The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

by Stieg Larsson

  I was shot in the head. I could stick my finger in the entry wound and touch my brain.

  She was surprised to be alive. Yet she felt indifferent. If death was the black emptiness from which she had just woken up, then death was nothing to worry about. She would hardly notice the difference. With this esoteric thought she closed her eyes and fell asleep again.

  She had been dozing only a few minutes when she became aware of movement and opened her eyelids to a narrow slit. She saw a nurse in a white uniform bending over her. She closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep.

  "I think you're awake," the nurse said.

  "Mmm," Salander said.

  "Hello. My name is Marianne. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

  Salander tried to nod, but her head was immobilized by the brace.

  "No, don't try to move. You don't have to be afraid. You've been hurt and had surgery."

  "Could I have some water?" Salander whispered.

  The nurse gave her a beaker with a straw to drink water through. As she swallowed the water she saw another person appear on her left side.

  "Hello, Lisbeth. Can you hear me?"

  "Mmm."

  "I'm Dr. Helena Endrin. Do you know where you are?"

  "Hospital."

  "You're at Sahlgrenska hospital in Goteborg. You've had an operation and you're in the intensive care unit."

  "Umm-hmm."

  "There is no need to be afraid."

  "I was shot in the head."

  Endrin hesitated for a moment, then said, "That's right. So you remember what happened."

  "The old bastard had a pistol."

  "Ah . . . yes, well, someone did."

  "A .22."

  "I see. I didn't know that."

  "How badly hurt am I?"

  "Your prognosis is positive. You were in pretty bad shape, but we think you have a good chance of making a full recovery."

  Salander weighed this information. Then she tried to fix her eyes on the doctor. Her vision was blurred.

  "What happened to Zalachenko?"

  "Who?"

  "The old bastard. Is he alive?"

  "You must mean Karl Axel Bodin."

  "No, I don't. I mean Alexander Zalachenko. That's his real name."

  "I don't know anything about that. But the elderly man who came in at the same time as you is critical but out of danger."

  Salander's heart sank. She considered the doctor's words.

  "Where is he?"

  "He's down the hall. But don't worry about him for the time being. You have to concentrate on getting well."

  Salander closed her eyes. She wondered whether she could manage to get out of bed, find something to use as a weapon, and finish the job. But she could scarcely keep her eyes open. She thought, He's going to get away again. She had missed her chance to kill Zalachenko.

  "I'd like to examine you for a moment. Then you can go back to sleep," Dr. Endrin said.

  Blomkvist was suddenly awake, and he did not know why. He did not know where he was, and then he remembered that he had booked himself a room in City Hotel. It was as dark as coal. He fumbled to turn on the bedside lamp and looked at the clock: 2:00 a.m. He had slept fifteen hours straight.

  He got up and went to the bathroom. He would not be able to get back to sleep. He took a long shower. Then he put on his jeans and sweatshirt. He called the front desk to ask if he could get coffee and a sandwich at this early hour. The night porter said that was possible.

  He put on his sports jacket and went downstairs. He ordered a coffee and a cheese and liver pate sandwich. He bought the Goteborgs-Posten. The arrest of Lisbeth Salander was front-page news. He took his breakfast back to his room and read the paper. The reports were somewhat confused, but they were on the right track. Ronald Niedermann, thirty-five, was being sought for the killing of a policeman. The police wanted to question him also in connection with several murders in Stockholm. The police had released nothing about Salander's condition, and the name Zalachenko was not mentioned. He was referred to only as a sixty-five-year-old landowner from Gosseberga, and apparently the media had taken him for an innocent victim.

  When Blomkvist finished reading, he flipped open his mobile and saw that he had twenty new messages. Three were messages to call Berger. Two were from his sister, Annika. Fourteen were from reporters at various newspapers who wanted to talk to him. One was from Malm, who had sent him the brisk advice: It would be best if you took the first train home.

