David Lagercrantz - The Girl in the Spider's Web

A young woman came running out of nowhere and threw herself over the boy as Holtser fired and hit the target. At least he hit something, and he shot again and again. But the boy and the woman had rolled behind a car, quick as lightning. Holtser caught his breath and looked right and left. Then he raced across the street, commando-style.

This time he was not going to fail.

Lindén had never been on satisfactory terms with his telephones. His wife, Saga, leaped with anticipation at every call, hoping that it would bring a new job or a new offer; he just felt uncomfortable whenever his mobile rang.

It was because of all the complaints. He and the medical centre were always taking abuse. In his view that was all part of their business — Oden’s was an emergency centre and so inevitably emotions tended to run high. But he also knew on some level that the complaints were justified. He may have driven his cost-cutting too far. Occasionally he just ran away, went out to the woods and let the others get on with it. On the other hand, he did from time to time get recognition, most recently from no less a person than Professor Edelman.

The professor had irritated him at first. He did not like it when outsiders meddled in the way the clinic managed their procedures. But he felt more conciliatory since he had been praised in that email this morning. Who knows? He might even get the professor to support the idea of the boy staying on at Oden’s for a while. That might add some spark to his life, although he could not quite understand why. As a rule he tended to keep himself apart from the children.

There was something enigmatic about this August Balder which intrigued him. From the very first he had been aggravated by the police and their demands. He wanted August to himself and hoped perhaps to be associated with some of the mystique surrounding the boy — or at least be able to understand what those endless rows of numbers meant, the ones he had written on that comic in the playroom. But it was far from easy. The boy seemed to shun any form of contact and now he was refusing to come out to the street. He was being hopelessly contrary, and Lindén was forced to drag him by his elbow.

“Come on, come on ,” he muttered.

Then his mobile buzzed. Somebody was determined to get hold of him.

He did not answer. Probably it was some trivial nonsense, yet another complaint. But as he reached the door, he decided to check his messages. There were several texts from a withheld number, and they were saying something strange, presumably some kind of a joke: they told him not go outside. He was under no circumstances to go into the street.

Incomprehensible, and at that moment August seemed to want to run for it. Lindén took a firm grip on his arm, opened the door hesitantly and pulled the boy out. Everything was normal. People walked by as they did every day and he wondered again about the text messages but, before he had time to complete the thought, a figure came rushing in from the left and threw itself over August. In that instant he heard a shot.

Obviously he was in danger, and he looked across the street in terror, and there saw a tall, powerful man running towards him across Sveavägen. What the hell did he have in his hand? Was that a pistol?

Without a thought for August, Lindén turned to go back through the door and for a second or two he thought he was going to make it to safety. But he never did.

Salander’s reaction had been instinctive as she launched herself on top of the boy. She had hurt herself when she hit the pavement, or at least there was pain in her shoulder and chest. But she had no time to take stock. She took hold of the child and hid behind a car and they lay there breathing heavily while shots were fired. After that it became disturbingly quiet, and when Salander peered under the car she could see the sturdy legs of their attacker racing across the street. It crossed her mind to grab the Beretta from her sports bag and return fire, but she realized she would not have time. On the other hand... a large Volvo came crawling past, so she jumped to her feet and in one confused rush lifted the boy and ran towards the car. She wrenched open the back door and threw herself in with him.

“Drive!” she yelled, as she saw blood spreading onto the seat.

Jacob Charro was twenty-two and the proud owner of a Volvo XC60 which he had bought on credit with his father as guarantor. He was on his way to Uppsala to have lunch with his uncle and aunt and cousins, and he was looking forward to it. He was dying to tell them that he’d got a place on Syrian F.C.’s first team.

The radio was playing Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” and he was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove past the Concert Hall and the School of Economics. Something was going on further down the street. People were running in all directions. A man was shouting and the cars in front of him were driving erratically, so he slowed down. If there had been an accident, he might be able to help. Charro was always dreaming of being a hero.

But this time he got a fright. The man to the left of him ran through the traffic across the road, looking like a soldier on an offensive. There was something brutal in his movements and Charro was about to floor the accelerator when he heard his rear door being yanked open. Someone had thrown themselves in and he started shouting. He had no idea what. Maybe it was not even in Swedish. But the person — it was a girl with a child — yelled back:

“Drive!”

He hesitated for a second. Who were these people? Maybe they meant to rob him, or steal the car. He could not think straight, the whole situation was crazy. Then he had no choice but to act. His rear window was shattered because someone was shooting at them, so he accelerated wildly and with a pounding heart drove through a red at the intersection with Odengatan.

“What’s all this about?” he shouted. “What’s going on?”

“Shut it!” the girl snapped back. In the rear-view mirror he could see her examining the small boy who had large terrified eyes, checking him over with practised movements, like a hospital nurse. Then he noticed for the first time that there was not just broken glass all over the back seat. There was blood too.

“Has he been shot?”

“I don’t know. Just keep driving. Go left there... Now!”

“O.K., O.K.,” he said, terrified now, and he took a hard left up along Vanadisvägen and drove at high speed towards Vasastan, wondering if they were being followed and if anyone would shoot at them again.

He lowered his head towards the steering wheel and felt the draught through the broken rear window. What the hell had he been dragged into, and who was this girl? He looked at her again in the mirror. Black hair and piercings and a glowering look, and for a moment he felt that as far as she was concerned he simply did not exist. But then she muttered something which sounded almost cheerful.

“Good news?” he asked.

She did not answer. Instead she pulled off her leather jacket, took hold of her white T-shirt and then... Jesus! She ripped it apart with a sudden jerk and was sitting there naked from the waist up, not wearing a bra or anything, and he glanced in bewilderment at her breasts which stood straight out, and above all at the blood that ran over them like a rivulet, down towards her stomach and the waistband of her jeans.

The girl had been hit somewhere below the shoulder, not far above her heart, and was bleeding heavily. Using the T-shirt for a bandage, she wound it tightly to staunch the flow of blood and put her leather jacket back on. She looked ridiculously pleased with herself, especially since some of the blood had splashed onto her cheek and forehead, like war paint.