The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest Page 0,267

heard footsteps behind him and turned just in time to block a blow from the crowbar with his shoulder. He lost his grip on the knife.

Salander dropped the crowbar just as she had delivered the blow. She did not have time to pick up the knife, but kicked it away from him along the pallets, dodging a backhand blow from his huge fist and retreating back up on to the packing crates on the other side of the aisle. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Niedermann reach for her. Quick as lightning she pulled up her feet. The crates stood in two rows, stacked up three high next to the centre aisle and two high along the outside. She swung down on to the two crates and braced herself, using all the strength in her legs and pushing her back against the crate next to her. It must have weighed two hundred kilos. She felt it begin to move and then tumble down towards the centre aisle.

Niedermann saw the crate coming and threw himself to one side. A corner of the crate struck him on the chest, but he seemed not to have been injured. He picked himself up. She was resisting. He started climbing up after her. His head was just appearing over the third crate when she kicked at him. Her boot struck him with full force in the forehead. He grunted and heaved himself up on top of the packing crates. Salander fled, leaping back to the crates on the other side of the aisle. She dropped over the edge and vanished immediately from his sight. He could hear her footsteps and caught a glimpse of her as she passed through the doorway to the inner workshop.

Salander took an appraising look around. Click. She knew that she did not have a chance. She could survive for as long as she could avoid Niedermann's enormous fists and keep her distance. But when she made a mistake - which would happen sooner or later - she was dead. She had to evade him. He would only have to grab hold of her once, and the fight would be over.

She needed a weapon.

A pistol. A sub-machine gun. A rocket-propelled grenade. A personnel mine.

Any bloody thing at all.

But there was nothing like that to hand.

She looked everywhere.

No weapons.

Only tools. Click. Her eyes fell on the circular saw, but he was hardly going to lie down on the saw bench. Click. Click. She saw an iron rod that could be used as a spear, but it was probably too heavy for her to handle effectively. Click. She glanced through the door and saw that Niedermann was down from the crates and no more than fifteen metres away. He was coming towards her again. She started to move away from the door. She had maybe five seconds left before Niedermann was upon her. She glanced one last time at the tools.

A weapon... or a hiding place.

Niedermann was in no hurry. He knew that there was no way out and that sooner or later he would catch his sister. But she was dangerous, no doubt about it. She was, after all, Zalachenko's daughter. And he did not want to be injured. It was better to let her run around and wear herself out.

He stopped in the doorway to the inner room and looked around at the jumble of tools, furniture and half-finished floorboards. She was nowhere to be seen.

"I know you're in here. And I'm going to find you."

Niedermann stood still and listened. All he could hear was his own breathing. She was hiding. He smiled. She was challenging him. Her visit had suddenly turned into a game between brother and sister.

Then he heard a clumsy rustling noise from somewhere in the centre of the room. He turned his head but at first could not tell where the sound was coming from. Then he smiled again. In the middle of the floor set slightly apart from the other debris stood a five-metre-long wooden workbench with a row of drawers and sliding cabinet doors beneath it.

He approached the workbench from the side and glanced behind it to make sure that she was not trying to fool him. Nothing there.

She was hiding inside the cabinet. So stupid.

He slid open the first door on the far left.

He instantly heard movement inside the cabinet, from the middle section. He took two quick steps and opened the middle door with a triumphant