Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, The - Stieg Larsson [45]
1976 had been a problematic year for the Section. Within S.I.S. – among the few people who actually knew about the existence of the Section – a certain amount of criticism had surfaced. During the past ten years, sixty-five employees from within the Security Police had been dismissed from the organization on the grounds of presumed political unreliability. Most of the cases, however, were of the kind that were never going to be proven, and some very senior officers began to wonder whether the Section was not run by paranoid conspiracy theorists.
Gullberg still raged to recall the case of an officer hired by S.I.S. in 1968 whom he had personally evaluated as unsuitable. He was Inspector Bergling, a lieutenant in the Swedish army who later turned out to be a colonel in the Soviet military intelligence service, the G.R.U. On four separate occasions Gullberg tried to have Bergling removed, but each time his efforts were stymied. Things did not change until 1977, when Bergling became the object of suspicion outside the Section as well. His became the worst scandal in the history of the Swedish Security Police.
Criticism of the Section had increased during the first half of the seventies, and by mid-decade Gullberg had heard several proposals that the budget be reduced, and even suggestions that the operation was altogether unnecessary.
The criticism meant that the Section’s future was questioned. That year the threat of terrorism was made a priority in S.I.S. In terms of espionage it was a sad chapter in their history, dealing as they were mainly with confused youths flirting with Arab or pro-Palestinian elements. The big question within the Security Police was to what extent personnel control would be given special authority to investigate foreign citizens residing in Sweden, or whether this would go on being the preserve of the Immigration Division.
Out of this somewhat esoteric bureaucratic debate, a need had arisen for the Section to assign a trusted colleague to the operation who could reinforce its control, espionage in fact, against members of the Immigration Division.
The job fell to a young man who had worked at S.I.S. since 1970, and whose background and political loyalty made him eminently qualified to work alongside the officers in the Section. In his free time he was a member of an organization called the Democratic Alliance, which was described by the social-democratic media as extreme right-wing. Within the Section this was no obstacle. Three others were members of the Democratic Alliance too, and the Section had in fact been instrumental in the very formation of the group. It had also contributed a small part of its funding. It was through this organization that the young man was brought to the attention of the Section and recruited.
His name was Gunnar Björck.
It was an improbable stroke of luck that when Alexander Zalachenko walked into Norrmalm police station on Election Day 1976 and requested asylum, it was a junior officer called Gunnar Björck who received him in his capacity as administrator of the Immigration Division. An agent already connected to the most secret of the secret.
Björck recognized Zalachenko’s importance at once and broke off the interview to install the defector in a room at the Hotel Continental. It was Gullberg whom Björck notified when he sounded the alarm, and not his formal boss in the Immigration Division. The call came just as the voting booths had closed and all signs pointed to the fact that Palme was going to lose. Gullberg had just come home and was watching the election coverage on T. V. At first he was sceptical about the information that the excited young officer was telling him. Then he drove down to the Continental, not 250 metres from the hotel room where he found himself today, to assume control of the Zalachenko affair.