January 1st – 5th The Girl Who Knew Too Much
Authors Note: I got nothing. Just review and you'll get chapter 3 all the more faster.
Disclaimer: No dinero is made in the production of this fanfiction.
January 1st - 3rd
Salander jogged down Svartensgatan, her new phone pressed against her ear as she repeatedly dialed Blomkvist. The smoke was beginning to fade to a brilliant white and the smell wasn't so acrid anymore. She didn't know how either of them had missed it when they were walking towards Fiskargatan earlier, but it didn't matter now. Mikael's apartment had just exploded and contrary to the media reports it was not the result of a natural gas explosion; the entire block had recently been upgraded and there was no active gas line anywhere nearby. Someone wanted Mikael dead, but they had gotten someone else instead.
When she finally accepted she would never get a hold of Mikael over the phone she did the next best thing.
It took three rings for Annika to pick up. "Yeah?"
"Have you heard from Mikael recently?" Wide-awake at the mention of her brother, Annika sat up in bed and looked over at her sleeping husband before quietly carrying the phone into the kitchen.
She whispered into the phone as she heard a bedroom door creak open. "Lisbeth? Where's Mikael?" Damn, it was just the dog. No nosy in-laws were up yet.
Salander shoved a drunk out of the way and followed Sankt Paulsgatan west onto Bellmansgatan. "That's what I'm asking." Three fire trucks took up the entire lane and she had to climb up and over cars to get anywhere near the building. The police had pulled up on the other side of the trucks, but no one had dared enter the smoldering building.
"What's happening Lisbeth? I can hear sirens on your end."
Salander scanned through the crowd of residents wrapped in blankets. No Blomkvist here. "Someone blew up his apartment. One person was found dead"
"Mikael?"
Salander didn't recognize any faces here. She sat on the hood of a car looking south on Bellmansgatan. No one would be able to walk down the street without being spotted by her. She thought about climbing onto the catwalk above, but she couldn't find any access point to get to it.
"No. Not unless Mikael can go back in time."
"Figuerola then. She was on her way to clean out his apartment. Do you think…?"
"It makes more sense than Mikael. Annika, write down this number and call me back if you get a hold of Mikael. I'm going to try his number again."
Annika was silent before sighing loudly into the phone. Everything was just going to hell today. "I should probably call Erika…"
"No. Keep quiet for now. Wait for Erika to call you. I want to find Blomkvist before anyone starts jumping to conclusions."
Annika did not miss the fact that Lisbeth had reverted to addressing her brother by his surname. Maybe it was because of Berger. Annika had always suspected there was more than awkward friendship between her brother and Salander, but neither of them had ever said anything directly supporting her theory. She chose to let the topic rest in peace in this instance.
The dog began scratching at the treat drawer that Annika was leaning against and with a firm slap on the nose was sent skittering across the hardwood floor into her seven-year-old daughter's room. Three beds seemed to creak at once and her mother in-law started to cough violently. Annika groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. "The family is up now, I've got to go. Keep me up to date on Mikael please."
"Count on it." Salander pressed the large 'end call' button with her gloved finger only to realize that the touchscreen responded to body heat. Damn. She was going to have to go find some thermal glue for all her gloves when she had the time.
She reached into her coat pocket for her lighter and cigarette case, lighting one as she watched the last of the flames being put out. The police seemed unsure of their role in all of this; by now everyone in Stockholm was under the impression that a gas explosion had caused the blast. When the chaos was over she would have to do her own poking around and come to her own conclusions.
As she sat in silent observation of the damage, one of the cops came up to her and ordered her to put out the cigarette immediately, citing a possible gas leak in the neighborhood. She had half the mind to tell him all of Stockholm's first responders were idiots, but that would be breaking her vow of silence regarding police. Instead, she jumped off the hood and walked further down the street, listening to the man mutter on about firebugs always coming to watch the show.
Salander sat on a decrepit mailbox for the next two hours, hardly moving a muscle. By four that morning she had given up that Blomkvist would be stopping by his apartment. She was dead tired but as she walked back towards Götgatan she had a brilliant idea.
Millennium.
