The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest Page 0,28

Then the manhunt would at least ease up a bit.

"So what did you do with him?"

"Benny's taking care of him. He took him out to Viktor's."

Viktor Goransson was the club's treasurer and financial expert, who lived just outside Jarna. He was trained in accounting and had begun his career as financial adviser to a Yugoslav who owned a string of bars, until the whole gang ended up in the slammer for fraud. He had met Lundin at Kumla prison in the early nineties. He was the only member of Svavelsjo M.C. who normally wore a jacket and tie.

"Waltari, get in your car and meet me in Sodertalje. I'll be outside the train station in forty-five minutes."

"Alright. But what's the rush?"

"I have to get a handle on the situation. Do you want me to take the bus?"

Waltari sneaked a look at Nieminen sitting quiet as a mouse as they drove out to Svavelsjo. Unlike Lundin, Nieminen was never very easy to deal with. He had the face of a model and looked weak, but he had a short fuse and was a dangerous man, especially when he had been drinking. Just then he was sober, but Waltari felt uneasy about having Nieminen as their leader in the future. Lundin had somehow always managed to keep Nieminen in line. He wondered how things would unfold now with Lundin out of the way.

At the clubhouse, Benny was nowhere to be seen. Nieminen called him twice on his mobile, but got no answer.

They drove to Nieminen's place, about half a mile further down the road. The police had carried out a search, but they had evidently found nothing of value to the Nykvarn investigation. Which was why Nieminen had been released.

He took a shower and changed his clothes while Waltari waited patiently in the kitchen. Then they walked about a hundred and fifty metres into the woods behind Nieminen's property and scraped away the thin layer of soil that concealed a chest containing six handguns, including an AK5, a stack of ammunition, and around two kilos of explosives. This was Nieminen's arms cache. Two of the guns were Polish P-83 Wanads. They came from the same batch as the weapon that Salander had taken from him at Stallarholmen.

Nieminen drove away all thought of Salander. It was an unpleasant subject. In the cell at Sodertalje police station he had played the scene over and over in his head: how he and Lundin had arrived at Advokat Bjurman's summer house and found Salander apparently just leaving.

Events had been rapid and unpredictable. He had ridden over there with Lundin to burn the damned summer cabin down. On the instructions of that goddamned blond monster. And then they had stumbled upon that bitch Salander - all alone, 1.5 metres tall, thin as a stick. Nieminen wondered how much she actually weighed. And then everything had gone to hell; had exploded in a brief orgy of violence neither of them was prepared for.

Objectively, he could describe the chain of events. Salander had a canister of Mace, which she sprayed in Lundin's face. Lundin should have been ready, but he wasn't. She kicked him twice, and you don't need a lot of muscle to fracture a jaw. She took him by surprise. That could be explained.

But then she took him too, Sonny Nieminen, a man who well-trained men would avoid getting into a fight with. She moved so fast. He hadn't been able to pull his gun. She had taken him out easily, as if brushing off a mosquito. It was humiliating. She had a taser. She had...

He could not remember a thing when he came to. Lundin had been shot in the foot and then the police showed up. After some palaver over jurisdiction between Strangnas and Sodertalje, he fetched up in the cells in Sodertalje. Plus she had stolen Magge's Harley. She had cut the badge out of his leather jacket - the very symbol that made people step aside in the queue at the bar, that gave him a status that was beyond most people's wildest dreams. She had humiliated him.

Nieminen was boiling over. He had kept his mouth shut through the entire series of police interrogations. He would never be able to tell anyone what had happened in Stallarholmen. Until that moment Salander had meant nothing to him. She was a little side project that Lundin was messing around with... again commissioned by that bloody Niedermann. Now he hated her with a