The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest

bed.

Then Giannini crossed the room and pulled open the door. She saw two nurses running towards another room two doors away. The first nurse stopped short on the threshold. “No, don’t!” she screamed and then took a step back, colliding with the second nurse.

“He’s got a gun. Run!”

Giannini watched as the two nurses took cover in the room next to Salander’s.

The next moment she saw a thin, grey-haired man in a hound’s-tooth jacket walk into the corridor. He had a gun in his hand. Annika recognized him as the man who come up in the lift with her.

Then their eyes met. He appeared confused. He aimed the revolver at her and took a step forward. She pulled her head back in and slammed the door shut, looking around in desperation. A nurses’ table stood right next to her. She rolled it quickly over to the door and wedged the tabletop under the door handle.

She heard a movement and turned to see Salander just starting to clamber out of bed again. In a few quick steps she crossed the floor, wrapped her arms around her client and lifted her up. She tore electrodes and I.V. tubes loose as she carried her to the bathroom and set her on the toilet seat. Then she turned and locked the bathroom door. She dug her mobile out of her jacket pocket and dialled 112.

Gullberg went to Salander’s room and tried the door handle. It was blocked. He could not move it even a millimetre.

For a moment he stood indecisively outside the door. He knew that the lawyer Giannini was in the room, and he wondered if a copy of Bjorck’s report might be in her briefcase. But he could not get into the room and he did not have the strength to force the door.

That had not been part of the plan anyway. Clinton would take care of Giannini. Gullberg’s only job was Zalachenko.

He looked around the corridor and saw that he was being watched by nurses, patients and visitors. He raised the pistol and fired at a picture hanging on the wall at the end of the corridor. His spectators vanished as if by magic.

He glanced one last time at the door to Salander’s room. Then he walked decisively back to Zalachenko’s room and closed the door. He sat in the visitor’s chair and looked at the Russian defector who had been such an intimate part of his own life for so many years.

He sat still for almost ten minutes before he heard movement in the corridor and was aware that the police had arrived. By now he was not thinking of anything in particular.

Then he raised the revolver one last time, held it to his temple, and squeezed the trigger.

As the situation developed, the futility of attempting suicide in the middle of a hospital became apparent. Gullberg was transported at top speed to the hospital’s trauma unit, where Dr Jonasson received him and immediately initiated a battery of measures to maintain his vital functions.

For the second time in less than a week Jonasson performed emergency surgery, extracting a full-metal- jacketed bullet from human brain tissue. After a five-hour operation, Gullberg’s condition was critical. But he was still alive.

Yet Gullberg’s injuries were considerably more serious than those that Salander had sustained. He hovered between life and death for several days.

Blomkvist was at the Kaffebar on Hornsgatan when he heard on the radio that a 66-year-old unnamed man, suspected of attempting to murder the fugitive Lisbeth Salander, had been shot and killed at Sahlgrenska hospital in Goteborg. He left his coffee untouched, picked up his laptop case, and hurried off towards the editorial offices on Gotgatan. He had crossed Mariatorget and was just turning up St Paulsgatan when his mobile beeped. He answered on the run.

“Blomkvist.”

“Hi, it’s Malin.”

“I heard the news. Do we know who the killer was?”

“Not yet. Henry is chasing it down.”

“I’m on the way in. Be there in five minutes.”

Blomkvist ran into Cortez at the entrance to the Millennium offices.

“Ekstrom’s holding a press conference at 3.00,” Cortez said. “I’m going to Kungsholmen now.”

“What do we know?” Blomkvist shouted after him.

“Ask Malin,” Cortez said, and was gone.

Blomkvist headed into Berger’s… wrong, Eriksson’s office. She was on the telephone and writing furiously on a yellow Post-it. She waved him away. Blomkvist went into the kitchenette and poured coffee with milk into two mugs marked with the logos of the K.D.U. and S.S.U. political parties. When he returned she had just finished her call. He gave her the S.S.U. mug.

“Right,” she said. “Zalachenko was shot dead at 1.15.” She looked at Blomkvist. “I just spoke to a nurse at Sahlgrenska. She says that the murderer was a man in his seventies, who arrived with flowers for Zalachenko minutes before the murder. He shot Zalachenko in the head several times and then shot himself. Zalachenko is dead. The murderer is just about alive and in surgery.”

Blomkvist breathed more easily. Ever since he had heard the news at the Kaffebar he had had his heart in his throat and a panicky feeling that Salander might have been the killer. That really would have thrown a spanner in the works.

“Do we have the name of the assailant?”

Eriksson shook her head as the telephone rang again. She took the call, and from the conversation Blomkvist gathered that it was a stringer in Goteborg whom Eriksson had sent to Sahlgrenska. He went to his own office and sat down.

It felt as if it was the first time in weeks that he had even been to his office. There was a pile of unopened post that he shoved firmly to one side. He called his sister.

“Giannini.”

“It’s Mikael. Did you hear what happened at Sahlgrenska?”

“You could say so.”

“Where are you?”

“At the hospital. That bastard aimed at me, too.”

Blomkvist sat speechless for several seconds before he fully took in what his sister had said.

“What on earth… you were there?”

“Yes. It was the most horrendous thing I’ve ever experienced.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No. But he tried to get into Lisbeth’s room. I blockaded the door and locked us in the bathroom.”

Blomkvist’s whole world suddenly felt off balance. His sister had almost…

“How is she?” he said.

“She’s not hurt. Or, I mean, she wasn’t hurt in today’s drama at least.”

He let that sink in.

“Annika, do you know anything at all about the murderer?”

“Not a thing. He was an older man, neatly dressed. I thought he looked rather bewildered. I’ve never seen him before, but I came up in the lift with him a few minutes before it all happened.”

“And Zalachenko is dead, no question?”

“Yes. I heard three shots, and according to what I’ve overheard he was shot in the head all three times. But it’s been utter chaos here, with a thousand policemen, and they’re evacuating a ward for acutely ill and injured patients who really ought not to be moved. When the police arrived one of them tried to question Lisbeth before they even bothered to ask what shape she’s in. I had to read them the riot act.”

Inspector Erlander saw Giannini through the doorway to Salander’s room. The lawyer had her mobile pressed to her ear, so he waited for her to finish her call.

Two hours after the murder there was still chaos in the corridor. Zalachenko’s room was sealed off. Doctors had tried resuscitation immediately after the shooting, but soon gave up. He was beyond all help. His body was sent to the pathologist, and the crime scene investigation proceeded as best it could under the circumstances.