The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (23 page)

He closed his iBook, stuffed it into his shoulder bag, and left the office without a word, moving fast. He jogged home to Bellmansgatan and up the stairs.

The door was locked.

As soon as he entered the apartment he saw that the folder he had left on the kitchen table was gone. He did not even bother to look for it. He knew exactly where it had been. He sank onto a chair at the kitchen table as thoughts whirled through his head.

Someone had been in his apartment. Someone who was trying to cover Zalachenko’s tracks.

His own copy and his sister’s copy were gone.

Bublanski still had the report.

Or did he?

Blomkvist got up and went to the phone, but stopped with his hand on the receiver. Someone had been in his apartment. He looked at his phone with the utmost suspicion and took out his mobile.

But how easy is it to eavesdrop on a mobile conversation?

He slowly put the mobile down next to his landline and looked around.

I’m dealing with pros here, obviously. People who could bug an apartment as easily as get into one without breaking a lock
.

He sat down again.

He looked at his laptop case.

How hard is it to hack into my email? Salander can do it in five minutes
.

He thought for a long time before he went back to the landline and called his sister. He chose his words with care.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m fine, Micke.”

“Tell me what happened from the moment you arrived at Sahlgrenska until you were attacked.”

It took ten minutes for Giannini to give him her account. Blomkvist did not say anything about the implications of what she told him, but asked questions until he was satisfied. He sounded like an anxious brother, but his mind was working on a completely different level as he reconstructed the key points.

She had decided to stay in Göteborg at 4:30 that afternoon. She called
her friend on her mobile, gotten the address and door code. The robber was waiting for her inside the stairwell at 6:00 on the dot.

Her mobile was being monitored. It was the only possible explanation.

Which meant that his was being monitored too.

Foolish to think otherwise.

“And the Zalachenko report is gone,” Giannini repeated. Blomkvist hesitated. Whoever had stolen the report already knew that his copy too had been stolen. It would only be natural to mention that.

“Mine too,” he said.

“What?”

He explained that he had come home to find that the blue folder on his kitchen table was gone.

“It’s a disaster,” he said in a gloomy voice. “That was the crucial part of the evidence.”

“Micke, I’m so sorry.”

“Me too,” Blomkvist said. “Damn it! But it’s not your fault. I should have published the report the day I got it.”

“What do we do now?”

“I have no idea. This is the worst thing that could have happened. It will turn our whole plan upside down. We don’t have a shred of evidence left against Björck or Teleborian.”

They talked for another two minutes before Blomkvist ended the conversation.

“I want you to come back to Stockholm tomorrow,” he said.

“I have to see Salander.”

“Go and see her in the morning. We have to sit down and think about where we go from here.”

When Blomkvist hung up he sat on the sofa staring into space. Whoever was listening to their conversation knew now that
Millennium
had lost Björck’s report, along with the correspondence between Björck and Dr. Teleborian. They could be satisfied that Blomkvist and Giannini were distraught.

If nothing else, Blomkvist had learned from the preceding night’s study of the history of the Security Police that disinformation was the basis of all espionage activity. And he had just planted disinformation that in the long run might prove invaluable.

He opened his laptop case and took out the copy of the Zalachenko report he’d made for Armansky, which he had not yet managed to deliver. It
was the only remaining copy, and he did not intend to waste it. On the contrary, he would make five more copies and put them in safe places.

Then he called Eriksson. She was about to lock up for the day.

“Where did you disappear to in such a hurry?” she said.

“Could you stay there a few minutes, please? There’s something I have to discuss with you before you leave.”

He had not had time to do his laundry for several weeks. All his shirts were in the hamper. He packed a razor and
Power Struggle for Säpo
along with the last remaining copy of Björck’s report. He went to Dressman and bought four shirts, two pairs of trousers, and some underwear and took the clothes with him to the office. Eriksson waited while he took a quick shower, wondering what was going on.

