Friday, May 16–Saturday, May 31 16 page

From < erika.berger@m illennium .se>

To < m ikael.blom kvist@m illennium .se> :

I have no m anaging editor two weeks before we go to press, and m y investigative reporter is sitting out in Sandham n refusing to talk to m e. Micke, I’m on m y knees. Can y ou com e in? / Erika.

From < m ikael.blom kvist@m illennium .se>

To < erika.berger@m illennium .se> :

Hold out another couple of weeks, then we’ll be hom e free. And start planning for a Decem ber issue that’s going to be unlike any thing we’ve ever done. The piece will take up 40 pages. M.

From < erika.berger@m illennium .se>

To < m ikael.blom kvist@m illennium .se> :

40 PAGES!!! Are y ou out of y our m ind?

From < m ikael.blom kvist@m illennium .se>

To < erika.berger@m illennium .se> :

It’s going to be a special issue. I need three m ore weeks. Could y ou do the following: (1) register a publishing com pany under the Millennium nam e, (2) get an ISBN num ber, (3) ask Christer to put together a cool logo for our new publishing com pany, and (4) find a good printer that can produce a paperback quickly and cheaply. And by the way, we’re going to need capital to print our first book. Kisses / Mikael From < erika.berger@m illennium .se>

To < m ikael.blom kvist@m illennium .se> :

Special issue. Book publisher. Money. Yes, m aster. Any thing else I can do for y ou? Dance naked at Slussplan? / E.

P.S. I assum e y ou know what y ou’re doing. But what do I do about Dahlm an?

From < m ikael.blom kvist@m illennium .se>

To < erika.berger@m illennium .se> :

Don’t do any thing about Dahlm an. Tell him he’s free to go right away and y ou aren’t sure y ou can pay his wages any way. Monopoly isn’t going to survive for long. Bring in m ore freelance m aterial for this issue. And hire a new m anaging editor, for God’s sake. / M.

P.S. Slussplan? It’s a date.

From < erika.berger@m illennium .se>

To < m ikael.blom kvist@m illennium .se> :

Slussplan—in y our dream s. But we’ve alway s done the hiring together. / Ricky.

From < m ikael.blom kvist@m illennium .se>

To < erika.berger@m illennium .se> :

And we’ve alway s agreed about who we should hire. We will this tim e too, no m atter who y ou choose. We’re going to scupper Wennerström . That’s the whole story. Just let m e finish this in peace. / M.

In early October Salander read an article on the Internet edition of the Hedestad Courier. She told Blomkvist about it. Isabella Vanger had died after a short illness. She was mourned by her daughter, Harriet Vanger, lately returned from Australia.

Encry pted em ail from

< erika.berger@m illennium .se>

To < m ikael.blom kvist@m illennium .se> :

Hi Mikael.

Harriet Vanger cam e to see m e at the office today. She called five m inutes before she arrived, and I was totally unprepared. A beautiful wom an, elegant clothes and a cool gaze.

She cam e to tell m e that she’ll be replacing Martin Vanger as Henrik’s representative on our board. She was polite and friendly and assured m e that the Vanger Corporation had no plans to back out of the agreem ent. On the contrary, the fam ily stands fully behind Henrik’s obligations to the m agazine. She asked for a tour of the editorial offices, and she wanted to know how I see the situation.

I told her the truth. That it feels as if I don’t have solid ground under m y feet, that y ou have forbidden m e to com e to Sandham n, and that I don’t know what y ou’re working on, other than that y ou are planning to sink Wennerström . (I assum ed it was OK to say that. She is on the board, after all.) She raised an ey ebrow and sm iled and asked if I had doubts that y ou’d succeed. What was I supposed to say to that? I said that I would sleep a little easier if I knew exactly what y ou were writing. Jeez, of course I trust y ou. But y ou’re driving m e crazy.

