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

"Well, you can back me up when Armansky's wrath hits me like a bolt of lightning."

Berger gave her a concerned look.

"Will you get into trouble for this?"

"I don't know. I really don't know."

"Can we pay you for--"

"No. But Armansky may bill you for tonight. I hope he does, because that would mean he approves of what I did and probably won't decide to fire me."

"I'll make sure he sends us a bill."

Berger stood up and gave Linder a long hug.

"Thanks, Susanne. If you ever need a friend, you've got one in me. If there's anything I can do for you . . ."

"Thanks. Don't leave those pictures lying around. And while we're on the subject, Milton could install a much better safe for you."

Berger smiled as Beckman walked Linder back to her car.

CHAPTER 22

Monday, June 6

Berger woke up at 6:00 on Monday morning. She had not slept for more than an hour, but she felt strangely rested. She supposed it was a physical reaction of some sort. For the first time in several months she put on her jogging clothes and went for a furious and excruciatingly painful sprint down to the steamboat wharf. But after a hundred yards or so her heel hurt so much that she had to slow down and go on at a more leisurely pace, relishing the pain in her foot with each step she took.

She felt reborn. It was as though the Grim Reaper had passed by her door and at the last moment changed his mind and moved on to the next house. She could still not take in how fortunate she was that Fredriksson had had her pictures in his possession for four days and done nothing with them. The scanning he had done indicated that he had something planned, but he had simply not gotten around to whatever it was.

She decided to give Susanne Linder a very expensive Christmas present this year. She would think of something really special.

She left her husband asleep and at 7:30 drove to SMP's office at Norrtull. She parked in the garage, took the elevator to the newsroom, and settled down in the glass cage. Before she did anything else, she called someone from maintenance.

"Peter Fredriksson has left the paper. He won't be back," she said. "Please bring as many boxes as you need to empty his desk of personal items and have them delivered to his apartment this morning."

She looked over towards the news desk. Holm had just arrived. He met her gaze and nodded to her.

She nodded back.

Holm was a bastard, but after their altercation a few weeks earlier he had stopped trying to cause trouble. If he continued to show the same positive attitude, he could possibly survive as news editor. Possibly.

She should, she felt, be able to turn things around.

At 8:45 she saw Borgsjo come out of the elevator and disappear up the internal staircase to his office on the floor above. I have to talk to him today.

She got some coffee and spent a while on the morning memo. It looked like it was going to be a slow news day. The only item of interest was an agency report, to the effect that Lisbeth Salander had been moved to the prison in Stockholm the day before. She OK'd the story and forwarded it to Holm.

At 8:59 Borgsjo called.

"Berger, come up to my office right away." He hung up.

He was white in the face when Berger found him at his desk. He stood up and slammed a thick wad of papers on his desk.

"What the hell is this?" he roared.

Berger's heart sank like a stone. She only had to glance at the cover to see what Borgsjo had found in the morning mail.

Fredriksson hadn't managed to do anything with her photographs. But he had sent a copy of Cortez's article and research to Borgsjo.

Calmly she sat down across from him.

"That's an article written by a reporter named Henry Cortez. Millennium had planned to run it in last week's issue."

Borgsjo looked desperate.

"How dare you? I brought you into SMP and the first thing you do is to start digging up dirt. What kind of a media whore are you?"

Berger's eyes narrowed. She turned ice-cold. She had had enough of the word whore.

"Do you really think anyone is going to care about this? Do you think you can trap me with this crap? And why the hell did you send it to me anonymously?"

"That's not what happened, Magnus."

"Then tell me what did happen."

"The person who sent that article to you anonymously was Fredriksson. He was fired from SMP yesterday."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's a long story. But I've had a copy of the article for more than two weeks, trying to figure out a way to raise the subject with you."

"You're behind this article?"

"No, I am not. Cortez researched and wrote the article entirely on his own. I didn't know anything about it."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"As soon as my old colleagues at Millennium saw how you were implicated in the story, Blomkvist stopped its publication. He called me and gave me a copy, out of concern for my position. It was then stolen from me, and now it's ended up with you. Millennium wanted me to have a chance to talk with you before they printed it. Which they mean to do in the August issue."

