were Power Struggle for Säpo
and Espionage in Sweden. They contained data, names
and Espionage in Sweden. They contained data, names
and organizational charts. He found Magnusson’s book to
be especially worthwhile reading. Even though it did not
offer any answers to his immediate questions, it provided a
good account of Säpo as a structure as well as its primary
concerns over several decades.
The biggest surprise was Lidbom’s An Assignment, which
described the problems encountered by the former
Swedish ambassador to France when he was
commissioned to examine Säpo in the wake of the Palme
assassination and the Ebbe Carlsson affair. Blomkvist had
never before read anything by Lidbom, and he was taken
aback by the sarcastic tone combined with razor-sharp
observations. But even Lidbom’s book brought Blomkvist
no closer to an answer to his questions, even if he was
beginning to get an idea of what he was up against.
He opened his mobile and called Cortez.
“Hi, Henry. Thanks for the legwork yesterday.”
“What do you need now?”
“A little more legwork.”
“Micke, I hate to say this, but I have a job to do. I’m editorial
assistant now.”
“An excellent career advancement.”
“What is it you want?”
“Over the years there have been a number of public
reports on Säpo. Carl Lidbom did one. There must be
several others like it.”
“I see.”
“Order everything you can find from parliament: budgets,
public reports, interpellations, and the like. And get Säpo’s
annual reports as far back as you can find them.”
“Yes, master.”
“Good man. And, Henry …”
“Yes?”
“I don’t need them until tomorrow.”
Salander spent the whole day brooding about Zalachenko.
She knew that he was only two doors away, that he
wandered in the corridors at night, and that he had come
to her room at 3.10 this morning.
She had tracked him to Gosseberga fully intending to kill
him. She had failed, with the result that Zalachenko was
alive and tucked up in bed barely ten metres from where
alive and tucked up in bed barely ten metres from where
she was. And she was in hot water. She could not tell how
bad the situation was, but she supposed that she would
have to escape and discreetly disappear abroad herself if
she did not want to risk being locked up in some nuthouse
again with Teleborian as her warder.
The problem was that she could scarcely sit upright in bed.
She did notice improvements. The headache was still
there, but it came in waves instead of being constant. The
pain in her left shoulder had subsided a bit, but it
resurfaced whenever she tried to move.
She heard footsteps outside the door and saw a nurse
open it to admit a woman wearing black trousers, a white
blouse, and a dark jacket. She was a pretty, slender
woman with dark hair and a boyish hairstyle. She radiated
a cheerful confidence. She was carrying a black briefcase.
Salander saw at once that she had the same eyes as
Blomkvist.
“Hello, Lisbeth. I’m Annika Giannini,” she said. “May I come
in?”
Salander studied her without expression. All of a sudden
she did not have the slightest desire to meet Blomkvist’s
sister and regretted that she had accepted this woman as
her lawyer.
Giannini came in, shut the door behind her, and pulled up
a chair. She sat there for some time, looking at her client.
The girl looked terrible. Her head was wrapped in
bandages. She had purple bruises around her bloodshot
eyes.
“Before we begin to discuss anything, I have to know
whether you really do want me to be your lawyer. Normally
I’m involved in civil cases in which I represent victims of
rape or domestic violence. I’m not a criminal defence
lawyer. I have, however, studied the details of your case,
and I would very much like to represent you, if I may. I
should also tell you that Mikael Blomkvist is my brother – I
think you already know that – and that he and Dragan
Armansky are paying my fee.”
She paused, but when she got no response she continued.
“If you want me to be your lawyer, it’s you I will be working
for. Not for my brother or for Armansky. I have to tell you
too that I will receive advice and support during any trial
from your former guardian, Holger Palmgren. He’s a tough
old boy, and he dragged himself out of his sickbed to help
you.”
“Palmgren?”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Yes.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s absolutely furious, but strangely he doesn’t seem to
be at all worried about you.”
Salander smiled lopsidedly. It was the first time she had
smiled at Sahlgrenska hospital.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like a sack of shit.”
“Well then. Do you want me to be your lawyer? Armansky
and Mikael are paying my fee and—”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I’ll pay your fee myself. I don’t want a single öre from
Armansky or Kalle Blomkvist. But I can’t pay before I have
access to the Internet.”
“I understand. We’ll deal with that problem when it arises. In
any case, the state will be paying most of my salary. But do
any case, the state will be paying most of my salary. But do
you want me to represent you?”
Salander gave a curt nod.
“Good. Then I’ll get started by giving you a message from
Mikael. It sounds a little cryptic, but he says you’ll know
what he means.”
“Oh?”
“He wants you to know that he’s told me most of the story,
except for a few details, of which the first concerns the
skills he discovered in Hedestad.”
He knows that I have a photographic memory … and that
I’m a hacker. He’s kept quiet about that.
“O.K.”
“The other is the D.V.D. I don’t know what he’s referring to,
but he was adamant that it’s up to you to decide whether
you tell me about it or not. Do you know what he’s referring
to?”
The film of Bjurman raping me.
“Yes.”
“That’s good, then.” Giannini was suddenly hesitant. “I’m a
little miffed at my brother. Even though he hired me, he’ll
only tell me what he feels like telling me. Do you intend to
hide things from me too?”
“I don’t know. Could we leave that question for later?”
Salander said.
“Certainly. We’re going to be talking to each other quite a
lot. I don’t have time for a long conversation now – I have
to meet Prosecutor Jervas in forty-five minutes. I just
wanted to confirm that you really do want me to be your
lawyer. But there’s something else I need to tell you.”
“Yes?”
“It’s this: if I’m not present, you’re not to say a single word
to the police, no matter what they ask you. Even if they
provoke you or accuse you of whatever … Can you
promise me?”
“I could manage that.”
Gullberg had been completely exhausted after all his
efforts on Monday. He did not wake until 9.00 on Tuesday
morning, four hours later than usual. He went to the
bathroom to shower and brush his teeth. He stood for a
long time looking at his face in the mirror before he turned
off the light and went to get dressed. He chose the only
clean shirt he had left in the brown briefcase and put on a
clean shirt he had left in the brown briefcase and put on a
brown-patterned tie.
