CHAPTER 18
Thursday, June 2

Berger’s mobile was ringing. It was 9:05.

“Good morning, Fru Berger. Dragan Armansky. I understand you called last night.”

Berger explained what had happened and asked whether Milton Security could take over the contract from Nacka Integrated Protection.

“We can certainly install an alarm that will work,” Armansky said. “The problem is that the closest car we have at night is in Nacka centre. Response time would be about thirty minutes. If we took the job I’d have to subcontract out your house. We have an agreement with a local security company, Adam Security in Fisksätra, which has a response time of ten minutes if all goes as it should.”

“That would be an improvement over NIP, which doesn’t bother to turn up at all.”

“Adam Security is a family-owned business, a father, two sons, and a couple of cousins. Greeks, good people. I’ve known the father for many years. They handle coverage about three hundred twenty days a year. They tell us in advance the days they aren’t available because of holidays or something else, and then our car in Nacka takes over.”

“That works for me.”

“I’ll be sending a man out this morning. His name is David Rosin, and in fact he’s already on his way. He’s going to do a security assessment. He needs your keys if you’re not going to be home, and he needs your authorization to do a thorough examination of your house, from top to bottom. He’s going to take pictures of the entire property and the immediate surroundings.”

“All right.”

“Rosin has a lot of experience, and we’ll make you a proposal. We’ll have a complete security plan ready in a few days, which will include a personal attack alarm, fire security, evacuation plan, and break-in protection.”

“OK.”

“If anything should happen, we also want you to know what to do in the ten minutes before the car arrives from Fisksätra.”

“Sounds good.”

“We’ll install the alarm this afternoon. Then we’ll have to sign a contract.”

Only after she had finished her conversation with Armansky did Berger realize that she had overslept. She called Fredriksson and explained that she had hurt herself. He would have to cancel the 10:00.

“What’s happened?” he said.

“I cut my foot,” Berger said. “I’ll hobble in as soon as I’ve pulled myself together.”

She used the toilet in the master bathroom and then pulled on some black pants and borrowed one of Greger’s slippers for her injured foot. She chose a black blouse and put on a jacket. Before she removed the doorstop from the bedroom door, she armed herself with the canister of Mace.

She made her way cautiously through the house and switched on the coffeemaker. She had her breakfast at the kitchen table, listening for sounds in the vicinity. She had just poured a second cup of coffee when there was a firm knock on the front door. It was David Rosin from Milton Security.

Figuerola walked to Bergsgatan and summoned her four colleagues for an early morning conference.

“We have a deadline now,” she said. “Our work has to be done by July 13, the day the Salander trial begins. We have just under six weeks. Let’s agree on what’s most important right now. Who wants to go first?”

Berglund cleared his throat. “The blond man with Mårtensson. Who is he?”

“We have photographs, but no idea how to find him. We can’t put out an APB.”

“What about Gullberg, then? There must be a story to track down there. We have him in the Security Police from the early fifties to 1964, when SIS was founded. Then he vanishes.”

Figuerola nodded.

“Should we conclude that the Zalachenko club was an association formed in 1964? That would be some time before Zalachenko even came to Sweden.”

“There must have been some other purpose . . . a secret organization within the organization.”

“That was after Stig Wennerström. Everyone was paranoid.”

“A sort of secret spy police?”

“There are in fact parallels overseas. In the States a special group of internal spy chasers was created within the CIA in the fifties. It was led by a James Jesus Angleton, and it very nearly sabotaged the entire CIA. Angleton’s gang were as fanatical as they were paranoid—they suspected everyone in the CIA of being a Russian agent. As a result, the agency’s effectiveness in large areas was paralysed.”

“But that’s all speculation . . .”

“Where are the old personnel files kept?”

“Gullberg isn’t in them. I’ve checked.”

“But what about a budget? An operation like this has to be financed.”

The discussion went on until lunchtime, when Figuerola excused herself and went to the gym for some peace, to think things over.

Berger did not arrive in the newsroom until lunchtime. Her foot was hurting so badly that she could not put any weight on it. She hobbled over to her glass cage and sank into her chair with relief. Fredriksson looked up from his desk, and she waved him in.

“What happened?” he said.

“I stepped on a piece of glass and a shard lodged in my heel.”

“That . . . wasn’t so good.”

“No. It wasn’t good. Peter, has anyone received any more weird emails?”

“Not that I’ve heard.”

“Keep your ears open. I want to know if anything odd happens around SMP.”

“What sort of odd?”

“I’m afraid some idiot is sending really vile emails and he seems to have targeted me. So I want to know if you hear of anything going on.”