I asked her if she knew what y ou were working on. She denied it but said that it was her im pression that y ou were extrem ely resourceful, with an innovative way of thinking. (Her words.) I said that I also gathered that som ething dram atic had happened up in Hedestad and that I was ever so slightly curious about the story regarding Harriet Vanger herself. In short, I felt like an idiot. She asked m e whether y ou really hadn’t told m e any thing. She said that she understood that y ou and I have a special relationship and that y ou would undoubtedly tell m e the story when y ou had tim e. Then she asked if she could trust m e. What was I supposed to say ? She’s on the Millennium board, and y ou’ve left m e here totally in the dark.

Then she said som ething odd. She asked m e not to j udge either her or y ou too harshly. She said she owed y ou som e sort of debt of gratitude, and she would really like it if she and I could also be friends. Then she prom ised to tell m e the story som eday if y ou couldn’t do it. Half an hour ago she left, and I’m still in a daze. I think I like her, but who is this person? / Erika P.S. I m iss y ou. I have a feeling that som ething nasty happened in Hedestad. Christer say s that y ou have a strange m ark on y our neck.

From < m ikael.blom kvist@m illennium .se>

To < erika.berger@m illennium .se> :

Hi Ricky. The story about Harriet is so m iserably awful that y ou can’t even im agine it. It would be great if she could tell y ou about it herself. I can hardly bring m y self to think about it.

By the way, y ou can trust her. She was telling the truth when she said that she owes a debt of gratitude to m e—and believe m e, she will never do any thing to harm Millennium. Be her friend if y ou like her. She deserves respect. And she’s a hell of a businesswom an. / M.

The next day Mikael received another email.

From

< harriet.vanger@vangerindustries.com >

To < m ikael.blom kvist@m illennium .se> :

Hi Mikael. I’ve been try ing to find tim e to write to y ou for several weeks now, but it seem s there are never enough hours in the day. You left so suddenly from Hedeby that I never had a chance to say goodby e.

Since m y return to Sweden, m y day s have been filled with bewildering im pressions and hard work. The Vanger Corporation is in chaos, and along with Henrik I’ve been working hard to put its affairs in order. Yesterday I visited the Millennium offices; I’ll be Henrik’s representative on the board. Henrik has filled m e in on all the details of the m agazine’s situation and y ours.

I hope that y ou will accept having m e show up like this. If y ou don’t want m e (or any one else from the fam ily ) on the board, I’ll understand, but I do assure y ou that I’ll do all I can to support Millennium. I am in great debt to y ou, and I will alway s have the best of intentions in this regard.

I m et y our colleague Erika Berger. I’m not sure what she thought of m e, and I was surprised to hear that y ou hadn’t told her about what happened.

I would very m uch like to be y our friend. If y ou can stand to have any thing m ore to do with the Vanger fam ily. Best regards, Harriet P.S. I understood from Erika that y ou’re planning to tackle Wennerström again. Dirch Frode told m e how Henrik pulled a swifty on y ou, as they say in Australia. What can I say ? I’m sorry. If there’s any thing I can do, let m e know.

From < m ikael.blom kvist@m illennium .se>

To < harriet.vanger@vangerindustries.com >: Hi Harriet. I left Hedeby in a big hurry and am now working on what I really should have been spending m y tim e on this y ear. You’ll be advised in plenty of tim e before the article goes to press, but I think I can say that the problem s of the past y ear will soon be over.

I hope y ou and Erika will be friends, and, of course, I have no problem with y ou being on Millennium’s board. I’ll tell Erika about what happened, if y ou think that’s wise. Henrik wanted m e never to say any thing to any one. Let’s see, but right now I don’t have the tim e or the energy and I need a little distance first.

Let’s keep in touch. Best / Mikael

Salander was not especially interested in what Mikael was writing. She looked up from her book when

Blomkvist said something, but at first she could not make it out.

“Sorry. I was talking aloud. I said that this is horrible.”

“What’s horrible?”

“Wennerström had an affair with a twenty-two-year-old waitress and he got her pregnant. Have you read his correspondence with his lawyer?”

“My dear Mikael—you have ten years of correspondence, emails, agreements, travel arrangements, and

God knows what on that hard drive. I don’t find Wennerström so fascinating that I’d cram six gigs of garbage into my head. I read through a fraction of it, mostly to satisfy my curiosity, and that was enough to tell me that he’s a gangster.”

