Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest

She was underneath the cabinet.

He stood as if paralysed for the seconds it took her to put the mouth of the nail gun against his boot and fire another five seven-inch nails straight through his foot.

He tried to move.

It took him precious seconds to realize that his feet were nailed solidly to the newly laid plank floor. Salander’s hand moved the nail gun back to his left foot. It sounded like an automatic weapon getting shots off in bursts. She managed to shoot in another four nails as reinforcement before he was able to react.

He reached down to grab her hand, but immediately lost his balance and regained it only by bracing himself against the workbench as he heard the nail gun being fired again and again, ka-blam, ka-blam, ka-blam. She was back to his right foot. He saw that she was firing the nails diagonally through his heel and into the floor.

Niedermann howled in sudden rage. He lunged again for Salander’s hand.

From her position under the cabinet Salander saw his trouser leg slide up, a sign that he was trying to bend down. She let go of the nail gun. Niedermann saw her hand disappear quick as a lizard beneath the cabinet just before he reached her.

He reached for the nail gun, but the instant he touched it with the tips of his fingers she drew it under the cabinet.

The gap between the floor and the cabinet was about twenty centimetres. With all the strength he could muster he toppled the cabinet on to its back. Salander looked up at him with big eyes and an offended expression. She aimed the nail gun and fired it from a distance of fifty centimetres. The nail hit him in the middle of his shin.

The next instant she dropped the nail gun, rolled fast as lightning away from him and got to her feet beyond his reach. She backed up several feet and stopped.

Niedermann tried to move and again lost his balance, swaying backwards and forwards with his arms flailing. He steadied himself and bent down in rage.

This time he managed to grab hold of the nail gun. He pointed it at Salander and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. He looked in dismay at the nail gun and then at Salander again. She looked back at him blankly and held up the plug. In fury he threw the nail gun at her. She dodged to the side.

Then she plugged in the cord again and hauled in the nail gun.

He met Salander’s expressionless eyes and was amazed. She had defeated him. She’s supernatural. Instinctively he tried to pull one foot from the floor. She’s a monster. He could lift his foot only a few millimetres before his boot hit the heads of the nails. They had been driven into his feet at different angles, and to free himself he would have to rip his feet to shreds. Even with his almost superhuman strength he was unable to pull himself loose. For several seconds he swayed back and forth as if he were swimming. He saw a pool of blood slowly forming between his shoes.

Salander sat down on a stool and watched for signs that he might be able to tear his feet loose. Since he could not feel pain, it was a matter of whether he was strong enough to pull the heads of the nails straight through his feet. She sat stock still and observed his struggle for ten minutes. The whole time her eyes were frozen blank. After a while she stood up and walked behind him and held the nail gun to his spine, just below the nape of his neck.

Salander was thinking hard. This man had transported, drugged, abused and sold women both retail and wholesale. He had murdered at least eight people, including a policeman in Gosseberga and a member of Svavelsjö M.C. and his wife. She had no idea how many other lives her half-brother might have on his account, if not his conscience, but thanks to him she had been hunted all over Sweden like a mad dog, suspected of three of the murders he had committed.

Her finger rested heavily on the trigger.

He had murdered the journalist Dag Svensson and his partner Mia Johansson.

With Zalachenko he had also murdered her and buried her in Gosseberga. And now he had resurfaced to murder her again.

You could get pretty angry with less provocation.

She saw no reason to let him live any longer. He hated her with a passion that she could not even fathom. What would happen if she turned him over to the police? A trial? A life sentence? When would he be granted parole? How soon would he escape? And now that her father was finally gone – how many years would she have to look over her shoulder, waiting for the day when her brother would suddenly turn up again? She felt the heft of the nail gun. She could end this thing once and for all.

Risk assessment.

She bit her lip.

Salander was afraid of no-one and nothing. She realized that she lacked the necessary imagination – and that was evidence enough that there was something wrong with her brain.

Niedermann hated her and she responded with an equally implacable hatred towards him. He joined the ranks of men like Magge Lundin and Martin Vanger and Zalachenko and dozens of other creeps who in her estimation had absolutely no claim to be among the living. If she could put them all on a desert island and set off an atomic bomb, then she would be satisfied.

But murder? Was it worth it? What would happen to her if she killed him? What were the odds that she would avoid discovery? What would she be ready to sacrifice for the satisfaction of firing the nail gun one last time?

She could claim self-defence… no, not with his feet nailed to the floorboards.

She suddenly thought of Harriet Fucking Vanger, who had also been tormented by her father and her brother. She recalled the exchange she had had with Mikael Bastard Blomkvist in which she cursed Harriet Vanger in the harshest possible terms. It was Harriet Vanger’s fault that her brother Martin had been allowed to go on murdering women year after year.

“What would you do?” Blomkvist had said.

“I’d kill the fucker,” she had said with a conviction that came from the depths of her cold soul.

And now she was standing in exactly the same position in which Harriet Vanger had found herself. How many more women would Niedermann kill if she let him go? She had the legal right of a citizen and was socially responsible for her actions. How many years of her life did she want to sacrifice? How many years had Harriet Vanger been willing to sacrifice?

Suddenly the nail gun felt too heavy for her to hold against his spine, even with both hands.

She lowered the weapon and felt as though she had come back to reality. She was aware of Niedermann muttering something incoherent. He was speaking German. He was talking about a devil that had come to get him.

She knew that he was not talking to her. He seemed to see somebody at the other end of the room. She turned her head and followed his gaze. There was nothing there. She felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck.

She turned on her heel, grabbed the iron rod, and went to the outer room to find her shoulder bag. As she bent to retrieve it she caught sight of the knife. She still had her gloves on, and she picked up the weapon.

She hesitated a moment and then placed it in full view in the centre aisle between the stacks of packing crates. With the iron rod she spent three minutes prising loose the padlock so that she could get outside.

She sat in her car and thought for a long time. Finally she flipped open her mobile. It took her two minutes to locate the number for Svavelsjö M.C.’s clubhouse.

“Yeah?”

“Nieminen,” she said.

“Wait.”

She waited for three minutes before Sonny Nieminen came to the telephone.

“Who’s this?”

“None of your bloody business,” Salander said in such a low voice that he could hardly make out the words. He could not even tell whether it was a man or a woman.