Tuesday, August 30, 2011

younger school of activists recruited from the financial.

??Blomkvist gave the report to his editor-in-chief
??Blomkvist gave the report to his editor-in-chief. He was executed in January 1988. He took the escalator three steps at a time down to the main ticket hall.?? He smiled at her. Edklinth. He had voted instead for Ingvar Carlsson. when he came back here. The ambassador finally relented and agreed to meet him at 10. He turned over Bj?rck??s report as soon as S.?? ??This is one hell of an investigation. ??He??ll be home by 5.?? Modig held up a photograph of Bj?rck??s distorted face.?? ??That??s true. a work of art. The tide of this crap never receded. Sometimes I start running regularly and lose a couple of kilos.v ?C Sunday. I can??t handle it right now. ??I??ve just changed into jogging things to work off a little of my surplus energy. She was not the one who had killed Svensson and Johansson. You took a break. They had eaten well and talked politely about nothing in particular. She had taken him out easily.P. He listened with increasing dismay to Giannini??s account of what had happened. That??s the only reasonable explanation. she now has a lawyer named Annika Giannini. ??Well.

I??m just bringing him in for questioning. and a patient.M. They had found the pencil.?? ??I can??t accept that.P. Niedermann could have taken the ferry the next morning. should also be informed.?? Modig said. ??And there??s going to be war when we publish it. My prognosis is that the third quarter will produce a significant loss.?? ??But if the story is true ?? if even a fraction of it is true. He??s a good friend of mine. Herr Blomkvist. He did not answer either. ??I just spoke to a nurse at Sahlgrenska. then we can take a taxi. In both latter instances.??Friday. It was a pleasant feeling to know that her reactions were up to an emergency. The only thing he seemed capable of grasping was that the badly damaged girl being cared for by the medics on the floor next to the kitchen bench was the triple murderer Lisbeth Salander.?? ??I agree with you there. and he could step in and take over the reins when Berger was away or busy. and that her still-extant declaration of incompetence is revoked. For the past few weeks he had been loaned to Counter-Espionage. and he??s one of the chief reasons why it??s almost impossible to get the staff to work as a team. I want you to focus on the follow-up care given to severely injured patients in corridor 11C. At Armansky??s instruction Bohman had been following the Salander investigation from the very start.

?? ??Thanks. Instead he made his second mistake: he offered to hand over the weapon he had in his jacket pocket ?C the Colt . In this case. had an annual budget of several billion U. F?lldin.?? ??What about the reports that Bodin tried to murder his daughter??? ??That is under investigation.M. with all the advantages and drawbacks.?? Blomkvist said. ??I??m sorry.K. It??s about Lisbeth Salander. Then he called Dragan Armansky.P. until the immigration authorities decided that Ghidi did not have sufficient grounds for a residency permit. to help??? ??I??d already decided that Milton ought to hire a lawyer for her???? ??Is that a yes or a no? I know what happened to her.?? Armansky said. dark-green English felt hat. Quite elderly for a murderer.C. We have to think about how we can keep him in check.M.P. from top to bottom.?? Modig nodded. S?po was necessary. His wounds had not been life-threatening. He sounded like an anxious brother.

As he talked to Berger.?? ??Then that??s how it??ll have to be. and his job was to make sure she got well. And of course it was usually after somebody had given in to such impulses that Inspector Bublanski was called in.?? Salander spent the whole day brooding about Zalachenko. talk to the press??? Wadensj?? said. You can start as acting editor-in-chief as from today. But that is all. ??Good evening. and in daily parlance ??the Section. who was once more reading his book. He seems ready to let bygones be bygones. Stefan went to chase someone up from the city building office. It??s clear that there must have been financing.?? ??She was shot. I??m terribly. Salander lapsed into such inexhaustible silence that it seemed she might never utter a word again. The activity may for all I know be legitimate and sanctioned by the government. Berger told him not to bother. ??Hi.?? Holmberg said. but she suspected that Dakota was a woman. I know nothing about Niedermann??s affairs. The nurse gave her a beaker with a straw to drink water through. Fredrik Clinton. She would hardly notice the difference. You??re all members. the emergency vehicle will come out anyway and you??ll be charged a fee.

for the first time in a long time.?? she said. It had been a quiet evening and they arrived within twenty minutes. So.?? Blomkvist sighed. and because she probably thought you had your hands full with the Salander story. The conclusion was just as unpleasant as it was obvious.00. I could go up there and talk to him. ??and get a couple of hours?? sleep yourself. ??My last editorial. ??Well ?? that??s good. Blomkvist realized at once that he was in a position of some strength.?? ??We??ll use the whole front page and move everything else back. F?lldin had in practice demonstrated that he had been informed. at 6. There??s the world of difference.m. You see.?? Modig said nothing. political parties. Nystr?m saw that Ekstr?m had swallowed the bait.M. and he did not ask any questions.?? Blomkvist??s whole world suddenly felt off balance. So Malin??s going to be editor-in-chief. He had done something that Salander knew about. And sex with Blomkvist.

He had tried to get into her room. Petrova had injuries that could very well have been inflicted by a man??s bare hands ???? ??Niedermann??? ??It??s a reasonable assumption. said.Q. ??I haven??t got my bearings yet. Keep in mind that he shot someone dead. there is a risk that her condition may continue to deteriorate. It??s dated. And I??ll have to buy a new shift dress or something on the way to work.iv ?C Sunday. I was about to lock up Bjurman??s cabin outside Stallarholmen when Carl-Magnus Lundin and Sonny Nieminen arrived on motorbikes. not exactly. You and Magge take off on some fucking job we know nothing about. But a piece of lead inside her brain was a trauma of a wholly different magnitude. except for 1991 when he deliberately voted against the moderates because he believed that Carl Bildt was a realpolitik catastrophe. The same rules apply as in your day. Waltari may be an idiot. It was impossible.U. ??Not quite yet. She had originally intended to return to Stockholm that evening.?? Eriksson did not answer the telephone. including anal penetration. If Personal Protection had loaned out M?rtensson.?? ??I know that. Mogren was a carpenter and bodybuilder and had been her training partner off and on for three years.?? ??I don??t like institutions that are beyond normal parliamentary scrutiny. ??It??s Jonasson.

?? ??Right. He approved a directive that was immediately entered into the secret protocol. Sp?ngberg. getting his bearings. He braced himself against the wall and limped over to the door. this year you will be paying out a huge amount of money in dividends to the paper??s twenty-three shareholders. It had sounded logical at the time. Our former I. and pulled out a 9 mm Smith & Wesson with a gold-plated butt.?? ??The house is a monster. It??s going to be difficult to explain away the grave in Gosseberga. Under the circumstances neither of these epithets could be considered wide of the mark. She got out of bed and took out the new Dell laptop that she had been given when she had started at S.Q. of course. and for that Gullberg could breathe a sigh of relief. or the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. And you were one of them!?? ??But you??re an officer in S?po. had called eleven times. ??I don??t understand. Agreed??? ??I think so. and had become one of its trusted veterans. The first email ?C which was also the most crude and intimidating with its suggestion that she would be fucked with a screwdriver ?C had come on May 16. He outlined the strategy that Giannini had already explained to her.?? Jonasson looked over his shoulder at the door.m. They handle coverage about 320 days a year. (2) They have to separate the ??Salander affair?? from the ??Zalachenko affair??.

?? ??Harsh words. She then proceeded to the Yahoo group [The_Knights] and checked whether Plague had added anything. She recognized Modig as one of the officers in Bublanski??s team. Vinge??s memoir as propaganda. But the majority of the workers are convicts. That the budget was so low was a stroke of genius. He was Prime Minister at the time.?? ??No. and the Section had in fact been instrumental in the very formation of the group. And she was exceptionally fit. Most often he made the right decision.?? She told Blomkvist to fasten his seat belt and drove over Slussen to ?stermalm and parked on a side street off Artillerigatan. The Kaspersson woman kicked on the door of a house at 3. The board is going to???? ??The board is going to do as I say. For herself. But she??s calm and matter-of-fact and seems to be able to cope with her situation.?? ??Where was this man then??? Giannini hesitated. Because of the merry-go-round associated with a change of government. He asked her to open her mouth and examined her throat. Berger had gathered her colleagues into Millennium??s small conference room with only a few minutes?? notice. It??s a typical pre-emptive retaliation to undermine potential complaints from Blomkvist. And I won??t write a word of what you tell me. ??Raped??? he said.?? ??Good man. I would have gone for the Silbersky type or another of the heavy-duty criminal lawyers. it??s not a unique situation in the wake of the Soviet Union??s collapse. I??ll even arrange for somebody to carry you back and forth on a stretcher if necessary. She said that she didn??t.

??I have to call for support. ??we??re sitting here with P.?? ??I didn??t mean it that way. They had had a long. in H?rn?sand. Psychiatry. If I run into him sometime. In 1963 Gullberg was transferred from Counter-Espionage to personnel control. we were fast asleep moments after we got here. That did not work either. Salander grabbed it from him. decidedly unsimple. no matter how noble the intentions. Gullberg saw a red flower-shaped splatter on the wall behind the bedhead. Which meant that his was being monitored too.M. Instead she called the duty officer at Milton Security and explained her situation.?? Gullberg said. In its place hung a rope from a hook. He filled half the page before he stopped and tore the sheet off the pad. ??Mumbo jumbo.?? ??I was following M?rtensson. You have the option to remove me as leader of the investigation ?? but if you did that I would be forced to write a harsh memo about the matter. She downloaded a list of everyone who worked at S. adjusted his glasses. whoever did it had access to the very typewriter that Bj?rck used. of course not.?? Zalachenko said laboriously through clenched teeth.

?? Gullberg said.G. ??Fru Berger.?? Ekstr?m nodded. But to be honest. She first worked in Counter-Espionage. ??I??m going out for a while. I urge you to listen to his story and answer his questions. You took a break. and would have to be removed. And tell them that next time they should send a grown man for me to discuss things with. He had packed his van on Friday morning and taken the ferry from Dover to Calais. So there is no record of him until the ??70s. when suddenly he became assistant director. Impossible.?? ??No. If Volvo built cars the same way.?? Wadensj?? said. He??s the entire operations department and I don??t think Wadensj?? has the drive to do what needs to be done. and I meant asap.50. His mouth was dry so his first stop was a corner shop where he bought a Pepsi. Objectively. is it??? ??Hardly. It appears to be older than the others. She staggered out of bed. She had thought that she was beginning to get to grips with the actual process of producing a newspaper and had planned to reward herself with a weekend off ?C the first since she started at S..

It was 4. At first she could not make any sense of it. and he hacked his first computer when he was thirteen. you??re worryingly habit-forming. I asked you for two things: first. Figuerola looked into her rear-view mirror.?? He got up and stood next to her to look through the glass at the newsroom. all this stuff about Zalachenko is highly classified.C. She could not tell how bad the situation was.?? ??I get it.I. She discovered that they got along famously.?? ??So the rumours might be true after all. With the possible exception of President Nixon??s lunatic break-in at Watergate. Whoever did the falsification was extremely well informed. which had a range of ten to twelve metres. and after a few unsuccessful attempts he managed to lift it very slightly so that he could turn it in the right direction.?? Bublanski said. Her grip was hard.?? ??And what was her condition??? ??She was conscious the whole time. So that the report would be accurate.?? ??How about management??? ??Magnus Borgsj? is chairman of the board. but the blond man was gone. Her foot was aching badly. we??ll see. a government agency.?? Figuerola said to no-one in particular.

Salander tapped her way.?? ??That??s good. He would ordinarily meet each member of his team every day. obviously.?? ??We don??t know. I took down your registration and ran a routine check. He had also gathered that she was polite to the rest of the staff but never said a word when the police came to see her.P.?? The woman came to the living-room doorway and asked if Gullberg would like anything. She had not lost her photographic memory. He was advised that he alone had to make the decisions. They must have been there for a couple of hours already. She??s the one who makes the decisions on these things. to Zalachenko??s farm. she was a psychopathic mass murderer. A doctor had explained that the axe blow had crushed his cheekbone and damaged his forehead. She looked at the officers in sullen silence as they came into her room and pulled up chairs. Blomkvist had been one of the people who gave Baksi practical help when he started the magazine Black/White with an issue that he produced secretly at night at the Trades Union Federation offices. S?po got saddled with Zalachenko in the middle of the Cold War. Contact with the Net.A. But when Blomkvist came over to give him a secure mobile.?? Blomkvist said. I transferred to the foreign ministry and became a diplomat. This is just an extra job for me. And this is the document that proves me right.?? Blomkvist said. ??Should I drive you home or do you want to be dropped off somewhere??? Blomkvist stared straight ahead.

He had mentioned her in an email.5 who in good Philby style was working for the Russians. or skinhead. This is my last week. and when he sat by the window he never felt isolated.?? ??Hmm. ??Our number one objective is to discover if she has any information as to where Ronald Niedermann might be. There??s a darker area here. Then she clenched her teeth and concentrated on breathing.M. ??No. ??So where do you come from??? ??Most recently from G?teborg.?? Berglund said. It??s more serious than that. ??It??s almost impossible to answer that question.?? ??So we no longer have the report??? ??No. it??s you. He very soon realized that Paulsson was a pompous.?? ??That??s the story I??m going to publish. Swedish democracy is based on a single premise: the Right to Free Speech (R. If Salander was shot in Gosseberga. It was beautiful and well done. ??You??ll discover that ?C it comes with the job ?C you??re going to have a number of adversaries out there ?C daily editors and veterans among the editors who have created their own little empires. There??s also a possibility that you??ll develop scar tissue in your brain. Kalle Bloody Blomkvist had somehow planted a mobile just outside her room. He took the lift up to the reception on the fourth floor and was immediately shown into a conference room. A real breakthrough. If the Zalachenko story gets out.

?? ??True. about two hours later than usual. of course I??ll come with you. They handle coverage about 320 days a year. We haven??t found hide nor hair of her since. The first hours of her workday had been taken up entirely with meetings. She was very badly wounded. How else to explain the fact that he had been so fucking stupid. As it was growing light an observant police officer found traces of blood on the ground behind the woodshed. But you didn??t see that??? ??No.?? ??We want to know your publication date. But use your judgement.?? Inspector Modig woke with a start when her mobile rang at the other end of the bedroom. they had given carte blanche to a former Soviet intelligence officer to commit crimes involving weapons. they agreed to meet at his place at 10. If you need to talk. and that this had then been the subject of magazine articles. He undertook never to discuss the matter with anyone. plus eight apartments in a small building in the courtyard. ??You played your cards very well. Wadensj?? has a young kid. and an older gentleman we didn??t recognize.. not Blomkvist??s own much more recent Wennerstr?m affair. and which might provide some protection if he ended up in political hot water. Vinge had been dismissed from the service after he had given voice to the view. Open up S. And Holm ?? you??re starting to look like dead meat to me.

??The private investigators won this round. He??ll understand. He shrugged just as Beatrice the receptionist came in with coffee and milk. since he??s still alive. She knew perfectly well that no such address existed at Millennium. along with information about the C.??s assets were in the form of bonds that he could access. you can. Figuerola thought long and hard as to what she should do about Gullberg. I don??t know why. But I??m not going to ask. Now!?? When he heard the desperation in her voice he dug into his inside pocket and handed her his Motorola. Nieminen went up the stairs and out of the front door.?? The rabbi offered him a kippa for his head. Improbable??? ??Doesn??t it? One might think it??s the stuff of a spy novel. but he was in hospital in S?dert?lje with one foot in a cast and his jaw wired shut.P. They went from room to room.?? ??How do you mean??? Sandberg looked so nervous for a second that Zalachenko had to smile. Jonasson put his hand on her forehead and felt that it was damp. ??When Lisbeth was twelve. He was a senior official in the immigration unit. He wanted to get an idea of how the ward was laid out.I. which she unpacked in Berger??s spare room.?? ??Good. That??s my part of the operation. however.

The sender was centraled@smpost. It is a very clear instruction. the U. Bublanski??s face clouded over. ??I??m fearing the worst.L. Before he scrubbed up and put on his operating clothes he sent for Nurse Nicander. Johannes. I know I have to sign a contract.C. Modig held up her mobile to the gap in the curtains and took two low-res photographs of the group outside Ekstr?m??s door. I??ve read your file from S?po. He picked up the telephone and called Martina Karlgren. Blomkvist went into the kitchenette and poured coffee with milk into two mugs marked with the logos of the K. Do you feel like an afternoon on the town??? ??Not particularly. But he??s tricky to deal with.00 on Friday night. She closed her door. I??m not holding back anything that could be useful to your investigation of the Section or throw light on the various crimes that have been committed. Offhand I would guess it??s to do with an internal shake-up of some sort. Borgsj? went to Vietnam twice more.?? Cortez scratched his ear. Unremarkable. Figuerola escorted Blomkvist out of police headquarters at 10. ??I thought Salander had recovered. On three occasions Zalachenko was arrested by the Swedish police for drunkenness and twice more in connection with fights in bars. or Malm?. He had the authority to make it happen.

and that means you??ll once again be a pawn in their game. On Friday morning Jonasson was faced with an obviously irritated Inspector Faste on the other side of his desk. Let me explain why I gave orders that everything to do with Salander has to cross my desk. Besides. Mogren was a carpenter and bodybuilder and had been her training partner off and on for three years. You can only do your best.C. Or that he could. There was more than a trace of admiration in his voice.?? ??Hello.S. Gullberg sat down next to Clinton when their meeting was over. ??I??m with you on that. ??Gullberg has murdered Zalachenko and then shot himself in the head. but he had only a vague idea of what the Section actually did. Hmm. But how?? In amazement she glanced over at the locked door. as a psychiatric consultant on specific cases in the late ??80s and early ??90s ?C on three occasions.?? Only three people knew where Svavelsj? M. The call came just as the voting booths had closed and all signs pointed to the fact that Palme was going to lose. Criminal Inspector Marcus Erlander from the Violent Crimes Division of the G?teborg police arrived in Gosseberga and took over the investigation from the overburdened Paulsson. Bublanski was also wearing a kippa. At 9. But what I??m asking is whether or not you??re willing to put yourself in her corner and get into a pitched battle with her enemies.?? ??So you don??t think she??s crazy. he actually slept in the car coming down from Nossebro. Figuerola waited for forty-nine minutes before M?rtensson and his companion in overalls came out of Bellmansgatan 1. neither could he.

the police and hospital administration had agreed that Salander should remain in room eighteen for the time being. ??O. she has been throughout a victim in the whole affair. It??s probably the only thing that??s a bit odd. ??We??ll introduce ourselves properly in a while. trying to convince me to let him examine you. It was already 4. thinks that Bjurman raped Salander.B. She free-associated. 8. In short.?? ??No. We??ll take him from here. ??I??m taking a big risk here.M.?? ??I??d rather you didn??t. Someone decides that a certain person should be given a particular level of clearance. Mikael Blomkvist. she felt a sharp pain in her foot. Dr Jonasson was pleased with the response he had got. By any interpretation that would be attempted murder. it was in his desk drawer.M.M. do you know anything at all about the murderer??? ??Not a thing. Blomkvist explained the background and why F?lldin had written to him. Lars Faulsson.

was now seventy-eight years old and had been retired for thirteen years. I could break in by using the fire escape at the back of the house and entering through the roof hatch leading to the attic. When he started.?? ??If you trip the burglar alarm by mistake. Lottie? Dig up her passport picture. ??Agneta ?? it??s up to you to decide whether you want to initiate a preliminary investigation against Blomkvist. After a period of computer celibacy. You can move in on Monday morning. Then came the election in 1985. ??He was S. Cortez wrote feverishly. threat or coercion for the purpose of altering our form of government..?? (3) The problem is that if you??re acquitted. Not for my brother or for Armansky. He found what linked the investigations in the Salander slush.. a lawyer colleague who was a member of the Women??s Network and an old friend from law school. ??Cortez. She smiled. He was also an excellent and cold-blooded organizer. They lay in bed and talked through the details of the Zalachenko story. then the chief of Secretariat would have to know about that too.00. ??Hello. obviously. ??I have met Mikael Blomkvist on several occasions in the course of this investigation.V.

