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

Blomkvist smiled at her. "Ouch," he said. "The Security Police are pulling on my leash." He stubbed out his cigarette.

"Mikael, this is not a joke."

Berger drove to the office on Saturday morning still feeling queasy. She had thought she was beginning to come to grips with the actual process of producing a newspaper and had planned to reward herself with a weekend off--the first since she started at SMP--but the discovery that her most personal and intimate possessions had been stolen, and the Borgsjo report too, made it impossible for her to relax.

During a sleepless night spent mostly in the kitchen with Linder, Berger had expected the "Poison Pen" to strike, disseminating pictures of her that would be deplorably damaging. What an excellent tool the Internet was for freaks. Good grief . . . a video of me fucking my husband and another man--I'm going to end up on half the websites in the world.

Panic and terror had dogged her through the night.

It took all of Linder's powers of persuasion to send her to bed.

At 8:00 she got up and drove to SMP. She could not stay away. If a storm was brewing, then she wanted to face it first, before anyone else got wind of it.

But in the half-staffed Saturday newsroom everything was normal. People greeted her as she limped past the central desk. Holm was off today. Fredriksson was the acting news editor.

"Morning. I thought you were taking today off," he said.

"Me too. But I wasn't feeling well yesterday and there are things I have to do. Anything happening?"

"No, it's pretty slow today. The hottest thing we've got is that the timber industry in Dalarna is reporting a boom, and there was a robbery in Norrkoping in which one person was injured."

"Right. I'll be in the cage for a while."

She sat down, leaned her crutches against the bookshelves, and logged on. First she checked her email. She had several messages, but nothing from Poison Pen. She frowned. It had been two days now since the break-in, and he had not yet acted on what had to be a treasure trove of opportunities. Why not? Maybe he's going to change tactics. Blackmail? Maybe he just wants to keep me guessing.

She had nothing specific to work on, so she clicked on the strategy document she was writing for SMP. She stared at the screen for fifteen minutes without seeing the words.

She tried to call Greger, but with no success. She did not even know if his mobile worked in other countries. Of course she could have tracked him down with a bit of effort, but she felt lazy to the core. Wrong--she felt helpless and paralysed.

She tried to call Blomkvist to tell him that the Borgsjo folder had been stolen, but he did not answer.

By 10:00 she had accomplished nothing and decided to go home. She was just reaching out to shut down her computer when her ICQ account pinged. She looked in astonishment at the icon bar. She knew what ICQ was but she seldom chatted, and she had not used the programme since starting at SMP.

She clicked hesitantly on Answer.

A trick? Poison Pen?

Berger stared at the screen. It took her a few seconds to make the connection. Lisbeth Salander. Impossible.

Berger swallowed. Only four people in the world knew how he had come by that scar. Salander was one of them.

Salander is a devil with computers. But how the hell is she managing to communicate from Sahlgrenska, where she's been isolated since April?

She doesn't want the police to know she has access to the Net. Of course not. Which is why she's chatting with the editor in chief of one of the biggest newspapers in Sweden.

Berger's heart beat furiously.

Berger could not believe she was asking this question. It was absurd. Salander was in rehabilitation at Sahlgrenska and was up to her neck in her own problems. She was the most unlikely person Berger could turn to with any hope of getting help.

Berger thought for a while before she replied.

Berger stared at the screen as she tried to work out what Salander was getting at.

Why am I not surprised?

Berger hesitated for ten seconds. Open up SMP to . . . what? A complete loony? Salander might be innocent of murder, but she was definitely not normal.

But what did she have to lose?