  Blomkvist frowned. That was unusual, coming from Malm. The text had been sent at 7:06 the night before. He stifled the impulse to call and wake someone up at 3:00 in the morning. Instead he booted up his iBook and plugged the cable into the broadband jack. He found that the first train to Stockholm left at 5:20, and there was nothing new in Aftonbladet online.

  He opened a new Word document, lit a cigarette, and sat for three minutes staring at the blank screen. Then he began to type.

  Her name is Lisbeth Salander. Sweden has gotten to know her through police reports and press releases and the headlines in the evening papers. She is twenty-six years old and not even five feet tall. She has been called a psychopath, a murderer, and a lesbian Satanist. There has been almost no limit to the fantasies that have been circulated about her. In this issue, Millennium will tell the story of how government officials conspired against Salander in order to protect a pathological murderer. . . .

  He wrote steadily for fifty minutes, primarily a recapitulation of the night on which he had found Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson and why the police had focused on Salander as the suspected killer. He quoted the newspaper headlines about lesbian Satanists and the media's apparent hope that the murders might have involved S & M sex.

  He checked the clock and quickly closed his iBook. He packed his bag and went down to the front desk. He paid with a credit card and took a taxi to Goteborg Central Station.

  Blomkvist went straight to the dining car and ordered more coffee and sandwiches. He opened his iBook again and read through his text. He was so absorbed that he did not notice Inspector Modig until she cleared her throat and asked if she could join him. He looked up, smiled sheepishly, and closed his computer.

  "On your way home?"

  "You too, I see."

  She nodded. "My colleague is staying another day."

  "Do you know anything about how Salander is? I've been sound asleep since I last saw you."

  "She had an operation soon after she was brought in and was awake in the early evening. The doctors think she'll make a full recovery. She was incredibly lucky."

  Blomkvist nodded. It dawned on him that he had not been worried about her. He had assumed that she would survive. Any other outcome was unthinkable.

  "Has anything else of interest happened?" he said.

  Modig wondered how much she should say to a reporter, even to one who knew more of the story than she did. On the other hand, she had sat down at his table, and by now maybe a hundred other reporters had been briefed at police headquarters.

  "I don't want to be quoted," she said.

  "I'm simply asking out of personal interest."

  She told him that a nationwide manhunt was under way for Ronald Niedermann, particularly in the Malmo area.

  "And Zalachenko? Have you questioned him?"

  "Yes, we questioned him."

  "And?"

  "I can't tell you anything about that."

  "Come on, Sonja. I'll know exactly what you talked about less than an hour after I get to my office in Stockholm. And I won't write a word of what you tell me."

  She hesitated for a while before she met his gaze.

  "He made a formal complaint against Salander, that she tried to kill him. She risks being charged with aggravated assault and attempted murder."

  "And in all likelihood she'll claim self-defence."

  "I hope she will," Modig said.

  "That doesn't sound like an official line."

  "Bodin--Zalachenko--is as slippery as an
eel, and he has answers to all our questions. I'm convinced that things are more or less as you told us yesterday, and that means that Salander has been subjected to a lifetime of injustice--since she was twelve."

  "That's the story I'm going to publish," Blomkvist said.

  "It won't be popular with some people."

  Modig hesitated again. Blomkvist waited.

  "I talked with Bublanski half an hour ago. He didn't go into any detail, but the preliminary investigation against Salander for the murder of your friends seems to have been shelved. The focus has shifted to Niedermann."

  "Which means that . . ." He let the question hang in the air between them.

  Modig shrugged.

  "Who's going to take over the investigation of Salander?"

  "I don't know. What happened in Gosseberga is primarily Goteborg's problem. I would guess that somebody in Stockholm will be assigned to compile all the material for a prosecution."

  "I see. What do you think the odds are that the investigation will be transferred to Sapo?"

  Modig shook her head.

  Just before they reached Alingsas, Blomkvist leaned towards her. "Sonja, I think you understand how things stand. If the Zalachenko story gets out, there'll be a massive scandal. Sapo conspired with a psychiatrist to lock Salander up in an asylum. The only thing they can do now is to stonewall and go on claiming that Salander is mentally ill, and that committing her in 1991 was justified."

