The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye: Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series (29 page)

“Dear Daniel,” she said. “Of course. How are you? We were so worried when we didn’t hear from you.”

“Did you know I had an identical twin? Did you?”

His voice broke. There was silence on the line. Then she poured something into a glass. He understood that she must have known – that this was the whole reason behind the visits to the farm and her strange words: “We’re supposed to study, not to intervene.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Still she did not answer, and he repeated his question, more aggressively this time.

“I wasn’t allowed to,” she managed to whisper. “I had signed confidentiality agreements.”

“So some bits of paper were more important than my life?”

“It was wrong, Daniel. Plain wrong! I’m no longer part of the authority. They kicked me out. They didn’t like me making objections.”

“So it was some fucking authority.”

His mind was spinning. He had no idea what he was saying. He only remembered her question.

“Have you and Leo found each other?”

Then he lost it completely. It was a while before he realized why. It was the natural tone in which she had referred to him and Leo, as if it were an old, familiar notion to her. For him it was earth-shattering.

“Does he know about this?”

“Leo?”

“Yes, Leo!”

“I don’t think so, Daniel. I can’t say any more. I really can’t. I’ve already said too much.”

“Too
much
? I called you in the middle of a crisis, when I had nothing, and what did you say then? Not one word. You let me grow up without knowing the most important thing in my life. You’ve robbed me …”

He struggled for words, but found nothing which would do his feelings justice.

“I’m sorry, Daniel, I’m sorry,” she stammered.

He yelled abuse at her, then hung up. He ordered some beer. A whole load of beer. He had to get his nerves under control, because already then it was clear to him that he must get in touch with Leo. But how? Should he write, call? Simply show up? Leo Mannheimer was different, rich, and probably happier and much more sophisticated, and perhaps – Hilda had hinted at the possibility – Leo already knew about him and had chosen not to get in touch. Perhaps he was ashamed of his poor, downtrodden twin brother.

Dan went back to the Alfred Ögren home page and looked again at the picture of Leo. Did those eyes betray a hint of insecurity? That was a small boost. Perhaps Leo was not so cocky, after all. He remembered how easy it had been to talk to Julia the night before, and he lapsed into dreams and implausible hopes. He could feel his anger ebbing away and the tears welling up again.

What should he do? He Googled himself, looking for recordings of his own performances. He came across something from six months earlier, when he had just cut his hair and was sitting in a jazz club in San Francisco, playing the solo from Sinatra’s “All the Things You Are” and using the same sort of melodic base as Leo had at the Stockholm Concert Hall. He set up the recording as an attachment and wrote a long e-mail:

Dear Leo, Dear Twin Brother,

My name is Dan Brody and I’m a jazz guitarist. I was completely unaware of your existence until this morning, and I feel so emotional and shaken that I can hardly write.

I don’t want to bother you or cause you any inconvenience. I’m not asking for anything, not even a reply. I only want to say: knowing you exist, and knowing that you play the same kind of music as I do, will remain the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

I have no idea if you’re interested in my life, in the way that I’m burning with desire to hear about yours. But I want to tell you all the same. Did you ever meet our father? He was a good-for-nothing and a drunk, but he was exceptionally musical. Our mother died giving birth to us, I never found out much about it …

Dan wrote twenty-two pages. But he never sent them. He didn’t have the nerve. Instead he rang Klaus Ganz and told him there had been a death in the family. Then he booked a flight to Stockholm for the following morning.

It was the first time in eighteen years that he had set foot in Sweden. A cold, piercing wind was blowing. It was snowing. As always at that time in December, the Nobel Prize celebrations were under way. In the streets, the Christmas lights had been switched on, and he looked around in wonder. Stockholm was the great city of his distant childhood memories. He was nervous and feverish, but he was also as eagerly expectant as a little boy. Yet it would still be five days before he mustered the courage to take action. Until then, he lived as Leo Mannheimer’s invisible shadow, his stalker.

