the restaurant. She had her Sig Sauer in her hand with the safety off when she noticed the car parked right outside the restaurant.
She saw one of the Nikolich brothers behind the wheel and pointed her weapon at his face behind the driver’s door
“Police. Hands up,” she screamed.
Tomi Nikolich held up his hands.
“Get out of the car and lie face down on the pavement,” she roared, fury in her voice. She turned and glanced at Andersson and Modig beside her. “The restaurant,” she said.
Modig was thinking of her children. It was against all police protocol to gallop into a building with her weapon drawn without first having back-up in place and without knowing the exact situation.
Then she heard the sound of more shots from inside.
Blomkvist had his middle finger between the trigger and the trigger guard as Miro Nikolich tried to keep shooting. He heard glass shattering behind him. He felt a searing pain as the attacker squeezed the trigger again and again, crushing his finger. As long as his finger was in place the gun could not be fired. But as Nikolich’s fist pummelled again and again on the side of his head, it suddenly occurred to him that he was too old for this sort of thing.
That was his first rational thought since he had become aware of the man with the sub-machine gun.
He clenched his teeth and shoved his finger further into the space behind the trigger.
Then he braced himself, rammed his shoulder into the attacker’s body and forced himself back on to his feet. He let go of the gun with his right hand and raised elbow up to protect his face from the pummelling. Nikolich switched to hitting him in the armpit and ribs. For a second they stood eye to eye again.
The next moment Blomkvist felt the attacker being pulled away from him. He felt one last devastating pain in his finger and became aware of Andersson’s huge form. The police officer literally picked up Nikolich with a firm grip on his neck and slammed his head into the wall by the door. Nikolich collapsed to the ground.
“Get down! This is the police. Stay very still,” he heard Modig yell.
He turned his head and saw her standing with her legs apart and her gun held in both hands as she surveyed the chaos. At last she raised her gun to point it at the ceiling and looked at Blomkvist.
“Are you hurt?” she said.
In a daze Blomkvist looked back at her. He was bleeding from his eyebrows and nose.
“I think I broke a finger,” he said, sitting down on the floor.
Figuerola received back-up from the Sodermalm armed response team less than a minute after she forced Tomi Nikolich on to the pavement at gunpoint. She showed her I.D. and left the officers to take charge of the prisoner. Then she ran inside. She stopped in the entrance to take stock of the situation.
Blomkvist and Berger were sitting side by side. His face was bloodied and he seemed to be in shock. She sighed in relief. He was alive. Then she frowned as Berger put her arm around his shoulders. At least her face was bruised.
Modig was squatting down next to them, examining Blomkvist’s hand. Andersson was handcuffing Nikolich, who looked as though he had been hit by a truck. She saw a Swedish Army model M/45 submachine gun on the floor.
Figuerola looked up and saw shocked restaurant staff and terrorstricken patrons, along with shattered china, overturned chairs and tables, and debris from the rounds that had been fired. She smelled cordite. But she was not aware of anyone dead or wounded in the restaurant. Officers from the armed response team began to squeeze into the room with their weapons drawn. She reached out and touched Andersson’s shoulder. He stood up.
“You said that Miro Nikolich was on our wanted list?”
“Correct. G.B.H. About a year ago. A street fight down in Hallunda.”
“O.K. Here’s what we’ll do,” Figuerola said. “I’ll take off as fast as I can with Blomkvist and Berger. You stay here. The story is that you and Modig came here to have dinner and you recognized Nikolich from your time in the gangs unit. When you tried to arrest him he pulled a weapon and started shooting. So you sorted him out.”
Andersson looked completely astonished. “That’s not going to hold up. There are witnesses.”
“The witnesses will say that somebody was fighting and shots were fired. It only has to hold up until tomorrow’s evening papers. The story is that the Nikolich brothers were apprehended by sheer chance because you recognized them.”
Andersson surveyed the shambles all around him.
Figuerola pushed her way through the knot of police officers out on the street and put Blomkvist and Berger in the back seat of her car. She turned to the armed response team leader and spoke in a low voice with him for half a minute. She gestured towards the car in which Blomkvist and Berger were now sitting. The leader looked puzzled but at last he nodded. She drove to Zinkensdamm, parked, and turned around to her passengers.
“How badly are you hurt?”
“I took a few punches. I’ve still got all my teeth, but my middle finger’s hurt.”
“I’ll take you to A.&E. at St Goran’s.”
“What happened?” Berger said. “And who are you?”
“I’m sorry,” Blomkvist said. “Erika, this is Inspector Monica Figuerola. She works for Sapo. Monica, this is Erika Berger.”
“I worked that out all by myself,” Figuerola said in a neutral tone. She did not spare Berger a glance.
“Monica and I met during the investigation. She’s my contact at S.I.S.”
“I understand,” Berger said, and she began to shake as suddenly the shock set in.
Figuerola stared hard at Berger.
“What went wrong?” Blomkvist said.
“We misinterpreted the reason for the cocaine,” Figuerola said. “We thought they were setting a trap for you, to create a scandal. Now we know they wanted to kill you. They were going to let the police find the cocaine when they went through your apartment.”
“What cocaine?” Berger said.
Blomkvist closed his eyes for a moment.
“Take me to St Goran’s,” he said.
“Arrested?” Clinton barked. He felt a butterfly-light pressure around his heart.
“We think it’s alright,” Nystrom said. “It seems to have been sheer bad luck.”
“Bad luck?”
“Miro Nikolich was wanted on some old assault story. A policeman from the gangs unit happened to recognize him when he went into Samir’s Cauldron and wanted to arrest him. Nikolich panicked and tried to shoot his way out.”
“And Blomkvist?”
“He wasn’t involved. We don’t even know if he was in the restaurant at the time.”
“This cannot be fucking true,” Clinton said. “What do the Nikolich brothers know?”
“About us? Nothing. They think Bjorck and Blomkvist were both hits that had to do with trafficking.”
“But they know that Blomkvist was the target?”
“Sure, but they’re hardly going to start blabbing about being hired to do a hit. They’ll keep their mouths shut all the way to district court. They’ll do time for possession of illegal weapons and, as like as not, for resisting arrest.”
“Those damned fuck-ups,” Clinton said.
“Well, they seriously screwed up. We’ve had to let Blomkvist give us the slip for the moment, but no harm was actually done.”
It was 11.00 by the time Linder and two hefty bodyguards from Milton Security’s personal protection unit collected Blomkvist and Berger from Kungsholmen.
“You really do get around,” Linder said.
