saturday, november 1–tuesday, november 25

salander was surfing through wennerstr?m’s cyber-empire. she had been staring at her computer screen for almost eleven hours. the idea that had materialised in some unexplored nook of her brain during the last week at sandhamn had grown into a manic preoccupation. for four weeks she had isolated herself in her apartment and ignored any communication from armansky. she had spent twelve hours a day in front of her computer, some days more, and the rest of her waking hours she had brooded over the same problem.

during the past month she had had intermittent contact with blomkvist. he too was preoccupied, busy at the millennium offices. they had conferred by telephone a couple of times each week, and she had kept him updated on wennerstr?m’s correspondence and other activities.

for the hundredth time she went over every detail. she was not afraid that she had missed anything, but she was not sure that she had understood how every one of the intricate connections fitted together.

this much-discussed empire was like a living, formless, pulsating organism that kept changing shape. it consisted of options, bonds, shares, partnerships, loan interest, income interest, deposits, bank accounts, payment transfers, and thousands of other elements. an incredibly large proportion of the assets was deposited in post-office-box companies that owned one another.

the financial pundits’ most inflated analyses of the wennerstr?m group estimated its value at more than 900 billion kronor. that was a bluff, or at least a figure that was grossly exaggerated. obviously wennerstr?m himself was by no means poor. she calculated the real assets to be worth between 90 and 100 billion kronor, which was nothing to sneez eat. a thorough audit of the entire corporation would take years. all in all salander had identified close to three thousand separate accounts and bank holdings all over the world. wennerstr?m was devoting himself to fraud that was so extensive it was no longer merely criminal—it was business.

somewhere in the wennerstr?m organism there was also substance. three assets kept showing up in the hierarchy. the fixed swedish assets were unassailable and genuine, available to public scrutiny, balance sheets, and audits. the american firm was solid, and a bank in new york served as the base for all liquid capital. the story was in the business with the post-office-box companies in places such as gibraltar and cyprus and macao. wennerstr?m was like a clearing house for the illegal weapons trade, money laundering for suspect enterprises in colombia, and extremely unorthodox businesses in russia.

an anonymous account in the cayman islands was unique; it was personally controlled by wennerstr?m but was not connected to any companies. a few hundredths of a percent of every deal that wennerstr?m made would be siphoned into the cayman islands via the post-office-box companies.

salander worked in a trance-like state. the account—click—email—click—balance sheets—click. she noted down the latest transfers. she tracked a small transaction in japan to singapore and on via luxembourg to the cayman islands. she understood how it worked. it was as if she were part of the impulses in cyberspace. small changes. the latest email. one brief message of somewhat peripheral interest was sent at 10:00 p.m. the pgp encryption programme (rattle, rattle) was a joke for anyone who was already inside his computer and could read the message in plain text:

berger has stopped arguing about the ads. has she given up or does she have something cooking? your source at the editorial offices assured us that they were on the brink of ruin, but it sounds as if they just hired a new person. find out what’s happening. blomkvist has been working at sandhamn for the past few weeks, but no-one knows what he’s writing. he’s been seen at the editorial offices the past few days. can you arrange for an advance copy of the next issue?/hew/

nothing dramatic. let him worry. your goose is cooked, old man.

at 5:30 in the morning she turned off her computer and got out a new pack of cigarettes. she had drunk four, no, five cokes during the night, and now she got out a sixth and went to sit on the sofa. she was wearing only knickers and a washed-out camouflage shirt advertising soldier of fortune magazine, with the slogan kill them all and let god sort them out. she realised that she was cold, so she reached for a blanket, which she wrapped around herself.

she felt high, as if she had consumed some inappropriate and presumably illegal substance. she focused her gaze on the street lamp outside the window and sat still while her brain worked at top speed. mamma—click—sister—click—mimmi—click—holger palmgren. evil fingers. and armansky. the job. harriet vanger. click. martin vanger. click. the golf club. click. the lawyer bjurman. click. every single fucking detail that she couldn’t forget even if she tried.

she wondered whether bjurman would ever take his clothes off in front of a woman again, and if he did, how was he going to explain the tattoos on his stomach? and the next time he went to the doctor how would he avoid taking off his clothes?

and mikael blomkvist. click.

she considered him to be a good person, possibly with a practical pig complex that was sometimes a little too apparent. and he was unbearably naive with regard to certain elementary moral issues. he had an indulgent and forgiving personality that looked for explanations and excuses for the way people behaved, and he would never get it that the raptors of the world understood only one language. she felt almost awkwardly protective whenever she thought of him.

she did not remember falling asleep, but she woke up at 9:00 a.m. with a crick in her neck and with her head leaning against the wall behind the sofa. she tottered to the bedroom and fell back to sleep.

it was without a doubt the biggest story of their lives. for the first time in a year and a half, berger was happy in the way that only an editor who has a spectacular scoop in the oven can be. she and blomkvist were polishing the article one last time when salander called him on his mobile.

“i forgot to say that wennerstr?m is starting to get worried about what you’ve been doing lately, and he’s asked for an advance copy of the next issue.”

“how do you know…ah, forget that. any idea what he plans to do?”

“nix. just one logical guess.”

blomkvist thought for a few seconds. “the printer,” he exclaimed.

berger raised her eyebrows.

“if you’re keeping a lid on the editorial offices, there aren’t many other possibilities. provided none of his thugs is planning to pay you a nighttime visit.”

blomkvist turned to berger. “book a new printer for this issue. now. and call dragan armansky—i want security here at night for the next week.” back to salander. “thanks.”

“what’s it worth?”

“what do you mean?”

“what’s the tip worth?”

“what would you like?”

“i’d like to discuss it over coffee. right now.”

they met at kaffebar on hornsgatan. salander looked so serious when blomkvist sat down on the bench next to her that he felt a pang of concern. as usual, she came straight to the point.

“i need to borrow some money.”

blomkvist gave her one of his most foolish grins and reached for his wallet.