“The type of email Eva Carlsson got?”

“Right, but anything strange at all. I’ve had a whole string of crazy emails accusing me of being all kinds of things—and suggesting various perverse things that ought to be done to me.”

Fredriksson’s expression darkened. “How long has this been going on?”

“A couple of weeks. Keep your eyes peeled. . . . So tell me, what’s going to be in the paper tomorrow?”

“Well . . .”

“Well, what?”

“Holm and the head of the legal section are on the warpath.”

“Why is that?”

“Because of Frisk. You extended his contract and gave him a feature assignment. And he won’t tell anybody what it’s about.”

“He is forbidden to talk about it. My orders.”

“That’s what he says. Which means that Holm and the legal editor are up in arms.”

“I can see that they might be. Set up a meeting with Legal at 3:00. I’ll explain the situation.”

“Holm is not pleased—”

“I’m not pleased with Holm, either, so we’re even.”

“He’s so upset that he’s complained to the board.”

Berger looked up. Damn it. I’m going to have to face up to the Borgsjö problem.

“Borgsjö is coming in this afternoon and wants a meeting with you. I suspect it’s Holm’s doing.”

“What time?”

“Two o’clock,” said Fredriksson, and he went back to his desk to write the midday memo.

Jonasson visited Salander during her lunch. She pushed away a plate of the hospital’s vegetable stew. As always, he did a brief examination of her, but she noticed that he was no longer putting much effort into it.

“You’ve recovered nicely,” he said.

“Hmm. You’ll have to do something about the food at this place.”

“What about it?”

“Couldn’t you get me a pizza?”

“Sorry. Way beyond the budget.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Lisbeth, we’re going to have a discussion about the state of your health tomorrow—”

“Understood. And I’ve recovered nicely.”

“You’re now well enough to be moved to Kronoberg prison. I might be able to postpone the move for another week, but my colleagues are going to start wondering.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I’m ready. And it had to happen sooner or later.”

“I’ll give the go-ahead tomorrow, then,” Jonasson said. “You’ll probably be transferred pretty soon.”

She nodded.

“It might be as early as this weekend. The hospital administration doesn’t want you here.”

“Who could blame them.”

“Er . . . that device of yours—”

“I’ll leave it in the recess behind the table here.” She pointed.

“Good idea.”

They sat in silence for a moment before Jonasson stood up.

“I have to check on my other patients.”

“Thanks for everything. I owe you one.”

“Just doing my job.”

“No. You’ve done a great deal more. I won’t forget it.”

Blomkvist entered police headquarters on Kungsholmen through the entrance on Polhemsgatan. Figuerola accompanied him up to the offices of the Constitutional Protection Unit. They exchanged only silent glances in the elevator.

“Do you think it’s such a good idea for me to be hanging around at police HQ?” Blomkvist said. “Someone might see us together and start to wonder.”

“This will be our only meeting here. From now on we’ll meet in an office we’ve rented at Fridhemsplan. We get access tomorrow. But this will be OK. Constitutional Protection is a small and more or less self-sufficient unit, and nobody else at SIS cares about it. And we’re on a different floor from the rest of Säpo.”

He greeted Edklinth without shaking hands and said hello to two colleagues who were apparently part of his team. They introduced themselves only as Stefan and Anders. He smiled to himself.

“Where do we start?” he said.

“We could start by having some coffee. . . . Monica?” Edklinth said.

“Thanks, that would be nice,” Figuerola said.

Edklinth had probably meant for her to serve the coffee. Blomkvist noticed that the chief of the Constitutional Protection Unit hesitated for only a second before he got up and brought the coffee over to the conference table, where place settings were already laid out. Blomkvist saw that Edklinth was also smiling to himself, which he took to be a good sign. Then Edklinth turned serious.

“I honestly don’t know how I should be managing this. It must be the first time a journalist has sat in on a meeting of the Security Police. The issues we’ll be discussing now are in many respects confidential and highly classified.”

“I’m not interested in military secrets. I’m only interested in the Zalachenko club.”

“But we have to strike a balance. First of all, the names of today’s participants must not be mentioned in your articles.”

“Agreed.”

Edklinth gave Blomkvist a look of surprise.

“Second, you may not speak with anyone but me and Monica Figuerola. We’re the ones who will decide what we can tell you.”

“If you have a long list of requirements, you should have mentioned them yesterday.”

“Yesterday I hadn’t yet thought through the matter.”

