"He's supposed to be meeting Erika Berger at Samir's Cauldron," Figuerola said. She grabbed Andersson by the shoulder. "Are you armed?"
"Yes."
"Come with me."
Figuerola rushed out of the conference room. Her office was three doors down. She ran in and took her service weapon from the desk drawer. Against all regulations she left the door to her office unlocked and wide open as she raced off towards the elevators. Andersson hesitated for a second.
"Go," Bublanski told him. "Sonja, you go with them too."
*
Blomkvist got to Samir's Cauldron at 6:20. Berger had just arrived and found a table near the bar, not far from the entrance. He kissed her on the cheek. They both ordered lamb stew and strong beers from the waiter.
"How was the She woman?" Berger said.
"Cool, as usual."
Berger laughed. "If you don't watch out you're going to become obsessed by her. Imagine, a woman who can resist the famous Blomkvist charm."
"There are in fact several women who haven't fallen for me over the years," Blomkvist said. "How has your day been?"
"Wasted. But I accepted an invitation to be on a panel to debate the whole SMP business at the Publicists' Club. That will be my final contribution."
"Great."
"It's just such a relief to be back at Millennium."
"You have no idea how good it is that you're back. I'm still elated."
"It's fun to be at work again."
"Mmm."
"I'm happy."
"And I have to go to the gents'," Blomkvist said, getting up.
He almost collided with a man who had just walked in. Blomkvist noticed that he looked vaguely eastern European and was staring at him. Then he saw the sub-machine gun.
As they passed Riddarholmen, Edklinth called to tell them that neither Blomkvist nor Berger was answering their mobiles. They had presumably turned them off for dinner.
Figuerola swore and passed Sodermalmstorg at a speed of close to fifty miles an hour. She kept her horn pressed down and made a sharp turn onto Hornsgatan. Andersson had to brace himself against the door. He had taken out his gun and checked the magazine. Modig did the same in the back seat.
"We have to call for backup," Andersson said. "You don't play games with the Nikolich boys."
Figuerola ground her teeth.
"This is what we'll do," she said. "Sonja and I will go straight into the restaurant and hope they're sitting inside. Curt, you know what these guys look like, so you stay outside and keep watch."
"Right."
"If all goes well, we'll take Blomkvist and Berger straight out to the car and drive them down to Kungsholmen. If we suspect anything's wrong, we'll stay inside the restaurant and call for backup."
"OK," Modig said.
Figuerola was nearly at the restaurant when the police radio crackled beneath the dashboard.
All units. Shots fired on Tavastgatan on Sodermalm. Samir's Cauldron restaurant.
Figuerola felt a sudden lurch in her chest.
Berger saw Blomkvist bump into a man as he was heading past the entrance towards the gents'. She frowned without really knowing why. She saw the other man stare at Blomkvist with a surprised expression. She wondered if it was somebody he knew.
Then she saw the man take a step back and drop a bag to the floor. At first she did not know what she was seeing. She sat paralysed as he raised some kind of gun and aimed it at Blomkvist.
Blomkvist reacted without stopping to think. He flung out his left hand, grabbed the barrel of the gun, and twisted it up towards the ceiling. For a microsecond the muzzle passed in front of his face.
The burst of fire from the sub-machine gun was deafening in the small room. Mortar and glass from the overhead lights rained down on Blomkvist as Miro Nikolich squeezed off eleven shots. For a moment Blomkvist looked directly into the eyes of his attacker.
Then Nikolich took a step back and yanked the gun towards him. Blomkvist was unprepared and lost his grip on the barrel. He knew at once that he was in mortal danger. Instinctively he threw himself at the attacker instead of crouching down or trying to take cover. Later he realized that if he had ducked or backed away, he would have been shot on the spot. He got a new grip on the barrel of the sub-machine gun and used his entire weight to drive the man against the wall. He heard another six or seven shots go off and tore desperately at the gun to direct the muzzle at the floor.
Berger instinctively took cover when the second series of shots was fired. She stumbled and fell, hitting her head on a chair. As she lay on the floor, she looked up and saw that three holes had appeared in the wall just behind where she had been sitting.
