Hacker Republic consisted of a group of elite hackers, all of whom had sworn a solemn oath to use the alarm only in cases of dire emergency. As a consequence a number of talented people all around the world were now breathlessly following the dramatic events in the back of the van. Most did not understand Swedish, but enough did, including Salander’s friend on Högklintavägen in Sundbyberg.
Plague was as wide as a house at 150 kilos, but stooped from spending all day at his keyboard. His beard was a thicket and he hadn’t had a haircut since the previous year. He looked like a case for social welfare, but he was an I.T. genius. He was sitting by his computer in his frayed blue dressing gown, nerves on high alert, following the G.P.S. co-ordinates northwards towards Uppsala. The car – it sounded large, and old – turned east onto National Highway 77 towards Knivsta, and that was not good. They were heading further out into the countryside, where G.P.S. coverage was patchy at best. He heard the woman in the vehicle again, her voice hoarse and weak, as if she were unwell.
“Do you have any idea how slowly you’re going to die, you bitch? Do you?”
Plague looked at his desk in desperation. It was strewn with scraps of paper, used coffee cups and greasy Styrofoam containers. His back hurt. He had gained weight, which did not help his diabetes, and it was almost a week since he had last been out of the house. What was he to do? If he had an address for their destination he could hack the electricity and water utilities, locate neighbours and organize a group of local vigilantes. But he had no idea where they were heading. He was powerless. His whole body shook and his heart pounded.
Messages came pouring in. Salander was their friend, their shining star. But as far as Plague could tell, nobody in the fellowship had any good suggestions, at least nothing which could be organized fast enough. Should he call the police? Plague had never contacted the authorities, for good reason: There were few cybercrimes he had not committed. In one way or another, they were always after him, and yet, he thought, and yet, even the outlaw has to turn to the law for help sometimes. He remembered Salander – or Wasp as he knew her – had once talked about an Inspector Bublanski. He was O.K., she had said, and coming from her, “O.K.” was a major compliment. For a minute Plague sat paralysed, staring at a map of Uppland on his computer screen. Then he plugged in his headphones and turned up the volume on the audio file. He wanted to hear every subtle variation in the voices, even in the engine noise. There was a buzzing and scraping in his ears. For a short while nobody spoke. Then somebody said what Plague least wanted to hear:
“Have you got her phone?”
It was the woman again. She may have sounded terrible, but she seemed to be in charge, she and the man who sometimes spoke to the driver in a language the hackers had uploaded and now identified as Bengali.
“It’s in my pocket,” one of the men answered.
“Give it to me.”
There was a rustling and a crackling as the mobile was passed around. Somebody pressed some keys, turned it over, breathed into it.
“Is there anything fishy about it?”
“I don’t know,” the woman answered. “Doesn’t look like it. But maybe the police can use this piece of crap to listen in.”
“We’d better get rid of it.”
Plague heard some more words in Bengali and the car seemed to slow. A door creaked open, even though the vehicle was still moving. Wind sounded in the microphone and then there was a swishing sound, followed by a clattering and an excruciatingly loud bang. Plague ripped off his headphones and slammed his fist on the table. Shit, damn, fuck! Expletives flooded in over the network. They had lost contact with Wasp.
Plague tried to visualize the situation. Traffic cameras – of course! Why hadn’t he thought of that? But they’d have to hack the Transport Administration to get access to their cameras, and that took time. And time they did not have.
He hooked them all up to an encrypted audio link.
“Some C.C.T.V. is publicly available on the net,” somebody said.
“That’s too jerky and blurred,” he said. “We’ve got to get close enough to see the model of the car and the reg plates.”
“I know a short cut.”
It was a young, female voice. It took Plague a moment to identify her: Nelly, one of their new members. “Really?” he exclaimed. “Great, get in there! Hook yourselves up to her, go for it. Give it everything you’ve got. I’ll give you the times and co-ordinates.”
