The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest

“Where did you disappear to in such a hurry?” she said.

“Could you hang on there a few minutes please? There’s something I have to discuss with you before you leave.”

He had not had time to do his laundry for several weeks. All his shirts were in the basket. He packed a razor and Power Struggle for Sapo along with the last remaining copy of Bjorck’s report. He went to Dressman and bought four shirts, two pairs of trousers and some underwear and took the clothes with him to the office. Eriksson waited while he took a quick shower, wondering what was going on.

“Someone broke into my apartment and stole the Zalachenko report. Someone mugged Annika in Goteborg and stole her copy. I have proof that her phone is tapped, which may well mean that mine is too. Maybe yours at home and all the Millennium phones have been bugged. And if someone took the trouble to break into my apartment, they’d be pretty dim if they didn’t bug it as well.”

“I see,” said Eriksson in a flat voice. She glanced at the mobile on the desk in front of her.

“Keep working as usual. Use the mobile, but don’t give away any information. Tomorrow, tell Henry.”

“He went home an hour ago. He left a stack of public reports on your desk. But what are you doing here?”

“I plan to sleep here tonight. If they shot Zalachenko, stole the reports, and bugged my apartment today, there’s a good chance they’ve just got started and haven’t done the office yet. People have been here all day. I don’t want the office to be empty tonight.”

“You think that the murder of Zalachenko… but the murderer was a geriatric psycho.”

“Malin, I don’t believe in coincidence. Somebody is covering Zalachenko’s tracks. I don’t care who people think that old lunatic was or how many crazy letters he wrote to government ministers. He was a hired killer of some sort. He went there to kill Zalachenko… and maybe Lisbeth too.”

“But he committed suicide, or tried to. What hired killer would do that?”

Blomkvist thought for a moment. He met the editor-in-chief’s gaze.

“Maybe someone who’s seventy-eight and hasn’t much to lose. He’s mixed up in all this, and when we finish digging we’ll prove it.”

Eriksson studied Blomkvist’s face. She had never before seen him so composed and unflinching. She shuddered. Blomkvist noticed her reaction.

“One more thing. We’re no longer in a battle with a gang of criminals, this time it’s with a government department. It’s going to be tough.”

Eriksson nodded.

“I didn’t imagine things would go this far. Malin… what happened today makes very plain how dangerous this could get. If you want out, just say the word.”

She wondered what Berger would have said. Then stubbornly she shook her head.

PART II. HACKER REPUBLIC

1 – 22.V

An Irish law from the year 697 forbids women to be soldiers – which means that women had been soldiers previously. Peoples who over the centuries have recruited female soldiers include Arabs, Berbers, Kurds, Rajputs, Chinese, Filipinos, Maoris, Papuans, Australian aborigines, Micronesians and American Indians.

There is a wealth of legend about fearsome female warriors from ancient Greece. These tales speak of women who were trained in the arts of war from childhood – in the use of weapons, and how to cope with physical privation. They lived apart from the men and went to war in their own regiments. The tales tell us that they conquered men on the field of battle. Amazons occur in Greek literature in the Iliad of Homer, for example, in 600 B.C.

It was the Greeks who coined the term Amazon. The word literally means “without breast”. It is said that in order to facilitate the drawing of a bow, the female’s right breast was removed, either in early childhood or with a red-hot iron after she became an adult. Even though the Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen are said to have agreed that this operation would enhance the ability to use weapons, it is doubtful whether such operations were actually performed. Herein lies a linguistic riddle – whether the prefix “a-” in Amazon does indeed mean “without”. It has been suggested that it means the opposite – that an Amazon was a woman with especially large breasts. Nor is there a single example in any museum of a drawing, amulet or statue of a woman without her right breast, which should have been a common motif had the legend about breast amputation been based on fact.

CHAPTER 8

SUNDAY, 1.V – MONDAY, 2.V

Berger took a deep breath as the lift door opened and she walked into the editorial offices of Svenska Morgon-Posten. It was 10.15 in the morning. She was dressed for the office in black trousers, a red jumper and a dark jacket. It was glorious May 1 weather, and on her way through the city she noticed that the workers’ groups had begun to gather. It dawned on her that she had not been part of such a parade in more than twenty years.

For a moment she stood, alone and invisible, next to the lift doors. First day on the job. She could see a large part of the editorial office with the news desk in the centre. She saw the glass doors of the editor-in-chief’s office, which was now hers.

She was not at all sure right now that she was the person to lead the sprawling organization that comprised S.M.P. It was a gigantic step up from Millennium with a staff of five to a daily newspaper with eighty reporters and another ninety people in administration, with I.T. personnel, layout artists, photographers, advertising reps, and all else it takes to publish a newspaper. Add to that a publishing house, a production company and a management company. More than 230 people.

As she stood there she asked herself whether the whole thing was not a hideous mistake.

Then the older of the two receptionists noticed who had just come into the office. She got up and came out from behind the counter and extended her hand.

“Fru Berger, welcome to S.M.P.”

“Call me Erika. Hello.”

“Beatrice. Welcome. Shall I show you where to find Editor-in-Chief Morander? I should say ‘outgoing editor-in-chief’?”

“Thank you, I see him sitting in the glass cage over there,” said Berger with a smile. “I can find my way, but thanks for the offer.”

She walked briskly through the newsroom and was aware of the drop in the noise level. She felt everyone’s eyes upon her. She stopped at the half-empty news desk and gave a friendly nod.

“We’ll introduce ourselves properly in a while,” she said, and then walked over to knock on the door of the glass cubicle.

The departing editor-in-chief, Hakan Morander, had spent twelve years in the glass cage. Just like Berger, he had been head-hunted from outside the company – so he had once taken that very same first walk to his office. He looked up at her, puzzled, and then stood up.

“Hello, Erika,” he said. “I thought you were starting Monday.”

“I couldn’t stand sitting at home one more day. So here I am.”

Morander held out his hand. “Welcome. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re taking over.”