She could have kicked herself for not thinking of it sooner. If Blomkvist wanted to hide somewhere where he would be relatively undisturbed, it would be Millennium.
She climbed over a wrought iron fence and cut across the Södra Gymnasium grounds. Another block east and she was climbing the stairs behind the Greenpeace office up to Millennium. The security code was foolishly the last four numbers of the magazine's phone number. She found Blomkvist standing in the center of the bullpen with his eyes glued to the TV screen.
"Monica's dead." He seemed to be talking to the screen. The media had gone into all out hype mode; She onTV4 was currently taking the initiative in mourning the tragic death of Mikael Blomkvist.
Salander sat on Malm's desk on the just to outside his line of sight. "I know."
"I figured you would." He turned around to face her. "Gas leak. Can you believe that nonsense?"
Suddenly she gave him a crooked smile that seemed entirely out of her control and highly inappropriate given the circumstances. Smart bastard,she thought.
Blomkvist flicked the TV off. "I was actually about to go talk to Bublanski right when you walked in. I don't suppose you want to come?" She shook her head vigorously. That would still be in violation of her First Rule.
He smiled ruefully. "Now I just have to call a taxi," he patted down all of his pockets thoroughly, looking at the area around him as he did so, "With a phone I left at home."
Salander stayed on Malm's desk as Blomkvist climbed the stairs to the loft he and Erika shared as an office space. She didn't bother follow him; she could see every move he made from her vantage point.
Up in the loft she could hear Blomkvist pat his back pockets, finding he was also short his wallet. When Salander heard a box crash to the floor, she called out, "I could drive you."
He head popped over the rail of the loft. "You're not serious?" She just stared at him. There were many things Salander didn't do; joking was one of them.
"Someone tried to kill you this morning. You shouldn't trust anyone until we have more information." Blomkvist did not press her suddenly charitable mood. Instead he followed her out the door and on the street, moving through narrow back alleys that Salander had memorized not long after moving to Fiskargatan. Her bike was parked in the underground garage and didn't want to start until the seventh kick. Just by luck she had found the spare helmet she had taken from Sonny Nieminen at Bjurman's cabin. It was a less than ideal fit for Blomkvist's square head, but it would have to do.
The entire ride was hair-raising to say the least for Salander. Blomkvist was an awful passenger. With every bump he would nearly send them into a wheelie and he wiggled fare too much for her to be able to concentrate on where they were going. By the time they had pulled up to Svensk Polis she had vowed to herself never to let anyone ride bitch on her bike ever again. Blomkvist promised to call when everything was said and done and Salander had promised to bring Mimmi's car for the return trip.
As Salander rode off, Blomkvist walked down the familiar sunken steps to the central police station. As the door opened he was taken aback by the chaos that was ensuing. Words like 'failure' and 'crash' were being thrown around by men hunched over computers. No one had seemed to notice him walk in except Sonja Modig. She stared at him good and long before flicking her eyes to a TV bolted to the wall displaying the early morning news. She motioned for him to follow her.
"All hell's broken loose here."
"You don't say."
Modig opened the door to the office she shared with Jan Bublanski and motioned him in. "The entire police server crashed shortly after about three this morning. Everyone suddenly got the blue screen of death and the techs have no clue what to make of it. It could be a virus, could be a hacker, could be Y2K coming eight years late for all we know."
Blomkvist cut to the chase. "Sonja, I don't think that the explosion at my apartment was caused by a gas leak."
"No of course not. No one on the entire block has had a gas hook up for the last five years." At this statement Blomkvist was shocked. In matters concerning the past few years he had always been two steps ahead of Stockholm's finest. To see that they had finally caught up to him, well, he was impressed.
Sonja continued thoughtfully, "No, we knew the minute the news helicopters flew over that it wasn't a natural gas explosion. Arson has been combing through the debris for the last two hours and have since found a cell phone-"
"-I had left mine on the counter."
She continued on, "They found a pre-paid cell phone registered with the Belgian carrier Proximus."
It took Blomkvist a moment to put the pieces together. "Someone planted an IED in my apartment?"