Bashir Kazi’s beard was long and untidy. He wore khaki trousers and a multipocket waistcoat. His arms were thick and muscular. In purely physical terms, he was impressive, but he was slumped on the leather sofa watching television, and having appraised Salander with a condescending look, he ignored her. With any luck he would be high. She pretended to lurch sideways, steadied herself and took a slug from her hip flask. Bashir smirked and said to Khalil, “Who’s this whore you’ve dragged home?”

“I’ve never seen her before. She was just standing outside, she said something about a film we had to see. Get her out of here!”

Khalil was frightened of her, it was obvious, but he was more frightened of his brother. That should serve her purpose. She put her bag with the laptop on a chest of drawers by the door.

“And who are you, little girl?” Bashir said.

“No-one special,” she said. This did not provoke much of a reaction, but Bashir did at least get to his feet and yawn, presumably to show how bored he was of chicks being fresh with him.

“Why did you move back to this part of town?” he said to Khalil. “There’s nothing but hookers and crazies here.”

Salander looked around. It was a single-room apartment with a small kitchen, sparsely furnished. Apart from the sofa, there was a loft bed and a low table. Clothes were strewn everywhere. A hockey stick was propped against the wall next to the chest.

“That’s a pretty sweeping generalization,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“That’s a rather broad generalization, Bashir, wouldn’t you say?”

“How come you know my name?”

“I’m just out of prison. Your buddy Benito says hi.”

It was a shot in the dark. Or not. She was fairly sure they were in touch with each other, and she saw a spark of recognition in Bashir’s watery eyes.

“What’s she got to say?”

“It’s actually a video clip. Do you want to see?”

“Depends.”

“I think you’ll enjoy it.” She took out her mobile and fiddled about as if trying to switch it on, but in fact she keyed in some commands and connected to the infrastructure run by Hacker Republic. She took a step forward and looked Bashir in the eye.

“Benito likes to do her friends favours, as you know. But there are a few things that need to be discussed.”

“Such as?”

“It’s a prison, and that in itself presents a problem. Oh, by the way, it was pretty clever of you to get a knife into the secure unit. Congratulations.”

“Get to the point.”

“The point is Faria.”

“What about her?”

“How could you have treated her so badly? You behaved like pigs.”

Bashir looked stunned.

“What the hell are you saying?”

“Pigs. Creeps. Bastards. There are many different ways of putting it, all understatements in the circumstances. Don’t you think you should be punished?”

Salander had expected a reaction, but she had underestimated how violent it would be, the sudden burst of fury after the initial confusion. Without a second’s warning Bashir punched her hard, right on the chin. She only just managed to keep her balance, while the rest of her was focused on holding her mobile steady down by her right hip, the screen directed at his face.

“You seem upset,” she said.

“Damn fucking right I am!”

Bashir threw another punch and this time too she staggered, but made no effort to defend herself, she didn’t even raise her hand. Bashir was staring at her, a combination of rage and astonishment in his eyes. Salander tasted blood. She took a chance.

“Was it really such a good idea to murder Jamal?” she said.

Bashir hit her again and this time it was harder to stay upright. She felt groggy and shook her head, hoping it would clear her vision, and then she caught sight of Khalil’s terrified eyes. Would he attack her too? She could not be sure, it was hard to read him. But more likely he would stay out of it. There was something pathetic about his scrawny figure.

“Not a good idea after all?” she said, and looked at Bashir as provocatively as she could.

He lost control, just as she had hoped.

“You have no idea what a fucking brilliant idea it was, you slut.”

“Oh yeah?”

“He made a whore of Faria,” Bashir screamed. “A whore! They dishonoured all of us.”

Another blow to the head and Salander fumbled to keep hold of her mobile.

“So Faria has to die too, doesn’t she?” she stammered.

“Like a rat, a little pig. We won’t stop till she’s burning in hell.”

“O.K., now things are becoming clearer,” Salander said. “Do you want to see my film?”

“Why the fuck would I?”

“You don’t want Benito to be disappointed. That’s not a good idea. Surely you know that by now.”

