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

She went through three months' worth of messages one by one. Then she skipped month to month and read the subject lines, opening the message only if it was something that caught her attention. She learned that Billinger was going out with a woman named Sofia and that he used an unpleasant tone with her. She saw that this was nothing unusual, since Billinger took an unpleasant tone with most of the people to whom he wrote messages--reporters, layout artists, and others. Even so, she thought it odd that a man would consistently address his girlfriend with the words fucking fatty, fucking airhead, or fucking cunt.

After an hour of searching, she shut down Billinger and crossed him off the list. She moved on to Lars Orjan Wollberg, a veteran reporter of fifty-one who was on the legal desk.

Edklinth walked into police headquarters at 7:30 on Saturday evening. Figuerola and Blomkvist were waiting for him. They were sitting at the same conference table at which Blomkvist had sat the day before.

Edklinth reminded himself that he was on very thin ice and that a host of regulations had been violated when he gave Blomkvist access to the hallway. Figuerola most definitely had no right to invite him here on her own authority. Even the spouses of his colleagues were not permitted in the halls of SIS, but were asked instead to wait on the landings if they were meeting their partner. And to cap it all, Blomkvist was a journalist. From now on Blomkvist would be allowed only into the temporary office at Fridhemsplan.

But outsiders were allowed into the hallways by special invitation. Foreign guests, researchers, academics, freelance consultants . . . he put Blomkvist into the category of freelance consultant. All this nonsense about security classification was little more than words anyway. Someone decides that a certain person should be given a particular level of clearance. And Edklinth had decided that if criticism were raised, he would say that he personally had given Blomkvist clearance.

If something went wrong, that is. He sat down and looked at Figuerola.

"How did you find out about the meeting?"

"Blomkvist called me at around 3:00," she said with a satisfied smile.

Edklinth turned to Blomkvist. "And how did you find out about the meeting?"

"Tipped off by a source."

"Am I to conclude that you're running some sort of surveillance on Teleborian?"

Figuerola shook her head. "That was my first thought too," she said in a cheerful voice, as if Blomkvist were not in the room. "But it doesn't add up. Even if somebody were following Teleborian for Blomkvist, that person could not have known in advance that he was on his way to meet Jonas Sandberg."

"So, what else? Illegal tapping or something?" Edklinth said.

"I can assure you," Blomkvist said to remind them that he was there in the room, "that I'm not conducting illegal eavesdropping on anyone. Be realistic. Illegal tapping is the domain of government authorities."

Edklinth frowned. "So you aren't going to tell us how you heard about the meeting?"

"I've already told you that I won't. I was tipped off by a source. The source is protected. Why don't we concentrate on what we've discovered?"

"I don't like loose ends," Edklinth said. "But OK. What have you found out?"

"His name is Jonas Sandberg," Figuerola said. "Trained as a navy frogman and then attended the police academy in the early nineties. Worked first in Uppsala and then in Sodertalje."

"You're from Uppsala."

"Yes, but we missed each other by about a year. He was recruited by SIS Counter-Espionage in 1998. Reassigned to a secret post abroad in 2000. According to our documents, he's at the embassy in Madrid. I checked with the embassy. They have no record of a Jonas Sandberg on their staff."

"Just like Martensson. Officially moved to a place where he doesn't exist."

"The chief of Secretariat is the only person who could make this sort of arrangement."

"And in normal circumstances everything would be dismissed as muddled red tape. We've noticed it only because we're specifically looking for it. And if anyone starts asking awkward questions, they'll say it's confidential or that it has something to do with terrorism."

"There's quite a bit of budget work to check up on."

"The chief of Budget?"

"Maybe."

"Anything else?"

"Sandberg lives in Sollentuna. He's not married, but he has a child with a teacher in Sodertalje. No black marks on his record. Licence for two handguns. Conscientious and a teetotaller. The only thing that doesn't quite fit is that he seems to be an evangelical and was a member of the Word of Life in the nineties."

"Where did you find that out?"

"I had a word with my old chief in Uppsala. He remembers Sandberg quite well."

