The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium 3)

"I'm her friend. Although, as you know, that's not necessarily the same thing as saying that she's my friend."

"I understand that. But what I'm asking is whether or not you're willing to put yourself in her corner and get into a pitched battle with her enemies."

"I'm on her side," he said.

"Can I share information with you and discuss things with you without the risk of your leaking it to the police or to anyone else?"

"I can't get involved in criminal activity," Armansky said.

"That's not what I asked."

"You can absolutely rely on me as long as you don't reveal that you're engaged in any sort of criminal activity."

"Good enough. We need to meet."

"I'm coming into the city this evening. Dinner?"

"I don't have time today, but I'd be grateful if we could meet tomorrow night. You and I and perhaps a few other people might need to sit down for a chat."

"You're welcome at Milton. Shall we say 6:00?"

"One more thing . . . I'm seeing my sister, the lawyer Annika Giannini, later this morning. She's considering taking on Salander as a client, but she can't work for nothing. I can pay part of her fee out of my own pocket. Would Milton Security be willing to contribute?"

"That girl is going to need a damned good criminal lawyer. Your sister might not be the best choice, if you'll forgive me for saying so. I've already talked to Milton's chief lawyer and he's looking into it. I was thinking of Peter Althin or someone like that."

"That would be a mistake. Salander needs a totally different kind of legal support. You'll see what I mean when we talk. But would you be willing, in principle, to help?"

"I'd already decided that Milton ought to hire a lawyer for her--"

"Is that a yes or a no? I know what happened to her. I know roughly what's behind it all. And I have a strategy."

Armansky laughed.

"OK. I'll listen to what you have to say. If I like it, I'm in."

Blomkvist kissed his sister on the cheek and immediately asked: "Are you going to be representing Lisbeth Salander?"

"I'm going to have to say no. You know I'm not a criminal lawyer. Even if she's acquitted of murder, there's going to be a long list of other charges. She's going to need someone with a completely different sort of clout and experience than I have."

"You're wrong. You're a lawyer and you're a recognized authority in women's rights. In my considered view you're precisely the lawyer she needs."

"Mikael . . . I don't think you really appreciate what this involves. It's a complex criminal case, not a straightforward case of sexual harassment or violence against a woman. If I take on her defence, it could turn out to be a disaster."

Blomkvist smiled. "You're missing the point. If she had been charged with the murders of Dag and Mia, for example, I would have gone for the Silbersky type, or another of the heavy-duty criminal lawyers. But this trial is going to be about entirely different things."

"I think you'd better explain."

They talked for almost two hours over sandwiches and coffee. By the time Mikael had finished his account, Annika had been persuaded. Mikael picked up his mobile and made another call to Inspector Erlander in Goteborg.

"Hello; it's Blomkvist again."

"I don't have any news on Salander," Erlander said, plainly irritated.

"Which I assume is good news. But I actually have some news."

"What's that?"

"Well, she now has a lawyer named Annika Giannini. She's with me right now, so I'll put her on."

Blomkvist handed the phone across the table.

"My name is Annika Giannini and I've signed on to represent Lisbeth Salander. I need to get in touch with my client so that she can approve me as her defence lawyer. And I need the phone number of the prosecutor."

"As far as I know," Erlander said, "a public defence lawyer has already been appointed."

"That's nice to hear. Did anyone ask Lisbeth Salander her opinion?"

"Quite frankly, we haven't had the opportunity to speak with her yet. We hope to be able to do so tomorrow, if she's well enough."

"Fine. Then I'll tell you here and now that until Froken Salander says otherwise, you may regard me as her legal representative. You may not question her unless I am present. You can say hello to her and ask her whether she accepts me as her lawyer or not. But that is all. Is that understood?"

"Yes," Erlander said with an audible sigh. He was not entirely sure what the letter of the law was on this point. "Our number one objective is to discover if she has any information as to where Ronald Niedermann might be. Is it OK to ask her about that . . . even if you're not present?"

"That's fine; you may ask her questions relating to the police hunt for Niedermann. But you may not ask her any questions relating to any possible charges against her. Agreed?"

"I think so, yes."

Inspector Erlander got up from his desk and went upstairs to tell the preliminary investigation leader, Agneta Jervas, about his conversation with Giannini.

"She was obviously hired by Blomkvist. I can't believe Salander knows anything about it."

"Giannini works in women's rights. I heard her lecture once. She's sharp, but completely unsuitable for this case."