“Someone broke into my apartment and stole the Zalachenko report. Someone mugged Annika in Göteborg and stole her copy. I have proof that her phone is tapped, which may well mean that mine is too. Maybe yours at home and all the
Millennium
phones have been bugged. And if someone took the trouble to break into my apartment, they’d be pretty dumb if they didn’t bug it as well.”

“I see,” said Eriksson in a flat voice. She glanced at the mobile on the desk in front of her.

“Keep working as usual. Use the mobile, but don’t give away any information. Tomorrow, tell Henry.”

“He went home an hour ago. He left a stack of public reports on your desk. But what are you doing here?”

“I plan to sleep here tonight. If they shot Zalachenko, stole the reports, and bugged my apartment today, there’s a good chance they’ve just gotten started and haven’t done the office yet. People have been here all day. I don’t want the office to be empty tonight.”

“You think that the murder of Zalachenko . . . ? But the murderer was a geriatric psycho.”

“Malin, I don’t believe in coincidence. Somebody is covering Zalachenko’s tracks. I don’t care who people think that old lunatic was or how many crazy letters he wrote to government ministers. He was a hired killer of some sort. He went there to kill Zalachenko . . . and maybe Lisbeth too.”

“But he committed suicide, or tried to. What hired killer would do that?”

Blomkvist thought for a moment. He met the editor in chief’s gaze.

“Maybe someone who’s seventy-eight and doesn’t have much to lose. He’s mixed up in all this, and when we finish digging we’ll prove it.”

Eriksson studied Blomkvist’s face. She had never before seen him so
composed and unflinching. She shuddered. Blomkvist noticed her reaction.

“One more thing. We’re no longer in a battle with a gang of criminals; this time it’s with a government department. It’s going to be tough.”

Eriksson nodded.

“I didn’t imagine things would go this far. Malin, what happened today makes very plain how dangerous this could get. If you want out, just say the word.”

She wondered what Berger would have said. Then stubbornly she shook her head.

MAY 1–22

An Irish law from the year 697 forbids women to be soldiers—which means that women
had
been soldiers previously. Peoples who over the centuries have recruited female soldiers include Arabs, Berbers, Kurds, Rajputs, Chinese, Filipinos, Maoris, Papuans, Micronesians, and American Indians.

There is a wealth of legend about fearsome female warriors from ancient Greece. These tales speak of women who were trained in the art of war from childhood—in the use of weapons, and how to cope with physical privation. They lived apart from the men and went to war in their own regiments. The tales tell us that they conquered men on the field of battle. Amazons occur in Greek literature in the
Iliad
of Homer, for example, in 600 BC.

It was the Greeks who coined the term “Amazon.” The word literally means “without breast.” It is said that in order to facilitate the drawing of a bow, the female’s right breast was removed, either in early childhood or with a red-hot iron after she became an adult. Even though the Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen are said to have agreed that this operation would enhance the ability to use weapons, it is doubtful whether such operations were actually performed. Herein lies a linguistic riddle—whether the prefix “a-” in their language does indeed mean “without.” It has been suggested that it means the opposite—that an Amazon was a woman with especially large breasts. Nor is there a single example in any museum of a drawing, amulet, or statue of a woman without her right breast, which should have been a common motif had the legend about breast amputation been based on fact.

Berger took a deep breath as the elevator door opened and she walked into the editorial offices of
Svenska Morgon-Posten
. It was 10:15 in the morning. She was dressed for work in black pants, a red sweater, and a dark jacket. It was glorious May 1 weather, and on her way through the city she had noticed that the workers’ groups had begun to gather. It dawned on her that she had not been part of such a parade in more than twenty years.

For a moment she stood, alone and invisible, next to the elevator doors.
First day on the job
. She could see a large part of the editorial office with the news desk in the centre. She saw the glass doors of the editor in chief’s office, which was now hers.