“sure. how much?”

“120,000 kronor.”

“steady, steady.” he put his wallet away.

“i’m not kidding. i need to borrow 120,000 kronor for…let’s say six weeks. i have a chance to make an investment, but i don’t have anyone else to turn to. you’ve got roughly 140,000 kronor in your current account right now. you’ll get your money back.”

no point commenting on the fact that salander had hacked his bank password.

“you don’t have to borrow the money from me,” he replied. “we haven’t discussed your share yet, but it’s more than enough to cover what you want to borrow.”

“my share?”

“lisbeth, i have an insane fee to cash in from henrik vanger, and we’re going to finalise the deal at the end of the year. without you, there wouldn’t be a me and millennium would have gone under. i’m planning to split the fee with you. fifty-fifty.”

salander gave him a searching look. a frown had appeared on her brow. blomkvist was used to her silences. finally she shook her head.

“i don’t want your money.”

“but…”

“i don’t want one single krona from you, unless it comes in the form of presents on my birthday.”

“come to think of it, i don’t even know when your birthday is.”

“you’re a journalist. check it out.”

“i’m serious, lisbeth. about splitting the money.”

“i’m serious too. i only want to borrow it, and i need it tomorrow.”

she didn’t even ask how much her share would be. “i’ll be happy to go to the bank with you today and lend you the amount you need. but at the end of the year let’s have another talk about your share.” he held up his hand. “and by the way, when is your birthday?”

“on walpurgis night,” she replied. “very fitting, don’t you think? that’s when i gad around with a broom between my legs.”

she landed in zürich at 7:30 in the evening and took a taxi to the matterhorn hotel. she had booked a room under the name of irene nesser, and she identified herself using a norwegian passport in that name. irene nesser had shoulder-length blonde hair. salander had bought a wig in stockholm and used 10,000 kronor of what she had borrowed from blomkvist to buy two passports through one of the contacts in plague’s international network.

she went to her room, locked the door, and got undressed. she lay on the bed and looked up at the ceiling in the room that cost 1,600 kronor per night. she felt empty. she had already run through half the sum she’d borrowed, and even though she had added in every krona of her own savings, she was still on a tight budget. she stopped thinking and fell asleep almost at once.

she awoke just after 5:00 in the morning. she showered and spent a long time masking the tattoo on her neck with a thick layer of skin-coloured lotion and powder over it. the second item on her checklist was to make an appointment at the beauty salon in the lobby of a significantly more expensive hotel for 6:30 that morning. she bought another blonde wig, this one in a page-boy style, and then she had a manicure, getting pink nails attached to her own chewed ones. she also got false eyelashes, more powder, rouge, and finally lipstick and other make-up. no change from 8,000 kronor.

she paid with a credit card in the name of monica sholes, and she showed them her british passport with that name.

next stop was camille’s house of fashion down the street. after an hour she came out wearing black boots, a sand-coloured skirt with matching blouse, black tights, a waist-length jacket, and a beret. every item bore an expensive designer label. she had let the sales girl make the selection. she had also chosen an exclusive leather briefcase and a small samsonite suitcase. the crowning touches were discreet earrings and a simple gold chain around her neck. the credit card had been debited 44,000 kronor.

for the first time in her life salander had a bustline that made her—when she glanced at herself in the full-length mirror—catch her breath. the breasts were as fake as monica sholes’ identity. they were made of latex and had been bought in copenhagen where the transvestites shopped.

she was ready for battle.

just after 9:00 she walked two blocks to the venerable zimmertal hotel, where she booked a room in monica sholes’ name. she gave a generous tip to a boy who carried up her suitcase (which contained her travel bag). the suite was a small one, costing 22,000 kronor a day. she had booked it for one night. when she was alone she took a look around. she had a dazzling view of lake zürich, which didn’t interest her in the least. but she did spend close to five minutes examining herself in the mirror. she saw a total stranger. big-busted monica sholes in a blonde page-boy wig, wearing more make-up than lisbeth salander dreamed of using in a whole month. she looked…different.

at 9:30 she had breakfast in the hotel bar: two cups of coffee and a bagel with jam. the cost was 210 kronor. are these people soft in the head?

just before 10:00 monica sholes set down her coffee cup, opened her mobile, and punched in the number of a modem uplink in hawaii. after three rings, the handshaking tone began. the modem was connected. monica sholes replied by punching in a six-digit code on her mobile and texting a message containing instructions to start a programme that salander had written especially for this purpose.

in honolulu the programme came to life on an anonymous home page on a server that was officially located at the university. the programme was simple. its only function was to send instructions to start another programme in another server, which in this case was a perfectly ordinary commercial isp offering internet services in holland. the function of that programme, in turn, was to look for the mirrored hard drive belonging to hans-erik wennerstr?m and take command of the programme that showed the contents of his approximately 3,000 bank accounts around the world.

there was only one account of any interest. salander had noted that wennerstr?m looked at the account a couple of times each week. if he turned on his computer and looked at that particular file, everything would appear to be normal. the programme showed small changes, which were to be expected, based on normal fluctuations in the account during the past six months. if during the next forty-eight hours wennerstr?m should go in and ask to have the funds paid out or moved from the account, the programme would dutifully report that it had been done. in reality, the change would have occurred only on the mirrored hard drive in holland.

monica sholes switched off her mobile the moment she heard four short tones confirming that the programme had started.

she left the zimmertal hotel and walked over to bank hauser general, across the street, where she had made an appointment to see herr wagner, the general manager, at 10:00. she was there three minutes ahead of schedule, and she spent the waiting time posing in front of the surveillance camera, which took her picture as she walked into the department with offices for discreet private consultations.

“i need some assistance with a number of transactions,” she said in oxford english. when she opened her briefcase, she let drop a pen from the zimmertal hotel, and herr wagner politely retrieved it for her. she gave him an arch smile and wrote an account number on the notepad on the desk in front of her.

herr wagner pigeonholed her as the spoiled daughter, or possibly mistress, of some bigshot.