“Then I have something to tell you too. This is probably the first and only time in my professional career that I will reveal the contents of an unpublished story to a police officer. So, to quote you, I honestly don’t know how I should be managing this.”

A brief silence settled over the table.

“Maybe we—”

“What if we—”

Edklinth and Figuerola had started talking at the same time before falling silent.

“My target is the Zalachenko club,” Blomkvist said. “You want to bring charges against the Zalachenko club. Let’s stick to that.”

Edklinth nodded.

“So, what do you have?” Blomkvist said.

Edklinth explained what Figuerola and her team had unearthed. He showed Blomkvist the photograph of Evert Gullberg with Colonel Wennerström.

“Good. I’ll take a copy of that.”

“It’s in Åhlén and Åkerlund’s archive,” Figuerola said.

“It’s on the table in front of me. With a note on the back,” Blomkvist said.

“Give him a copy,” Edklinth said.

“That means that Zalachenko was murdered by the Section.”

“Murder, coupled with the suicide of a man who was dying of cancer. Gullberg’s still alive, but the doctors don’t give him more than a few weeks. After his suicide attempt he sustained such severe brain damage that he is for all intents and purposes a vegetable.”

“And he was the person with primary responsibility for Zalachenko when he defected.”

“How do you know that?”

“Gullberg met Prime Minister Fälldin six weeks after Zalachenko’s defection.”

“Can you prove that?”

“I can. With the visitors’ log of the government secretariat. Gullberg arrived together with the then chief of SIS.”

“And the chief has since died.”

“But Fälldin is alive and willing to talk about the matter.”

“Have you—”

“No, I haven’t. But someone else has. I can’t give you the name. Source protection.”

Blomkvist explained how Fälldin had reacted to the information about Zalachenko and how he had travelled to The Hague to interview Janeryd.

“So the Zalachenko club is somewhere in this building,” Blomkvist said, pointing at the photograph.

“Partly. We think it’s an organization inside the organization. What you call the Zalachenko club cannot exist without the support of key people in this building. But we think that the so-called Section for Special Analysis set up shop somewhere outside.”

“So that’s how it works? A person can be employed by Säpo, have his salary paid by Säpo, and then in fact report to another employer?”

“Something like that.”

“So who in the building is working for the Zalachenko club?”

“We don’t know yet. But we have several suspects.”

“Mårtensson,” Blomkvist suggested.

Edklinth nodded.

“Mårtensson works for Säpo, and when he’s needed by the Zalachenko club he’s released from his regular job,” Figuerola said.

“How does that work in practice?”

“That’s a very good question,” Edklinth said with a faint smile. “Wouldn’t you like to come and work for us?”

“Not on your life,” Blomkvist said.

“I jest, of course. But it’s a good question. We have a suspect, but we’re unable to verify our suspicions just yet.”

“Let’s see . . . it must be someone with administrative authority.”

“We suspect Chief of Secretariat Albert Shenke,” Figuerola said.

“And here we are at our first stumbling block,” Edklinth said. “We’ve given you a name, but we have no proof. So how do you intend to proceed?”

“I can’t publish a name without proof. If Shenke is innocent he would sue Millennium for libel.”

“Good. Then we are agreed. This cooperative effort has to be based on mutual trust. Your turn. What do you have?”

“Three names,” Blomkvist said. “The first two were members of the Zalachenko club in the eighties.”

Edklinth and Figuerola were instantly alert.

“Hans von Rottinger and Fredrik Clinton. Von Rottinger is dead. Clinton is retired. But both of them were part of the circle closest to Zalachenko.”

“And the third name?” Edklinth said.

“Teleborian has a link to a person I know only as Jonas. We don’t know his last name, but we do know that he was with the Zalachenko club. . . . We’ve actually speculated a bit that he might be the man with Mårtensson in the pictures from Café Copacabana.”

“And in what context did the name Jonas crop up?”

Salander hacked Teleborian’s computer, and we can follow the correspondence that shows how Teleborian is conspiring with Jonas in the same way he conspired with Björck in 1991.

“He gives Teleborian instructions. And now we come to another stumbling block,” Blomkvist said to Edklinth with a smile. “I can prove my assertions, but I can’t give you the documentation without revealing a source. You’ll have to accept what I’m saying.”

Edklinth looked thoughtful.

“Maybe one of Teleborian’s colleagues in Uppsala. OK. Let’s start with Clinton and von Rottinger. Tell us what you know.”

Borgsjö received Berger in his office next to the boardroom. He looked concerned.

“I heard that you hurt yourself,” he said, pointing to her foot.