He went down to the hotel’s breakfast room, drank a cup of
black coffee and ate a slice of wholemeal toast with cheese
and a little marmalade on it. He drank a glass of mineral
water.
Then he went to the hotel lobby and called Clinton’s mobile
from the public telephone.
“It’s me. Status report?”
“Rather unsettled.”
“Fredrik, can you handle this?”
“Yes, it’s like the old days. But it’s a shame von Rottinger
isn’t still with us. He was better at planning operations than
I.”
“You were equally good. You could have switched places at
any time. Which indeed you quite often did.”
“It’s a matter of intuition. He was always a little sharper.”
“Tell me, how are you all doing?”
“Sandberg is brighter than we thought. We brought in the
external help in the form of Mårtensson. He’s a gofer, but
he’s usable. We have taps on Blomkvist’s landline and
mobile. We’ll take care of Giannini’s and the Millennium
office telephones today. We’re looking at the blueprints for
all the relevant offices and apartments. We’ll be going in as
soon as it can be done.”
“First thing is to locate all the copies …”
“I’ve already done that. We’ve had some unbelievable luck.
Giannini called Blomkvist this morning. She actually asked
him how many copies there were in circulation, and it
turned out that Blomkvist only has one. Berger copied the
report, but she sent the copy on to Bublanski.”
“Good. No time to waste.”
“I know. But it has to be done in one fell swoop. If we don’t
lift all the copies simultaneously, it won’t work.”
“True.”
“It’s a bit complicated, since Giannini left for Göteborg this
morning. I’ve sent a team of externals to tail her. They’re
flying down right now.”
“Good.” Gullberg could not think of anything more to say.
“Thanks, Fredrik,” he said at last.
“My pleasure. This is a lot more fun than sitting around
waiting for a kidney.”
They said goodbye. Gullberg paid his hotel bill and went
out to the street. The ball was in motion. Now it was just a
matter of mapping out the moves.
He started by walking to Park Avenue Hotel, where he
asked to used the fax machine. He did not want to do it at
the hotel where he had been staying. He faxed copies of
the letters he had written the day before. Then he went out
on to Avenyn to look for a taxi. He stopped at a rubbish bin
and tore up the photocopies of his letters.
*
Giannini was with Prosecutor Jervas for fifteen minutes.
She wanted to know what charges she was intending to
bring against Salander, but she soon realized that Jervas
was not yet sure of her plan.
“Right now I’ll settle for charges of grievous bodily harm or
attempted murder. I refer to the fact that Salander hit her
father with an axe. I take it that you will plead self-defence?
”
“Maybe.”
“To be honest with you, Niedermann is my priority at the
moment.”
moment.”
“I understand.”
“I’ve been in touch with the Prosecutor General.
Discussions are ongoing as to whether to combine all the
charges against your client under the jurisdiction of a
prosecutor in Stockholm and tie them in with what
happened here.”
“I assumed that the case would be handled in Stockholm,”
Giannini said.
“Fine. But I need an opportunity to question the girl. When
can we do that?”
“I have a report from her doctor, Anders Jonasson. He says
that Salander won’t be in a condition to participate in an
interview for several days yet. Quite apart from her injuries,
she’s on powerful painkillers.”
“I received a similar report, and as you no doubt realize,
this is frustrating. I repeat that my priority is Niedermann.
Your client says that she doesn’t know where he’s hiding.”
“She doesn’t know Niedermann at all. She happened to
identify him and track him down to Gosseberga, to
Zalachenko’s farm.”
“We’ll meet again as soon as your client is strong enough
to be interviewed,” Jervas said.
Gullberg had a bunch of flowers in his hand when he got
into the lift at Sahlgrenska hospital at the same time as a
short-haired woman in a dark jacket. He held the lift door
open for her and let her go first to the reception desk on
the ward.
“My name is Annika Giannini. I’m a lawyer and I’d like to see
my client again, Lisbeth Salander.”
Gullberg turned his head very slowly and looked in surprise
at the woman he had followed out of the lift. He glanced
down at her briefcase as the nurse checked Giannini’s I.D.
and consulted a list.
“Room twelve,” the nurse said.
“Thank you. I know the way.” She walked off down the
corridor.
“May I help you?”
“Thank you, yes. I’d like to leave these flowers for Karl Axel
Bodin.”
“He’s not allowed visitors.”
“I know. I just want to leave the flowers.”
“We’ll take care of them.”
Gullberg had brought the flowers with him mainly as an
excuse. He wanted to get an idea of how the ward was laid
out. He thanked the nurse and followed the sign to the
staircase. On the way he passed Zalachenko’s door, room
fourteen according to Jonas Sandberg.
He waited in the stairwell. Through a glass pane in the door
he saw the nurse take the bouquet into Zalachenko’s room.
When she returned to her station, Gullberg pushed open
the door to room fourteen and stepped quickly inside.
“Good morning, Alexander,” he said.
Zalachenko looked up in surprise at his unannounced
visitor. “I thought you’d be dead by now,” he said.
“Not quite yet.”
“What do you want?”
“What do you think?”
Gullberg pulled up the chair and sat down.
“Probably to see me dead.”
“Well, that’s gratitude for you. How could you be so bloody
stupid? We give you a whole new life and you finish up
here.”
If Zalachenko could have laughed he would have. In his
opinion, the Swedish Security Police were amateurs. That
applied to Gullberg and equally to Björck. Not to mention
that complete idiot Bjurman.
“Once again we have to haul you out of the furnace.”
The expression did not sit well with Zalachenko, once the
victim of a petrol bomb attack – from that bloody daughter
of his two doors down the corridor.
“Spare me the lectures. Just get me out of this mess.”
“That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.”
Gullberg put his briefcase on to his lap, took out a
notebook, and turned to a blank page. Then he gave
Zalachenko a long, searching look.
“There’s one thing I’m curious about … were you really
going to betray us after all we’ve done for you?”
“What do you think?”
“It depends how crazy you are.”
“Don’t call me crazy. I’m a survivor. I do what I have to do to
survive.”
Gullberg shook his head. “No, Alexander, you do what you
do because you’re evil and rotten. You wanted a message
from the Section. I’m here to deliver it. We’re not going to
lift a finger to help you this time.”
All of a sudden Zalachenko looked uncertain. He studied
Gullberg, trying to figure out if this was some puzzling bluff.
