The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest m(-3

by Stieg Larsson

  “Goddamnit, Waltari! They’re looking for him all over the country!”

  “Yeah… that’s why he needed somewhere to hide. What were we supposed to do? He’s your and Magge’s pal.”

  Nieminen shut his eyes for ten full seconds. Niedermann had brought Svavelsjö M.C. a lot of jobs and good money for several years. But he was absolutely not a friend. He was a dangerous bastard and a psychopath – a psychopath that the police were looking for with a vengeance. Nieminen did not trust Niedermann for one second. The best thing would be if he was found with a bullet in his head. Then the manhunt would at least ease up a bit.

  “So what did you do with him?”

  “Benny’s taking care of him. He took him out to Viktor’s.”

  Viktor Göransson was the club’s treasurer and financial expert, who lived just outside Järna. He was trained in accounting and had begun his career as financial adviser to a Yugoslav who owned a string of bars, until the whole gang ended up in the slammer for fraud. He had met Lundin at Kumla prison in the early nineties. He was the only member of Svavelsjö M.C. who normally wore a jacket and tie.

  “Waltari, get in your car and meet me in Södertälje. I’ll be outside the train station in forty-five minutes.”

  “Alright. But what’s the rush?”

  “I have to get a handle on the situation. Do you want me to take the bus?”

  Waltari sneaked a look at Nieminen sitting quiet as a mouse as they drove out to Svavelsjö. Unlike Lundin, Nieminen was never very easy to deal with. He had the face of a model and looked weak, but he had a short fuse and was a dangerous man, especially when he had been drinking. Just then he was sober, but Waltari felt uneasy about having Nieminen as their leader in the future. Lundin had somehow always managed to keep Nieminen in line. He wondered how things would unfold now with Lundin out of the way.

  At the clubhouse, Benny was nowhere to be seen. Nieminen called him twice on his mobile, but got no answer.

  They drove to Nieminen’s place, about half a mile further down the road. The police had carried out a search, but they had evidently found nothing of value to the Nykvarn investigation. Which was why Nieminen had been released.

  He took a shower and changed his clothes while Waltari waited patiently in the kitchen. Then they walked about a hundred and fifty metres into the woods behind Nieminen’s property and scraped away the thin layer of soil that concealed a chest containing six handguns, including an AK5, a stack of ammunition, and around two kilos of explosives. This was Nieminen’s arms cache. Two of the guns were Polish P-83 Wanads. They came from the same batch as the weapon that Salander had taken from him at Stallarholmen.

  Nieminen drove away all thought of Salander. It was an unpleasant subject. In the cell at Södertälje police station he had played the scene over and over in his head: how he and Lundin had arrived at Advokat Bjurman’s summer house and found Salander apparently just leaving.

  Events had been rapid and unpredictable. He had ridden over there with Lundin to burn the damned summer cabin down. On the instructions of that goddamned blond monster. And then they had stumbled upon that bitch Salander – all alone, 1.5 metres tall, thin as a stick. Nieminen wondered how much she actually weighed. And then everything had gone to hell; had exploded in a brief orgy of violence neither of them was prepared for.

  Objectively, he could describe the chain of events. Salander had a canister of Mace, which she sprayed in Lundin’s face. Lundin should have been ready, but he wasn’t. She kicked him twice, and you don’t need a lot of muscle to fracture a jaw. She took him by surprise. That could be explained.

  But then she took him too, Sonny Nieminen, a man who well-trained men would avoid getting into a fight with. She moved so fast. He hadn’t been able to pull his gun. She had taken him out easily, as if brushing off a mosquito. It was humiliating. She had a taser. She had…

  He could not remember a thing when he came to. Lundin had been shot in the foot and then the police showed up. After some palaver over jurisdiction between Strängnäs and Södertälje, he fetched up in the cells in Södertälje. Plus she had stolen Magge’s Harley. She had cut the badge out of his leather jacket – the very symbol that made people step aside in the queue at the bar, that gave him a status that was beyond most people’s wildest dreams. She had humiliated him.