“It’ll pass,” Berger said, leaning her crutches against his desk as she sat down in the guest chair.

“Well . . . that’s good. Erika, you’ve been here a month and I want us to have a chance to catch up. How do you feel it’s going?”

I have to discuss Vitavara with him. But how? When?

“I’ve begun to get a handle on the situation. There are two sides to it. On the one hand, SMP has financial problems and the budget is strangling the newspaper. On the other, SMP has a huge amount of dead meat in the newsroom.”

“Aren’t there any positive aspects?”

“Of course there are. A whole bunch of experienced professionals who know how to do their jobs. The problem is the ones who won’t let them do their jobs.”

“Holm has spoken to me. . . .”

“I know.”

Borgsjö looked puzzled. “He has a number of opinions about you. Almost all of them are negative.”

“That’s OK. I have a number of opinions about him too.”

“Also negative? It’s no good if the two of you can’t work together—”

“I have no problem working with him. But he does have a problem with me.” Berger sighed. “He’s driving me nuts. He’s very experienced and doubtless one of the most competent news chiefs I’ve come across. At the same time, he’s a bastard of exceptional proportions. He enjoys indulging in intrigue and playing people against one another. I’ve worked in the media for twenty-five years, and I have never met a person like him in a management position.”

“He has to be tough to handle the job. He’s under pressure from every direction.”

“Tough, by all means. But that doesn’t mean he has to behave like an idiot. Unfortunately, Holm is a walking disaster, and he’s one of the chief reasons why it’s almost impossible to get the staff to work as a team. He takes divide-and-rule as his job description.”

“Harsh words.”

“I’ll give him one month to sort out his attitude. If he hasn’t managed it by then, I’m going to remove him as news editor.”

“You can’t do that. It’s not your job to take apart the operational organization.”

Berger studied the CEO.

“Forgive me for pointing this out, but that was exactly why you hired me. We also have a contract which explicitly gives me free rein to make the editorial changes I deem necessary. My task here is to rejuvenate the newspaper, and I can do that only by changing the organization and the work routines.”

“Holm has devoted his life to SMP.”

“Right. And he’s fifty-eight, with seven years to go before retirement. I can’t afford to keep him on as a dead weight all that time. Don’t misunderstand me, Magnus. From the moment I sat down in that glass cage, my life’s goal has been to raise SMP’s quality as well as its circulation figures. Holm has a choice: either he can do things my way, or he can do something else. I’m going to bulldoze anyone who is obstructive or who tries to damage SMP in some other way.”

Damn . . . I have to bring up the Vitavara thing. Borgsjö is going to be fired.

Suddenly Borgsjö smiled. “By God, I think you’re pretty tough too.”

“Yes, I am, and in this case it’s regrettable since it shouldn’t be necessary. My job is to produce a good newspaper, and I can do that only if I have a management that functions and colleagues who enjoy their work.”

After the meeting with Borgsjö, Berger limped back to the glass cage. She felt depressed. She had been with Borgsjö for forty-five minutes without mentioning one syllable about Vitavara. She had not, in other words, been particularly straight or honest with him.

When she sat at her computer she found a message from <MikBlom@millennium.nu>. She knew perfectly well that no such address existed at Millennium. She opened the email:

She raised her eyes involuntarily and looked out across the newsroom. Her gaze fell on Holm. He looked back at her. Then he smiled.

It can only be someone at SMP.

The meeting at the Constitutional Protection Unit lasted until after 5:00, and they agreed to have another meeting the following week. Blomkvist could contact Figuerola if he needed to be in touch with SIS before then. He packed away his laptop and stood up.

“How do I get out of here?” he asked.

“You certainly can’t go running around on your own,” Edklinth said.

“I’ll show him out,” Figuerola said. “Give me a couple of minutes; I just have to pick up a few things from my office.” They walked together through Kronoberg park towards Fridhemsplan.

“So what happens now?” Blomkvist said.

“We stay in touch,” Figuerola said.

“I’m beginning to like my contact with Säpo.”

“Do you feel like having dinner later?”

“Bosnian again?”

“No, I can’t afford to eat out every night. I was thinking of something simple at my place.”

She stopped and smiled at him.

“Do you know what I’d like to do now?” she said.

“No.”

“I’d like to take you home and undress you.”

“This could get a bit awkward.”

“I know. But I wasn’t planning on telling my boss.”

“We don’t know how this story’s going to turn out. We could end up on opposite sides of the barricades.”

“I’ll take my chances. Now, are you going to come quietly or do I have to handcuff you?”

