The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest Page 0,71

instinctively made the right decisions. It was a pleasant feeling to know that her reactions were up to an emergency.

After a while she took her Filofax from her briefcase and opened it to the notes section. She read through it carefully. She was filled with doubt about the plan that her brother had outlined to her. It had sounded logical at the time, but it did not look so good now. Even so, she did not intend to back out.

At 6.00 she paid her bill and walked to Lillian's place on Olivedalsgatan. She punched in the door code her friend had given her. She stepped into the stairwell and was looking for a light switch when the attack came out of the blue. She was slammed up against a tiled wall next to the door. She banged her head hard, felt a rush of pain and fell to the ground.

The next moment she heard footsteps moving swiftly away and then the front door opening and closing. She struggled to her feet and put her hand to her forehead. There was blood on her palm. What the hell? She went out on to the street and just caught a glimpse of someone turning the corner towards Sveaplan. In shock she stood still for about a minute. Then she walked back to the door and punched in the code again.

Suddenly she realized that her briefcase was gone. She had been robbed. It took a few seconds before the horror of it sank in. Oh no. The Zalachenko folder. She felt the alarm spreading up from her diaphragm.

Slowly she sat down on the staircase.

Then she jumped up and dug into her jacket pocket. The Filofax. Thank God. Leaving the restaurant she had stuffed it into her pocket instead of putting it back in her briefcase. It contained the draft of her strategy in the Salander case, point by detailed point.

Then she stumbled up the stairs to the fifth floor and pounded on her friend's door.

Half an hour had passed before she had recovered enough to call her brother. She had a black eye and a gash above her eyebrow that was still bleeding. Lillian had cleaned it with alcohol and put a bandage on it. No, she did not want to go to hospital. Yes, she would like a cup of tea. Only then did she begin to think rationally again. The first thing she did was to call Blomkvist.

He was still at Millennium, where he was searching for information about Zalachenko's murderer with Cortez and Eriksson. He listened with increasing dismay to Giannini's account of what had happened.

"No bones broken?" he said.

"Black eye. I'll be O.K. after I've had a chance to calm down."

"Did you disturb a robbery, was that it?"

"Mikael, my briefcase was stolen, with the Zalachenko report you gave me."

"Not a problem. I can make another copy - "

He broke off as he felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. First Zalachenko. Now Annika.

He closed his iBook, stuffed it into his shoulder bag and left the office without a word, moving fast. He jogged home to Bellmansgatan and up the stairs.

The door was locked.

As soon as he entered the apartment he saw that the folder he had left on the kitchen table was gone. He did not even bother to look for it. He knew exactly where it had been. He sank on to a chair at the kitchen table as thoughts whirled through his head.

Someone had been in his apartment. Someone who was trying to cover Zalachenko's tracks.

His own copy and his sister's copy were gone.

Bublanski still had the report.

Or did he?

Blomkvist got up and went to the telephone, but stopped with his hand on the receiver. Someone had been in his apartment. He looked at his telephone with the utmost suspicion and took out his mobile.

But how easy is it to eavesdrop on a mobile conversation?

He slowly put the mobile down next to his landline and looked around.

I'm dealing with pros here, obviously. People who could bug an apartment as easily as get into one without breaking a lock.

He sat down again.

He looked at his laptop case.

How hard is it to hack into my email? Salander can do it in five minutes.

He thought for a long time before he went back to the landline and called his sister. He chose his words with care.

"How are you doing?"

"I'm fine, Micke."

"Tell me what happened from the moment you arrived at Sahlgrenska until you were attacked."

It took