Now it was already 9:00 and his mobile was pinging and he had more of a hangover than he could afford, bearing in mind all the things he had to do. On the other hand he was a champion in this discipline. “Work hard, play hard” was his motto. And Natalie—how many fifty-year-olds could pull a bird like that? But now he had to get up. He was dizzy as he lurched to the bathroom for a pee. Then he checked his share portfolio. It was a good way to start hungover mornings. He picked up his mobile and went into Internet banking.
Something must have gone wrong, some technical mishap he could not understand. His portfolio had crashed, and as he sat there shaking and skimming through his assets he noticed something peculiar. His large holding in Solifon had as good as evaporated. He was beside himself as he went into the stock exchange sites and saw the same headline everywhere:
THE NSA AND SOLIFON CONTRACTED FOR THE MURDER OF PROFESSOR FRANS BALDER. MILLENNIUM MAGAZINE REVELATIONS SHOCK THE WORLD
What he did next is unclear. He probably yelled and swore and banged his fists on the table. He vaguely remembered Natalie waking up, asking what was going on. But the only thing he knew for sure was that he kneeled for a long time over the toilet bowl, vomiting as if there were no end to it.
—
Grane’s desk at Säpo had been tidied. She would not be coming back. Now she sat there for a little while, leaning back in her chair and reading Millennium. The first page was not what she had expected from a magazine serving up the scoop of the century. It was black, elegant, sombre. There were no pictures. At the top it said:
IN MEMORY OF ANDREI ZANDER
And further down:
THE MURDER OF FRANS BALDER AND THE STORY OF HOW THE RUSSIAN MAFIA GOT TOGETHER WITH THE NSA AND AMERICA’S LEADING TECHNOLOGY COMPANY
Page two consisted of a close-up of Zander. Even though Grane had never met him, she was moved. Zander looked beautiful and a little vulnerable. His smile was searching, tentative. There was something at once intense and unsure about him. In an accompanying text Erika Berger wrote about how Zander’s parents had been killed by a bomb in Sarajevo. She went on to say that he had loved Millennium magazine, the poet Leonard Cohen, and Antonio Tabucchi’s novel Sostiene Pereira. He dreamed of a great love and a great scoop. His favourite films were Dark Eyes by Nikita Mikhalkov and Love Actually by Richard Curtis. Berger regarded his report on Stockholm’s homeless as a classic piece of journalism. And even though Zander hated people who offended others he himself refused to speak ill of anyone. The piece went on:
As I write this, my hands are shaking. Yesterday our friend and colleague Andrei Zander was found dead on a freighter in Hammarbyhamnen. He had been tortured, and had suffered terribly. I will live with that pain for the rest of my life.
But I am also proud to have had the privilege of working with him. I have never met such a dedicated journalist and genuinely good person. Andrei was twenty-six years old. He loved life and he loved journalism. He wanted to expose injustices and help the vulnerable and displaced. He was murdered because he tried to protect a small boy called August Balder and, as we reveal in this issue, one of the biggest scandals in modern times, we honour Andrei in every sentence. In his report, Mikael Blomkvist writes:
“Andrei believed in love. He believed in a better world and a more just society. He was the best of us.”
The report ran to more than thirty pages of the magazine and was perhaps the best piece of journalistic prose Grane had ever read. She sometimes had tears in her eyes but still smiled when she came to the words:
Säpo’s star analyst Gabriella Grane demonstrated outstanding civic courage.
The basic story was simple. A group of individuals under Commander Jonny Ingram—who ranked just below the NSA head, Admiral Charles O’Connor, and had close contacts with the White House and Congress—had begun to exploit the vast numbers of trade secrets in the hands of the organization for their own gain. He had been assisted by a group of business intelligence analysts at Solifon’s research department “Y.”
If the matter had stopped there, it would have been a scandal which was in some way comprehensible. But the course of events followed its own evil logic when a criminal group—the Spiders—entered the drama. Mikael Blomkvist had evidence to show how Jonny Ingram had gotten together with the notorious Russian Duma member Ivan Gribanov and “Thanos,” the mysterious leader of the Spiders, to plunder tech companies of ideas and new technology worth astronomical sums of money, and to sell it all. But they really plumbed the depths of moral depravity when Professor Frans Balder picked up their tracks and it was decided to eliminate him. That was the most astonishing part of the story. One of the most senior executives at the NSA had known that a leading Swedish researcher was going to be murdered and did not lift a finger to prevent it.
It was not the account of the political quagmire that most engaged Grane, but rather the human drama. There Blomkvist’s gifts as a writer were on full display. She shuddered at the creeping realization that we live in a twisted world where everything, both big and small, is subject to surveillance, and where anything worth money will always be exploited.
Just as she finished reading she noticed someone standing in the doorway. It was Helena Kraft, beautifully dressed as always.
Grane could not help remembering how she had suspected Kraft of being the leak in the investigation. What she had taken to be guilty shame had been Kraft’s regret at the unprofessional way in which the investigation was being conducted—at least that is what she had been told during their long conversation after Mårten Nielsen confessed and was arrested.