“You don’t have a choice,” he said.
“There’s always a choice,” Gullberg said.
“I’m going to—”
“You’re not going to do anything at all.”
Gullberg took a deep breath, unzipped the outside pocket
of his case, and pulled out a 9 mm Smith & Wesson with a
gold-plated butt. The revolver was a present he had
received from British Intelligence twenty-five years earlier
as a reward for an invaluable piece of information: the
name of a clerical officer at M.I.5 who in good Philby style
was working for the Russians.
Zalachenko looked astonished. Then he burst out
laughing.
“And what are you going to do with that? Shoot me? You’ll
spend the rest of your miserable life in prison.”
“I don’t think so.”
Zalachenko was suddenly very unsure whether Gullberg
was bluffing.
“There’s going to be a scandal of enormous proportions.”
“Again, I don’t think so. There’ll be a few headlines, but in a
week nobody will even remember the name Zalachenko.”
Zalachenko’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re a filthy swine,” Gullberg said then with such
coldness in his voice that Zalachenko froze.
Gullberg squeezed the trigger and put the bullet right in the
centre of Zalachenko’s forehead just as the patient was
starting to swing his prosthesis over the edge of the bed.
Zalachenko was thrown back on to the pillow. His good leg
kicked four, five times before he was still. Gullberg saw a
red flower-shaped splatter on the wall behind the bedhead.
He became aware that his ears were ringing after the shot
and he rubbed his left one with his free hand.
Then he stood up and put the muzzle to Zalachenko’s
temple and squeezed the trigger twice. He wanted to be
sure this time that the bastard really was dead.
*
Salander sat up with a start the instant she heard the first
shot. Pain stabbed through her shoulder. When the next
two shots came she tried to get her legs over the edge of
the bed.
Giannini had only been there for a few minutes. She sat
paralysed and tried to work out from which direction the
sharp reports had come. She could tell from Salander’s
reaction that something deadly was in the offing.
“Lie still,” she shouted. She put her hand on Salander’s
chest and shoved her client down on to the bed.
Then Giannini crossed the room and pulled open the door.
She saw two nurses running towards another room two
doors away. The first nurse stopped short on the threshold.
“No, don’t!” she screamed and then took a step back,
colliding with the second nurse.
“He’s got a gun. Run!”
Giannini watched as the two nurses took cover in the room
next to Salander’s.
The next moment she saw a thin, grey-haired man in a
hound’s-tooth jacket walk into the corridor. He had a gun in
his hand. Annika recognized him as the man who come up
in the lift with her.
Then their eyes met. He appeared confused. He aimed the
revolver at her and took a step forward. She pulled her
head back in and slammed the door shut, looking around
in desperation. A nurses’ table stood right next to her. She
rolled it quickly over to the door and wedged the tabletop
under the door handle.
She heard a movement and turned to see Salander just
starting to clamber out of bed again. In a few quick steps
she crossed the floor, wrapped her arms around her client
and lifted her up. She tore electrodes and I.V. tubes loose
as she carried her to the bathroom and set her on the toilet
seat. Then she turned and locked the bathroom door. She
dug her mobile out of her jacket pocket and dialled 112.
Gullberg went to Salander’s room and tried the door
handle. It was blocked. He could not move it even a
millimetre.
For a moment he stood indecisively outside the door. He
knew that the lawyer Giannini was in the room, and he
wondered if a copy of Björck’s report might be in her
briefcase. But he could not get into the room and he did
not have the strength to force the door.
not have the strength to force the door.
That had not been part of the plan anyway. Clinton would
take care of Giannini. Gullberg’s only job was Zalachenko.
He looked around the corridor and saw that he was being
watched by nurses, patients and visitors. He raised the
pistol and fired at a picture hanging on the wall at the end
of the corridor. His spectators vanished as if by magic.
He glanced one last time at the door to Salander’s room.
Then he walked decisively back to Zalachenko’s room and
closed the door. He sat in the visitor’s chair and looked at
the Russian defector who had been such an intimate part
of his own life for so many years.
He sat still for almost ten minutes before he heard
movement in the corridor and was aware that the police
had arrived. By now he was not thinking of anything in
particular.
Then he raised the revolver one last time, held it to his
temple, and squeezed the trigger.
As the situation developed, the futility of attempting suicide
in the middle of a hospital became apparent. Gullberg was
transported at top speed to the hospital’s trauma unit,
where Dr Jonasson received him and immediately initiated
a battery of measures to maintain his vital functions.
For the second time in less than a week Jonasson
performed emergency surgery, extracting a full-metal-jacketed bullet from human brain tissue. After a five-hour
operation, Gullberg’s condition was critical. But he was still
alive.
Yet Gullberg’s injuries were considerably more serious than
those that Salander had sustained. He hovered between
life and death for several days.
Blomkvist was at the Kaffebar on Hornsgatan when he
heard on the radio that a 66-year-old unnamed man,
suspected of attempting to murder the fugitive Lisbeth
Salander, had been shot and killed at Sahlgrenska hospital
in Göteborg. He left his coffee untouched, picked up his
laptop case, and hurried off towards the editorial offices on
Götgatan. He had crossed Mariatorget and was just turning
up St Paulsgatan when his mobile beeped. He answered
on the run.
“Blomkvist.”
“Hi, it’s Malin.”
“I heard the news. Do we know who the killer was?”
“Not yet. Henry is chasing it down.”
“I’m on the way in. Be there in five minutes.”
Blomkvist ran into Cortez at the entrance to the Millennium
offices.
“Ekström’s holding a press conference at 3.00,” Cortez
said. “I’m going to Kungsholmen now.”
“What do we know?” Blomkvist shouted after him.
“Ask Malin,” Cortez said, and was gone.
Blomkvist headed into Berger’s … wrong, Eriksson’s office.
She was on the telephone and writing furiously on a yellow
Post-it. She waved him away. Blomkvist went into the
kitchenette and poured coffee with milk into two mugs
marked with the logos of the K.D.U. and S.S.U. political
parties. When he returned she had just finished her call.
He gave her the S.S.U. mug.