“there are a number of accounts at the bank of kroenenfeld in the cayman islands. automatic transfer can be done by sequential clearing codes,” she said.

“fr?ulein sholes, naturally you have all the required clearing codes?” he asked.

“aber natürlich,” she replied with such a heavy accent that it was obvious she had only school-level german.

she started reciting several series of sixteen-digit numbers without once referring to any papers. herr wagner saw that it was going to be a long morning, but for a 4 percent commission on the transactions, he was prepared to skip lunch, and he was going to have to revise his pigeonhole for fr?ulein sholes.

she did not leave bank hauser general until just past noon, slightly later than planned, and she walked back to the zimmertal. she put in an appearance at the front desk before she went up to her room and took off the clothes she had bought. she kept on the latex breasts but replaced the page-boy wig with irene nesser’s shoulder-length blonde hair. she put on more familiar clothes: boots with stiletto heels, black trousers, a simple shirt, and a nice black leather jacket from malungsboden in stockholm. she studied herself in the mirror. not unkempt by any means, but she was no longer an heiress. before irene nesser left the room, she sorted through a number of bonds, which she placed inside a thin portfolio.

at 1:05, a few minutes behind schedule, she went into bank dorffmann, about seventy yards away from bank hauser general. irene nesser had made an appointment in advance with a herr hasselmann. she apologised for being late. she spoke impeccable german with a norwegian accent.

“no problem at all, fr?ulein,” herr hasselmann said. “how can i be of service?”

“i would like to open an account. i have a number of private bonds that i’d like to convert.”

irene nesser placed her portfolio on the desk in front of him.

herr hasselmann examined the contents, hastily at first, and then more slowly. he raised an eyebrow and smiled politely.

she opened five numbered accounts, which she could access via the internet and which were owned by an apparently anonymous post-office-box company in gibraltar. a broker had set them up for her for 50,000 kronor of the money she had borrowed from blomkvist. she cashed in fifty of the bonds and deposited the money in the accounts. each bond was worth the equivalent of one million kronor.

her business at the bank dorffmann also took more time than expected, so now she was even more behind on her schedule. she had no chance to take care of her final transactions before the banks closed for the day. so irene nesser returned to the matterhorn hotel, where she spent an hour hanging around to establish her presence. but she had a headache and went to bed early. she bought some aspirin at the front desk and ordered a wake-up call for 8:00 a.m. then she went back to her room.

it was close to 5:00 p.m., and all the banks in europe were closed for business. but the banks in north and south america were open. she booted up her powerbook and uplinked to the net through her mobile. she spent an hour emptying the numbered accounts she had opened at bank dorffmann earlier in the day.

she divided the money up into small amounts and used it to pay invoices for a large number of fictional companies around the world. when she was done, the money had strangely enough been transferred back to the bank of kroenenfeld in the cayman islands, but this time to an entirely different account than the one from which it had been withdrawn earlier that day.

irene nesser considered this first stage to be secure and almost impossible to trace. she made one payment from the account: the sum of nearly one million kronor was deposited into an account linked to a credit card that she had in her wallet. the account was owned by wasp enterprises, registered in gibraltar.

several minutes later a girl with blonde page-boy hair left the matterhorn by a door into the hotel bar. monica sholes walked to the zimmertal hotel, nodded politely to the desk clerk, and took the lift up to her room.

there she took her time putting on monica sholes’ combat uniform, touching up her make-up, and applying an extra layer of skin cream to the tattoo before she went down to the hotel restaurant and had an insanely delicious fish dinner. she ordered a bottle of vintage wine that she had never heard of before though it cost 1,200 kronor, drank one glass, and nonchalantly left the rest before she went into the hotel bar. she left absurd tips, which certainly made the staff notice her.

she spent quite a while allowing herself to be picked up by a drunk young italian with an aristocratic name which she did not bother to remember. they shared two bottles of champagne, of which she drank almost one glass.

around 11:00 her intoxicated suitor leaned forward and boldly squeezed her breast. she moved his hand down to the table, feeling pleased. he did not seem to have noticed that he was squeezing soft latex. at times they were so loud that they caused a certain amount of irritation among the other guests. just before midnight, when monica sholes noticed that a hall porter was keeping a stern eye on them, she helped her italian boyfriend up to his room.

when he went to the bathroom, she poured one last glass of wine. she opened a folded piece of paper and spiked the wine with a crushed rohypnol sleeping tablet. he passed out in a miserable heap on the bed within a minute after she drank a toast with him. she loosened his tie, pulled off his shoes, and drew a cover over him. she wiped the bottle clean, then washed the glasses in the bathroom and wiped them off too before going back to her room.

monica sholes had breakfast in her room at 6:00 and checked out of the zimmertal at 6:55. before leaving her room, she spent five minutes wiping off fingerprints from the door handles, wardrobes, toilet, telephone, and other objects in the room that she had touched.

irene nesser checked out of the matterhorn around 8:30, shortly after the wake-up call. she took a taxi and left her luggage in a locker at the railway station. then she spent the next few hours visiting nine private banks, where she distributed some of the private bonds from the cayman islands. by 3:00 in the afternoon she had converted about 10 percent of the bonds into cash, which she deposited in thirty numbered accounts. the rest of the bonds she bundled up and put in a safe-deposit box.

irene nesser would need to make several more visits to zürich, but there was no immediate hurry.

at 4:30 that afternoon irene nesser took a taxi to the airport, where she went into the ladies’ room and cut up monica sholes’ passport into little pieces, flushing them down the toilet. the credit card she also cut up and put the bits in five different rubbish bins, and the scissors too. after september 11 it was not a good idea to attract attention by having any sharp objects in your baggage.

