The Girl who played with Fire

Salander’s smile broadened. She suddenly looked malevolent.

“May I show you something, Pappa?”

Slowly she reached into her left-hand pants pocket and took out a rectangular object. Niedermann watched her every move.

“Every word you’ve said in the past hour has been broadcast over Internet radio.”

She held up her Palm Tungsten T3 computer.

Zalachenko’s brow furrowed where his eyebrows should have been.

“Let’s see that,” he said, holding out his good hand.

Salander lobbed the PDA to him. He caught it in midair.

“Bullshit,” Zalachenko said. “This is an ordinary Palm.”

As Niedermann bent to look at her computer, Salander flung a fistful of sand right into his eyes. He was blinded, but instinctively fired a round from his pistol. Salander had already moved two steps to one side and the bullet only tore a hole through the air where she had been standing. She grabbed the spade and swung it at his gun hand. She hit him with the sharp edge full force across the knuckles and saw his Sig Sauer fly in a wide arc away from them and into some bushes. Blood spurted from a gash above his index finger.

He should be screaming with pain.

Niedermann fumbled with his wounded hand as he desperately tried to rub his eyes with the other. Her only chance to win this fight was to cause him massive damage, and as quickly as possible. If it came down to a physical contest she was hopelessly lost. She needed five seconds to make it into the woods. She swung the spade back over her shoulder and tried to twist the handle so that the edge would hit first, but she was in the wrong position. The flat side of the spade smacked into Niedermann’s face.

Niedermann grunted as his nose broke for the second time in a matter of days. He was still blinded by the sand, but he swung his right arm and managed to shove Salander away from him. She stumbled over a tree root. For a second she was down on the ground but sprang instantly to her feet. Niedermann was briefly out of action.

I’m going to make it.

She took two steps towards the undergrowth when out of the corner of her eye- click-she saw Zalachenko raise his arm.

The fucking old man has a gun too.

The realization cracked like a whip through her mind.

She changed direction in the same instant the shot was fired. The bullet struck the outside of her hip and made her spin off balance.

She felt no pain.

The second bullet hit her in the back and stopped against her left shoulder blade. A paralyzing pain sliced through her body.

She went down on her knees. For a few seconds she could not move. She was conscious that Zalachenko was behind her, about twenty feet away. With one last surge of energy she stubbornly hurled herself to her feet and took a wobbly step towards the cover of the bushes.

Zalachenko had time to aim.

The third bullet caught her about an inch below the top of her left ear. It penetrated her skull and caused a spiderweb of radial cracks in her cranium. The lead came to rest in the grey matter about two inches beneath the cerebral cortex, by the cerebrum.

For Salander the medical detail was academic. The bullet caused immediate massive trauma. Her last sensation was a glowing red shock that turned into a white light.

Then darkness.

Click.

Zalachenko tried to fire one more round, but his hands were shaking so hard that he couldn’t aim. She almost got away. And then he realized that she was dead and he lowered his weapon, shivering as the adrenaline flowed through his body. He looked down at his gun. He had considered leaving it behind, but had gone to get it and put it in his jacket pocket as though he needed a mascot. A monster. They were two fully grown men, and one of them was Ronald Niedermann, who had been armed with his Sig Sauer. And that fucking whore almost got away.

He glanced at his daughter’s body. In the beam from his flashlight she looked like a bloody rag doll. He clicked the safety catch on and stuffed the pistol into his jacket pocket and went over to Niedermann, who was standing helpless, tears running from his dirt-filled eyes and blood from his hand and nose. “I think I broke my nose again,” he said.

“Idiot,” Zalachenko said. “She almost got away.”

Niedermann kept rubbing his eyes. They didn’t hurt, but the tears were flowing and he could scarcely see.

“Stand up straight, damn it.” Zalachenko shook his head in contempt. “What the hell would you do without me?”

Niedermann blinked in despair. Zalachenko limped over to his daughter’s body and grabbed her jacket by the collar. He dragged her to the grave that was only a hole in the ground, too small even for Salander to lie stretched out. He lifted the body so that her feet were over the opening and let her tumble in. She landed facedown in a fetal position, her legs bent under her.

“Fill it in so we can go home,” Zalachenko commanded.

It took the half-blind Niedermann a while to shovel the soil in around her. What was left over he spread out around the clearing with powerful jabs of the spade.

Zalachenko smoked a cigarette as he watched Niedermann work. He was still shivering, but the adrenaline had begun to subside. He felt a sudden relief that she was gone. He could still picture her eyes as she threw the firebomb all those many years ago.

It was 9:30 when Zalachenko shone his flashlight around and declared himself satisfied. It took a while longer to find the Sig Sauer in the undergrowth. Then they went back to the house. Zalachenko was feeling wonderfully gratified. He tended to Niedermann’s hand. The spade had cut deep and he had to find a needle and thread to sew up the wound – a skill he had learned in military school in Novosibirsk as a fifteen-year-old. At least he didn’t need to administer an anaesthetic. But it was possible that the wound was sufficiently serious for Niedermann to have to go to the hospital. He put a splint on the finger and bandaged it. They would decide in the morning.

When he was finished he got himself a beer as Niedermann rinsed his eyes over and over in the bathroom.

CHAPTER 32

Thursday, April 7

Blomkvist arrived at Goteborg Central Station just after 9:00 p.m. The X2000 had made up some time, but it was still late. He had spent the last hour of the journey calling car rental companies. He’d first thought of finding a car in Alingsas and getting off there, but the office was closed already. Ultimately he managed to order a Volkswagen through a hotel booking agency in the city. He could pick up the car at Jarntorget. He decided not to try to navigate Goteborg’s confusing local traffic and incomprehensible ticket system and took a cab to the lot.

When he got to the car there was no map in the glove compartment. He bought one in a gas station, along with a flashlight, a bottle of mineral water, and a cup of coffee, which he put in the holder on the dashboard. It was 10:30 before he drove out of the city on the road to Alingsas.

A fox stopped and looked about restlessly. He knew that something was buried there. But from somewhere nearby came the rustle of an unwary night animal and the fox was instantly on the alert for easier prey. He took a cautious step. But before he continued his hunt he lifted his hind leg and pissed on the spot to mark his territory.