Modig looked at her PDA, skimming through the briefing Bublanski had sent her from Bellmansgatan. "It was an almost textbook example of a classic IED as a matter of fact. They found it just inside where your front door used to be, so we suspect that a package was shoved through your mail slot and was detonated by the phone's timer function. We'll know more once Arson's done more scavenging."
She tucked her PDA into a pocket as a knock came at the door. A moment later the hulking figure of Jan Bublanski passed through the door, a sour expression on his face.
"Hello Mikael." He didn't smile as he dropped a plastic evidence bag on the desk sat down at his desk, the computer still in blue screen mode. The chair croaked has he leaned his elbows onto the desk separating them. He waved a hand for Modig to leave.
When the door clicked shut, he addressed Blomkvist bluntly. "CP Officer Figuerola didn't report for graveyard duty last night. I need you to tell me if she was in your apartment this morning."
"Yes."
Bublanski didn't look the least surprised. "And no one else was in your apartment for the entire evening?"
Blomkvist shrugged. "Just Monica and the sick fuck that blew her up I suppose."
The hardened investigator peered down his glasses at Blomkvist. His eyes had dark circles surrounding them and his clothes were a rumpled mess as he slumped back in his chair. He looked completely defeated. Bublanski could see the after effects of a rough break up that now had only compounded by the death of one party.
Mikael spoke up after a period of silence. "Was it quick?"
"I don't think she even knew."
Blomkvist seemed to nod to himself now that the numbness was giving way to unrelenting guilt; Monica had gone to his apartment because she knew he wouldn't be there to get in her way. Had he been home she wouldn't have even bothered to drop by.
The office phone started to ring as Bublanski gave Blomkvist a sympathetic look. "Bublanski. No, perfectly and wholly alive I can completely assure you. Not right now but I can pass a message along. All right. I'll have him get in touch."
As he hung up the phone, Bublanski had what almost came across as a mischievous glint in his eyes as he sat down. "Dragan Armansky. He insists that you relocate Milton's VIP safe house immediately. I highly suggest you take him up on that offer."
When Blomkvist continued to stare at the edge of the desk, Bublanski was reminded heavily of his attempted interviews with Salander after her capture. The only difference was Salander had shutdown out of principle; Mikael had just simply shut down.
"I appreciate the offer, Jan, but I don't think a private villa is going to stop someone with a background in explosives from coming after me in the long run."
"Well at the very least refrain from causing any undue attention onto yourself until this mess is settled." He looked up at the clock. Half past seven. He had been up since three that morning when the call came out that a body had been found a Bellmansgatan 1. "Mikael, there's a press conference scheduled in fifteen minutes. Can you leave a number for me to contact you?"
Blomkvist shrugged sheepishly as he got to his feet. "I'm afraid my mobile was also a casualty of the explosion. You'll have to use my Hotmail account to get in touch."
Bublanski nodded but was not in the least satisfied. However, he knew there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Blomkvist was Blomkvist and was therefore going to do whatever the hell he wanted. Bublanski just hoped he wouldn't do anything stupid in the meantime.
They shook hands before parting in opposite directions. Blomkvist realized he also had no clue what either of Salander's phone numbers were. He thought of checking the phone book in the lobby but he knew Salander would never have her address or phone number published.
The low clouds hovering over most of central Stockholm had finally let loose. By a stroke of luck he noticed an older burgundy Honda parked directly across from him, cigarette smoke wafting out of a crack in the fogged up windows. He just couldn't resist walking up to the hood of the car and drawing a large smiley face on the windshield. Salander would be pissed.
The door locks clicked open and he clambered into the little Civic coupe. Even with the seat extended all the way back, his knees were still bent up slightly to his chest.
Salander started the ignition before pulling out of the spot and heading east. "Only you would have the balls to draw a face on my car."
He noticed her laptop had been running off the cigarette lighter, the screen black but on.
"Been keeping busy?"
"The police server is completely fucked-nothing can go in or out. I'm going to see if Plague has any ideas."
Salander had been sitting in her car outside the building for about an hour trying to scavenge what she could about the explosion. When she had booted her MacBook up all she had gotten was a black screen where the police server should have been. Even after forty-five minutes of fiddling with it she had gotten nowhere. Nothing could go in or out. Salander thought she could smell a rat.
