“How come? It’s not as if it’s the first time he’s pitted people against each other.”
“No indeed, but it all got out of hand in Chechnya. People were buried alive,” he said.
“That’s Kuznetsov’s own fucking problem.”
“It is. But what worries me…”
“Well, what?”
“Salander’s main target probably isn’t Kuznetsov at all. We can’t rule out that she knows about our own involvement in the information agencies. Don’t you think her vengeance might be directed at you, not him?”
“We should have killed her a long time ago.”
“There’s one more thing I haven’t mentioned.”
“What?”
Bogdanov knew that there was no point in putting it off any longer.
“After barging into you last night, she stumbled,” he said. “The impact made her lose her balance and she tumbled forward—that’s what it looked like anyway. She had to catch herself with her hand against your limousine, just above the rear wheel. At first I thought it looked pretty natural. But then I ran the surveillance footage over and over, and came to the conclusion that it might not have been a fall after all. Rather than steadying herself, she was in fact pressing something against the bodywork. Here it is.”
He held up a small rectangular box.
“What is it?”
“A GPS transmitter that followed you all the way here.”
“So now she knows where I live?” Camilla forced out the words through clenched teeth and tasted blood in her mouth.
“I’m afraid so,” Bogdanov said.
“Idiots,” she spat.
“We’ve taken all precautions,” Bogdanov went on, increasingly nervous. “We’ve stepped up protection, especially of the IT system, obviously.”
“So we’re on the defensive now, is that what you’re saying?”
“No, no, not at all. I’m just telling you.”
“Just make sure you find her, then.”
“That’s not so easy, unfortunately. We’ve checked all the surveillance cameras in the area. We don’t see her anywhere, and we’ve not been able to trace her via any mobiles or computers.”
“Search the hotels then. Report her as missing. Turn everything upside down and inside out, everything you see and hear.”
“We’re working on it, I’m convinced we’ll crush her.”
“Just don’t underestimate that witch.”
“I don’t underestimate her for one second. But I think she’s missed her chance—the advantage has shifted to us.”
“How the hell can you say that when she knows where I live?”
Bogdanov hesitated, fumbling for words.
“You said you thought she would kill you, right?” he said.
“I was certain of it. But she must be planning something worse.”
“I think you’re wrong there.”
“How do you mean?”
“I think she really did want to shoot you. I can’t see why else she would have attacked. Sure, she scared the shit out of Kuznetsov. But apart from that, what did she gain? Nothing. All she did was expose herself.”
“So what you’re suggesting…” She looked out at the garden, and wondered where the hell the gardeners had got to.
“I’m suggesting that she hesitated and couldn’t bring herself to do it. That she hasn’t got it in her. That she’s not so strong after all.”
“That’s a comforting thought,” Kira said.
“I think it’s true. Otherwise it doesn’t add up.”
She suddenly felt a little better.
“And I suppose she has people she cares about,” she said.
“She has her girlfriends.”
“And she has her Blomkvist. More than anything, she has her Mikael Blomkvist.”
CHAPTER 7
August 16
Blomkvist was in Gondolen restaurant at Slussen, dining with Dragan Armansky, the founder of Milton Security. He was slightly regretting it now. His legs and back hurt after his run in Årstaviken, and on top of that he was rather bored. Armansky was droning on about opportunities for developing his business in the East, or maybe it was the West, and then in the middle of it all there was an anecdote about a horse which had managed to get into a festival tent on Djurgården:
“…and then those idiots pushed the grand piano into the swimming pool.”
Blomkvist was not sure if that had anything to do with the horse. But he was not listening all that carefully. Furthest away from them was a group of colleagues from Dagens Nyheter, among them Mia Cederlund with whom he had had an unhappy affair, and over there was Mårten Nyström, the Royal Dramatic Theatre actor, who had not been shown in a flattering light in Millennium’s investigation into misuse of power in the theatre world. None of them looked all that pleased to see him, and Blomkvist kept his eyes on the table, drank his wine, and thought of Lisbeth Salander.
She was his and Armansky’s only point in common. Armansky was the only employer she had ever had, and he had never really got over her, which was perhaps not so surprising. Long ago Armansky had given her a job as some sort of a social welfare project, and she turned out to be the most brilliant colleague he had ever had. For a while he may even have been in love with her.
“Sounds wild,” Blomkvist said.
“You can say that again, and the piano—”
“So you had no idea either that she was going to move?” he interrupted.
Armansky was reluctant to change the subject, and perhaps it upset him that Blomkvist was not more amused by his story. After all, a grand piano in a swimming pool…But then he quickly became serious.
“I shouldn’t really be telling you this,” he began.
Blomkvist thought that sounded like a good start and he leaned forward.
* * *
—
Lisbeth had had a nap and a shower and was sitting at her computer in her Copenhagen hotel room when Plague—her closest contact in Hacker Republic—sent an encrypted message. It was only a short, routine question, but it still disturbed her.
<What’s up?> he wrote.
It’s all fucked up, she thought. She answered: