The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye

by David Lagercrantz

  CHAPTER 19

  June 22

  Rakel Greitz was not at home on Karlbergsvägen and Salander decided to bide her time. She took the tunnelbana back to Slussen and then walked along Götgatan. She had heard from Giannini that Benito had been sprung from Örebro hospital, and so she was on her guard. She was always on her guard. Life in prison had made her, if anything, more careful, but even so she might be underestimating the danger she was in. There were more alliances after her than she realized. Sinister forces from the past were mustering their followers, exchanging information and perhaps agreeing to work together.

  It was a scalding June day and life in the city seemed to have slowed down. People were mooching about, window-shopping or sitting out on the terraces of cafés and restaurants. Salander went on up towards Fiskargatan. There was a buzzing in her pocket. An encrypted text from Blomkvist.

 

  She wrote:

 

  He answered:

 

  She considered making her way to Alfred Ögren’s offices on Norrmalmstorg to see how Blomkvist was getting on there but decided against it. She wanted first to get hold of Rakel Greitz, or to see if she could trace her to another address. Her watchfulness remained high as she walked up Fiskargatan towards her apartment building, and she wondered if it really was such a good idea to go home. There was no official record of her living there—the apartment was registered to Irene Nesser, an identity she occasionally assumed. She had put up a number of smokescreens, but the net was closing in. People were beginning to recognize her. She was something of a celebrity these days, and she hated that. Also, two people—Kalle Fucking Blomkvist and the N.S.A. agent Ed the Ned—had tracked her down here before, and word does tend to get out. She should sell the damn place. It was too big for her anyway. She should move far away, maybe even take off right now.

  But it was too late. She realized it the moment she saw a grey van facing in her direction further up the street. There was nothing outwardly remarkable about it. It was an old model, parked perfectly normally by the curb. Still, it made her suspicious. And now it was rolling towards her. She turned back down the hill, but she had gone only a few paces when a bearded man suddenly appeared from a doorway and put a wet rag over her face. She felt sick, but above all she felt stupid and careless. And now she was just about to pass out. The street and the buildings danced around her, she had no strength to resist. She managed only to pull out her mobile and whisper the codeword—“Harpy”—before she felt herself falling and was lifted in through the back doors of the van. Her vision was blurred, but she detected a sweet perfume which was only too familiar.

  DECEMBER, ONE AND A HALF YEARS EARLIER

  Dan heard the voices in the drawing room and realized that nothing was going as planned. Greitz seemed to have seen straight through them and the element of surprise that they had hoped for was no longer an option. He decided to go in and confront her.

  But Dan had underestimated the effect that Greitz would have on him. Her physical presence cast him right back to his childhood self. He remembered her standing on the upper floor of the farm all those years ago, observing him coldly as he played his guitar. She must have been comparing him to Leo even then, studying their similarities, and at this realization he lost his composure.

  “You know who I am, I guess,” he said, wild with rage. He took a step forward, but he could not help still feeling small.

  Greitz stood her ground, astonishingly composed.

  “Of course I do,” she said. “How are you?”

  “We want to know exactly what happened to us,” Dan shouted at her, and only then did she back away. But she remained calm as she adjusted her collar and looked at her watch. Even though she was nervous—the twitch around her mouth made that evident—she had a stature and an icy cool about her, like a schoolmistress, and this made Dan feel that it was he rather than she who was about to be castigated.

  “You need to calm down,” she said.

  “No way,” Dan said. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

  “And I will explain. I will. But first I need to know if you’ve gone to the press.” When there was no response, Greitz went on: “I do understand that you’re upset. But it would be dangerous for the story to get out now, before you know the full picture. It’s not what you imagine.”

  “We haven’t gone public—yet,” Dan said, and wondered straight-away if that was a mistake, the more so when he saw a hint of satisfaction in Greitz’s face. He looked at Leo.

  Leo was standing there, silent, feet planted, giving him no clue as to how he should act. How could he stop Greitz taking the initiative?

  “I’m an old woman now,” she said, “and I’m having terrible stomach pains. Forgive me for being so frank. Is it OK if I sit down? Then I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  “Go ahead,” Leo said eventually. “Make yourself comfortable. We want answers to all our questions.”

  Greitz began hesitantly, hoping that Benjamin would show up before she had to give away anything that really mattered, or was forced to tell any ill-considered lies. Leo and Daniel sat opposite her, each in his own armchair, and glared at her, wanting answers. Despite the tension and the air of crisis, she was amazed at how astoundingly alike the brothers were, more than was common in identical twins of their age. The fact that they had the same haircut and wore the same kind of clothes made the similarity yet more striking.

  “Here’s how it was,” she said. “We found ourselves in an extremely difficult situation. We had reports from several children’s homes and hospitals about identical twins whose parents were not able to take care of them.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” Daniel broke in, and even though his voice was angry and full of hate, she welcomed any interruption. She said—on a sudden inspiration—that she had been given something, she had it in her coat, which would perhaps help them to understand the situation. Should she fetch it? She wondered if she was being even remotely credible. But they let her go, and that filled her with contempt. Daniel and Leo were weak and pathetic, weren’t they? When she got to the hall, she coughed to cover the sound of her unlocking the front door. She then made a pretence of looking for something in her coat pocket, and exclaimed: “Hopeless!”

  She came back to the sofa, shaking her head, and went on talking in vague terms. This exasperated Leo, and when she casually mentioned Carl Seger his blood rose, and he looked almost unhinged. He called her a monster and demanded that she explain what had happened to Carl. That really frightened her, because she remembered the fits of rage which both boys had manifested when they were young. In the end, Leo’s outburst turned out to be a good thing because at that moment Benjamin appeared. The shouting must have stiffened his resolve, because he strode in without knocking and grabbed hold of Leo from behind. Meanwhile, Greitz bent to dig around in the doctor’s bag which Benjamin had dropped at her feet. Leo cried out for help and Daniel made a rush for Benjamin. She knew she needed to be resolute. Quickly, quickly, she rummaged through the medication in the bag—Stesolid, opiates, morphine, the lot—and then…a chill ran through her: pancuronium bromide, a synthetic curare to mimic the extract used on poison arrows. That would be too brutal. But wait…there was also physostigmine, an antidote which could either wholly or partly neutralize its effect. She had an idea, inspired by an accusation Daniel had spat out during their conversation, which suggested that he harbored a deep bitterness. It was a bold and wild idea. She pulled on her latex gloves.

  Benjamin was immovable as ever and had a firm hold on Leo, who was screaming as Daniel tried to tear him free. She prepared a syringe. It took an extra moment to get the dose right. She realized she would have to inject straight into the muscle—there was no time to find a vein—but perhaps there was an advantage in that. At least, that’s what she told herself as she jabbed the needle through Leo’s sweater. He looke
d at her in shock while Daniel bawled: “What are you doing? What the fuck are you doing?”

  She grimaced. The neighbours below must be wondering about the racket, and if they came up Leo might already be convulsing; he would begin to suffocate as soon as his respiratory muscles ceased to function. The situation was critical and she was in danger. She had crossed yet another line, and more than ever she needed to keep her wits about her. In her most authoritative doctor’s voice she said:

  “Calm down now, both of you. I’ve only given him a sedative, nothing more. Breathe, Leo, breathe. Good! You’ll soon feel better. We’ve got to talk like sensible people. You’ve got to stop yelling like that. This is…John, he works with me, he’s medically trained. I’m quite sure we can work this out and it’s high time I told you the rest of this sad story. I’m so glad you’ve found each other at last.”

  “You’re lying,” Daniel hissed.

  Things were getting out of hand. There was far too much noise and by now she was terrified that the neighbours would be on their way. She kept talking, trying to defuse the situation, all the while counting down the seconds to the inevitable consequence of her injection—the poison penetrating Leo’s blood and acting on the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors to inhibit his muscles. The building was still quiet. No-one had called the police. Now Leo was beginning to stiffen, as she knew he would, and spasmodic movements sent him crashing to the red Persian rug. This was an extreme step even for her, but Greitz savoured the dizzying feeling of power. She could save his life at any moment. Or she could let him die. The circumstances would dictate. Her mind needed to be clear, sharp and convincing, so that she could work on Daniel’s evident bitterness and sense of inferiority.

  She would get him to play the role of his life.

  As Leo fell to the ground, Dan realized that something was terribly wrong. His brother had collapsed as if his body had simply stopped functioning. Leo was grabbing at his throat and seemed paralyzed. Dan forgot everything else and crouched next to his brother, screaming and shaking him. When Greitz began to speak he was barely listening. He was wholly concentrated on trying to restore life to Leo, and anyway, she was saying something far too outlandish for him to take in.

  “Daniel,” she said. “We can make this work. We’ll see to it that you’re better off than you could ever have imagined. From now on you’ll have an incredible life with unlimited resources.”

  It was nonsense, of course, empty words, and all the while Leo was getting worse. He was whimpering and convulsing. His face was ash grey and his lips blue, and he was fighting for breath. He seemed to be suffocating, his eyes were watery and panic-stricken. The blueish tinge spread from his lips out to his cheeks, and Dan prepared to give him artificial respiration. But Greitz stopped him and was saying something, and he could not help but listen—by now he was willing to grasp at straws. Greitz’s tone seemed different now, not as impassioned as before, more like a soothing doctor. She took Leo’s pulse and smiled reassuringly at Dan.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” she said. “He’s just suffering some cramps. He’ll be fine soon. The dose I gave him was powerful, but not dangerous. See for yourself!”

  She handed Dan the syringe and he looked at it in his hand, at a loss as to what it could prove or tell him.

  “Why are you giving me this?”

  He looked at her as she stood next to the big man who was still wearing his jacket and winter boots.

  A terrifying thought struck him.

  “You want my fingerprints on this, don’t you?”

  He dropped the syringe.

  “Calm down, Daniel. Listen to me.”

  “Why the hell should I listen to you?”

