The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest

“You’re behind this article?”

“No, I am not. Cortez researched and wrote the article entirely off his own bat. I didn’t know anything about it.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“As soon as my old colleagues at Millennium saw how you were implicated in the story, Blomkvist stopped its publication. He called me and gave me a copy, out of concern for my position. It was then stolen from me, and now it’s ended up with you. Millennium wanted me to have a chance to talk with you before they printed it. Which they mean to do in the August issue.”

“I’ve never met a more unscrupulous media whore in my whole life. It defies belief.”

“Now that you’ve read the story, perhaps you have also considered the research behind it. Cortez has a cast-iron story. You know that.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“If you’re still here when Millennium goes to press, that will hurt S.M.P. I’ve worried myself sick and tried to find a way out… but there isn’t one.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll have to go.”

“Don’t be absurd. I haven’t done anything illegal.”

“Magnus, don’t you understand the impact of this expose? I don’t want to have to call a board meeting. It would be too embarrassing.”

“You’re not going to call anything at all. You’re finished at S.M.P.”

“Wrong. Only the board can sack me. Presumably you’re allowed to call them in for an extraordinary meeting. I would suggest you do that for this afternoon.”

Borgsjo came round the desk and stood so close to Berger that she could feel his breath.

“Berger, you have one chance to survive this. You have to go to your damned colleagues at Millennium and get them to kill this story. If you do a good job I might even forget what you’ve done.”

Berger sighed.

“Magnus, you aren’t understanding how serious this is. I have no influence whatsoever on what Millennium is going to publish. This story is going to come out no matter what I say. The only thing I care about is how it affects S.M.P. That’s why you have to resign.”

Borgsjo put his hands on the back of her chair.

“Berger, your cronies at Millennium might change their minds if they knew that you would be fired the instant they leak this bullshit.”

He straightened up.

“I’ll be at a meeting in Norrkoping today.” He looked at her, furious and arrogant. “At Svea Construction.”

“I see.”

“When I’m back tomorrow you will report to me that this matter has been taken care of. Understood?”

He put on his jacket. Berger watched him with her eyes half closed.

“Maybe then you’ll survive at S.M.P. Now get out of my office.”

She went back to the glass cage and sat quite still in her chair for twenty minutes. Then she picked up the telephone and asked Holm to come to her office. This time he was there within a minute.

“Sit down.”

Holm raised an eyebrow and sat down.

“What did I do wrong this time?” he said sarcastically.

“Anders, this is my last day at S.M.P. I’m resigning here and now. I’m calling in the deputy chairman and as many of the board as I can find for a meeting over lunch.”

He stared at her with undisguised shock.

“I’m going to recommend that you be made acting editor-in-chief.”

“What?”

“Are you O.K. with that?”

Holm leaned back in his chair and looked at her.

“I’ve never wanted to be editor-in-chief,” he said.

“I know that. But you’re tough enough to do the job. And you’ll walk over corpses to be able to publish a good story. I just wish you had more common sense.”

“So what happened?”

“I have a different style to you. You and I have always argued about what angle to take, and we’ll never agree.”

“No,” he said. “We never will. But it’s possible that my style is old-fashioned.”

“I don’t know if old-fashioned is the right word. You’re a very good newspaperman, but you behave like a bastard. That’s totally unnecessary. But what we were most at odds about was that you claimed that as news editor you couldn’t allow personal considerations to affect how the news was assessed.”

Berger suddenly gave Holm a sly smile. She opened her bag and took out her original text of the Borgsjo story.

“Let’s test your sense of news assessment. I have a story here that came to us from a reporter at Millennium. This morning I’m thinking that we should run this article as today’s top story.” She tossed the folder into Holm’s lap. “You’re the news editor. I’d be interested to hear whether you share my assessment.”

Holm opened the folder and began to read. Even the introduction made his eyes widen. He sat up straight in his chair and stared at Berger. Then he lowered his eyes and read through the article to the end. He studied the source material for ten more minutes before he slowly put the folder aside.

“This is going to cause one hell of an uproar.”

“I know. That’s why I’m leaving. Millennium was planning to run the story in their July issue, but Mikael Blomkvist stopped publication. He gave me the article so that I could talk with Borgsjo before they run it.”

“And?”

“Borgsjo ordered me to suppress it.”

“I see. So you’re planning to run it in S.M.P. out of spite?”

“Not out of spite, no. There’s no other way. If S.M.P. runs the story, we have a chance of getting out of this mess with our honour intact. Borgsjo has no choice but to go. But it also means that I can’t stay here any longer.”

Holm sat in silence for two minutes.

“Damn it, Berger… I didn’t think you were that tough. I never thought I’d ever say this, but if you’re that thick-skinned, I’m actually sorry you’re leaving.”

“You could stop publication, but if both you and I O.K. it… Do you think you’ll run the story?”

“Too right we’ll run it. It would leak anyway.”

“Exactly.”

Holm got up and stood uncertainly by her desk.

“Get to work,” said Berger.

After Holm left her office she waited five minutes before she picked up the telephone and rang Eriksson.

“Hello, Malin. Is Henry there?”

“Yes, he’s at his desk.”

“Could you call him into your office and put on the speakerphone? We have to have a conference.”

Cortez was there within fifteen seconds.

“What’s up?”

“Henry, I did something immoral today.”

“Oh, you did?”

“I gave your story about Vitavara to the news editor here at S.M.P.”