The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

He put a tape recorder on the table.



"Sorry, but I have no comment."



"You've been involved with the story from the start. You were the one who found Salander down in Gosseberga. And you haven't published a single word since. When do you intend to publish?"



"When the time is right. Provided I have anything to say."



"Do you?"



"Well, you can buy a copy of Millennium and see for yourself."



He turned off the recorder.



"We didn't think about this before, but I went back and listened to bits at random. It's been like this the entire time. He hardly discusses the Zalachenko business except in the most general terms. He doesn't even discuss it with his sister, and she's Salander's lawyer."



"Maybe he really doesn't have anything to say."



"He consistently refuses to speculate about anything. He seems to live at the offices round the clock; he's hardly ever at his apartment. If he's working night and day, then he ought to have come up with something more substantial than whatever's going to be in the next issue of Millennium."



"And we still haven't been able to tap the phones at their offices?"



"No," Sandberg said. "There's been somebody there twenty-four hours a day  -  and that's significant  -  ever since we went into Blomkvist's apartment the first time. The office lights are always on, and if it's not Blomkvist it's Cortez or Eriksson, or that faggot... er, Christer Malm."



Clinton stroked his chin and thought for a moment.



"Conclusions?"



Nystrom said: "If I didn't know better, I'd think they were putting on an act for us."



Clinton felt a cold shiver run down the back of his neck. "Why hasn't this occurred to us before?"



"We've been listening to what they've been saying, not to what they haven't been saying. We've been gratified when we've heard their confusion or noticed it in an email. Blomkvist knows damn well that someone stole copies of the 1991 Salander report from him and his sister. But what the hell is he doing about it?"



"And they didn't report her mugging to the police?"



Nystrom shook his head. "Giannini was present at the interviews with Salander. She's polite, but she never says anything of any weight. And Salander herself never says anything at all."



"But that will work in our favour. The more she keeps her mouth shut, the better. What does Ekstrom say?"



"I saw him a couple of hours ago. He'd just been given Salander's statement." He pointed to the pages in Clinton's lap.



"Ekstrom is confused. It's fortunate that Salander is no good at expressing herself in writing. To an outsider this would look like a totally insane conspiracy theory with added pornographic elements. But she still shoots very close to the mark. She describes exactly how she came to be locked up at St Stefan's, and she claims that Zalachenko worked for Sapo and so on. She says she thinks everything is connected with a little club inside Sapo, pointing to the existence of something corresponding to the Section. All in all it's fairly accurate. But as I said, it's not plausible. Ekstrom is in a dither because this also seems to be the line of defence Giannini is going to use at the trial."



"Shit," Clinton said. He bowed his head and thought intently for several minutes. Finally he looked up.



"Jonas, drive up to Morgongåva this evening and find out if anything is going on. If they're printing Millennium, I want a copy."



"I'll take Falun with me."



"Good. Georg, I want you to see Ekstrom this afternoon and take his pulse. Everything has gone smoothly until now, but I can't ignore what you two are telling me."



Clinton sat in silence for a moment more.



"The best thing would be if there wasn't any trial..." he said at last.



He raised his eyes and looked at Nystrom. Nystrom nodded. Sandberg nodded.



"Nystrom, can you investigate our options?"



Sandberg and the locksmith known as Falun parked a short distance from the railway tracks and walked through Morgongåva. It was 8.30 in the evening. It was too light and too early to do anything, but they wanted to reconnoitre and get a look at the place.



"If the building is alarmed, I'm not doing it," Falun said. "It would be better to have a look through the window. If there's anything lying around, you can just chuck a rock through, jump in, grab what you need and run like hell."



"That'll work," Sandberg said.



"If you only need one copy of the magazine, we can check the dustbins round the back. There must be overruns and test printings and things like that."



Hallvigs Reklam printing factory was in a low, brick building. They approached from the south on the other side of the street. Sandberg was about to cross when Falun took hold of his elbow.



"Keep going straight," he said.



"What?"



"Keep going straight, as if we're out for an evening stroll."



They passed Hallvigs and made a tour of the neighbourhood.



"What was all that about?" Sandberg said.



"You've got to keep your eyes peeled. The place isn't just alarmed. There was a car parked alongside the building."



"You mean somebody's there?"



"It was a car from Milton Security. The factory is under surveillance, for Christ's sake."



"Milton Security?" Clinton felt the shock hit him in the gut.



"If it hadn't been for Falun, I would have walked right into their arms," Sandberg said.



"There's something fishy going on," Nystrom said. "There is no rationale for a small out-of-town printer to hire Milton Security for 24-hour surveillance."



Clinton's lips were pressed tight. It was after 11.00 and he needed to rest.



"And that means Millennium really is up to something," Sandberg said.



"I can see that," Clinton said. "O.K. Let's analyse the situation. What's the worst-case scenario? What could they know?" He gave Nystrom an urgent look.



"It has to be the Salander report," he said. "They beefed up their security after we lifted the copies. They must have guessed that they're under surveillance. The worst case is that they still have a copy of the report."



"But Blomkvist was at his wits' end when it went missing."



"I know. But we may have been duped. We can't shut our eyes to that possibility."



"We'll work on that assumption," Clinton said. "Sandberg?"



"We do know what Salander's defence will be. She's going to tell the truth as she sees it. I've read this autobiography of hers. In fact it plays right into our hands. It's full of such outrageous accusations of rape and violation of her civil rights that it will come across as the ravings of a paranoid personality."



