The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

by Stieg Larsson

  "I recognize him," Edklinth said.

  "His name is Wadensjoo."

  "Precisely. He worked on the terrorist detail around fifteen years ago. A desk man. He was one of the candidates for the post of top boss here at the Firm. I don't know what became of him."

  "He resigned in 1991. Guess who he had lunch with an hour or so ago?"

  She put her last photograph on the desk.

  "Chief of Secretariat Shenke and Chief of Budget Gustav Atterbom. I want to have surveillance on these gentlemen around the clock. I want to know exactly who they meet."

  "That's not practical," Edklinth said. "I have only four men available."

  Edklinth pinched his lower lip as he thought. Then he looked up at Figuerola.

  "We need more people," he said. "Do you think you could reach Inspector Bublanski discreetly and ask him if he might like to have dinner with me today? Around 7:00, say?"

  Edklinth then reached for his phone and dialled a number from memory.

  "Hello, Armansky. It's Edklinth. Might I reciprocate for that wonderful dinner? No, I insist. Shall we say 7:00?"

  Salander had spent the night in Kronoberg prison in a seven-by-thirteen-foot cell. The furnishings were pretty basic, but she had fallen asleep within minutes of the key being turned in the lock. Early on Monday morning she was up and obediently doing the stretching exercises prescribed for her by the physical therapist at Sahlgrenska. Breakfast was then brought to her, and she sat on her cot and stared into space.

  At 9:30 she was led to an interrogation cell at the end of the hall. The guard was a short, bald, old man with a round face and horn-rimmed glasses. He was polite and cheerful.

  Giannini greeted her affectionately. Salander ignored Faste. She was meeting Prosecutor Ekstrom for the first time, and she spent the next half hour sitting on a chair staring stonily at a spot on the wall just above Ekstrom's head. She said nothing, and she did not move a muscle.

  At 10:00 Ekstrom broke off the fruitless interrogation. He was annoyed not to be able to get the slightest response out of her. He began to feel uncertain as he observed the thin, doll-like young woman. How was it possible that she could have beaten up those two thugs Lundin and Nieminen in Stallarholmen? Would the court really believe that story, even if he did have convincing evidence?

  Salander was brought a simple lunch at noon and spent the next hour solving equations in her head. She focused on an area of spherical astronomy from a book she had read two years earlier.

  At 2:30 she was led back to the interrogation cell. This time her guard was a young woman. Salander sat on a chair in the empty cell and pondered a particularly intricate equation.

  After ten minutes the door opened.

  "Hello, Lisbeth." A friendly tone. It was Teleborian.

  He smiled at her, and she froze. The components of the equation she had constructed in the air before her came tumbling to the ground. She could hear the numbers and mathematical symbols bouncing and clattering as if they had physical form.

  Teleborian stood still for a minute and looked at her before he sat down on the other side of the table. She continued to stare at the same spot on the wall.

  After a while she met his eyes.

  "I'm sorry that you've ended up in this situation," Teleborian said. "I'm going to try to help you in every way I can. I hope we can establish some level of mutual trust."

  Salander examined every inch of him. The dishevelled hair. The goatee. The little gap between his front teeth. The thin lips. The brand-new brown jacket. The shirt open at the neck. She listened to his smooth and treacherously friendly voice.

  "I also hope that I can be of more help to you than the last time we met."

  He placed a small notebook and pen on the table. Salander lowered her eyes and looked at the pen. It was a pointed, silver-coloured tube.

  Risk assessment.

  She suppressed an impulse to reach out and grab the pen.

  Her eyes sought the little finger of his left hand. She saw a faint white mark where fifteen years earlier she had sunk in her teeth and locked her jaws so hard that she almost bit his finger off. It had taken three guards to hold her down and prise open her jaw.

  I was a scared little girl barely into my teens then. Now I'm a grown woman. I can kill you whenever I want.

  Again she fixed her eyes on the spot on the wall, and gathered up the scattered numbers and symbols and began to reassemble the equation.

