The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye: Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series (39 page)

This was why Benjamin, in spite of the heat, was wearing a black hoodie and dark glasses. He was carrying a concealed syringe filled with ketamine, an anaesthetic which would knock the journalist clean out.

Although she had been suffering from stomach pains all morning, Greitz had dragged herself over to the avenue running alongside Kungsträdgården. In the glaring sunlight she made out Benjamin moving along with quick steps.

Her senses sharpened. The city became one single concentrated moment, one sparkling scene, and she watched intently as Daniel and Blomkvist slowed and the journalist appeared to be asking a question. Good, she thought, that will distract them, and in that moment she believed it would go precisely as planned.

Further down the street a horse-drawn carriage appeared. A blue hot-air balloon hung in the sky and people were walking by in every direction, oblivious to what was going on. Her heart pounded in anticipation and she was breathing deeply. But then Daniel looked up, saw Benjamin and threw Blomkvist to the ground. The journalist lay flat on the pavement and Benjamin hesitated and missed his chance. Blomkvist jumped to his feet. Benjamin lunged at Blomkvist. But the journalist dodged him, and then Benjamin took to his heels. The coward! Furious, she watched as Daniel and Blomkvist ran towards Operakällaren. They jumped into a taxi and were gone. The heat settled like a wet blanket over Greitz and she felt only how unwell and nauseous she was. Yet she managed to pull herself up to her full height, and as rapidly as she was able she left the scene.

Salander was lying pressed against the floor of the grey van, being kicked at intervals in the stomach and face. The noxious rag was again placed over her nose, and she felt woozy and weak as she went in and out of consciousness. She had no trouble recognizing Benito and Bashir, no happy combination. Benito was looking pale and was bandaged around her head and jaw. She was having difficulty moving, so she kept still, which was good. Most of the blows aimed at Salander came from the men: Bashir, bearded and sweaty, dressed in the same clothes as the day before, and a thickset man of about thirty-five with a shaved head, grey T-shirt and black leather waistcoat. A third man was driving.

The van rolled down past Slussen, at least she thought so. She tried to register every detail in the vehicle – a coil of rope, a roll of tape, two screwdrivers. Another kick, this time to her neck. Someone grabbed her hands. They tied her up, frisked her and took her mobile. That was a worry, but the bald guy stuffed it into his pocket and that was fine. She made a note of his physique and his jerky movements, and his tendency to keep looking at Benito. He was obviously Benito’s lapdog, not Bashir’s.

There was a bench on the left side of the van. They sat there while she lay on the floor amid the smell of perfume, the stench of surgical spirit and sweat from their trainers. Salander thought they were heading north but she could not be sure, she was far too light-headed. For a long time no-one spoke, the only sounds were of people breathing and engine noise and the metallic rattling of the old banger, it must have been at least thirty years old. They drove out onto a main road and after twenty minutes or so began to talk. That was good, that was what she needed. Bashir had a bruise on his throat, from her blow with the hockey stick she hoped. He looked like he had slept badly. In fact he looked like shit.

“You have no idea how we’re going to make you suffer, you little whore,” he said.

Salander was silent.

“Then I’m going to kill you. Slowly. With my Keris,” Benito said.

Still Salander said nothing. Why would she, when she knew that every word spoken was being transmitted to a number of different computers.

Nothing too sophisticated, at least not by her standards. When they overpowered her in the street she had whispered “Harpy” into her modified iPhone. That had activated her alarm button via S.R.I.’s A.I. system and a boosted microphone was switched on automatically, triggering a sound recording that was sent to all members of the so-called Hacker Republic, together with the mobile’s G.P.S. co-ordinates.

Hacker Republic consisted of a group of elite hackers, all of whom had sworn a solemn oath to use the alarm only in cases of dire emergency. As a consequence a number of talented people all around the world were now breathlessly following the dramatic events in the back of the van. Most did not understand Swedish, but enough did, including Salander’s friend on Högklintavägen in Sundbyberg.