In shock she turned her head and saw Blomkvist struggling with the man by the door. He had fallen to his knees and was gripping the gun with both hands, trying to wrench it loose. She saw the attacker struggling to get free. He kept smashing his fist over and over into Blomkvist's face and temple.
Figuerola braked hard opposite Samir's Cauldron, flung open the car door, and ran across the road towards the restaurant. She had her Sig Sauer in her hand with the safety off when she noticed the car parked right outside the restaurant.
She saw one of the Nikolich brothers behind the wheel and pointed her weapon at his face behind the driver's door.
"Police. Hands up," she screamed.
Tomi Nikolich held up his hands.
"Get out of the car and lie facedown on the pavement," she roared, fury in her voice. She turned and glanced at Andersson and Modig beside her. "The restaurant," she said.
Modig was thinking of her children. It was against all police protocol to charge into a building with her weapon drawn without first having backup in place and without knowing the exact situation.
Then she heard the sound of more shots from inside.
Blomkvist had his middle finger between the trigger and the trigger guard as Miro Nikolich tried to keep shooting. He heard glass shattering behind him. He felt a searing pain as the attacker squeezed the trigger again and again, crushing his finger. As long as his finger was in place the gun could not be fired. But as Nikolich's fist pummelled the side of his head, it suddenly occurred to him that he was too old for this sort of thing.
Have to end it, he thought.
That was his first rational thought since he had become aware of the man with the sub-machine gun.
He clenched his teeth and shoved his finger farther into the space behind the trigger.
Then he braced himself, rammed his shoulder into the attacker's body, and forced himself back onto his feet. He let go of the gun with his right hand and raised his elbow up to protect his face from the pummelling. Nikolich switched to hitting him in the armpit and ribs. For a second they stood eye to eye again.
The next moment Blomkvist felt the attacker being pulled away from him. He felt one last devastating pain in his finger and became aware of Andersson's huge form. The police officer literally picked up Nikolich with a firm grip on his neck and slammed his head into the wall by the door. Nikolich collapsed to the ground.
"Police! Get down! Stay still!" he heard Modig yell.
He turned his head and saw her standing with her legs apart and her gun held in both hands as she surveyed the chaos. At last she raised her gun to point it at the ceiling and looked at Blomkvist.
"Are you hurt?" she said.
In a daze Blomkvist looked back at her. He was bleeding from his forehead and his nose.
"I think I broke a finger," he said, sitting down on the floor.
Figuerola received backup from the Sodermalm armed response team less than a minute after she forced Tomi Nikolich to the pavement at gunpoint. She showed her ID and left the officers to take charge of the prisoner. Then she ran inside. She stopped in the entrance to take stock of the situation.
Blomkvist and Berger were sitting side by side. His face was bloodied and he seemed to be in shock. She sighed in relief. He was alive. Then she frowned as Berger put her arm around
his shoulder. At least her face was bruised.
Modig was squatting down next to them, examining Blomkvist's hand. Andersson was handcuffing Nikolich, who looked as though he had been hit by a truck. She saw a Swedish army model M/45 sub-machine gun on the floor.
Figuerola looked up and saw shocked restaurant staff and terror-stricken patrons, along with shattered china, overturned chairs and tables, and debris from the rounds that had been fired. She smelled cordite. But she was not aware of anyone dead or wounded in the restaurant. Officers from the armed response team began to squeeze into the room with their weapons drawn. She reached out and touched Andersson's shoulder. He stood up.
"You said that Miro Nikolich was on our wanted list?"
"Correct. Aggravated assault. About a year ago. A street fight down in Hallunda."
"OK. Here's what we'll do," Figuerola said. "I'll take off as fast as I can with Blomkvist and Berger. You stay here. The story is that you and Modig came here to have dinner and you recognized Nikolich from your time in the gangs unit. When you tried to arrest him he pulled a weapon and started shooting. So you sorted him out."
Andersson looked completely astonished. "That's not going to hold up. There are witnesses."