“Right,” she said. “Zalachenko was shot dead at 1.15.” She
looked at Blomkvist. “I just spoke to a nurse at
Sahlgrenska. She says that the murderer was a man in his
seventies, who arrived with flowers for Zalachenko minutes
before the murder. He shot Zalachenko in the head several
times and then shot himself. Zalachenko is dead. The
murderer is just about alive and in surgery.”
Blomkvist breathed more easily. Ever since he had heard
the news at the Kaffebar he had had his heart in his throat
the news at the Kaffebar he had had his heart in his throat
and a panicky feeling that Salander might have been the
killer. That really would have thrown a spanner in the
works.
“Do we have the name of the assailant?”
Eriksson shook her head as the telephone rang again. She
took the call, and from the conversation Blomkvist gathered
that it was a stringer in Göteborg whom Eriksson had sent
to Sahlgrenska. He went to his own office and sat down.
It felt as if it was the first time in weeks that he had even
been to his office. There was a pile of unopened post that
he shoved firmly to one side. He called his sister.
“Giannini.”
“It’s Mikael. Did you hear what happened at Sahlgrenska?”
“You could say so.”
“Where are you?”
“At the hospital. That bastard aimed at me, too.”
Blomkvist sat speechless for several seconds before he
fully took in what his sister had said.
“What on earth… you were there?”
“Yes. It was the most horrendous thing I’ve ever
experienced.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No. But he tried to get into Lisbeth’s room. I blockaded the
door and locked us in the bathroom.”
Blomkvist’s whole world suddenly felt off balance. His sister
had almost…
“How is she?” he said.
“She’s not hurt. Or, I mean, she wasn’t hurt in today’s
drama at least.”
He let that sink in.
“Annika, do you know anything at all about the murderer?”
“Not a thing. He was an older man, neatly dressed. I
thought he looked rather bewildered. I’ve never seen him
before, but I came up in the lift with him a few minutes
before it all happened.”
“And Zalachenko is dead, no question?”
“Yes. I heard three shots, and according to what I’ve
“Yes. I heard three shots, and according to what I’ve
overheard he was shot in the head all three times. But it’s
been utter chaos here, with a thousand policemen, and
they’re evacuating a ward for acutely ill and injured
patients who really ought not to be moved. When the police
arrived one of them tried to question Lisbeth before they
even bothered to ask what shape she’s in. I had to read
them the riot act.”
Inspector Erlander saw Giannini through the doorway to
Salander’s room. The lawyer had her mobile pressed to
her ear, so he waited for her to finish her call.
Two hours after the murder there was still chaos in the
corridor. Zalachenko’s room was sealed off. Doctors had
tried resuscitation immediately after the shooting, but soon
gave up. He was beyond all help. His body was sent to the
pathologist, and the crime scene investigation proceeded
as best it could under the circumstances.
Erlander’s mobile chimed. It was Fredrik Malmberg from the
investigative team.
“We’ve got a positive I.D. on the murderer,” Malmberg said.
“His name is Evert Gullberg and he’s seventy-eight years
old.”
Seventy-eight. Quite elderly for a murderer.
“And who the hell is Evert Gullberg?”
“And who the hell is Evert Gullberg?”
“Retired. Lives in Laholm. Apparently he was a tax lawyer. I
got a call from S.I.S. who told me that they had recently
initiated a preliminary investigation against him.”
“When and why?”
“I don’t know when. But apparently he had a habit of
sending crazy and threatening letters to people in
government.”
“Such as who?”
“The Minister of Justice, for one.”
Erlander sighed. So, a madman. A fanatic.
“This morning Säpo got calls from several newspapers who
had received letters from Gullberg. The Ministry of Justice
also called, because Gullberg had made specific death
threats against Karl Axel Bodin.”
“I want copies of the letters.”
“From Säpo?”
“Yes, damn it. Drive up to Stockholm and pick them up in
person if necessary. I want them on my desk when I get
back to H.Q. Which will be in about an hour.”
He thought for a second and then asked one more
question.
“Was it Säpo that called you?”
“That’s what I told you.”
“I mean … they called you, not vice versa?”
“Exactly.”
Erlander closed his mobile.
He wondered what had got into Säpo to make them, out of
the blue, feel the need to get in touch with the police – of
their own accord. Ordinarily you couldn’t get a word out of
them.
Wadensjöö flung open the door to the room at the Section
where Clinton was resting. Clinton sat up cautiously.
“Just what the bloody hell is going on?” Wadensjöö
shrieked. “Gullberg has murdered Zalachenko and then
shot himself in the head.”
“I know,” Clinton said.
“You know?” Wadensjöö yelled. He was bright red in the
face and looked as if he was about to have a stroke. “He
shot himself, for Christ’s sake. He tried to commit suicide. Is
he out of his mind?”
“You mean he’s alive?”
“For the time being, yes, but he has massive brain
damage.”
Clinton sighed. “Such a shame,” he said with real sorrow in
his voice.
“Shame?” Wadensjöö burst out. “Gullberg is out of his
mind. Don’t you understand what—”
Clinton cut him off.
“Gullberg has cancer of the stomach, colon and bladder.
He’s been dying for several months, and in the best case
he had only a few months left.”
“Cancer?”
“He’s been carrying that gun around for the past six
months, determined to use it as soon as the pain became
unbearable and before the disease turned him into a
vegetable. But he was able to do one last favour for the
Section. He went out in grand style.”
Wadensjöö was almost beside himself. “You knew? You
knew that he was thinking of killing Zalachenko?”
knew that he was thinking of killing Zalachenko?”
“Naturally. His assignment was to make sure that
Zalachenko never got a chance to talk. And as you know,
you couldn’t threaten or reason with that man.”
“But don’t you understand what a scandal this could turn
into? Are you just as barmy as Gullberg?”
Clinton got to his feet laboriously. He looked Wadensjöö in
the eye and handed him a stack of fax copies.
“It was an operational decision. I mourn for my friend, but I’ll
probably be following him pretty soon. As far as a scandal
goes … A retired tax lawyer wrote paranoid letters to
newspapers, the police, and the Ministry of Justice. Here’s
a sample of them. Gullberg blames Zalachenko for
everything from the Palme assassination to trying to poison
the Swedish people with chlorine. The letters are plainly
the work of a lunatic and were illegible in places, with
capital letters, underlining, and exclamation marks. I
especially like the way he wrote in the margin.”
