CHAPTER 15
Thursday, May 19–Sunday, May 22

Salander spent most of Wednesday night and early Thursday morning reading Blomkvist’s articles and the chapters of the Millennium book that were more or less finished. Since Prosecutor Ekström had tentatively referred to a trial in July, Blomkvist had set June 20 as his deadline for going to press. That meant that Blomkvist had about a month to finish writing and patching up all the holes in his text.

She could not imagine how he could finish in time, but that was his problem, not hers. Her problem was how to respond to his questions.

She took her Palm and logged on to the Yahoo group [Idiotic_Table] to check whether he had put up anything new in the past twenty-four hours. He had not. She opened the document that he had called [Central Questions]. She knew the text by heart already, but she read through it again anyway.

He outlined the strategy that Giannini had already explained to her. When her lawyer spoke to her she had listened with only half an ear, almost as though it had nothing to do with her. But Blomkvist, knowing things about her that Giannini did not, could present a more forceful strategy. She skipped down to the fourth paragraph.

She disconnected and looked up at the ceiling. Blomkvist was asking her for permission to tell the truth in his book. He was not going to mention the fact of Bjurman’s raping her, and he had already written that section. He had filled in the gaps by saying that Bjurman had made a deal with Zalachenko which collapsed when Bjurman lost control. Therefore Niedermann was obliged to kill him. Blomkvist did not speculate about Bjurman’s motives.

Kalle Fucking Blomkvist was complicating life for her.

At 2:00 in the morning she opened the word-processing programme on her Palm. She clicked on New Document, took out the stylus, and began to tap on the letters on the digital keypad.

It was a slow process, writing with the stylus on the keypad. She thought through each sentence before she tapped it in. She did not make a single change to what she had written. She worked until 4:00, then turned off her computer and put it in the charger in the recess at the back of her bedside table. By that time she had produced a document corresponding to two single-spaced pages.

Twice since midnight the duty nurse had put her head around the door, but Salander could hear her a long way off, and even before she turned the key the computer was hidden and the patient asleep.

•    •    •

Berger woke at 7:00. She felt far from rested, but she had slept uninterrupted for eight hours. She glanced at Blomkvist, who was still sleeping soundly beside her.

She turned on her mobile to check for messages. Greger Beckman, her husband, had called eleven times. Shit. I forgot to call. She dialled the number and explained where she was and why she had not come home. He was angry.

“Erika, don’t do that again. It has nothing to do with Mikael, but I’ve been worried sick all night. I was terrified that something had happened. You know you have to call and tell me if you’re not coming home. You can’t ever forget something like that.”

Beckman was completely OK with the fact that Blomkvist was his wife’s lover. Their affair was carried on with his assent. But every time she had decided to sleep at Blomkvist’s, she had called her husband to tell him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just collapsed in exhaustion last night.”

He grunted.

“Try not to be furious with me, Greger. I can’t handle it right now. You can give me hell tonight.”

He grunted some more and promised to scold her when she got home.

“OK. How’s Mikael doing?”

“He’s dead to the world.” She burst out laughing. “Believe it or not, we were fast asleep moments after we got here. That’s never happened.”

“This is serious, Erika. I think you ought to see a doctor.”

When she hung up she called the office and left a message for Fredriksson. Something had come up and she would be in a little later than usual. She asked him to cancel a meeting she had arranged with the culture editor.

She found her shoulder bag, ferreted out a toothbrush, and went to the bathroom. Then she got back into bed and woke Blomkvist.

“Hurry up—go and wash your face and brush your teeth.”

“What . . . Huh?” He sat up and looked around in bewilderment. She had to remind him that he was at the Slussen Hilton. He nodded.

“So. To the bathroom with you.”

“Why the hurry?”

“Because as soon as you come back I need you to make love to me.” She glanced at her watch. “I have a meeting at 11:00 that I can’t postpone. I have to look presentable, and it’ll take me at least half an hour to put on my face. And I’ll have to buy a new shift dress or something on the way to work. That gives us only two hours to make up for a whole lot of lost time.”

Blomkvist headed for the bathroom.