"The witnesses will say that somebody was fighting and shots were fired. It only has to hold up until tomorrow's evening papers. The story is that the Nikolich brothers were apprehended by sheer chance because you recognized them."
Andersson surveyed the shambles all around him.
Figuerola pushed her way through the knot of police officers out on the street and put Blomkvist and Berger in the back seat of her car. She turned to the armed response team leader and spoke in a low voice with him for half a minute. She gestured towards the car in which Blomkvist and Berger were now sitting. The leader looked puzzled but at last he nodded. She drove to Zinkensdamm, parked, and turned around to her passengers.
"How badly are you hurt?"
"I took a few punches. I still have all my teeth, but my middle finger's hurt."
"I'll take you to the ER at St. Goran's."
"What happened?" Berger said. "And who are you?"
"I'm sorry," Blomkvist said. "Erika, this is Inspector Monica Figuerola. She works for Sapo. Monica, this is Erika Berger."
"I worked that out all by myself," Figuerola said in a neutral tone. She did not spare Berger a glance.
"Monica and I met during the investigation. She's my contact at SIS."
"I understand," Berger said, and she began to shake as suddenly the shock set in.
Figuerola stared hard at Berger.
"What went wrong?" Blomkvist said.
"We misinterpreted the reason for the cocaine," Figuerola said. "We thought they were setting a trap for you, to create a scandal. Now we know they wanted to kill you. They were going to let the police find the cocaine when they went through your apartment."
"What cocaine?" Berger said.
Blomkvist closed his eyes for a moment.
"Take me to St. Goran's," he said.
*
"Arrested?" Clinton barked. He felt a butterfly-light pressure around his heart.
"We think it's all right," Nystrom said. "It seems to have been sheer bad luck."
"Bad luck?"
"Miro Nikolich was wanted on some old assault story. A policeman from the gangs unit happened to recognize him when he went into Samir's Cauldron and wanted to arrest him. Nikolich panicked and tried to shoot his way out."
"And Blomkvist?"
"He wasn't involved. We don't even know if he was in the restaurant at the time."
"This cannot be fucking true," Clinton said. "What do the Nikolich brothers know?"
"About us? Nothing. They think Bjorck and Blomkvist were both hits that had to do with trafficking."
"But they know that Blomkvist was the target?"
"Sure, but they're hardly going to start blabbing about being hired to do a hit. They'll keep their mouths shut all the way to district court. They'll do time for possession of illegal weapons and, as like as not, for resisting arrest."
"Those damned fuck-ups," Clinton said.
"Well, they seriously screwed up. We've had to let Blomkvist give us the slip for the moment, but no harm was actually done."
It was 11:00 by the time Linder and two hefty bodyguards from Milton Security's personal protection unit collected Blomkvist and Berger from Kungsholmen.
"You really do get around," Linder said.
"Sorry," Berger said gloomily.
Berger had been in a state of shock as they drove to St. Goran's. It had dawned on her all of a sudden that both she and Blomkvist had very nearly been killed.
Blomkvist had spent an hour in the ER having his head X-rayed and his face bandaged. His left middle finger was put in a splint. The end joint was badly bruised and he would lose the fingernail. Ironically, the main injury was caused when Andersson came to his rescue and pulled Nikolich off him. Blomkvist's middle finger had been caught in the trigger guard of the M/45 and had snapped straight across. It hurt a lot, but the injury was hardly life-threatening.
For Blomkvist the shock did not set in until two hours later, when he had arrived at Constitutional Protection at SIS and reported to Inspector Bublanski and Prosecutor Gustavsson. He began to shiver and felt so tired that he almost fell asleep between questions. At that point a certain amount of palavering ensued.
"We don't know what they're planning, and we have no idea whether Mikael was the only intended victim," Figuerola said. "Or whether Erika here was supposed to die too. We don't know if they will try again or if anyone else at Millennium is being targeted. And why not kill Salander? After all, she's the truly serious threat to the Section."