??What??s up??? ??Salander. revenue in Stockholm. and I can??t tell the others before I tell him. There are a thousand things I??ve got to learn.?? Sandberg looked around the room. He remembers Sandberg quite well.?? ??I hope she will. Mikael. Cortez stayed on the other side of the street. then Bj?rck would have said so when we brought him in.?? ??I understand.B. which Blomkvist studied. We??ll have a complete security plan ready in a few days which will include a personal attack alarm. and [PrelimInv/Niedermann]. Wittfelt on the fourth floor. but her face was otherwise expressionless.v Blomkvist made sure that he was not being watched when he walked from the Millennium offices early on Friday morning to Salander??s old apartment block on Lundagatan. or Swedish Internal Security ?C S. Lisbeth Salander had at the very least been deprived of the opportunity to exercise her constitutionally protected rights and liberties. I??ve got a young woman here who??s been shot in the head. She got up and came out from behind the counter and extended her hand. I badly need a second opinion. He stood for a long time looking at his face in the mirror before he turned off the light and went to get dressed. They had discussed the psychology that causes certain men to stalk women. One of them had the address editorial-sr@swedishradio. The older I get. She stopped outside Ekstr?m??s closed door.

He took the stairs down to the ground floor. you slammed an axe into his head.00 in the afternoon he turned on his iBook and took up the thread of the text he had begun writing at the hotel in G?teborg. Gullberg considered various alternatives and then chose to steer Bjurman carefully out of the picture. He checked her chart and saw that she was free of her fever. ??It makes no difference to me who you appoint. And the media as a whole bought Faste??s propaganda simply because he appears to be a serious source and it??s always cool to write about S. I can see at least a dozen that are a couple of millimetres long.?? ??He was her guardian. where he would seek protection among contacts in Zalachenko??s criminal empire. he might have only himself to rely on. He turned left on to Tavastgatan at the Bishop??s Arms pub and parked at the corner.?? ??Alright. Lundin should have been ready.?? ??He had a hell of a good motive.?? Edklinth said tentatively. He was Salander??s friend. She??s survived this far and that??s a good omen for her getting through having the bullet removed. The other participants at the meeting were two individuals from the top echelon of the Firm. I??ve missed you. A . but also not a nutcase. The day that Zalachenko was shot there was a robbery at my apartment. He asked if he would be able to visit her. ??Certainly.?? ??That??s true.?? ??A little too fast. commission on child labour had added Fong Soo Industries to its list of companies that exploit child labour.

but she suspected that Dakota was a woman. She could scarcely believe what she was reading. There were whores.?? ??Well. with the Zalachenko report you gave me. which means the transmitter substance in his nerve synapses doesn??t function.?? Edklinth stared at Figuerola. When he started. ??I??d like permission to go through the personnel files from the ??50s. Why not? Maybe he??s going to change tactics. which means that the operations budget has actually increased. Erlander kindly arranged for a crime scene tech to take the car back on his way home. according to a witness. parked at the corner.?? He was at the door when he heard her voice. ??Take a seat. If Niedermann were ever apprehended. As Blomkvist tried in frustration to manoeuvre his mobile out of the breast pocket of his jacket ?C it proved to be an impossible task with his hands cuffed behind his back. The technology of R. olive skin and black hair going grey at the temples.?? Gullberg pulled on his earlobe. She simply did not grasp or did not care that the only way Giannini could provide her with an effective defence would be if she had access to all the facts. Anita Kaspersson has been found. In a few quick steps she crossed the floor. ??Has something happened??? ??Something is happening right now.A. He began by making coffee and sandwiches before he went into Salander??s office and booted up her PowerBook. But we don??t have a damned thing on Nieminen.

Don??t worry ?? it??s painted white and looks just like a normal bedroom door. nurses and cleaners ?C everybody who works there in fact. Blomkvist wondered to what extent this was a coincidence and to what extent it was contrived. She tore electrodes and I. He was convinced that. His job was to save his patient??s life. Bublanski still had the report.?? ??I get it. I demand that you call Inspector Bublanski in Stockholm.?? Blomkvist said.?? ??I must not have realized that it would centre on Salander. First.?? he said. ??I don??t know anything about that. Jan. She made a note of every name and every incident in the report that had to be verified. She took a hammer from the tool box in the basement and put that in the master bathroom too.?? ??I had a patient a number of years ago. At last he looked up. I have a lot of international trade stuff to check out.?? Holmberg said. That was when he started making calls and decided it was time to go to Stockholm. Blomkvist waited.?? Figuerola held up a diplomatic finger. If we had to arrange for bodyguard protection that would be a different matter ?C and it would be rather expensive. We??ll deal with any problems as and when they crop up. It??s something that you all on the staff will have to talk through. ??There are a few holes in your account.

which meant that he would be able to control the flow of information. If I understand the matter correctly. Now!?? When he heard the desperation in her voice he dug into his inside pocket and handed her his Motorola..C. You and Bj?rck arrested Salander in 1991. and she named some standard works that I??d never heard of. and I can??t direct what prosecutors and the courts decide. He isn??t so stupid after all. She got out of bed and took out the new Dell laptop that she had been given when she had started at S. The government has the power to adopt a wide range of measures in the event that breaches of the constitution are threatened. She knew the text by heart already. and one metre eighty-four tall. In the morning two nurses had come to change her bedlinen. ??It??s a Colt 1911 Government. and Millennium are not competitors. but she worked so furiously on her projects that she was encouraged to go home when the day was done. I already know that.?? ??As do we all. ??You??ve been scratching the wound. We don??t know who this person is. ??But we have other urgent problems.?? ??I??m coming into the city this evening.?? ??You don??t have to apologize for the actions of some idiot.S. If the plan failed. She vouchsafed that it was not absolutely certain whether she had the right to question him. His head was wrapped in so many bandages that you could see only his left eye and a narrow slit of mouth.

They were scrutinizing the results of the preliminary investigation that Holmberg had completed that morning.?? Blomkvist breathed more easily. Finally she leaned her head back and looked up at the ceiling. He opened a new Word document. he received help from your family until he was granted a residency permit. Holm. but the injuries aren??t life-threatening. or what they were about. ??O. ??So I wish to press charges against my daughter. The car was still there. but instead of going out on to the street he turned left and went through the basement.?? Modig said.?? As she waved him out of the glass cage she saw Holm watching her from the other side of the news desk. a woman by the name of Kristina Cederholm. But then she realized that this isn??t exactly your style and then ???? ??Then??? ??Well. But not with Mogren. But the living-room window was so big that they did not have the glass in stock. He had bought bread. it was Bj?rck who set this whole mess rolling. it is not merely a criminal conspiracy ?C it is a threat to national security. ??Have a seat. which began with KAB. First day on the job. Hire some people. ??We??ve received a call. no-one could fail to notice her biceps and powerful shoulders. cares about it.

Then he spoke in a lighter tone of voice. But tell me this: is there anything at all to even suggest that Salander might be involved in some way in the murders? Could she and Niedermann have somehow committed the murders together??? ??I very much doubt it.?? ??I??m still a member of Millennium??s board. I??ve had a whole string of crazy emails accusing me of being all kinds of things ?C and suggesting various perverse things that ought to be done to me. said.?? ??If we have to arrange full bodyguard protection.?? Modig said. but I was waylaid by you. but she became acquainted with a lawyer. We have to work together. Nieminen walked the fifty metres to the barn.P.?? Figuerola said. after I??ve had a chance to calm down. I??m going to hang them out to dry. I??ve studied law and political science while I??ve worked for the police. don??t do it. The file was stamped Top Secret.?? Clinton held up a finger and uttered his first words since he had arrived. is Niedermann still hiding out somewhere in Sweden?; two. & M. Berger had received twenty-three emails by the time she arrived at S.?? ??What do you want??? ??What do you think??? Gullberg pulled up the chair and sat down. Jonas. decidedly unsimple. Malin. but which was invisible. but no-one knew about his condition.

peeling off a large part of the flesh on the right side of his face and tugging at his eye socket. The woman??s face had been replaced with Berger??s.?? ??That works for me. against or the attempted murder of Zalachenko.?? ??What kind of job??? ??Do you trust me. ??Look. He had leaked information that would have backed him up in an upcoming trial. They waited for almost an hour before Inspector Erlander arrived from Gosseberga with Blomkvist.I.D. and it has to be done immediately and cannot be mentioned outside this room. He felt as soon as he lay down that for the first time in weeks he could relax and sleep peacefully. People called from all over the world to talk to Baksi. But both he and I travel fairly often. ??Hello. ??Not as far as we know.?? Blomkvist said.?? Salander actually smiled. The customer??s going to have to pay. a feeling that had grown stronger with every visit he made since his retirement. starting with one lasting fifteen minutes in which Assistant Editor Fredriksson presented the guidelines for the day??s work. But the work is often to do with people who have been threatened.?? ??Which means that my problem is definitely the government??s problem. then you??ll be my sources ?C with all the enduring anonymity that implies. not 250 metres from the hotel room where he found himself today. Instinctively she wanted as little as possible to do with the hospital staff. ??Black eye.?? ??I understand.

But in the half-staffed Saturday newsroom everything was normal. Your career might be ruined. What else could he do? She returned to the subject of the front page. if a group of police officers decided to stretch the laws so that an individual??s constitutionally guaranteed rights were infringed. the Russians will swiftly identify our informants and sources in Russia. Salander is no longer a suspect. Gullberg paid his hotel bill and went out to the street. She had failed. Counter-Espionage said that they definitely had not borrowed him.?? ??He??s turning down Holl?ndargatan.?? Berger got up.?? ??Sounds promising.30 she made Berger call S. Gunnar Bj?rck. I??ve worked at Constitutional Protection for three years. and he??s going to assist Ekstr?m. he needs a new kidney and spends a lot of his time in dialysis or some other treatment. ??She acts the way she thinks you would expect her to act. Edklinth felt the floor sway slightly beneath his chair. and attempted murder. held it to his temple. ordered the report confiscated from the police ?C it??s not to be disseminated or copied. She requisitioned the report. And then he remembered that she had left Millennium. but during the night some bastard had punctured all four tyres.?? Baksi knew that Blomkvist was busy planning some sort of mischief.?? Ekstr?m looked as if he had just swallowed something very sour. They represented a younger school of activists recruited from the financial.

source. Inspector Holmberg returned to Stockholm at lunchtime on Sunday. He put on his sports jacket and went downstairs. ??Svensson.

you should set off the alarm
you should set off the alarm. She felt unreasoning panic mixed with disbelief. ??An officer named Faste in the Violent Crimes Division. Inspector Erlander returned. chat program.?? ??It??s that simple??? ??What else can we do in this case? We could leave the bullet where it is. You??re going to need a specialist.?? When Blomkvist left Caf?? Copacabana next to the Kvarter cinema at Hornstull.?? Blomkvist said. Some of the reporters out there are seriously good. She assumed that he would be in the restaurant car and that is where she found him. As things stood. Malm wanted to know what had happened in Gosseberga. I assure you that I will exercise the utmost discretion. She sighed.?? ??Yes. We have to arrive at a common strategy.

reached out and grabbed the pencil. almost all of it above the fold. Salander put a lot of effort into establishing a secret address for herself. I??m terribly. But one thing is for sure ?C I don??t mean to spend the rest of it in this glass cage. If there was one thing Jonasson felt sure about her. She started to scroll past these. Salander never talked to the authorities.?? ??She sort of halfway believed the first email although she was quite surprised by it.?? ??So Salander was supposedly armed with a taser. Trinity??s parabolic antenna captured the search for Ekstr?m??s mobile number as it was sent through the ether. ??The blond man with M?rtensson.?? They all took stock of their colleague??s plight for a few moments until Sp?ngberg turned to Erlander. Blomkvist was not ordinarily impressed by celebrity. He had never been arrested. Jan. Pippi and the password is p9i2p7p7i.

He defected in the ??70s. Can we meet again at 2. At first he had travelled frequently to Stockholm. a refugee from Iraq. which sells genuine Swedish toilets for 1700 kronor apiece. Christer. this state of affairs was deeply unsatisfactory.?? ??Which of course you are not.?? ??He didn??t.?? ??Go on. In September 1964. She had her breakfast at the kitchen table. took out the stylus and began to tap on the letters on the digital keypad. in short. ??Interesting. Lillian had cleaned it with alcohol and put a bandage on it. He gripped the base of the bullet.

in effect) that the decision to lock you up in St Stefan??s in 1991 was a legitimate one. He was dead tired but running on adrenaline.?? ??That helps a bit. From her ideal location at the top of the hill she had an unobstructed view. to leave. at any rate. T. Are you in pain??? ??Yes.A. but he had established that it occurred on the afternoon of April 12. Niedermann. She made her daily sweep. Figuerola escorted Blomkvist out of police headquarters at 10.?? Gullberg could not think of anything more to say. It was expensive. ??You don??t understand. which would otherwise no doubt also be held against her in the psychiatric evaluation that sooner or later would inevitably be conducted.

After a moment he turned on his heel and resumed his little stroll towards Hornsgatan. That was a shattering misfortune. I??m leaving for good and I didn??t tell anybody. He pushed the thought away.. what tone of voice and frequency range it had. it will take longer. in such appalling circumstances. at which time the Soviet Union was heading for collapse and Zalachenko had ceased to be a priority. well. so I can??t even see his lips move. At a time when the newspaper was on the edge and a campaign of rejuvenation was under way. He wrote a carefully worded and noncommittal comment on her chart: Radiological examination gives a basis for definitive conclusions but the condition of the patient has deteriorated steadily during the day. and if she had been sober at the time. It was frustrating. Even though he hired me. Then she found the brick in the middle of the living-room floor.

??That??s about it. in a couple of instances.30 this morning. and Edklinth realized that Armansky??s people not only had the skills for the job.??Saturday. He??s in bad shape. but he??s usable. who managed to spring her loose. You feel an enormous sense of wellbeing when you give something your all. Keep me posted by mobile. ??It won??t be popular with some people. You were the one who exposed Wennerstr?m last year. After dinner Ritva repaired to the sofa to watch T. There was still much research to be done.?? ??Did he call you or did you call him??? ??He called me. They parted company at the grey Volvo.T.

she was going to have to get an accountant to help her. there was no crime.?? Blomkvist said. He had been beaten. He gripped the base of the bullet. and was admitted by the rabbi himself. with you??? ??It??s completely O. I??m not. ??Just a moment. the role of Dr Teleborian in the psychiatric clinic in 1991. According to the P. You shouldn??t do that.?? Salander gave Jonasson a lopsided smile. since experience from far too many countries has shown that a political police department could easily transform itself into the principal threat to democracy. She said a stalker would never have written the email to the girl on the culture desk. when Gullberg was nineteen years old.?? ??It sounds like the bedroom won??t be such a romantic place in the future.

?? he said. of course ?C that was among the most secret to be found in Sweden. Ingemarsson had been found dead with a broken neck.?? ??O. little girl.R. And at the same time. I think we could assume her actions were on some level self-defence. It??s on my desk. He was suddenly aware of Nurse Nicander saying something. Erlander cleared his throat. ??He left S. ??Just a moment.?? ??Very well written too.?? ??It??s a fake. and he was in fact a naval officer. Holm was off today.

Not to mention that someone else saunters into Sahlgrenska and blows Zalachenko??s head off. It rang three times before Berger answered. Blomkvist was working on the Salander story and would not share any part of it. Her head was wrapped in bandages. L?derman. but it could have come about in a dozen different ways ?? for instance.?? Blomkvist said. ??Good evening. He rehearsed the psychiatric report of 1991 and explained why Salander had become a threat to certain unknown civil servants who had taken it upon themselves to protect the Russian defector. Edklinth had been able to set up a legitimate operations department.?? Jonasson looked over his shoulder at the door. ??about a missing person in Alings?s. obviously I don??t know what??s wrong with him ?C patient??s confidentiality and all that ?C but the drugs he??s taking are strong ataractics on the one hand.?? ??It??s a hell of a dilemma.00.?? he said. It??s not your job to take apart the operational organization.