  Teleborian studied Salander with a neutral expression. He had not become an internationally respected psychiatrist for nothing. He had a gift for reading emotions and moods. He could sense a cold shadow passing through the room, and interpreted this as a sign that the patient felt fear and shame beneath her imperturbable exterior. He assumed that she was reacting to his presence, and was pleased that her attitude towards him had not changed over the years. She's going to hang herself in court.

  Berger's final act at SMP was to write a memo to the staff. She was angry, and she filled two pages explaining why she was resigning, including her opinion of various colleagues. Then she deleted the whole text and started again in a calmer tone.

  She did not refer to Fredriksson. If she had, all interest would have focused on him, and her real reasons would be drowned out by the sensation a case of sexual harassment would inevitably cause.

  She gave two reasons. The principal one was that she had met implacable resistance from management to her proposal that managers and owners should reduce their salaries and bonuses. Which meant that she would have had to start her tenure at SMP with damaging cutbacks in staff. This was not only a breach of the promise she had been given when she accepted the job, but it would undercut her every attempt to bring about long-term change in order to strengthen the newspaper.

  The second reason she gave was the revelation about Borgsjo. She wrote that she had been instructed to cover up the story, and this flew in the face of all she believed to be her job. It meant that she had no choice but to resign her position as editor. She concluded by saying that SMP's dire situation was not a personnel problem, but a management problem.

  She read through the memo, corrected the typos, and emailed it to all the paper's employees. She sent a copy to Pressens Tidning, a media journal, and also to the trade magazine Journalisten. Then she packed away her laptop and went to see Holm at his desk.

  "Goodbye," she said.

  "Goodbye, Berger. It was hellish working with you."

  They smiled at each other.

  "One last thing," she said.

  "Tell me."

  "Frisk has been working on a story I commissioned."

  "Right, and nobody has any idea what it's about."

  "Give him some support. He's come a long way, and I'll be staying in touch with him. Let him finish the job. I guarantee you'll be pleased with the result."

  He looked wary. Then he nodded.

  They did not shake hands. She left her card key on his desk and took the elevator down to the garage. She parked her BMW near the Millennium offices at a little after 4:00.

  PART 4

  Rebooting System

  JULY 1-OCTOBER 7

  Despite the rich variety of Amazon legends from ancient Greece, South America, Africa, and elsewhere, there is only one historically documented example of female warriors. This is the women's army that existed among the Fon of Dahomey in West Africa, now Benin.

  These female warriors have never been mentioned in the published military histories; no romanticized films have been made about them, and today they exist as no more than footnotes to history. Only one scholarly work has been written about these women, Amazons of Black Sparta by Stanley B. Alpern (C. Hurst & Co., London, 1998), and yet they made up a force that was the equal of every contemporary body of male elite soldiers from among the colonial powers.

  It is not clear exactly when Fon's female army was founded, but some sources date it to the 1600s. It was originally a royal guard, but it developed into a military collective of 6,0
00 soldiers with a semi-divine status. They were not merely window dressing. For almost 200 years they constituted the vanguard of the Fon against European colonizers. They were feared by the French forces, who lost several battles against them. This army of women was not defeated until 1892, when France sent troops with artillery, the Foreign Legion, a marine infantry regiment, and cavalry.

  It is not known how many of these female warriors fell in battle. For many years survivors continued to wage guerrilla warfare, and veterans of the army were interviewed and photographed as late as the 1940s.

  CHAPTER 23

  Friday, July 1-Sunday, July 10

  Two weeks before the trial of Lisbeth Salander began, Malm finished the layout of the 352-page book tersely titled The Section. The cover was blue with yellow type. Malm had positioned seven postage-stamp-sized black-and-white images of Swedish prime ministers along the bottom. Superimposed over them hovered a photograph of Zalachenko. He had used Zalachenko's passport photograph as an illustration, increasing the contrast so that only the darkest areas stood out, like a shadow across the whole cover. It was not a particularly sophisticated design, but it was effective. Blomkvist, Cortez, and Eriksson were named as the authors.