•    •    •

Holmberg parked his father’s Ford in the drive of former prime minister Thorbjörn Fälldin’s house in Ås just outside Ramvik in Härnösand county. He got out of the car and looked around. At the age of seventy-nine, Fälldin could hardly still be an active farmer, and Holmberg wondered who did the sowing and harvesting. He knew he was being watched from the kitchen window. That was the custom in the village. He himself had grown up in Hälledal outside Ramvik, very close to Sandöbron, which was one of the most beautiful places in the world. At least Holmberg thought so.

He knocked on the front door.

The former leader of the Centre Party looked old, but he seemed alert, and vigorous.

“Hello, Thorbjörn. My name is Jerker Holmberg. We’ve met before but it’s been a few years. My father is Gustav Holmberg, a delegate for the Centre in the seventies and eighties.”

“Yes, I recognize you, Jerker. Hello. You’re a policeman down in Stockholm now, aren’t you? It must be ten or fifteen years since I last saw you.”

“I think it’s probably longer than that. May I come in?”

Holmberg sat at the kitchen table while Fälldin poured them some coffee.

“I hope all’s well with your father. But that’s not why you came, is it?”

“No. Dad’s doing fine. He’s out repairing the roof of the cabin.”

“How old is he now?”

“He turned seventy-one two months ago.”

“Is that so?” Fälldin said, joining Holmberg at the kitchen table. “So what’s this visit all about then?”

Holmberg looked out the window and saw a magpie land next to his car and peck at the ground. Then he turned to Fälldin.

“I am sorry for coming to see you without warning, but I have a big problem. It’s possible that when this conversation is over, I’ll be fired from my job. I’m here on a work issue, but my boss, Criminal Inspector Jan Bublanski of the violent crimes division in Stockholm, doesn’t know I’m here.”

“That sounds serious.”

“Just say that I’d be on very thin ice if my superiors found out about this visit.”

“I understand.”

“On the other hand, I’m afraid that if I don’t do something, there’s a risk that a woman’s rights will be shockingly violated, and to make matters worse, it’ll be the second time it’s happened.”

“You’d better tell me the whole story.”

“It’s about a man named Alexander Zalachenko. He was an agent for the Soviets’ GRU and defected to Sweden on Election Day in 1976. He was given asylum and began to work for Säpo. I have reason to believe that you know his story.”

Fälldin regarded Holmberg attentively.

“It’s a long story,” Holmberg said, and he began to tell Fälldin about the preliminary investigation in which he had been involved for the past few months.

Erika Berger finally rolled over onto her stomach and rested her head on her fists. She broke out in a big smile.

“Mikael, have you ever wondered if the two of us aren’t completely nuts?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s true for me, at least. I’m smitten by an insatiable desire for you. I feel like a crazy teenager.”

“Oh, yes?”

“And then I want to go home and go to bed with my husband.”

Blomkvist laughed. “I know a good therapist.”

She poked him in the stomach. “Mikael, it’s starting to feel like this thing with SMP was one big fucking mistake.”

“Bullshit. It’s a huge opportunity for you. If anyone can inject life into that dying body, it’s you.”

“Maybe so. But that’s just the problem. SMP feels like a cadaver. And then you dropped that bombshell about Borgsjö.”

“You have to let things settle down.”

“I know. But the thing with Borgsjö is going to be a real problem. I don’t have the faintest idea how to handle it.”

“Nor do I. But we’ll think of something.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

“How much would it take for you to come to SMP and be the news editor?”

“I wouldn’t do it for anything. Isn’t what’s-his-name, Holm, the news editor?”

“Yes. But he’s an idiot.”

“You got that right.”

“Do you know him?”

“I certainly do. I worked for him for three months as a temp in the mid-eighties. He’s a prick who plays people off against each other. Besides . . .”

“Besides what?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“Some girl, Ulla something, who was also a temp, claimed that he sexually harassed her. I don’t know how much was true, but the union did nothing about it and her contract wasn’t extended.”

Berger looked at the clock and sighed. She got up from the bed and made for the shower. Blomkvist did not move when she came out, dried herself, and dressed.

“I think I’ll doze for a while,” he said.

She kissed his cheek and waved as she left.

Figuerola parked seven cars behind Mårtensson’s Volvo on Luntmakargatan, close to the corner of Olof Palmes Gata. She watched as Mårtensson walked to the machine to pay his parking fee. He then walked onto Sveavägen.