?? She paused for a moment. (who is regarded as an unreliable source by other historians). But before that there are one or two things we ought to discuss. I??m thinking of the ferry to the east. but he claims it was in self-defence.?? he said. The second was an injury to the brain.?? Gullberg said. Trinity was an ardent fan of the E.?? ??Where do you want me to begin??? ??Start with the simple things.?? ??Alright ?? but we??re talking about low-wage countries.B.S. The Zalachenko unit had taken on the role of clean-up patrol in that sense. Then he drove down to the Continental. and was gone. I??m happy to listen.

But it should be somebody who clearly stands for the newspaper??s views. She felt a small twinge of fear. This is my colleague Inspector Modig from the Stockholm police. He had slept through fifteen hours. as he often did for patients after an operation.?? ??Yes ???? ??Look at the man on the left behind Danielsson. he has to be treated as a madman.?? ??That was Margareta Orring??s article. nothing more. * Zalachenko lay awake for a long time after the man who called himself Jonas Sandberg had left. assistant editor of the front page who had worked on the paper for thirty-five years.?? ??Thanks. If he decided to fight. the A. then she wanted to face it first before anyone else got wind of it. but it had a strong moral and emotional impact.?? ??Do you feel like having dinner later??? ??Bosnian again??? ??No.

There was a report today that she??s going to be the new editor-in-chief at Svenska Morgon-Posten. It was a pleasant feeling to know that her reactions were up to an emergency. And the press.?? ??But isn??t Russia a democracy now too? I mean. It felt as if she had alcohol in her mouth and she tried to swallow. he??s going to survive and he??s been up walking around on crutches. The first had come from her own newsroom. Someone had to take responsibility for seeing to it that national-Bolshevist crackpots ?C who had read too much Bakunin or whoever the hell these neo-Nazis read ?C did not patch together a bomb made of fertilizer and oil and park it in a van outside Rosenbad. Benny was nowhere to be seen.?? Sandberg said. ??He??ll be home by 5. known locally as Karl Axel Bodin. and second. stopped at the desk of the new assistant chief of Secretariat. ??I??m sorry.?? ??So that??s why I??m sending you back to your desk with a proposal for a new story.?? ??Right.

then crossed Belgium by way of Liege. Her stay at Sahlgrenska was in any case going to come to an end in a few more weeks. Annika Bloody Giannini was most likely on her side. Modig had to take the question. but Asperger??s patients do not generally set fire to their parents. Pippi and the password is p9i2p7p7i. When she sat at her computer she found a message from MikBlom@millennium. to see how her pupils contracted and expanded. but certain things happened today that require me to stay overnight. It was an ordinary formula. which should mean that Zalachenko??s room was two doors down from hers. It was as though her time at S. People greeted her as she limped past the central desk. ??Hello. A working group had been formed to explore the matter. She made a note of every name and every incident in the report that had to be verified.?? ??Yes.

It seems completely beside the point.M. From her ideal location at the top of the hill she had an unobstructed view. At the age of seventy-nine. That did not help either. You were the one F?lldin assigned to be the go-between with those who were protecting Zalachenko.iv ?C Sunday. S?po was necessary. but he??s on disability leave. it??s not O. when Zalachenko arrived in Sweden ?C it had to be organized and sanctioned from the top. ??So what you??re saying is that the medical assessment of Salander is correct??? ??Oh yes. ??What was that??? ??Oh. pointing at the photograph. It contained no lies that could entangle her. She thought for a moment. even if the friend was impossible and obviously flawed.

put on coffee. He??ll be leading the Section??s operations department until the present crisis is over. ??That was one of our first thoughts too. ??In the first instance. I??ll explain the situation. What do you want us to do??? Cortez said. And yet she had connectivity. possession of illegal weapons.?? she said.?? ??I know. She??s the real victim here. not tonight or next week or whenever you feel like getting your arse out of your chair. She happened to identify him and track him down to Gosseberga. about half a mile further down the road. Then he picked up the telephone and tried to call his old protector in Laholm. Then he shut off the computer and sat down at Salander??s kitchen table with an editing pencil. when he moved back to Sweden.

Sex was almost as satisfying as a rigorous workout at the gym. Fingerprints and D. And that would have to mean that locking you up in 1991 was illegal. Or that he could.?? ??But if the K. A large portion of these funds were used for investments in I. but Paulsson ?C whose opinion had little influence on Erlander ?C had warned him that Blomkvist had been babbling on about Russian agents and German hit men ?C hardly routine elements in Swedish police work. He had reddish-brown hair and was casually dressed in jeans.?? ??I want to know what you and Blomkvist are up to.?? His voice quivered with contempt as he spoke those last words. she would leave hospital with a scar on her scalp. Besides. He had tried to kill her. I??m guessing that such a request will arrive next week. He had assumed that she would survive.?? ??That??s my husband??s studio.?? He grunted some more and promised to scold her when she got home.

Karim and Malm (against his will) had thus become temporary assistant editors at Millennium. but she had also to deal with her own problems. He had been killed.?? said Andersson. ??I??ve read Dag Svensson??s manuscript. Since it was a woman in the car. Shit. I assume we still have relevant media contacts. It doesn??t matter how much I disagree with her about the matter; it??s her decision. I gave her Dexofen.. Swedish workers were already out of that race in the ??90s.M.?? ??You would be a source. Inspector Holmberg returned to Stockholm at lunchtime on Sunday. He put on his sports jacket and went downstairs. ??Svensson.

57 with Clinton in tow 57 with Clinton in tow. One source did tell me that he swallowed most of what Teleborian fed him about Salander at a presentation of reports when the hunt for her was still on. Figuerola parked seven cars behind M?rtensson??s Volvo on Luntmakargatan. and that means that Salander has been subjected to a lifetime of injustice ?C since she was twelve. It??s not your job to take apart the operational organization.S. It will be my final issue. They had taken 2.?? ??Can he handle it??? ??He??s no idiot. I need somebody to scrub my back. but she quickly regained her composure. but Figuerola harboured a deep scepticism about anyone who collected weapons on such a scale. ??Cortez.?? ??Second.?? ??I should also say that Annika Giannini. But that leads us to the second part ?C damage control. ??You know as well as I do that a loosely formulated document that was written in the mid-??60s isn??t worth a damn today. Cortez could not put his finger on what was wrong. Do you know what this means? It means that S. He. She hobbled to the door and leaned against the wall to catch her breath. as set out in the government??s instruction.?? Bublanski added the suggestion of a press conference out of sheer cussedness. It??s going to be difficult to explain away the grave in Gosseberga. but she had a body like ?? hmm.?? ??I didn??t mean it that way.C. He works for Karl Axel Bodin. and a muted brick-red jacket. an anal plug. What do you know about this Niedermann??? ??He??s a murderer.P.?? ??There must have been some other purpose ?? a secret organization within the organization. Blomkvist had apparently reached the point in his story at which Paulsson had decided to ignore everything else he might say. At long last D. a feeling that had grown stronger with every visit he made since his retirement. to ?? what? A complete loony? Salander might be innocent of murder. The message on May Day has to touch on the immigrant integration question.?? Blomkvist woke up at 10. If the court determines that you are mentally ill. Her temperature was steady. It was a pleasant feeling to know that her reactions were up to an emergency. ??Good morning. Those positions have not been filled. I??m not holding back anything that could be useful to your investigation of the Section or throw light on the various crimes that have been committed. 4. His role was to make sure that the pages of S. My assignment is to be your guide in this labyrinth. Richard Ekstr?m. He did not see Teleborian or the man Malm had photographed outside Caf?? Copacabana. ??Secondly. ?? ??That??s correct.S.?? Sp?ngberg interrupted. With such cretinous leadership it was no wonder that scandals occurred. And there??s a connection to Niedermann there too. but that Zalachenko might have any connection to the affair had not dawned on him. Blomkvist thought.?? Modig said. coming up towards her. Two are in Syria and my little sister is in Madrid. Some are embedded in the brain tissue. I have to meet my husband and kids at the Sturegalleria in ten minutes.?? ??Of course. They take care of their normal jobs and do some discreet moonlighting for us should the need or opportunity arise.?? Samir came over with the menu and. How am I going to do all this alone??? ??You won??t have to. It was not until a month after the government was formed that the chief of S. If you publish before Edklinth has completed it. ??Zalachenko was shot dead at 1.K. ??I think you can. Bublanski still had the report. The man would always nod politely but never laughed if he said anything humorous. ??O. Camilla. Now it seemed all wrong. agent who defected from the Soviet Union seems impossible to verify.m. It??s that simple. eliminated all the men in the twenty-six to fifty-four age group who were married. This time of year every cabin owner is out checking their property. Millennium is sitting on a scoop that will turn the Salander story on its head. But what do we do if a threat to the constitution comes from within our own organization??? For the next half hour he told her what Armansky had told him the night before.?? ??Two??? ??And I??m not Erika. Annoyed. To do that I have to have something to work with. writing down the registration number Cortez read off to him. trying to get down every word that was said from the podium at the police press office at Kungsholmen. resisting arrest. weighing her chances. Blomkvist ordered couscous and a beer.I. Only when that has happened can she begin to confront her legal problems.?? ??Why is that??? ??You??re proposing that the newspaper should not be profitable. and pulled out a 9 mm Smith & Wesson with a gold-plated butt. On the contrary ?C the book would never be able to attract the same attention at any other time. ??Has something happened??? ??Something is happening right now. At first he was sceptical about the information that the excited young officer was telling him. I??d like to spend some more time with you. or whether she was off her rocker or why the police kept her locked up. She looked as if she had been beaten to death. ??Satisfied??? ??It??s beautiful. and as discreetly as possible. No. It??s classified material and the P. First. a need had arisen for the Section to assign a trusted colleague to the operation who could reinforce its control. He was wearing blue jeans. ??We also have Peter Teleborian. One advantage of working at Constitutional Protection was that she had authority to access almost any police report in Sweden that might have any connection to racially or politically motivated crimes. I grew up a few miles from there. ??Congrats.?? Edklinth said.??Wednesday. she would have to resign.?? ??Understood. other people can. made a late snack. she tried to avoid padding her bill with expensive hotel charges. The technique was not uncommon. On four separate occasions Gullberg tried to have Bergling removed. At that moment. ??We have to try to tone this down.P. Go on.?? ??What??? ??It??s on the top floor. Fredrik. First Zalachenko. Are you awake??? ??No. Benny was nowhere to be seen. She took a sip of coffee and had just opened her mouth to take a bite of toast when she heard the headlines. Gullberg had never used the designation ??S?po?? for S?kerhetspolisen. He could not see anything remarkable. Why are you leaving??? ??I??m going to be editor-in-chief of Svenska Morgon-Posten. If things came to a head. Slip wrote.P. the budget of the Security Police was in excess of 350 million kronor. Just as Figuerola reached the Bishop??s Arms. ??I can prove my assertions. ??This is really cool. The Salander case demonstrated that something was out of joint inside the organization. He was one metre eighty-four tall and weighed sixty-eight kilos.?? ??Good God. Edklinth lacked the legal authority to initiate a preliminary investigation. Blomkvist was the only one absent from the meeting.?? He burst out laughing.?? ??But here comes my point. If the pinkos want to avoid a war with Denmark. The really damaging thing was that Borgsj? knew about all this and still went on ordering toilets from Fong Soo Industries. Teleborian did a routine psychiatric examination of Salander and concluded that she was mentally unbalanced. Salander tapped her way. ?? ??Go on.K. There really was a conspiracy inside S. but he??s above all the one who makes the decisions.?? They all took stock of their colleague??s plight for a few moments until Sp?ngberg turned to Erlander. no exit. ??And how did you know that this meeting was going to take place??? ??I have to protect my source.?? ??And Bublanski knows nothing about this??? ??No.?? ??Nonsense. and she kept trying to call her husband or Blomkvist. When he tried to resist.K. ??Now you??re getting to the heart of the problem. Do you know where you are??? ??Hospital. Mikael. with his unfinished editorial to the left and a frieze of photographs along the bottom edge.?? ??Tell me. but it??s been three years since the last time. which corresponded to the letters W-A-S-P on the keyboard. that in point of fact it was Salander who had attempted to murder him. and then by telephone. You??re to contact an Inspector Thomas Paulsson at the Trollh?ttan police. We had also informed Camilla that her sister was violent and mentally ill. he??s the one who gets S. It seemed to be challenging her. ??So we have S. ??Do we kill the article??? Blomkvist looked Cortez straight in the eye. Instead he opened the mini-bar and poured a miniature of Johnny Walker into a glass. and loosened his tie. At that time. That folder is your most important evidence.?? ??And??? ??He did his military service in Karlskrona in the ??40s. ran a hand through his thick blond hair. It rang four times before Waltari picked up. arson.V. ??Hmm. But exactly how it was done I don??t know. What do you want us to do??? Cortez said. Blomkvist regarded P. with a petrol bomb..?? ??A common strategy??? ??You either have to resign from Millennium??s board before we publish. and Superintendent Edklinth took on this responsibility with the utmost seriousness. He read the letter and laid it on the table beside him. Which will be in about an hour. ??Oops. or whether he was overheard making racist remarks at the time of the murder. It was the first time she had smiled at Sahlgrenska hospital.S. he would not have given the car a second glance. a pervert. Bj?rck looked at the noose. ??The man who at 1. A Colt 1911 Government ?C that??s the pistol that Blomkvist tried to hand in to Paulsson.?? Jonasson said. This is just an extra job for me. And I??ve decided not to come back here to put in any days during the transition period.?? ??I said that we probably didn??t have any more advanced books in the patient library ?C we have more Philip Marlowe than scientific literature ?C but that I??d see what I could dig up.S.?? ??That can be considered a step forward. I don??t want information and I??m here in a completely private capacity.K??.M. she was locked up in a mental hospital. I transferred to the foreign ministry and became a diplomat.?? Salander frowned. He flew across Klarabergsgatan between a bus and two cars. a delegate for the Centre in the ??70s and ??80s. But it??s not good. ??Fredrik Clinton. A speech bubble materialized with the text [WHO GOES THERE?]. was a seriously big mistake. And fucking Salander.?? ??So the sister was your informant??? ??Camilla was mortally afraid of her sister. he would look like an idiot. He appeared confused. nothing else matters. She dressed in black trousers. which meant he was thin and wiry. And you were one of them!?? ??But you??re an officer in S?po. He also says that the forgery is a good one and that the content is a clever blend of truth and fantasy. Berger stared at the screen in frustration. I work for Armansky.00 in the evening. Berger woke at 7. I said I had a number of final tests to run on you tomorrow and that I couldn??t discharge you until Sunday. took a folder from her desk and handed it to Giannini. Milton will send cars out here. ??I??ll do it.?? ??But that doesn??t quite fit with our reconstruction of what happened.?? Salander listened attentively to the conversation between her lawyer and her adversary. ??How are you feeling??? ??Like a sack of shit. the porch on the upper floor. would have to be superhuman.?? ??I can do complicated.?? ??And??? ??There are seven full-timers.?? Figuerola said. Berglund put a dog-eared. In some mysterious way the ceiling lamp had been taken down and placed on the coffee table.?? was Paulsson??s immediate response. He could not move it even a millimetre. on the first of May. Gullberg had a single slice of bread and a cup of black coffee in Frey??s caf??. ??I??m sorry for chasing you down. The chairman of the board is Magnus Borgsj?. the previous day. Yes ?? we can prove that there is a conspiracy.?? ??That??s not what I asked. and in 1987 he started his own company. loaded them.?? she said. It??s been a long time. Some years earlier a citizen of Hacker Republic. Unfortunately I won??t now be able to discharge you for at least two more weeks. I??m a physician. stamped top secret. I forgot to call. She found correspondence between Teleborian and a person with a hotmail address who sent encrypted mail. ??that until yesterday afternoon we had never heard of either Zalachenko or Niedermann. He was dead before the ambulance arrived. She could go back to Stockholm knowing that she might have to take the train to G?teborg again as soon as the following day. ??If you light that cigarette I??ll stub it out in your navel. There are a few minor things that need fixing. The arrow entered at the outside edge of her left eyebrow and went straight through her head. what do you say then??? ??I can??t prove otherwise.?? ??Oh??? ??S. She showered and towelled herself and went to the bedroom to put on a dressing gown. was a seriously big mistake. I want to know if anything odd happens around S. You??re going to need a specialist. the media regarded S?po as an excellent news source. She wondered whether she could manage to get out of bed. simple case for him to focus on.Monday. Erlander thought.

57 with Clinton in tow
57 with Clinton in tow. One source did tell me that he swallowed most of what Teleborian fed him about Salander at a presentation of reports when the hunt for her was still on. Figuerola parked seven cars behind M?rtensson??s Volvo on Luntmakargatan. and that means that Salander has been subjected to a lifetime of injustice ?C since she was twelve. It??s not your job to take apart the operational organization.S. It will be my final issue. They had taken 2.?? ??Can he handle it??? ??He??s no idiot. I need somebody to scrub my back. but she quickly regained her composure. but Figuerola harboured a deep scepticism about anyone who collected weapons on such a scale. ??Cortez.?? ??Second.?? ??I should also say that Annika Giannini. But that leads us to the second part ?C damage control. ??You know as well as I do that a loosely formulated document that was written in the mid-??60s isn??t worth a damn today.

Cortez could not put his finger on what was wrong. Do you know what this means? It means that S. He. She hobbled to the door and leaned against the wall to catch her breath. as set out in the government??s instruction.?? Bublanski added the suggestion of a press conference out of sheer cussedness. It??s going to be difficult to explain away the grave in Gosseberga. but she had a body like ?? hmm.?? ??I didn??t mean it that way.C. He works for Karl Axel Bodin. and a muted brick-red jacket. an anal plug. What do you know about this Niedermann??? ??He??s a murderer.P.?? ??There must have been some other purpose ?? a secret organization within the organization. Blomkvist had apparently reached the point in his story at which Paulsson had decided to ignore everything else he might say.

At long last D. a feeling that had grown stronger with every visit he made since his retirement. to ?? what? A complete loony? Salander might be innocent of murder. The message on May Day has to touch on the immigrant integration question.?? Blomkvist woke up at 10. If the court determines that you are mentally ill. Her temperature was steady. It was a pleasant feeling to know that her reactions were up to an emergency. ??Good morning. Those positions have not been filled. I??m not holding back anything that could be useful to your investigation of the Section or throw light on the various crimes that have been committed. 4. His role was to make sure that the pages of S. My assignment is to be your guide in this labyrinth. Richard Ekstr?m. He did not see Teleborian or the man Malm had photographed outside Caf?? Copacabana. ??Secondly.

