“No, you didn’t.”
“Well, it’s made my eyesight very good, you see. I’ve got eagle eyes. I’m used to pinpointing tiny details far off, and I’m sure that’s why I noticed a small dot on the rock ledge up there, do you see it? The edge of it sort of cuts into the rock slope like a pocket.”
Modig looked up at the slope and nodded.
“At first I couldn’t tell what it was,” Matzon continued. “But then I realized it was a child — a boy, I think. He was sitting up there in a crouch and trembling, at least that’s how it seemed to me, and then suddenly... my God, I’ll never forget it.”
“What?”
“Someone came racing down from above, a woman, and she leaped into the air and landed so violently on the rock ledge that she all but fell off it, and after that they sat there together, she and the boy, and just waited, and waited for the inevitable, and then...”
“Yes?”
“Two men appeared holding assault rifles and shot and shot, and as I’m sure you can imagine, I just threw myself to the ground. I was scared I’d get hit. But I couldn’t help looking up at them all the same. You see, from where I was the boy and the girl were clearly visible. But they were invisible to the men standing at the top, at least for the moment. It was obvious to me that it was only a matter of time before they were discovered and there was no escape. As soon as they left the rock ledge the men would see them and kill them. It was a hopeless situation.”
“But we’ve found neither the boy nor the woman up there,” Modig said.
“That’s just it! The men got closer and closer — they only needed to lean forward to see the woman and the child. In the end they could probably have heard them breathing. But then...”
“Yes?’
“You’re not going to believe this. That man from the Rapid Response Unit definitely didn’t.”
“Well, go ahead and tell me, and we can worry later about whether it’s believable.”
“When the men stopped to listen, maybe they sensed they were very close, the woman leaped to her feet and shot them. Bang, bang! Then she rushed forward and threw their weapons away. It was like an action film, and after that she ran, or rather rolled, almost fell down the slope with the boy to a B.M.W. standing here in the parking area. Just before they got into the car I saw that the woman was holding something — it looked like a computer bag.”
“Did they drive away in the B.M.W.?”
“At a fearful speed. I have no idea where they went.”
“Of course not.”
“But that’s not all.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was another car there — a Range Rover, I think, black, a new model.”
“And what happened to that one?”
“I was busy ringing the emergency services, but just as I was about to hang up I saw two more people coming down from the wooden steps over there, a tall thin man and a woman. I didn’t get a good look at them from that distance. But I can still tell you two things about that woman.”
“Yes?”
“She was a twelve-pointer, and she was angry.”
“Twelve-pointer meaning beautiful?”
“Or at least glamorous, classy. You could see it a mile off. But boy was she furious. Just before they got into the Range Rover she slapped the man, and the weird thing is: he hardly reacted. He just nodded as if he thought he deserved it. Then he got behind the wheel and they were gone.”
Modig noted everything down, realizing that she had to get out a nationwide search bulletin for both the Range Rover and the B.M.W. without delay.
Gabriella Grane was drinking a cappuccino in her kitchen on Villagatan and thinking that she was holding it together, all things considered. But she was probably in shock.
Helena Kraft wanted to see her at 8.00 in the office at Säpo. Grane guessed that she wouldn’t just get the sack. There would be judicial consequences too, which would pretty much ruin her prospects of finding another job. At thirty-three, her career was over.
And that was by no means the worst of it. She had known that she was flouting the law and had taken a conscious risk. But she had done it because she believed it was the best way to protect Frans Balder’s son. Now, after the shoot-out at her summer place, no-one seemed to know where the boy was. He might be injured, or even dead. Grane was racked by the most devastating feelings of guilt: first the father and now the son.
She got up and looked at the clock. It was 7.15 and she needed to get going to give herself time to clean out her desk before the meeting with Kraft. She made up her mind to behave with dignity, to not make any excuses or beg to be allowed to stay. Her Blackphone rang, but she couldn’t be bothered to answer. Instead she put on her boots and her Prada coat and an extravagant red scarf. If she was going under, she might just as well go with a bit of panache. She stood in front of the hall mirror and touched up her make-up, wryly giving herself the victory sign, as Nixon had when he resigned. Then her Blackphone rang again and this time she answered reluctantly. It was Casales at the N.S.A.
“I’ve just heard,” she said.
Of course she had.
“How are you feeling?”
“What do you think?”
“Like the worst person in the whole world?”
“Pretty much.”
“Who’ll never get another job?”
“Spot on, Alona.”
“In that case, let me tell you, you’ve nothing to be ashamed of. You did the right thing.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“Doesn’t seem like the moment for jokes, sweetheart. You have a mole on your team.”
Gabriella took a deep breath. “Who is it?”
“Nielsen.”
Gabriella froze. “Do you have proof?”
“Oh yes, I’ll send it all over in a few minutes.”
“Why would Nielsen betray us?”
“I guess he didn’t see it as a betrayal.”
“What on earth did he see it as if not betrayal?”
“Collaborating with Big Brother maybe, doing his duty by the leading nation in the free world? What do I know?”
“So he gave you information.”
“He helped us to help ourselves, actually. He gave us information about your server and your encryption. It’s not as outrageous as it sounds. Let’s face it, we listen in on everything from the neighbours’ gossip to the prime minister’s telephone calls.”
“But this time the information was leaked a stage further.”
“In this case it seeped out like we were a funnel. I know, Gabriella, that you didn’t exactly stick to the rulebook. But I’m absolutely convinced that you were in the right, and I’ll make sure that your superiors get to hear it. You could see that there was something rotten in your organization, so you couldn’t act within it, yet you were determined not to shirk your responsibility.”
“But it went wrong.”
“Sometimes things go wrong, no matter how careful you are.”
“Thanks, Alona, it’s nice of you to say so. But if anything has happened to August Balder, I will never forgive myself.”
“Gabriella, the boy is O.K. He’s cruising around in a car somewhere with Miss Salander, in case someone’s still chasing them.”
Grane could not take it in. “What do you mean?”
“That he’s unhurt, babe, and that thanks to him his father’s murderer has been caught and identified.”
“You’re saying August is alive?”
“That’s right.”
“How do you know?”
“Let’s just say I have a very well-placed source.”
“Alona...”
“Yes?”
“If what you say is true, you’ve given me back my life.”
After hanging up, Grane rang Kraft and insisted that Mårten Nielsen be present at their meeting. Reluctantly, Kraft agreed.