Figuerola decided not to pay for a ticket. She would lose him if she went to the machine and back, so she followed him. He turned left onto Kungsgatan, and went into Kungstornet. She waited three minutes before she followed him into the café. He was on the ground floor talking to a blond man who looked to be in very good shape. A policeman, she thought. She recognized him as the other man Malm had photographed outside the Copacabana on May Day.

She bought herself a coffee and sat at the opposite end of the café and opened her Dagens Nyheter. Mårtensson and his companion were talking in low voices. She took out her mobile and pretended to make a call, although neither of the men was paying her any attention. She took a photograph with the mobile that she knew would be only 72 dpi—low quality, but it could be used as evidence that the meeting had taken place.

After about fifteen minutes the blond man stood up and left the café. Figuerola cursed. Why had she not stayed outside? She would have recognized him when he came out. She wanted to leap up and follow him. But Mårtensson was still there, calmly nursing his coffee. She did not want to draw attention to herself by leaving so soon after his unidentified companion.

And then Mårtensson went to the toilet. As soon as he closed the door Figuerola was on her feet and back out on Kungsgatan. She looked up and down the block, but the blond man was gone.

She took a chance and hurried to the corner of Sveavägen. She could not see him anywhere, so she went down to the tunnelbana concourse, but it was hopeless.

She turned back towards Kungstornet, feeling stressed. Mårtensson had left too.

Berger swore when she got back to where she had parked her BMW the night before.

The car was still there, but during the night some bastard had punctured all four tyres. Goddamn fucking piss rats, she fumed.

She called the vehicle recovery service, told them that she did not have time to wait, and put the key in the exhaust pipe. Then she went down to Hornsgatan and hailed a taxi.

Lisbeth Salander logged on to Hacker Republic and saw that Plague was online. She pinged him.

On Friday morning Jonasson was faced with an obviously irritated Inspector Faste on the other side of his desk.

“I don’t understand this,” Faste said. “I thought Salander had recovered. I came to Göteborg for two reasons: to interview her and to get her ready to be transferred to a cell in Stockholm, where she belongs.”

“I’m sorry for your wasted journey,” Jonasson said. “I’d be glad to discharge her because we certainly don’t have any beds to spare here. But—”

“Could she be faking?”

Jonasson smiled politely. “I really don’t think so. You see, Lisbeth Salander was shot in the head. I removed a bullet from her brain, and it was fifty-fifty whether she would survive. She did survive, and her prognosis has been exceedingly satisfactory . . . so much so that my colleagues and I were getting ready to discharge her. Then yesterday she had a setback. She complained of severe headaches and developed a fever that has been fluctuating up and down. Last night she had a temperature of 100 and vomited on two occasions. During the night the fever subsided; she was almost back down to normal and I thought the episode had passed. But when I examined her this morning her temperature had gone up to over 102. That is serious.”

“So what’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t know, but the fact that her temperature is fluctuating indicates that it’s not flu or any other viral infection. Exactly what’s causing it I can’t say—it could be something as simple as an allergy to her medication or to something else she’s come into contact with.”

He clicked on an image on his computer and turned the screen towards Faste.

“I had a cranial X-ray done. There’s a darker area here, as you can see, right next to her gunshot wound. I can’t determine what it is. It could be scar tissue as a product of the healing process, but it could also be a minor haemorrhage. And until we’ve found out what’s wrong, I can’t release her, no matter how urgent it may be from a police point of view.”

Faste knew better than to argue with a doctor, since they were the closest things to God’s representatives here on earth. Policemen possibly excepted.

“What is going to happen now?”

“I’ve ordered complete bedrest and put her physical therapy on hold—she needs therapeutic exercise because of the wounds in her shoulder and hip.”

“Understood. I’ll have to call Prosecutor Ekström in Stockholm. This will come as a bit of a surprise. What can I tell him?”

“Two days ago I was ready to approve a discharge, possibly for the end of this week. As the situation is now, it will take longer. You’ll have to prepare him for the fact that probably I won’t be in a position to make a decision in the coming week, and that it might be two weeks before you can move her to Stockholm. It depends on her rate of recovery.”

“The trial has been set for July.”

“Barring the unforeseen, she should be on her feet well before then.”