irene nesser took lufthansa flight gd890 to oslo and caught the airport bus to the oslo train station, where she went into the ladies’ room and sorted through her clothes. she placed all items belonging to the monica sholes persona—the page-boy wig and the designer clothes—in three plastic bags and tossed them into three different rubbish containers and wastebaskets in the train station. she put the empty samsonite suitcase in an unlocked locker. the gold chain and earrings were designer jewellery that could be traced; they disappeared down a drain in the street outside the station.

after a moment of anxious hesitation, irene nesser decided to keep the fake latex breasts.

by then she did not have much time and took on some fuel in the form of a hamburger from mcdonald’s while she transferred the contents of the luxury leather briefcase to her travel bag. when she left, the empty briefcase remained under the table. she bought a latte to go at a kiosk and ran to catch the night train to stockholm. she arrived as the doors were closing. she had booked a private sleeping berth.

when she locked the door to her compartment, she could feel that for the first time in two days, her adrenaline levels had returned to normal. she opened the compartment window and defied the no-smoking regulations. she stood there sipping at her coffee as the train rolled out of oslo.

she ran through her checklist to be sure that she had forgotten no detail. after a moment she frowned and rummaged through her jacket pockets. she took out the complimentary pen from the zimmertal hotel and studied it for several minutes before she tossed it out of the window.

after fifteen minutes she crept into bed and fell asleep.

epilogue: final audit

thursday, november 27–tuesday, december 30

millennium’s special report on hans-erik wennerstr?m took up all of forty-six pages of the magazine and exploded like a time bomb the last week of november. the main story appeared under the joint byline of mikael blomkvist and erika berger. for the first few hours the media did not know how to handle the scoop. a similar story just a year earlier had resulted in blomkvist being convicted of libel, and it had also apparently resulted in his being dismissed from millennium. for that reason his credibility was regarded as rather low. now the same magazine was back with a story by the same journalist containing much more serious allegations than the article for which he had run into so much trouble. some parts of the report were so absurd that they defied common sense. the swedish media sat and waited, filled with mistrust.

but that evening she on tv4 led off with an eleven-minute summary of the highlights in blomkvist’s accusations. berger had lunched with the host several days earlier and given her an advance exclusive.

tv4’s brutal profile scooped the state-run news channels, which did not clamber on to the bandwagon until the 9:00 news. by then the tt wire service had also sent out its first wire with the cautious headline: convicted journalist accuses financier of serious crime. the text was a rewrite of the tv story, but the fact that tt addressed the subject at all unleashed feverish activity at the conservative morning newspaper and at a dozen of the larger regional papers as they reset their front pages before the presses started rolling. up until then, the papers had more or less decided to ignore the millennium allegations.

the liberal morning newspaper commented on millennium’s scoop in the form of an editorial, written personally by the editor in chief, earlier in the afternoon. the editor in chief then went to a dinner party as tv4 started broadcasting its news programme. he dismissed his secretary’s frantic calls that there “might be something” to blomkvist’s claims with these later famous words: “nonsense—if there were, our financial reporters would have found out about it long ago.” consequently, the liberal editor in chief’s editorial was the only media voice in the country that butchered millennium’s claims. the editorial contained phrases such as: personal vendetta, criminally sloppy journalism, and demands that measures be taken against indictable allegations regarding decent citizens. but that was the only contribution the editor in chief made during the debate.

that night the millennium editorial offices were fully staffed. according to their plans, only berger and the new managing editor, malin eriksson, were due to be there to handle any calls. but by 10:00 p.m. the entire staff was still there, and they had also been joined by no fewer than four former staff members and half a dozen regular freelancers. at midnight malm opened a bottle of champagne. that was when an old acquaintance sent over an advance copy from one of the evening papers, which devoted sixteen pages to the wennerstr?m affair under the headline the financial mafia. when the evening papers came out the next day, a media frenzy erupted, the likes of which had seldom been seen before.

eriksson concluded that she was going to enjoy working at millennium.

during the following week, the swedish stock exchange trembled as the securities fraud police began investigating, prosecutors were called in, and a panicky selling spree set in. two days after the publication the minister of commerce made a statement on “the wennerstr?m affair.”

the frenzy did not mean, however, that the media swallowed millennium’s claims without criticism—the revelations were far too serious for that. but unlike the first wennerstr?m affair, this time millennium could present a convincing burden of proof: wennerstr?m’s own emails and copies of the contents of his computer, which contained balance sheets from secret bank assets in the cayman islands and two dozen other countries, secret agreements, and other blunders that a more cautious racketeer would never in his life have left on his hard drive. it soon became clear that if millennium’s claims held up in a court of appeals—and everyone agreed that the case would end up there sooner or later—then it was by far the biggest bubble to burst in the swedish financial world since the kreuger crash of 1932. the wennerstr?m affair made all the gotabank imbroglios and trustor frauds pale in comparison. this was fraud on such a grand scale that no-one even dared to speculate on how many laws had been broken.

for the first time in swedish financial reporting, the terms “organised crime,” “mafia,” and “gangster empire” were used. wennerstr?m and his young stockbrokers, partners, and armani-clad lawyers emerged like a band of hoodlums.

during the first days of the media frenzy, blomkvist was invisible. he did not answer his emails and could not be reached by telephone. all editorial comments on behalf of millennium were made by berger, who purred like a cat as she was interviewed by the swedish national media and important regional newspapers, and eventually also by a growing number of overseas media. each time she was asked how millennium had come into possession of all those private and internal documents, she replied simply that she was unable to reveal the magazine’s source.

when she was asked why the previous year’s exposé of wennerstr?m had been such a fiasco, she was even more delphic. she never lied, but she may not always have told the whole truth. off the record, when she did not have a microphone under her nose, she would utter a few mysterious catch phrases, which, if pieced together, led to some rather rash conclusions. that is how a rumour was born that soon assumed legendary proportions, claiming that mikael blomkvist had not presented any sort of defence at his trial and had voluntarily submitted to the prison sentence and heavy fines because otherwise his documentation would have led inevitably to the identification of his source. he was compared to role models in the american media who had accepted gaol rather than reveal their sources, and blomkvist was described as a hero in such ludicrously flattering terms that he was quite embarrassed. but this was no time to deny the misunderstanding.