Plague went onto the site www.trafiken.nu, which showed the location of cameras along the E4 motorway to Uppsala, and at the same time rewound the file from Wasp’s mobile. The alarm had been activated at 12.52 p.m. The first camera on that route was likely to be the one at Haga South and, wait a moment … the vehicle seemed to have passed by there about thirteen minutes later, at 1.05 p.m. Then the cameras came in quick succession, that was good, he thought, good. Linvävartorpet and Linvävartorpet South, then Linvävartorpet North and Haga North Gates, Haga North, Stora Frösunda, Järva Krog, Mellanjärva, Ulriksdals golf course. There were plenty of cameras along the first stretch, and even though there was heavy traffic they should be able to identify the vehicle, since it was obviously an older, bigger model, a van or a light truck.
“How’s it going?” he shouted.
“Just chill, man, we’re working on it. Someone’s really been messing with this, they’ve put in something new. Hell, ‘ACCESS DENIED’. Wait. Shit, fuck … yesss! Now … yes … we’re running, we’re in, now we just need to get … What kind of idiots built this amateur shit!”
It was the usual. Swearing and shouting. Adrenalin and sweat and more yelling, only this time it was worse. It was a matter of life and death, and once they had figured out the system and how to get in and had gone back and forth on the surveillance cameras, they identified the car: an old grey Mercedes minivan with apparently fake number plates. But now what? They felt even more powerless as the vehicle passed one camera position after the next like a pale, evil spirit, and in the end disappeared beyond the reach of surveillance into the forests to the east of Knivsta, somewhere near the lake at Vadabo.
“Digital darkness. Shit, shit!”
Never before had there been so much shouting and swearing among Hacker Republic. Plague saw no alternative but to call Chief Inspector Bublanski.
CHAPTER 21
22.vi
Bublanski was sitting in his office on Bergsgatan, talking to Imam Hassan Ferdousi. By now he understood how Jamal Chowdhury’s murder had come about. The whole Kazi family – apart from the father – had been involved, along with some Islamists in exile from Bangladesh. It was a somewhat sophisticated operation, but no more so than the initial crime investigation should have been able to unravel without third-party help.
For the police, it was nothing short of a disgrace. Bublanski had just had a conversation with the chief of Säpo, Helena Kraft, and was now discussing with the imam how the police could do better at anticipating and preventing violent crimes like these in the future. But his mind was really elsewhere. He wanted to get back to the investigation into Holger Palmgren’s death, and especially look into this Professor Steinberg.
“What was that again?”
The imam had said something which Bublanski did not fully understand, but before he could inquire further, his telephone rang and at the same time there was a Skype call from a user who called himself TOTAL FUCKING SHITSTORM FOR SALANDER, and that in itself was pretty weird. Who would call themselves that? Bublanski answered his mobile and at the end of the line was a young man shouting at him in rather graphic Swedish.
“I’m not going to listen to a single word you say until you’ve introduced yourself,” Bublanski said.
“My name is Plague. Switch on your computer and open the link I’ve sent you, and then I’ll explain.”
Bublanski hesitated at first, but he kept listening to the man, wh
o was using swear words liberally interspersed with incomprehensible computer terminology, but who nonetheless was precise and clear in what he had to report. Bublanski was finally persuaded to open the link and, cutting through his confusion and his scepticism, sprang into action. He mobilized a helicopter and patrol cars from both Stockholm and Uppsala to head for Vadabosjö. Then he and Amanda Flod ran down to his Volvo in the garage. He decided it would be safer to have her drive as they sped northwards to Uppsala, blue lights flashing.
The man next to him had saved him from a serious assault. Blomkvist was still not certain he understood why. But it had to be a good sign. They were no longer in the same opposing roles of investigative reporter and quarry as they had been back in the Alfred Ögren lobby. There was a shared bond between them, and Blomkvist was now in his debt.
