The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest m(-3 Page 13

  “We cut off the defence leadership some ten years ago. And governments come and go.”

  “So if the balloon goes up, we’re on our own?”

  Wadensjöö nodded. “That’s the drawback with this arrangement. The advantages are obvious. But our assignments have also changed. There’s a new realpolitik in Europe since the Soviet Union collapsed. Our work is less and less about identifying spies. It’s about terrorism, and about evaluating the political suitability of individuals in sensitive positions.”

  “That’s what it was always about.”

  There was a knock at the door. Gullberg looked up to see a smartly dressed man of about sixty and a younger man in jeans and a tweed jacket.

  “Come in… Evert Gullberg, this is Jonas Sandberg. He’s been working here for four years and is in charge of operations. He’s the one I told you about. And Georg Nyström you know.”

  “Hello, Georg,” Gullberg said.

  They all shook hands. Then Gullberg turned to Sandberg.

  “So where do you come from?”

  “Most recently from Göteborg,” Sandberg said lightly. “I went to see him.”

  “Zalachenko?”

  Sandberg nodded.

  “Have a seat, gentlemen,” Wadensjöö said.

  “Björck,” Gullberg said, frowning when Wadensjöö lit a cigarillo. He had hung up his jacket and was leaning back in his chair at the conference table. Wadensjöö glanced at Gullberg and was struck by how thin the old man had become.

  “He was arrested for violation of the prostitution laws last Friday,” Nyström said. “The matter has gone to court, but in effect he confessed and slunk home with his tail between his legs. He lives out in Smådalarö, but he’s on disability leave. The press haven’t picked up on it yet.”

  “He was once one of the very best we had here in the Section,” Gullberg said. “He played a key role in the Zalachenko affair. What’s happened to him since I retired?”

  “Björck is probably one of the very few internal colleagues who left the Section and went back to external operations. He was out flitting around even in your day.”

  “Well, I do recall that he needed a little rest and wanted to expand his horizons. He was on leave of absence from the Section for two years in the ’80s when he worked as intelligence attaché. He had worked like a fiend with Zalachenko, practically around the clock from 1976 on, and I thought that he needed a break. He was gone from 1985 to 1987, when he came back here.”

  “You could say that he quit the Section in 1994 when he went over to the external organization. In 1996 he became assistant chief of the Immigration Division and ended up in a stressful position. His official duties took up a great deal of his time. Naturally he has stayed in contact with the Section throughout, and I can also say that we had conversations with him about once a month until recently.”

  “So he’s ill?”

  “It’s nothing serious, but very painful. He has a slipped disc. He’s had recurring trouble with it over the past few years. Two years ago he was on sick leave for four months. And then he was taken ill again in August last year. He was supposed to start work again at new year, but his sick leave was extended and now it’s a question of waiting for an operation.”

  “And he spent his sick leave running around with prostitutes?” Gullberg said.

  “Yes. He’s not married, and his dealings with whores appear to have been going on for many years, if I’ve understood correctly,” said Sandberg, who had been silent for almost half an hour. “I’ve read Dag Svensson’s manuscript.”

  “I see. But can anyone explain to me what actually happened?”

  “As far as we can tell, it was Björck who set this whole mess rolling. How else can we explain the report from 1991 ending up in the hands of Advokat Bjurman?”

  “Another man who spends his time with prostitutes?” Gullberg said.

  “Not as far as we know, and he wasn’t mentioned in Svensson’s material. He was, however, Lisbeth Salander’s guardian.”

  Wadensjöö sighed. “You could say it was my fault. You and Björck arrested Salander in 1991, when she was sent to the psychiatric hospital. We expected her to be away for much longer, but she became acquainted with a lawyer, Advokat Palmgren, who managed to spring her loose. She was then placed with a foster family. By that time you had retired.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “We kept an eye on her. In the meantime her twin sister, Camilla, was placed in a foster home in Uppsala. When they were seventeen, Lisbeth started digging into her past. She was looking for Zalachenko, and she went through every public register she could find. Somehow – we’re not sure how it happened – she found out that her sister knew where Zalachenko was.”