there was one thing that everyone agreed on: the person who had delivered the documentation had to be someone within wennerstr?m’s most trusted circle. this led to a debate about who the “deep throat” was: colleagues with reason to be dissatisfied, lawyers, even wennerstr?m’s cocaine-addicted daughter and other family members were put up as possible candidates. neither blomkvist nor berger commented on the subject.

berger smiled happily, knowing that they had won when an evening paper on the third day of the frenzy ran the headline millennium’s revenge. the article was an ingratiating portrait of the magazine and its staff, including illustrations with a particularly favourable portrait of berger. she was named the “queen of investigative journalism.” that sort of thing won points in the rankings of the entertainment pages, and there was talk of the big journalism prize.

five days after millennium fired the first salvo, blomkvist’s book the mafia banker appeared in bookshops. the book had been written during those feverish days at sandhamn in september and october, and in great haste and under the utmost secrecy it was printed by hallvigs reklam in morgong?va. it was the first book to be published under millennium’s own logo. it was eccentrically dedicated: to sally, who showed me the benefits of the sport of golf.

it was a brick of a book, 608 pages in paperback. the first edition of 2,000 copies was virtually guaranteed to be a losing proposition, but the print run actually sold out in a couple of days, and berger ordered 10,000 more copies.

the reviewers concluded that this time, at any rate, mikael blomkvist had no intention of holding back since it was a matter of publishing extensive source references. in this regard they were right. two-thirds of the book consisted of appendices that were actual copies of the documentation from wennerstr?m’s computer. at the same time as the book was published, millennium put the texts from wennerstr?m’s computer as source material in downloadable pdf files on their website.

blomkvist’s extraordinary absence was part of the media strategy that he and berger had put together. every newspaper in the country was looking for him. not until the book was launched did he give an exclusive interview to she on tv4, once again scooping the state-run stations. but the questions were anything but sycophantic.

blomkvist was especially pleased with one exchange when he watched a video of his appearance. the interview was broadcast live at the very moment when the stockholm stock exchange found itself in freefall and a handful of financial yuppies were threatening to throw themselves out of windows. he was asked what was millennium’s responsibility with regard to the fact that sweden’s economy was now headed for a crash.

“the idea that sweden’s economy is headed for a crash is nonsense,” blomkvist said.

the host of she on tv4 looked perplexed. his reply did not follow the pattern she had expected, and she was forced to improvise. blomkvist got the follow-up question he was hoping for. “we’re experiencing the largest single drop in the history of the swedish stock exchange—and you think that’s nonsense?”

“you have to distinguish between two things—the swedish economy and the swedish stock market. the swedish economy is the sum of all the goods and services that are produced in this country every day. there are telephones from ericsson, cars from volvo, chickens from scan, and shipments from kiruna to sk?vde. that’s the swedish economy, and it’s just as strong or weak today as it was a week ago.”

he paused for effect and took a sip of water.

“the stock exchange is something very different. there is no economy and no production of goods and services. there are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so many billions, more or less. it doesn’t have a thing to do with reality or with the swedish economy.”

“so you’re saying that it doesn’t matter if the stock exchange drops like a rock?”

“no, it doesn’t matter at all,” blomkvist said in a voice so weary and resigned that he sounded like some sort of oracle. his words would be quoted many times over the following year. then he went on.

“it only means that a bunch of heavy speculators are now moving their shareholdings from swedish companies to german ones. so it’s the financial gnomes that some tough reporter should identify and expose as traitors. they’re the ones who are systematically and perhaps deliberately damaging the swedish economy in order to satisfy the profit interests of their clients.”

then she on tv4 made the mistake of asking exactly the question that blomkvist had hoped for.

“and so you think that the media don’t have any responsibility?”

“oh yes, the media do have an enormous responsibility. for at least twenty years many financial reporters have refrained from scrutinising hans-erik wennerstr?m. on the contrary, they have actually helped to build up his prestige by publishing brainless, idolatrous portraits. if they had been doing their work properly, we would not find ourselves in this situation today.”

blomkvist’s appearance marked a turning point. in hindsight, berger was convinced that it was only when blomkvist went on tv and calmly defended his claims that the swedish media, in spite of the fact that millennium had been all over the headlines for a week, recognised that the story really did hold up. his attitude set the course for the story.

after the interview the wennerstr?m affair imperceptibly slipped from the financial section over to the desks of the crime reporters. in the past, ordinary crime reporters had seldom or never written about financial crime, except if it had to do with the russian mob or yugoslav cigarette smugglers. crime reporters were not expected to investigate intricate dealings on the stock exchange. one evening paper even took blomkvist at his word and filled two spreads with portraits of several of the brokerage houses’ most important players, who were in the process of buying up german securities. the paper’s headline read selling out their country. all the brokers were invited to comment on the allegations. every one of them declined. but the trading of shares decreased significantly that day, and some brokers who wanted to look like progressive patriots started going against the stream. blomkvist burst out laughing.

the pressure got to be so great that sombre men in dark suits put on a concerned expression and broke with the most important rule of the exclusive club that made up the innermost circles of swedish finance—they commented on a colleague. all of a sudden retired industrial leaders and bank presidents were appearing on tv and answering questions in an attempt at damage control. everyone realised the seriousness of the situation, and it was a matter of distancing themselves as quickly as possible from the wennerstr?m group and shedding any shares they might hold. wennerstr?m (they concluded almost with one voice) was not, after all, a real industrialist, and he had never been truly accepted into “the club.” some pointed out that he was just a simple working-class boy from norrland whose success may have gone to his head. some described his actions as a personal tragedy. others discovered that they had had their doubts about wennerstr?m for years—he was too boastful and he put on airs.

