The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest Page 0,187

chairman of the board Magnus Borgsjo, assistant editor Fredriksson, front-page editor Magnusson, and culture editor Sebastian Strandlund.

Had they never heard of women at S.M.P.? All the heads of department were men.

Of these, the one that Berger had least to do with was Strandlund. She had exchanged only two emails with the culture editor. The friendliest and most engaging messages came from front-page editor Gunnar Magnusson. Borgsjo's were terse and to the point.

Why the hell had this group of boys hired Berger at all, if all they did was tear her limb from limb?

The colleague Berger seemed to have the most to do with was Fredriksson. His role was to act as a kind of shadow, to sit in on her meetings as an observer. He prepared memos, briefed Berger on various articles and issues, and got the jobs moving.

He emailed Berger a dozen times a day.

Salander sorted all of Fredriksson's emails to Berger and read them through. In a number of instances he had objected to some decision Berger had made and presented counter-proposals. Berger seemed to have confidence in him since she would then often change her decision or accept his argument. He was never hostile. But there was not a hint of any personal relationship to her.

Salander closed Berger's email and thought for a moment.

She opened Fredriksson's account.

Plague had been fooling around with the home computers of various employees of S.M.P. all evening without much success. He had managed to get into Holm's machine because it had an open line to his desk at work; any time of the day or night he could go in and access whatever he was working on. Holm's P.C. was one of the most boring Plague had ever hacked. He had no luck with the other eighteen names on Salander's list. One reason was that none of the people he tried to hack was online on a Saturday night. He was beginning to tire of this impossible task when Salander pinged him at 10.30.

- What is it?

- Peter Fredriksson.

- Ok.

- Go for others. Focus on them.

- Why?

- A feeling.

- That's going to take time.

- There is a shortcut: Fredriksson is assistant editor, he uses the Integrator - a program that helps to control S.M.P. intranet from home.

- I don't know a thing about Integrator.

- A small program that appeared a few years ago. It is now completely outdated. Integrator has a bug. There is Hacker Rep. file that can theoretically reverse the program and allow to enter home PC from work.

Plague sighed. This girl who had once been his student now had a better handle on things than he did.

- Okay. I'll try.

- If you find something, contact Mikael Blomkvist if I am no longer connected.

Blomkvist was back at Salander's apartment on Mosebacke just before midnight. He was tired. He took a shower and put on some coffee, and then he booted up Salander's computer and pinged her I.C.Q.

- About time.

- Sorry.

- Where have you been all this time?

- In a bed with a secret agent. And hunting Jonas.

- Didn't miss the meeting?

- No. It was you, who called Erika?

- It was the only way to contact you.

- Very clever.

- Tomorrow I'll be put in jail.

- I know.

- Plague will help you with the network.

- Great.

- Then there's nothing but the end.

Mikael nodded to himself.

- Sally... Let's do what we have to do.

- I know. You are very predictable.

- And you're a charm, as always.

- Is there anything else I should know?

- No.

- In that case, I still have some work on the net.

- Okay. Have a good time.

Linder woke with a start when her earpiece beeped. Someone had just tripped the motion detector she had placed in the hall on the ground floor. She propped herself up on her elbow. It was 5.23 on Sunday morning. She slipped silently out of bed and pulled on her jeans, a T-shirt and trainers. She stuffed the Mace in her back pocket and picked up her spring-loaded baton.

She passed the door to Berger's bedroom without a sound, noticing that it was closed and therefore locked.

She stopped at the