The consultant from Milton Security was waiting for Berger when she got home at around 7:00. Her foot was throbbing painfully, and she limped into the kitchen and sank onto the nearest chair. He had made coffee, and he poured her some.

“Thanks. Is making coffee part of Milton’s service agreement?”

He gave her a polite smile. David Rosin was a short, plump man in his fifties with a reddish goatee. “Thanks for letting me borrow your kitchen today.”

“It’s the least I could do. What’s the situation?”

“Our technicians were here and installed a proper alarm. I’ll show you how it works in a minute. I’ve also gone over every inch of your house from the basement to the attic and studied the area around it. I’ll review your situation with my colleagues at Milton, and in a few days we’ll present an assessment that we’ll go over with you. But before that there are one or two things we ought to discuss.”

“Go ahead.”

“First of all, we have to take care of a few formalities. We’ll work out the final contract later—it depends what services we agree on—but this is an agreement saying that you’ve commissioned Milton Security to install the alarm we put in today. It’s a standard document saying that we at Milton require certain things of you and that we commit to certain things—client confidentiality and so forth.”

“You require things of me?”

“Yes. An alarm is an alarm and is completely pointless if some nutcase is standing in your living room with an automatic weapon. For the security to work, we want you and your husband to be aware of certain things and to take certain routine measures. I’ll go over the details with you.”

“OK.”

“I’m jumping ahead and anticipating the final assessment, but this is how I view the general situation. You and your husband live in a detached house. You have a beach at the back of the house and a few large houses in the immediate vicinity. Your neighbours do not have an unobstructed view of your house. It’s relatively isolated.”

“That’s correct.”

“Therefore an intruder would have a good chance of approaching your house without being observed.”

“The neighbours on the right are away for long periods, and on the left is an elderly couple who go to bed quite early.”

“In addition, the houses are positioned with their gables facing each other. There are few windows, and so on. Once an intruder comes onto your property—and it takes only five seconds to turn off the road and arrive at the rear of the house—the view is completely blocked. The rear is screened by your hedge, the garage, and that large freestanding building.”

“That’s my husband’s studio.”

“He’s an artist, I take it?”

“That’s right. Then what?”

“Whoever smashed your window and sprayed your outside wall was able to do so undisturbed. There might have been some risk that the sound of the breaking window would be heard and someone might have reacted . . . but your house sits at an angle and the sound was deflected by the façade.”

“I see.”

“The second thing is that you have a large property here with a living area of approximately 2,700 square feet, not counting the attic and basement. That’s eleven rooms on two floors.”

“The house is a monster. It’s my husband’s old family home.”

“There are also a number of different ways to get into the house. Via the front door, the balcony at the back, the porch on the upper floor, and the garage. There are also windows on the ground floor and six basement windows that were left without alarms by our predecessors. Finally, I could break in by using the fire escape at the back of the house and entering through the roof hatch leading to the attic. The trapdoor is secured by nothing more than a latch.”

“It sounds as if there are revolving doors into the place. What do we have to do?”

“The alarm we installed today is temporary. We’ll come back next week and do the proper installation with alarms on every window on the ground floor and in the basement. That’s your protection against intruders in the event that you and your husband are away.”

“That’s good.”

“But the present situation has arisen because you have been subject to a direct threat from a specific individual. That’s much more serious. We don’t know who this person is, what his motives are, or how far he’s willing to go, but we can make a few assumptions. If it were just a matter of anonymous hate mail we would make a decreased threat assessment, but in this case a person has actually taken the trouble to drive to your house—and it’s pretty far to Saltsjöbaden—to carry out an attack. That is worrisome.”

“I agree with you there.”

“I talked with Dragan today, and we’re of the same mind: until we know more about the person making the threat, we have to play it safe.”

“Which means?”

“First of all, the alarm we installed today contains two components. On the one hand, it’s an ordinary burglar alarm which is on when you’re not at home, but it’s also a sensor for the ground floor that you’ll have to turn on when you’re upstairs at night.”

“Hmm.”

“It’s an inconvenience because you have to turn off the alarm every time you come downstairs.”

“Understood.”

“Second, we changed your bedroom door today.”

“You changed the whole door?”

“Yes. We installed a steel safety door. Don’t worry . . . it’s painted white and looks just like a normal bedroom door. The difference is that it locks automatically when you close it. To open the door from the inside you just have to press down the handle as with any normal door. But to open the door from the outside, you have to enter a three-digit code on a plate on the door handle.”

“And you did all this today?”

“If you’re threatened in your home, then you have a safe room in which you can barricade yourself. The walls are sturdy, and it would take quite a while to break down that door, even if your assailant had tools at hand.”