during the following weeks, as millennium’s documentation was scrutinised, pulled apart, and pieced together again, the wennerstr?m empire of obscure companies was linked to the heart of the international mafia, including everything from illegal arms dealing and money laundering for south american drug cartels to prostitution in new york, and even indirectly to the child sex trade in mexico. one wennerstr?m company registered in cyprus caused a dramatic stir when it was revealed that it had attempted to buy enriched uranium on the black market in ukraine. wennerstr?m’s apparently inexhaustible supply of obscure post-office-box companies seemed to be cropping up everywhere, linked to all manner of shady enterprises.

berger thought that the book was the best thing blomkvist had ever written. it was uneven stylistically, and in places the writing was actually rather poor—there had been no time for any fine polishing—but the book was animated by a fury that no reader could help but notice.

by chance blomkvist ran into his old adversary, the former financial reporter william borg, in front of kvarnen when blomkvist, berger, and malm took the evening off to celebrate the santa lucia holiday along with the magazine’s other employees, going out to drink themselves senseless at the company’s expense. borg’s companion was a very drunk girl about salander’s age.

blomkvist’s loathing for borg was palpable. berger interrupted the macho posturing by taking blomkvist by the arm and leading him into the bar.

blomkvist decided that when the opportunity arose, he would ask salander to do one of her personal investigations of borg. just for form’s sake.

during the whole media storm the main character in the drama, the financier wennerstr?m, was for the most part invisible. on the day that millennium published its article, the financier was forced to comment on the text at a press conference that had been called for a different purpose. he declared the allegations unfounded and said that the documentation referred to was fabricated. he reminded everyone that the same reporter had been convicted of libel only one year before.

after that only wennerstr?m’s lawyers would answer questions from the media. two days after blomkvist’s book came out, a persistent rumour began circulating that wennerstr?m had left sweden. the evening papers used the word “fled.” during the second week, when the securities fraud police tried to contact wennerstr?m, he was nowhere to be found. in mid-december the police confirmed that wennerstr?m was formally sought, and on the day before new year’s eve, an all-points bulletin was sent out via the international police organisations. the very same day one of wennerstr?m’s advisers was seized at arlanda as he was boarding a plane for london.

several weeks later a swedish tourist reported that he had seen wennerstr?m get into a car in bridgetown, the capital of barbados. as proof of his claim, the tourist submitted a photograph, taken from quite a distance away, showing a white man wearing sunglasses, an open white shirt, and light-coloured slacks. he could not be identified with certainty, but the evening papers contacted stringers who tried without success to track down the fugitive billionaire.

after six months the hunt was called off. then wennerstr?m was found dead in an apartment in marbella, spain, where he had been living under the name of victor fleming. he had been shot three times in the head at close range. the spanish police were working on the theory, their statement said, that he had surprised a burglar.

wennerstr?m’s death came as no surprise to salander. she suspected, with good reason, that his demise had to do with the fact that he no longer had access to the money in a certain bank in the cayman islands, which he may have needed to pay off certain debts in colombia.

if anyone had asked for salander’s help in tracking wennerstr?m, she could have told them almost on a daily basis where he was. via the internet she had followed his flight through a dozen countries and remarked a growing desperation in his emails. not even blomkvist would have thought that the fugitive ex-billionaire would be stupid enough to take along the computer that had been so thoroughly penetrated.

after six months salander grew tired of tracking wennerstr?m. the question that remained to be answered was how far her own involvement should reach. wennerstr?m was without a doubt an olympic-class creep, but he was not her personal enemy, and she had no interest in involving herself against him. she could tip off blomkvist, but he would probably just publish a story. she could tip off the police, but there was quite a chance that wennerstr?m would be forewarned and again disappear. besides, on principle, she did not talk to the police.

but there were other debts that had to be paid. she thought about the once-pregnant waitress whose head had been shoved underwater in her own bath.

four days before wennerstr?m’s body was found, she made up her mind. she switched on her mobile and called a lawyer in miami, who seemed to be one of the people wennerstr?m was making a big effort to hide from. she talked to a secretary and asked her to pass on a cryptic message. the name wennerstr?m and an address in marbella. that was all.

she turned off the tv news halfway through a dramatic report about wennerstr?m’s demise. she put on some coffee and fixed herself a liver paté and cucumber sandwich.

berger and malm were taking care of the annual christmas arrangements while blomkvist sat in erika’s chair, drinking gl?gg and looking on. all the staff and many of the regular freelancers would receive a christmas gift—this year a shoulder bag with the new millennium publishing house logo. after wrapping the presents, they sat down to write and stamp about 200 cards to send to printing companies, photographers, and media colleagues.

blomkvist tried for the longest time to withstand the temptation but finally he couldn’t resist. he picked up the very last card and wrote: merry christmas and happy new year. thanks for your splendid efforts during the past year.

he signed his name and addressed the card to janne dahlman, c/o the editorial offices of monopoly financial magazine.

when blomkvist got home that evening there was a slip notifying him of a postal package. he went to pick it up the next morning, opening it when he got to the office. the package contained a mosquito-repellent stick and a bottle of reimersholms aquavit. the card read: if you don’t have other plans, i’ll be docked at arholma on midsummer eve. it was signed robert lindberg.

traditionally the millennium offices were closed the week before christmas and through the new year’s holiday. this year it did not work out that way. the strain on the small staff had been enormous, and journalists were still calling from all over the world on a daily basis. it was the day before christmas eve when blomkvist, almost by chance, happened to read an article in the financial times summing up the findings of the international banking commission that had been established in all haste to scrutinise the collapse of the wennerstr?m empire. the article said that the commission was working on the hypothesis that wennerstr?m had probably been tipped off at the last minute about the impending disclosures.

his account at bank of kroenenfeld in the cayman islands, containing $260 million—approximately 2.5 billion swedish kronor—had been emptied the day before millennium published its exposé.