Nystrom said: "Besides, she can't prove a single one of her claims. Ekstrom will use the account against her. He'll annihilate her credibility."



"O.K. Teleborian's new report is excellent. There is, of course, the possibility that Giannini will call in her own expert who'll say that Salander isn't crazy, and the whole thing will end up before the medical board. But again  -  unless Salander changes tactics, she's going to refuse to talk to them too, and then they'll conclude that Teleborian is right. She's her own worst enemy."



"The best thing would still be if there was no trial," Clinton said.



Nystrom shook his head. "That's virtually impossible. She's in Kronoberg prison and she has no contact with other prisoners. She gets an hour's exercise each day in the little area on the roof, but we can't get to her up there. And we have no contacts among the prison staff."



"There may still be time."



"If we'd wanted to dispose of her, we should have done it when she was at Sahlgrenska. The likelihood that a hit man would do time is almost 100 per cent. And where would we find a gun who'd agree to that? And at such short notice it would be impossible to arrange a suicide or an accident."



"I was afraid of that. And unexpected deaths have a tendency to invite questions. O.K., we'll have to see how the trial goes. In reality, nothing has changed. We've always anticipated that they would make some sort of counter-move, and it seems to be this so-called autobiography."



"The problem is Millennium," Sandberg said.



"Millennium and Milton Security," Clinton said pensively. "Salander has worked for Armansky, and Blomkvist once had a thing with her. Should we assume that they've joined forces?"



"It doesn't seem unreasonable that Milton Security is watching the factory where Millennium is being printed. And it can't be a coincidence."



"When are they going to publish? Sandberg, you said that they're almost two weeks behind schedule. If we assume that Milton is keeping an eye on the printer's to make sure that nobody gets hold of a copy, that means either that they're publishing something that they don't want to leak, or that the magazine has already been printed."



"To coincide with the opening of the trial," Sandberg said. "That's the only reasonable explanation."



Clinton nodded. "O.K. What's going to be in the magazine?"



They thought for a while, until Nystrom broke the silence.



"In the worst case they have a copy of the 1991 report, as we said."



Clinton and Sandberg had reached the same conclusion.



"But what can they do with it?" Sandberg said. "The report implicates Bjorck and Teleborian. Bjorck is dead. They can press hard with Teleborian, but he'll claim that he was doing a routine forensic psychiatric examination. It'll be their word against his."



"And what can we do if they publish the report?" Nystrom said.



"I think we're holding the trump card," Clinton said. "If there's a ruckus over the report, the focus will be on Sapo, not the Section. And when reporters start asking questions, Sapo will just pull it out of the archive..."



"And it won't be the same report," Sandberg said.



"Shenke has put the modified version in the archive, that is, the version Ekstrom was given to read. It was assigned a case number. So we could swiftly present a lot of disinformation to the media... We have the original, which Bjurman got hold of, and Millennium only has a copy. We could even spread information to suggest that it was Blomkvist himself who falsified the original."



"Good. What else could Millennium know?"



"They can't know anything about the Section. That wouldn't be possible. They'll have to focus on Sapo, and that would mean Blomkvist being cast as a conspiracy theorist."



"By now he's rather well known," Clinton said slowly. "Since the resolution of the Wennerstrom affair he's been taken pretty seriously."



"Could we somehow reduce his credibility?" Sandberg said.



Nystrom and Clinton exchanged glances. Clinton looked at Nystrom.



"Do you think you could put your hands on... let's say, fifty grams of cocaine?"



"Maybe from the Yugos."



"Give it a try. And get a move-on. The trial starts in three days."



"I don't get it," Sandberg said.



"It's a trick as old as the profession. But still extremely effective."



"Morgongåva?" Edklinth said with a frown. He was sitting in his dressing gown on the sofa at home, reading through Salander's autobiography for the third time, when Figuerola called. Since it was after midnight, he assumed that something was up.



"Morgongåva," Figuerola repeated. "Sandberg and Lars Faulsson were there at 8.30 this evening. They were tailed by Inspector Andersson from Bublanski's gang, and we had a radio transmitter planted in Sandberg's car. They parked near the old railway station, walked around for a while, and then returned to the car and drove back to Stockholm."



"I see. Did they meet anyone, or  - "



"No. That was the strange thing. They just got out of the car and walked around a little, then drove straight back to Stockholm, so Andersson told me."



"I see. And why are you calling me at 12.30 at night to tell me this?"



"It took a little while to work it out. They walked past Hallvigs printers. I talked to Blomkvist about it. That's where Millennium's being printed."



"Oh shit," Edklinth said. He saw the implications immediately.



"Since Falun was along, I have to suppose that they were intending to pay the printer's a late-night visit, but they abandoned the expedition," Figuerola said.



"Why?"



"Because Blomkvist asked Armansky to keep an eye on the factory until the magazine was distributed. They probably saw the car from Milton Security. I thought you'd want to know straightaway."



"You're right. It means that they've begun to smell a rat."



"Alarm bells must have gone off in their heads when they saw the car. Sandberg dropped Faulsson off in town and then went back to Artillerigatan. We know that Clinton is there. Nystrom arrived at about the same time. The question is, what are they going to do?"



"The trial starts on Wednesday... Can you reach Blomkvist and urge him to double up on security at Millennium? Just in case."



"They already have good security. And they blew smoke rings round their tapped telephones  -  like old pros. Blomkvist is so paranoid already that he's using diversionary tactics we could learn from."



"I'm happy to hear it, but call him anyway."