“That’s a comfort.”

“Third, we’re going to install surveillance cameras, so that you’ll be able to see what’s going on in the garden and on the ground floor when you’re in the bedroom. That will be done later this week, at the same time as we install the motion detectors outside the house.”

“It sounds like the bedroom won’t be such a romantic place in the future.”

“It’s a small monitor. We can put it inside a wardrobe or a cabinet so that it isn’t in full view.”

“Thank you.”

“Later in the week I’ll change the doors in your study and in a downstairs room too. If anything happens you should quickly seek shelter and lock the door while you wait for assistance.”

“All right.”

“If you trip the burglar alarm by mistake, then you’ll have to call Milton’s alarm centre immediately to cancel the emergency vehicle. To cancel it you’ll have to give a password that will be registered with us. If you forget the password, the emergency vehicle will come out anyway and you’ll be charged a fee.”

“Understood.”

“Fourth, there are now attack alarms in four places inside the house. Here in the kitchen, in the hall, in your study upstairs, and in your bedroom. The attack alarm consists of two buttons that you press simultaneously and hold down for three seconds. You can do it with one hand, but you can’t do it by mistake. If the attack alarm is sounded, three things will happen. First, Milton will send cars out here. The closest car will come from Adam Security in Fisksätra. Two men will be here in ten to twelve minutes. Second, a car from Milton will come down from Nacka. For that the response time is at best twenty minutes, but more likely twenty-five. Third, the police will be alerted automatically. In other words, several cars will arrive at the scene within a short time, a matter of minutes.”

“OK.”

“An attack alarm can’t be cancelled the same way you would cancel the burglar alarm. You can’t call and say that it was a mistake. Even if you meet us in the driveway and say it was a mistake, the police will enter the house. We want to be sure that nobody’s holding a gun to your husband’s head or anything like that. So you use the attack alarm, obviously, only when there is real danger.”

“I understand.”

“It doesn’t have to be a physical attack. It could be if someone is trying to break in or turns up in the garden or something like that. If you feel threatened in any way, you should set off the alarm, but use your good judgement.”

“I will.”

“I notice that you have golf clubs planted here and there around the house.”

“Yes. I slept here alone last night.”

“I myself would have checked into a hotel. I have no problem with you taking safety precautions on your own. But you ought to know that you could easily kill an intruder with a golf club.”

“Hmm.”

“And if you did that, you would most probably be charged with manslaughter. If you admitted that you put golf clubs around the place with the intent of arming yourself, it could also be classified as murder.”

“If someone attacks me, chances are I do intend to bash in that person’s skull.”

“I understand. But the point of hiring Milton Security is so that you have an alternative to doing that. You should be able to call for help, and above all, you shouldn’t end up in a situation where you have to bash in someone’s skull.”

“I’m only too happy to hear it.”

“And, by the way, what would you do with the golf clubs if an intruder had a gun? The key to good security is all about staying one step ahead of anyone who means you harm.”

“Tell me how I’m supposed to do that if I have a stalker after me?”

“You see to it that he never has a chance to get close to you. Now, we won’t be finished with the installations here for a couple of days, and then we’ll also have to have a talk with your husband. He’ll have to be as safety-conscious as you are.”

“He will be.”

“Until then I’d rather you didn’t stay here.”

“I can’t move anywhere else. My husband will be home in a couple of days. But both he and I travel fairly often, and one or the other of us has to be here alone from time to time.”

“I understand. But I’m only talking about a couple of days, until we have all the installations ready. Isn’t there a friend you could stay with?”

Berger thought for a moment about Blomkvist’s apartment but remembered that just now it was not such a good idea.

“Thanks, but I’d rather stay here.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. In that case, I’d like you to have company here for the rest of the week.”

“Well . . .”

“Do you have a friend who could come and stay with you?”

“Sure. But not at 7:30 in the evening if there’s a nutcase on the prowl outside.”

Rosin thought for a moment. “Do you have anything against a Milton employee staying here? I could call and find out if my colleague Susanne Linder is free tonight. She certainly wouldn’t mind earning a few hundred kronor on the side.”

“What would it cost exactly?”

“You’d have to negotiate that with her. It would be outside all our formal agreements. But I really don’t want you to stay here alone.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark.”

“I didn’t think you were or you wouldn’t have slept here last night. Susanne Linder is also a former policewoman. And it’s only temporary. If we had to arrange for bodyguard protection that would be a different matter—and it would be rather expensive.”