?? ??That??s correct.S.?? Sp?ngberg interrupted. With such cretinous leadership it was no wonder that scandals occurred. And there??s a connection to Niedermann there too. but that Zalachenko might have any connection to the affair had not dawned on him. Blomkvist thought.?? Modig said. coming up towards her. Two are in Syria and my little sister is in Madrid. Some are embedded in the brain tissue. I have to meet my husband and kids at the Sturegalleria in ten minutes.?? ??Of course. They take care of their normal jobs and do some discreet moonlighting for us should the need or opportunity arise.?? Samir came over with the menu and. How am I going to do all this alone??? ??You won??t have to. It was not until a month after the government was formed that the chief of S.

If you publish before Edklinth has completed it. ??Zalachenko was shot dead at 1.K. ??I think you can. Bublanski still had the report. The man would always nod politely but never laughed if he said anything humorous. ??O. Camilla. Now it seemed all wrong. agent who defected from the Soviet Union seems impossible to verify.m. It??s that simple. eliminated all the men in the twenty-six to fifty-four age group who were married. This time of year every cabin owner is out checking their property. Millennium is sitting on a scoop that will turn the Salander story on its head. But what do we do if a threat to the constitution comes from within our own organization??? For the next half hour he told her what Armansky had told him the night before.?? ??Two??? ??And I??m not Erika.

Annoyed. To do that I have to have something to work with. writing down the registration number Cortez read off to him. trying to get down every word that was said from the podium at the police press office at Kungsholmen. resisting arrest. weighing her chances. Blomkvist ordered couscous and a beer.I. Only when that has happened can she begin to confront her legal problems.?? ??Why is that??? ??You??re proposing that the newspaper should not be profitable. and pulled out a 9 mm Smith & Wesson with a gold-plated butt. On the contrary ?C the book would never be able to attract the same attention at any other time. ??Has something happened??? ??Something is happening right now. At first he was sceptical about the information that the excited young officer was telling him. I??d like to spend some more time with you. or whether she was off her rocker or why the police kept her locked up. She looked as if she had been beaten to death.

??Satisfied??? ??It??s beautiful. and as discreetly as possible. No. It??s classified material and the P. First. a need had arisen for the Section to assign a trusted colleague to the operation who could reinforce its control. He was wearing blue jeans. ??We also have Peter Teleborian. One advantage of working at Constitutional Protection was that she had authority to access almost any police report in Sweden that might have any connection to racially or politically motivated crimes. I grew up a few miles from there. ??Congrats.?? Edklinth said.??Wednesday. she would have to resign.?? ??Understood. other people can. made a late snack.

she tried to avoid padding her bill with expensive hotel charges. The technique was not uncommon. On four separate occasions Gullberg tried to have Bergling removed. At that moment. ??We have to try to tone this down.P. Go on.?? ??What??? ??It??s on the top floor. Fredrik. First Zalachenko. Are you awake??? ??No. Benny was nowhere to be seen. She took a sip of coffee and had just opened her mouth to take a bite of toast when she heard the headlines. Gullberg had never used the designation ??S?po?? for S?kerhetspolisen. He could not see anything remarkable. Why are you leaving??? ??I??m going to be editor-in-chief of Svenska Morgon-Posten. If things came to a head.

Slip wrote.P. the budget of the Security Police was in excess of 350 million kronor. Just as Figuerola reached the Bishop??s Arms. ??I can prove my assertions. ??This is really cool. The Salander case demonstrated that something was out of joint inside the organization. He was one metre eighty-four tall and weighed sixty-eight kilos.?? ??Good God. Edklinth lacked the legal authority to initiate a preliminary investigation. Blomkvist was the only one absent from the meeting.?? He burst out laughing.?? ??But here comes my point. If the pinkos want to avoid a war with Denmark. The really damaging thing was that Borgsj? knew about all this and still went on ordering toilets from Fong Soo Industries. Teleborian did a routine psychiatric examination of Salander and concluded that she was mentally unbalanced. Salander tapped her way.

?? ??Go on.K. There really was a conspiracy inside S. but he??s above all the one who makes the decisions.?? They all took stock of their colleague??s plight for a few moments until Sp?ngberg turned to Erlander. no exit. ??And how did you know that this meeting was going to take place??? ??I have to protect my source.?? ??And Bublanski knows nothing about this??? ??No.?? ??Nonsense. and she kept trying to call her husband or Blomkvist. When he tried to resist.K. ??Now you??re getting to the heart of the problem. Do you know where you are??? ??Hospital. Mikael. with his unfinished editorial to the left and a frieze of photographs along the bottom edge.?? ??Tell me.

but it??s been three years since the last time. which corresponded to the letters W-A-S-P on the keyboard. that in point of fact it was Salander who had attempted to murder him. and then by telephone. You??re to contact an Inspector Thomas Paulsson at the Trollh?ttan police. We had also informed Camilla that her sister was violent and mentally ill. he??s the one who gets S. It seemed to be challenging her. ??So we have S. ??Do we kill the article??? Blomkvist looked Cortez straight in the eye. Instead he opened the mini-bar and poured a miniature of Johnny Walker into a glass. and loosened his tie. At that time. That folder is your most important evidence.?? ??And??? ??He did his military service in Karlskrona in the ??40s. ran a hand through his thick blond hair. It rang four times before Waltari picked up.

arson.V. ??Hmm. But exactly how it was done I don??t know. What do you want us to do??? Cortez said. Blomkvist regarded P. with a petrol bomb..?? ??A common strategy??? ??You either have to resign from Millennium??s board before we publish. and Superintendent Edklinth took on this responsibility with the utmost seriousness. He read the letter and laid it on the table beside him. Which will be in about an hour. ??Oops. or whether he was overheard making racist remarks at the time of the murder. It was the first time she had smiled at Sahlgrenska hospital.S. he would not have given the car a second glance.

a pervert. Bj?rck looked at the noose. ??The man who at 1. A Colt 1911 Government ?C that??s the pistol that Blomkvist tried to hand in to Paulsson.?? Jonasson said. This is just an extra job for me. And I??ve decided not to come back here to put in any days during the transition period.?? ??I said that we probably didn??t have any more advanced books in the patient library ?C we have more Philip Marlowe than scientific literature ?C but that I??d see what I could dig up.S.?? ??That can be considered a step forward. I don??t want information and I??m here in a completely private capacity.K??.M. she was locked up in a mental hospital. I transferred to the foreign ministry and became a diplomat.?? Salander frowned. He flew across Klarabergsgatan between a bus and two cars.

a delegate for the Centre in the ??70s and ??80s. But it??s not good. ??Fredrik Clinton. A speech bubble materialized with the text [WHO GOES THERE?]. was a seriously big mistake. And fucking Salander.?? ??So the sister was your informant??? ??Camilla was mortally afraid of her sister. he would look like an idiot. He appeared confused. nothing else matters. She dressed in black trousers. which meant he was thin and wiry. And you were one of them!?? ??But you??re an officer in S?po. He also says that the forgery is a good one and that the content is a clever blend of truth and fantasy. Berger stared at the screen in frustration. I work for Armansky.00 in the evening.

Berger woke at 7. I said I had a number of final tests to run on you tomorrow and that I couldn??t discharge you until Sunday. took a folder from her desk and handed it to Giannini. Milton will send cars out here. ??I??ll do it.?? ??But that doesn??t quite fit with our reconstruction of what happened.?? Salander listened attentively to the conversation between her lawyer and her adversary. ??How are you feeling??? ??Like a sack of shit. the porch on the upper floor. would have to be superhuman.?? ??I can do complicated.?? ??And??? ??There are seven full-timers.?? Figuerola said. Berglund put a dog-eared. In some mysterious way the ceiling lamp had been taken down and placed on the coffee table.?? was Paulsson??s immediate response. He could not move it even a millimetre.

on the first of May. Gullberg had a single slice of bread and a cup of black coffee in Frey??s caf??. ??I??m sorry for chasing you down. The chairman of the board is Magnus Borgsj?. the previous day. Yes ?? we can prove that there is a conspiracy.?? ??That??s not what I asked. and in 1987 he started his own company. loaded them.?? she said. It??s been a long time. Some years earlier a citizen of Hacker Republic. Unfortunately I won??t now be able to discharge you for at least two more weeks. I??m a physician. stamped top secret. I forgot to call. She found correspondence between Teleborian and a person with a hotmail address who sent encrypted mail.

??that until yesterday afternoon we had never heard of either Zalachenko or Niedermann. He was dead before the ambulance arrived. She could go back to Stockholm knowing that she might have to take the train to G?teborg again as soon as the following day. ??If you light that cigarette I??ll stub it out in your navel. There are a few minor things that need fixing. The arrow entered at the outside edge of her left eyebrow and went straight through her head. what do you say then??? ??I can??t prove otherwise.?? ??Oh??? ??S. She showered and towelled herself and went to the bedroom to put on a dressing gown. was a seriously big mistake. I want to know if anything odd happens around S. You??re going to need a specialist. the media regarded S?po as an excellent news source. She wondered whether she could manage to get out of bed. simple case for him to focus on.Monday. Erlander thought.

usually happened only when she had a visitor or was working intently on some problem. or whether I have possibly misinterpreted something.

had nothing to do with this morning??s events
had nothing to do with this morning??s events. Blomkvist waved from a corner table.?? Inspector Erlander got up from his desk and went upstairs to tell the preliminary investigation leader. For us it??s important to bear in mind that this is a case of criminal activity perpetrated by a small number of individuals.?? ??Could you explain your relationship to Niedermann??? ??I??m disabled.?? ??I see. Before he turned up out of the blue at a meeting with Gullberg.?? ??Why didn??t you say anything??? Blomkvist said. He studied his unexpected visitor as she stood up. Erlander put it in an evidence bag and labelled the find.. He pushed away the sheet of paper with the nine succinct points that Berger had presented at the weekly meeting of the budget committee. I assume it was Salander who nailed him. I suppose??? ??You decide that for yourself. ??And how are you doing this evening??? ??I have a splitting headache and I feel feverish. four hours later than usual.?? ??You??ve been pretty busy these last few months.

He very seldom called in sick.?? ??Which means that the excellent Herr Niedermann took the weapon while Zalachenko was asleep and shot Salander. retired S?po hand. Why had she not stayed outside? She would have recognized him when he came out.I.?? ??As far as I know. Remember what it was like during the Wennerstr?m affair. so he limped to the telephone booth at the grocer??s to call Landsort and book himself a room in the old ships?? pilot lookout. Gullberg arrived together with the then chief of S. ??Lie still. Seconds later they had set off down the corridor. But I actually have some news. Plague. but my boss. said. The technique was not uncommon.H.

?? ??No. She had worked an average of five hours each day.?? ??Could he have recognized you from the papers? You??ve had a lot of publicity over several widely reported cases.?? ??Did you make eye contact??? ??No.?? ??Yes. He logged on to her broadband connection. If you need to talk. Eventually he put the folder aside.?? ??You mean you felt threatened by Niedermann??? Erlander said. ??Anders ?C I need a mobile.?? ??Is there a computer??? ??No. He??s asleep and has turned off his mobile. whom he did not know. the police will be alerted automatically. A theatre nurse was applying bandages to the gunshot wound on Salander??s hip. She did survive and her prognosis has been exceedingly satisfactory ?? so much so that my colleagues and I were getting ready to discharge her. Finally.

but he had lived in north London since childhood. He was a hit man for Russian military intelligence.?? ??But let??s save the secrets till we meet again tomorrow. Figuerola noted the time.00 in the morning. of Milton Security.?? ??I know. She felt an intense desire to move. Her heart sank again.?? ??Let me call you back.?? ??Police officer??? ??She graduated from the police academy and worked for six years on the S?dermalm crime team. That way she could look at all the activity in the email system. By lunchtime they already had extensive documentation of the fact that both Fredrik Clinton and Hans von Rottinger had been associated with the Security Police in the ??60s and early ??70s. Dakota wrote. Whatever it was. Reassigned to a secret post abroad in 2000. Call her.

Today we have fewer employees responsible for producing more text every day. Promise me. Cortez had the weekend shift and Blomkvist found him again in the office in the evening. when that idiot from Trollh?ttan took charge of the situation. Then she heard the same sound again.L. Jerker. It was the seventh time he had seen the same car in four days. ??Hello. He saw that he had missed six calls in the past twenty-four hours: three from Cortez. She sat up in bed and looked eagerly at the screen of her Palm. respectable operation producing appliances and plumbing goods.?? ??I see. just as when we were editing Dag??s book.?? Blomkvist said. At first she could not make any sense of it. That was what they had been expecting.

Gullberg was expecting this objection and played the strongest card he had available.?? ??But how on earth did she handle Niedermann??? Blomkvist shrugged.00 on Wednesday morning and went for an unusually short run before she showered and dressed in black jeans. I??m a friend.?? ??The neighbours on the right are away for long periods.?? ??It??s possible. He pretended to be asleep. I was going out with a guy this spring..?? ??Precisely.K. At present it consists of you. He quoted from the correspondence between Teleborian and Bj?rck.B. ??this could lead to a constitutional crisis. The girl looked terrible. He would have to turn to the chief to secure political support for what he was working on.

the trail will fizzle out. opening the message only if it was something that caught her attention. ??Why the hell is it that the first thing Millennium does after I leave is to start running background checks on S. Blomkvist frowned. He jogged home to Bellmansgatan and up the stairs. I don??t know whether that affects things. F?lldin. Press freedom has also been enshrined by parliament and is based on the socially and democratically acceptable restrictions of society. but nevertheless I don??t want to know any more than I already do about the content of the next two issues. But since we don??t know who the enemy is. She sat so that the light from the window fell on her back. ??You know how it goes. But he had done something extremely shrewd. Someone who was trying to cover Zalachenko??s tracks. It??s hardly a story we can make public. Bj?rck was a sailor. it is a tragedy that could have been prevented if there had been more support within society.

then three murders in Stockholm. when the trial starts. ??This is most assuredly a matter of life or death. ??Probably not. she had joined him at his table. has. You don??t have to stress out about it. Above all. He??s a prick who plays people off against each other. He focused his gaze on the computer screen.?? Zalachenko said.?? She looked around at her colleagues in the cramped editorial office. Things might be a bit rocky at first. Foreign guests. If you can??t manage a simple job like that then you might as well sit here with your thumb up your backside until the constitutional committee comes knocking on your door. she was being unfair. and he had not yet been caught.

?? ??What about Gullberg. Blomkvist had no reason to believe that she had anything to do with the Zalachenko club.?? This. I??d give a lot of money to find out what they talked about. Three were messages to call Berger. He drove down Hornsgatan and across to Bellmansgatan via Br?nnkyrkagatan. and there she set up her laptop and took command.?? ??Which part was truth and which part was fantasy. She was left to her own devices at the end of the working day. too. He bought a pack of Lucky Strike and a tin of G?teborg??s Rap?? snuff. ??Let her sleep a while.??s personnel has been reduced by 118. Blomkvist did not see the grey Volvo on Monday. Gullberg used all his eloquence to convince the Prime Minister not to allow information about Zalachenko to pass beyond his own office ?C there was. The hospital administration doesn??t want you here. She could just reach it without having to move her body.

??The district court is going to appoint him to do a forensic psychiatric assessment of you. He waited until she nodded. but you weren??t very hard to convince. You??ll have to do something about the food at this place.. if he walked into the corner of a table or a bench. How had Blomkvist been able to persuade Bj?rck to reveal such explosive material? And to a journalist at that. By all known reckoning she should have been dead. In other words. In the distance she heard a voice that seemed to be talking to her. She pushed through some bushes and stood in the yard of a one-storey house of grey brick. Acquitted of all charges. He??s very experienced and doubtless one of the most competent news chiefs I??ve come across. He had reached the age when he had to use the toilet rather often.?? ??Something along those lines. It was 10. female and Lutheran.

?? ??What did you have to do with the policeman??s murder last night??? she asked him at once. She felt paralysed and unable to concentrate on any real work. for which you bear the primary responsibility. At 2.T. He??s had recurring trouble with it over the past few years. She asked him to cancel a meeting she had arranged with the culture editor. the Minister of Defence or any other member of the government to be informed.?? ??I understand. at least they were in an investigation from 2001. had submitted a report which examined the Prosecutor General??s want of initiative over a number of years. They do their best to ignore anything they hear about us.?? ??Me??? Eriksson said.P. and as you no doubt realize. Nazi. Then an animated door opened and a Lara Croft-like figure stepped out.

?? Janeryd gave Blomkvist a puzzled look. What irritated her most was that they kept brushing off her arguments with patronizing smiles. by the way. He had lived with computers since he was ten. Berger had not been able to sleep on Thursday night. He had packed his van on Friday morning and taken the ferry from Dover to Calais. had landed in because of Salander and Niedermann. He looked like a bit player in E.?? ??What about her??? ??She has to disappear. aggressive resistance to police officers. and the like.K. It contained no lies that could entangle her.00??? ??One more thing ?? I??m seeing my sister. You spoke about co-operation ???? The P.?? Blomkvist said again. listening out for sounds in the vicinity.

Acts calm and cool. ??I??ll hobble in as soon as I??ve pulled myself together. It??s Friday night. She took another step and pain shot through her entire foot. and went up to Inspector Bublanski??s office. Jonasson was a catalogue of surprises.?? Figuerola said. And Georg Nystr?m you know. I thought you might be amused to tag along. and I??m convinced that it??s the best care she could receive.iv By 1. Let??s meet at Samir??s Cauldron for a beer. ??Should I call her??? ??No. Blomkvist had blown 150. after all. She did not need anyone to tell her that. when S.

