David Lagercrantz - The Girl in the Spider's Web

“Good. How about 971,230,541?”

August wrote: 983 × 991 × 997.

“That’s great,” Salander said, and on they went.

Outside the black, cube-like office building in Fort Meade with its reflective glass walls, not far from the big radome with its dish aerials, Casales and Needham were standing in the packed car park. Needham was twirling his car keys and looking beyond the electric fence in the direction of the surrounding woods. He should be on his way to the airport, he said, he was late already. But Casales did not want to let him leave. She had her hand on his shoulder and was shaking her head.

“That’s twisted.”

“It’s out there,” he said.

“So every one of the handles we’ve picked up for people in the Spider Society — Thanos, Enchantress, Zemo, Alkhema, Cyclone and the rest — what they have in common is that they’re all...”

“Enemies of Wasp in the original comic-book series, yes.”

“That’s insane.”

“A psychologist would have fun with it.”

“This kind of fixation must run deep.”

“I get the feeling it’s real hatred,” he said.

“You will look after yourself over there, won’t you?”

“Don’t forget I used to be in a gang.”

“That’s a long time ago, Ed, and many kilos ago too.”

“It’s not a question of weight. What is it they say? You can take the boy out of the ghetto...”

“Yes, yes.”

“You can never get rid of it. Besides, I’ll have help from the N.D.R.E. in Stockholm. They’re itching as much as I am to put that hacker out of action once and for all.”

“What if Ingram finds out?”

“That wouldn’t be good. But, as you can imagine, I’ve been preparing the ground a bit. Even exchanged a word or two with O’Connor.”

“I figured as much. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Yep.”

“Shoot.”

“Ingram’s crew seems to have had full insight into the Swedish police investigation.”

“They’ve been eavesdropping on the police?”

“Either that or they have a source, maybe an ambitious soul at Säpo. If I put you together with two of my best hackers, you could do some digging.”

“Sounds risky.”

“O.K., forget it.”

“That wasn’t a no.”

“Thanks, Alona. I’ll send info.”

“Have a good trip,” she said, as Needham smiled defiantly and got into his car.

Looking back, Blomkvist could not explain how he had worked it out. It might have been something in the Mattson woman’s face, something unknown and yet familiar. The perfect harmony of that face might have reminded him of its very opposite, and that together with other hunches and misgivings gave him the answer. True, he was not yet absolutely sure of it. But he had no doubt that something was very wrong.

The man now walking off with his map and brown suitcase was the very figure he had seen on the security camera in Saltsjöbaden, and that coincidence was too improbable not to be of some significance, so Blomkvist stood there for a few seconds and thought. Then he turned to the woman who called herself Rebecka Mattson and tried to sound confident:

“Your friend is heading off.”

“My friend?” she said, genuinely surprised. “What friend?”

“Him up there,” he said, pointing at the man’s skeletal back as he sauntered gawkily down Tavastgatan.

“Are you joking? I don’t know anyone in Stockholm.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I just want to get to know you, Mikael,” she said, fingering her blouse, as if she might undo a button.

“Stop that!” he said roughly, and was about to lose his temper when she looked at him with such vulnerable, piteous eyes that he was thrown. For a moment he thought he had made a mistake.

“Are you cross with me?” she said, hurt.

“No, but...”

“What?”

“I don’t trust you,” he said, more bluntly than he intended.

She smiled sadly and said, “I can’t help feeling that you’re not quite yourself today, are you, Mikael? We’ll have to meet some other time instead.”

She moved to kiss his cheek so discreetly and quickly that he had no time to stop her. She gave a flirtatious wave of her fingers and walked away up the hill on high heels, so resolutely self-assured that he wondered if he should stop her and fire some probing questions. But he could not imagine that anything would come of it. Instead he decided to tail her.

It was crazy, but he saw no alternative, so he let her disappear over the brow of the hill and then set off in pursuit. He hurried up to the crossroads, sure that she could not have gone far. But there was no sign of her, or of the man either. It was as if the city had swallowed them up. The street was empty, apart from a black B.M.W. backing into a parking space some way down the street, and a man with a goatee wearing an old-fashioned Afghan coat who came walking in his direction on the opposite pavement.

Where had they gone? There were no side streets for them to slip into, no alleys. Had they ducked into a doorway? He walked on down towards Torkel Knutssonsgatan, looking left and right. Nothing. He passed what had been Samir’s Cauldron, once a favourite local of his and Berger’s; now called Tabbouli, it served Lebanese food. They might have stepped inside.

But he could not see how she would have had time to get there; he had been hot on her heels. Where the hell was she? Were she and the man standing somewhere nearby, watching him? Twice he spun around, certain that they were right behind him, and once he gave a start because of an icy feeling that someone was looking at him through a telescopic sight.

When eventually he gave up and wandered home it felt as though he had escaped a great danger. He had no idea how close to the truth that feeling was, yet his heart was beating fiercely and his throat was dry. He was not easily scared, but tonight he had been badly frightened by an empty street.

The only thing he did understand was who he needed to speak to. He had to get hold of Holger Palmgren, Salander’s old guardian. But first he would do his civic duty. If the man he had seen was the person from Balder’s security camera, and there was even a minimal chance that he could be found, the police had to be informed. So he rang Bublanski.

It was not at all easy to convince the chief inspector. It had not been easy to convince himself. But he still had some residual credibility to fall back on, however many liberties he had taken with the truth of late. Bublanski said that he would send out a unit.

“Why would he be in your part of town?”

“I have no idea, but it wouldn’t hurt to see if you can find him, would it?”

“I suppose not.”

“The best of luck to you in that case.”

“It’s damn unsatisfactory that the Balder boy is still out there somewhere,” Bublanski said reproachfully.

“And it’s damn unsatisfactory that there was a leak in your unit,” Blomkvist said.

“We’ve identified our leak.”

“You have? That’s fantastic.”

“It’s not all that fantastic, I’m afraid. We believe there may have been several leaks, most of which did minimal damage except maybe for the last.”

“Then you’ll have to make sure you put a stop to it.”

“We’re doing all we can, but we’re beginning to suspect...” And then he paused.