The sun was beating down outside. They were in a small, top-floor apartment on Tavastgatan with attic windows looking out over Riddarfjärden. A half-finished oil painting of an ocean and a white whale was propped on an easel. There was harmony in the painting, despite an unconventional combination of colours. But Blomkvist turned it to face the windows. He did not want any distractions.
The apartment belonged to Irene Westervik, an elderly artist who Blomkvist knew only a little. But he felt a certain fondness for her. She was wise and inspired confidence, and lived at a remove from the endless churn of current affairs. Sometimes she enabled him to look at the world from a broader perspective. He had called her from the taxi to ask if he might borrow her studio for a few hours, perhaps for the rest of the day. She had met them in a pale-green dress at the street entrance, and had handed over the keys with a gentle smile.
Now Blomkvist and the man, who was presumably Daniel, were sitting in the apartment facing each other. To be on the safe side, their mobiles were switched off and they had put them on a shelf in the galley kitchen. It was sweltering beneath the roof, and Blomkvist had tried and failed to open the studio windows.
“Was that a syringe in that man’s hand?”
“Looked like it.”
“I wonder what was in it.”
“In the worst case, synthetic curare.”
“Poison?”
“Yes. A heavy dose knocks out everything, including the respiratory muscles. You suffocate.”
“You seem to know all about it,” Blomkvist said.
The man looked sorrowful, and Blomkvist’s gaze turned to the window and the blue sky.
“Can I call you Daniel?” he said.
The man was silent. He hesitated.
“It’s Dan,” he said. “I got a green card, became an American citizen and changed my name. Now I go by Dan Brody.”
“Or Leo Mannheimer.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“A bit peculiar, wouldn’t you say?”
“Indeed.”
“Do you want to tell me the story, Dan? We’ve got plenty of time. No-one will come looking for us here.”
“Is there anything stronger to drink?”
“Let me look in the fridge.”
Blomkvist found several bottles of white wine, a Sancerre. This is my new normal, he thought bleakly – drinking through interviews. He helped himself to a bottle and found two glasses.
“Here,” he said, filling them up.
“I don’t really know where to begin. You said you’d met Hilda. Did she talk about …” Again Dan hesitated, as if reluctant to mention a name or an event that filled him with fear.
“About what?”
“Rakel Greitz?”
“Hilda told me a lot about her.”
Dan just raised his glass and drank, grim and resolute. Then slowly he began to tell his story. It began at a jazz club in Berlin, with a guitar solo and a woman who could not take her eyes off him.
They had driven into a forest and stopped. The inside of the van was unbearably stuffy, and all that could be heard from outside was the sound of birds and insects. The engine idled. Salander was thirsty and she felt sick from the chloroform or maybe from the beating. She was still lying on the floor, tied up, but when she got to her knees nobody objected, although they glared at her all the time. The engine was switched off and those on the bench nodded at each other. Benito drank some water to wash down a few tablets. She was ashen-faced and did not move as Bashir and the other man stood up. Salander could now see the man’s tattooed forearms and the emblem on his leather waistcoat: SVAVELSJÖ M.C. The same motorcycle gang which had been allied with her father and her sister. Had Camilla and her hackers cracked Salander’s address?
Salander studied the back door of the van and tried to recall the action with which it had been opened when her mobile was thrown into the road. With mathematical precision she recalled the force in the movement, or rather the lack of it.
She could not remove the rope around her hands, but she should be able to kick open the door. That was good, as was Benito’s head injury and how jittery the men seemed. Bashir grimaced, just as he had in Vallholmen, and drew back his right foot to kick her. She absorbed it, over-reacting a little. Not that she needed to. It was a violent kick which caught her in the ribs, then she took another one in the face and feigned being dazed, but all the while she was watching Benito.
From the outset, Salander had had a feeling that this was first and foremost Benito’s show. She would have the last word. Now she was bending over her grey canvas bag on the floor and taking out a red-velvet cloth. The men seized Salander roughly by the shoulders. This did not bode well, especially when Benito pulled a dagger from the bag – her Keris. It was straight and shiny, and it looked very sharp, with a long, gold-tipped blade. The handle had been carved to represent a demon with slanting eyes. It was the kind of weapon that should have been in a museum, not in the hands of an ashen-faced psychopath with a bandaged head, who was now examining the knife with a demented tenderness.