Plague was as wide as a house at 150 kilos, but stooped from spending all day at his keyboard. His beard was a thicket and he hadn’t had a haircut since the previous year. He looked like a case for social welfare, but he was an I.T. genius. He was sitting by his computer in his frayed blue dressing gown, nerves on high alert, following the G.P.S. co-ordinates northwards towards Uppsala. The car – it sounded large, and old – turned east onto National Highway 77 towards Knivsta, and that was not good. They were heading further out into the countryside, where G.P.S. coverage was patchy at best. He heard the woman in the vehicle again, her voice hoarse and weak, as if she were unwell.

“Do you have any idea how slowly you’re going to die, you bitch? Do you?”

Plague looked at his desk in desperation. It was strewn with scraps of paper, used coffee cups and greasy Styrofoam containers. His back hurt. He had gained weight, which did not help his diabetes, and it was almost a week since he had last been out of the house. What was he to do? If he had an address for their destination he could hack the electricity and water utilities, locate neighbours and organize a group of local vigilantes. But he had no idea where they were heading. He was powerless. His whole body shook and his heart pounded.

Messages came pouring in. Salander was their friend, their shining star. But as far as Plague could tell, nobody in the fellowship had any good suggestions, at least nothing which could be organized fast enough. Should he call the police? Plague had never contacted the authorities, for good reason: There were few cybercrimes he had not committed. In one way or another, they were always after him,
and yet
, he thought,
and yet
, even the outlaw has to turn to the law for help sometimes. He remembered Salander – or Wasp as he knew her – had once talked about an Inspector Bublanski. He was O.K., she had said, and coming from her, “O.K.” was a major compliment. For a minute Plague sat paralysed, staring at a map of Uppland on his computer screen. Then he plugged in his headphones and turned up the volume on the audio file. He wanted to hear every subtle variation in the voices, even in the engine noise. There was a buzzing and scraping in his ears. For a short while nobody spoke. Then somebody said what Plague least wanted to hear:

“Have you got her phone?”

It was the woman again. She may have sounded terrible, but she seemed to be in charge, she and the man who sometimes spoke to the driver in a language the hackers had uploaded and now identified as Bengali.

“It’s in my pocket,” one of the men answered.

“Give it to me.”

There was a rustling and a crackling as the mobile was passed around. Somebody pressed some keys, turned it over, breathed into it.

“Is there anything fishy about it?”

“I don’t know,” the woman answered. “Doesn’t look like it. But maybe the police can use this piece of crap to listen in.”

“We’d better get rid of it.”

Plague heard some more words in Bengali and the car seemed to slow. A door creaked open, even though the vehicle was still moving. Wind sounded in the microphone and then there was a swishing sound, followed by a clattering and an excruciatingly loud bang. Plague ripped off his headphones and slammed his fist on the table. Shit, damn, fuck! Expletives flooded in over the network. They had lost contact with Wasp.

Plague tried to visualize the situation. Traffic cameras – of course! Why hadn’t he thought of that? But they’d have to hack the Transport Administration to get access to their cameras, and that took time. And time they did not have.

he wrote
.

He hooked them all up to an encrypted audio link.

“Some C.C.T.V. is publicly available on the net,” somebody said.

“That’s too jerky and blurred,” he said. “We’ve got to get close enough to see the model of the car and the reg plates.”

“I know a short cut.”

It was a young, female voice. It took Plague a moment to identify her: Nelly, one of their new members. “Really?” he exclaimed. “Great, get in there! Hook yourselves up to her, go for it. Give it everything you’ve got. I’ll give you the times and co-ordinates.”

Plague went onto the site www.trafiken.nu, which showed the location of cameras along the E4 motorway to Uppsala, and at the same time rewound the file from Wasp’s mobile. The alarm had been activated at 12.52 p.m. The first camera on that route was likely to be the one at Haga South and, wait a moment … the vehicle seemed to have passed by there about thirteen minutes later, at 1.05 p.m. Then the cameras came in quick succession, that was good, he thought, good. Linvävartorpet and Linvävartorpet South, then Linvävartorpet North and Haga North Gates, Haga North, Stora Frösunda, Järva Krog, Mellanjärva, Ulriksdals golf course. There were plenty of cameras along the first stretch, and even though there was heavy traffic they should be able to identify the vehicle, since it was obviously an older, bigger model, a van or a light truck.