"I've never met a more unscrupulous media whore in my whole life. It defies belief."

"Now that you've read the story, perhaps you have also considered the research behind it. Cortez has an iron-clad story. You know that."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"If you're still here when Millennium goes to press, that will hurt SMP. I've worried myself sick and tried to find a way out . . . but there isn't one."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll have to go."

"Don't be absurd. I haven't done anything illegal."

"Magnus, don't you understand the impact of this expose? I don't want to have to call a board meeting. It would be too embarrassing."

"You're not going to call anything at all. You're finished at SMP."

"Wrong. Only the board can sack me. Presumably you're allowed to call them in for an extraordinary meeting. I would suggest you do that for this afternoon."

Borgsjo came around the desk and stood so close to Berger that she could feel his breath.

"Berger, you have one chance to survive this. You have to go to your damned colleagues at Millennium and get them to kill this story. If you do a good job I might even forget what you've done."

Berger sighed.

"Magnus, you aren't understanding how serious this is. I have no influence whatsoever on what Millennium publishes. This story is going to come out no matter what I say. The only thing I care about is how it affects SMP. That's why you have to resign."

Borgsjo put his hands on the back of her chair.

"Berger, your cronies at Millennium might change their minds if they knew that you would be fired the instant they leak this bullshit."

He straightened up.

"I'll be at a meeting in Norrkoping today." He looked at her, furious and arrogant. "At Svea Construction."

"I see."

"When I'm back tomorrow you will report to me that this matter has been taken care of. Understood?"

He put on his jacket. Berger watched him with her eyes half closed.

"Maybe then you'll survive at SMP. Now get out of my office."

She went back to the glass cage and sat quite still in her chair for twenty minutes. Then she picked up the phone and asked Holm to come to her office. This time he was there within a minute.

"Sit down."

Holm raised an eyebrow and sat down.

"What did I do wrong this time?" he said sarcastically.

"Anders, this is my last day at SMP. I'm resigning here and now. I'm calling in the deputy chairman and as many members of the board as I can find for a meeting over lunch."

He stared at her with undisguised shock.

"I'm going to recommend that you be made acting editor in chief."

"What?"

&nb

sp; "Are you OK with that?"

Holm leaned back in his chair and looked at her.

"I've never wanted to be editor in chief," he said.

"I know that. But you're tough enough to do the job. And you'll walk over corpses to be able to publish a good story. I just wish you had more common sense."

"So what happened?"

"I have a different style than you. You and I have always argued about what angle to take, and we'll never agree."

"No," he said. "We never will. But it's possible that my style is old-fashioned."

"I don't know if old-fashioned is the right word. You're a very good newspaperman, but you behave like a bastard. That's totally unnecessary. But what we were most at odds about was that you claimed that as news editor you couldn't allow personal considerations to affect how the news was assessed."

Berger suddenly gave Holm a sly smile. She opened her bag and took out a copy of the Borgsjo story.

"Let's test your sense of news assessment. I have a story here that came to us from a reporter at Millennium. This morning I'm thinking that we should run this article as today's top story." She tossed the folder into Holm's lap. "You're the news editor. I'd be interested to hear whether you share my assessment."

Holm opened the folder and began to read. Even the introduction made his eyes widen. He sat up straight in his chair and stared at Berger. Then he lowered his eyes and read through the article to the end. He studied the source material for ten more minutes before he slowly put the folder aside.

"This is going to cause one hell of an uproar."

"I know. That's why I'm leaving. Millennium was planning to run the story in their June issue, but Mikael Blomkvist stopped publication. He gave me the article so that I could talk with Borgsjo before they run it."

"And?"

"Borgsjo ordered me to suppress it."

"I see. So you're planning to run it in SMP out of spite?"

"Not out of spite, no. There's no other way. If SMP runs the story, we have a chance of getting out of this mess with our honour intact. Borgsjo has no choice but to go. But it also means that I can't stay here any longer."

Holm sat in silence for two minutes.

"Damn it, Berger. . . . I didn't think you were that tough. I never thought I'd ever say this, but if you're that thick-skinned, I'm actually sorry you're leaving."