David Lagercrantz - The Girl in the Spider's Web

“Have you managed to sort out your computers?” Grane said.

“Ha... yes, that was a circus, but I don’t think it’s anything serious. I’m sorry if I was a little cryptic last time. I don’t have much of a choice. I just want to stress again that the level of threat against Professor Balder is both real and serious, even though we know nothing for certain. Did you have time to deal with it?”

“I’ve spoken to him. He refuses to leave his house, told me he was in the middle of something. I’m going to arrange protection.”

“Fine. As you might have guessed I’ve done more than just quickly check you out. I’m very impressed, Miss Grane. Shouldn’t someone like you be working for Goldman Sachs and earning millions?”

“Not my style.”

“Mine neither. I wouldn’t say no to the money, but this underpaid snooping is more my thing. Now, honey, here’s the situation. As far as my colleagues are concerned this isn’t a big deal — which I happen to disagree with. And not just because I’m convinced that this group represents a threat to our national economic interests. I also think there are political implications. One of those Russian computer engineers I mentioned, a guy called Anatoli Chabarov, is also linked to Ivan Gribanov, a member of the Russian Duma. He’s notorious, and a major shareholder in Gazprom.”

“I understand.”

“But most of it so far is just dead ends. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to crack the identity of the person at the top.”

“The man they call Thanos.”

“Or woman.”

“Woman?”

“I could be wrong. I know this type of group tends to exploit women, not promote them to leadership positions, and this figure has mostly been referred to as a he...”

“Then what makes you think it might be a woman?”

“A sort of reverence, you could say. They talk about ‘Thanos’ in the same way men through the ages have spoken about women they desire and revere.”

“A beauty, in other words.”

“Right. But maybe I’m just picking up some homoeroticism. Nothing would make me happier than if Russian gangsters and bigwigs in general were to indulge more in that department.”

“Ha, true!”

“In fact I mention it only so that you’ll keep an open mind if this mess ends up on your desk. You understand there are also quite a few lawyers mixed up in it. What else is new, right? Hackers steal and lawyers legitimize the theft.”

“‘True. Balder’s said to me that we’re all equal before the law — if we pay the same amount.’”

“Yes, if you can afford a strong defence you can get away with whatever you want these days. You do know who Balder’s legal opponents are, don’t you? The Washington firm Dackstone & Partner.”

“Sure.”

“In that case you know that the firm is also used by large tech companies to sue the shit out of inventors and innovators hoping to get some modest reward for their creations.”

“I discovered that when we were dealing with the lawsuits of that inventor Håkan Lans.”

“Grim, wasn’t it? But the interesting thing is that Dackstone crops up in one of the few conversations we’ve managed to track down and decrypt from this criminal network, although there the firm is simply referred to as D.P., or even D.”

“So Solifon and these crooks have the same lawyers?”

“It looks like it, and that’s not all. Dackstone is about to open an office in Stockholm — do you know how we found that out?”

“No,” Grane said. She was beginning to feel stressed. She wanted to finish the conversation and ensure that Balder got his police protection.

“Through our surveillance of this group,” Casales went on. “We know Chabarov mentions it once in passing, which suggests that there are ties to the firm. The group knew about the office opening even before it became public, and Dackstone & Partner is setting up in Stockholm together with a Swedish lawyer called Brodin. He used to be a criminal lawyer, and if you remember he was known for getting a little too cosy with his clients.”

“I do remember that classic picture in the evening papers — Kenny Brodin out on the town with some gangsters, with his hands all over a call girl,” Grane said.

“I saw that. I’d bet that Mr Brodin is a good place to start if you want to check out this story. Who knows? Maybe he’s the link between big business and this group.”

“I’ll take a look at it,” Grane said. “But right now I’ve got a number of other things to deal with. I’m sure we’ll be in touch again soon.”

She called the duty officer for Säpo’s Personal Protection Unit, who that evening was none other than Stig Yttergren. Her heart sank. Yttergren was sixty, overweight, known to be a heavy drinker, and most of all he liked to play cards online. He was sometimes called “Officer No-Can-Do”. She proceeded to explain the situation in her most authoritative tone and demanded that Professor Frans Balder in Saltsjö-baden be given a bodyguard as rapidly as possible. As usual Yttergren responded by saying that it would be extremely difficult, perhaps not possible at all. When she countered by saying that this was an order from the chief of Säpo herself, he muttered something which might even have been “that stroppy cunt”.

“I didn’t hear that,” Grane said. “Just make sure this is put in place immediately.” Which of course it was not. While she was waiting and drumming her fingers on her desk, she searched for information on Dackstone & Partner and anything else she could find linked to what Casales had been telling her — and that is when she was overcome by a sense of something horribly familiar.

But she could not put her finger on it. Before she could find what she was looking for Yttergren called back to say that no-one from Personal Protection was available. There was an unusual amount of activity for the royal family that evening, he said, some sort of public engagement with the Norwegian crown prince and princess, and the leader of the Swedish Democrats had had an ice cream thrown at his head before his guards could intervene, which meant that they had had to provide reinforcements for his late speech in Södertälje.

So Yttergren had sent out “two great guys from the regular police”, Peter Blom and Dan Flinck, and Grane had to make do with that, even if their names reminded her of Kling and Klang in Pippi Longstocking . For a moment she had serious misgivings. Then she got angry with herself.

It was so typical of her snobbish background to judge people by their names. She might have had more cause for concern if they had a posh name like Gyllentofs or something. Then they could have been irresponsible layabouts. I’m sure this’ll be fine , she thought.

Then she got back to work. It was going to be a long night.

Salander woke up lying straight across the kingsize double bed and realized that she had been dreaming about her father. A feeling of menace swept over her like a cloak. But then she remembered the evening before and concluded that it could as easily be a chemical reaction in her body. She had a terrible hangover. She got up on wobbly legs and went into the large bathroom — with the jacuzzi and the marble and all the idiotic luxuries — to be sick. But nothing happened and she just sank to the floor, breathing heavily.

Then she stood up and looked at herself in the mirror, which was not especially reassuring either. Her eyes were red. On the other hand it was not long after midnight. She must have slept for a few hours only. She took a glass from the bathroom cupboard and filled it with water. But at the same moment the details of her dream came flooding back and she crushed the glass in her hand. Blood dripped to the floor, and she swore and realized that she was unlikely to be going back to sleep.