In a reedy voice Benito explained how the Keris was to be used. Salander did not listen attentively, it didn’t seem necessary, but she heard enough. The Keris would be stabbed through the red cloth just beneath the collarbone, straight into the heart. The blood would be wiped off onto the cloth on its way out. It was said to require extraordinary skill. Salander went on making a careful inventory of everything in the van – every object, every accumulation of dust, every moment of faltering concentration. She glanced up at Bashir. He gripped her left shoulder and looked determined and tense. She was going to die, and he was fine with that. But he didn’t look especially pleased, and it was plain to see why. Essentially he was the helper of a woman, and that can’t have been easy for someone who thought of women as no more than whores or second-class citizens.
“Do you know your Koran?” Salander said.
She could tell right away by his grip on her shoulder that her question had unsettled him. She went on to say that the Prophet had condemned all types of kerises, they belonged to Satan and the demons, and then she quoted a sura, one she had invented. She gave it a number and urged him to look it up. “Check it out and you’ll see!”
But Benito stood up with her dagger and said: “She’s full of shit. The Keris didn’t even exist at the time of Mohammed. Now it’s a weapon for holy warriors the world over.”
Bashir seemed to believe her, or at least he wanted to believe her. “O.K., O.K., get a move on,” he said, adding something in Bengali for the benefit of the driver up front.
Suddenly Benito seemed to be in a hurry, even as she was overcome by dizziness and lurched to one side. There was a sound high above them, the reverberations of a helicopter. Though it might not have had anything to do with them, Salander knew that her friends at Hacker Republic were unlikely to have been sitting around doing nothing. The noise was both promising because help might soon be at hand, and worrying because of the increased activity in the van.
Bashir and the other man were gripping her tightly as Benito advanced towards her, looking determined with her long dagger and red cloth. Salander thought of Palmgren. She
thought of her mother and the dragon in Storkyrkan, and she braced herself against the floor.
Come what may, she had to get to her feet.
Dan sat in silence. He had reached a painful point in the story. His eyes flickered about and his hands shifted nervously.
“When Rakel said she would have me convicted for murdering my brother unless I cooperated, I felt helpless, I hardly knew what was happening. They made me wear sunglasses and a hat. It would be dangerous for there to be two Leos in the stairwell, she said – we had to get him out of the apartment while he could still stand. I saw an opportunity. If we could only get out, I thought, I’d be able to shout for help.”
“But you didn’t.”
“We didn’t meet anybody in the elevator or on the stairs. It was the day before Christmas Eve. Rakel’s sidekick – I don’t think John is his real name, in fact. She called him Benjamin several times. It was the man who attacked you this morning. Anyway, he …” Dan paused and took a deep breath. “He dragged Leo, who could only just stay upright, to a black Renault van parked outside. It was getting dark, or at least that’s how it felt,” he said. And he fell silent again.
December, a year and a half earlier
Dan looked at the empty street before him, as weird as if he were in a stone-bordered, desolate nightmare. He might have run away to call for help. But how could he abandon his brother? It would have been impossible. They pushed Leo into the car and Dan asked:
“We’re taking him to the hospital now, right?”
“Yes,” Greitz said.
Did he believe her? She had just said there was no point, and had threatened him. He clambered into the car and focused on one thing: before she took his mobile he had managed to read online that a patient can recover from curare poisoning as long as respiration is maintained. He sat down next to Leo in the back seat. On the other side of him was the man Greitz called Benjamin.
Dan was concentrating on trying to help Leo breathe. Again he asked if they really were on their way to a hospital. Greitz, who was driving, was more specific this time. They were headed to the Karolinska hospital, and she even named the department.
The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye: Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series Page 31