people’s computers via the Internet. Poison said that he had used it successfully, and that his updated version included the latest versions of Unix, Apple and Windows. She emailed him a brief reply and thanked him for the upgrade.
During the next hour, as evening approached in the United States, another half-dozen citizens had come online and welcomed back Wasp before joining the debate. When Salander logged off, the others were discussing to what extent the Swedish Prime Minister’s computer could be made to send civil but crazy emails to other heads of state. A working group had been formed to explore the matter. Salander logged off by writing a brief message:
– Keep talking but do nothing without my approval. Come back when I can.
Everyone sent her hugs and kisses and admonished her to keep the hole in her head warm.
Only when Salander had logged out of Hacker Republic did she go into Yahoo and log on to the private newsgroup [Idiotic_Table]. She discovered that the group had two members – herself and Blomkvist. The mailbox had one message, sent on May 15. It was entitled [Read this first].
Hi Sally. The situation is as follows: The police haven’t found your apartment and don’t have access to the D.V.D. of Bjurman’s rape. The disk is very strong evidence. I don’t want to turn it over to Annika without your approval. I have the keys to your apartment and a passport in name of Nesser.
But the police do have the rucksack you had in Gosseberga. I don’t know if it contains anything compromising.
Salander thought for a moment. Don’t think so. A half-empty thermos of coffee, some apples, a change of clothes. No problem.
You’re going to be charged with G.B.H. against or the attempted murder of Zalachenko, and G.B.H against Carl-Magnus Lundin at Stallarholmen – i.e., because you shot him in the foot and broke his jaw when you kicked him. But a source in the police whom I trust tells me that the evidence in each case is woolly. The following is important:
(1) Before Zalachenko was shot he denied everything and claimed that it could only have been Niedermann who shot and buried you. He laid a charge against you for attempting to murder him. The prosecutor is going to go on about this being the second time you have tried to kill him.
(2) Neither Lundin or Sonny Nieminen has said a word about what happened at Stallarholmen. Lundin has been arrested for kidnapping Miriam. Nieminen has been released.
Salander had already discussed all of this with Giannini. That was nothing new. She
What I think you haven’t understood are the rules of the game.
It’s like this. Sapo got saddled with Zalachenko in the middle of the Cold War. For fifteen years he was protected, no matter what havoc he wrought. Careers were built on Zalachenko. On any number of occasions they cleaned up behind his rampages. This is all criminal activity: Swedish authorities helping to cover up crime against individual citizens.
If this gets out, there’ll be a scandal that will affect both the conservative and social democratic parties. Above all, people in high places within Sapo will be exposed as accomplices in criminal and immoral activities. Even though by now the statute of limitations has run out on the specific instances of crime, there’ll still be a scandal. It involves big beasts who are either retired now or close to retirement.
They will do everything they can to reduce the damage to themselves and their group, and that means you’ll once again be a pawn in their game. But this time it’s not a matter of them sacrificing a pawn – it’ll be a matter of them actively needing to limit the damage to themselves personally. So you’ll have to be locked up again.
This is how it will work. They know that they can’t keep the lid on the Zalachenko secret for long. I’ve got the story, and they know that sooner or later I’m going to publish it. It doesn’t matter so much, of course, now that he’s dead. What matters to them is their own survival. The following points are therefore high on their agenda:
(1) They have to convince the district court (the public, in effect) that the decision to lock you up in St Stefan’s in 1991 was a legitimate one, that you really were mentally ill.
(2) They have to separate the “Salander affair” from the “Zalachenko affair”. They’ll try to create a situation where they can say that “certainly Zalachenko was a fiend, but that had nothing to do with the decision to lock up his daughter. She was locked up because she was deranged – any claims to the contrary are the sick fantasies of bitter journalists. No, we did not assist Zalachenko in any crime – that’s the delusion of a mentally ill teenage girl.”
(3) The problem is that if you’re acquitted, it would mean that the district court finds you not only not guilty, but also not a nutcase. And that would have to mean that locking you up in 1991 was illegal. So they have, at all costs, to condemn you again to the locked psychiatric ward. If the court determines that you are mentally ill, the media’s interest in continuing to dig around in the “Salander affair” will die away. That is how the media work.
Are you with me?
All of this she had already worked out for herself. The problem was that she did not know what she should do.
Lisbeth – seriously – this battle is going to be decided in the mass media and not in the courtroom. Unfortunately the trial is going to be held behind closed doors “to protect your privacy”.
The day that Zalachenko was shot there was a robbery at my apartment. There were no signs on my door of a break-in, and nothing was touched or moved – except for one thing. The folder from Bjurman’s summer cabin with Bjorck’s report was taken. At the same time my sister was mugged and her copy of the report was also stolen. That folder is your most important evidence.
I have let it be known that our Zalachenko documents are gone, disappeared. In fact I had a third copy that I was going to give to Armansky. I made several copies of that one and have tucked them away in safe places.
Our opponents – who include several high-powered figures and certain psychiatrists – are of course also preparing for the trial together with Prosecutor Ekstrom. I have a source who provides me with some info. on what’s going on, but I suspect that you might have a better chance of finding out the relevant information. This is urgent.
The prosecutor is going to try to get you locked up in the psychiatric ward. Assisting him he has your old friend Peter Teleborian.
Annika won’t be able to go out and do a media campaign in the same way that the prosecution can (and does), leaking information as they see fit. Her hands are tied.
But I’m not lumbered with that sort of restriction. I write whatever I want – and I also have an entire magazine at my disposal.
Two important details are still needed:
(1) First of all, I want to have something that shows that Prosecutor Ekstrom is today working with Teleborian in some inappropriate manner, and that the objective once more is to confine you to a nuthouse. I want to be able to go on any talk show on T.V. and present documentation that annihilates the prosecution’s game.
(2) To wage a media war I must be able to appear in public to discuss things that you may consider your private business. Hiding behind the arras in this situation is a wildly overrated tactic in view of all that has been written about you since Easter. I have to be able to construct a completely new media image of you, even if that, in your opinion, means invading your privacy – preferably with your approval. Do you understand what I mean?