Wadensjöö read the letters with rising astonishment. He put
a hand to his brow.
Clinton said: “Whatever happens, Zalachenko’s death will
have nothing to do with the Section. It was just some
demented pensioner who fired the shots.” He paused. “The
important thing is that, starting from now, you have to get
important thing is that, starting from now, you have to get
on board with the program. And don’t rock the boat.” He
fixed his gaze on Wadensjöö. There was steel in the sick
man’s eyes. “What you have to understand is that the
Section functions as the spear head for the total defence
of the nation. We’re Sweden’s last line of defence. Our job
is to watch over the security of our country. Everything else
is unimportant.”
Wadensjöö regarded Clinton with doubt in his eyes.
“We’re the ones who don’t exist,” Clinton went on. “We’re
the ones nobody will ever thank. We’re the ones who have
to make the decisions that nobody else wants to make.
Least of all the politicians.” His voice quivered with
contempt as he spoke those last words. “Do as I say and
the Section might survive. For that to happen, we have to
be decisive and resort to tough measures.”
Wadensjöö felt the panic rise.
Cortez wrote feverishly, trying to get down every word that
was said from the podium at the police press office at
Kungsholmen. Prosecutor Ekström had begun. He
explained that it had been decided that the investigation
into the police killing in Gosseberga – for which Ronald
Niedermann was being sought – would be placed under the
jurisdiction of a prosecutor in Göteborg. The rest of the
investigation concerning Niedermann would be handled by
Ekström himself. Niedermann was a suspect in the murders
of Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson. No mention was
made of Advokat Bjurman. Ekström had also to investigate
and bring charges against Lisbeth Salander, who was
under suspicion for a long list of crimes.
He explained that he had decided to go public with the
information in the light of events that had occurred in
Göteborg that day, including the fact that Salander’s father,
Karl Axel Bodin, had been shot dead. The immediate
reason for calling the press conference was that he wanted
to deny the rumours already being circulated in the media.
He had himself received a number of calls concerning
these rumours.
“Based on current information, I am able to tell you that
Karl Axel Bodin’s daughter, who is being held for the
attempted murder of her father, had nothing to do with this
morning’s events.”
“Then who was the murderer?” a reporter from Dagens
Eko shouted.
“The man who at 1.15 today fired the fatal shots at Karl
Axel Bodin before attempting to commit suicide has now
been identified. He is a 78-year-old man who has been
undergoing treatment for a terminal illness and the
psychiatric problems associated with it.”
psychiatric problems associated with it.”
“Does he have any connection to Lisbeth Salander?”
“No. The man is a tragic figure who evidently acted alone,
in accordance with his own paranoid delusions. The
Security Police recently initiated an investigation of this
man because he had written a number of apparently
unstable letters to well-known politicians and the media. As
recently as this morning, newspaper and government
offices received letters in which he threatened to kill Karl
Axel Bodin.”
“Why didn’t the police give Bodin protection?”
“The letters naming Bodin were sent only last night and
thus arrived at the same time as the murder was being
committed. There was no time to act.”
“What’s the killer’s name?”
“We will not give out that information until his next of kin
have been notified.”
“What sort of background does he have?”
“As far as I understand, he previously worked as an
accountant and tax lawyer. He has been retired for fifteen
years. The investigation is still under way, but as you can
appreciate from the letters he sent, it is a tragedy that
appreciate from the letters he sent, it is a tragedy that
could have been prevented if there had been more support
within society.”
“Did he threaten anyone else?”
“I have been advised that he did, yes, but I do not have
any details to pass on to you.”
“What will this mean for the case against Salander?”
“For the moment, nothing. We have Karl Axel Bodin’s own
testimony from the officers who interviewed him, and we
have extensive forensic evidence against her.”
“What about the reports that Bodin tried to murder his
daughter?”
“That is under investigation, but there are strong
indications that he did indeed attempt to kill her. As far as
we can determine at the moment, it was a case of deep
antagonism in a tragically dysfunctional family.”
Cortez scratched his ear. He noticed that the other
reporters were taking notes as feverishly as he was.
Gunnar Björck felt an almost unquenchable panic when he
heard the news about the shooting at Sahlgrenska
hospital. He had terrible pain in his back.
It took him an hour to make up his mind. Then he picked up
the telephone and tried to call his old protector in Laholm.
There was no answer.
He listened to the news and heard a summary of what had
been said at the press conference. Zalachenko had been
shot by a 78-year-old tax specialist.
Good Lord, seventy-eight years old.
He tried again to call Gullberg, but again in vain.
Finally his uneasiness took the upper hand. He could not
stay in the borrowed summer cabin in Smådalarö. He felt
vulnerable and exposed. He needed time and space to
think. He packed clothes, painkillers, and his wash bag. He
did not want to use his own telephone, so he limped to the
telephone booth at the grocer’s to call Landsort and book
himself a room in the old ships’ pilot lookout. Landsort was
the end of the world, and few people would look for him
there. He booked the room for two weeks.
He glanced at his watch. He would have to hurry to make
the last ferry. He went back to the cabin as fast as his
aching back would permit. He made straight for the kitchen
and checked that the coffee machine was turned off. Then
he went to the hall to get his bag. He happened to look into
the living room and stopped short in surprise.
At first he could not grasp what he was seeing.
In some mysterious way the ceiling lamp had been taken
down and placed on the coffee table. In its place hung a
rope from a hook, right above a stool that was usually in
the kitchen.
Björck looked at the noose, failing to understand.
Then he heard movement behind him and felt his knees
buckle.
Slowly he turned to look.
Two men stood there. They were southern European, by
the look of them. He had no will to react when calmly they
took him in a firm grip under both arms, lifted him off the
ground, and carried him to the stool. When he tried to
resist, pain shot like a knife through his back. He was
almost paralysed as he felt himself being lifted on to the
stool.
Sandberg was accompanied by a man who went by the
nickname of Falun and who in his youth had been a
professional burglar. He had, in time, retrained as a
locksmith. Hans von Rottinger had first hired Falun for the
Section in 1986 for an operation that involved forcing entry
into the home of the leader of an anarchist group. After
that, Falun had been hired from time to time until the mid-’90s, when there was less demand for this type of
operation. Early that morning Clinton had revived the
contact and given Falun an assignment. Falun would make
10,000 kronor tax-free for a job that would take about ten
minutes. In return he had pledged not to steal anything
from the apartment that was the target of the operation.
