fake passport, obviously, and with no contact with the embassy."
Blomkvist nodded as he wrote. Against his will he was starting to get interested.
"In 1967 he was moved to London. There he organized the execution of a defected KGB agent. Over the next ten years he became one of the GRU's top agents. He belonged to the real elite of devoted political soldiers. He speaks six languages fluently. He's worked as a journalist, a photographer, in advertising, as a sailor - you name it. He's a survival artist, an expert in disguise and deception. He commanded his own agents and organized or carried out his own operations. Several of these operations were contracts for hits, and a large number of them took place in the third world, but he was also involved in extortion, intimidation, and all kinds of other assignments that his superiors needed him to perform. In 1969 he was promoted to captain, in 1972 to major, and in 1975 to lieutenant colonel."
"Why did he come to Sweden?"
"I'm getting to that. Over the years he became corrupt, and he squirrelled away a little money here and there. He drank too much and did too much womanizing. All this was noted by his superiors, but he was still a favourite and they could overlook the small stuff. In 1976 he was sent to Spain on a mission. We don't need to go into the details, but he made a fool of himself. The mission failed and all of a sudden he was in disgrace and called back to Russia. He chose to ignore the order and thereby ended up in an even worse situation. The GRU ordered a military attache at the embassy in Madrid to find him and talk some sense into him. Something went wrong, and Zalachenko killed the man. Now he had no choice. He had burned his bridges and rashly decided to defect. He laid a trail that seemed to lead from Spain to Portugal and possibly to a boating accident. He also left clues indicating he intended to flee to the United States. He chose in fact to defect to the most improbable country in Europe. He came to Sweden, where he contacted the Security Police, Sapo, and sought asylum. This was well thought out, because the probability that a death squad from the KGB or the GRU would look for him here was almost zero."
Bjorck fell silent.
"And?"
"What's the government supposed to do if one of the Soviet Union's top spies defects and seeks asylum in Sweden? A conservative government was coming into power. As a matter of fact, it was one of the very first matters we had to take to the newly appointed foreign minister. Those political cowards tried to get rid of him like a hot potato, of course, but they couldn't just send him back to the Soviets - that would have been a scandal of unmatched proportions if it ever came out. Instead they tried to send him to the States or to England. Zalachenko refused. He didn't like America and he knew that England was one of those countries where the Soviets had agents at the highest levels within military intelligence. He didn't want to go to Israel, because he didn't like Jews. So he decided to make his home in Sweden."
The whole thing sounded so improbable that it occurred to Blomkvist that Bjorck might be pulling his leg.
"So he stayed in Sweden?"
"Exactly. For many years it was one of the country's best-kept military secrets. The thing was, we got plenty of good information out of Zalachenko. For a time during the late seventies and early eighties, he was the jewel in the crown among defectors, the most senior from one of the GRU's elite commands."
"So he could sell information?"
"Precisely. He played his cards well and doled out information when it suited him best. We were able to identify an agent at NATO headquarters in Brussels. An agent in Rome. A contact for a whole ring of spies in Berlin. The identity of hit men he'd used in Ankara and Athens. He didn't know that much about Sweden, but the information he did have we could pass on in return for favours. He was a gold mine."
"So you started cooperating with him."
"We gave him a new identity, a passport, a little money, and he took care of himself. That was what he was trained to do."
Blomkvist sat for a while in silence, digesting this information. Then he looked up