Plague lived in a shanty apartment small enough to rival Salander's former Lundagatan just above an abandoned camera shop. For Salander it was as good as him living in Göteberg; she never had an reason to be in the area unless it was of the upmost technical importance. Plus the drive had too many damn stoplights.
Today might have been the first near social call she had ever paid him.
Salander had to drive around the block twice to find a parking space; the location was prime parking for those who had boats at the small marina two blocks down the street. Getting out of the car, she popped the trunk and pulled out Plague's payment for solving Poison Pen. Blomkvist seemed to struggle getting out such a small car, narrowly avoiding slipping on the now icy sidewalk as he tried to stand up from such a small car.
The building's security system had long since malfunctioned but so had the elevators, leaving the two of them to climb the stairs to Plague's third floor unit. They would have been quite the formidable foe to Plague's heft, she rationalized, and explained much of his borderline hoarding tendencies.
Salander banged on the door furiously. It almost looked as if no one was home until they could both feel an unmistakable bounce in the floor.
The door flung open, the sight of Plague's bare chest horrifying. "It's eight in the fucking morning, Wasp."
She shoved the box into his arms. "Is your computer still on?"
"Always."
"I need your opinion on something." She didn't ask and just ducked under Plague's arm into his poorly lit lair.
Plague eyed Blomkvist with uncertainty after Salander had so easily barged past him. The last time they had met, Blomkvist had Plague in a headlock when he caught him counter-bugging Millennium. There was no bad blood between them necessarily, but Plague was much like Salander; strangers were simply not allowed in his domain.
"She'll be out quick." He said as the door shut. Blomkvist just sighed and sat down in the hall, leaning against the shredded wallpaper.
Salander huffed and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. The server was still jammed up with no hope of fixing in the near future. Plague came up behind her with his glasses on, still without a shirt.
"This place smells like shit." Plague responded by draping his arm across the top of her shoulders. It smelt terrible. "Put a fucking shirt on."
"The toilet backed up a couple days ago. The landlord is too afraid to come in here and fix it."
"I'd be afraid of your armpits too if I were him." She pointed to the screen. "I don't get this at all. It's like the whole system had a heart attack and there's a big clot in the middle of it all. Nothing can go in or out."
"So something is sucking up all of the servers bandwidth."
"I figured that much, but what?"
Plague pulled up a stool and nudged Salander out of the way. "I think I've actually seen this before." She gave him a look of disbelief. "Yeah, I think I have. It's actually horribly amateurish and simple. Some wannabe hacker forced the server to download the entirety of the Internet."
"You can't download the internet. It's infinite."
"The computer doesn't see it that way. It'll just keep puttering on until it achieves its goal."
"Or someone reformats it."
"Yeah. But since this is the police we're talking about, reformatting the system isn't a viable option. Just think of all the data and info they would lose." He looked up at Salander, still leaning onto the desk staring at the Svensk logo. She really didn't give a rat's ass about how much information the police lost when they eventually had to reboot the system. She just wanted access into the system that someone had just gone into and completely fucked up. It was the highest crime against the true hackers of the world and she did not take it lightly.
Salander clapped Plague on the back hesitantly. He had just reduced her virtual migraine to just a simmering headache. Now she knew what she was dealing with, but now she realized that until the light bulb went off in someone's head to kill the switch on the server she would just have to sit tight and wait. The thought irritated the hell out of her all over again and she kicked a trashcan as she charged out.
Blomkvist knew when to hold his tongue as Salander stomped down the three flights of stairs. It had started to rain again outside and the car slid on patches of ice as they made their way towards Fiskargatan. He was surprised Salander hadn't kicked him to the curb yet but wasn't about to protest; there was nowhere else to go. He couldn't burden Annika's already bursting at the seams household, no matter how willingly she would accept him into her house He couldn't stay with Berger; Beckman had always given him the creeps. He'd be damned if he went to cower away in Armansky's safe house either.