  He pulled out his mobile; he had to call an ambulance. But a threatening, lurching movement from the man stopped him. His panic intensified. Were they trying to kill Leo? Was that even imaginable? He was terror-stricken, and next to him Leo gasped and looked as if he was about to die. Dan yelled straight into Leo’s hypersensitive ear, “Fight! You can do it!” Leo’s forehead furrowed. He gritted his teeth. A patch of colour returned to his face. But it soon drained away, and again he seemed to be fighting for air. Dan turned to Greitz.

  “Save him, for God’s sake! You’re a doctor. You’re not trying to kill him, are you?”

  “What are you talking about? Of course not. He’ll soon be back on his feet, you’ll see. Move away so I can assist him,” she said. When he saw how smoothly and professionally she handled the contents of her bag, he felt he had no alternative but to trust her.

  It was as good a measure as any of the extent of his desperation. He held his twin brother’s hand, hoping that the person who had injected him with poison would also be the one to save him.

  That was precisely what Greitz was thinking: how critical it was for her to behave like a doctor and inspire confidence. She resisted the urge to block Leo’s airways and make short work of the whole process, and instead prepared a syringe with physostigmine before pushing up the sleeve of Leo’s sweater to inject the substance into a vein. He improved rapidly, although he was still dazed. She felt—and this is what mattered most—that she had regained some of Daniel’s trust.

  “Will he be OK?” he asked.

  “He’ll be fine,” she said, and kept on talking.

  She was improvising, but she could draw on the emergency plan which had been in place for some time. Years ago, Ivar Ögren had gotten hold of Leo’s log-in details at the firm and in Leo’s name—or rather using various names, dummy companies and other fronts—had made a series of illegal transactions in the share and derivatives markets. Details of these had been collected in a file which could not only spell Leo’s social and professional ruin, but also put him in prison. Ivar had already used the information to get his hands on Madeleine Bard—and Greitz did not approve. Her private opinion was that Ivar was stupid. But in the end she had acquiesced. After all, she needed the information he had gathered in order to put pressure on Leo if ever he found out anything and tried to expose her.

  “Listen to me, Daniel,” she said. “I have to tell you something. It may be the most important thing you’ll have heard in your whole life.”

  There was such a pleading look on his face that she was filled with confidence. She spoke in a voice that was both soothing and business-like, like a doctor conveying a diagnosis.

  “Leo’s a bad apple, Daniel. It hurts me to say it, but that’s how it is. He’s been involved in insider dealing and illegal transactions. He’s going to end up in prison.”

  “What? What are you saying?”

  She could tell that he wasn’t taking it in. He just kept stroking his brother’s hair, telling him that everything was going to be alright. What bullshit. That aggravated Greitz, and she took on a sharper tone:

  “Listen, I said. Leo’s not what you think. We have proof, and he’s going to end up in prison. He’s a crook and a swindler.”

  Daniel looked at her in confusion.

  “Why the hell would he do that? He isn’t even interested in money.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “Is it? Before you arrived he tried to give me half of everything he owns—just like that.” He gestured with his hand, and she bit her lip. It was not what she wanted to hear.

  “Why should you make do with only half ?”

  “I don’t want anything at all. I want…”

  He fell silent, as if he had understood. Certainly he sensed something. Seeing the panic in his eyes, Greitz expected an outburst, perhaps even a violent one. She glanced at Benjamin; he had to be ready. But Daniel only looked intently at Leo.

  “What did you really give him? It wasn’t a sedative, was it?”

  She did not answer. She was unsure now how best to play her cards. She knew that every word, every nuance in her voice, could be decisive.

  “Curare,” she said eventually.

  “And what’s that?”

  “A plant-based poison.”
<
br />   “Why the hell did you give him poison?” Dan was shouting again.

  “Because I thought it necessary,” she said.

  Like a desperate animal caught in a trap, Daniel looked up at Benjamin.

  “But then…then you gave him something else.”

  “Physostigmine. It’s an antidote,” she said.

  “OK, so now let’s take him to the hospital.”

  Greitz said nothing and so he picked up his mobile. She considered telling Benjamin to take it from him, but as long as he made no calls, there was no danger. She guessed he was Googling information on curare, and she let him search for a while. But when she saw fear in his eyes she snatched the phone from him. He went crazy. He yelled and flailed about, and even Benjamin had difficulty restraining him.

  “Calm down, Daniel.”

  “Never!”

  “But don’t you understand that I’m giving you a fantastic gift?” she said.

  “I don’t want to hear it!” he screamed.

  She told him that physostigmine would suspend the effect of the curare for only a short time.

  “So you can’t save him?” His voice was barely human.

  “I’m so sorry,” she lied, and Benjamin had no choice but to silence him.

  As he taped Daniel’s mouth shut, Greitz voiced her regret at having to go through all this and explained in more detail that Leo’s respiratory muscles would soon be blocked again, that he would suffocate and die. She looked at him. “We have a difficult situation on our hands, Daniel. Leo is near death and we not only have your fingerprints on the syringe, we also have a clear motive, don’t we? I see in your eyes just how envious you are of everything he has. But there’s a plus side…”

  Daniel was struggling to hit out left and right, trying to tear himself free.