the money had been spread over a number of accounts, and only wennerstr?m personally could make withdrawals. he did not have to be present at the bank; it was enough for him to present a series of clearing codes in order to transfer the money to any bank in the world. the money had been transferred to switzerland, where a female associate had converted the funds into anonymous private bonds. all the clearing codes were in order.

europol had launched a search for the woman who had used a stolen british passport in the name of monica sholes and who was said to have lived a life of luxury at one of zürich’s most expensive hotels. a relatively clear picture, considering that it came from a surveillance camera, showed a short woman with a blonde page-boy, wide lips, and prominent breasts wearing fashionable designer clothes and gold jewellery.

blomkvist studied the picture, giving it first a quick glance and then looking at it with increasing suspicion. after several seconds he rummaged in his desk for a magnifying glass and tried to make out the details of the facial features in the newspaper’s screened image.

at last he put down the paper and sat there, speechless, for several minutes. then he started laughing so hysterically that malm stuck his head round the door to find out what was going on.

on the morning of christmas eve blomkvist went out to ?rsta to see his ex-wife and his daughter, pernilla, and exchange gifts. pernilla got the computer she wanted, which blomkvist and monica had bought together. blomkvist got a tie from monica and a detective novel by ?ke edwardson from his daughter. unlike the previous christmas, they were in high spirits because of the media drama that had been playing out around millennium.

they had lunch together. blomkvist stole a sidelong glance at pernilla. he had not seen his daughter since she turned up to visit him in hedestad. he realised that he had failed to discuss her mania for that sect in skellefte? with her mother. he could not tell them that it was his daughter’s obviously profound knowledge of the bible that had set him on the right track regarding harriet vanger’s disappearance. he had not talked to his daughter since then.

he was not a good father.

he kissed his daughter goodbye after the lunch and met salander at slussen. they went out to sandhamn. they had not seen much of each other since the millennium bomb exploded. they arrived late on christmas eve and stayed for the holidays.

blomkvist was entertaining company, as always, but salander had an uneasy feeling that he was looking at her with an especially odd expression when she paid back the loan with a cheque for 120,000 kronor.

they took a walk to trovill and back (which salander considered a waste of time), had christmas dinner at the inn, and went back to the cabin where they lit a fire in the woodstove, put on an elvis cd, and devoted themselves to some plain old sex. when salander from time to time came up for air, she tried to analyse her feelings.

she had no problem with blomkvist as a lover. there was obviously a physical attraction. and he never tried to tutor her.

her problem was that she could not interpret her own feelings for him. not since before reaching puberty had she lowered her guard to let another person get so close as she had with him. to be quite honest, he had a trying ability to penetrate her defences and to get her to talk about personal matters and private feelings. even though she had enough sense to ignore most of his questions, she talked about herself in a way that she would never, even under threat of death, have imagined doing with any other person. it frightened her and made her feel naked and vulnerable to his will.

at the same time—when she looked down at his slumbering form and listened to him snoring—she felt that she had never before in her life had such a trust in another human being. she knew with absolute certainty that mikael would never use what he knew about her to hurt her. it was not in his nature.

the only thing they never discussed was their relationship to each other. she did not dare, and blomkvist never broached the subject.

at some point on the morning of the second day she came to a terrifying realisation. she had no idea how it had happened or how she was supposed to cope with it. she was in love for the first time in her life.

that he was almost twice her age did not bother her. nor did the fact that at the moment he was one of the most newsworthy people in sweden, and his picture was even on the cover of newsweek—that was all just soap opera. but blomkvist was no erotic fantasy or daydream. it would have to come to an end. it could not possibly work out. what did he need her for? maybe she was just a way to pass the time while he waited for someone whose life was not a fucking rat hole.

what she had realised was that love was that moment when your heart was about to burst.

when blomkvist woke up late that morning, she had made coffee and been out to buy breakfast rolls. he joined her at the table and noticed at once that something in her attitude had changed—she was a bit more reserved. when he asked her if anything was wrong, she gave him a neutral, uncomprehending look.

on the first day between christmas and new year’s, blomkvist took the train up to hedestad. he was wearing his warmest clothes and his proper winter shoes when frode met him at the station and quietly congratulated him on the media success. it was the first time since august that he had visited hedestad, and it was almost exactly one year ago since he had visited it for the first time. they chatted politely, but there was also a great deal that had gone unsaid between them, and blomkvist felt uncomfortable.

everything had been prepared, and the business with frode took only a few minutes. frode offered to deposit the money in a convenient foreign bank account, but blomkvist insisted that it should be paid like a normal, legitimate fee to his company.

“i can’t afford any other type of payment,” he said curtly when frode persisted.

the purpose of his visit was not solely financial. blomkvist had left clothes, books, and a number of his own things in the cottage when he and salander had abandoned hedeby in great haste.

vanger was still frail after his illness, but he was at home. he was being looked after by a private nurse, who refused to allow him to take long walks, or walk up stairs, or discuss anything that might upset him. during the holidays he had also come down with a slight cold and was ordered to bed.

“besides which, she’s expensive,” vanger complained.

blomkvist knew that the old man could afford any such expense—considering how many kronor he had written off his taxes all his life. vanger gave him a sullen look until he started laughing.

“what the hell, you were worth every krona. i knew you would be.”

“to tell you the truth, i never thought i’d solve it.”

“i have no intention of thanking you,” vanger said.

“i didn’t expect you would. i’m just here to tell you that i consider the job done.”

vanger curled his lips. “you haven’t finished the job,” he said.

“i know that.”

“you haven’t written the vanger family chronicle, which was agreed.”

“i know that. i’m not going to write it. in fact, i can’t write it. i can’t write about the vanger family and leave out the most central event of the past decades. how could i write a chapter about martin’s period as ceo and pretend that i don’t know what’s in his basement? i also can’t write the story without destroying harriet’s life all over again.”

“i understand your dilemma, and i’m grateful for the decision that you’ve made.”