The Section was not a criminal enterprise, after all.
Falun did not know exactly what interests Clinton
represented, but he assumed it had something to do with
the military. He had read Jan Guillou’s books, and he did
not ask any questions. But it felt good to be back in the
saddle again after so many years of silence from his former
employer.
His job was to open the door. He was expert at breaking
and entering. Even so, it still took five minutes to force the
lock to Blomkvist’s apartment. Then Falun waited on the
landing as Sandberg went in.
“I’m in,” Sandberg said into a handsfree mobile.
“Good,” Clinton said into his earpiece. “Take your time. Tell
me what you see.”
“I’m in the hall with a wardrobe and hat-rack on my right.
Bathroom on the left. Otherwise there’s one very large
room, about fifty square metres. There’s a small kitchen
room, about fifty square metres. There’s a small kitchen
alcove at the far end on the right.”
“Is there any desk or …”
“He seems to work at the kitchen table or sitting on the
living-room sofa … wait.”
Clinton waited.
“Yes. Here we are, a folder on the kitchen table. And
Björck’s report is in it. It looks like the original.”
“Very good. Anything else of interest on the table?”
“Books. P.G. Vinge’s memoirs. Power Struggle for Säpo by
Erik Magnusson. Four or five more of the same.”
“Is there a computer?”
“No.”
“Any safe?”
“No … not that I can see.”
“Take your time. Go through the apartment centimetre by
centimetre. Mårtensson reports that Blomkvist is still at the
office. You’re wearing gloves, right?”
“Of course.”
*
Erlander had a chat with Giannini in a brief interlude
between one or other or both of them talking on their
mobiles. He went into Salander’s room and held out his
hand to introduce himself. Then he said hello to Salander
and asked her how she was feeling. Salander looked at
him, expressionless. He turned to Giannini.
“I need to ask some questions.”
“Alright.”
“Can you tell me what happened this morning?”
Giannini related what she had seen and heard and how
she had reacted up until the moment she had barricaded
herself with Salander in the bathroom. Erlander glanced at
Salander and then back to her lawyer.
“So you’re sure that he came to the door of this room?”
“I heard him trying to push down the door handle.”
“And you’re perfectly sure about that? It’s not difficult to
imagine things when you’re scared or excited.”
“I definitely heard him at the door. He had seen me and
pointed his pistol at me, he knew that this was the room I
was in.”
“Do you have any reason to believe that he had planned,
beforehand that is, to shoot you too?”
“I have no way of knowing. When he took aim at me I pulled
my head back in and blockaded the door.”
“Which was the sensible thing to do. And it was even more
sensible of you to carry your client to the bathroom. These
doors are so thin that the bullets would have gone clean
through them if he had fired. What I’m trying to figure out is
whether he wanted to attack you personally or whether he
was just reacting to the fact that you were looking at him.
You were the person nearest to him in the corridor.”
“Apart from the two nurses.”
“Did you get the sense that he knew you or perhaps
recognized you?”
“No, not really.”
“Could he have recognized you from the papers? You’ve
had a lot of publicity over several widely reported cases.”
“It’s possible. I can’t say.”
“And you’d never seen him before?”
“I’d seen him in the lift, that’s the first time I set eyes on
him.”
“I didn’t know that. Did you talk?”
“No. I got in at the same time he did. I was vaguely aware of
him for just a few seconds. He had flowers in one hand and
a briefcase in the other.”
“Did you make eye contact?”
“No. He was looking straight ahead.”
“Who got in first?”
“We got in more or less at the same time.”
“Did he look confused or—”
“I couldn’t say one way or the other. He got into the lift and
stood perfectly still, holding the flowers.”
“What happened then?”
“We got out of the lift on the same floor, and I went to visit
my client.”
“Did you come straight here?”
“Yes … no. That is, I went to the reception desk and
showed my I.D. The prosecutor has forbidden my client to
have visitors.”
“Where was this man then?”
Giannini hesitated. “I’m not quite sure. He was behind me, I
think. No, wait … he got out of the lift first, but stopped and
held the door for me. I couldn’t swear to it, but I think he
went to the reception desk too. I was just quicker on my
feet than he was. But the nurses would know.”
Elderly, polite, and a murderer, Erlander thought.
“Yes, he did go to the reception desk,” he confirmed. “He
did talk to the nurse and he left the flowers at the desk, at
her instruction. But you didn’t see that?”
“No. I have no recollection of any of that.”
Erlander had no more questions. Frustration was gnawing
at him. He had had the feeling before and had trained
himself to interpret it as an alarm triggered by instinct.
Something was eluding him, something that was not right.
The murderer had been identified as Evert Gullberg, a
former accountant and sometime business consultant and
tax lawyer. A man in advanced old age. A man against
tax lawyer. A man in advanced old age. A man against
whom Säpo had lately initiated a preliminary investigation
because he was a nutter who wrote threatening letters to
public figures.
Erlander knew from long experience that there were plenty
of nutters out there, some pathologically obsessed ones
who stalked celebrities and looked for love by hiding in
woods near their villas. When their love was not
reciprocated – as why would it be? – it could quickly turn to
violent hatred. There were stalkers who travelled from
Germany or Italy to follow a 21-year-old lead singer in a
pop band from gig to gig, and who then got upset because
she would not drop everything to start a relationship with
them. There were bloody-minded individuals who harped
on and on about real or imaginary injustices and who
sometimes turned to threatening behaviour. There were
psychopaths and conspiracy theorists, nutters who had the
gift to read messages hidden from the normal world.
There were plenty of examples of these fools taking the
leap from fantasy to action. Was not the assassination of
Anna Lindh* the result of precisely such a crazy impulse?
But Inspector Erlander did not like the idea that a mentally
ill accountant, or whatever he was, could wander into a
hospital with a bunch of flowers in one hand and a pistol in
the other. Or that he could, for God’s sake, execute
someone who was the object of a police investigation – his
someone who was the object of a police investigation – his
investigation. A man whose name in the public register was
Karl Axel Bodin but whose real name, according to
Blomkvist, was Zalachenko. A bastard defected Soviet
Russian agent and professional gangster.
