“We’ll probably end up having to kill them both.”
“That might be the least of it.”
August was not feeling well. That was obvious. Red patches flared on his throat and he was clenching his fists. Salander, sitting next to him at the round table, working on her R.S.A. encryption, was afraid he was on the verge of some sort of fit. But August only picked up a crayon, a black one.
At the same moment a gust of wind shook the large windowpanes in front of them. August hesitated and moved his hand back and forth across the table. But then he started to draw, a line here and a line there, followed by some small circles, buttons, Salander thought, then a hand, details of a chin, an unbuttoned shirt front. It began to go more quickly and the tension in the boy’s back and shoulders subsided — as if a wound had burst open and begun to heal.
There was a searing, tortured look in his eyes, and every now and then he shivered. But there was no doubt that something within him had eased. He picked up some new crayons and started to draw an oak-coloured floor, on which appeared pieces of a puzzle that seemed to represent a glittering town at night-time. It was clear even from the unfinished drawing that it would be anything but a pleasant one.
The hand and the unbuttoned shirt front became part of a large man with a protruding belly. He was standing, bent like a jackknife, beating a small person on the floor, a person who was not in the drawing for the simple reason that he was observing the scene, and on the receiving end of the blows.
It was an ugly scene, no doubt about that. But even though the picture revealed an assailant, it did not seem to have anything to do with the murder. Right in the middle, at the epicentre of the drawing, a furious, sweaty face appeared, every foul and bitter furrow captured with precision. Salander recognized it. She rarely watched T.V. or went to the cinema, but she knew it was the face of the actor Lasse Westman, the partner of August’s mother. She leaned forward to the boy and said, with a holy, quivering rage:
“We’ll never let him do that to you again. Never.”
Chapter 21
Alona Casales knew at once that something was wrong when she saw Commander Ingram’s lanky figure approach Needham’s desk. You could tell from his hesitant manner that the news was not good.
Ingram usually had a malicious grin on his face when he stuck a knife in someone’s back, but with Needham it was different. Even the most senior bosses were scared of Needham — he would raise all hell if anyone tried to mess with him. Ingram did not like scenes, still less humiliation, and that was what awaited him if he picked a fight with Needham.
While Needham was brash and explosive, Ingram was a refined upper-class boy with spindly legs and an affected manner. Ingram was a serious power player and had influence where it mattered, be it in Washington or in the world of business. As a member of the N.S.A. management, he ranked just below Admiral Charles O’Connor. He might be quick to smile and adept at handing out compliments, but his smile never reached his eyes.
He had leverage over people and was in charge, among other things, of “monitoring strategic technologies” — more cynically known as industrial espionage, that part of the N.S.A. which gives the American tech industry a helping hand in global competition. He was feared as few others were.
But now as he stood in front of Needham in his fancy suit, his body seemed to shrink. Even from thirty metres away, Casales knew exactly what was about to happen: Needham was on the brink of exploding. His pale, exhausted face was going red. Without waiting he got to his feet, his back crooked and bent, his belly sticking out, and he roared in a furious voice, “You sleazy bastard!”
No-one but Needham could call Jonny Ingram a “sleazy bastard”, and Casales loved him for it.
August started on a new drawing.
He sketched a few lines. He was pressing so hard on the paper that the black crayon broke and, just like the last time, he drew rapidly, one detail here and another one there, disparate bits which ultimately came together and formed a whole. It was the same room, but there was a different puzzle on the floor, easier to make out: it represented a red sports car racing by a sea of shouting spectators in a stand. Above the puzzle not one but two men could be seen standing.
One of them was Westman again. This time he was wearing a T-shirt and shorts and he had bloodshot, squinting eyes. He looked unsteady and drunk, but no less furious. He was drooling. Yet he was not the more frightening figure in the drawing. That was the other man, whose watery eyes shone with pure sadism. He too was unshaven and drunk, and he had thin, almost non-existent lips. He seemed to be kicking August, although again the boy could not be seen in the picture, his very absence making him extremely present.
“Who’s the other one?” Salander said.
August said nothing. But his shoulders shook, and his legs twisted into a knot under the table.
“Who’s the other one?” Salander said again, in a more forceful tone, and August wrote on the drawing in a shaky, childish hand:
Roger — the name meant nothing to Salander.
A couple of hours later in Fort Meade, once his hacker boys had cleaned up after themselves and shuffled off, Needham walked over to Casales. The odd thing was, he no longer looked at all angry or upset. He was radiant with defiance and carrying a notebook. One of his braces had slipped off his shoulder.
“Hey, bud,” she said. “Tell me, what’s going on?”
“I got some vacation time,” he said. “I’m off to Stockholm.”
“Of all places. Isn’t it cold this time of year?”
“Freezing, by all accounts.”
“So you’re not really going there on vacation.”
“Strictly between us?”
“Go on.”
“Ingram ordered us to halt our investigation. The hacker goes free, and we’re supposed to be satisfied with stopping up a few leaks. Then the whole thing gets swept under the carpet.”
“How the hell can he lay down something like that?”
“They don’t want to awaken any sleeping dogs, he says, and run the risk of anyone finding out about the attack. It would be devastating if it ever got out. Just think of all the malicious glee, and all the people whose heads would roll, starting with yours truly.”
“He threatened you?”
“Did he ever! Went on about how I would be humiliated publicly, even sued.”
“You don’t seem worried.”
“I’m going to break him.”
“How? Our glamour boy has powerful connections everywhere, you know that.”
“I have a few of my own. Besides, Ingram isn’t the only one with dirt on people. That damn hacker was gracious enough to link and match our computer files and show us some of our own dirty laundry.”
“That’s a bit ironic, isn’t it?”
“It takes a crook to know one. At first the data didn’t look all that spectacular, not compared to the other stuff we’re doing. But when we started to get into it...”
“Yes?”
“It turned out to be dynamite.”
“In what way?”
“Ingram’s closest colleagues not only collect trade secrets to help our own major companies. Sometimes they also sell the information for a lot of money. And that money, Alona, doesn’t always find its way into the coffers of the organization...”
“But into their own pockets.”
“Exactly. I already have enough evidence on that to put two of our top industrial-espionage executives behind bars.”