Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, The - Stieg Larsson [174]
“Who could blame them.”
“Er … that device of yours—”
“I’ll leave it in the recess behind the table here.” She pointed.
“Good idea.”
They sat in silence for a moment before Jonasson stood up.
“I have to check on my other patients.”
“Thanks for everything. I owe you one.”
“Just doing my job.”
“No. You’ve done a great deal more. I won’t forget it.”
Blomkvist entered police headquarters on Kungsholmen through the entrance on Polhemsgatan. Figuerola accompanied him up to the offices of the Constitutional Protection Unit. They exchanged only silent glances in the lift.
“Do you think it’s such a good idea for me to be hanging around at police H.Q.?” Blomkvist said. “Someone might see us together and start to wonder.”
“This will be our only meeting here. From now on we’ll meet in an office we’ve rented at Fridhemsplan. We get access tomorrow. But this will be O.K. Constitutional Protection is a small and more or less self-sufficient unit, and nobody else at S.I.S. cares about it. And we’re on a different floor from the rest of Säpo.”
He greeted Edklinth without shaking hands and said hello to two colleagues who were apparently part of his team. They introduced themselves only as Stefan and Anders. He smiled to himself.
“Where do we start?” he said.
“We could start by having some coffee … Monica?” Edklinth said.
“Thanks, that would be nice,” Figuerola said.
Edklinth had probably meant for her to serve the coffee. Blomkvist noticed that the chief of the Constitutional Protection Unit hesitated for only a second before he got up and brought the thermos over to the conference table, where place settings were already laid out. Blomkvist saw that Edklinth was also smiling to himself, which he took to be a good sign. Then Edklinth turned serious.
“I honestly don’t know how I should be managing this. It must be the first time a journalist has sat in on a meeting of the Security Police. The issues we’ll be discussing now are in very many respects confidential and highly classified.”
“I’m not interested in military secrets. I’m only interested in the Zalachenko club.”
“But we have to strike a balance. First of all, the names of today’s participants must not be mentioned in your articles.”
“Agreed.”
Edklinth gave Blomkvist a look of surprise.
“Second, you may not speak with anyone but myself and Monica Figuerola. We’re the ones who will decide what we can tell you.”
“If you have a long list of requirements, you should have mentioned them yesterday.”
“Yesterday I hadn’t yet thought through the matter.”
“Then I have something to tell you too. This is probably the first and only time in my professional career that I will reveal the contents of an unpublished story to a police officer. So, to quote you … I honestly don’t know how I should be managing this.”
A brief silence settled over the table.
“Maybe we—”
“What if we—”
Edklinth and Figuerola had started talking at the same time before falling silent.
“My target is the Zalachenko club,” Blomkvist said. “You want to bring charges against the Zalachenko club. Let’s stick to that.”
Edklinth nodded.
“So, what have you got?” Blomkvist said.
Edklinth explained what Figuerola and her team had unearthed. He showed Blomkvist the photograph of Evert Gullberg with Colonel Wennerström.
“Good. I’ll have a copy of that.”
“It’s in Åhlen’s archive,” Figuerola said.
“It’s on the table in front of me. With text on the back,” Blomkvist said.
“Give him a copy,” Edklinth said.
“That means that Zalachenko was murdered by the Section.”
“Murder, coupled with the suicide of a man who was dying of cancer. Gullberg’s still alive, but the doctors don’t give him more than a few weeks. After his suicide attempt he sustained such severe brain damage that he is to all intents and purposes a vegetable.”
“And he was the person with primary responsibility for Zalachenko when he defected.”
“How do you know that?”
“Gullberg met Prime Minister Fälldin six weeks after Zalachenko’s defection.”
“Can you prove that?”
“I can. The visitors’ log of the government Secretariat.