The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest

“Drottninggatan heading north,” Blomkvist said.

“Right,” Figuerola said, making an illegal turn on to Klara Norra and heading towards Olof Palmes Gata. She turned and braked outside the S.I.F. building. Jonas crossed Olof Palmes Gata and turned up towards Sveavagen. Cortez stayed on the other side of the street.

“He turned east –”

“We can see you both.”

“He’s turning down Hollandargatan. Hello… Car. Red Audi.”

“Car,” Blomkvist said, writing down the registration number Cortez read off to him.

“Which way is he facing?” Figuerola said.

“Facing south,” Cortez reported. “He’s pulling out in front of you on Olof Palmes Gata… now.”

Monica was already on her way and passing Drottninggatan. She signalled and headed off a couple of pedestrians who tried to sneak across even though their light was red.

“Thanks, Henry. We’ll take him from here.”

The red Audi turned south on Sveavagen. As Figuerola followed she flipped open her mobile with her left hand and punched in a number.

“Could I get an owner of a red Audi?” she said, rattling off the number.

“Jonas Sandberg, born 1971. What did you say? Helsingorsgatan, Kista. Thanks.”

Blomkvist wrote down the information.

They followed the red Audi via Hamngatan to Strandvagen and then straight up to Artillerigatan. Jonas parked a block away from the Armemuseum. He walked across the street and through the front door of an 1890s building.

“Interesting,” Figuerola said, turning to Blomkvist.

Jonas Sandberg had entered a building that was only a block away from the apartment the Prime Minister had borrowed for their private meeting.

“Nicely done,” Figuerola said.

Just then Karim called and told them that Teleborian had gone up on to Klarabergsgatan via the escalators in Central Station and from there to police headquarters on Kungsholmen.

“Police headquarters at 5.00 on a Saturday afternoon?”

Figuerola and Blomkvist exchanged a sceptical look. Monica pondered this turn of events for a few seconds. Then she picked up her mobile and called Criminal Inspector Jan Bublanski.

“Hello, it’s Monica from S.I.S. We met on Norr Malarstrand a while back.”

“What do you want?” Bublanski said.

“Have you got anybody on duty this weekend?”

“Modig,” Bublanski said.

“I need a favour. Do you know if she’s at headquarters?”

“I doubt it. It’s beautiful weather and Saturday afternoon.”

“Could you possibly reach her or anyone else on the investigative team who might be able to take a look in Prosecutor Ekstrom’s corridor… to see if there’s a meeting going on in his office at the moment.”

“What sort of meeting?”

“I can’t explain just yet. I just need to know if he has a meeting with anybody right now. And if so, who.”

“You want me to spy on a prosecutor who happens to be my superior?”

Figuerola raised her eyebrows. Then she shrugged. “Yes, I do.”

“I’ll do what I can,” he said and hung up.

Sonja Modig was closer to police headquarters than Bublanski had thought. She was having coffee with her husband on the balcony of a friend’s place in Vasastaden. Their children were away with her parents who had taken them on a week’s holiday, and they planned to do something as old-fashioned as have a bite to eat and go to the movies.

Bublanski explained why he was calling.

“And what sort of excuse would I have to barge in on Ekstrom?” Modig asked.

“I promised to give him an update on Niedermann yesterday, but in fact I forgot to deliver it to his office before I left. It’s on my desk.”

“O.K.,” said Modig. She looked at her husband and her friend. “I have to go in to H.Q. I’ll take the car and with a little luck I’ll be back in an hour.”

Her husband sighed. Her friend sighed.

“I’m on call this weekend,” Modig said in apology.

She parked on Bergsgatan, took the lift up to Bublanski’s office, and picked up the three A4 pages that comprised the meagre results of their search for Niedermann. Not much to hang on the Christmas tree, she thought.

She took the stairs up to the next floor and stopped at the door to the corridor. Headquarters was almost deserted on this summer afternoon. She was not exactly sneaking around. She was just walking very quietly. She stopped outside Ekstrom’s closed door. She heard voices and all of a sudden her courage deserted her. She felt a fool. In any normal situation she would have knocked on the door, pushed it open and exclaimed, “Hello! So you’re still here?” and then sailed right in. Now it seemed all wrong.

She looked around.

Why had Bublanski called her? What was this meeting about?

She glanced across the corridor. Opposite Ekstrom’s office was a conference room big enough for ten people. She had sat through a number of presentations there herself. She went into the room and closed the door. The blinds were down, and the glass partition to the corridor was covered by curtains. It was dark. She pulled up a chair and sat down, then opened the curtains a crack so that she would have a view of the corridor.

She felt uneasy. If anyone opened the door she would have quite a problem explaining what she was doing there. She took out her mobile and looked at the time display. Just before 6.00. She changed the ring to silent and leaned back in her chair, watching the door of Ekstrom’s office.

At 7.00 Plague pinged Salander.

– Done. I'm controlling S.M.P.

– Where?

He sent over a U.R.L.

– We have twenty-four hours. Although we have the email for eighteen days we will hijack all their computers from home. It is very likely that most do not even have hooked up on a Saturday afternoon.

– Plague, take care of their computers at home and I'll take care of the S.M.P.

– It's what I intended to do. Your Palm is a bit limited. Is there anyone in particular who I should focus on?

– No. Any of them.

– Agreed.

– Plague.

– Yes.

– If you find anything by tomorrow, I want you to go on.

– Agreed.

– In that case, I'll pay.

– Bah. Okay. This is fun.

She logged out and went to the U.R.L. where Plague had uploaded all the administrator rights for S.M.P. She started by checking whether Fleming was online and at work. He was not. So she borrowed his identity and went into S.M.P.’s mail server. That way she could look at all the activity in the email system, even messages that had long since been deleted from individual accounts.

She started with Ernst Teodor Billing, one of the night editors at S.M.P., forty- three years old. She opened his mail and began to click back in time. She spent about two seconds on each