  Modig nodded.

  "I'm going to do everything I can to counter any such claims. I believe that Salander is as sane as you or I. Odd, certainly, but her intellectual gifts are undeniable." He paused to let what he had said sink in. "I'm going to need somebody on the inside I can trust."

  She met his gaze. "I'm not competent to judge whether or not Salander is mentally ill."

  "But you are competent to say whether or not she was the victim of a miscarriage of justice."

  "What are you suggesting?"

  "I'm only asking you to let me know if you discover that Salander is being subjected to another miscarriage of justice."

  Modig said nothing.

  "I don't want details of the investigation or anything like that. I just need to know what's happening with the charges against her."

  "It sounds like a good way for me to get kicked off the force."

  "You would be a source. I would never, ever mention your name."

  He wrote an email address on a page torn from his notebook.

  "This is an untraceable Hotmail address. You can use it if you have anything to tell me. Don't use your official address, obviously; just set up your own temporary Hotmail account."

  She put the address in the inside pocket of her jacket. She did not make him any promises.

  Inspector Erlander woke at 7:00 on Saturday morning to the ringing of his phone. He heard voices from the TV and smelled coffee from the kitchen, where his wife was already doing her morning chores. He had returned to his apartment in Molndal at 1:00 in the morning, having been on duty for twenty-two hours, so he was far from wide awake when he reached to answer it.

  "Rikardsson, night shift. Are you awake?"

  "No," Erlander said. "What's happened?"

  "News. Anita Kaspersson has been found."

  "Where?"

  "Outside Seglora, south of Boras."

  Erlander visualized the map in his head.

  "South," he said. "He's taking the back roads. He must have driven up the 180 through Boras and swung south. Have we alerted Malmo?"

  "Yes, and Helsingborg, Landskrona, and Trelleborg. And Karlskrona. I'm thinking of the ferry to the east."

  Erlander rubbed the back of his neck.

  "He has almost a twenty-four-hour head start now. He could be clean out of the country. How was Kaspersson found?"

  "She turned up at a house on the outskirts of Seglora."

  "She what?"

  "She knocked--"

  "You mean she's alive?"

  "I'm sorry; I'm not expressing myself clearly. The Kaspersson woman kicked on the door of a house at 3:10 this morning, scaring the hell out of a couple and their kids, who were all asleep. She was barefoot and suffering from severe hypothermia. Her hands were tied behind her back. She's at the hospital in Boras, reunited with her husband."

  "Amazing. I think we all assumed she was dead."

  "Sometimes you can be surprised. But here's the bad news: Assistant County Police Chief Spangberg has been here since 5:00 this morning. She's made it plain that she wants you to rush over to Boras to interview the woman."

  It was Saturday morning and Blomkvist assumed that the Millennium offices would be empty. He called Malm as the train was coming into Stockholm and asked him what had prompted the tone of his text message.

  "Have you had breakfast?" Malm said.

  "On the train."

  "OK. Come over to my place and I'll make you something more substantial."

  "What's this about?"

  "I'll tell you when you get here."

  Blomkvist took the tunnelbana to Medborgarplatsen and walked to Allhelgonagatan. Malm's boyfriend, Arnold Magnusson, opened the door to him. No matter how hard Blomkvist tried, he could never rid himself of the feeling that he was looking at an advertisement for something. Magnusson was often onstage at the Dramaten, and was one of Sweden's most popular actors. It was always a shock to meet him in person. Blomkvist was not ordinarily impressed by celebrity, but Magnusson had such a distinctive appearance and was so familiar from his roles, in particular for playing the irascible but honest Inspector Frisk in a wildly popular TV series. Blomkvist always expected him to behave just like Gunnar Frisk.

  "Hello, Micke," Magnusson said.

  "Hello," Blomkvist said.

  "In the kitchen."

