The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

She went through three months' worth of messages one by one. Then she skipped month to month and read only the subject lines, opening the message only if it was something that caught her attention. She learned that Billing was going out with a woman named Sofia and that he used an unpleasant tone with her. She saw that this was nothing unusual, since Billing took an unpleasant tone with most of the people to whom he wrote messages  -  reporters, layout artists and others. Even so, she thought it odd that a man would consistently address his girlfriend with the words fucking fatty, fucking airhead or fucking cunt.



After an hour of searching, she shut down Billing and crossed him off the list. She moved on to Lars orjan Wollberg, a veteran reporter at fifty-one who was on the legal desk.



Edklinth walked into police headquarters at 7.30 on Saturday evening. Figuerola and Blomkvist were waiting for him. They were sitting at the same conference table at which Blomkvist had sat the day before.



Edklinth reminded himself that he was on very thin ice and that a host of regulations had been violated when he gave Blomkvist access to the corridor. Figuerola most definitely had no right to invite him here on her own authority. Even the spouses of his colleagues were not permitted in the corridors of S.I.S., but were asked instead to wait on the landings if they were meeting their partner. And to cap it all, Blomkvist was a journalist. From now on Blomkvist would be allowed only into the temporary office at Fridhemsplan.



But outsiders were allowed into the corridors by special invitation. Foreign guests, researchers, academics, freelance consultants... he put Blomkvist into the category of freelance consultant. All this nonsense about security classification was little more than words anyway. Someone decides that a certain person should be given a particular level of clearance. And Edklinth had decided that if criticism were raised, he would say that he personally had given Blomkvist clearance.



If something went wrong, that is. He sat down and looked at Figuerola.



"How did you find out about the meeting?"



"Blomkvist called me at around 4.00," she said with a satisfied smile.



Edklinth turned to Blomkvist. "And how did you find out about the meeting?"



"Tipped off by a source."



"Am I to conclude that you're running some sort of surveillance on Teleborian?"



Figuerola shook her head. "That was my first thought too," she said in a cheerful voice, as if Blomkvist were not in the room. "But it doesn't add up. Even if somebody were following Teleborian for Blomkvist, that person could not have known in advance that he was on his way to meet Jonas Sandberg."



"So... what else? Illegal tapping or something?" Edklinth said.



"I can assure you," Blomkvist said to remind them that he was there in the room, "that I'm not conducting illegal eavesdropping on anyone. Be realistic. Illegal tapping is the domain of government authorities."



Edklinth frowned. "So you aren't going to tell us how you heard about the meeting?"



"I've already told you that I won't. I was tipped off by a source. The source is protected. Why don't we concentrate on what we've discovered?"



"I don't like loose ends," Edklinth said. "But O.K. What have you found out?"



"His name is Jonas Sandberg," Figuerola said. "Trained as a navy frogman and then attended the police academy in the early '90s. Worked first in Uppsala and then in Sodertalje."



"You're from Uppsala."



"Yes, but we missed each other by about a year. He was recruited by S.I.S. Counter-Espionage in 1998. Reassigned to a secret post abroad in 2000. According to our documents, he's at the embassy in Madrid. I checked with the embassy. They have no record of a Jonas Sandberg on their staff."



"Just like Mårtensson. Officially moved to a place where he doesn't exist."



"The chief of Secretariat is the only person who could make this sort of arrangement."



"And in normal circumstances everything would be dismissed as muddled red tape. We've noticed it only because we're specifically looking for it. And if anyone starts asking awkward questions, they'll say it's confidential or that it has something to do with terrorism."



"There's quite a bit of budget work to check up on."



"The chief of Budget?"



"Maybe."



"Anything else?"



"Sandberg lives in Sollentuna. He's not married, but he has a child with a teacher in Sodertalje. No black marks on his record. Licence for two handguns. Conscientious and a teetotaller. The only thing that doesn't quite fit is that he seems to be an evangelical and was a member of the Word of Life in the '90s."



"Where did you find that out?"



"I had a word with my old chief in Uppsala. He remembers Sandberg quite well."



"A Christian frogman with two weapons and offspring in Sodertalje. More?"



"We only I.D.'d him about three hours ago. This is pretty fast work, you have to admit."



"Fair enough. What do we know about the building on Artillerigatan?"



"Not a lot yet. Stefan went to chase someone up from the city building office. We have blueprints of the building. A housing association block since the 1890s. Six floors with a total of twenty-two apartments, plus eight apartments in a small building in the courtyard. I looked up the tenants, but didn't find anything that stood out. Two of the people living in the building have police records."



"Who are they?"



"Lindstrom on the second floor, sixty-three. Convicted of insurance fraud in the '70s. Wittfelt on the fourth floor, forty-seven. Twice convicted for beating his ex-wife. Otherwise what sounds like a cross-section of middle-class Sweden. There's one apartment that raises a question mark though."



"What?"



"It's on the top floor. Eleven rooms and apparently a bit of a snazzy joint. It's owned by a company called Bellona Inc."



"And what's their stated business?"



"God only knows. They do marketing analyses and have annual sales of around thirty million kronor. All the owners live abroad."



"Aha."



"Aha what?"



"Nothing. Just 'aha'. Do some more checks on Bellona."



At that moment the officer Blomkvist knew only as Stefan entered the room.



"Hi, chief," he greeted Edklinth. "This is really cool. I checked out the story behind the Bellona apartment."



"And?" Figuerola said.



"Bellona Inc. was founded in the '70s. They bought the apartment from the estate of the former owner, a woman by the name of Kristina Cederholm, born in 1917, married to Hans Wilhelm Francke, the loose cannon who quarrelled with P.G. Vinge at the time S.I.S. was founded."