  It was 5:00 in the morning and he had been working all night. He felt slightly sick and badly wanted to go home and sleep. Eriksson had sat up with him doing final corrections page by page as Malm OK'd them and printed them out. By now she was asleep on the sofa.

  Malm put the entire text plus illustrations into a folder. He started up the Toast programme and burned two CDs. One he put in the safe. The other was collected by a sleepy Blomkvist just before 7:00.

  "Go and get some rest," Blomkvist said.

  "I'm on my way."

  They left Eriksson asleep and turned on the door alarm. Cortez would be in at 8:00 to take over.

  Blomkvist walked to Lundagatan, where he again borrowed Salander's abandoned Honda without permission. He drove to Hallvigs Reklam, the printers near the railway tracks in Morgongava, west of Uppsala. This was a job he would not entrust to the mail.

  He drove slowly, refusing to acknowledge the stress he felt, and then waited until the printers had checked that they could read the CD. He made sure that the book would indeed be ready to distribute on the first day of the trial. The problem was not the printing but the binding, which could take time. But Jan Kobin, Hallvigs's manager, promised to deliver at least 500 copies of the first printing of 10,000 by that day.

  Finally, Blomkvist made sure that everyone understood the need for the greatest secrecy, although this reminder was probably unnecessary. Two years earlier Hallvigs had printed Blomkvist's book about Hans-Erik Wennerstrom under very similar circumstances.

  Blomkvist drove back to Stockholm in no particular hurry. He parked outside Bellmansgatan 1 and went to his apartment to pack a change of clothes and toiletries. He drove to Stavsnas wharf in Varmdo, where he parked the Honda and took the ferry out to Sandhamn.

  It was the first time since Christmas that he had been to the cabin. He unfastened the window shutters to let in the air and drank a Ramlosa. As always when a job was finished and at the printer, and nothing could be changed, he felt empty.

  He spent an hour sweeping and dusting, scouring the shower tray, switching on the fridge, checking the water pipes, and changing the bedding up in the sleeping loft. He went to the grocery and bought everything he would need for the weekend. Then he started up the coffeemaker and sat outside on the veranda, smoking a cigarette and not thinking about anything in particular.

  Just before 5:00 he went down to the steamboat wharf and met Figuerola.

  "I thought you said you couldn't take time off," he said, kissing her on the cheek.

  "That's what I thought too. But I told Edklinth I've been working every waking minute for the past few weeks and I'm starting to burn out. I said I needed two days off to recharge my batteries."

  "In Sandhamn?"

  "I didn't tell him where I was going," she said with a smile.

  Figuerola ferreted around in Blomkvist's 270-square-foot cabin. She subjected the kitchen area, the bathroom, and the loft to a critical inspection before she nodded in approval. She washed and changed into a thin summer dress while Blomkvist cooked lamb chops in red wine sauce and set the table on the veranda. They ate in silence as they watched the parade of sail boats on their way to or from the marina. They shared the rest of the bottle of wine.

  "It's a wonderful cabin. Is this where you bring all your girlfriends?" Figuerola said.

  "Just the important ones."

  "Has Erika Berger been here?"

  "Many times."

  "And Salander?"

  "She stayed here for a few weeks when I was writing the book about Wennerstrom. And we spent Christmas here two years ago."

  "So both Berger and Salander are important in your life?"

  "Erika is my best friend. We've been friends for twenty-five years. Lisbeth is a whole different story. She's certainly unique, and she's the most antisocial person I've ever known. You could say that she made a big impression on me when we first met. I like her. She's a friend."

  "You don't feel sorry for her?"

  "No. She has herself to blame for a lot of the crap that's happened to her. But I do feel enormous sympathy for and solidarity with her."

  "But you aren't in love either with her or with Berger?"

  He shrugged. Figuerola watched an Amigo 23 coming in late with its navigation lights glowing as it chugged past a motorboat on the way to the marina.

