Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, The - Stieg Larsson [6]
“Assault with a deadly weapon,” was Paulsson’s immediate response.
At this point Blomkvist should have realized that Paulsson was dangerously stupid. He should have called Bublanski himself and asked him to intervene, to bring some clarity to the fog in which Paulsson was apparently enveloped. Instead he made his second mistake: he offered to hand over the weapon he had in his jacket pocket – the Colt .45 1911 Government model that he had found earlier that day at Salander’s apartment in Stockholm. It was the weapon he had used to disarm and disable Niedermann – not a straightforward matter with that giant of a man.
At which Paulsson swiftly arrested Blomkvist for possession of an illegal weapon. He then ordered his two officers, Torstensson and Ingemarsson, to drive over to the Nossebro road. They were to find out if there was any truth to Blomkvist’s story that a man was sitting in a ditch there, tied to a MOOSE CROSSING sign. If this was the case, the officers were to handcuff the person in question and bring him to the farm at Gosseberga.
Blomkvist had objected at once, pointing out that Niedermann was not a man who could be arrested and handcuffed just like that: he was a maniacal killer, for God’s sake. When Blomkvist’s objections were ignored by Paulsson, the exhaustion of the day made him reckless. He told Paulsson he was an incompetent fool and yelled at him that Torstensson and Ingemarsson should fucking forget about untying Niedermann until they had called for back-up. As a result of this outburst, he was handcuffed and pushed into the back seat of Paulsson’s car. Cursing, he watched as Torstensson and Ingemarsson drove off in their patrol car. The only glimmer of light in the darkness was that Salander had been carried to the helicopter, which was even now disappearing over the treetops in the direction of Göteborg. Blomkvist felt utterly helpless: he could only hope that she would be given the very best care. She was going to need it, or die.
Jonasson made two deep incisions all the way down to the cranium and peeled back the skin round the entry wound. He used clamps to secure the opening. A theatre nurse inserted a suction tube to remove any blood. Then came the awkward part, when he had to use a drill to enlarge the hole in the skull. The procedure was excruciatingly slow.
Finally he had a hole big enough to give access to Salander’s brain. With infinite care he inserted a probe into the brain and enlarged the wound channel by a few millimetres. Then he inserted a thinner probe and located the bullet. From the X-ray he could see that the bullet had turned and was lying at an angle of forty-five degrees to the entry channel. He used the probe cautiously to prise at the edge of the bullet, and after a few unsuccessful attempts he managed to lift it very slightly so that he could turn it in the right direction.
Finally he inserted narrow forceps with serrated jaws. He gripped the base of the bullet, got a good hold on it, then pulled the forceps straight out. The bullet emerged with almost no resistance. He held it up to the light for a few seconds and saw that it appeared intact; then he dropped it into a bowl.
“Swab,” he said, and his request was instantly met.
He glanced at the E.C.G., which showed that his patient still had regular heart activity.
“Forceps.”
He pulled down the powerful magnifying glass hanging overhead and focused on the exposed area.
“Careful,” Ellis said.
Over the next forty-five minutes Jonasson picked out no fewer than thirty-two tiny bone chips from round the entry wound. The smallest