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By Root 7240 0

had put him on a flight to Spain. From that moment on, they had made it clear to him that Zalachenko and the Section were going their separate ways. It had been one of Gullberg’s last responsibilities. One week later he had reached retirement age and handed over to his chosen successor, Fredrik Clinton. Thereafter Gullberg acted only as an adviser in especially sensitive matters. He had stayed in Stockholm for another three years and worked almost daily at the Section, but the number of his assignments decreased, and gradually he disengaged himself. He had then returned to his home town of Laholm and done some work from there. At first he had travelled frequently to Stockholm, but he made these journeys less and less often, and eventually not at all.

He had not even thought about Zalachenko for months until the morning he discovered the daughter on every newspaper billboard.

Gullberg followed the story in a state of awful confusion. It was no accident, of course, that Bjurman had been Salander’s guardian; on the other hand he could not see why the old Zalachenko story should surface. Salander was obviously deranged, so it was no surprise that she had killed these people, but that Zalachenko might have any connection to the affair had not dawned on him. The daughter would sooner or later be captured and that would be the end of it. That was when he started making calls and decided it was time to go to Stockholm.

The Section was faced with its worst crisis since the day he had created it.

Zalachenko dragged himself to the toilet. Now that he had crutches, he could move around his room. On Sunday he forced himself through short, sharp training sessions. The pain in his jaw was still excruciating and he could manage only liquid food, but he could get out of his bed and begin to make himself mobile. Having lived so long with a prosthesis he was used enough to crutches. He practised moving noiselessly on them, manoeuvring back and forth around his bed. Every time his right foot touched the floor, a terrible pain shot up his leg.

He gritted his teeth. He thought about the fact that his daughter was very close by. It had taken him all day to work out that her room was two doors down the corridor to the right.

The night nurse had been gone ten minutes, everything was quiet, it was 2.00 in the morning. Zalachenko laboriously got up and fumbled for his crutches. He listened at the door, but heard nothing. He pulled open the door and went into the corridor. He heard faint music from the nurses’ station. He made his way to the end of the corridor, pushed open the door, and looked into the empty landing where the lifts were. Going back down the corridor, he stopped at the door to his daughter’s room and rested there on his crutches for half a minute, listening.

*

Salander opened her eyes when she heard a scraping sound. It was as though someone was dragging something along the corridor. For a moment there was only silence, and she wondered if she were imagining things. Then she heard the same sound again, moving away. Her uneasiness grew.

Zalachenko was out there somewhere.

She felt fettered to her bed. Her skin itched under the neck brace. She felt an intense desire to move, to get up. Gradually she succeeded in sitting up. That was all she could manage. She sank back on to the pillow.

She ran her hand over the neck brace and located the fastenings that held it in place. She opened them and dropped the brace to the floor. Immediately it was easier to breathe.

What she wanted more than anything was a weapon, and to have the strength to get up and finish the job once and for all.

With difficulty she propped herself up, switched on the night light and looked around the room. She could see nothing that would serve her purpose. Then her eyes fell on a nurses’ table by the wall three metres from her bed. Someone had left a pencil there.

She waited until the night nurse had been and gone, which tonight she seemed to be doing about every half hour. Presumably the reduced frequency of the nurse’s visits meant that the doctors had