At the very least Zalachenko was a witness; but in the worst
case he was involved up to his neck in a series of murders.
Erlander had been allowed to conduct two brief interviews
with Zalachenko, and at no time during either had he been
swayed by the man’s protest ations of innocence.
His murderer had shown interest also in Salander, or at
least in her lawyer. He had tried to get into her room.
And then he had attempted suicide. According to the
doctors, he had probably succeeded, even if his body had
not yet absorbed the message that it was time to shut
down. It was highly unlikely that Evert Gullberg would ever
be brought before a court.
Erlander did not like the situation, not for a moment. But he
had no proof that Gullberg’s shots had been anything
other than what they seemed. So he had decided to play it
safe. He looked at Giannini.
“I’ve decided that Salander should be moved to a different
room. There’s a room in the connecting corridor to the right
of the reception area that would be better from a security
of the reception area that would be better from a security
point of view. It’s in direct line-of-sight of the reception desk
and the nurses’ station. No visitors will be permitted other
than you. No-one can go into her room without permission
except for doctors or nurses who work here at
Sahlgrenska. And I’ll see to it that a guard is stationed
outside her door round the clock.”
“Do you think she’s in danger?”
“I know of nothing to indicate that she is. But I want to play
it safe.”
Salander listened attentively to the conversation between
her lawyer and her adversary, a member of the police. She
was impressed that Giannini had replied so precisely and
lucidly, and in such detail. She was even more impressed
by her lawyer’s way of keeping cool under stress.
Otherwise she had had a monstrous headache ever since
Giannini had dragged her out of bed and carried her into
the bathroom. Instinctively she wanted as little as possible
to do with the hospital staff. She did not like asking for help
or showing any sign of weakness. But the headaches were
so overpowering that she could not think straight. She
reached out and rang for a nurse.
Giannini had planned her visit to Göteborg as a brisk,
necessary prologue to long-term work. She wanted to get
necessary prologue to long-term work. She wanted to get
to know Salander, question her about her actual condition,
and present a first outline of the strategy that she and
Blomkvist had cobbled together to deal with the legal
proceedings. She had originally intended to return to
Stockholm that evening, but the dramatic events at
Sahlgrenska had meant that she still had not had a real
conversation with Salander. Her client was in much worse
shape than she had been led to believe. She was suffering
from acute headaches and a high fever, which prompted a
doctor by the name of Endrin to prescribe a strong
painkiller, an antibiotic, and rest. Consequently, as soon as
her client had been moved to a new room and a security
guard had been posted outside, Giannini was asked, quite
firmly, to leave.
It was already 4.30 p.m. She hesitated. She could go back
to Stockholm knowing that she might have to take the train
to Göteborg again as soon as the following day. Or else
she could stay overnight. But her client might be too ill to
deal with a visit tomorrow as well. She had not booked a
hotel room. As a lawyer who mainly represented abused
women without any great financial resources, she tried to
avoid padding her bill with expensive hotel charges. She
called home first and then rang Lillian Josefsson, a lawyer
colleague who was a member of the Women’s Network and
an old friend from law school.
“I’m in Göteborg,” she said. “I was thinking of going home
tonight, but certain things happened today that require me
to stay overnight. Is it O.K. if I sleep at your place?”
“Oh, please do, that would be fun. We haven’t seen each
other in ages.”
“I’m not interrupting anything?”
“No, of course not. But I’ve moved. I’m now on a side street
off Linnégatan. But I do have a spare room. And we can go
out to a bar later if we feel like it.”
“If I have the energy,” Giannini said. “What time is good?”
They agreed that Giannini should turn up at around 6.00.
Giannini took the bus to Linnégatan and spent the next
hour in a Greek restaurant. She was famished, and
ordered a shish kebab with salad. She sat for a long time
thinking about the day’s events. She was a little shaky now
that the adrenaline had worn off, but she was pleased with
herself. In a time of great danger she had been cool, calm
and collected. She had instinctively made the right
decisions. It was a pleasant feeling to know that her
reactions were up to an emergency.
After a while she took her Filofax from her briefcase and
opened it to the notes section. She read through it
carefully. She was filled with doubt about the plan that her
carefully. She was filled with doubt about the plan that her
brother had outlined to her. It had sounded logical at the
time, but it did not look so good now. Even so, she did not
intend to back out.
At 6.00 she paid her bill and walked to Lillian’s place on
Olivedalsgatan. She punched in the door code her friend
had given her. She stepped into the stairwell and was
looking for a light switch when the attack came out of the
blue. She was slammed up against a tiled wall next to the
door. She banged her head hard, felt a rush of pain and
fell to the ground.
The next moment she heard footsteps moving swiftly away
and then the front door opening and closing. She struggled
to her feet and put her hand to her forehead. There was
blood on her palm. What the hell? She went out on to the
street and just caught a glimpse of someone turning the
corner towards Sveaplan. In shock she stood still for about
a minute. Then she walked back to the door and punched
in the code again.
Suddenly she realized that her briefcase was gone. She
had been robbed. It took a few seconds before the horror
of it sank in. Oh no. The Zalachenko folder. She felt the
alarm spreading up from her diaphragm.
Slowly she sat down on the staircase.
Then she jumped up and dug into her jacket pocket. The
Filofax. Thank God. Leaving the restaurant she had
stuffed it into her pocket instead of putting it back in her
briefcase. It contained the draft of her strategy in the
Salander case, point by detailed point.
Then she stumbled up the stairs to the fifth floor and
pounded on her friend’s door.
Half an hour had passed before she had recovered
enough to call her brother. She had a black eye and a
gash above her eyebrow that was still bleeding. Lillian had
cleaned it with alcohol and put a bandage on it. No, she did
not want to go to hospital. Yes, she would like a cup of tea.
Only then did she begin to think rationally again. The first
thing she did was to call Blomkvist.
He was still at Millennium, where he was searching for
information about Zalachenko’s murderer with Cortez and
Eriksson. He listened with increasing dismay to Giannini’s
account of what had happened.
“No bones broken?” he said.
“Black eye. I’ll be O.K. after I’ve had a chance to calm
down.”
“Did you disturb a robbery, was that it?”