She was not at all sure right now that she was the person to lead the sprawling organization that comprised
SMP
. It was a gigantic step up from
Millennium
, with a minimal staff, to a daily newspaper with eighty reporters and another ninety people in administration, with IT personnel, layout artists, photographers, and advertising reps. Add to that a publishing house, a production company, and a management company. More than 230 people.

As she stood there she asked herself whether the whole thing hadn’t been an enormous mistake.

Then the older of the two receptionists noticed who had just come into the office. She got up, came out from behind the counter, and extended her hand.

“Fru Berger, welcome to
SMP.”

“Call me Erika. Hello.”

“Beatrice. Welcome. Shall I show you where to find Editor in Chief Morander? I should say ‘outgoing editor in chief.’”

“Thank you; I see him sitting in the glass cage over there,” said Berger with a smile. “I can find my way, but thanks for the offer.”

She walked briskly through the newsroom and was aware of the drop in noise level. She felt everyone’s eyes upon her. She stopped at the half-empty news desk and gave a friendly nod.

“We’ll introduce ourselves properly in a while,” she said, and then walked over to knock on the door of the glass cubicle.

The departing editor in chief, Håkan Morander, had spent twelve years in the glass cage. Just like Berger, he had been headhunted from outside the company—so he had once taken that very same first walk to his office. He looked up at her, puzzled, and then stood up.

“Hello, Erika,” he said. “I thought you were starting tomorrow.”

“I couldn’t stand sitting at home one more day. So here I am.”

Morander held out his hand. “Welcome. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re taking over.”

“How are you feeling?” Berger said.

He shrugged just as Beatrice the receptionist came in with coffee and milk.

“It feels as though I’m already operating at half speed. Actually, I don’t want to talk about it. You walk around feeling like a teenager and immortal your whole life, and suddenly there isn’t much time left. But one thing’s for sure—I don’t intend to spend the rest of it in this glass cage.”

He rubbed his chest. He had heart and artery problems, which was the reason for his going and why Berger was to start several months earlier than originally announced.

Berger turned and looked out over the landscape of the newsroom. She saw a reporter and a photographer heading for the elevator, perhaps on their way to cover the May Day parade.

“Håkan, if I’m being a nuisance or if you’re busy today, I’ll come back tomorrow or the day after.”

“Today’s task is to write an editorial on the demonstrations. I could do it in my sleep. If the pinkos want to start a war with Denmark, then I have to explain why they’re wrong. If the pinkos want to avoid a war with Denmark, I have to explain why they’re wrong.”

“Denmark?”

“Correct. The message on May Day has to touch on the immigrant integration question. The pinkos, of course, no matter what they say, are wrong.”

He burst out laughing.

“Always so cynical?”

“Welcome to
SMP.”

Erika had never had an opinion about Morander. He was an anonymous power figure among the elite of editors in chief. In his editorials he came across as boring and conservative. Expert in complaining about taxes, and a typical libertarian when it came to freedom of the press. But she had never met him in person.

“Do you have time to tell me about the job?”

“I’m gone at the end of June. We’ll work side by side for two months. You’ll discover positive things and negative things. I’m a cynic, so mostly I see the negative things.”

He got up and stood next to her to look through the glass at the newsroom.

“You’ll discover that you’re going to have a number of adversaries out there—daily editors and veterans among the editors who have created their own little empires. They have their own club that you can’t join. They’ll try to stretch the boundaries, to push through their own headlines and angles. You’ll have to fight hard to hold your own.”

Berger nodded.

“Your night editors are Billinger and Karlsson . . . they’re a whole chapter unto themselves. They hate each other and, important, they don’t work the same shift, but they both act as if they’re publishers and editors in chief. Then there’s Anders Holm, the news editor—you’ll be working with him a lot. You’ll have your share of clashes with him. In point of fact, he’s the one who gets
SMP
out every day. Some of the reporters are prize prima donnas, and some of them should really be put out to pasture.”