Bublanski cast a sceptical glance at the muscular woman on the other side of the table. They were drinking coffee in the outdoor area of a café on Norr Mälarstrand. It was Friday, May 20, and the warmth of summer was in the air. Inspector Monica Figuerola, her ID said, SIS. She had caught up with him just as he was leaving for home and suggested a conversation over a cup of coffee.

At first he had been surly, but she had very straightforwardly conceded that she had no authority to interview him and that he was perfectly free to tell her nothing at all if he did not want to. He asked her what her business was, and she told him that she had been assigned by her boss to form an unofficial picture of what was true and not true in the so-called Zalachenko case, also known in some quarters as the Salander case.

“What would you like to know?” Bublanski said at last.

“Tell me what you know about Salander, Mikael Blomkvist, Gunnar Björck, and Zalachenko. How do the pieces fit together?”

They talked for more than two hours.

Edklinth thought long and hard about how to proceed. After five days of investigations, Figuerola had given him a number of indisputable indications that something was rotten within SIS. He recognized the need to move very carefully until he had enough information. He found himself, furthermore, with a constitutional dilemma: he did not have the authority to conduct secret investigations, and most assuredly not against his colleagues.

Accordingly, he had to contrive some cause that would legitimize what he was doing. If worst came to worst, he could always fall back on the fact that it was a policeman’s duty to investigate a crime—but the breach was now so sensitive from a constitutional standpoint that he would surely be fired if he took a single wrong step. So he spent the whole of Friday brooding alone in his office.

Finally he concluded that Armansky was right, no matter how improbable it might seem. There really was a conspiracy inside SIS, and a number of individuals were acting outside of, or parallel to, regular operations. Because this had been going on for many years—at least since 1976, when Zalachenko arrived in Sweden—it had to be organized and sanctioned from the top. Exactly how high the conspiracy went he had no idea.

He wrote three names on a pad:

Figuerola was of the view that the chief of Secretariat must have been calling the shots when Mårtensson in Personal Protection was supposedly moved to Counter-Espionage, although he was not in fact working there. He was too busy monitoring the movements of journalist Mikael Blomkvist, and that didn’t have anything at all to do with the operations of Counter-Espionage.

Some other names from outside SIS had to be added to the list:

Teleborian had been hired by SIS as a psychiatric consultant on specific cases in the late eighties and early nineties—on three occasions, to be exact—and Edklinth had examined the reports in the archive. The first had been extraordinary: Counter-Espionage had identified a Russian informer inside the Swedish telecom industry, and the spy’s background indicated that he might be inclined to suicide in the event that his actions were exposed. Teleborian had done a strikingly good analysis, which helped them turn the informer so that he could become a double agent. His other two reports had involved less significant evaluations: one was of an employee inside SIS who had an alcohol problem, and the second was an analysis of the bizarre sexual behaviour of an African diplomat.

Neither Teleborian nor Faulsson—especially not Faulsson—had any position inside SIS. And yet through their assignments they were connected to . . . to what?

The conspiracy was intimately linked to the late Alexander Zalachenko, the defected GRU agent who had apparently turned up in Sweden on Election Day in 1976. A man no-one had ever heard of before. How was that possible?

Edklinth tried to imagine what reasonably would have happened if he had been sitting at the chief’s desk at SIS in 1976 when Zalachenko defected. What would he have done? Absolute secrecy would have been essential. The defection could only be known to a small group without risking that the information might leak back to the Russians, and . . . How small a group?

An operations department?

An unknown operations department?

If the affair had been appropriately handled, Zalachenko’s case should have ended up in Counter-Espionage. Ideally he should have come under the auspices of the military intelligence service, but they had neither the resources nor the expertise to run this sort of operational activity. So, SIS it was.

But Counter-Espionage never had him. Björck was the key; he had been one of the people who handled Zalachenko. And yet Björck never had anything to do with Counter-Espionage. Björck was a mystery. Officially he had held a post in the immigration division since the seventies, but in reality he had scarcely been seen in the department before the nineties, when suddenly he became assistant chief.

And yet Björck was the primary source of Blomkvist’s information. How had Blomkvist been able to persuade Björck to reveal such explosive material? And to a journalist at that.

