The Girl Who Played with Fire

She was, as always, astonished that a security company had such basic lapses in its own operations.

Not much had changed on the third floor in the year that had passed. She began by visiting her old office, a cubicle behind a glass wall in the corridor where Armansky had installed her. The door was unlocked. Absolutely nothing had changed, except that someone had set a cardboard box of wastepaper inside the door: the desk, the office chair, the wastepaper basket, one (empty) bookshelf, and an obsolete Dell PC with a pitifully small hard drive.

Salander could see nothing to suggest that Armansky had turned the room over to anyone else. She took this to be a good sign, but she knew that it did not mean much. It was space that could hardly be put to any sensible use.

Salander closed the door and strolled the length of the corridor, making sure that there was no night owl in any of the offices. She stopped at the coffee machine and pressed the button for a cup of cappuccino, then opened the door to Armansky's office with her pirated card key.

His office was, as always, irritatingly tidy. She made a brisk tour of inspection and studied the bookshelf before sitting down at his desk and switching on his computer.

She fished out a CD from the inside pocket of her jacket and pushed it into the hard drive, then started a programme called Asphyxia 1.3. She had written it herself, and its only function was to upgrade Internet Explorer on Armansky's computer to a more modern version. The procedure took about five minutes.

When she was done, she ejected the CD and rebooted the computer with the new version of Internet Explorer. The programme looked and behaved exactly like the original version, but it was a tiny bit larger and a microsecond slower. All installations were identical to the original, including the install date. There would be no trace of the new file.

She typed in an FTP address for a server in Holland and got a command screen. She clicked copy, wrote the name Armansky/MiltSec and clicked OK. The computer instantly began copying Armansky's hard drive to the server in Holland. A clock indicated that the process would take thirty-four minutes.

While the transfer was in progress, she took the spare key to Armansky's desk from a pot on the bookshelf and spent the next half hour bringing herself up to date on the files Armansky kept in his top right-hand desk drawer: his crucial, current jobs. When the computer dinged as a sign that the transfer was complete, she put the files back in the order that she had found them.

Then she shut down the computer and switched off the desk lamp, taking the empty cappuccino cup with her. She left the Milton Security building the same way she had come. It was 4:12 a.m.

She walked home and sat down at her PowerBook and logged on to the server in Holland, where she started a copy of Asphyxia 1.3. A window opened asking for the name of the hard drive. She had forty different options and scrolled down. She passed the hard drive for NilsEBjurman, which she usually glanced through every other month. She paused for a second at MikBlom/laptop and MikBlom/Office. She had not clicked on those icons for more than a year, and she wondered vaguely whether to delete them. But she then decided as a matter of principle to hang on to them - since she had gone to the trouble of hacking into a computer it would be stupid to delete the information and maybe one day have to do the whole procedure all over again. The same was true for an icon called Wennerstrom which she had not opened in a long time. The man of that name was dead. The icon Armansky/MiltSec, the last one created, was at the bottom of the list.

She could have cloned his hard drive earlier, but she had never bothered to because she worked at Milton and could easily retrieve any information that Armansky wanted to keep hidden from the rest of the world. Her trespassing in his computer was not malicious: she just wanted to know what the company was working on, to see the lay of the land. She clicked and a folder immediately opened with a new icon called ArmanskyHD. She tried out whether she could access the hard drive and checked that all the files were in place.

She read through Armansky's reports, financial statements, and email until 7:00 a.m. Finally she crawled into bed and slept until 12:30 in the afternoon.

On the last Friday in January Millennium's annual board meeting took place in the presence of the company's bookkeeper, an outside auditor, and the four partners: Berger (30 percent), Blomkvist (20 percent), Malm (20 percent), and Harriet Vanger (30 percent). Eriksson was there as the representative of the staff and the staff committee, and the chair of the union at the magazine. The union consisted of Eriksson, Lotta Karim, Cortez, Nilsson, and marketing chief Sonny Magnusson. It was Eriksson's first board meeting.

The meeting began at 4:00 and lasted an hour. Much of the time was spent on the financials and the audit report. Clearly Millennium was on a solid footing, very different from the crisis in which the company had been mired two years earlier. The auditors reported a profit of 2.1 million kronor, of which roughly 1 million was down to Blomkvist's book about the Wennerstrom affair.

Berger proposed, and it was agreed, that 1 million be set aside as a fund against future crises; that 250,000 kronor be reserved for capital investments, such as new computers and other equipment, and repairs at the editorial offices; and that 300,000 kronor be earmarked for salary increases and to allow them to offer Cortez a full-time contract. Of the balance, a dividend of 50,000 kronor was proposed for each partner, and 100,000 kronor to be divided equally among the four employees regardless of whether they worked full- or part-time. Magnusson was to receive no bonus. His contract gave him a commission on the ads he sold, and periodically these made him the highest paid of all the staff. These proposals were adopted unanimously.

Blomkvist proposed that the freelance budget be reduced in favour of an additional part-time reporter. Blomkvist had Svensson in mind; he would then be able to use Millennium as a base for his freelance writing and later, if it all worked out, be hired full-time. The proposal met with resistance from Berger on the grounds that the magazine could not thrive without access to a large number of freelance articles. She was supported by Harriet Vanger; Malm abstained. It was decided that the freelance budget would not be touched, but it would be investigated whether adjustments of other expenses might be made. Everyone wanted Svensson on the staff, at the very least as a part-time contributor.

There followed a brief discussion about future direction and development plans; Berger was reelected as chair of the board for the coming year; and then the meeting was adjourned.

Eriksson had said not a word. She was content at the prospect that she and her colleagues would get a bonus of 25,000 kronor, more than a month's salary.