“Mikael, my briefcase was stolen, with the Zalachenko
report you gave me.”
“Not a problem. I can make another copy—”
He broke off as he felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.
First Zalachenko. Now Annika.
He closed his iBook, stuffed it into his shoulder bag and left
the office without a word, moving fast. He jogged home to
Bellmansgatan and up the stairs.
The door was locked.
As soon as he entered the apartment he saw that the
folder he had left on the kitchen table was gone. He did not
even bother to look for it. He knew exactly where it had
been. He sank on to a chair at the kitchen table as
thoughts whirled through his head.
Someone had been in his apartment. Someone who was
trying to cover Zalachenko’s tracks.
His own copy and his sister’s copy were gone.
Bublanski still had the report.
Or did he?
Blomkvist got up and went to the telephone, but stopped
with his hand on the receiver. Someone had been in his
apartment. He looked at his telephone with the utmost
suspicion and took out his mobile.
But how easy is it to eavesdrop on a mobile conversation?
He slowly put the mobile down next to his landline and
looked around.
I’m dealing with pros here, obviously. People who could bug
an apartment as easily as get into one without breaking a
lock.
He sat down again.
He looked at his laptop case.
How hard is it to hack into my email? Salander can do it in
five minutes.
He thought for a long time before he went back to the
landline and called his sister. He chose his words with care.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m fine, Micke.”
“Tell me what happened from the moment you arrived at
Sahlgrenska until you were attacked.”
Sahlgrenska until you were attacked.”
It took ten minutes for Giannini to give him her account.
Blomkvist did not say anything about the implications of
what she told him, but asked questions until he was
satisfied. He sounded like an anxious brother, but his mind
was working on a completely different level as he
reconstructed the key points.
She had decided to stay in Göteborg at 4.30 that
afternoon. She called her friend on her mobile, got the
address and door code. The robber was waiting for her
inside the stairwell at 6.00 on the dot.
Her mobile was being monitored. It was the only possible
explanation.
Which meant that his was being monitored too.
Foolish to think otherwise.
“And the Zalachenko report is gone,” Giannini repeated.
Blomkvist hesitated. Whoever had stolen the report already
knew that his copy too had been stolen. It would only be
natural to mention that.
“Mine too,” he said.
“What?”
He explained that he had come home to find that the blue
folder on his kitchen table was gone.
“It’s a disaster,” he said in a gloomy voice. “That was the
crucial part of the evidence.”
“Micke … I’m so sorry.”
“Me too,” Blomkvist said. “Damn it! But it’s not your fault. I
should have published the report the day I got it.”
“What do we do now?”
“I have no idea. This is the worst thing that could have
happened. It will turn our whole plan upside down. We don’t
have a shred of evidence left against Björck or Teleborian.”
They talked for another two minutes before Blomkvist
ended the conversation.
“I want you to come back to Stockholm tomorrow,” he said.
“I have to see Salander.”
“Go and see her in the morning. We have to sit down and
think about where we go from here.”
When Blomkvist hung up he sat on the sofa staring into
When Blomkvist hung up he sat on the sofa staring into
space. Whoever was listening to their conversation knew
now that Millennium had lost Björck’s report along with the
correspondence between Björck and Dr Teleborian. They
could be satisfied that Blomkvist and Giannini were in
despair.
If nothing else, Blomkvist had learned from the preceding
night’s study of the history of the Security Police that
disinformation was the basis of all espionage activity. And
he had just planted disinformation that in the long run
might prove invaluable.
He opened his laptop case and took out the copy made for
Armansky which he had not yet managed to deliver. The
only remaining copy, and he did not intend to waste it. On
the contrary, he would make five more copies and put them
in safe places.
Then he called Eriksson. She was about to lock up for the
day.
“Where did you disappear to in such a hurry?” she said.
“Could you hang on there a few minutes please? There’s
something I have to discuss with you before you leave.”
He had not had time to do his laundry for several weeks. All
his shirts were in the basket. He packed a razor and Power
Struggle for Säpo along with the last remaining copy of
Struggle for Säpo along with the last remaining copy of
Björck’s report. He went to Dressman and bought four
shirts, two pairs of trousers and some underwear and took
the clothes with him to the office. Eriksson waited while he
took a quick shower, wondering what was going on.
“Someone broke into my apartment and stole the
Zalachenko report. Someone mugged Annika in Göteborg
and stole her copy. I have proof that her phone is tapped,
which may well mean that mine is too. Maybe yours at
home and all the Millennium phones have been bugged.
And if someone took the trouble to break into my
apartment, they’d be pretty dim if they didn’t bug it as well.”
“I see,” said Eriksson in a flat voice. She glanced at the
mobile on the desk in front of her.
“Keep working as usual. Use the mobile, but don’t give
away any information. Tomorrow, tell Henry.”
“He went home an hour ago. He left a stack of public
reports on your desk. But what are you doing here?”
“I plan to sleep here tonight. If they shot Zalachenko, stole
the reports, and bugged my apartment today, there’s a
good chance they’ve just got started and haven’t done the
office yet. People have been here all day. I don’t want the
office to be empty tonight.”
“You think that the murder of Zalachenko … but the
“You think that the murder of Zalachenko … but the
murderer was a geriatric psycho.”
“Malin, I don’t believe in coincidence. Somebody is
covering Zalachenko’s tracks. I don’t care who people think
that old lunatic was or how many crazy letters he wrote to
government ministers. He was a hired killer of some sort.
He went there to kill Zalachenko … and maybe Lisbeth too.
”
“But he committed suicide, or tried to. What hired killer
would do that?”
Blomkvist thought for a moment. He met the editor-in-chief’s gaze.
“Maybe someone who’s seventy-eight and hasn’t much to
lose. He’s mixed up in all this, and when we finish digging
we’ll prove it.”
Eriksson studied Blomkvist’s face. She had never before
seen him so composed and unflinching. She shuddered.
Blomkvist noticed her reaction.
“One more thing. We’re no longer in a battle with a gang of
criminals, this time it’s with a government department. It’s
going to be tough.”
Eriksson nodded.
“I didn’t imagine things would go this far. Malin … what
happened today makes very plain how dangerous this
could get. If you want out, just say the word.”
She wondered what Berger would have said. Then
stubbornly she shook her head.
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