Prostitutes. Björck messed around with teenage prostitutes, and Millennium was going to expose him. Blomkvist must have blackmailed Björck.

Then Salander came into the picture.

The deceased lawyer Nils Bjurman worked in the immigration division at the same time as the deceased Björck. They were the ones who had taken care of Zalachenko. But what did they do with him?

Somebody must have made the decision. With a defector of such importance the order must have come from the highest level.

From the government. It must have been backed by the government. Anything else would be unthinkable.

Edklinth felt cold shivers of apprehension. This was all conceivable in practice. It made sense.

But what happened in 1991 did not make sense. Björck had hired Teleborian to lock Salander up in a psychiatric hospital for children under the pretense that she was mentally deranged. That was a crime. That was such a monstrous crime that Edklinth felt yet more apprehensive.

Somebody must have made that decision. It simply could not have been the government. Ingvar Carlsson had been prime minister at the time, and then Carl Bildt.* But no politician would dare to be involved in such a decision, which contradicted all law and justice and which would result in a disastrous scandal if it were ever discovered.

If the government was involved, then Sweden wasn’t one iota better than any dictatorship in the entire world.

It was impossible.

And what about the events of April 12? Zalachenko was conveniently murdered at Sahlgrenska hospital by a mentally ill fanatic at the same time as a burglary was committed at Blomkvist’s apartment and Advokat Giannini was mugged. In both latter instances, copies of Björck’s strange report dating from 1991 were stolen. Armansky had contributed this information, but it was completely off the record. No police report was ever filed.

And at the same time, Björck—a person with whom Edklinth wished he could have had a serious talk—hangs himself.

Edklinth didn’t believe in coincidence on such a grand scale. Inspector Bublanski didn’t believe in it either. Neither did Blomkvist. Edklinth took up his felt pen once more:

Who the hell was Evert Gullberg?

He considered calling up the chief of SIS but restrained himself for the simple reason that he did not know how far up in the organization the conspiracy reached. He didn’t know whom to trust.

For a moment he considered turning to the regular police. Jan Bublanski was the leader of the investigation concerning Ronald Niedermann, and obviously he would be interested in any related information. But from a purely political standpoint, it was out of the question.

He felt a great weight on his shoulders.

There was only one constitutionally correct option left, which might provide some protection if he ended up in hot water. He would have to turn to the chief to secure political support for what he was working on.

It was just before 4:00 on Friday afternoon. He picked up the phone and called the minister of justice, whom he had known for many years and had dealings with at numerous departmental meetings. He got him on the line within five minutes.

“Hello, Torsten. It’s been a long time. What’s the problem?”

“To tell you the truth, I think I’m calling to check how much credibility I have with you.”

“Credibility? That’s a peculiar question. As far as I’m concerned you have absolute credibility. What makes you ask such a dramatic question?”

“It’s prompted by a dramatic and extraordinary request. I need to have a meeting with you and the prime minister, and it’s urgent.”

“Whoa!”

“If you’ll forgive me, I’d rather explain when we can talk in private. Something so remarkable came across my desk that I believe both you and the prime minister need to be informed.”

“Does it have anything to do with terrorists and threat assessments?”

“No. It’s more serious than that. I’m putting my reputation and career on the line by calling you with this request.”

“I see. That’s why you asked about your credibility. How soon do you need the meeting with the PM?”

“This evening if possible.”

“Now you’ve got me worried.”

“Unfortunately, there’s good reason for you to be worried.”

“How long will the meeting take?”

“Probably an hour.”

“Let me call you back.”

The minister of justice called back ten minutes later and said that the prime minister would meet with Edklinth at his residence at 9:30 that evening. Edklinth’s palms were sweating when he put down the phone. By tomorrow morning my career could be over.

He called Figuerola.

“Hello, Monica. At 9:00 tonight you have to report for duty. You’d better dress nicely.”

“I always dress nicely,” Figuerola said.

The prime minister gave the director of Constitutional Protection a long, wary look. Edklinth had a sense that cogs were whirring at high speed behind the PM’s glasses.

The PM shifted his gaze to Figuerola, who hadn’t said a word during the presentation. He saw an unusually tall and muscular woman looking back at him with a polite, expectant expression. Then he turned to the minister of justice, who had paled over the course of the presentation.