At the close of the board meeting, Berger called for a partners' meeting. Berger, Blomkvist, Malm, and Harriet Vanger remained while the others left the conference room. Berger declared the meeting open. "There is only one item on the agenda," she said. "Harriet, according to the agreement we made with Henrik, his part ownership was to last for two years. The agreement is about to expire. We have to decide what is going to happen with your - or rather, Henrik's - interest in Millennium."

"We all know that my uncle's investment was an impulsive gesture triggered by a most unusual situation," Harriet said. "That situation no longer exists. What do you propose?"

Malm squirmed with annoyance. He was the only one in the room who did not know what that "unusual situation" was. Blomkvist and Berger had to keep the story from him. Berger had told him only that it was a matter so personal involving Blomkvist that he would never under any circumstances discuss it. Malm was smart enough to realize that Blomkvist's silence had something to do with Hedestad and Harriet Vanger. He also knew that he didn't need all the details to be able to make a decision, and he had enough respect for Blomkvist not to make an issue of it.

"The three of us have discussed the matter and we have arrived at a decision," Berger said. She looked Harriet in the eye. "But before we explain our reasoning we would like to know what you think."

Harriet Vanger glanced at them in turn. Her gaze lingered on Blomkvist, but she could not read anything from their expressions.

"If you want to buy the family out it will cost around three million kronor plus interest. Can you afford to buy us out?" she asked mildly.

"Yes, we can," Blomkvist said with a smile.

He had been paid five million kronor by Henrik Vanger for the work he had done for the old industrial tycoon. Part of that work, ironically, had been to find out what had happened to Harriet, his niece.

"In that case, the decision is in your hands," Harriet said. "The agreement stipulates that you can cancel the Vanger shareholding as of today. I would never have written a contract as sloppy as the one Henrik signed."

"We can buy you out if we have to," Berger said. "But the real question is what you want to do. You're the CEO of a substantial industrial concern - two concerns, actually. Our annual budget might correspond to what you turn over during a coffee break. Why would you give your time to a business as marginal as Millennium?"

Harriet Vanger looked calmly at the chair of the board, saying nothing for a long moment. Then she turned to Blomkvist and replied:

"I've been the owner of something or other since the day I was born. And I spend my days running a corporation that has more intrigues than a four-hundred-page romance novel. When I first joined your board it was to fulfil obligations that I could not neglect. But you know what? During the past eighteen months I've realized that I'm having more fun on this board than on all the others put together."

Blomkvist absorbed this thoughtfully. Vanger now turned to Malm.

"The problems you face at Millennium are small and manageable. Naturally the company wants to operate at a profit - that's a given. But all of you have another goal - you want to achieve something."

She took a sip from her glass of water and fixed her eyes on Berger.

"Exactly what that something is remains a bit unclear to me. The objective is hazy. You aren't a political party or a special-interest group. You have no loyalties to consider except your own. But you pinpoint flaws in society, and you don't mind entering into battles with public figures. Often you want to change things and make a real difference. You all pretend to be cynics and nihilists, but it's your own morality that steers the magazine, and several times I've noticed that it's quite a special sort of morality. I don't know what to call it, except to say that Millennium has a soul. This is the only board I'm proud to be a part of."

She fell silent for so long that Berger had to laugh.

"That sounds good. But you still haven't answered the question."

"This has been some of the wackiest, most absurd stuff I've ever been involved with, but I enjoy your company and I've had a great time. If you want me to stay on I gladly will."

"OK," Malm said. "We've been back and forth and we're all agreed. We'll buy you out."

Vanger's eyes widened. "You want to get rid of me?"

"When we signed the contract we had our heads on the block waiting for the axe. We had no choice. From the start we were counting the days until we could buy out your uncle."

Berger opened a file, laid some papers on the table, and pushed them over to Vanger, together with a cheque for exactly the sum due. Vanger read through the papers and without a word she signed them.

"All right, then," Berger said. "That was fairly painless. I want to put on record our gratitude to Henrik Vanger for all he did for Millennium. I hope you will convey this to him."

"I will," Harriet Vanger said in a neutral tone, betraying nothing of what she felt. She was both hurt and deeply disappointed that they had let her say that she wanted to stay and then had simply kicked her out.

"And now let me see if I can interest you in a completely different contract," Berger said.

She took out another set of papers and slid them across the table.

"We were wondering if you personally had any interest in being a partner at Millennium. The price would be the same as the sum you've just received. The agreement has no time limits or exception clauses. You would be a full partner with the same responsibilities as the rest of us."

Vanger raised her eyebrows. "Why this roundabout process?"

"It had to be done sooner or later," Malm said. "We could have renewed the old agreement a year at a time or until the board had an argument and put you out. But it was always a contract that would have to be dissolved."

Harriet leaned on her elbow and gave him a searching glance. She looked at Blomkvist and then at Berger.

"We signed our agreement with Henrik when we were in financial straits," Berger said. "We're offering you this agreement because we want to. And unlike the old one, it won't let us boot you out so easily in the future."

"That's a very big difference for us," Blomkvist said in a low voice, and that was his only contribution to the discussion.

"The fact is that we believe you add something to Millennium besides the financial underpinning implied by the name of Vanger," Berger said.

"You're smart and sensible and you come up with constructive solutions. Until now you've kept a low profile, almost like a guest visiting us once a quarter, but you represent for this board a stability and direction that we've never had before. You know business. Once you asked if you could trust me, and I wondered the same thing about you. By now we both know the answer. I like you and I trust you - we all do. We don't want you to be a part of us by way of some complicated legal mumbo jumbo. We want you as a partner and a real shareholder."

Harriet reached for the contract and spent five minutes reading through it. Finally she looked up.

"And all three of you are agreed?" she said.