“congratulations. you’ve managed to corrupt me. i’m going to destroy all my notes and the tape recordings i’ve made of our conversations.”

“i don’t think that you’ve been corrupted,” vanger said.

“that’s what it feels like. and i think that’s what it is.”

“you had to choose between your role as a journalist and your role as a human being. i could never have bought your silence. and i’m quite certain that you would have exposed us if harriet had turned out in some way to have been implicated, or if you thought i was a cretin.”

blomkvist did not reply.

“we’ve told cecilia the whole story. frode and i will soon be gone, and harriet is going to need support from someone in the family. cecilia will play an active role on the board. she and harriet will be in charge of the firm from now on.”

“how did she take it?”

“she was very shaken. she went abroad for a while. i was even afraid she wouldn’t come back.”

“but she did.”

“martin was one of the few people in our family that cecilia always got along with. it was very hard for her to find out the truth about him. she also knows now what you did for the family.”

blomkvist shrugged.

“so thank you, mikael,” vanger said.

“besides, i couldn’t write the story because i’ve had it up to here with the vanger family. but tell me, how does it feel to be ceo again?”

“it’s only temporary, but…i wish i were younger. i’m only working three hours a day. all the meetings are held in this room, and dirch has stepped in again as my enforcer if anyone acts up.”

“the junior executives must be quaking in their boots. it took me a while to realise that dirch wasn’t just an old sweetie of a financial adviser but also someone who solves problems for you.”

“exactly. but all decisions are made with harriet, and she’s the one who’s doing the legwork in the office.”

“how are things going for her?”

“she inherited both her brother’s and her mother’s shares. she controls about 33 percent of the corporation.”

“is that enough?”

“i don’t know. birger is trying to trip her up. alexander has seen that he has a chance to make an impact and has allied himself with birger. my brother harald has cancer and won’t live much longer. he was the only remaining person with large shareholdings of 7 percent, which his children will inherit. cecilia and anita will be on harriet’s side.”

“then together you’ll control, what, 45 percent.”

“that kind of voting cartel has never existed within the family before. plenty of shareholders with one and two percent will vote against us. harriet is going to succeed me as ceo in february.”

“that won’t make her happy.”

“no, but it’s necessary. we have to take in some new partners and new blood. we also have the chance to collaborate with her company in australia. there are possibilities.”

“where’s harriet today?”

“you’re out of luck. she’s in london. but she would very much like to see you.”

“i’ll see her at our board meeting in january if she’s going to take your place.”

“i know.”

“i think that she realises that i will never discuss what happened in the sixties with anyone except for erika berger, and i don’t see why erika needs to know.”

“she does. you’re a person with morals, mikael.”

“but also tell her that everything she does from now on could end up in the magazine. the vanger corporation won’t have a free pass from scrutiny.”

“i’ll warn her.”

blomkvist left vanger when he started to doze off. he packed his belongings into two suitcases. as he closed the door to the cottage for the last time, he paused and then went over to cecilia’s house and knocked. she was not home. he took out his pocket calendar, tore out a page, and wrote: i wish you all the best. try to forgive me. mikael. he put the note in her letter box. an electric christmas candle shone in the kitchen window of martin vanger’s empty house.

he took the last train back to stockholm.

during the holidays salander tuned out the rest of the world. she did not answer her telephone and she did not turn on her computer. she spent two days washing laundry, scrubbing, and cleaning up her apartment. year-old pizza boxes and newspapers were bundled up and carried downstairs. she dragged out a total of six black rubbish bags and twenty paper bags full of newspapers. she felt as if she had decided to start a new life. she thought about buying a new apartment—when she found something suitable—but for now her old place would be more dazzlingly clean than she could ever remember.

then she sat as if paralysed, thinking. she had never in her life felt such a longing. she wanted mikael blomkvist to ring the doorbell and…what then? lift her off the ground, hold her in his arms? passionately take her into the bedroom and tear off her clothes? no, she really just wanted his company. she wanted to hear him say that he liked her for who she was. that she was someone special in his world and in his life. she wanted him to give her some gesture of love, not just of friendship and companionship. i’m flipping out, she thought.

she had no faith in herself. blomkvist lived in a world populated by people with respectable jobs, people with orderly lives and lots of grown-up points. his friends did things, went on tv, and shaped the headlines. what do you need me for? salander’s greatest fear, which was so huge and so black that it was of phobic proportions, was that people would laugh at her feelings. and all of a sudden all her carefully constructed self-confidence seemed to crumble.

that’s when she made up her mind. it took her several hours to mobilise the necessary courage, but she had to see him and tell him how she felt.

anything else would be unbearable.

she needed some excuse to knock on his door. she had not given him any christmas present, but she knew what she was going to buy. in a junk shop she had seen a number of metal advertising signs from the fifties, with embossed images. one of the signs showed elvis presley with a guitar on his hip and a cartoon balloon with the words heartbreak hotel. she had no sense for interior design, but even she could tell that the sign would be perfect for the cabin in sandhamn. it cost 780 kronor, and on principle she haggled and got the price knocked down to 700. she had it wrapped, put it under her arm, and headed over to his place on bellmansgatan.

at hornsgatan she happened to glance towards kaffebar and saw blomkvist coming out with berger in tow. he said something, and she laughed, putting her arm around his waist and kissing his cheek. they turned down br?nnkyrkagatan in the direction of bellmansgatan. their body language left no room for misinterpretations—it was obvious what they had in mind.

the pain was so immediate and so fierce that lisbeth stopped in mid-stride, incapable of movement. part of her wanted to rush after them. she wanted to take the metal sign and use the sharp edge to cleave berger’s head in two. she did nothing as thoughts swirled through her mind. analysis of consequences. finally she calmed down.

“what a pathetic fool you are, salander,” she said out loud.

she turned on her heel and went home to her newly spotless apartment. as she passed zinkensdamm, it started to snow. she tossed elvis into a dumpster.