"A Christian frogman with two weapons and offspring in Sodertalje. More?"

"We only ID'd him about three hours ago. This is pretty fast work, you have to admit."

"Fair enough. What do we know about the building on Artillerigatan?"

"Not a lot yet. Stefan went to chase someone up from the city building office. We have blueprints of the building. Six floors with a total of twenty-two apartments, plus eight apartments in a small building in the courtyard. I looked up the tenants but didn't find anything that stood out. Two of the people living in the building have police records."

"Who are they?"

"Lindstrom on the second floor, sixty-three. Convicted of insurance fraud in the seventies. Wittfelt on the fourth floor, forty-seven. Twice convicted for beating his ex-wife. Otherwise what sounds like a cross-section of middle-class Sweden. There's one apartment that raises a question mark though."

"What?"

"It's on the top floor. Eleven rooms and apparently a bit of a snazzy joint. It's owned by a company called Bellona Inc."

"And what's their stated business?"

"God only knows. They do marketing analyses and have annual sales of around thirty million kronor. All the owners live abroad."

"Aha."

"Aha what?"

"Nothing. Just 'aha.' Do some more checks on Bellona."

At that moment the officer Blomkvist knew only as Stefan entered the room.

"Hi, Chief," he greeted Edklinth. "This is really cool. I checked out the story behind the Bellona apartment."

"And?" Figuerola said.

"Bellona Inc. was founded in the seventies. They bought the apartment from the estate of the former owner, a woman by the name of Kristina Cederholm, born in 1917, married to Hans Wilhelm Francke, the loose cannon who quarrelled with P. G. Vinge at the time SIS was founded."

"Good," Edklinth said. "Very good. Monica, we want surveillance on that apartment around the clock. Find out what phones they have. I want to know who goes in and who comes out, and what vehicles drop anyone off at that address. The usual."

Edklinth turned to Blomkvist. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but he restrained himself. Blomkvist looked at him expectantly.

"Are you satisfied with the information flow?" Edklinth said at last.

"Very satisfied. Are you satisfied with Millennium's contribution?"

Edklinth nodded reluctantly. "You do know that I could get into very deep water for this."

"Not because of me. I regard the information that I receive here as source-protected. I'll report the facts, but I won't mention how or where I got them. Before I go to press I'm going to do a formal interview with you. If you don't want to give me an answer to something, you just say 'No comment.' Or else you could expound on what you think about the Section for Special Analysis. It's up to you."

"Indeed." Edklinth nodded.

Blomkvist was happy. Within a few hours the Section had taken on tangible form. A real breakthrough.

To Modig's great frustration, the meeting in Ekstrom's office was lasting a long time. Mercifully someone had left a full bottle of mineral water on the conference table. She had twice texted her husband to tell him that she was still held up, promising to make it up to him as soon as she could get home. She was starting to get rest

less and felt like an intruder.

The meeting did not end until 7:30. She was taken completely by surprise when the door opened and Faste came out. And then Dr. Teleborian. Behind them came an older, grey-haired man Modig had never seen before. Finally Prosecutor Ekstrom, putting on a jacket as he switched off the lights and locked the door to his office.

Modig held up her mobile to the gap in the curtains and took two lowres photographs of the group outside Ekstrom's door. Seconds later they had set off down the hall.

She held her breath until they were some distance from the conference room in which she was trapped. She was in a cold sweat by the time she heard the door to the stairwell close. She stood up, weak at the knees.

Bublanski called Figuerola just after 8:00.

"You wanted to know if Ekstrom had a meeting."

"Correct," Figuerola said.

"It just ended. Ekstrom met with Dr. Peter Teleborian, my former colleague Criminal Inspector Faste, and an older gentleman we didn't recognize."

"Just a moment," Figuerola said. She put her hand over the mouthpiece and turned to the others. "Teleborian went straight to Ekstrom."

"Hello, are you still there?"

"Sorry. Do we have a description of the third man?"

"Even better. I'm sending you a picture."

"A picture? I'm in your debt."