Then the PM took a deep breath, removed his glasses, and stared for a moment into the distance.

“I think we need a little more coffee,” he said.

“Yes, please,” Figuerola said.

Edklinth nodded and the minister of justice poured coffee from a thermos carafe.

“Let me be absolutely certain I understood you correctly,” the prime minister said. “You suspect that there’s a conspiracy within the Security Police that is acting outside its constitutional mandate, and that over the years this conspiracy has committed what could be categorized as serious criminal acts.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re coming to me because you don’t trust the leadership of the Security Police?”

“No, not exactly,” Edklinth said. “I decided to turn directly to you because this sort of activity is unconstitutional. But I don’t know the objective of the conspiracy, or whether I’ve misinterpreted something. For all I know, the activity may be legitimate and sanctioned by the government. Then I risk proceeding on faulty information, thereby compromising some secret operation.”

The prime minister looked at the minister of justice. Both understood that Edklinth was hedging his bets.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this. Do you know anything about it?”

“Absolutely not,” the minister of justice said. “There’s nothing in any report I’ve seen from the Security Police that could have a bearing on this matter.”

“Blomkvist thinks there’s a faction within Säpo. He refers to it as the Zalachenko club,” Edklinth said.

“I’d never even heard that Sweden had taken in and protected a Russian defector of such importance,” the PM said. “He defected during the Fälldin administration, you say?”

“I don’t believe Fälldin would have covered up something like this,” the minister of justice said. “This kind of defection would have been given the highest priority, and would have been passed over to the next administration.”

Edklinth cleared his throat. “Fälldin’s conservative government was succeeded by Olof Palme’s. It’s no secret that some of my predecessors at SIS had a certain opinion of Palme—”

“You’re suggesting that somebody forgot to inform the social democratic government?”

Edklinth nodded. “Let’s remember that Fälldin was in power for two separate mandates. Each time, the coalition government collapsed. First he handed over to Ola Ullsten, who had a minority government in 1979. The government collapsed again when the moderates jumped ship, and Fälldin governed together with the People’s Party. I’m guessing that the government secretariat was in turmoil during those transition periods. It’s also possible that knowledge of Zalachenko was confined to so small a circle that Prime Minister Fälldin had no real oversight, so he never had anything to hand over to Palme.”

“In that case, who’s responsible?” the PM said.

All except Figuerola shook their heads.

“I assume this is bound to leak to the media,” the PM said.

“Blomkvist and Millennium are going to publish it. In other words, we’re caught between the proverbial rock and hard place.” Edklinth was careful to use the word we.

The PM nodded. He realized the gravity of the situation. “Then I’ll have to start by thanking you for coming to me with this matter as soon as you did. I don’t usually agree to this sort of unscheduled meeting, but the minister here said that you were a prudent person, and that something serious must have happened if you wanted to see me outside all normal channels.”

Edklinth exhaled a little. Whatever happened, the wrath of the prime minister was not going to come down on him.

“Now we just have to decide how we’re going to handle it. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Perhaps,” Edklinth said tentatively.

He was silent for so long that Figuerola cleared her throat. “May I say something?”

“Please do,” the PM said.

“If it’s true that the government doesn’t know about this operation, then it’s illegal. The person responsible in such a case is the criminal civil servant—or civil servants—who overstepped his authority. If we can verify all the claims Blomkvist is making, it means that a group of officers within SIS have been devoting themselves to criminal activity for a long time. The problem would then unfold in two parts.”

“How do you mean?”

“First we have to ask the question: How could this have been possible? Who is responsible? How did such a conspiracy develop within the framework of an established police organization? I myself work for SIS, and I’m proud of it. How can this have gone on for so long? How could this activity have been both concealed and financed?”

“Go on,” the PM said.

“Whole books will probably be written about this first part. It’s clear that there must have been financing, at least several million kronor annually, I’d say. I looked over the budget of the Security Police and found nothing resembling an allocation for the Zalachenko club. But, as you know, there are a number of hidden funds controlled by the chief of Secretariat and chief of Budget that I have no access to.”

The prime minister nodded grimly. Why did Säpo always have to be such a nightmare to administer?

“The second part is: who is involved? And very specifically, which individuals should be arrested? From my standpoint, the answers to all these questions depend on the decision you make in the next few minutes,” she said to the PM.