  “Was it true?”

  Wadensjöö shrugged. “I have no idea. The sisters had not seen each other for several years when Lisbeth Salander ran Camilla to ground and tried to persuade her to tell her what she knew. It ended in a violent argument and a spectacular fight between the sisters.”

  “Then what?”

  “We kept close track of Lisbeth during those months. We had also informed Camilla that her sister was violent and mentally ill. She was the one who got in touch with us after Lisbeth’s unexpected visit, and thereafter we increased our surveillance of her.”

  “So the sister was your informant?”

  “Camilla was mortally afraid of her sister. Lisbeth had aroused attention in other quarters as well. She had several run-ins with people from the social welfare agency, and in our estimation she still represented a threat to Zalachenko’s anonymity. Then there was the incident in the tunnelbana.”

  “She attacked a paedophile –”

  “Precisely. She was obviously prone to violence and mentally disturbed. We thought that it would be best for all concerned if she disappeared into some institution again and availed herself of the opportunities there, so to speak. Clinton and von Rottinger were the ones who took the lead. They engaged the psychiatrist Teleborian again and through a representative filed a request in the district court to get her institutionalized for a second time. Palmgren stood up for Salander, and against all odds the court decided to follow his recommendation – so long as she was placed under guardianship.”

  “But how did Bjurman get involved?”

  “Palmgren had a stroke in the autumn of 2002. We still flag Salander for monitoring whenever she turns up in any database, and I saw to it that Bjurman became her new guardian. Bear in mind that he had no clue she was Zalachenko’s daughter. The brief was simply for Bjurman to sound the alarm if she started blabbing about Zalachenko.”

  “Bjurman was an idiot. He should never have been allowed to have anything to do with Zalachenko, even less with his daughter.” Gullberg looked at Wadensjöö. “That was a serious mistake.”

  “I know,” Wadensjöö said. “But he seemed the right choice at the time. I never would have dreamed that –”

  “Where’s the sister today? Camilla Salander.”

  “We don’t know. When she was nineteen she packed her bag and ran away from her foster family. We haven’t found hide nor hair of her since.”

  “O.K., go on…”

  “I have a man in the regular police who has spoken with Prosecutor Ekström,” Sandberg said. “The officer running the investigation, Inspector Bublanski, thinks that Bjurman raped Salander.”

  Gullberg looked at Sandberg with blank astonishment.

  “Raped?” he said.

  “Bjurman had a tattoo across his belly which read I am a sadistic pig, a pervert, and a rapist.”

  Sandberg put a colour photograph from the autopsy on the table. Gullberg stared at it with distaste.

  “Zalachenko’s daughter is supposed to have given him that?”

  “It’s hard to find another explanation. And she’s not known for being a shrinking violet. She spectacularly kicked the shit out of two complete thugs from Svavelsjö M.C.”

  “Zalachenko’s daughter,”
Gullberg repeated. He turned to Wadensjöö. “You know what? I think you ought to recruit her for the Section.”

  Wadensjöö looked so startled that Gullberg quickly explained that he was joking.

  “O.K. Let’s take it as a working hypothesis that Bjurman raped her and that she somehow took her revenge. What else?”

  “The only one who could tell us exactly what happened, of course, is Bjurman, and he’s dead. But the thing is, he shouldn’t have had a clue that she was Zalachenko’s daughter; it’s not in any public records. But somehow, somewhere along the way, Bjurman discovered the connection.”

  “But, Goddamnit Wadensjöö! She knew who her father was and could have told Bjurman at any time.”

  “I know. We… that is, I simply wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “That is unforgivably incompetent,” Gullberg said.