“How’s it going?” he shouted.

“Just chill, man, we’re working on it. Someone’s really been messing with this, they’ve put in something new. Hell, ‘
ACCESS DENIED
’. Wait. Shit, fuck …
yesss
! Now … yes … we’re running, we’re in, now we just need to get … What kind of idiots built this amateur shit!”

It was the usual. Swearing and shouting. Adrenalin and sweat and more yelling, only this time it was worse. It was a matter of life and death, and once they had figured out the system and how to get in and had gone back and forth on the surveillance cameras, they identified the car: an old grey Mercedes minivan with apparently fake number plates. But now what? They felt even more powerless as the vehicle passed one camera position after the next like a pale, evil spirit, and in the end disappeared beyond the reach of surveillance into the forests to the east of Knivsta, somewhere near the lake at Vadabo.

“Digital darkness. Shit,
shit
!”

Never before had there been so much shouting and swearing among Hacker Republic. Plague saw no alternative but to call Chief Inspector Bublanski.

Bublanski was sitting in his office on Bergsgatan, talking to Imam Hassan Ferdousi. By now he understood how Jamal Chowdhury’s murder had come about. The whole Kazi family – apart from the father – had been involved, along with some Islamists in exile from Bangladesh. It was a somewhat sophisticated operation, but no more so than the initial crime investigation should have been able to unravel without third-party help.

For the police, it was nothing short of a disgrace. Bublanski had just had a conversation with the chief of Säpo, Helena Kraft, and was now discussing with the imam how the police could do better at anticipating and preventing violent crimes like these in the future. But his mind was really elsewhere. He wanted to get back to the investigation into Holger Palmgren’s death, and especially look into this Professor Steinberg.

“What was that again?”

The imam had said something which Bublanski did not fully understand, but before he could inquire further, his telephone rang and at the same time there was a Skype call from a user who called himself
TOTAL FUCKING SHITSTORM FOR SALANDER
, and that in itself was pretty weird. Who would call themselves that? Bublanski answered his mobile and at the end of the line was a young man shouting at him in rather graphic Swedish.

“I’m not going to listen to a single word you say until you’ve introduced yourself,” Bublanski said.

“My name is Plague. Switch on your computer and open the link I’ve sent you, and then I’ll explain.”

Bublanski hesitated at first, but he kept listening to the man, who was using swear words liberally interspersed with incomprehensible computer terminology, but who nonetheless was precise and clear in what he had to report. Bublanski was finally persuaded to open the link and, cutting through his confusion and his scepticism, sprang into action. He mobilized a helicopter and patrol cars from both Stockholm and Uppsala to head for Vadabosjö. Then he and Amanda Flod ran down to his Volvo in the garage. He decided it would be safer to have her drive as they sped northwards to Uppsala, blue lights flashing.

The man next to him had saved him from a serious assault. Blomkvist was still not certain he understood why. But it had to be a good sign. They were no longer in the same opposing roles of investigative reporter and quarry as they had been back in the Alfred Ögren lobby. There was a shared bond between them, and Blomkvist was now in his debt.

The sun was beating down outside. They were in a small, top-floor apartment on Tavastgatan with attic windows looking out over Riddarfjärden. A half-finished oil painting of an ocean and a white whale was propped on an easel. There was harmony in the painting, despite an unconventional combination of colours. But Blomkvist turned it to face the windows. He did not want any distractions.

The apartment belonged to Irene Westervik, an elderly artist who Blomkvist knew only a little. But he felt a certain fondness for her. She was wise and inspired confidence, and lived at a remove from the endless churn of current affairs. Sometimes she enabled him to look at the world from a broader perspective. He had called her from the taxi to ask if he might borrow her studio for a few hours, perhaps for the rest of the day. She had met them in a pale-green dress at the street entrance, and had handed over the keys with a gentle smile.

Now Blomkvist and the man, who was presumably Daniel, were sitting in the apartment facing each other. To be on the safe side, their mobiles were switched off and they had put them on a shelf in the galley kitchen. It was sweltering beneath the roof, and Blomkvist had tried and failed to open the studio windows.