“It would never…” Kira began, but then she stopped, either because she had no idea what she wanted to say, or because she knew that whatever she said would be wrong. Instead she yelled:
“Shoot her in the legs and take her over to the furnace,” and that did send a shiver of excitement through her chest.
Those bloody idiots did open fire, but they must have hesitated for one second too long. Salander managed to roll over and Blomkvist was suddenly on his feet, though God knows how he did it. Kira backed away, seeing that her sister had grabbed a rusty iron rod that was lying on the floor.
* * *
—
With all the attention now fixed on Salander, Blomkvist had been able to pull his hands out of the leather straps and had tried to stand up. His legs could scarcely carry him, but the adrenaline rush enabled him to stay upright and grasp hold of one of the knives on the nearby table.
A few yards away, Salander had rolled across the floor holding an iron rod and managed to make it over to her motorcycle. With one sudden and violent wrench, she pulled it up on its wheels, and for a second or two used it as a shield against the bullets. Then she jumped up onto it and started the engine, and rode out through the window and disappeared across the field. It was so unexpected that the gang even stopped shooting. Was she fleeing?
It seemed inconceivable. But the engine noise really did grow fainter and eventually die away. Blomkvist felt as if a cold wind was sweeping through him.
He looked into the burning furnace and down at his horribly wounded legs, and felt that the knife in his hand was pathetic, like a wooden stick in a battle to the death, and he collapsed on the floor in excruciating pain.
Everything had come to a sudden stop. There was disbelief in the air, and heavy breathing and grunting, and the sound of his tormentor, Galinov, getting to his feet. His nose was bloodied and smashed, he had bloodstains and ash all over his white suit, and he was muttering that they ought to get out of there immediately. Camilla met his eyes and made an indeterminate movement with her head, which could have meant yes or no or nothing at all. She seemed as shocked as everyone else. She swore under her breath and kicked one of the men lying wounded on the floor. Further off a man was calling out something about Bogdanov.
At that precise moment Blomkvist heard a new sound, an engine racing, accelerating towards the building. It had to be Salander. What was she doing? She was heading towards them again, but not so fast this time, and she was not making for the hole she had smashed through the window. She was riding towards him and the furnace, and the thugs started shooting again, wildly and recklessly now. But the engine noise kept coming closer and now the motorcycle came thundering through the window straight ahead of him.
Once again, Salander made her entrance in a vast spray of broken glass, which cascaded over the floor and hit Galinov’s head and shoulders, and made him jump as if he’d seen a ghost. It was easy to understand why. Salander was deathly pale and looked completely crazed, and this time she was not holding on to the handlebars. Wielding the iron rod, she knocked a gun out of the hands of one of the men before ramming into the stretcher and falling over Blomkvist, straight into the wall. But she was back on her feet in a trice, and she grabbed the weapon which had slid along the floor and began to shoot.
There were flashes all around the building, and Blomkvist could no longer grasp what was going on. He heard only the shots and the yelling, the footsteps and breathing, the grunting and the falling bodies. When the noise finally died down, at least for a moment, he decided to act, to do something…anything.
He realized that he was still holding the knife and tried to get up. But the pain was extreme. He took a deep breath and tried again, and made it up onto his feet this time. Dazed, he looked around, and saw that now only three people remained standing: Salander, Galinov and Camilla.
Only Salander held a weapon. The situation had swung in her favour and it was time to wrap it all up. But she remained strangely still, as if her movements had frozen. Even her eyes were immobile, she hardly blinked. There was something wrong. Blomkvist felt it as a stab of fear in the chest, and now he saw it too: Salander’s hand was shaking.
She could not shoot, and Galinov and Camilla dared to move forward, each from a different direction, Galinov bleeding and stunned and Camilla shaking with fury. For a few seconds Camilla glared at Salander, her eyes full of hatred and something like madness. Then suddenly, as if wanting to be shot, she ran straight at her sister. But Salander did not fire at her—not this time either.
Instead she fell backwards and banged her head on the bricks close to the furnace. Galinov ran to her, took hold of her. A man lying further away lumbered to his feet. Once again, it looked to be the end for them.
CHAPTER 34
August 28
“I was growing more and more desperate at the time, and it wasn’t just fear,” Forsell said. “It was also the self-contempt. Lindberg was not only threatening me. He also managed to distort my whole perception of myself. The accusations he claimed to have against me seeped into my veins, and I started to feel like someone who doesn’t deserve to live. I mentioned all the hate in the media a little while ago. I never paid much attention to it. But after the exchange with Lindberg in his car, everything that had been said seemed true and real, as if in fact it were a part of me, and I couldn’t handle it anymore. I just lay in bed on Sandön, paralyzed.”
“And yet I heard you yelling into the telephone,” Rebecka said. “You still seemed prepared to fight.”
“That’s true, I did want to fight. I had rung Janek here, and told him, and often I had the telephone in my hand and was on the point of calling the prime minister and the head of police. I was getting ready to take some sort of action. At least that’s what I’d like to believe. And it must have worried Lindberg when I took time off. He came out to Sandön. Looking back on it, I wonder if he didn’t do that just to keep an eye on me.”
“Why do you say that?” Lindås said.
“Because one morning, when Becka had gone shopping, he turned up unannounced and we stood on the beach and talked. That’s when he showed me the dossier. It was all fake, but it was quite uncanny how well it had been put together, with pictures of women who’d been beaten black and blue and witness statements, copies of reports to the police and supporting evidence, certificates which looked like proper scientific or technical proof. It was a comprehensive set of documents, clearly the work of professionals, and I realized at once that enough people would be taken in by it for long enough to cause irreparable damage. I remember walking back into the house and looking around. Every object in there—every kitchen knife, the upstairs windows, the electric sockets—had turned into something with which to injure myself. At that moment, I wanted only to die.”
“Not quite, I don’t think, Johannes,” Kowalski said. “You still had some fight left in you. You called me again and told me everything.”