  “I’ve kicked myself a hundred times about it. But Bjurman was one of the very few people who knew of Zalachenko’s existence and my thought was that it would be better if he discovered that she was Zalachenko’s daughter rather than some other unknown guardian. She could have told anyone at all.”

  Gullberg pulled on his earlobe. “Alright… go on.”

  “It’s all hypothetical,” Nyström said. “But our supposition is that Bjurman assaulted Salander and that she struck back and did that…” He pointed at the tattoo in the autopsy photograph.

  “Her father’s daughter,” Gullberg said. There was more than a trace of admiration in his voice.

  “With the result that Bjurman made contact with Zalachenko, hoping to get rid of the daughter. As we know, Zalachenko had good reason to hate the girl. And he gave the contract to Svavelsjö M.C. and this Niedermann that he hangs out with.”

  “But how did Bjurman get in touch –” Gullberg fell silent. The answer was obvious.

  “Björck,” Wadensjöö said. “Björck gave him the contact.”

  “Damn,” Gullberg said.

  In the morning two nurses had come to change her bedlinen. They had found the pencil.

  “Oops. How did this get here?” one of them said, putting the pencil in her pocket. Salander looked at her with murder in her eyes.

  She was once more without a weapon, but she was too weak to protest.

  Her headache was unbearable and she was given strong painkillers. Her left shoulder stabbed like a knife if she moved carelessly or tried to shift her weight. She lay on her back with the brace around her neck. It was supposed to be left on for a few more days until the wound in her head began to heal. On Sunday she had a temperature of 102. Dr Endrin could tell that there was infection in her body. Salander did not need a thermometer to work that out.

  She realized that once again she was confined to an institutional bed, even though this time there was no strap holding her down. That would have been unnecessary. She could not sit up even, let alone leave the room.

  At lunchtime on Monday she had a visit from Dr Jonasson.

  “Hello. Do you remember me?”

  She shook her head.

  “I was the one who woke you after surgery. I operated on you. I just wanted to hear how you’re doing and if everything is going well.”

  Salander looked at him, her eyes wide. It should have been obvious that everything was not going well.

  “I heard you took off your neck brace last night.”

  She acknowledged as much with her eyes.

  “We put the neck brace on for a reason – you have to keep your head still for the healing process to get started.” He looked at the silent girl. “O.K.,” he said at last. “I just wanted to check on you.”

  He was at the door when he heard her voice.

  “It’s Jonasson, right?”

  He turned and smiled at her in surprise. “That’s right. If you remember my name then you must have been more alert than I thought.”

  “And you were the one who operated to remove the bullet?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Please tell me how I’m doing. I can’t get a sensible answer from anyone.”

  He went back to her bedside and looked her in the eye.

  “You were lucky. You were shot in the head, but the bullet did not, I believe, injure any vital areas. The risk you are running is that you could have bleeding in your brain. That’s why we want you to stay still. You have an infection in your body. The wound in your shoulder seems to be the cause. It’s possible that you’ll need another operation – on your shoulder – if we can’t arrest the infection with antibiotics. You are going to have some painful times ahead while your body heals. But as things look now, I’m optimistic that you’ll make a full recovery.”

  “Can this cause brain damage?”

  He hesitated before nodding. “Yes, there is that possibility. But all the signs indicate that you made it through fine. There’s also a possibility that you’ll develop scar tissue in your brain, and that might cause trouble… for instance, you might develop epilepsy or some other problem. But to be honest, it’s all speculation. Right now, things look good. You’re healing. And if problems crop up along the way, we’ll deal with them. Is that a clear enough answer?”

  She shut her eyes to say yes. “How long do I have to lie here like this?”

  “You mean in the hospital? It will be at the least a couple of weeks before we can let you go.”

  “No, I mean how long before I can get up and start walking and moving around?”

  “That depends on how the healing progresses. But count on two weeks before we can start you on some sort of physical therapy.”

