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“If the building is alarmed, I’m not doing it,” Falun said. “It would be better to have a look through the window. If there’s anything lying around, you can just chuck a rock through, jump in, grab what you need and run like hell.”
“That’ll work,” Sandberg said.
“If you only need one copy of the magazine, we can check the dustbins round the back. There must be overruns and test printings and things like that.”
Hallvigs Reklam printing factory was in a low, brick building. They approached from the south on the other side of the street. Sandberg was about to cross when Falun took hold of his elbow.
“Keep going straight,” he said.
“What?”
“Keep going straight, as if we’re out for an evening stroll.”
They passed Hallvigs and made a tour of the neighbourhood.
“What was all that about?” Sandberg said.
“You’ve got to keep your eyes peeled. The place isn’t just alarmed. There was a car parked alongside the building.”
“You mean somebody’s there?”
“It was a car from Milton Security. The factory is under surveillance, for Christ’s sake.”
“ Milton Security?” Clinton felt the shock hit him in the gut.
“If it hadn’t been for Falun, I would have walked right into their arms,” Sandberg said.
“There’s something fishy going on,” Nyström said. “There is no rationale for a small out-of-town printer to hire Milton Security for 24-hour surveillance.”
Clinton ’s lips were pressed tight. It was after 11.00 and he needed to rest.
“And that means Mille
“I can see that,” Clinton said. “O.K. Let’s analyse the situation. What’s the worst-case scenario? What could they know?” He gave Nyström an urgent look.
“It has to be the Salander report,” he said. “They beefed up their security after we lifted the copies. They must have guessed that they’re under surveillance. The worst case is that they still have a copy of the report.”
“But Blomkvist was at his wits’ end when it went missing.”
“I know. But we may have been duped. We can’t shut our eyes to that possibility.”
“We’ll work on that assumption,” Clinton said. “Sandberg?”
“We do know what Salander’s defence will be. She’s going to tell the truth as she sees it. I’ve read this autobiography of hers. In fact it plays right into our hands. It’s full of such outrageous accusations of rape and violation of her civil rights that it will come across as the ravings of a paranoid personality.”
Nyström said: “Besides, she can’t prove a single one of her claims. Ekström will use the account against her. He’ll a
“O.K. Teleborian’s new report is excellent. There is, of course, the possibility that Gia
“The best thing would still be if there was no trial,” Clinton said.
Nyström shook his head. “That’s virtually impossible. She’s in Kronoberg prison and she has no contact with other prisoners. She gets an hour’s exercise each day in the little area on the roof, but we can’t get to her up there. And we have no contacts among the prison staff.”
“There may still be time.”
“If we’d wanted to dispose of her, we should have done it when she was at Sahlgrenska. The likelihood that a hit man would do time is almost 100 per cent. And where would we find a gun who’d agree to that? And at such short notice it would be impossible to arrange a suicide or an accident.”
“I was afraid of that. And unexpected deaths have a tendency to invite questions. O.K., we’ll have to see how the trial goes. In reality, nothing has changed. We’ve always anticipated that they would make some sort of counter-move, and it seems to be this so-called autobiography.”
“The problem is Mille
“Mille
“It doesn’t seem unreasonable that Milton Security is watching the factory where Mille
“When are they going to publish? Sandberg, you said that they’re almost two weeks behind schedule. If we assume that Milton is keeping an eye on the printer’s to make sure that nobody gets hold of a copy, that means either that they’re publishing something that they don’t want to leak, or that the magazine has already been printed.”
“To coincide with the opening of the trial,” Sandberg said. “That’s the only reasonable explanation.”
Clinton nodded. “O.K. What’s going to be in the magazine?”
They thought for a while, until Nyström broke the silence.
“In the worst case they have a copy of the 1991 report, as we said.”
Clinton and Sandberg had reached the same conclusion.
“But what can they do with it?” Sandberg said. “The report implicates Björck and Teleborian. Björck is dead. They can press hard with Teleborian, but he’ll claim that he was doing a routine forensic psychiatric examination. It’ll be their word against his.”
“And what can we do if they publish the report?” Nyström said.
“I think we’re holding the trump card,” Clinton said. “If there’s a ruckus over the report, the focus will be on Säpo, not the Section. And when reporters start asking questions, Säpo will just pull it out of the archive…”
“And it won’t be the same report,” Sandberg said.
“Shenke has put the modified version in the archive, that is, the version Ekström was given to read. It was assigned a case number. So we could swiftly present a lot of disinformation to the media… We have the original, which Bjurman got hold of, and Mille
“Good. What else could Mille
“They can’t know anything about the Section. That wouldn’t be possible. They’ll have to focus on Säpo, and that would mean Blomkvist being cast as a conspiracy theorist.”
“By now he’s rather well known,” Clinton said slowly. “Since the resolution of the We
“Could we somehow reduce his credibility?” Sandberg said.
Nyström and Clinton exchanged glances. Clinton looked at Nyström.
“Do you think you could put your hands on… let’s say, fifty grams of cocaine?”
“Maybe from the Yugos.”
“Give it a try. And get a move-on. The trial starts in three days.”
“I don’t get it,” Sandberg said.
“It’s a trick as old as the profession. But still extremely effective.”
“Morgongåva?” Edklinth said with a frown. He was sitting in his dressing gown on the sofa at home, reading through Salander’s autobiography for the third time, when Figuerola called. Since it was after midnight, he assumed that something was up.
“Morgongåva,” Figuerola repeated. “Sandberg and Lars Faulsson were there at 8.30 this evening. They were tailed by Inspector Andersson from Bublanski’s gang, and we had a radio transmitter planted in Sandberg’s car. They parked near the old railway station, walked around for a while, and then returned to the car and drove back to Stockholm.”
“I see. Did they meet anyone, or-”
“No. That was the strange thing. They just got out of the car and walked around a little, then drove straight back to Stockholm, so Andersson told me.”
“I see. And why are you calling me at 12.30 at night to tell me this?”
“It took a little while to work it out. They walked past Hallvigs printers. I talked to Blomkvist about it. That’s where Mille