The Girl Who Lived Twice (Millennium #6) - David Lagercrantz Page 0,10

chose different sides in the war, and after that there was no chance of a reconciliation. Not after Agneta was beaten within an inch of her life on the kitchen floor and suffered irreversible brain damage, and Lisbeth threw a Molotov cocktail at Zalachenko and watched him burn in the front seat of his Mercedes. Ever since then it had been a matter of life and death. Since then, the past had been a bomb waiting to explode, and now, years later, as Salander slipped out of the doorway on Tverskoy Boulevard, those days at Lundagatan flashed by in a series of lightning sequences.

She was in the here and now. She had identified the gap through which she would shoot and knew exactly how she would escape afterwards. But those memories of the past were more present than she realized, and she moved slowly, slowly. It was only when Camilla stepped onto the red carpet in her high heels and black dress that Lisbeth began to move faster, although she was still in a crouch and didn’t make a sound.

Laughter and string music and clinking glasses poured through the open door of the restaurant, and all the time the rain fell. A police car drove through the puddles, and she stared at it and at the row of bodyguards, wondering when they would be alert to her again. Before she fired, or after? There was no way of knowing. But so far she was OK. It was dark and misty, and all eyes were on Camilla.

She was as radiant as ever, and Kuznetsov’s eyes shone like those of the boys in the school playground so many years ago. Camilla could bring life to a standstill. It was the power she had been born with, and Salander watched as her sister glided forward. She saw Kuznetsov straighten up, open his arms in a nervous but welcoming gesture, and she saw the guests crowding into the doorway to catch a glimpse. But at that exact moment a voice was heard from the street, one that Salander had been expecting: “Там, посмотритe”—“There, look.” A guard with a boxer’s nose and fair hair had spotted her, and then there was no room for hesitation.

She laid a hand on the Beretta in its holster and felt herself pitched into the same icy cold as when she threw the petrol-filled milk carton at her father. She had time to see Camilla freeze in fear as at least three bodyguards reached for their weapons. She would have to act now, with lightning speed and with no mercy.

Yet she was paralyzed, inexplicably. All she felt was a shadow from her childhood sweep over her once more, and she realized that not only had she missed her chance, she now stood defenceless before a rank of armed enemies. And there was no way out.

* * *

—

Camilla never saw the figure hesitate. There was only her own scream, and the sudden movement of heads and bodies and of weapons being drawn. She had no doubt it was too late, her chest would be ripped open by bullets at any moment. But no assault came and she had time to run towards the entrance and take shelter behind Kuznetsov. For a few seconds all she was aware of was her own heavy breathing and the agitated movements around her.

It was a while before she realized that not only had she escaped unscathed but the situation had now shifted to her advantage. It was no longer she who was in danger of her life. It was that dark figure over there, the one whose face she had not yet seen. The figure bent its head to check something on a mobile. It had to be Lisbeth. With a thirst for blood pounding in her throat, Camilla was desperate to see the figure suffer and die, and, calmer now, she surveyed the chaotic scene.

It looked better than she could have dreamed. While she herself was surrounded by bodyguards in bulletproof vests, Lisbeth stood alone on the pavement with a number of weapons pointed at her. It was fantastic, nothing less. Camilla wanted to prolong the moment, and she could see already that this was a moment she would come back to, over and over again. Lisbeth was finished, she would soon be destroyed, and in case anyone should even think to hesitate, Camilla screamed:

“Shoot! She wants to kill me,” and a second later she even thought she could hear the sound