"Shit," Clinton said. He bowed his head and thought intently for several minutes. Finally he looked up.
"Jonas, drive up to Morgongåva this evening and find out if anything is going on. If they're printing Millennium, I want a copy."
"I'll take Falun with me."
"Good. Georg, I want you to see Ekstrom this afternoon and take his pulse. Everything has gone smoothly until now, but I can't ignore what you two are telling me."
Clinton sat in silence for a moment more.
"The best thing would be if there wasn't any trial..." he said at last.
He raised his eyes and looked at Nystrom. Nystrom nodded. Sandberg nodded.
"Nystrom, can you investigate our options?"
Sandberg and the locksmith known as Falun parked a short distance from the railway tracks and walked through Morgongåva. It was 8.30 in the evening. It was too light and too early to do anything, but they wanted to reconnoitre and get a look at the place.
"If the building is alarmed, I'm not doing it," Falun said. "It would be better to have a look through the window. If there's anything lying around, you can just chuck a rock through, jump in, grab what you need and run like hell."
"That'll work," Sandberg said.
"If you only need one copy of the magazine, we can check the dustbins round the back. There must be overruns and test printings and things like that."
Hallvigs Reklam printing factory was in a low, brick building. They approached from the south on the other side of the street. Sandberg was about to cross when Falun took hold of his elbow.
"Keep going straight," he said.
"What?"
"Keep going straight, as if we're out for an evening stroll."
They passed Hallvigs and made a tour of the neighbourhood.
"What was all that about?" Sandberg said.
"You've got to keep your eyes peeled. The place isn't just alarmed. There was a car parked alongside the building."
"You mean somebody's there?"
"It was a car from Milton Security. The factory is under surveillance, for Christ's sake."
"Milton Security?" Clinton felt the shock hit him in the gut.
"If it hadn't been for Falun, I would have walked right into their arms," Sandberg said.
"There's something fishy going on," Nystrom said. "There is no rationale for a small out-of-town printer to hire Milton Security for 24-hour surveillance."
Clinton's lips were pressed tight. It was after 11.00 and he needed to rest.
"And that means Millennium really is up to something," Sandberg said.
"I can see that," Clinton said. "O.K. Let's analyse the situation. What's the worst-case scenario? What could they know?" He gave Nystrom an urgent look.
"It has to be the Salander report," he said. "They beefed up their security after we lifted the copies. They must have guessed that they're under surveillance. The worst case is that they still have a copy of the report."
"But Blomkvist was at his wits' end when it went missing."
"I know. But we may have been duped. We can't shut our eyes to that possibility."
"We'll work on that assumption," Clinton said. "Sandberg?"
"We do know what Salander's defence will be. She's going to tell the truth as she sees it. I've read this autobiography of hers. In fact it plays right into our hands. It's full of such outrageous accusations of rape and violation of her civil rights that it will come across as the ravings of a paranoid personality."
Nystrom said: "Besides, she can't prove a single one of her claims. Ekstrom will use the account against her. He'll annihilate her credibility."
"O.K. Teleborian's new report is excellent. There is, of course, the possibility that Giannini will call in her own expert who'll say that Salander isn't crazy, and the whole thing will end up before the medical board. But again - unless Salander changes tactics, she's going to refuse to talk to them too, and then they'll conclude that Teleborian is right. She's her own worst enemy."
"The best thing would still be if there was no trial," Clinton said.
Nystrom shook his head. "That's virtually impossible. She's in Kronoberg prison and she has no contact with other prisoners. She gets an hour's exercise each day in the little area on the roof, but we can't get to her up there. And we have no contacts among the prison staff."
"There may still be time."
"If we'd wanted to dispose of her, we should have done it when she was at Sahlgrenska. The likelihood that a hit man would do time is almost 100 per cent. And where would we find a gun who'd agree to that? And