?? Berger looked at the clock and sighed.?? ??And did any of them buy it??? ??Yes. Otherwise she had had a monstrous headache ever since Giannini had dragged her out of bed and carried her into the bathroom. and after a few unsuccessful attempts he managed to lift it very slightly so that he could turn it in the right direction. who did the actual eavesdropping. In 2000 she applied to the Security Police in Uppsala. was an interesting one. then Sweden was not one iota better than any dictatorship in the entire world. After a while the P. Do we have a description of the third man??? ??Even better. That was almost three weeks. Even though he had lived there for large parts of his working life. With that an inexorable process would have been set in motion. as always. which she planned to smoke by the vent window during the night. the better. He wondered how Niedermann would get along on his own.

He said that he couldn??t know who would be going to the Hague.?? Figuerola looked at the photograph of Gullberg and Francke standing side by side.?? Blomkvist said. was alive. he regained his strength and was eventually able to walk again with crutches. I can??t give you the name.?? the Prime Minister said. But this injury happened long after the time of death. Lundin had somehow always managed to keep Nieminen in line. If Borgsj? took that tack he would be exposed as a liar. Her mobile was being monitored.?? She put the address into the inside pocket of her jacket.?? Erlander cleared his throat. One of the first things he did was to have Blomkvist released from his handcuffs. although he had not in fact been working there. The rear is screened by your hedge. who was looking more and more hollow-eyed.

She went on to report how at one point during the rape he had wound a piece of clothing ?C her own T-shirt ?C around her neck and strangled her for such a long time that she temporarily lost consciousness. doesn??t know I??m here. The driver will know where to drop you. which reported to the police commission or the justice department. When the trial begins.00 in the afternoon. I??ve had threats before. ??Blomkvist. Hallberg is in charge of training. looking at him with amused affection.P??.U. We won??t see you for three months while you hop from one T. ??Can you open your eyes??? Who was this bloody idiot harping on at her? Finally she did open her eyes. Plague gave her the U. the author of the report.?? ??Thailand.

Who were those dead bodies??? Nieminen had a vicious retort on the tip of his tongue. They had had a long. Nor had he got to the heart of the relationship between Bj?rck and the psychiatrist Peter Teleborian. He was gone from 1985 to 1987..?? ??Who gave him the instruction??? ??The chief of Secretariat??s assistant. She would have to spend what was left of the money on a call to Plague. Forty-seven. so he pushed the sushi aside. It wasn??t good. She walked calmly back to the top of the hill just in time to see the woman disappear through the entrance door of Blomkvist??s building.?? ??Yes. that points to hopeful. I grew up a few miles from there. ??You??ve recovered nicely. That usually happened only when she had a visitor or was working intently on some problem. or whether I have possibly misinterpreted something.

long report. The thieves were eventually caught. It??s a question of his need to control us. ??The four of us are just dumb police officers. Edklinth nodded.

As soon as he closed the door Figuerola was on her feet and back out on Kungsgatan
As soon as he closed the door Figuerola was on her feet and back out on Kungsgatan.?? Jonasson said. It was dark and she had no sense of how long she had been aimlessly walking. and there was a robbery in Norrk?ping in which one person was injured. introduced himself. More than just fine. Clinton is retired.?? ??Why not? Has something happened??? ??Well.?? ??Do you have any reason to believe that he had planned. I don??t know who??s going to be in charge of this case or if it??ll be transferred to Ekstr?m in Stockholm. if that time ever comes. But since we don??t know who the enemy is. Figuerola nodded and started the engine. Part of it is probably that she??s very impressed by you and likes you a lot ?? as a boss. ??Do you think she??d want me for her lawyer??? ??Probably she wouldn??t want any lawyer at all. She estimated that the width of her room was about five metres. Jonasson was left with the second patient.

was but she seldom chatted. the reporter.?? Modig said. You were the one who called the paramedics. Then he opened his own shop. but she had a body like ?? hmm. The first patrol car with Torstensson and Ingemarsson from the station in Trollh?ttan arrived a few minutes after the helicopter landed. whom they believed to be Jonas. It was a gigantic step up from Millennium with a staff of five to a daily newspaper with eighty reporters and another ninety people in administration. He had tried to kill her.780 kronor and a carton of cigarettes. There were plenty of examples of these fools taking the leap from fantasy to action. Bj?rck had not acted alone. The best thing would be for you to think of me as a temporary work colleague. Figuerola nodded and thought for a few seconds. Salander herself was critically injured and at Sahlgrenska hospital in G?teborg. ??But I don??t think we could manage that even if we had a whole year.

but it resurfaced whenever she tried to move. and in A. along with the media.?? Malm sat motionless for a few seconds. Jonasson met them in the emergency admissions area.?? ??What I learned at Millennium tells me that I can say without a doubt that this story is a lie. What were we supposed to do? He??s your and Magge??s pal. Instead. He was expert at breaking and entering.D. At 2. 31. which supplies the only reliable statistics on political crime.?? ??Activity of this kind is most definitely not sanctioned by the government.I. He put a hand to his brow.I.

and then a brief and. means invading your privacy ?C preferably with your approval. Berger woke at 7. But Counter-Espionage had not ever had him. terribly sorry.T.?? ??No leads??? ??No. He knew he was being watched and he must have seen M?rtensson??s Volvo. I talked to Teleborian. and that means that you risk writing an article proposing that Swedish industry should be outbid by Thai industry. Henry is chasing it down. ??One flight up.S. Blomkvist was working with Eriksson and Cortez. the antivirus program didn??t react. But you do have to shut your eyes to the fact that I am.?? She stopped and smiled at him.

including the Prime Minister. He would never see them again. I??m not going to steal your story. Salander found the report. She had to be at S. She was slammed up against a tiled wall next to the door. think and believe anything whatsoever. but Salander could hear her a long way off and even before she turned the key the computer was hidden and the patient asleep. I want you to lock yourself in your bedroom and let me handle the situation. Instead she clicked on the [O] in [ERROR].?? ??Did he say how much he knew??? ??F?lldin told him that the chief of S?po at the time and a colleague came to visit him very soon after he became Prime Minister. She raised her right hand and felt her head. which she planned to smoke by the vent window during the night. If he made the wrong decision. I think you??re an excellent reporter. It had been Plague??s contacts on the Net who had provided her with a Norwegian passport in the name of Irene Nesser. Even if it was only a ten-minute walk.

The headache was still there. his colleague Inspector Modig. ??I??m O.?? ??Speaking of which. but in effect he confessed and slunk home with his tail between his legs.?? ??That was Margareta Orring??s article.?? ??Good. In Personal Protection they believed that M?rtensson had been loaned out to Counter-Espionage. but there are questions that still have to be answered. the reporter.?? Clinton sighed. I??m just so swamped here.?? ??Great.?? ??Which is??? ??I??m an investigative journalist. You feel an enormous sense of wellbeing when you give something your all. information that absolutely could not be disseminated. Offhand I would guess it??s to do with an internal shake-up of some sort.

?? Zalachenko turned his head away from his visitor. welcome to S.M.?? Ghidi nodded. a role that took on added significance in the wake of Wennerstr?m??s exposure as a double agent. Over the next ten years it grew to include no more than eleven people. and then he produced rolls and coffee from a thermos. The next moment she saw a thin. On the other hand. that answer was simple. She felt sick. It had sounded logical at the time. It has to stay that way. Salander??s condition was fair and the doctors were cautiously optimistic. and Holger. Eriksson realized that he was reporting in to her the way he had with Berger. Blomkvist did not speculate about Bjurman??s motives.

?? ??Right. She sat so that the light from the window fell on her back. but just before the trial begins we might be able to publish a whole feature that examines the accuracy of all the statements that have been made about Salander. That was a surprise. Idris Ghidi landed at Arlanda airport in Sweden on 19 October. No. The boy was going to be a formidable reporter.30 in the morning. Edklinth nodded and the Minister of Justice poured coffee from a thermos jug. which in this case is a bit of a handicap. and against all odds the court decided to follow his recommendation ?C so long as she was placed under guardianship. He gets calls on a mobile that we cannot monitor. This thought upset Zalachenko. I wasn??t the one who found him.?? ??Does he have any connection to Lisbeth Salander??? ??No. briskly. It was Millennium??s scoop.

?? Sp?ngberg raised her pen. It was 9. Deep in thought. For most of industry. M?rtensson punched in the code and they disappeared into the stairwell. a dangerous psychopath. He would scorch us out of sheer malice.?? ??I??m going to expose two doctors who were errand boys for S?po. And here we can??t go through the Prosecutor General. Then he picked up the telephone. He closed his iBook.H on another officer.?? ??Jonas. In that respect Zalachenko was his worst enemy. For the Section.?? ??It??s Mikael. In Sweden this function is divided between two institutions.

?? ??Hmm. Millennium??s financial situation had been healthy at the last annual general meeting. But she also felt tremendously depressed. well.K. Berger had been a boss she could always rely on. He was almost at the door when he heard Zalachenko??s voice again. but soon after he would have had to abandon the car in Finland. yes.?? ??Good enough. In any case. She simply needed to prune the number of names on the list. She put her weight on her feet and stood up.?? ??Nor do I. cutting prices is the constant challenge. And then we??ll track down Niedermann. She had heard the man explain to a nurse right outside her door that he had to see Herr Karl Axel Bodin on an urgent matter.

but he??s usable. shook his head. Which was why Nieminen had been released. Then came the awkward part. A Colt 1911 Government ?C that??s the pistol that Blomkvist tried to hand in to Paulsson.?? Andersson waved his hand. She forced herself to relax.?? he said.?? Berger said. Inspector Monica Figuerola. Blomkvist understood the reasoning. Well.00 she got up and drove to S. I??m leaving for good and I didn??t tell anybody. Right now we??re examining a large number of old personnel files. I think you ought to tell them right away. We based a lot of our thinking on what he told us.

and vigorous.?? She picked up his article and read it one more time. and illegal possession of a weapon.?? ??I don??t think so. Dr Anders Jonasson was blond and blue-eyed. Then a shot was fired accidentally that hit him in the foot.?? They made their way to the police canteen to have breakfast. And as such you need help. In the United States you can cross-examine members of the government in a normal court of law. and what we believe to have happened. which contradicted all law and justice and which would result in a disastrous scandal if it were ever discovered.??? ??Are you bullshitting me??? Ellis had lived in Sweden for many years and was fluent in Swedish ?C albeit with an American accent ?C but when Jonasson spoke to him in Swedish. Hardly an apprentice any longer. In theory that would be about twenty hours?? driving. She put the Palm in the recess behind the bedside table and waited while two Eritrean women vacuumed the room and changed her bedlinen.?? ??I won??t have time to write all the missing pieces myself. ??Not as far as we know.

Blomkvist could see from Baksi??s expression that he started out with words of greeting and small talk before he got serious and explained why he was calling.?? said Sp?ngberg emphatically.O. She showered and towelled herself and went to the bedroom to put on a dressing gown. on the first of May. I??m just so swamped here. Ellis shrugged. we have to keep tabs on all three of them ?C Berger.?? she said without greeting. We have a stock portfolio that has dropped in value by about 30 per cent compared to ten years ago. in 1968 whom he had personally evaluated as unsuitable. ??He??s at Sahlgrenska. ??I think I have an argument that will persuade Zalachenko to keep his mouth shut. By that time the new chief of S. We??ve always been friends. ??Lisbeth. I want to have something that shows that Prosecutor Ekstr?m is today working with Teleborian in some inappropriate manner.

She thought for a moment. What do you think the odds are that the investigation will be transferred to S?po??? Modig shook her head. This is really great.. She had scarcely sent the message before she heard that Berger was up and moving about again. So they have. but I??ve been up to my eyes in A.?? ??Which means that ???? He let the question hang in the air between them. It is a very clear instruction.?? Blomkvist gave in. ??And Zalachenko? Have you questioned him??? ??Yes. Why had Bublanski called her? What was this meeting about? She glanced across the corridor. ??That??s from a source I have to protect.?? said Figuerola hesitantly. ??I think we??ll have to do a quick examination. She saw that Erlander had noticed the same thing.K.

?? ??I can well imagine. When Gullberg formally retired in 1992. And her stomach. Has a shop at Norrtull. You were in pretty bad shape. events. She has been badly treated and is under a lot of pressure. then he isn??t worth the time you??ve put in for him. and whose background and political loyalty made him eminently qualified to work alongside the officers in the Section. In 1997 he was no longer on the official roster of the external service. She rasped out a single word: ??Giannini. he summed up the d??nouement in Gosseberga which led to Salander being shot and buried alive. the loose cannon who quarrelled with P. I don??t know what he??s referring to.?? Clinton said.?? he said. And item two: today this piece by Johannes shows up on my desk.

Or.?? Blomkvist said. In the meantime her twin sister. Unfortunately.?? ??The appalling thing is that Bj?rck has hanged himself. months even. He called it ??the last line of defence??. weighing her chances. Right now he had to focus on himself. unusually early. seeing to it that documents disappeared and records were altered. it??s Blomkvist again. the trail will fizzle out.?? Salander looked to be not particularly bothered by either the fever or the headache.?? ??The police want to interrogate you again. then? There must be a story to track down there. And any applications for visits must also be referred in advance to Salander??s lawyer.

I heard three shots.?? Endrin said. ??Are you livid??? ??Insanely.?? ??I know. He crossed the German border at Aachen and then took the Autobahn north towards Hamburg and on to Denmark. of being a Russian agent.?? she said in a cheerful voice. ??Bjurman had a tattoo across his belly which read I am a sadistic pig. You were shot in the head. But I can??t talk about this. and a patient. he knows we??re going to find his prints on the gun. despite the fact that the whole business is the subject of a long report. The thieves were eventually caught. It??s a question of his need to control us. ??The four of us are just dumb police officers. Edklinth nodded.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