  Nieminen was boiling over. He had kept his mouth shut through the entire series of police interrogations. He would never be able to tell anyone what had happened in Stallarholmen. Until that moment Salander had meant nothing to him. She was a little side project that Lundin was messing around with… again commissioned by that bloody Niedermann. Now he hated her with a fury that astonished him. Usually he was cool and analytical, but he knew that some time in the future he would have to pay her back and erase the shame. But first he had to get a grip on the chaos that Svavelsjö M.C. had landed in because of Salander and Niedermann.

  Nieminen took the two remaining Polish guns, loaded them, and handed one to Waltari.

  “Have we got a plan?”

  “We’re going to drive over and have a talk with Niedermann. He isn’t one of us, and he doesn’t have a criminal record. I don’t know how he’s going to react if they catch him, but if he talks he could send us all to the slammer. We’d be sent down so fast it’d make your head spin.”

  “You mean we should…”

  Nieminen had already decided that Niedermann had to be got rid of, but he knew that it would be a bad idea to frighten off Waltari before they were in place.

  “I don’t know. We’ll see what he has in mind. If he’s planning to get out of the country as fast as hell then we could help him on his way. But as long as he risks being busted, he’s a threat to us.”

  The lights were out at Göransson’s place when Nieminen and Waltari drove up in the twilight. That was not a good sign. They sat in the car and waited.

  “Maybe they’re out,” Waltari said.

  “Right. They went to the bar with Niedermann,” Nieminen said, opening the car door.

  The front door was unlocked. Nieminen switched on an overhead light. They went from room to room. The house was well kept and neat, which was probably because of her, whatever-her-name-was, the woman Göransson lived with.

  They found Göransson and his girlfriend in the basement, stuffed into a laundry room.

  Nieminen bent down and looked at the bodies. He reached out a finger to touch the woman whose name he could not remember. She was ice-cold and stiff. That meant they had been dead maybe twenty-four hours.

  Nieminen did not need the help of a pathologist to work out how they had died. Her neck had been broken when her head was turned 180 degrees. She was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans and had no other injuries that Nieminen could see.

  Göransson, on the other hand, wore only his underpants. He had been beaten, had blood and bruises all over his body. His arms were bent in impossible directions, like twisted tree limbs. The battering he had been subjected to could only be defined as torture. He had been killed, as far as Nieminen could judge, by a single blow to the neck. His larynx was rammed deep into his throat.

  Nieminen went up the stairs and out of the front door. Waltari followed him. Nieminen walked the fifty metres to the barn. He flipped the hasp and opened the door.

  He found a dark-blue 1991 Renault.

  “What kind of car does Göransson have?” Nieminen said.

  “He drove a Saab.”

  Nieminen nodded. He fished some keys out of his jacket pocket and opened a door at the far end of the barn. One quick look around told him that they were there too late. The heavy weapons cabinet stood wide open.

  Nieminen grimaced. “About 800,000 kronor,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Svavelsjö M.C. had about 800,000 kronor stashed in this cabinet. It was our treasury.”

  Only three people knew where Svavelsjö M.C. kept the cash that was waiting to be invested and laundered. Göransson, Lundin, and Nieminen. Niedermann was on the ru
n. He needed cash. He knew that Göransson was the one who handled the money.

  Nieminen shut the door and walked slowly away from the barn. His mind was spinning as he tried to digest the catastrophe. Part of Svavelsjö M.C.’s assets were in the form of bonds that he could access, and some of their investments could be reconstructed with Lundin’s help. But a large part of them had been listed only in Göransson’s head, unless he had given clear instructions to Lundin. Which Nieminen doubted – Lundin had never been clever with money. Nieminen estimated that Svavelsjö M.C. had lost upwards of 60 per cent of its assets with Göransson’s death. It was a devastating blow. Above all they needed the cash to take care of day-to-day expenses.

  “What do we do now?” Waltari said.