“OK. He got her pregnant in 1997. When she wanted compensation, his lawyer got someone to try to

convince her to have an abortion. I assume the intention was to offer her a sum of money, but she wasn’t

interested. Then the persuading ended up with the heavy holding her underwater in a bath until she agreed

to leave Wennerström in peace. And Wennerström’s idiot writes all this to the lawyer in an email—of course encrypted, but even so . . . It doesn’t say much for the IQ of this bunch.”

“What happened to the girl?”

“She had an abortion, and Wennerström was pleased.”

Salander said nothing for ten minutes. Her eyes had suddenly turned dark.

“One more man who hates women,” she muttered at last.

She borrowed the CDs and spent the next few days reading through Wennerström’s emails and other documents. While Blomkvist kept working, Salander was up in the sleeping loft with her PowerBook on

her knees, pondering Wennerström’s peculiar empire.

An idea had occurred to her and she could not let it go. Most of all she wondered why it had not occurred to her sooner.

In late October Mikael turned off his computer when it was only 11:00 in the morning. He climbed up to

the sleeping loft and handed Salander what he had written. Then he fell asleep. She woke him that evening

and gave him her opinion of the article.

Just after 2:00 in the morning, Blomkvist made the last backup of his work.

The next day he closed the shutters on the windows and locked up. Salander’s holiday was over. They

went back to Stockholm together.

He brought up the subject as they were drinking coffee from paper cups on the Vaxholm ferry.

“What the two of us need to decide is what to tell Erika. She’s going to refuse to publish this if I can’t explain how I got hold of the material.”

Erika Berger. Blomkvist’s editor in chief and long-time lover. Salander had never met her and was not

sure that she wanted to either. Berger seemed like some indefinable disturbance in her life.

“What does she know about me?”

“Nothing.” He sighed. “The fact is that I’ve been avoiding her ever since the summer. She’s very frustrated about the fact that I couldn’t tell her what happened in Hedestad. She knows, of course, that I’ve been staying out at Sandhamn and writing this story, but she doesn’t know what it’s about.”

“Hmm.”

“In a couple of hours she’ll have the manuscript. Then she’s going to give me the third degree. The question is, what should I tell her?”

“What do you want to tell her?”

“I’d like to tell her the truth.”

Salander frowned.

“Lisbeth, Erika and I argue almost all the time. It seems to be part of how we communicate. But she’s

absolutely trustworthy. You’re a source. She would rather die than reveal who you are.”

“How many others would you have to tell?”

“Absolutely no-one. It will go to the grave with me and Erika. But I won’t tell her your secret if you

don’t want me to. On the other hand, it’s not an option for me to lie to Erika, make up some source that

doesn’t exist.”

Salander thought about it until they docked by the Grand Hotel. Analysis of consequences. Reluctantly

she finally gave Blomkvist permission to introduce her to Erika. He switched on his mobile and made the

call.

Berger was lunching with Malin Eriksson, whom she was considering hiring as managing editor. Eriksson

was twenty-nine years old and had been working as a temp for five years. She had never held a permanent

job and had started to doubt that she ever would. Berger called her on the very day that Malin’s latest temp job ended to ask if she would like to apply for the Millennium position.

“It’s a temporary post for three months,” Berger said. “But if things work out, it could be permanent.”

“I’ve heard rumours that Millennium is having a difficult time.”

Berger smiled.

“You shouldn’t believe rumours.”

“This Dahlman that I would be replacing . . .” Eriksson hesitated. “He’s going to work at a magazine

owned by Hans-Erik Wennerström . . .”

Berger nodded. “It’s hardly a trade secret that we’re in conflict with Wennerström. He doesn’t like people who work for Millennium.”

“So if I take the job at Millennium, I would end up in that category too.”

“It’s very likely, yes.”

“But Dahlman got a job with Monopoly Financial Magazine, didn’t he?”

“You might say that it’s Wennerström’s way of paying for services rendered. Are you still interested?”

