– Take a look at that hard drive content.
Salander disconnected from Plague and accessed the server he had directed her to. She spent nearly three hours scrutinizing folder after folder on Teleborian’s computer.
She found correspondence between Teleborian and a person with a hotmail address who sent encrypted mail. Since she had access to Teleborian’s P.G.P. key, she easily decoded the correspondence. His name was Jonas, no last name. Jonas and Teleborian had an unhealthy interest in seeing that Salander did not thrive.
But what really interested Salander were the forty-seven folders containing close to nine thousand photographs of explicit child pornography. She clicked on image after image of children aged about fifteen or younger. A number of pictures were of infants. The majority were of girls. Many of them were sadistic.
She found links to at least a dozen people abroad who traded child porn with each other.
Salander bit her lip, but her face was otherwise expressionless.
She remembered the nights when, as a twelve-year-old, she had been strapped down in a stimulus-free room at St Stefan’s. Teleborian had come into the room again and again to look at her in the glow of the nightlight.
She knew. He had never touched her, but she had always known.
She should have dealt with Teleborian years ago. But she had repressed the memory of him. She had chosen to ignore his existence.
After a while she pinged Blomkvist on I.C.Q.
Blomkvist spent the night at Salander’s apartment on Fiskargatan. He did not shut down the computer until 6.30 a.m. and fell asleep with photographs of gross child pornography whirling through his mind. He woke at 10.15 and rolled out of Salander’s bed, showered, and called a taxi to pick him up outside Sodra theatre. He got out at Birger Jarlsgatan at 10.55 and walked to Cafe Madeleine.
Modig was waiting for him with a cup of black coffee in front of her.
“Hi,” Blomkvist said.
“I’m taking a big risk here,” she said without greeting.
“Nobody will hear of our meeting from me.”
She seemed stressed.
“One of my colleagues recently went to see former Prime Minister Falldin. He went there off his own bat, and his job is on the line now too.”
“I understand.”
“I need a guarantee of anonymity for both of us.”
“I don’t even know which colleague you’re talking about.”
“I’ll tell you later. I want you to promise to give him protection as a source.”
“You have my word.”
She looked at her watch.
“Are you in a hurry?”
“Yes. I have to meet my husband and kids at the Sturegalleria in ten minutes. He thinks I’m still at work.”
“And Bublanski knows nothing about this?”
“No.”
“Right. You and your colleague are sources and you have complete source protection. Both of you. As long as you live.”
“My colleague is Jerker Holmberg. You met him down in Goteborg. His father is a Centre Party member, and Jerker has known Prime Minister Falldin since he was a child. He seems to be pleasant enough. So Jerker went to see him and asked about Zalachenko.”
Blomkvist’s heart began to pound.
“Jerker asked what he knew about the defection, but Falldin didn’t reply. When Holmberg told him that we suspect that Salander was locked up by the people who were protecting Zalachenko, well, that really upset him.”
“Did he say how much he knew?”
“Falldin told him that the chief of Sapo at the time and a colleague came to visit him very soon after he became Prime Minister. They told a fantastic story about a Russian defector who had come to Sweden, told him that it was the most sensitive military secret Sweden possessed… that there was nothing in Swedish military intelligence that was anywhere near as important. Falldin said that he hadn’t known how he should handle it, that there was no-one with much experience in government, the Social Democrats having been in power for more than forty years. He was advised that he alone had to make the decisions, and that if he discussed it with his government colleagues then Sapo would wash their hands of it. He remembered the whole thing as having been very unpleasant.”
“What
“He realized that he had no choice but to do what the gentlemen from Sapo were proposing. He issued a directive putting Sapo in sole charge of the defector. He undertook never to discuss the matter with anyone. Falldin was never told Zalachenko’s name.”
“Extraordinary.”
“After that he heard almost nothing more during his two terms in office. But he had done something extremely shrewd. He had insisted that an Undersecretary of State be let in on the secret, in case there was a need for a go-between for the government secretariat and those who were protecting Zalachenko.”
“Did he remember who it was?”
“It was Bertil K. Janeryd, now Swedish ambassador in the Hague. When it was explained to Falldin how serious this preliminary investigation was, he sat down and wrote to Janeryd.”
Modig pushed an envelope across the table.
Dear Bertil,
The secret we both protected during my administration is now the subject of some very serious questions. The person referred to in the matter is now deceased and can no longer come to harm. On the other hand, other people can.
It is of the utmost importance that answers are provided to certain questions that must be answered.
The person who bears this letter is working unofficially and has my trust. I urge you to listen to his story and answer his questions.
Use your famous good judgement.
T.F.
“This letter is referring to Holmberg?”
“No. Jerker asked Falldin not to put a name. He said that he couldn’t know who would be going to the Hague.” “You mean…”
“Jerker and I have discussed it. We’re already out on ice so thin that we’ll need paddles rather than ice picks. We have no authority to travel to Holland to interview the ambassador. But you could do it.”
Blomkvist folded the letter and was putting it into his jacket pocket when Modig grabbed his hand. Her grip was hard.
“Information for information,” she said. “We want to hear everything Janeryd tells you.”
Blomkvist nodded. Modig stood up.
“Hang on. You said that Falldin was visited by two people from Sapo. One was the chief of Sapo. Who was the other?”
“Falldin met him only on that one occasion and couldn’t remember his name. No notes were taken at the meeting. He remembered him as thin with a narrow moustache. But he did recall that the man was introduced as the boss of the Section for Special Analysis, or something like that. Falldin later looked at an organizational chart of Sapo and couldn’t find that department.”