"Good," Edklinth said. "Very good. Monica, we want surveillance on that apartment around the clock. Find out what telephones they have. I want to know who goes in and who comes out, and what vehicles drop anyone off at that address. The usual."



Edklinth turned to Blomkvist. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but he restrained himself. Blomkvist looked at him expectantly.



"Are you satisfied with the information flow?" Edklinth said at last.



"Very satisfied. Are you satisfied with Millennium's contribution?"



Edklinth nodded reluctantly. "You do know that I could get into very deep water for this."



"Not because of me. I regard the information that I receive here as source-protected. I'll report the facts, but I won't mention how or where I got them. Before I go to press I'm going to do a formal interview with you. If you don't want to give me an answer to something, you just say 'No comment'. Or else you could expound on what you think about the Section for Special Analysis. It's up to you."



"Indeed," Edklinth nodded.



Blomkvist was happy. Within a few hours the Section had taken on tangible form. A real breakthrough.



To Modig's great frustration the meeting in Ekstrom's office was lasting a long time. Mercifully someone had left a full bottle of mineral water on the conference table. She had twice texted her husband to tell him that she was still held up, promising to make it up to him as soon as she could get home. She was starting to get restless and felt like an intruder.



The meeting did not end until 7.30. She was taken completely by surprise when the door opened and Faste came out. And then Dr Teleborian. Behind them came an older, grey-haired man Modig had never seen before. Finally Prosecutor Ekstrom, putting on a jacket as he switched off the lights and locked the door to his office.



Modig held up her mobile to the gap in the curtains and took two low-res photographs of the group outside Ekstrom's door. Seconds later they had set off down the corridor.



She held her breath until they were some distance from the conference room in which she was trapped. She was in a cold sweat by the time she heard the door to the stairwell close. She stood up, weak at the knees.



Bublanski called Figuerola just after 8.00.



"You wanted to know if Ekstrom had a meeting."



"Correct," Figuerola said.



"It just ended. Ekstrom met with Dr Peter Teleborian and my former colleague Criminal Inspector Faste, and an older gentleman we didn't recognize."



"Just a moment," Figuerola said. She put her hand over the mouthpiece and turned to the others. "Teleborian went straight to Ekstrom."



"Hello, are you still there?"



"Sorry. Do we have a description of the third man?"



"Even better. I'm sending you a picture."



"A picture? I'm in your debt."



"It would help if you'd tell me what's going on."



"I'll get back to you."



They sat in silence around the conference table for a moment.



"So," Edklinth said at last. "Teleborian meets with the Section and then goes directly to see Prosecutor Ekstrom. I'd give a lot of money to find out what they talked about."



"Or you could just ask me," Blomkvist said.



Edklinth and Figuerola looked at him.



"They met to finalize their strategy for nailing Salander at her trial."



Figuerola gave him a look. Then she nodded slowly.



"That's a guess," Edklinth said. "Unless you happen to have paranormal abilities."



"It's no guess," said Mikael. "They met to discuss the forensic psychiatric report on Salander. Teleborian has just finished writing it."



"Nonsense. Salander hasn't even been examined."



Blomkvist shrugged and opened his laptop case. "That hasn't stopped Teleborian in the past. Here's the latest version. It's dated, as you can see, the week the trial is scheduled to begin."



Edklinth and Figuerola read through at the text before them. At last they exchanged glances and then looked at Blomkvist.



"And where the devil did you get hold of this?" Edklinth said.



"That's from a source I have to protect," said Blomkvist.



"Blomkvist... we have to be able to trust each other. You're withholding information. Have you got any more surprises up your sleeve?"



"Yes. I do have secrets, of course. Just as I'm persuaded that you haven't given me carte blanche to look at everything you have here at Sapo."



"It's not the same thing."



"It's precisely the same thing. This arrangement involves cooperation. You said it yourself: we have to trust each other. I'm not holding back anything that could be useful to your investigation of the Section or throw light on the various crimes that have been committed. I've already handed over evidence that Teleborian committed crimes with Bjorck in 1991, and I told you that he would be hired to do the same thing again now. And this is the document that proves me right."



"But you're still withholding key material."



"Naturally, and you can either suspend our co-operation or you can live with that."



Figuerola held up a diplomatic finger. "Excuse me, but does this mean that Ekstrom is working for the Section?"



Blomkvist frowned. "That I don't know. My sense is that he's more a useful fool being used by the Section. He's ambitious, but I think he's honest, if a little stupid. One source did tell me that he swallowed most of what Teleborian fed him about Salander at a presentation of reports when the hunt for her was still on."



"So you don't think it takes much to manipulate him?"



"Exactly. And Criminal Inspector Faste is an unadulterated idiot who believes that Salander is a lesbian Satanist."



Berger was at home. She felt paralysed and unable to concentrate on any real work. All the time she expected someone to call and tell her that pictures of her were posted on some website.



She caught herself thinking over and over about Salander, although she realized that her hopes of getting help from her were most likely in vain. Salander was locked up at Sahlgrenska. She was not allowed visitors and could not even read the newspapers. But she was an oddly resourceful young woman. Despite her isolation she had managed to contact Berger on I.C.Q. and then by telephone. And two years ago she had single-handedly destroyed Wennerstrom's financial empire and saved Millennium.



At 8.00 Linder arrived and knocked on the door. Berger jumped as though someone had fired a shot in her living room.



"Hello, Erika. You're sitting here in the dark looking glum."



Berger nodded and turned on a light. "Hi. I'll put on some coffee  - "



"No. Let me do it. Anything new?"



You can say that again. Lisbeth Salander got in touch with me and took control of my computer. And then she called to say that Teleborian and somebody called Jonas were meeting at Central Station this afternoon.