Edklinth was holding his breath. If he could have kicked Figuerola in the shin he would have done so. She had cut through all the rhetoric and intimated that the prime minister himself was responsible. He had considered coming to the same conclusion, but not before a long and diplomatic circumlocution.

“What decision do you think I should make?”

“I believe we have common interests. I’ve worked at Constitutional Protection for three years. I consider this office of central importance to Swedish democracy. The Security Police has worked satisfactorily within the framework of the constitution in recent years. Naturally, I don’t want the scandal to affect SIS. For us it’s important to bear in mind that this is a case of criminal activity perpetrated by a small number of individuals.”

“Activity of this kind is most definitely not sanctioned by the government,” the minister of justice said.

Figuerola nodded and thought for a few seconds. “It is, in my view, essential that the scandal should not implicate the government—which is what would happen if the government tried to suppress the story.”

“The government does not cover up criminal activity,” the minister of justice said.

“No, but let’s assume, hypothetically, that the government might want to do so. There would be a scandal of enormous proportions.”

“Go on,” the PM said.

“The situation is complicated by the fact that we in Constitutional Protection are being forced to conduct an operation which is itself against regulations in order to investigate this matter. So we want everything to be legitimate and in keeping with the constitution.”

“As do we all,” the PM said.

“In that case I suggest that you—in your capacity as prime minister—instruct Constitutional Protection to investigate this mess with the utmost urgency,” Figuerola said. “Give us a written order and the authority we need.”

“I’m not sure that what you propose is legal,” the minister of justice said.

“It is legal. The government has the power to adopt a wide range of measures in the event that breaches of the constitution are threatened. If a group from the military or police starts pursuing an independent foreign policy, a de facto coup has taken place in Sweden.”

“Foreign policy?” the minister of justice said.

The PM nodded all of a sudden.

“Zalachenko was a defector from a foreign power,” Figuerola said. “The information he contributed was supplied, according to Blomkvist, to foreign intelligence services. If the government was not informed, a coup has taken place.”

“I follow your reasoning,” the PM said. “Now let me say my piece.”

He got up and walked once around the table before stopping in front of Edklinth.

“You have a very talented colleague. She has hit the nail on the head.”

Edklinth swallowed and nodded. The PM turned to the minister of justice.

“Get in touch with the undersecretary of state and the head of the legal department. By tomorrow morning I want a document drawn up granting the Constitutional Protection Unit extraordinary authority to act in this matter. Their assignment is to determine the truth behind the assertions we have discussed, to gather documentation about its extent, and to identify the individuals responsible or in any way involved. The document must not state that you are conducting a preliminary investigation—I may be wrong, but I think only the prosecutor general could appoint a preliminary investigation leader in this situation. But I can give you the authority to conduct a one-man investigation. What you are doing is therefore an official public report. Do you understand?”

“Yes. But I should point out that I myself am a former prosecutor.”

“We’ll have to ask the head of the legal department to take a look at this and determine exactly what is formally correct. In any case, you alone are responsible for your investigation. You will choose the assistants you require. If you find evidence of criminal activity, you must turn this information over to the PG, who will decide on the charges.”

“I’ll have to look up exactly what applies, but I think you’ll have to inform the speaker of Parliament and the constitutional committee. This is going to leak out fast,” the minister of justice said.

“In other words, we have to work faster,” the PM said.

Figuerola raised a hand.

“What is it?” the PM said.

“There are two problems remaining. First, will Millennium’s publication clash with our investigation? And second, Lisbeth Salander’s trial will be starting in a couple of weeks.”

“Can we find out when Millennium’s going to publish?”

“We could ask,” Edklinth said. “The last thing we want to do is to interfere with the press.”

“With regard to this girl Salander . . . ,” the minister of justice began, and then he paused for a moment. “It would be terrible if she really has been subjected to the injustices that Millennium claims. Could it be possible?”

“I’m afraid it is,” Edklinth said.

“In that case we have to see to it that she is given redress for these wrongs, and above all that she is not subjected to new injustices,” the PM said.

“And how would that work?” asked the minister of justice. “The government cannot interfere in an ongoing prosecution case. That would be against the law.”

“Could we talk to the prosecutor?”