Bashir was hesitating, she could tell from his eyes and his twitching arm. But that changed little. He was beside himself with fury, and Salander could not take many more punches. She swiftly measured the distance with her eyes, made a calculation, ran through a chain of consequences. Should she brain him? Knee him in the groin? Strike back? She decided to hold out a little longer, to appear broken, defeated. She did not have to try hard. The next punch came from the side and was heavier than the others. Her upper lip split open and her head boomed. She staggered, almost to her knees.

“Show me now,” he growled.

She licked her lips, coughed, spat blood and collapsed on the leather sofa.

“It’s on my mobile,” she said.

“Show me.” Bashir sat next to her. Khalil came closer too, a good thing, she thought. Deliberately, without being too slick, she keyed in the commands and soon the coding appeared on the screen. The brothers became visibly nervous.

“What the hell’s happening?” Bashir said. “Is it broken? Is this some sort of crap phone?”

“Oh no,” she said. “This is normal. The film’s being loaded into a botnet, and look now, now I’m naming the file and using Command and Control to distribute it.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

She could smell rancid sweat.

“Let me explain,” she said. “A botnet is a network of hacked computers which have been infected with a virus – a Trojan Horse. It’s a little bit illegal, but convenient. Before I say more, we should look at the film. I haven’t even seen it myself, it’s completely unedited. Hold on … here it is.”

Bashir’s face appeared on the screen. He looked confused, like a child who doesn’t understand a difficult question.

“What the hell’s that?”

“You. Unshaven, and a bit out of focus. It’s hard to film from the hip. But it gets better. More lively. Look, here you pack a real punch, and now, just listen: Sounds like you’re confessing to Jamal Chowdhury’s murder.”

“What the fuck? What the
fuck
?”

In the film Bashir was screaming about how Faria would die like a rat, how she would burn in hell. Then it got shaky, there were more words and punches which were hard to see. A confused sequence of walls and the ceiling.

“What the fuck have you done?” he yelled, banging his fist on the low table in front of them.

“Just calm down, take it easy,” Salander said. “There’s no need to panic.”

“What do you mean? Answer me, you bitch!” Bashir’s voice cracked.

“A significant majority of the world’s population hasn’t yet got the film,” Salander said. “I’d say barely more than a hundred million people have received it, and I’ll bet most of them will think it’s spam and delete it right away. But I did have time to name it, I called it ‘Bashir Kazi’. Your friends will probably want to have a look, and the police of course, and Säpo, and your friends’ friends, and so on. It might even go viral, you never know. The net’s such a crazy place. I’ve never really got my head around it.”

Bashir looked deranged. His head jerked this way and that.

“I can see this is tough for you,” Salander said. “Publicity’s never easy to handle. I can remember the first time I had my name all over the papers. I still haven’t got over it, to be honest. But the good news is, there’s a way out.”

“How …?”

“I’ll tell you. I just have to—”

Lightning quick and taking advantage of his bewilderment and desperation, she grabbed hold of his head and smashed it twice onto the table top in front of them. Then she stood up.

“You can run, Bashir,” she said. “You can run so fast that your disgrace won’t catch up with you.”

Bashir stared at her, rooted to the spot. His right arm shook. He put his hands to his forehead.

“It might work,” she went on. “Not for long, but for a little while. If you run and run, like your brother, maybe not as fast – you’re getting flabby, aren’t you? – I’m sure you’ll be able to stagger on, somehow or other.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Bashir said. He leapt up and made as if to throw himself at her, but then hesitated and looked nervously at the front door and windows.

“What are you waiting for,” Salander said. “You need to get going.”

“I will find you,” he hissed.

“I’ll be seeing you again, then,” she said in a cold monotone. She turned and took a step towards the chest of drawers, giving him every chance to attack her from behind. But he was as dumbfounded and helpless as she had anticipated.

At that moment his mobile rang.

“Maybe it’s someone who saw the film. But it’s all cool, right? Just don’t pick up, and keep your head down when you’re out,” she said.

Bashir cursed and came at her, but Salander grabbed the hockey stick from against the wall and hit him as hard as she could in the throat, face and stomach.