On the TV On the TV. ??cause I haven??t heard about ten unsolved homicides where it looks like the perp might be a lunatic rabbi.He was only thirty-seven. crowned with a series of diminishing plinths that supported a final column.Corky didn??t hate his mother. No need to hurry.[89] Nevertheless. Fric had been so severely deprived of air that his skin had taken on a bluish tint. a distant rumble like the marching feet of legions gone to war in some far. Instead.Hazard had already been served a double order of the kibby appetizer with cucumbers. Ethan couldn??t have seen into that cubicle from any distance. in a coma. People got on the elevator.Ethan first stopped in the men??s lavatory off the ground-floor lobby. a shooting stance: Doing all that. One had chosen to seek respect through accomplishment. He had ceased to believe that he could make a difference in the world. He didn??t know all the things they might do to a kid. quicker than Ethan??s hand. which wasn??t deep at all.Drawing near to the Mercedes. Glickman. however. an exit sign marked a stairwell. but left the engine running to power the heater. he had photographed the black box before opening it. casting off scarlet petals.Much hot water and much rubbing left his skin a boiled red. Benny smiled. He??d been hit just twice: both minor wounds. but I called both numbers you gave us and left voice-mail messages. and to this one Toledano proceeded with a stupefied expression.?? Says ??sex male. THE IRON-BLACK clouds that had masked the sky now hid themselves behind gray veils of trailing mist. he no longer entirely trusted his senses.Now. the laws against murder remained in effect. as well.??I??ve seen your picture. stained. but not a martyr.From the kitchen. a guard could direct the video [13] feed from any of the eighty-six sources to a VCR. they might focus on Corky as having entered and departed the lavatory corridor in the approximate time frame of the vandalism.????Hell. Truman thought so. Whistler went down to cold holding pending mortuary pickup. and thin for his age.He half expected Rolf Reynerd to be waiting on the fifth floor. He fit the physical profile on Reynerd??s license. and no doubt bluer than a blue moon.??Yeah.????I??m wearing Rockports. More of it in my arteries than blood.??[51] ??So was everybody.At the seventh-floor nurses?? station. This long rampart. distrust. but no possibility that it presented to him seemed to explain his experience.By the time the ambulance arrived. Does it hang to his ankles or just to his knees?????I??ve never seen his charlie.Set in the wall. Rospo was Italian for ??toad. He proceeded cautiously but not with the full drama inherent in police-academy style.Most people had never heard of the nation of Tuvalu.?? He put the tape on the coffee table.He triggered a third puff. the actor. went down.??Thanks. his eyes weren??t entirely familiar to him. He didn??t step directly in front of the phantom form. he gripped the door with his left and. but I don??t get the message in that one. McBee??s apartment. He pulls in a few million a year from Japan. and saw Rolf Reynerd at the head of the stairs.An open communal receptacle.Moving closer to the bed.????That??s a fragrance Chanel won??t be bottling.??Hazard forked half a kibby into his mouth and made a small sound of pleasure.On the back stairs once more. isn??t it?????Listen. and placed the repaired apple at the center of the blotter.The streetside mailbox in front of each house always sported a number. In an episode of Law & Order. some bombs could be constructed with no metal parts. His face was hidden in the shadow of a hood. he wouldn??t give them away so easy.Ethan engaged the windshield wipers. the edible goodie would not be at once [38] destroyed but would be passed along to Ethan for a closer look. ??Now. ??Is there magic in it???[19] Turning. rain chased rain along the street. but a crank. to make a smaller target of himself. rather than white and black. where the sodden gray twilight slowly expired beyond the glass. The work that had given his life meaning while Hannah was alive had meant steadily less to him in the years after her death. lunch.Vera Jean Rospo had actually existed back in the 1930s. young Fric. Gourmet.?? He dunked the string cheese in lebne and continued with lunch. he??d been in Room 742. snow forts. anything moved that shouldn??t be there. did not surprise him. to undermine the foundations of this society than all the suicide pilots and bombers combined. He sat in the Ford Expedition awhile. it might represent the star??s ego inside the beautiful fruit.The apple had come in the sixth black box received in ten days. and he tried not to run.Noticing that the yellow slicker had shed a lot of water on the seat.He climbed the stairs so fast that he was breathing hard by the time that he reached the north hallway on the third floor. He never carried more than fifteen bags. Besides.With school out.Ethan said. luminous in the gloom. McBee kept his fridge and pantry stocked according to shopping lists he presented to her. boom of three rapid reports. this chamber featured white ceramic tile with only sixteenth-inch grout joints: an easy surface to sterilize in the event that it became contaminated with bodily fluids. not expand. Mr.????I think you??re right. but it??s got to be the answer. in satisfying numbers. There.With the key provided by Dunny??s attorney.?? Toledano insisted. Lacking a doctor??s order for tests. nineteen seventy-two.????Then this is probably the last thing he??s sending.He should have taken the elevator. remained clouded. he felt as though he were half in a trance. At the end of the night. never having known them to shake like this. her face a clear window to her thoughts. however.??[54] The attendant??s voice had been quickly worn thin by worry.Should Reynerd directly or indirectly disclose his obsession with Channing Manheim. Breathing harder still. any genuinely reformed man might have been racked with guilt until at last he put his riches to a cleansing use. When the elevator doors opened. than the son of the biggest movie star in the world.Two puffs. Yet instead of stalking in secret. Consequently.The shower was in the far-right corner from the entrance to the [105] bathroom.Even with furniture to both sides. no one in the film business read books. Maybe just ten percent of the country.Or .?? Reynerd said as he returned to the kitchen. he stood listening. His breath rattling in a broken throat.The apple man answered the bell almost at once. so he walked out himself. back against the wall. The deep colors of the glass??crimson.In recent years. Most people didn??t die smelling of shampoo. the enviable life of his employer. glimmered everywhere. the enviable life of his employer.Corky was sad. and seemed to be spiraling into one of those rare attacks that were severe enough to require hospital emergency-room treatment. he left the apartment. Palm fronds clicked and clattered.??Take a look at these. that he played screw-loose well because several of his own screws had stripped threads. Ethan went inside. some as destructive as runaway freight trains hurtling off the tracks. hoping she would answer and would tell him that she had come back to him at last and was home forever. vines. Can??t unlock this door unless you??re already here in this room.The trains belonged to that world-renowned movie star. Corky Laputa was in such a good mood that he answered the call by saying. Fric???Fric had never heard this voice before. Ethan came to the bedroom.????You don??t?????Not usually. Channing Manheim??s latest hit.As mortal now as even Gable and Bogart had proved to be. His breath rattling in a broken throat.After judging that the rain was falling only hard enough to make [24] an umbrella more trouble than it was worth. Considering the resources at his command for the game. but the highest was divided into only two penthouse units. corruption had attained a degree of rot seldom seen outside a banana republic. just a sister. and then I??m always here. in the hum of cables drawn through guide wheels. he remained a cop in essence. paved with limestone tiles featured through most of the main floor of the house.??The boy shrugged. and cologne.THE TREES. Jimmy Stewart??s. aren??t they? The freedom of flight.??Hazard??s shrewd expression spoke clearly enough without words. This suggested to Hazard that certain qualities of the man??s personality and demeanor allowed him to portray only mentally unbalanced characters. First. a golden-red variety named Broadway.Police arrived quickly and caught the assailants in desperate flight. Hachette. in expectation of a gunshot. but I just came in from the rain??????Can??t hurt this furniture.??He have a nuclear weapon. He had not taken a five-second nap. and his hands trembled.?? Corky said quickly.Of the two of them.??The hard shine in Reynerd??s eyes.Like how to power an electric clock with a potato. For Laura. Fric raised the gazillion-pound device to his face. One TV could display as many as four views simultaneously in quarter-screen format. looked up. He would say. every detail might refine the sender??s meaning. could not simply do his dirty work and move along. Handling the bag with care.Jose Ramirez said. short-lived demons that blew down into gutters.????Nevertheless. had visited in the interim. ??So if they??re going to want me to confirm identity. On the force.In southern California during the late autumn and early winter.??He passed away at ten-twenty this morning. in his bedroom. they might focus on Corky as having entered and departed the lavatory corridor in the approximate time frame of the vandalism.?? ????I had a similar thought. Does it hang to his ankles or just to his knees?????I??ve never seen his charlie. you can??t. One of his most difficult tasks is to find the tongue of an honest man.??The doorbell rang. then another two flights to the garage. Nevertheless Ethan felt that his hands were still unclean. McBee kept his fridge and pantry stocked according to shopping lists he presented to her. raced.Ethan had left the photograph untouched. he reached behind the cascade.??Hazard paused to fork up some seafood tagine.At 8:35 this morning. In Old German. Now the lambs of all ages were growing wary. dropped to his knees. Aelfric would probably now be Hannibal Manheim. Hazard stared at him. Ethan had been anything but permanent. In another. and the sodden trees stood as still and solemn as witnesses to a funeral cortege. CHAMBER BY HALL by chamber. scanned in a dark lab with the eerie beam from a water-cooled argon ion laser generator. He had wanted to withdraw. with a cone-shaded halogen lamp focused at oblique angles. fields.Besides. in his fifties. she is??? Ethan asked. The wheezing became louder on the exhale than on the inhale. Already the Mercedes had turned out of sight into the street above. He might as well have been eating paste. Does that make sense? What??s a wolf have to do to get famous?????Kill a lot of sheep.Lunatics. isn??t it?????Listen. suggested otherwise. Dumping her in a sewage slough probably means he caught her screwing around.?? and crossed himself. Yuch. he entered a small space. however.The Expedition was one of a collection of vehicles available for both job-related and personal use by the eight live-in members of the twenty-five-person estate staff. into the garden room. ??I was a friend of the deceased. He liked knowing things. through the deceiving eye of the camera. very nice. Ethan hadn??t trimmed his nails in over a week.??Six months? Has it been that long since I was here??? Ethan sounded false to himself.????I??d like to see your old Ten Card.Although his explosive breathing had quieted. for his current mood. I figured that out all by myself.To those who had never studied political strategy and who also [123] lacked a solid grounding in philosophy. animal.Reynerd had a dispenser of Scotch tape. The shaggy grass suggested that it was mown not weekly but twice a month. concerned that he might wash his hands without surcease. By his admission.He didn??t seem to be in the least surprised to see Ethan again or alive.The Chinese military had developed it. gleaming. alert. The photo of Hannah had been stripped out of it. read it. the objects had revealed no telltale luminous whorls. ??He??s self-absorbed but not in the usual movie-star way. In a mood to party. ??These geeks are always coming around selling Jesus. and crushed him for his trouble. cabinets. spun funnels of rain. She acquired a glow in the face and a brightness in the eyes that she??d never had before. I wasn??t here when he died. one day-care worker with an unslakable thirst for cruelty. Reynerd threw the white bag toward the top of that bronze barrier. his mouth had gone dry. and then she sits up and screams. he recognized the inhaler and held fast to it.Don??t overmedicate.If you couldn??t know the full truth of what your father and your mother thought of you.Corky was a revolutionary. McBee afterward.A tire-thrown plume spewed up from the puddled street.Ethan said. six on the second. ETHAN TRUMAN walked the grassy avenue of graves. Likewise. and motion foils the law. it sounded as though it was packed full of mail. He would miss the call if he waited to answer it in the BMW. Ethan said. had brought the box to Ethan??s apartment in the main house.Dave and his shift partner. however. he listened while his phone automatically entered the number of his most recent caller. The apartment house was nothing more than what it had been when he??d first seen it: a nice place to live.Jose lived for his wife and four children. In addition to bright color. Both as he had shopped and as he had enjoyed his destructive escapades in the mall. Corky had stolen one pound. Both delivered readable shots of the rear license plate. Here. on Wednesday. a jar with a screw top. another to the off-site monitoring of the hotel-type heating and air-conditioning system.If you sat them in lawn chairs. no bleat of horn penetrated from its maze of streets.From time to time.In retrospect. could not simply do his dirty work and move along.Beyond lay a wide hall that served the back of both penthouse units. its major exports were copra and coconuts. his friends had called him Brick. pulling open the door to the garage to reveal that it lacked keyholes on the outside. He had dusted three of the deliveries himself.Dave and his shift partner. Stein. a genius.????Birds are all about being free.Meals could be taken in the large and comfortably furnished dayroom. Reynerd troweled on the sincerity as thickly as he might have done had he been wearing a purple-dinosaur costume. both thirty-seven now.??It??s hard to picture Mrs. The existence of the interior lock release. terribly. ha.?? Hazard said in a tone of voice as close as he could ever get to motherly concern. He hardly noticed the rain. stained. all right. Corky was simply giving the people what they wanted.In addition. Fric said. reluctant to take steps to determine if it was real or hallucinated.?? Reynerd said.Corky??s mission was not merely to cause destruction. Ethan??s ground-floor apartment was comprised of this study.Vision swam. and the sky as dead gray as it might have been in any truly wintry clime much farther north.Somewhere a half-blinded doll still smiled. he had been cast as a psychotic guard in a Soviet gulag; the spot had never gone national. Reynerd had been mistaken about the purpose of the caller. Too clever to get caught holding. where the staff not only ate but also did their household planning. and the boys swore to protect her. came calling. first detected in the elevator. it would be answered either by a bodyguard or by his father??s personal makeup artist. he had instead beaten her to death with a fireplace poker.?? Nurse Jordan said.Ethan said.Besides providing superb protection in even a hard-driving rain. I??m sure.??Having finished the last of his kibby. In explaining Manheim to Hazard. Baptiste. had two lines for her use. Ethan found a genuine smile. Baptiste. which makes him thirty-one.?? and crossed himself.Beyond the boundaries of the cemetery. as well as a [86] decrease in the cognitive abilities of hundreds of thousands if not millions of citizens. The private school that Fric attended for a while had not proved to be a suitable environment for him. terribly.When Rolf Reynerd opened the door. The ceiling loomed low. worshiping land and race and myths of ancient Saxony. causing her to scurry off like a rabbit that had been so flattered by a fox??s admiration that she had almost offered herself for dinner before recovering her survival instinct. at no expense to him.??That??s because you??re not as smart as us morons. Ethan had been at Rolf Reynerd??s apartment door. the eyes would not be his.[80] As Ethan added the gratuity and signed the form. turned. and inhaled with the desperation of a drowning man. which makes him thirty-one. and Reynerd was not at the top. DOB??June sixth. Precognition. worshiping land and race and myths of ancient Saxony.With a nod to indicate the frozen image on the TV. it sounded as though it was packed full of mail. ??Those nuns are jokers. Myers was wickedly funny and partly because Fric had not recently exercised his laugh-muscle group as much as he would have liked.??Ethan printed DEAR GEORGE in block letters. blinds. even before he started the engine. in expectation of a gunshot.More likely.Ethan visited her grave six or seven times a year. screaming. accepting the items. He??s the first to break through the twenty-five-million ceiling. It??s hard losing a good friend young. screw-top jar.On that concrete incline. Gable and Colbert remained frozen in flirtatious argument. DEATH TO ALL BLACKS.With a nod to indicate the frozen image on the TV. they had been in love with the same woman.How Reynerd would have known about Dunny or where Dunny lived. Mr. thirty-two-year-old woman to be diagnosed with a virulent cancer. both the elected and unelected varieties. or he might be an evil psychologist who could hypnotize a boy over the telephone and make him rob liquor stores and then make him turn over all the money while clucking like a chicken. Channing Manheim??s latest hit.He understood the need to balance radical action with patience. its major exports were copra and coconuts. crowned with a series of diminishing plinths that supported a final column. So don??t jive me. but old sins had caught up with him that night.??Now the bag proved empty. and entered a marble-floored and marble-paneled public foyer. and even from day to day in the same year. Ethan??s every observation seemed obvious and useless. but he recognized it. motion detectors related to Camera 01.Still holding the gun in his right hand. nine tunnels.[23] The landlord shaved his costs. ??Spencer Tracy.If you didn??t look up at the ceiling to help you define the true size of the enormous chamber. Fric had been so severely deprived of air that his skin had taken on a bluish tint. Ethan fetched a pair of cuticle scissors from the bathroom. Hazard went after him.[79] As Ethan returned the check with his American Express plastic.. surround-sound technology??all that stuff makes flat personalities bigger than life. ha. corruption had attained a degree of rot seldom seen outside a banana republic. toiling.In addition. He resembled Ben Affleck. Instead.Are there no other planets in the solar system.Ethan climbed the stairs to the second floor. and opened the door. screek-screek. One long hall. rain chased rain along the street. which they had managed long before Ghost Dad had owned it.During the night. Reynerd had inserted his right hand into the open bag.Perhaps if Ethan hadn??t known the meaning of the man??s first name. and still keep the surprise a surprise.??Hazard paused to fork up some seafood tagine.This didn??t either surprise Hazard or convince him of Reynerd??s innocence. Hazard climbed to the second floor of the apartment house.Stale with the greasy scent of cooked breakfast meat and pot smoke.????He??s filming in Florida.357. this was not the merry expression of a prankster. he would advance chaos by that tiny increment while he awaited opportunities to do greater damage. he detected the faint malodor that he??d first smelled in the elevator. and the woman nodded. At the end of the night. Even as Ethan dropped the notepad and [30] reached for the 9-mm Glock under his jacket. He didn??t know where to go.??It??s off.Sometimes he thought he traveled to this place less to remember her??for she was not in the least forgotten??than to gaze at the empty plot beside her.Years as a homicide detective had hardened him in some respects. each row about two feet from a wall. in bold block letters. Corky went about his [69] work as discreetly as possible.No one but Fric had thought it was nuts to give a nine-year-old boy thirty-five thousand bucks to redecorate his rooms. in his fifties.In the apartment kitchen. Fric said. one of Reynerd??s party pals that night??Jerry Nemo??was known to Hazard from another case. lay directly across from 2E. The wind went elsewhere with its lamentations. ??Those nuns are jokers. under his slicker. I could??ve lived with that. with the famous and notorious Freddie Nielander for a mother. he??d probably met hundreds of them. He drew his pistol. The railroad fantasy ruled.Reynerd plucked the remote control off the coffee table. Traveling far too fast for a residential street. The eye in the apple might be symbolic of the stalker??s eye??always watching.The rain swiftly dissolved the crystals. Yet instead of stalking in secret. He looked up from a paperback novel that featured a grotesque corpse on the cover.White carpet as pristine as winter snow lay wall to wall. No puzzle could resist solution when enough thought and rigorous logic were applied to it. ten life-size ice skaters. He??s not a suspect in any killing.Currently.?? which had first been used to describe wise and clever actions. and she cared not at all about his comfort or his needs. makes a caricature of me. pillow would not become poker. Opening the outer door. glimmered everywhere. was a friendly acquaintance.Capering along a street in a yellow slicker as roomy as any nun??s habit was. She had that temple-dragon look when she talked about it.Beyond the boundaries of the cemetery. The deluge knocked stubborn acorns from the oak under which he had parked.The sudden silence in the wake of the watery sizzle seemed to announce his presence as clearly as if he had triggered an air horn. Maybe the next full moon would stir tides of madness in their heads. lashed whips. ??is to take a look at the guy up close and tell me what you think of him. Among other wheels.????They alive when you received them??? Hazard asked.The June-bug jitter. ??Childhood friendships. Ethan had not believed him. and ascending grades featured more train track than there were coconuts in Tuvalu. tasty under ordinary circumstances. a spineless jellyfish. and dread. a holocaust of caustic acid. when indigo. ?? Ethan said. no doubt a clever and perpetually sleepless publicist had called in favors and paid out cold cash to engineer this spontaneous acclamation and then to sustain it for more than a decade. every detail might refine the sender??s meaning. pillow would not become poker. jambs. she is??? Ethan asked. as though he were a man on a brisk walk. you??d crack a guy??s skull. the slow fall of an interior twilight. onto the driveway.If an entire block of homes were blighted.Instead. The wise anarchist keeps moving because entropy favors the rambler. as though you were a giant vacationing in the land of Lilliput. and slip into the sleeves again with fistfuls of one poison or another. to be ever aware of his footing.?? ????People just pissing money on him. so he put down the shopping bag. but two cadavers on gurneys made an immediate impression. not him and other people. He slipped the mouthpiece between his lips and administered a dose of medication. Dunny Whistler lived??had lived??on the fifth floor.?? the stranger said. however. and strategized all arrangements for the elaborate parties often held when the Face was in residence. He had hated it when he??d been six.????They alive when you received them??? Hazard asked. You needed a copper peg. The apple man had in his hand neither a gun nor a bag of potato chips. three doors on each side.Raising his hand once more. but she??s been here forever.He watched the wet day.?? a man said.Otherwise.In his throat: a hard-boiled egg or a stone. Like tiny exotic jellyfish. The neighborhood remained safe enough that apartment lobbies did not absolutely require fortification. The ceiling loomed low. friends on the force had said that he did too much thinking.The way that the bag gloved the apple man??s hand struck Ethan as wrong.Through twelve years of marriage.Only the last names of the current tenants were printed on the mailboxes.Or . Fric pushed two transformer switches to kill power to the trains.?? Toledano declared.The McBees. To Fric. first-rate detective. in a darkened lab. ??you??d think it would be the other way around.This highly sophisticated telephone system could produce up to twelve different sigriature tones.The dog biscuits were treated with cyanide. maybe you can introduce us sometime.The previous occupant would have called the study a living room [2] and would have furnished the space accordingly. He didn??t like Les any better. but a hemisphere.Although he could feel the weight of the pistol in his shoulder holster. On the back stairs once more.[109] The rear door of the apartment stood open.??Now that the invitation had been extended.After finishing the coffee. and Channing Manheim pays?????As long as that doesn??t oblige me to watch any of his shitcan movies.Besides providing superb protection in even a hard-driving rain. the leaves would be the cause of flooded streets. didn??t linger here. the actor said. just a sister. Even in the humblest of service rooms??the scullery. ??She??s not exactly a dastardly sort. but now forever strange. He didn??t know where to go. A red gift bow.If he??d been a brainiac trained in the skills required to be an enormously dangerous spy.No one but Fric had thought it was nuts to give a nine-year-old boy thirty-five thousand bucks to redecorate his rooms.Hazard didn??t choose his cases. This suggested to Hazard that certain qualities of the man??s personality and demeanor allowed him to portray only mentally unbalanced characters. The other wanted that respect which comes with being feared. they??d dated. He had finished reading the novel the previous evening and intended to return it to the library.Ethan asked how he was doing. Hernandez had forgotten to enter the alarm code when she??d departed last week.Some oncologists and neurologists suggested that in the decades to come.?? He thinks somehow Manheim has done him wrong. nameless now. Ethan descended the last flight to the foyer. marked for death only because he was a witness. not wise behavior for an anarchist who preferred anonymity. Ethan said.A tire-thrown plume spewed up from the puddled street. but they looked like they??d been dead for a while. in weather conducive to contemplation and to dark speculation. He never would.Rain drummed on the roof..Beyond lay a wide hall that served the back of both penthouse units. entirely too glamorous. Reynerd almost certainly would be alerted by someone. made Ethan hard to impress in matters regarding the human capacity for evil. regardless of how minor the damage he might be able to inflict on social order.Suffacatorium was a word of Fric??s invention.In addition. still damp from the rain. Thus far he??d not been captured on videotape near the crime. They rattled off the paint work and surely marred it. and woo again. DMV says ??hair brown.Fric??s rooms had been refurnished a year ago.Sounding puzzled and mildly annoyed.??That??s because you??re not as smart as us morons.Certain elements of the room design. Hazard heard running footsteps in the public hall. his wordless threats were inventive. and beady black eyes. including once at Christmas. would soon be needed. hazed with condensation. Eliot Ness had led a force of law-enforcement agents so beyond reach by bribery and so undeterred by bullets that they became known as the Untouchables. but it would be preferable to dying of thirst. A black woman with a drill sergeant??s purposeful carriage and the soft smoky voice of a chanteuse.Each year.The dog biscuits were treated with cyanide.The foyer air curdled with the lingering meaty scent of Canadian bacon.Dunny had existed in a limbo of sorts.????Yeah. a train traveled a moonlit prairie. Prior to a war. In other ways.By happy chance. and had instead smashed the glass. The emergency phone might be out of order.????She didn??t give me that much on Reynerd. the MGM lion roared.????Not when he knows you??re around. Seven days a week. he didn??t know anyone who entertained racist sentiments. McBee had four lines. he paid cash for the analyses he required. x-rayed the package with a fluoroscope. enough to make Ethan??s sledgehammer heart stutter between blows. and architects was almost as small as the number who??d be able to give a lecture regarding the structure of matter on a subatomic level; consequently. The photo of Hannah had been stripped out of it. except for whatever models were currently in use. the actor said. provides them with a powerful illusion of substance and complexity. and whether their careers might have been even bigger if they had begun having face-lifts when they were eighteen. the doors had slid aside. Nobody has to be executor of an estate. Worse than forgotten??he??d be unknown. to one of which had been tied a tag that bore the name DUNCAN EUGENE WHISTLER. Nearly everyone knew that palazzo was Italian for ??palace. After regular use.??Strangled. drawing as little notice as might a ghost whose substance was but a twist of ectoplasmic mist. ??Hey. a train traveled a moonlit prairie. he was too young a man to welcome death. talking about the film that he was shooting and about how much he looked forward to going home for the holidays. He sat. the way they believed his father had done. ??who was the somebody? Any security tape?????Plenty. then he might be a sincere friend. McBee and Mr. with a Mexican-tile floor. he donned the yellow slicker once more. The mysteries of alchemy. Activated by photoelectric sensors.??Who are you?????You don??t know me. the stranger. WASHING IT DOWN WITH coffee from a thermos. Got a call from his lawyer.Seventeen years of estrangement. eight long flights. the tick-tick-tick of insistently pecking beaks. the exercise with the poker proved cathartic. Especially not Mr.FRIC IN A FRACAS: TWO TRAINS CLACKETY-clacking and whistling at key crossroads. watching him die. Then he realized that he was listening to the fall of water in the master-bathroom shower. and then suggested.OUR LADY OF ANGELS HOSPITAL WAS A TALL white structure with ziggurat-style step-backs in its higher floors.????No. and you??d get fired for abusing your credit-card privileges. Identical doors served two penthouse units. Ethan pretended confusion. rattattooed. he would have allowed her to live. and he??d made only a little money from it. The Lord of the Rings trilogy.Their habits were radiant white. He had finished reading the novel the previous evening and intended to return it to the library. Therefore. Previously.??Ethan paused to think.Later still.No one rented here on a welfare check. gleaming. either.The bag to his left offered Hawaiian-style chips.??While Hazard concentrated on lunch. You needed a copper peg. horseshoe curves.He didn??t envy anyone. The foyer air curdled with the lingering meaty scent of Canadian bacon. No one??s safe. He should have rested. ??I??m sorry to bother you. Corky hummed along with the music on the public-address system. she wasn??t around much to torture him with it. the enviable life of his employer. ??The medical examiner??s office will want him for an autopsy.Now. He might as well have been eating paste. When all films were black-and-white. but other people see it on TV.?? ????You can??t get a date with the Face by making me feel guilty. he knocked loudly. ??Ten thousand dollars.Darkness faded from the edges of his vision.One of Corky??s colleagues at the university had accepted a grant to study the crystals for the Department of Defense. Truman. those trunks didn??t shelter a lurking observer. polished to a sterling standard by the rain.[7] With the cuticle scissors. in a crusade against corruption. he caught more investigations involving perps who were trigger-happy wackos than he caught cases in which genteel elderly women served poisoned tea to their gentlemen friends. and some wire. ??You work for the Face.?? Ethan said.THE TREES.In Ethan??s experience.Indeed. in the hollowed-out seed pocket. The victims haunt him with the quiet insistence of spirochetes spinning poison in the blood.Everything in the black-and-white apartment went black.Wandering among the machines. probably to all of them.Reynerd had a dispenser of Scotch tape. ??I assume you??ve got your man well covered.Now. however.The core remained. which were sent to him free by studio executives and by others who wanted to score points with his father. which left a passageway of about two and a half feet to either side.The stainless-steel hooks in the ceiling were another issue. Wrinkled. and they would be sweet to Fric.A tire-thrown plume spewed up from the puddled street. Wrinkled. Hazard said.If the first Ferrari had been a figment of a dream. now acknowledged. or black mamba. either. Then the eye inside.The core remained. In the central rotunda.At thirty-seven. an actress. quadruple-check. From the security office in the groundskeeper??s building and from several points in the house. one armchair.Hunching his shoulders.Corky was sad.??Ethan had never known why she called him Cookie.??It??s impossible to hate him. he went to a department store. ??We??ve lived here six years. Mr.He peered with special suspicion at every cedar.?? Ethan named a famous west-side restaurant where the Face had a standing reservation.Azalea to lantana to jasmine vine.??If that was true. the apple man shot him point-blank in the gut. and valuable. the soft roar of the MGM lion.?? Reynerd said.??Have any idea what you??ll get Christmas morning??? Ethan asked. Ethan handled this sixth delivery with the care he??d exhibited while examining the five previous items.Watching this peculiar performance. He moved the large waste can. young lady. half-wit character in a video made for preschoolers who thought stupid shows like Teletubbies were the pinnacle of humor and sophistication. Maybe I??m not hip anymore. She??d just gotten mixed up with bad men.Fric had inherited luminous green eyes to match his mother??s. and after swallowing with a grimace. Hachette. but he loathed his given name.????Probably keeps the nuke in a box of Cheez-Its.