Eriksson nodded.

“When do you want me to start?”

That’s when Blomkvist called.

She used her own key to open the door to his apartment. It was the first time since his brief visit to the office at Midsummer that she was meeting him face to face. She went into the living room and found an

anorexically thin girl sitting on the sofa, wearing a worn leather jacket and with her feet propped up on

the coffee table. At first she thought the girl was about fifteen, but that was before she looked into her eyes. She was still looking at this creature when Blomkvist came in with a coffeepot and coffee cake.

“Forgive me for being completely impossible,” he said.

Berger tilted her head. There was something different about him. He looked haggard, thinner than she

remembered. His eyes had a shamed expression, and for a moment he avoided her gaze. She glanced at

his neck. She saw a pale red line, clearly distinguishable.

“I’ve been avoiding you. It’s a very long story, and I’m not proud of my role in it. But we’ll talk about

that later . . . Now I want to introduce you to this young woman. Erika, this is Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth, Erika Berger, editor in chief of Millennium and my best friend.”

Salander studied Berger’s elegant clothes and self-confident manner and decided after ten seconds that

she was most likely not going to be her best friend.

Their meeting lasted five hours. Berger twice made calls to cancel other meetings. She spent an hour reading parts of the manuscript that Blomkvist put in her hands. She had a thousand questions but realised that it would take weeks before she got them answered. The important thing was the manuscript, which

she finally put down. If even a fraction of these claims were accurate, a whole new situation had emerged.

Berger looked at Blomkvist. She had never doubted that he was an honest person, but now she felt dizzy and wondered whether the Wennerström affair had broken him—that what he had been working on

was all a figment of his imagination. Blomkvist was at that moment unpacking two boxes of printed-out

source material. Berger blanched. She wanted, of course, to know how it had come into his possession.

It took a while to convince her that this odd girl, who had said not one word during the meeting, had

unlimited access to Wennerström’s computer. And not just his—she had also hacked into the computers of

several of his lawyers and close associates.

Berger’s immediate reaction was that they could not use the material since it had been obtained through

illegal means.

But, of course, they could use it. Blomkvist pointed out that they had no obligation to explain how they

had acquired the material. They could just as well have a source with access to Wennerström’s computer

who had burned everything on his hard drive to a CD.

Finally Berger realised what a weapon she had in her hands. She felt exhausted and still had questions,

but she did not know where to begin. At last she leaned back against the sofa and threw out her hands.

“Mikael, what happened up in Hedestad?”

Salander looked up sharply. Blomkvist answered with a question.

“How are you getting along with Harriet Vanger?”

“Fine. I think. I’ve met her twice. Christer and I drove up to Hedestad for a board meeting last week.

We got drunk on wine.”

“And the board meeting?”

“She kept her word.”

“Ricky, I know you’re frustrated that I’ve been ducking you and coming up with excuses not to tell you

what happened. You and I have never had secrets from each other, and all of a sudden there’s six months

of my life that I’m . . . not prepared to tell you about.”

Berger met Blomkvist’s gaze. She knew him inside and out, but what she saw in his eyes was something

she had never seen before. He was begging her not to ask. Salander watched their wordless dialogue. She

was no part of it.

“Was it that bad?”

“It was worse. I’ve been dreading this conversation. I promise to tell you, but I’ve spent several months suppressing my feelings while Wennerström has absorbed all my attention . . . I’m still not ready.

I’d prefer it if Harriet told you instead.”

“What’s that mark around your neck?”

“Lisbeth saved my life up there. If it weren’t for her, I’d be dead.”

Berger’s eyes widened. She stared at the girl in the leather jacket.

“And right now you need to come to an agreement with her. She is our source.”

Berger sat for a time, thinking. Then she did something that astonished Blomkvist and startled Salander;

she surprised even herself. The whole time she had been sitting at Mikael’s living-room table, she had felt Salander’s eyes on her. A taciturn girl with hostile vibrations.

Berger stood up and went around the table and threw her arms around the girl. Salander squirmed like a

worm about to be put on a hook.

CHAPTER 29

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 770