  “We’ll go and tip off the police about what happened here.”

  “Tip off the police?”

  “Yes, damn it. My prints are all over the house. I want Göransson and his bitch to be found as soon as possible, so that forensics can work out that they died while I was still locked up.”

  “I get it.”

  “Good. Go and find Benny. I want to talk to him. If he’s still alive, that is. And then we’ll track down Niedermann. We’ll need every contact we have in the clubs all over Scandinavia to keep their eyes peeled. I want that bastard’s head on a platter. He’s probably riding around in Göransson’s Saab. Find out the registration number.”

  When Salander woke up it was 2.00 on Saturday afternoon and a doctor was poking at her.

  “Good morning,” he said. “My name is Benny Svantesson. I’m a doctor. Are you in pain?”

  “Yes,” Salander said.

  “I’ll make sure you get some painkillers in a minute. But first I’d like to examine you.”

  He squeezed and poked and fingered her lacerated body. Salander was extremely aggravated by the time he had finished, but she held back; she was exhausted and decided it would be better to keep quiet than tarnish her stay at Sahlgrenska with a fight.

  “How am I doing?” she said.

  “You’ll pull through,” the doctor said and made some notes before he stood up. This was not very informative.

  After he left, a nurse came in and helped Salander with a bedpan. Then she was allowed to go back to sleep.

  Zalachenko, alias Karl Axel Bodin, was given a liquid lunch. Even small movements of his facial muscles caused sharp pains in his jaw and cheekbone, and chewing was out of the question. During surgery the night before, two titanium screws had been fixed into his jawbone.

  But the pain was manageable. Zalachenko was used to pain. Nothing could compare with the pain he had undergone for several weeks, months even, fifteen years before when he had burned like a torch in his car. The follow-up care had been a marathon of agony.

  The doctors had decided that his life was no longer at risk but that he was severely injured. In view of his age, he would stay in the intensive care unit for a few more days yet.

  On Saturday he had four visitors.

  At 10.00 a.m. Inspector Erlander returned. This time he had left that bloody Modig woman behind and instead was accompanied by Inspector Holmberg, who was much more agreeable. They asked pretty much the same questions about Niedermann as they had the night before. He had his story straight and did not slip up. When they started plying him with questions about his possible involvement in trafficking and other criminal activities, he again denied all knowledge of any such thing. He was living on a disability pension, and he had no idea what they were talking about. He blamed Niedermann for everything and offered to help them in any way he could to find the fugitive.

  Unfortunately there was not much he could help with, practically speaking. He had no knowledge of the circles Niedermann moved in, or who he might go to for protection.

  At around 11.00 he had a brief visit from a representative of the prosecutor’s office, who formally advised him that he was a suspect in the grievous bodily harm or attempted murder of Lisbeth Salander. Zalachenko patiently explained that, on the contrary, he was the victim of a crime, that in point of fact it was Salander who had attempted to murder him. The prosecutor’s office offered him legal assistance in the form of a public defence lawyer. Zalachenko said that he would mull over the matter.

  Which he had no intention of doing. He already had a lawyer, and the first thing he needed to do that morning was call him and tell him to get down there as swiftly as he could. Martin Thomasson was therefore the third guest of the day at Zalachenko’s sickbed. He wandered in with a carefree expression, ran a hand through his thick blond hair, adjusted his glasses, and shook hands with his client. He was a chubby and very charming man. True, he was suspected of running errands for the Yugoslav mafia, a matter which was still under investigation, but he was also known for winning his cases.

  Zalachenko had been referred to Thomasson through a business associate five years earlier, when he needed to restructure certain funds connected to a small financial firm that he owned in Liechtenstein. They were not dramatic sums, but Thomasson’s skill had been exceptional, and Zalachenko had avoided paying taxes on them. He then engaged Thomasson on a couple of other matters. Thomasson knew that the money came from criminal activity, which seemed not to trouble him. Ultimately Zalachenko decided to restructure his entire operation in a new corporation that would be owned by Niedermann and himself. He approached Thomasson and proposed that the lawyer come in as a third, silent partner to handle the financial side of the business. Thomasson accepted at once.