Rosin’s seriousness was having an effect. It dawned on her that here he was calmly talking of the possibility of there being a threat to her life. Was he exaggerating? Should she dismiss his professional caution? In that case, why had she called Milton Security in the first place and asked them to install an alarm?

“OK. Call her. I’ll get the guest room ready.”

It was not until after 10:00 p.m. that Figuerola and Blomkvist wrapped sheets around themselves and went to her kitchen to make a cold pasta salad with tuna and bacon from the leftovers in her fridge. They drank water with their dinner.

Figuerola giggled.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’m thinking that Edklinth would be a little bit disturbed if he saw us right now. I don’t believe he intended for me to go to bed with you when he told me to keep a close eye on you.”

“You started it. I had the choice of being handcuffed or coming quietly,” Blomkvist said.

“True, but you weren’t very hard to convince.”

“Maybe you aren’t aware of this—though I doubt that—but you give off the most incredible sexual vibrations. Who on earth do you think can resist that?”

“You’re very kind, but I’m not that sexy. And I don’t have sex that often either.”

“You amaze me.”

“Really, I don’t end up in bed with that many men. I was going out with a guy this spring. But it ended.”

“Why was that?”

“He was sweet, but it turned into a wearisome sort of arm-wrestling contest. I was stronger than he was and he couldn’t bear it. Are you the kind of man who’ll want to arm-wrestle me?”

“You mean, am I someone who has a problem with the fact that you’re fitter and physically stronger than I am? No, I’m not.”

“Thanks for being honest. I’ve noticed that quite a few men get interested, but then they start challenging me and looking for ways to dominate me. Especially if they discover I’m a policewoman.”

“I’m not going to compete with you. I’m better than you are at what I do. And you’re better than I am at what you do.”

“I can live with that attitude.”

“Why did you pick me up?”

“I give in to impulses. And you were one of them!”

“But you’re an officer in Säpo, of all places, and we’re in the middle of an investigation in which I’m involved. . . .”

“You mean it was unprofessional of me. You’re right. I shouldn’t have done it. And I’d have a serious problem if it became known. Edklinth would go through the roof.”

“I won’t tell him.”

“Very chivalrous.”

They were silent for a moment.

“I don’t know what this is going to turn into. You’re a man who gets more than his fair share of action, as I gather. Is that accurate?”

“Yes, unfortunately. And I may not be looking for a steady girlfriend.”

“Fair warning. I’m probably not looking for a steady boyfriend either. Can we keep it on a friendly level?”

“I think that would be best. Monica, I’m not going to tell anybody that we got together. But if we aren’t careful I could end up in one hell of a conflict with your colleagues.”

“I don’t think so. Edklinth is as straight as an arrow. And we share the same objective, you and my people.”

“We’ll see how it goes.”

“You had a thing with Lisbeth Salander too.”

Blomkvist looked at her. “Listen . . . I’m not an open book for everyone to read. My relationship with Lisbeth is none of anyone’s business.”

“She’s Zalachenko’s daughter.”

“Yes, and she has to live with that. But she isn’t Zalachenko. There’s the world of difference.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I was wondering about your involvement in this story.”

“Lisbeth is my friend. That should be enough of an explanation.”

Susanne Linder from Milton Security was dressed in jeans, a black leather jacket, and running shoes. She arrived in Saltsjöbaden at 9:00 in the evening and Rosin showed her around the house. She had brought a green duffel bag containing her laptop, a spring baton, a Mace canister, handcuffs, and a toothbrush, which she unpacked in Berger’s guest room.

Berger made coffee.

“Thanks for the coffee. You’re probably thinking of me as a guest you have to entertain. The fact is, I’m not a guest at all. I’m a necessary evil that’s suddenly appeared in your life, albeit just for a couple of days. I was in the police for six years and I’ve worked at Milton for four. I’m a trained bodyguard.”

“I see.”

“There’s a threat against you and I’m here to be a gatekeeper so that you can sleep in peace or work or read a book or do whatever you feel like doing. If you need to talk, I’m happy to listen. Otherwise, I brought my own book.”

“Understood.”

“What I mean is that you should go on with your life and not feel as though you need to entertain me. Then I’d just be in the way. The best thing would be for you to think of me as a temporary work colleague.”

“Well, I’m certainly not used to this kind of situation. I’ve had threats before, when I was editor in chief at Millennium, but then it had to do with my work. Right now it’s some seriously unpleasant individual—”

“Who has a hang-up about you in particular.”

“Something along those lines.”