“No,” Edklinth said. “As prime minister, you may not influence the judicial process in any way.”

“In other words, Salander will have to take her chances in court,” the minister of justice said. “Only if she loses the trial and appeals to the government can the government step in and pardon her or require the PG to investigate whether there are grounds for a new trial. But this applies only if she’s sentenced to prison. If she’s sentenced to a secure psychiatric facility, the government cannot do a thing. Then it’s a medical matter, and the prime minister has no jurisdiction to determine whether or not she is sane.”

At 10:00 on Friday night, Salander heard the key turn in the door. She instantly switched off her Palm and slipped it under the mattress. When she looked up she saw Jonasson closing the door.

“Good evening, Fröken Salander,” he said. “And how are you doing this evening?”

“I have a splitting headache and I feel feverish.”

“That doesn’t sound so good.”

Salander looked to be not particularly bothered by either the fever or the headache. Jonasson spent ten minutes examining her. He noticed that over the course of the evening her fever had again risen dramatically.

“It’s a shame that you should be having this setback when you’ve been recovering so well over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, I now won’t be able to discharge you for at least two more weeks.”

“Two weeks should be sufficient.”

The distance by land from London to Stockholm is roughly 1,180 miles. In theory that would be about twenty hours’ driving. In fact it had taken almost twenty hours to reach the northern border of Germany with Denmark. The sky was filled with leaden thunderclouds, and when the man known as Trinity found himself on Sunday in the middle of the Øresundsbron, there was a downpour. He slowed and turned on his windshield wipers.

Trinity thought it was sheer hell driving in Europe, since everyone on the Continent insisted on driving on the wrong side of the road. He had packed his van on Friday morning and taken the ferry from Dover to Calais, then crossed Belgium by way of Liège. He crossed the German border at Aachen and then took the Autobahn north towards Hamburg and on to Denmark.

His companion, Bob the Dog, was asleep in the back. They had taken turns driving, and apart from a couple of hour-long stops along the way, they had maintained a steady fifty-five miles an hour. The van was eighteen years old and wasn’t able to go much faster anyway.

There were easier ways of getting from London to Stockholm, but it wasn’t likely that he would be able to take more than sixty pounds of electronic gear on a normal flight. They had crossed six national borders, but they had not been stopped once, either by customs or by passport control. Trinity was an ardent fan of the EU, whose regulations simplified his visits to the Continent.

Trinity had been born in Bradford, but he had lived in north London since childhood. He had had a miserable formal education, and then attended a vocational school and earned a certificate as a trained telecommunications technician. For three years after his nineteenth birthday he had worked as an engineer for British Telecom. Once he understood how the telephone network functioned and realized how hopelessly antiquated it was, he switched to being a private security consultant, installing alarm systems and managing burglary protection. For special clients he would also offer his video surveillance and telephone-tapping services.

Now thirty-two years old, he had a theoretical knowledge of electronics and computer science that allowed him to challenge any professor in the field. He had lived with computers since he was ten, and he hacked his first computer when he was thirteen.

It had whetted his appetite, and when he was sixteen he had advanced to the extent that he could compete with the best in the world. There was a period in which he spent every waking minute in front of his computer screen, writing his own programmes and planting insidious tendrils on the Internet. He infiltrated the BBC, the Ministry of Defence, and Scotland Yard. He even managed—for a short time—to take command of a nuclear submarine on patrol in the North Sea. It was for the best that Trinity belonged to the inquisitive rather than the malicious type of computer marauder. His fascination was extinguished the moment he had cracked a computer, gained access, and appropriated its secrets.

He was one of the founders of Hacker Republic. And Wasp was one of its citizens.

It was 7:30 on Sunday evening as he and Bob the Dog approached Stockholm. When they passed IKEA at Kungens Kurva in Skärholmen, Trinity flipped open his mobile and dialled a number he had memorized.

“Plague,” Trinity said.

“Where are you guys?”

“You said to call when we passed IKEA.”

Plague gave him directions to the youth hostel on Långholmen where he had booked a room for his colleagues from England. Since Plague hardly ever left his apartment, they agreed to meet at his place at 10:00 the next morning.

Plague decided to make an exceptional effort and washed the dishes, generally cleaned up, and opened the windows in anticipation of his guests’ arrival.