Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [205]
Salander stopped abruptly and emptied half the contents of a Mace canister in his face. His eyes burned like fire. The toe of her boot shot up with full force and was transformed into kinetic energy in his crotch with a pressure of about 1,700 pounds per square inch. Lundin dropped gasping to his knees and stayed there at a more comfortable height for Salander. She kicked him in the face, deliberately, as if she were taking a penalty in soccer. There was an ugly crunching sound before Lundin toppled over like a sack of potatoes.
It took a few seconds for Nieminen to realize that something unbelievable had happened before his eyes. He tried to set the kickstand of his Harley, missed, and had to look down. Then he decided to play it safe and started groping for the pistol he had in his vest’s inside pocket. As he was pulling down the zipper he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.
When he looked up he saw Salander coming at him like a cannonball. She jumped with both feet and kicked him full force in the hip, which didn’t injure him but was hard enough to knock over both him and his motorcycle. He narrowly missed having his leg pinned under the bike and stumbled a few paces backwards before he regained his balance.
When he had her in view again he saw her arm move, and a stone as big as his fist flew through the air. He ducked and it missed his head by about an inch.
He finally got out his pistol and tried to flick off the safety, but when he looked up again Salander was upon him. He saw evil in her eyes and felt for the first time a shocked terror.
“Goodnight,” Salander said.
She shoved the Taser into his crotch and fired off 50,000 volts, holding the electrodes against him for at least twenty seconds. Nieminen was transformed into a vegetable.
Salander heard a noise behind her and spun around to see Lundin laboriously getting to his knees. She looked at him with raised eyebrows. He was fumbling blindly through the burning fog of the Mace.
“I’m going to kill you!” he roared.
He was groping around, trying to locate Salander. She watched him circumspectly. Then he said:
“Fucking whore.”
Salander bent down and picked up Nieminen’s pistol, noticing that it was a Polish P-83 Wanad.
She opened the magazine and checked that it was loaded with the correct 9 mm Makarov. She cocked it. She stepped over Nieminen and went across to Lundin, took aim with both hands, and shot him in the foot. He shrieked in shock and collapsed again.
She wondered if she should bother asking about the identity of the hulk she had seen him with at Blomberg’s Café. According to Sandström, the man had murdered someone in a warehouse with Lundin’s help. Hmm. She should have waited to fire the pistol until she had asked her questions.
Lundin did not seem to be in any condition now to carry on a lucid conversation, and there was the possibility that someone had heard the shot. So she ought to leave the area right away. She could always find Lundin at some later date and ask him the question under less stressful circumstances. She secured the weapon’s safety, zipped it into her jacket pocket, and picked up her backpack.
She had gone about ten yards down the road when she stopped and turned around. She walked back slowly and studied Lundin’s motorcycle.
“Harley-Davidson,” she said. “Sweet.”
CHAPTER 27
Wednesday, April 6
It was a beautiful spring day as Blomkvist drove Berger’s car south towards Nynäsvägen. Already there was a hint of green in the black fields, and there was real warmth in the air. It was perfect weather to forget all his problems and drive out for a few days to be at peace in his cabin in Sandhamn.
He had agreed with Björck that he would be there at 1:00, but he arrived early and stopped in Dalarö to have coffee and read the papers. He did not prepare for the meeting. Björck had something to tell him, and Blomkvist was determined that this time he would come away from Smådalarö with concrete information about Zala.
Björck met him in the driveway. He looked more self-assured,