"I called my colleagues at Millennium while Mikael was being patched up," Berger said. "Everyone's going to lie extremely low until the magazine comes out. The office will be left unstaffed."
Edklinth's immediate reaction had been to order bodyguard protection for Blomkvist and Berger. But on reflection he and Figuerola decided that it would not be the smartest move to contact SIS's Personal Protection unit. Berger solved the problem by declining police protection. She called Armansky to explain what had happened, which was why, later that night, Linder was called in for duty.
Blomkvist and Berger were lodged on the top floor of a safe house just beyond Drottningholm on the road to Ekero. It was a large 1930s villa overlooking Lake Malaren. It had an impressive garden, outbuildings, and extensive grounds. The estate was owned by Milton Security, but Martina Sjogren lived there. She was the widow of Hans Sjogren, their colleague of many years, who had died in an accident on assignment fifteen years earlier. After the funeral, Armansky had talked with Fru Sjogren and then hired her as housekeeper and general caretaker of the property. She lived rent-free in a wing of the ground floor and kept the top floor ready for those occasions, a few times each year, when Milton Security needed to hide away individuals who for real or imagined reasons feared for their safety.
Figuerola went with them. She sank onto a chair in the kitchen and allowed Fru Sjogren to serve her coffee, while Berger and Blomkvist settled in upstairs and Linder checked the alarm and electronic surveillance equipment around the property.
"There are toothbrushes and so on in the chest of drawers outside the bathroom," Sjogren called up the stairs.
Linder and Milton's bodyguards installed themselves in rooms on the ground floor.
"I've been on the go ever since I was woken at 4:00," Linder said. "You can put together a watch schedule, but let me sleep till at least 5:00."
"You can sleep all night. We'll take care of this," one of the bodyguards said.
"Thanks," Linder said, and she went straight to bed.
Figuerola listened absent-mindedly as the bodyguards switched on the motion detector in the courtyard and drew straws to see who would take the first watch. The one who lost made himself a sandwich and went into the TV room next to the kitchen. Figuerola studied the flowery coffe
e cups. She too had been on the go since early morning and was feeling fairly exhausted. She was just thinking about driving home when Berger came downstairs and poured herself a cup of coffee. She sat down across from Figuerola.
"Mikael went out like a light as soon as his head hit the pillow."
"Reaction to the adrenaline," Figuerola said.
"What happens now?"
"You'll have to lie low for a few days. Within a week this will all be over, whichever way it ends. How are you feeling?"
"So-so. A bit shaky still. It's not every day something like this happens. I just called my husband to explain why I wouldn't be coming home."
"Hmm."
"I'm married to--"
"I know who you're married to."
Silence. Figuerola rubbed her eyes and yawned.
"I have to go home and get some sleep," she said.
"Oh, for God's sake, stop talking nonsense and go and lie down with Mikael," Berger said.
Figuerola looked at her.
"Is it that obvious?" she said.
Berger nodded.
"Did Mikael say anything?"
"Not a word. He's generally rather discreet when it comes to his lady friends. But sometimes he's an open book. And you're clearly hostile every time you even look at me. The two of you obviously have something to hide."
"It's my boss," Figuerola said.
"Where does he come into it?"
"He'd fly off the handle if he knew that Mikael and I were--"
"I can see that."
Silence.
"I don't know what's going on between you two, but I'm not your rival," Berger said.
"You're not?"
"Mikael and I sleep together now and then. But I'm not married to him."
"I heard that you two had a special relationship. He told me about you when we were out at Sandhamn."
"So you've been to Sandhamn? Then it is serious."
"Don't make fun of me."
"Monica, I hope that you and Mikael . . . I'll try to stay out of your way."
"And if you can't?"
Berger shrugged. "His ex-wife flipped out big time when Mikael was unfaithful with me. She threw him out. It was my fault. As long as Mikael is single and available, I would have no compunction. But I promised myself that if he was ever serious about someone, then I'd keep my distance."
"I don't know if I dare count on him."
"Mikael is special. Are you in love with him?"
"I think so."
"All right, then. Just don't tell him too soon. Now go to bed."