  "If love is liking someone an awful lot, then I suppose I'm in love with several people," Blomkvist said.

  "And now with me?"

  Blomkvist nodded. Figuerola frowned and looked at him.

  "Does it bother you?"

  "That you've brought other women here? No. But it does bother me that I don't really know what's happening between us. And I don't think I can have a relationship with a man who screws around whenever he feels like it."

  "I'm not going to apologize for the way I've led my life."

  "And I guess that in some way I'm falling for you because you are who you are. It's easy to sleep with you because there's no bullshit and you make me feel safe. But this all started because I gave in to a crazy impulse. It doesn't happen very often, and I hadn't planned it. And now we've gotten to the stage where I've become just another one of the girls you invite out here."

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  "You didn't have to come."

  "Yes, I did. Oh, Mikael . . ."

  "I know."

  "I'm unhappy. I don't want to fall in love with you. It'll hurt far too much when it's over."

  "Listen, I've had this cabin for twenty-five years, since my father died and my mother moved back to Norrland. My sister got our apartment and I got the cabin. Apart from some casual acquaintances in the early years, there are five women who have been here before you: Erika; Lisbeth; my ex-wife, who I was with in the eighties; a woman I was in a serious relationship with in the late nineties; and someone I met two years ago, whom I still see occasionally. It's sort of special circumstances. . . ."

  "I bet it is."

  "I keep this cabin so that I can get away from the city and have some quiet time. I'm mostly here on my own. I read books, I write, and I relax and sit on the wharf and look at the boats. It's not a secret love nest."

  He stood up to get the bottle of wine he had put in the shade.

  "I won't make any promises. My marriage broke up because Erika and I couldn't keep away from each other," he said, and then he added in English, "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt."

  He filled their glasses.

  "But you're the most interesting person I've met in a long time. It's as if our relationship took off at full speed from a standing start. I think I fell for you the moment you picked me up outside my apartment. The few times I've slept at my place since then, I've woken up in the middle of the night needing you. I don't know if I want
a steady relationship, but I'm terrified of losing you." He looked at her. "So what do you think we should do?"

  "Let's think about things," Figuerola said. "I'm really attracted to you too."

  "This is starting to get serious," Blomkvist said.

  She suddenly felt a great sadness. They did not say much for a long time. When it got dark they cleared the table, went inside, and closed the door.

  On the Friday before the week of the trial, Blomkvist stopped at the Pressbyran news-stand at Slussen and read the headlines for the morning papers. Svenska Morgon-Posten's CEO and chairman of the board, Magnus Borgsjo, had capitulated and tendered his resignation. Blomkvist bought the papers and walked to Java on Hornsgatan to have a late breakfast. Borgsjo cited family reasons as the explanation for his unexpected resignation. He would not comment on claims that Berger had also resigned after he ordered her to cover up a story about his involvement in the wholesale enterprise Vitavara Inc. But in a sidebar it was reported that the chair of Svenskt Naringsliv, the confederation of Swedish enterprise, had decided to set up an ethics committee to investigate the dealings of Swedish companies with businesses in Southeast Asia known to exploit child labour.

  Blomkvist burst out laughing, and then he folded the morning papers and flipped open his Ericsson to call the woman who hosted She on TV4, who was in the middle of a lunchtime sandwich.

  "Hello, darling," Blomkvist said. "I'm assuming you'd still like dinner sometime."

  "Hi, Mikael," she said, laughing. "Sorry, but you couldn't be further from my type."

  "Still, how about coming out with me this evening to discuss a job?"

  "What do you have going?"

  "Erika Berger made a deal with you two years ago about the Wennerstrom affair. I want to make a similar deal that will work just as well."

  "I'm all ears."

  "I can't tell you about it until we've agreed on the terms. I have a story in the works. We're going to publish a book and a themed issue of the magazine, and it's going to be huge. I'm offering you an exclusive look at all the material, provided you don't leak anything before we publish. This time the publication is extra complicated because it has to happen on a specific day."

  "How big is the story?"