“I can’t begin to say how sorry I am to see you go,” Kraft said.
“Everything has its time.”
“Do you have any idea what you’re going to do?”
“I’m moving to New York. I want to work in human rights, and as you know I’ve had an offer on the table from the U.N. for some time.”
“It’s a loss for us, Gabriella. But you deserve it.”
“So my betrayal’s been forgiven?”
“Not by all of us, I can assure you. But I see it as a sign of your good character.”
“Thanks, Helena. Will I see you later at the Pressklubben’s memorial for Andrei Zander?”
“First I have to do a presentation for the government on this whole mess. But later this evening I’ll raise a glass to young Zander, and to you, Gabriella.”
—
Alona Casales was sitting at a distance, contemplating the panic with an inward smile. She observed Admiral O’Connor crossing the floor, looking like a bullied schoolboy rather than the head of the world’s most powerful intelligence organization. But then all the powerful figures at the NSA were feeling pathetic today, all except Needham.
Needham was not in a good mood either. He waved his arms around and was sweaty and bilious. But he exuded all his usual authority. It was obvious that even O’Connor was afraid of him. Needham had come back from Stockholm with real dynamite, had caused a huge argument and insisted on a complete shake-up throughout the organization. The head of the NSA was not going to thank him for that; he probably felt like sending Needham to Siberia immediately and forever.
But there was nothing he could do. He looked small as he approached Needham, who did not even bother to turn in his direction. Needham ignored the head of the NSA in the same way he ignored all the other poor bastards he had no time for, and plainly nothing improved for O’Connor once the conversation got going.
For the most part Needham seemed dismissive and, even though Casales could not overhear, she could imagine what was being said, or rather, what was not being said. Over the course of her own long conversations with Needham he refused to say one word about the way he got hold of the information. He was not going to compromise on a single point, and she respected that.
Needham seemed determined to milk the situation for all it was worth, and Casales solemnly swore that she would stand up for integrity in the agency and give Needham as much backing
as she could if he ran into any problems. She also swore to herself that she would call Gabriella Grane in a final bid to ask her out, if rumours were true that she was on her way over here.
—
Needham was not in fact deliberately ignoring the NSA head. But neither was he going to interrupt what he was doing—yelling at two of his controllers—just because the admiral was standing at his desk. Only after about a minute did he address him and then in fact he said something friendly, not to ingratiate himself or compensate for his nonchalance, but because he really meant it.
“You did a good job at the press conference.”
“Did I?” said the admiral. “It was hell.”
“Well, you can thank me, then, for giving you time to prepare.”
“Thank you? Are you kidding? Every news site around the world is posting pictures of Ingram and me together. I’m guilty by association.”
“In that case for Christ’s sake keep your own people in line from now on.”
“How dare you talk to me like that.”
“I’ll talk however the hell I want. We’re in the middle of a crisis and I’m responsible for security. I don’t get paid for being polite.”
“Watch what you say…” O’Connor began.
But he was thrown when Needham suddenly stood up, big as a bear, either to stretch his back or assert his authority.
“I sent you to Sweden to clean all this up,” the admiral went on. “Instead when you came back everything was a complete disaster.”
“The disaster had already happened,” Needham snapped. “You know it as well as I do.”
“So how do you explain all the shit that ended up in that Swedish magazine?”
“I explained it to you a thousand times.”
“Right, your hacker. Guesswork and bullshit.”
Needham had promised to keep Wasp out of this mess, and it was a promise he meant to keep.
“Top-quality bullshit, don’t you think?” he said. “That damn hacker, whoever he may be, must have cracked Ingram’s files and leaked them to Millennium. That’s bad, I agree. But do you know what’s worse? What’s worse is that we had the chance to cut the hacker’s balls off and put an end to the leaking. Instead we were ordered to shut down our investigation. Let’s not pretend you went out of your way to stand up for me then.”
“I sent you to Stockholm.”
“But you called off my guys and our entire investigation came to a grinding halt. Now the rail is cold. And how much good would it do us if it came out that some lousy little hacker had taken us for a ride?”
“Not much, probably. But we can still make trouble for Millennium and that reporter Blomström, believe you me.”
“It’s Blomkvist, actually. Mikael Blomkvist. Be my guest. You’d win a lot of popularity contests if you marched in on Swedish territory and arrested the world’s most celebrated journalist right about now,” Needham said. The admiral muttered something inaudible and stormed off.
Needham knew as well as anyone that O’Connor was fighting for political survival and could not afford to make any reckless moves. He himself was fed up with working his fingers to the bone, and he loped over to Casales to chat with her instead. He was in the mood for something irresponsible.
“Let’s go get hammered and forget this whole fucking mess.”
—
Hanna Balder was standing on the little hill outside Hotel Schloss Elmau in her snow boots. She gave August a push and watched him whizz down the slope on the old-fashioned wooden toboggan the hotel had lent them. He came to a stop near a brown barn. Even though there was a glimmer of sunshine, a light snow was falling. There was hardly any wind. In the distance the mountain peaks touched the sky and wide-open spaces stretched out before her.