“If we have to arrange full bodyguard protection, it’ll cost a lot of money. And for it to be worth the cost, there has to be a very clear and specific threat. This is just an extra job for me. I’ll ask you for 500 kronor a night to sleep here the rest of the week. It’s cheap and far below what I would charge if I took the job for Milton. Is that OK with you?”

“It’s completely OK.”

“If anything happens, I want you to lock yourself in your bedroom and let me handle the situation. Your job is to press the attack alarm. That’s all. I don’t want you underfoot if there’s any trouble.”

Berger went to bed at 11:00. She heard the click of the lock as she closed her bedroom door. Deep in thought, she undressed and climbed into bed.

She had been told not to feel obliged to entertain her “guest,” but she had spent two hours with Linder at the kitchen table. She discovered that they got along famously. They had discussed the psychology that causes certain men to stalk women. Linder told her that she did not hold with psychological mumbo-jumbo. She thought the most important thing was simply to stop the bastards, and she enjoyed her job at Milton Security a great deal, since her assignments were largely to act as a counter-force to raging lunatics.

“So why did you resign from the police force?” Berger said.

“A better question would be why did I become a police officer in the first place.”

“Why did you become a police officer?”

“Because when I was seventeen a close friend of mine was mugged and raped in a car by three utter bastards. I became a police officer because I thought, rather idealistically, that the police existed to prevent crimes like that.”

“Well?”

“I couldn’t prevent shit. As a policewoman I invariably arrived on the scene after a crime had been committed. I couldn’t cope with the arrogant lingo on the squad. And I soon found out that some crimes are never even investigated. You’re a typical example. Did you try to call the police about what happened?”

“Yes.”

“And did they bother to come out here?”

“Not really. I was told to file a report at the local station.”

“So now you know. I work for Armansky, and I come into the picture before a crime is committed.”

“Mostly concerning women who are threatened?”

“I work with all kinds of things. Security assessments, bodyguard protection, surveillance, and so on. But the work often concerns people who have been threatened. I get on considerably better at Milton than on the force, although there’s a drawback.”

“What’s that?”

“We are only there for clients who can pay.”

As she lay in bed Berger thought about what Linder had said. Not everyone can afford security. She herself had accepted Rosin’s proposal for several new doors, engineers, backup alarm systems, and everything else without blinking. The cost of all that work would be almost 50,000 kronor. But she could afford it.

She pondered for a moment her suspicion that the person threatening her had something to do with SMP. Whoever it was had known that she had hurt her foot. She thought of Holm. She did not like him, which added to her mistrust of him, but the news that she had been injured had spread fast from the second she appeared in the newsroom on crutches.

And she had the Borgsjö problem.

She suddenly sat up in bed and frowned, looking around the bedroom. She wondered where she had put Cortez’s file on Borgsjö and Vitavara Inc.

She got up, put on her bathrobe, and leaned on a crutch. She went to her study and turned on the light. No, she had not been in her study since . . . since she had read through the file in the bath the night before. She had put it on the windowsill.

She looked in the bathroom. It was not on the windowsill.

She stood there for a while, worrying.

She had no memory of seeing the folder that morning. She had not moved it anywhere else.

She turned ice-cold and spent the next five minutes searching the bathroom and going through the stacks of papers and newspapers in the kitchen and bedroom. In the end she had to admit that the folder was gone.

Between the time when she had stepped on the shard of glass and Rosin’s arrival that morning, somebody had gone into her bathroom and taken Millennium’s material about Vitavara Inc.

Then it occurred to her that she had other secrets in the house. She limped back to the bedroom and opened the bottom drawer of the chest by her bed. Her heart sank like a stone. Everyone has secrets. She kept hers in the chest of drawers in her bedroom. Berger did not regularly write a diary, but there were periods when she had. There were also old love letters which she had kept from her teenage years.

There was an envelope with photographs that had been cool at the time, but . . . When Berger was twenty-five she had been involved in Club Xtreme, which arranged private dating parties for people who were into leather. There were photographs from various parties, and if she had been sober then, she would have recognized that she looked completely demented.

And—most disastrous of all—there was a video taken on vacation in the early nineties when she and Greger had been guests of the glass artist Torkel Bollinger at his villa on the Costa del Sol. During the vacation Berger had discovered that her husband had a definite bisexual tendency, and they had both ended up in bed with Torkel. It had been a pretty wonderful vacation. Video cameras were still a relatively new phenomenon. The movie they had playfully made was definitely not for general release.

The drawer was empty.

How could I have been so fucking stupid?

On the bottom of the drawer someone had spray-painted the familiar five-letter word.