  Malm was serving up freshly made waffles with cloudberry jam and coffee. Blomkvist's appetite was revived even before he sat down. Malm wanted to know what had happened in Gosseberga. Blomkvist gave him a succinct account. He was into his third waffle before he remembered to ask what was going on.

  "We had a little problem at Millennium while you were away Blomkvisting in Goteborg."

  Blomkvist looked at Malm intently.

  "What was that?"

  "Oh, nothing serious. Erika has taken the job of editor in chief at Svenska Morgon-Posten. She finished at Millennium yesterday."

  It was several seconds before Blomkvist could absorb the whole impact of the news. He sat there stunned, but did not doubt the truth of it.

  "Why didn't she tell anyone before?" he said at last.

  "Because she wanted to tell you first, and you've been running around being unreachable, and because she probably thought you had your hands full with the Salander story. Then she found herself with an unbearably guilty conscience and was feeling terrible. And not one of us had noticed a thing."

  Blomkvist shut his eyes. "Goddamnit," he said.

  "I know. Now it turns out that you're the last one in the office to find out. I wanted to have the chance to tell you myself so that you'd understand what happened and not think anyone was doing anything behind your back."

  "No, I don't think that. But, Jesus. It's wonderful that she got the job, if she wants to work at SMP, but what the hell are we going to do?"

  "Malin's going to be acting editor in chief starting with the next issue."

  "Eriksson?"

  "Unless you want to be editor in chief . . ."

  "Good God, no."

  "That's what I thought."

  "Have you appointed a managing editor?"

  "Henry. He's been with us four years. Hardly an apprentice any longer."

  "Do I have a say in this?"

  "No," Malm said.

  Blomkvist gave a dry laugh. "Right. We'll let it stand the way you've decided. Malin is tough, but she's unsure of herself. Henry shoots from the hip a little too often. We'll have to keep an eye on both of them."

  "Yes, we will."

  Blomkvist sat in silence, cradling his co
ffee. It would be damned empty without Berger, and he wasn't sure how things would turn out at the magazine.

  "I have to call Erika and--"

  "No, better not."

  "What do you mean?"

  "She's sleeping at the office. Go and wake her up or something."

  Blomkvist found Berger sound asleep on the sofa bed in her office. She had been up until all hours emptying her desk and bookshelves of all personal belongings and sorting papers that she wanted to keep. She had filled five large boxes. He looked at her for a while from the doorway before he went in and sat down on the edge of the sofa and woke her.

  "Why in heaven's name don't you go over to my place and sleep if you have to sleep on the job," he said.

  "Hi, Mikael," she said.

  "Christer told me."

  She started to say something, but he bent down and kissed her on the cheek.

  "Are you livid?"

  "Insanely," he said.

  "I'm sorry. I couldn't turn it down. But it feels wrong, to leave all of you in the lurch in such a bad situation."

  "I'm hardly the person to criticize you for abandoning ship. I left you in the lurch in a situation much worse than this."

  "The two have nothing to do with each other. You took a break. I'm leaving for good and I didn't tell anybody. I'm so sorry."

  Blomkvist gave her a wan smile.

  "When it's time, it's time." Then he added in English, "A woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do, and all that crap."

  Berger smiled. Those were the words she had said to him when he moved to Hedeby. He reached out his hand and mussed her hair affectionately.

  "I can understand why you'd want to quit this madhouse--but to be the head of Sweden's most turgid old-boy newspaper? That's going to take some time to sink in."

  "There are quite a few women working there nowadays."

  "Bullshit. Check the masthead. It's status quo all the way. You must be a raving masochist. Shall we go and have some coffee?"

  Berger sat up. "I have to know what happened in Goteborg."

  "I'm writing the story now," Blomkvist said. "And there's going to be war when we publish it. We'll put it out at the same time as the trial. I hope you're not thinking of taking the story with you to SMP. The fact is I need you to write something on the Zalachenko story before you leave here."

  "Micke . . . I . . ."