Hanna had never stayed in such a wonderful place, and August was recovering well, not least thanks to Charles Edelman’s efforts. But none of it was easy. She felt terrible. Even here on the slope she had stopped twice and felt her chest. Withdrawal from her pills—benzodiazepines—was worse than she could have imagined. At night she would lie in bed curled up like a shrimp and examine her life in the most unsparing light, sometimes banging her fist against the wall and crying. She cursed Lasse Westman, and she cursed herself.
And yet…there were times when she felt strangely purified and occasionally she came close to being happy. There were moments when August would work quietly on his equations and his number series and would even answer her questions—albeit in monosyllables and somewhat odd terms.
The boy was still an enigma to her. Sometimes he spoke in numbers, in high numbers to the power of even higher numbers, and seemed to think that she would understand. But something had changed. She would never forget how she had seen August sitting at the desk in their hotel room that first day, writing out long winding equations which poured from him with amazing fluency, and which she photographed and sent on to the woman in Stockholm. Late that evening a text message had come in on Hanna’s Blackphone:
She had never seen her son so happy and proud. Even though she had no idea what it was all about and never mentioned it, even to Charles Edelman, it meant the world to her. She began to feel proud too, immeasurably proud.
She developed a passionate interest in savant syndrome, and when Charles was staying at the hotel they often sat up after August had gone to bed and talked into the small hours about her son’s abilities, and about everything else too.
She was not sure it had been such a good idea to jump into bed with Charles. Yet she was not sure it had been a bad idea either. Charles reminded her of Frans. They formed a little family of sorts: she; August; Charles; the rather strict but kind teacher, Charlotte Greber; and the Danish mathematician Jens Nyrup who visited them. Their whole stay was a voyage of discovery into her son’s remarkable universe. As she now sauntered down the snowy hill and August got up from the toboggan, she felt, for the first time in ages: She would become a better mother, and she would sort out her life.
—
Blomkvist could not understand why his body felt so heavy. It was as if he were trying to move through water. And yet there was a commotion going on out there, a victory celebration. Nearly every newspaper, website, radio station, and TV channel wanted to interview him. He did not accept any of the requests. When Millennium had published big news stories in the past, he and Berger had not been sure whether other media companies would latch onto them. They had needed to think strategically, make sure they were syndicated in the right places and sometimes even share their scoop. Now none of that was necessary.
The news broke with a bang all by itself. When NSA head Charles O’Connor and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Stella Parker appeared at a joint press conference to apologize publicly for what had happened, the last lingering doubts about the story’s credibility were dispelled. Now a heated debate was raging on editorial pages around the world about the consequences and implications of the disclosures.
But in spite of all the fuss and the telephones which never stopped ringing, Berger had decided to arrange a last-minute party at the office. She felt they deserved to escape from the hullaballoo for a little while and raise a glass or two. A first print run of fifty thousand copies had sold out the previous morning and the number of hits on their website, which also had an English version, had reached several million. Offers of book contracts poured in, their subscription base was growing by the minute, and advertisers were lining up.
They had also bought out Serner Media. Berger had managed to push the deal through a few days earlier, though it had been anything but easy. Serner’s representatives had sensed her desperation and taken full advantage, and for a while she and Blomkvist had thought that it would prove impossible. Only at the eleventh hour, when a substantial contribution came in from an unknown company in Gibraltar, bringing a smile to Blomkvist’s face, had they been able to buy out the Norwegians. The price had been outrageously high, given the situation
, but it was still a minor coup when a day later the magazine’s scoop was published and the market value of the Millennium brand rocketed. They were free and independent again, though they had hardly had time to enjoy it.
Journalists and photographers had even hounded them during Zander’s memorial at Pressklubben. Without exception they had wanted to offer congratulations, but Blomkvist felt smothered, and his responses had not been as gracious as he would have liked them to be. The sleepless nights and headaches continued to plague him.
Now in the late afternoon of the following day, the furniture in the office had been hurriedly rearranged. Champagne, wine, beer, and catered Japanese food had been set out on the desks. And people started to stream in, first the staff and freelancers, then a number of friends of the magazine, not least Holger Palmgren. Mikael helped him out of the lift and the two embraced.
“Our girl made it,” said Palmgren, with tears in his eyes.
“She generally does,” Blomkvist replied with a smile. He installed Palmgren in the place of honour on the sofa and gave orders that his glass was to be kept filled.
It was good to see him there. It was good to see all sorts of old and new friends. Gabriella Grane was there too, and Chief Inspector Bublanski, who should probably not have been invited, in view of their professional relationship and Millennium’s status as independent watchdog over the police force, but Blomkvist had wanted to include him. Officer Bubble spent the whole evening talking to Professor Farah Sharif.
Blomkvist drank a toast with them and the others. He was wearing jeans and his best jacket, and unusual for him he had quite a lot to drink. But he could not shake off that empty, leaden feeling and that was because of Zander, of course. Andrei was constantly in his thoughts. The moment in the office when his colleague had so nearly taken up his offer of a beer was etched in his mind, a moment both humdrum and life-determining. Memories of the young man flashed up all the time, and Blomkvist had difficulty concentrating on conversations.
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