"It's up to Salander to decide."

"I might have to contest the decision in court. For the girl's own sake she has to have a proper defence, and not some celebrity chasing headlines. Hmm. Salander has also been declared legally incompetent. I don't know whether that affects things."

"What should we do?"

Jervas thought for a moment. "This is a complete mess. I don't know who's going to be in charge of this case, or if it'll be transferred to Ekstrom in Stockholm. In any event, she has to have a lawyer. OK . . . ask her if she wants Giannini."

When Blomkvist got home at 5:00 in the afternoon he turned on his iBook and took up the thread of the text he had begun writing at the hotel in Goteborg. When he had worked for seven straight hours, he had identified the most glaring holes in the story. There was still much research to be done. One question he could not answer--based on the existing documentation--was who in Sapo, apart from Gunnar Bjorck, had conspired to lock Salander away in the asylum. Nor had he gotten to the heart of the relationship between Bjorck and the psychiatrist Peter Teleborian.

Finally he shut down the computer and went to bed. He felt as soon as he lay down that for the first time in weeks he could relax and sleep peacefully. The story was under control. No matter how many questions remained unanswered, he already had enough material to set off a landslide of headlines.

Late as it was, he picked up the phone to call Berger and update her. And then he remembered that she had left Millennium. Suddenly he found it difficult to sleep.

A man carrying a brown briefcase stepped carefully down from the 7:30 p.m. train at Stockholm Central Station. He stood for a moment in the sea of travellers, getting his bearings. He had started out from Laholm just after 8:00 in the morning. He stopped in Goteborg to have lunch with an old friend before resuming his journey to Stockholm. He had not been to Stockholm for two years. In fact, he had not planned to visit the capital ever again. Even though he had lived there for large parts of his working life, he always felt a little out of place in Stockholm, a feeling that had grown stronger with every visit he made since his retirement.

He walked slowly through the station, bought the evening papers and two bananas at Pressbyran, and paused to watch two Muslim women in veils hurry past him. He had nothing against women in veils. But he was bothered by the fact that they had to dress like that in the middle of Stockholm. In his opinion, Somalia was a much b

etter place for that sort of attire.

He walked the 300 yards to Freys Hotel, next to the old post office on Vasagatan. That was where he had stayed on previous visits. The hotel was centrally located and clean. And it was inexpensive, which was a factor since he was paying for the journey himself. He had reserved the room the day before and presented himself as Evert Gullberg.

When he got up to the room he went straight to the bathroom. He had reached the age when he had to use the toilet rather often. It had been several years since he had slept through a whole night.

When he had finished he took off his hat, a narrow-brimmed, dark-green English felt hat, and loosened his tie. He was six feet tall and weighed 150 pounds, which meant he was thin and wiry. He wore a houndstooth jacket and dark grey trousers. He opened the brown briefcase and unpacked two shirts, a second tie, and underwear, which he arranged in the chest of drawers. Then he hung his overcoat and jacket in the wardrobe behind the door.

It was too early to go to bed. It was too late to bother going for an evening walk, something he might not enjoy in any case. He sat down in the obligatory chair in the hotel room and looked around. He switched on the TV and muted the volume. He thought about calling reception and ordering coffee, but decided it was too late. Instead he opened the minibar, poured a miniature bottle of Johnnie Walker into a glass, and added very little water. He opened the evening papers and read everything that had been written that day about the search for Ronald Niedermann and the case of Lisbeth Salander. After a while he took out a leather-bound notebook and made some notes.

Gullberg, formerly senior administrative officer at the Security Police, was now seventy-eight years old and had been retired for thirteen years. But intelligence officers never really retire, they just slip into the shadows.

After the war, when Gullberg was nineteen years old, he had joined the navy. He did his military service first as an officer cadet and was then accepted for officer training. But instead of the usual assignment at sea that he had anticipated, he was sent to Karlskrona as a signal tracker in the navy's intelligence service. He had no difficulty with the work, which was mostly figuring out what was going on on the other side of the Baltic. But he found it dull and uninteresting. Through the service's language school, however, he did learn Russian and Polish. These linguistic skills were one of the reasons he was recruited by the Security Police in 1950, during the time when the impeccably mannered Georg Thulin was head of the third division of Sapo. When Gullberg started, the total budget of the secret police was 2.7 million kronor for a staff of ninety-six people. When he formally retired in 1992, the budget of the Security Police was in excess of 350 million kronor, and he had no idea how many employees the Firm had.