Millennium 03 - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest Page 34

  “That sounds serious.”

  “Just to 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’ G.R.U. 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 on to 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 S.M.P. was a seriously big mistake.”

  “Nonsense. 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. S.M.P. feels like a dying body. And then you dropped that bombshell about Borgsjö.”

  “You’ve got 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 lay quiet for a moment.

  “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  “How much would it take for you to come to S.M.P. 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 him in one.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “I certainly do. I worked for him for three months as a temp in the mid-’80s. 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 on to 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 on to 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 were 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 B.M.W. the night before.

  The car was still there, but during the night some bastard had punctured all four tyres. Infernal bastard 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 Hornsgaten and hailed a taxi.

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

  his email. You’ll have to send the material to a hotmail address.>

  Plague went quiet for a few seconds.

  She explained what she needed to have done.

  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 50/50 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 38 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 almost 39. 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, but 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 physiotherapy 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 other side of the table. They were drinking coffee in the pavement 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 I.D. said, S.I.S. She had caught up with him just as he was leaving for home; she had suggested a conversation over a cup of coffee, just that.

  At first he had been almost hostile, but she had very straightforwardly conceded that she had no authority to interview him and that naturally 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 what not true in the so-called Zalachenko case, also in some quarters known as the Salander case. She vouchsafed that it was not absolutely certain whether she had the right to question him. It was entirely up to him to decide whether he would talk to her or not.

  “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 S.I.S. He recognized the need to move very carefully until he had enough information. He found himself, furthermore, on the horns of 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 the worst came to the 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 S.I.S., 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 up the conspiracy went he had no idea.

  He wrote three names on a pad:

  Göran Mårtensson, Personal Protection. Criminal Inspector.

  Gunnar Björck, assistant chief of Immigration Division. Deceased (Suicide?).

  Albert Shenke, chief of Secretariat, S.I.S.

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

  Some other names from outside S.I.S. had to be added to the list:

  Peter Teleborian, psychiatrist

  Lars Faulsson, locksmith

  Teleborian had been hired by S.I.S. as a psychiatric consultant on specific cases in the late ’80s and early ’90s – 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 S.I.S. 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 S.I.S. And yet through their assignments they were connected to … to what?

  The conspiracy was intimately linked to the late Alexander Zalachenko, the defected G.R.U. 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 S.I.S. in 1976 when Zalachenko defected. What would he have done? Absolute secrecy. It 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, S.I.S. it was.

  But Counter-Espionage had not ever had him. Björck was the key; he had been one of the people who handled Zalachenko. And yet Björck had never had anything to do with Counter-Espionage. Björck was a mystery. Officially he had held a post in the Immigration Division since the ’70s, but in reality he had scarcely been seen in the department before the ’90s, when suddenly he became assistant director.

  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 were going to expose him. Blomkvist must have blackmailed Björck.

  Then Salander came into the picture.

  The deceased lawyer Nils Bjurman had 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 provenance 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.

  Surely?

  Edklinth felt cold shivers of apprehension. This was all conceivable in practice. A defector of Zalachenko’s status would have to be handled with the utmost secrecy. He would have decided as much himself. That was what Fälldin’s administration must have decided too. It made sense.

  But what happened in 1991 did not make sense. Björck had hired Teleborian effectively to lock Salander up in a psychiatric hospital for children on the – false – pretext 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 was not 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 Advoka
t 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 hangs himself – a person with whom Edklinth wished he could have had a serious talk.

  Edklinth did not believe in coincidence on such a grand scale. Inspector Bublanski did not believe in such coincidence either. And Blomkvist did not believe it. Edklinth took up his felt pen once more:

  Evert Gullberg, seventy-eight years old. Tax specialist. ???

  Who the hell was Evert Gullberg?

  He considered calling up the chief of S.I.S., but he restrained himself for the simple reason that he did not know how far up in the organization the conspiracy reached. He did not know whom he could 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 option left that was constitutionally correct, and which might provide some protection if he ended up in political 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 telephone 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 has come across my desk that is so remarkable that I believe both you and the Prime Minister need to be informed.”