  “So, Herr Bodin, none of this looks like much fun.”

  “I have been the victim of grievous bodily harm and attempted murder,” Zalachenko said.

  “I can see as much. A certain Lisbeth Salander, if I understood correctly.”

  Zalachenko lowered his voice: “Our partner Niedermann, as you know, has really fouled his nest this time.”

  “Indeed.”

  “The police suspect that I am involved.”

  “Which of course you are not. You’re a victim, and it’s important that we see to it at once that this is the image presented to the press. Ms Salander has already received a good deal of negative publicity… Let me deal with the situation.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But I have to remind you right from the start that I’m not a criminal lawyer. You’re going to need a specialist. I’ll arrange to hire one that you can trust.”

  The fourth visitor of the day arrived at 11.00 on Saturday night, and managed to get past the nurses by showing an I.D. card and stating that he had urgent business. He was shown to Zalachenko’s room. The patient was still awake, and grumbling.

  “My name is Jonas Sandberg,” he introduced himself, holding out a hand that Zalachenko ignored.

  He was in his thirties. He had reddish-brown hair and was casually dressed in jeans, a checked shirt and a leather jacket. Zalachenko scrutinized him for fifteen seconds.

  “I was wondering when one of you was going to show up.”

  “I work for S.I.S., Swedish Internal Security,” Sandberg said, and showed Zalachenko his I.D.

  “I doubt that,” said Zalachenko.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You may be employed by S.I.S., but I doubt that’s who you’re working for.”

  Sandberg looked around the room, then he pulled up the visitor’s chair.

  “I came here late so as not to attract attention. We’ve discussed how we can help you, and now we have to reach some sort of agreement about what’s going to happen. I’m just here to have your version of the story and find out what your intentions are… so that we can work out a common strategy.”

  “What sort of strategy had you in mind?”

  “Herr Zalachenko… I’m afraid that a process has been set in motion in which the deleterious effects are hard to foresee,” Sandberg said. “We’ve talked it through. It’s going to be difficult to explain away the grave in Gosseberga, and the fact that the girl was shot three times. But let’s not lose hope altogether. The
conflict between you and your daughter can explain your fear of her and why you took such drastic measures… but I’m afraid we’re talking about your doing some time in prison.”

  Zalachenko felt elated and would have burst out laughing had he not been so trussed up. He managed a slight curl of his lips. Anything more would be just too painful.

  “So that’s our strategy?”

  “Herr Zalachenko, you are aware of the concept of damage control. We have to arrive at a common strategy. We’ll do everything in our power to assist you with a lawyer and so on… but we need your cooperation, as well as certain guarantees.”

  “You’ll get only one guarantee from me. First, you will see to it that all this disappears.” He waved his hand. “Niedermann is the scapegoat and I guarantee that no-one will ever find him.”

  “There’s forensic evidence that –”

  “Fuck the forensic evidence. It’s a matter of how the investigation is carried out and how the facts are presented. My guarantee is this… if you don’t wave your magic wand and make all this disappear, I’m inviting the media to a press conference. I know names, dates, events. I don’t think I need to remind you who I am.”

  “You don’t understand –”

  “I understand perfectly. You’re an errand boy. So go to your superior and tell him what I’ve said. He’ll understand. Tell him that I have copies of… everything. I can take you all down.”

  “We have to come to an agreement.”

  “This conversation is over. Get out of here. And tell them that next time they should send a grown man for me to discuss things with.”

  Zalachenko turned his head away from his visitor. Sandberg looked at Zalachenko for a moment. Then he shrugged and got up. He was almost at the door when he heard Zalachenko’s voice again.

  “One more thing.”

  Sandberg turned.

  “Salander.”

  “What about her?”

  “She has to disappear.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Sandberg looked so nervous for a second that Zalachenko had to smile, although the pain drilled into his jaw.