Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, The - Stieg Larsson [69]
“I don’t think so.”
Zalachenko was suddenly very unsure whether Gullberg was bluffing.
“There’s going to be a scandal of enormous proportions.”
“Again, I don’t think so. There’ll be a few headlines, but in a week nobody will even remember the name Zalachenko.”
Zalachenko’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re a filthy swine,” Gullberg said then with such coldness in his voice that Zalachenko froze.
Gullberg squeezed the trigger and put the bullet right in the centre of Zalachenko’s forehead just as the patient was starting to swing his prosthesis over the edge of the bed. Zalachenko was thrown back on to the pillow. His good leg kicked four, five times before he was still. Gullberg saw a red flower-shaped splatter on the wall behind the bedhead. He became aware that his ears were ringing after the shot and he rubbed his left one with his free hand.
Then he stood up and put the muzzle to Zalachenko’s temple and squeezed the trigger twice. He wanted to be sure this time that the bastard really was dead.
*
Salander sat up with a start the instant she heard the first shot. Pain stabbed through her shoulder. When the next two shots came she tried to get her legs over the edge of the bed.
Giannini had only been there for a few minutes. She sat paralysed and tried to work out from which direction the sharp reports had come. She could tell from Salander’s reaction that something deadly was in the offing.
“Lie still,” she shouted. She put her hand on Salander’s chest and shoved her client down on to the bed.
Then Giannini crossed the room and pulled open the door. She saw two nurses running towards another room two doors away. The first nurse stopped short on the threshold. “No, don’t!” she screamed and then took a step back, colliding with the second nurse.
“He’s got a gun. Run!”
Giannini watched as the two nurses took cover in the room next to Salander’s.
The next moment she saw a thin, grey-haired man in a hound’s-tooth jacket walk into the corridor. He had a gun in his hand. Annika recognized him as the man who come up in the lift with her.
Then their eyes met. He appeared confused. He aimed the revolver at her and took a step forward. She pulled her head back in and slammed the door shut, looking around in desperation. A nurses’ table stood right next to her. She rolled it quickly over to the door and wedged the tabletop under the door handle.
She heard a movement and turned to see Salander just starting to clamber out of bed again. In a few quick steps she crossed the floor, wrapped her arms around her client and lifted her up. She tore electrodes and I.V. tubes loose as she carried her to the bathroom and set her on the toilet seat. Then she turned and locked the bathroom door. She dug her mobile out of her jacket pocket and dialled 112.
Gullberg went to Salander’s room and tried the door handle. It was blocked. He could not move it even a millimetre.
For a moment he stood indecisively outside the door. He knew that the lawyer Giannini was in the room, and he wondered if a copy of Björck’s report might be in her briefcase. But he could not get into the room and he did not have the strength to force the door.
That had not been part of the plan anyway. Clinton would take care of Giannini. Gullberg’s only job was Zalachenko.
He looked around the corridor and saw that he was being watched by nurses, patients and visitors. He raised the pistol and fired at a picture hanging on the wall at the end of the corridor. His spectators vanished as if by magic.
He glanced one last time at the door to Salander’s room. Then he walked decisively back to Zalachenko’s room and closed the door. He sat in the visitor’s chair and looked at the Russian defector who had been such an intimate part of his own life for so many years.
He sat still for almost ten minutes before he heard movement in the corridor and was aware that the police had arrived. By now he was not thinking of anything in particular.
Then he raised the revolver one