They exchanged no words when Salander pulled into her personal underground garage. Her bike leaned against the wall and was still slightly wet from her return trip from dropping Blomkvist off at the police station. Next to it was a hefty sledgehammer that looked too heavy for her to pick up, let alone swing. He was afraid to ask what it was for. She killed the ignition and grabbed her now dead laptop. As they climbed yet another flight of stairs, Blomkvist realized how exhausted he truly was, wanting nothing more than to fall face down into Salander's king-sized bed. Keep dreaming, he told himself.
When Salander turned the key to her apartment, she hesitated. It had finally dawned on her that she was willingly inviting him into her apartment. There was something strangely domestic about the situation and she wasn't entirely comfortable with it. She mentally shook her head, reminding herself she was simply paying him a debt and that there was nothing of that nature involved.
Mimmi had already left for work when they walked in. She had not left yet for Paris; her collection of shoes was still neatly arranged in the entrance hall and her silk dragon robe still hung from the corner of the bedroom door. Salander realized that she had no clue what to do now that Blomkvist was in her apartment. She pondered the harm of leaving him to his own devices while she worked.
"Do you have a spare room? Preferably one furnished with a bed." He smiled at the irony of the statement.
She looked at him and saw the dark circles under his eyes. Suddenly she felt just as exhausted as he, but she had work to do before she would allow herself that small privilege. She pointed to the master bedroom. Blomkvist just stood there looking at her.
She put her laptop on the charger and carried it over to the window seat overlooking Gamla Stan. "Go ahead, just keep your clothes on." Once booted up she stared at her desktop. Something was seriously off.
"Mikael!"
His head poked out from the door.
"You left your laptop in your apartment, right?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"So logically it should have been destroyed by the fire."
"Yes."
She turned the screen to face him. "Your laptop is still online."
He padded out to see what she was talking about. Sure enough, MikBlom HD was alive, well, and certainly not fire damaged.
"Is it being used? Can you trace it?"
"It's being used, but the Internet is offline so I can't locate a source."
Blomkvist nodded to himself. Salander went back to ignoring him; contently banging on her keyboard to create codes he would never understand. When he had once again shuffled off to the bedroom, Lisbeth pulled up the Hacker Republic page. Bob the Dog and Bambi were on.
I need a job done.
Ask and ye shall grant. Bambi wrote.
I need someone to monitor this hard drive for any internet activity and trace wherever it connects. She uploaded the drive to the chat page.
Sounds interesting. What's going on? Trinity logged on.
Computer that supposedly was destroyed in an explosion is being toted around. Probably by whoever did it.
You get into the weirdest situations, Wasp. Bob wrote.
Can you guys do it?
Sure. It'll cost you. Bambi wrote.
I can pay. Just get me results first.
Will do. So did anyone hear that some noob shut down the entire Stockholm police server?
Details? Trinity typed back.
Apparently they… Salander logged off as they started a heated debate on the intelligence level of someone who would jam a police system in such a way. Salander was starting to think it was a damn smart move if it was connected to recent events. She continued to watch as theMikBlom HD imposter scrolled through Blomkvist's copies of Dag Svensson's notes for an hour until they logged off. It felt like a taunt to Salander.
Salander left her laptop on the window seat and stood up. It was just after nine in the morning. She debated whether sleep or coffee would be the route to go. Coffee could keep her going on autopilot for a few more hours, but there was nothing else to do. Plus Blomkvist was snoring away in the master bedroom.
She looked at the couch longingly. A black leather three-seater, she could completely stretch out on it and only take up two cushions. She looked at the bedroom door. Nooo...couch. With that, she flopped down and hissed under her breath. The leather felt like ice. After fifteen minutes of beating the cushions into place she just said fuck it and walked into the master. Blomkvist was still obliviously snoring so she figured it was safe enough to strip and put on something more comfortable before climbing onto the very edge of the bed.
It was dark outside when Salander awoke to the feel of a soft jab on her shoulder. Instantly she sat bolt upright in bed. Blomkvist was lying on his side, staring at her intently.
"A new tattoo?"
Salander didn't respond, giving him an acid look.
"Hiding a bullet hole with a bullet hole." He chuckled. "That's one tattoo I know the meaning to now."
A ping sound could be heard from the living room. Salander's head snapped up and before Blomkvist could ask what it was she had sprinted from the room. With a sigh of resignation, he followed her out.