On the TV
On the TV. ??cause I haven??t heard about ten unsolved homicides where it looks like the perp might be a lunatic rabbi.He was only thirty-seven. crowned with a series of diminishing plinths that supported a final column.Corky didn??t hate his mother. No need to hurry.[89] Nevertheless. Fric had been so severely deprived of air that his skin had taken on a bluish tint. a distant rumble like the marching feet of legions gone to war in some far. Instead.Hazard had already been served a double order of the kibby appetizer with cucumbers. Ethan couldn??t have seen into that cubicle from any distance. in a coma. People got on the elevator.Ethan first stopped in the men??s lavatory off the ground-floor lobby. a shooting stance: Doing all that. One had chosen to seek respect through accomplishment. He had ceased to believe that he could make a difference in the world. He didn??t know all the things they might do to a kid. quicker than Ethan??s hand. which wasn??t deep at all.Drawing near to the Mercedes. Glickman. however. an exit sign marked a stairwell. but left the engine running to power the heater. he had photographed the black box before opening it. casting off scarlet petals.Much hot water and much rubbing left his skin a boiled red.

Benny smiled. He??d been hit just twice: both minor wounds. but I called both numbers you gave us and left voice-mail messages. and to this one Toledano proceeded with a stupefied expression.?? Says ??sex male. THE IRON-BLACK clouds that had masked the sky now hid themselves behind gray veils of trailing mist. he no longer entirely trusted his senses.Now. the laws against murder remained in effect. as well.??I??ve seen your picture. stained. but not a martyr.From the kitchen. a guard could direct the video [13] feed from any of the eighty-six sources to a VCR. they might focus on Corky as having entered and departed the lavatory corridor in the approximate time frame of the vandalism.????Hell. Truman thought so. Whistler went down to cold holding pending mortuary pickup. and thin for his age.He half expected Rolf Reynerd to be waiting on the fifth floor. He fit the physical profile on Reynerd??s license. and no doubt bluer than a blue moon.??Yeah.????I??m wearing Rockports. More of it in my arteries than blood.??[51] ??So was everybody.At the seventh-floor nurses?? station. This long rampart.

distrust. but no possibility that it presented to him seemed to explain his experience.By the time the ambulance arrived. Does it hang to his ankles or just to his knees?????I??ve never seen his charlie.Set in the wall. Rospo was Italian for ??toad. He proceeded cautiously but not with the full drama inherent in police-academy style.Most people had never heard of the nation of Tuvalu.?? He put the tape on the coffee table.He triggered a third puff. the actor. went down.??Thanks. his eyes weren??t entirely familiar to him. He didn??t step directly in front of the phantom form. he gripped the door with his left and. but I don??t get the message in that one. McBee??s apartment. He pulls in a few million a year from Japan. and saw Rolf Reynerd at the head of the stairs.An open communal receptacle.Moving closer to the bed.????That??s a fragrance Chanel won??t be bottling.??Hazard forked half a kibby into his mouth and made a small sound of pleasure.On the back stairs once more. isn??t it?????Listen. and placed the repaired apple at the center of the blotter.The streetside mailbox in front of each house always sported a number. In an episode of Law & Order.

some bombs could be constructed with no metal parts. His face was hidden in the shadow of a hood. he wouldn??t give them away so easy.Ethan engaged the windshield wipers. the edible goodie would not be at once [38] destroyed but would be passed along to Ethan for a closer look. ??Now. ??Is there magic in it???[19] Turning. rain chased rain along the street. but a crank. to make a smaller target of himself. rather than white and black. where the sodden gray twilight slowly expired beyond the glass. The work that had given his life meaning while Hannah was alive had meant steadily less to him in the years after her death. lunch.Vera Jean Rospo had actually existed back in the 1930s. young Fric. Gourmet.?? He dunked the string cheese in lebne and continued with lunch. he??d been in Room 742. snow forts. anything moved that shouldn??t be there. did not surprise him. to undermine the foundations of this society than all the suicide pilots and bombers combined. He sat in the Ford Expedition awhile. it might represent the star??s ego inside the beautiful fruit.The apple had come in the sixth black box received in ten days. and he tried not to run.Noticing that the yellow slicker had shed a lot of water on the seat.He climbed the stairs so fast that he was breathing hard by the time that he reached the north hallway on the third floor.

He never carried more than fifteen bags. Besides.With school out.Ethan said. luminous in the gloom. McBee kept his fridge and pantry stocked according to shopping lists he presented to her. boom of three rapid reports. this chamber featured white ceramic tile with only sixteenth-inch grout joints: an easy surface to sterilize in the event that it became contaminated with bodily fluids. not expand. Mr.????I think you??re right. but it??s got to be the answer. in satisfying numbers. There.With the key provided by Dunny??s attorney.?? Toledano insisted. Lacking a doctor??s order for tests. nineteen seventy-two.????Then this is probably the last thing he??s sending.He should have taken the elevator. remained clouded. he felt as though he were half in a trance. At the end of the night. never having known them to shake like this. her face a clear window to her thoughts. however.??[54] The attendant??s voice had been quickly worn thin by worry.Should Reynerd directly or indirectly disclose his obsession with Channing Manheim. Breathing harder still.

any genuinely reformed man might have been racked with guilt until at last he put his riches to a cleansing use. When the elevator doors opened. than the son of the biggest movie star in the world.Two puffs. Yet instead of stalking in secret. Consequently.The shower was in the far-right corner from the entrance to the [105] bathroom.Even with furniture to both sides. no one in the film business read books. Maybe just ten percent of the country.Or .?? Reynerd said as he returned to the kitchen. he stood listening. His breath rattling in a broken throat.The apple man answered the bell almost at once. so he walked out himself. back against the wall. The deep colors of the glass??crimson.In recent years. Most people didn??t die smelling of shampoo. the enviable life of his employer. glimmered everywhere. the enviable life of his employer.Corky was sad. and seemed to be spiraling into one of those rare attacks that were severe enough to require hospital emergency-room treatment. he left the apartment. Palm fronds clicked and clattered.??Take a look at these. that he played screw-loose well because several of his own screws had stripped threads.

Ethan went inside. some as destructive as runaway freight trains hurtling off the tracks. hoping she would answer and would tell him that she had come back to him at last and was home forever. vines. Can??t unlock this door unless you??re already here in this room.The trains belonged to that world-renowned movie star. Corky Laputa was in such a good mood that he answered the call by saying. Fric???Fric had never heard this voice before. Ethan came to the bedroom.????You don??t?????Not usually. Channing Manheim??s latest hit.As mortal now as even Gable and Bogart had proved to be. His breath rattling in a broken throat.After judging that the rain was falling only hard enough to make [24] an umbrella more trouble than it was worth. Considering the resources at his command for the game. but the highest was divided into only two penthouse units. corruption had attained a degree of rot seldom seen outside a banana republic. just a sister. and then I??m always here. in the hum of cables drawn through guide wheels. he remained a cop in essence. paved with limestone tiles featured through most of the main floor of the house.??The boy shrugged. and cologne.THE TREES. Jimmy Stewart??s. aren??t they? The freedom of flight.??Hazard??s shrewd expression spoke clearly enough without words. This suggested to Hazard that certain qualities of the man??s personality and demeanor allowed him to portray only mentally unbalanced characters.

First. a golden-red variety named Broadway.Police arrived quickly and caught the assailants in desperate flight. Hachette. in expectation of a gunshot. but I just came in from the rain??????Can??t hurt this furniture.??He have a nuclear weapon. He had not taken a five-second nap. and his hands trembled.?? Corky said quickly.Of the two of them.??The hard shine in Reynerd??s eyes.Like how to power an electric clock with a potato. For Laura. Fric raised the gazillion-pound device to his face. One TV could display as many as four views simultaneously in quarter-screen format. looked up. He would say. every detail might refine the sender??s meaning. could not simply do his dirty work and move along. Handling the bag with care.Jose Ramirez said. short-lived demons that blew down into gutters.????Nevertheless. had visited in the interim. ??So if they??re going to want me to confirm identity. On the force.In southern California during the late autumn and early winter.??He passed away at ten-twenty this morning.

in his bedroom. they might focus on Corky as having entered and departed the lavatory corridor in the approximate time frame of the vandalism.?? ????I had a similar thought. Does it hang to his ankles or just to his knees?????I??ve never seen his charlie. you can??t. One of his most difficult tasks is to find the tongue of an honest man.??The doorbell rang. then another two flights to the garage. Nevertheless Ethan felt that his hands were still unclean. McBee kept his fridge and pantry stocked according to shopping lists he presented to her. raced.Ethan had left the photograph untouched. he reached behind the cascade.??Hazard paused to fork up some seafood tagine.At 8:35 this morning. In Old German. Now the lambs of all ages were growing wary. dropped to his knees. Aelfric would probably now be Hannibal Manheim. Hazard stared at him. Ethan had been anything but permanent. In another. and the sodden trees stood as still and solemn as witnesses to a funeral cortege. CHAMBER BY HALL by chamber. scanned in a dark lab with the eerie beam from a water-cooled argon ion laser generator. He had wanted to withdraw. with a cone-shaded halogen lamp focused at oblique angles. fields.Besides.

in his fifties. she is??? Ethan asked. The wheezing became louder on the exhale than on the inhale. Already the Mercedes had turned out of sight into the street above. He might as well have been eating paste. Does that make sense? What??s a wolf have to do to get famous?????Kill a lot of sheep.Lunatics. isn??t it?????Listen. suggested otherwise. Dumping her in a sewage slough probably means he caught her screwing around.?? and crossed himself. Yuch. he entered a small space. however.The Expedition was one of a collection of vehicles available for both job-related and personal use by the eight live-in members of the twenty-five-person estate staff. into the garden room. ??I was a friend of the deceased. He liked knowing things. through the deceiving eye of the camera. very nice. Ethan hadn??t trimmed his nails in over a week.??Six months? Has it been that long since I was here??? Ethan sounded false to himself.????I??d like to see your old Ten Card.Although his explosive breathing had quieted. for his current mood. I figured that out all by myself.To those who had never studied political strategy and who also [123] lacked a solid grounding in philosophy. animal.Reynerd had a dispenser of Scotch tape.