  She gave him a long look. “You wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette, would you?” she said.

  Dr Jonasson burst out laughing and shook his head. “Sorry. There’s no smoking allowed in the hospital. But I can see to it that you get a nicotine patch or some gum.”

  She thought for a moment before she looked at him again. “How’s the old bastard doing?”

  “Who? You mean –”

  “The one who came in the same time as I did.”

  “No friend of yours, I presume. Well, he’s going to survive and he’s been up walking around on crutches. He’s actually in worse shape than you are, and he has a very painful facial wound. As I understood it, you slammed an axe into his head.”

  “He tried to kill me,” Salander said in a low voice.

  “That doesn’t sound good. I have to go. Do you want me to come back and look in on you again?”

  Salander thought for a moment, then she signalled yes. When he was gone she stared at the ceiling. Zalachenko has been given crutches. That was the sound I heard last night.

  Sandberg, the youngest person at the meeting, was sent out to get some food. He came back with sushi and light beer and passed the food around the conference table. Gullberg felt a thrill of nostalgia. This is just the way it was in his day, when some operation went into a critical phase and they had to work around the clock.

  The difference, he observed, was possibly that in his day there was nobody who would have come up with the wild idea of ordering raw fish. He wished Sandberg had ordered Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and lingonberries. On the other hand he was not really hungry, so he pushed the sushi aside. He ate a piece of bread and drank some mineral water.

  They continued the discussion over their meal. They had to decide what to do. The situation was urgent.

  “I never knew Zalachenko,” Wadensjöö said. “What was he like?”

  “Much as he is today, I assume,” Gullberg said. “Phenomenally intelligent, with a damn near photographic memory. But in my opinion he’s a pig. And not quite right in the head, I should think.”

  “Jonas, you talked to him yesterday. What’s your take on this?” Wadensjöö said.

  Sandberg put down his chopsticks.

  “He’s got us over a barrel. I’ve already told you about his ultimatum. Either we make the whole thing disappear, or he cracks the Section wide open.”

  “How the hell do we
make something disappear that’s been plastered all over the media?” Nyström said.

  “It’s not a question of what we can or can’t do. It’s a question of his need to control us,” Gullberg said.

  “Would he, in your opinion, talk to the press?” Wadensjöö said.

  Gullberg hesitated. “It’s almost impossible to answer that question. Zalachenko doesn’t make empty threats, and he’s going to do what’s best for him. In that respect he’s predictable. If it benefits him to talk to the media… if he thought he could get an amnesty or a reduced sentence, then he’d do it. Or if he felt betrayed and wanted to get even.”

  “Regardless of the consequences?”

  “Especially regardless of the consequences. For him the point is to be seen to be tougher than all of us.”

  “If Zalachenko were to talk, it’s not certain that anyone would believe him. And to prove anything they’d have to get hold of our archives.”

  “Do you want to take the chance? Let’s say Zalachenko talks. Who’s going to talk next? What do we do if Björck signs an affidavit confirming his story? And Clinton, sitting at his dialysis machine… what would happen if he turned religious and felt bitter about everything and everyone? What if he wanted to make a confession? Believe me, if anyone starts talking, it’s the end of the Section.”

  “So… what should we do?”

  Silence settled over the table. It was Gullberg who took up the thread.

  “There are several parts to this problem. First of all, we can agree on what the consequences would be if Zalachenko talked. The entire legal system would come crashing down on our heads. We would be demolished. My guess is that several employees of the Section would go to prison.”

  “Our activity is completely legal… we’re actually working under the auspices of the government.”

  “Spare me the bullshit,” Gullberg said. “You know as well as I do that a loosely formulated document that was written in the mid-’60s isn’t worth a damn today. I don’t think any one of us could even imagine what would happen if Zalachenko talked.”

  Silence descended once again.

  “So our starting point has to be to persuade Zalachenko to keep his mouth shut,” Nyström said at last.