There was a flurry of movement of which he had never seen come from Salander. One second she was kneeling in front of her computer clicking away, next she was in the entrance hall trying to put a boot and a jacket on at the same time. She didn't so much as look at him as she sprinted out the door, her steps thundering down the stairs. What the hell was that all about? For just this once, he didn't feel entirely at fault for another one of her sudden disappearances.
He walked over to her still open computer, figuring that that had been the source of the ping and Salander's sudden agitation.
On screen was a two-line conversation with someone calling himself SixofOne. At least he thought it was a man.
Internet on MikBlom just got a hit at coordinates 5918′53″N 18°4′19″E, If you hurry you can catch them.
Next to the chat window, Salander had opened up Google maps and plugged in the coordinates. At 12:38am, someone had logged onto a Wi-Fi connection at the Medborgarplatsen tunnelbana. And Salander was right on their heels.
The ice along Götgatan was treacherous on her CB350, but Salander made it to Medborg within minutes. She pulled out her iPhone as she locked her helmet to the bike. The laptop Wi-Fi connection was still going strong in the tunnelbana twenty feet below her.
The escalator had locked up with the cold. Salander took the slide route down the center to the disbelief of those using the frozen stairs. She looked around as the signal failed. A train had just pulled up and Salander wasted no time hopping on just as the doors shut.
Salander realized she had no profile to go by for searching. She started with the most obvious; someone carrying a laptop or laptop bag. Probably a male between ages 35 and 55. Salander eyed several suspects suspiciously, but they didn't quite feel right to her. She cruised up and down the aisle, looking over everyone, but to no avail. For now, she admitted defeat in what was but a small battle.
She got off at Bromma-Stockholm airport and sat in the station until a return train arrived. She was still seething an hour later when the train pulled into the Medborgarplatsen station. When she got back to her bike someone had stolen her helmet but neatly wrapped the chain through her wheel spokes. No way she was going to ride that thing back home with so many police still crawling around the day after new years.
Salander huffed and pulled the hood of her jacket over her eyes as she set off down the poorly lit Östgögatan towards home. Most of the shops were barred up at night and a shady group of men stood smoking on street corners. One of them was holding her helmet.
Consequences, consequences.
She decided to run for it. They were bulky, which meant she would have speed on her side. They weren't looking at her, so she was confident she could come up from behind and surprise them. Here goes nothing.
She slammed into the one holding her helmet with such force he toppled, the helmet rolling as Salander scooped it up and bolted west towards Götgatan. The other two were hot on her tail as she cut through the garden of a mosque, trampling flowerbeds underfoot. It seemed she had vastly underestimated their speed as she vaulted over a fence onto the main drag. She could see her bike but she could hear the goons thundering behind her. Shit.
Not bothering to fasten the helmet, she swung a leg over the saddle and kicked furiously. No luck. Another kick and she found herself and the bike falling onto the cobblestones, a thick arm clotheslining her across the neck as she went down.
It was well after four in the morning when Salander stumbled into the elevator. Her helmet was still on her head. She wanted to prolong the inevitable moment when she would have to pry it off past her broken nose. The goons had given her a merciless kicking while she had been pinned under the bike, shattering the face shield of the helmet before crushing her nose. She was sure she had also broken a finger, the second joint of her ring finger black and blue where it had caught between the left handlebar and clutch.
The door to the residence of V. Kulla was unlocked as she dragged her left leg lamely behind her. Blomkvist was slumped over on the sofa, asleep with the TV on. Men, Salander thought. She opened the freezer quietly, tossing the entire contents of the ice tray into a plastic bag before dropping it into the gap where her face shield once was. The weight of the bag was almost unbearable, but her face became numb soon enough.
Pulling the helmet off, she found much of her face caked in blood and her nose had started to bleed again. Fine scratches from the breaking glass were etched everywhere. After a light wash she still looked like shit, but at least she was dripping blood anywhere. When she walked back out into the main room, Blomkvist had completely fallen over onto the sofa. She took pity on him and threw a folded up blanket at him before walking into the bedroom, draping a cloth across the pillow so not to soil it while she slept.
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