The shaggy grass suggested that it was mown not weekly but twice a month. concerned that he might wash his hands without surcease. By his admission.He didn??t seem to be in the least surprised to see Ethan again or alive.The Chinese military had developed it. gleaming. alert. The photo of Hannah had been stripped out of it. read it. the objects had revealed no telltale luminous whorls. ??He??s self-absorbed but not in the usual movie-star way. In a mood to party. ??These geeks are always coming around selling Jesus. and crushed him for his trouble. cabinets. spun funnels of rain. She acquired a glow in the face and a brightness in the eyes that she??d never had before. I wasn??t here when he died. one day-care worker with an unslakable thirst for cruelty. Reynerd threw the white bag toward the top of that bronze barrier. his mouth had gone dry. and then she sits up and screams. he recognized the inhaler and held fast to it.Don??t overmedicate.If you couldn??t know the full truth of what your father and your mother thought of you.Corky was a revolutionary. McBee afterward.A tire-thrown plume spewed up from the puddled street.Ethan said.

six on the second. ETHAN TRUMAN walked the grassy avenue of graves. Likewise. and motion foils the law. it sounded as though it was packed full of mail. He would miss the call if he waited to answer it in the BMW. Ethan said. had brought the box to Ethan??s apartment in the main house.Dave and his shift partner. however. he listened while his phone automatically entered the number of his most recent caller. The apartment house was nothing more than what it had been when he??d first seen it: a nice place to live.Jose lived for his wife and four children. In addition to bright color. Both as he had shopped and as he had enjoyed his destructive escapades in the mall. Corky had stolen one pound. Both delivered readable shots of the rear license plate. Here. on Wednesday. a jar with a screw top. another to the off-site monitoring of the hotel-type heating and air-conditioning system.If you sat them in lawn chairs. no bleat of horn penetrated from its maze of streets.From time to time.In retrospect. could not simply do his dirty work and move along.Beyond lay a wide hall that served the back of both penthouse units. its major exports were copra and coconuts. his friends had called him Brick.

pulling open the door to the garage to reveal that it lacked keyholes on the outside. He had dusted three of the deliveries himself.Dave and his shift partner. Stein. a genius.????Birds are all about being free.Meals could be taken in the large and comfortably furnished dayroom. Reynerd troweled on the sincerity as thickly as he might have done had he been wearing a purple-dinosaur costume. both thirty-seven now.??It??s hard to picture Mrs. The existence of the interior lock release. terribly. ha.?? Hazard said in a tone of voice as close as he could ever get to motherly concern. He hardly noticed the rain. stained. all right. Corky was simply giving the people what they wanted.In addition. Fric said. reluctant to take steps to determine if it was real or hallucinated.?? Reynerd said.Corky??s mission was not merely to cause destruction. Ethan??s ground-floor apartment was comprised of this study.Vision swam. and the sky as dead gray as it might have been in any truly wintry clime much farther north.Somewhere a half-blinded doll still smiled. he had been cast as a psychotic guard in a Soviet gulag; the spot had never gone national. Reynerd had been mistaken about the purpose of the caller.

Too clever to get caught holding. where the staff not only ate but also did their household planning. and the boys swore to protect her. came calling. first detected in the elevator. it would be answered either by a bodyguard or by his father??s personal makeup artist. he had instead beaten her to death with a fireplace poker.?? Nurse Jordan said.Ethan said.Besides providing superb protection in even a hard-driving rain. I??m sure.??Having finished the last of his kibby. In explaining Manheim to Hazard. Baptiste. had two lines for her use. Ethan found a genuine smile. Baptiste. which makes him thirty-one.?? and crossed himself.Beyond the boundaries of the cemetery. as well as a [86] decrease in the cognitive abilities of hundreds of thousands if not millions of citizens. The private school that Fric attended for a while had not proved to be a suitable environment for him. terribly.When Rolf Reynerd opened the door. The ceiling loomed low. worshiping land and race and myths of ancient Saxony. causing her to scurry off like a rabbit that had been so flattered by a fox??s admiration that she had almost offered herself for dinner before recovering her survival instinct. at no expense to him.??That??s because you??re not as smart as us morons.

Ethan had been at Rolf Reynerd??s apartment door. the eyes would not be his.[80] As Ethan added the gratuity and signed the form. turned. and inhaled with the desperation of a drowning man. which makes him thirty-one. and Reynerd was not at the top. DOB??June sixth. Precognition. worshiping land and race and myths of ancient Saxony.With a nod to indicate the frozen image on the TV. it sounded as though it was packed full of mail. ??Those nuns are jokers. Myers was wickedly funny and partly because Fric had not recently exercised his laugh-muscle group as much as he would have liked.??Ethan printed DEAR GEORGE in block letters. blinds. even before he started the engine. in expectation of a gunshot.More likely.Ethan visited her grave six or seven times a year. screaming. accepting the items. He??s the first to break through the twenty-five-million ceiling. It??s hard losing a good friend young. screw-top jar.On that concrete incline. Gable and Colbert remained frozen in flirtatious argument. DEATH TO ALL BLACKS.With a nod to indicate the frozen image on the TV.

they had been in love with the same woman.How Reynerd would have known about Dunny or where Dunny lived. Mr. thirty-two-year-old woman to be diagnosed with a virulent cancer. both the elected and unelected varieties. or he might be an evil psychologist who could hypnotize a boy over the telephone and make him rob liquor stores and then make him turn over all the money while clucking like a chicken. Channing Manheim??s latest hit.He understood the need to balance radical action with patience. its major exports were copra and coconuts. crowned with a series of diminishing plinths that supported a final column. So don??t jive me. but old sins had caught up with him that night.??Now the bag proved empty. and entered a marble-floored and marble-paneled public foyer. and even from day to day in the same year. Ethan??s every observation seemed obvious and useless. but he recognized it. motion detectors related to Camera 01.Still holding the gun in his right hand. nine tunnels.[23] The landlord shaved his costs. ??Spencer Tracy.If you didn??t look up at the ceiling to help you define the true size of the enormous chamber. Fric had been so severely deprived of air that his skin had taken on a bluish tint. Ethan fetched a pair of cuticle scissors from the bathroom. Hazard went after him.[79] As Ethan returned the check with his American Express plastic.. surround-sound technology??all that stuff makes flat personalities bigger than life.

ha. corruption had attained a degree of rot seldom seen outside a banana republic. toiling.In addition. He resembled Ben Affleck. Instead.Are there no other planets in the solar system.Ethan climbed the stairs to the second floor. and opened the door. screek-screek. One long hall. rain chased rain along the street. which they had managed long before Ghost Dad had owned it.During the night. Reynerd had inserted his right hand into the open bag.Perhaps if Ethan hadn??t known the meaning of the man??s first name. and still keep the surprise a surprise.??Hazard paused to fork up some seafood tagine.This didn??t either surprise Hazard or convince him of Reynerd??s innocence. Hazard climbed to the second floor of the apartment house.Stale with the greasy scent of cooked breakfast meat and pot smoke.????He??s filming in Florida.357. this was not the merry expression of a prankster. he would advance chaos by that tiny increment while he awaited opportunities to do greater damage. he detected the faint malodor that he??d first smelled in the elevator. and the woman nodded. At the end of the night. Even as Ethan dropped the notepad and [30] reached for the 9-mm Glock under his jacket.

He didn??t know where to go.??It??s off.Sometimes he thought he traveled to this place less to remember her??for she was not in the least forgotten??than to gaze at the empty plot beside her.Years as a homicide detective had hardened him in some respects. each row about two feet from a wall. in bold block letters. Corky went about his [69] work as discreetly as possible.No one but Fric had thought it was nuts to give a nine-year-old boy thirty-five thousand bucks to redecorate his rooms. in his fifties.In the apartment kitchen. Fric said. one of Reynerd??s party pals that night??Jerry Nemo??was known to Hazard from another case. lay directly across from 2E. The wind went elsewhere with its lamentations. ??Those nuns are jokers. under his slicker. I could??ve lived with that. with the famous and notorious Freddie Nielander for a mother. he??d probably met hundreds of them. He drew his pistol. The railroad fantasy ruled.Reynerd plucked the remote control off the coffee table. Traveling far too fast for a residential street. The eye in the apple might be symbolic of the stalker??s eye??always watching.The rain swiftly dissolved the crystals. Yet instead of stalking in secret. He looked up from a paperback novel that featured a grotesque corpse on the cover.White carpet as pristine as winter snow lay wall to wall. No puzzle could resist solution when enough thought and rigorous logic were applied to it.

ten life-size ice skaters. He??s not a suspect in any killing.Currently.?? which had first been used to describe wise and clever actions. and she cared not at all about his comfort or his needs. makes a caricature of me. pillow would not become poker. Opening the outer door. glimmered everywhere. was a friendly acquaintance.Capering along a street in a yellow slicker as roomy as any nun??s habit was. She had that temple-dragon look when she talked about it.Beyond the boundaries of the cemetery. The deluge knocked stubborn acorns from the oak under which he had parked.The sudden silence in the wake of the watery sizzle seemed to announce his presence as clearly as if he had triggered an air horn. Maybe the next full moon would stir tides of madness in their heads. lashed whips. ??is to take a look at the guy up close and tell me what you think of him. Among other wheels.????They alive when you received them??? Hazard asked.The June-bug jitter. ??Childhood friendships. Ethan had not believed him. and ascending grades featured more train track than there were coconuts in Tuvalu. tasty under ordinary circumstances. a spineless jellyfish. and dread. a holocaust of caustic acid. when indigo.

?? Ethan said. no doubt a clever and perpetually sleepless publicist had called in favors and paid out cold cash to engineer this spontaneous acclamation and then to sustain it for more than a decade. every detail might refine the sender??s meaning. pillow would not become poker. jambs. she is??? Ethan asked. as though he were a man on a brisk walk. you??d crack a guy??s skull. the slow fall of an interior twilight. onto the driveway.If an entire block of homes were blighted.Instead. The wise anarchist keeps moving because entropy favors the rambler. as though you were a giant vacationing in the land of Lilliput. and slip into the sleeves again with fistfuls of one poison or another. to be ever aware of his footing.?? ????People just pissing money on him. so he put down the shopping bag. but two cadavers on gurneys made an immediate impression. not him and other people. He slipped the mouthpiece between his lips and administered a dose of medication. Dunny Whistler lived??had lived??on the fifth floor.?? the stranger said. however. and strategized all arrangements for the elaborate parties often held when the Face was in residence. He had hated it when he??d been six.????They alive when you received them??? Hazard asked. You needed a copper peg. The apple man had in his hand neither a gun nor a bag of potato chips.

three doors on each side.Raising his hand once more. but she??s been here forever.He watched the wet day.?? a man said.Otherwise.In his throat: a hard-boiled egg or a stone. Like tiny exotic jellyfish. The neighborhood remained safe enough that apartment lobbies did not absolutely require fortification. The ceiling loomed low. friends on the force had said that he did too much thinking.The way that the bag gloved the apple man??s hand struck Ethan as wrong.Through twelve years of marriage.Only the last names of the current tenants were printed on the mailboxes.Or . Fric pushed two transformer switches to kill power to the trains.?? Toledano declared.The McBees. To Fric. first-rate detective. in a darkened lab. ??you??d think it would be the other way around.This highly sophisticated telephone system could produce up to twelve different sigriature tones.The dog biscuits were treated with cyanide. maybe you can introduce us sometime.The previous occupant would have called the study a living room [2] and would have furnished the space accordingly. He didn??t like Les any better. but a hemisphere.Although he could feel the weight of the pistol in his shoulder holster.

On the back stairs once more.[109] The rear door of the apartment stood open.??Now that the invitation had been extended.After finishing the coffee. and Channing Manheim pays?????As long as that doesn??t oblige me to watch any of his shitcan movies.Besides providing superb protection in even a hard-driving rain. the leaves would be the cause of flooded streets. didn??t linger here. the actor said. just a sister. Even in the humblest of service rooms??the scullery. ??She??s not exactly a dastardly sort. but now forever strange. He didn??t know where to go. A red gift bow.If he??d been a brainiac trained in the skills required to be an enormously dangerous spy.No one but Fric had thought it was nuts to give a nine-year-old boy thirty-five thousand bucks to redecorate his rooms.Hazard didn??t choose his cases. This suggested to Hazard that certain qualities of the man??s personality and demeanor allowed him to portray only mentally unbalanced characters. The other wanted that respect which comes with being feared. they??d dated. He had finished reading the novel the previous evening and intended to return it to the library.Ethan asked how he was doing. Hernandez had forgotten to enter the alarm code when she??d departed last week.Some oncologists and neurologists suggested that in the decades to come.?? He thinks somehow Manheim has done him wrong. nameless now. Ethan descended the last flight to the foyer. marked for death only because he was a witness.

not wise behavior for an anarchist who preferred anonymity. Ethan said.A tire-thrown plume spewed up from the puddled street. but they looked like they??d been dead for a while. in weather conducive to contemplation and to dark speculation. He never would.Rain drummed on the roof..Beyond lay a wide hall that served the back of both penthouse units. entirely too glamorous. Reynerd almost certainly would be alerted by someone. made Ethan hard to impress in matters regarding the human capacity for evil. regardless of how minor the damage he might be able to inflict on social order.Suffacatorium was a word of Fric??s invention.In addition. still damp from the rain. Thus far he??d not been captured on videotape near the crime. They rattled off the paint work and surely marred it. and woo again. DMV says ??hair brown.Fric??s rooms had been refurnished a year ago.Sounding puzzled and mildly annoyed.??That??s because you??re not as smart as us morons.Certain elements of the room design. Hazard heard running footsteps in the public hall. his wordless threats were inventive. and beady black eyes. including once at Christmas. would soon be needed.

hazed with condensation. Eliot Ness had led a force of law-enforcement agents so beyond reach by bribery and so undeterred by bullets that they became known as the Untouchables. but it would be preferable to dying of thirst. A black woman with a drill sergeant??s purposeful carriage and the soft smoky voice of a chanteuse.Each year.The dog biscuits were treated with cyanide.The foyer air curdled with the lingering meaty scent of Canadian bacon.Dunny had existed in a limbo of sorts.????Yeah. a train traveled a moonlit prairie. Prior to a war. In other ways.By happy chance. and had instead smashed the glass. The emergency phone might be out of order.????She didn??t give me that much on Reynerd. the MGM lion roared.????Not when he knows you??re around. Seven days a week. he didn??t know anyone who entertained racist sentiments. McBee had four lines. he paid cash for the analyses he required. x-rayed the package with a fluoroscope. enough to make Ethan??s sledgehammer heart stutter between blows. and architects was almost as small as the number who??d be able to give a lecture regarding the structure of matter on a subatomic level; consequently. The photo of Hannah had been stripped out of it. except for whatever models were currently in use. the actor said. provides them with a powerful illusion of substance and complexity.

and whether their careers might have been even bigger if they had begun having face-lifts when they were eighteen. the doors had slid aside. Nobody has to be executor of an estate. Worse than forgotten??he??d be unknown. to one of which had been tied a tag that bore the name DUNCAN EUGENE WHISTLER. Nearly everyone knew that palazzo was Italian for ??palace. After regular use.??Strangled. drawing as little notice as might a ghost whose substance was but a twist of ectoplasmic mist. ??Hey. a train traveled a moonlit prairie. he was too young a man to welcome death. talking about the film that he was shooting and about how much he looked forward to going home for the holidays. He sat. the way they believed his father had done. ??who was the somebody? Any security tape?????Plenty. then he might be a sincere friend. McBee and Mr. with a Mexican-tile floor. he donned the yellow slicker once more. The mysteries of alchemy. Activated by photoelectric sensors.??Who are you?????You don??t know me. the stranger. WASHING IT DOWN WITH coffee from a thermos. Got a call from his lawyer.Seventeen years of estrangement. eight long flights. the tick-tick-tick of insistently pecking beaks.

the exercise with the poker proved cathartic. Especially not Mr.FRIC IN A FRACAS: TWO TRAINS CLACKETY-clacking and whistling at key crossroads. watching him die. Then he realized that he was listening to the fall of water in the master-bathroom shower. and then suggested.OUR LADY OF ANGELS HOSPITAL WAS A TALL white structure with ziggurat-style step-backs in its higher floors.????No. and you??d get fired for abusing your credit-card privileges. Identical doors served two penthouse units. Ethan pretended confusion. rattattooed. he would have allowed her to live. and he??d made only a little money from it. The Lord of the Rings trilogy.Their habits were radiant white. He had finished reading the novel the previous evening and intended to return it to the library. Therefore. Previously.??Ethan paused to think.Later still.No one rented here on a welfare check. gleaming. either.The bag to his left offered Hawaiian-style chips.??While Hazard concentrated on lunch. You needed a copper peg. horseshoe curves.He didn??t envy anyone.

The foyer air curdled with the lingering meaty scent of Canadian bacon. No one??s safe. He should have rested. ??I??m sorry to bother you. Corky hummed along with the music on the public-address system. she wasn??t around much to torture him with it. the enviable life of his employer. ??The medical examiner??s office will want him for an autopsy.Now. He might as well have been eating paste. When all films were black-and-white. but other people see it on TV.?? ????You can??t get a date with the Face by making me feel guilty. he knocked loudly. ??Ten thousand dollars.Darkness faded from the edges of his vision.One of Corky??s colleagues at the university had accepted a grant to study the crystals for the Department of Defense. Truman. those trunks didn??t shelter a lurking observer. polished to a sterling standard by the rain.[7] With the cuticle scissors. in a crusade against corruption. he caught more investigations involving perps who were trigger-happy wackos than he caught cases in which genteel elderly women served poisoned tea to their gentlemen friends. and some wire. ??You work for the Face.?? Ethan said.THE TREES.In Ethan??s experience.Indeed.

in the hollowed-out seed pocket. The victims haunt him with the quiet insistence of spirochetes spinning poison in the blood.Everything in the black-and-white apartment went black.Wandering among the machines. probably to all of them.Reynerd had a dispenser of Scotch tape. ??I assume you??ve got your man well covered.Now. however.The core remained. which were sent to him free by studio executives and by others who wanted to score points with his father. which left a passageway of about two and a half feet to either side.The stainless-steel hooks in the ceiling were another issue. Wrinkled. and they would be sweet to Fric.A tire-thrown plume spewed up from the puddled street. Wrinkled. Hazard said.If the first Ferrari had been a figment of a dream. now acknowledged. or black mamba. either. Then the eye inside.The core remained. In the central rotunda.At thirty-seven. an actress. quadruple-check. From the security office in the groundskeeper??s building and from several points in the house.

one armchair.Hunching his shoulders.Corky was sad.??Ethan had never known why she called him Cookie.??It??s impossible to hate him. he went to a department store. ??We??ve lived here six years. Mr.He peered with special suspicion at every cedar.?? Ethan named a famous west-side restaurant where the Face had a standing reservation.Azalea to lantana to jasmine vine.??If that was true. the apple man shot him point-blank in the gut. and valuable. the soft roar of the MGM lion.?? Reynerd said.??Have any idea what you??ll get Christmas morning??? Ethan asked. Ethan handled this sixth delivery with the care he??d exhibited while examining the five previous items.Watching this peculiar performance. He moved the large waste can. young lady. half-wit character in a video made for preschoolers who thought stupid shows like Teletubbies were the pinnacle of humor and sophistication. Maybe I??m not hip anymore. She??d just gotten mixed up with bad men.Fric had inherited luminous green eyes to match his mother??s. and after swallowing with a grimace. Hachette. but he loathed his given name.????Probably keeps the nuke in a box of Cheez-Its.