The Girl Who Played with Fire (11 page)

Blomkvist apologized for his late arrival and muttered an explanation that nobody heard or at least bothered to acknowledge. Apart from Berger, the meeting included the managing editor, Malin Eriksson, partner and art director Christer Malm, the reporter Monika Nilsson, and part-timers Lotta Karim and Henry Cortez. Blomkvist saw at once that the intern was absent, but that the group had been augmented by a new face at the small conference table in Berger’s office. It was very unusual for her to let an outsider in on
Millennium’s
planning sessions.

“This is Dag Svensson,” said Erika. “Freelancer. We’re going to buy an article from him.”

Blomkvist shook hands with the man. Svensson was blond and blue-eyed, with a crew cut and a three-day growth of beard. He was around thirty and looked shamelessly fit.

“We usually run one or two themed issues each year.” Berger went on where she had left off. “I want to use this story in the May issue. The printer is booked for April 27th. That gives us a good three months to produce the articles.”

“So what’s the theme?” Blomkvist wondered aloud as he poured coffee from the thermos.

“Dag came to me last week with the outline for a story. That’s why I asked him to join us today. Will you take it from here, Dag?” Berger said.

“Trafficking,” Svensson said. “That is, the sex trade. In this case primarily of girls from the Baltic countries and Eastern Europe. If you’ll allow me to start at the beginning—I’m writing a book on the subject and that’s why I contacted
Millennium
—since you now have a book-publishing operation.”

Everyone looked amused. Millennium Publishing had so far issued exactly one book, Blomkvist’s year-old brick about the billionaire Wennerström’s financial empire. The book was in its sixth printing in Sweden, had been published in Norwegian, German, and English, and was soon to be translated into French too. The sales success was remarkable given that the story was by now so well known and had been reported in every newspaper.

“Our book-publishing ventures are not very extensive,” Blomkvist said cautiously.

Even Svensson gave a slight smile. “I understand that. But you do have the means to publish a book.”

“There are plenty of larger companies,” Blomkvist said. “Well-established ones.”

“Without a doubt,” Berger said. “But for a year now we’ve been discussing the possibility of starting a niche publication list in addition to our regular activities. We’ve brought it up at two board meetings, and everyone has been positive. We’re thinking of a very small list—three or four books a year—of reportage on various topics. Typical journalistic publications, in other words. This would be a good book to start with.”

“Trafficking,” Blomkvist said. “Tell us about it.”

“I’ve been digging around in the subject of trafficking for four years now. I got into the topic through my girlfriend—her name is Mia Johansson and she’s a criminologist and gender studies scholar. She previously worked at the Crime Prevention Centre and wrote a report on the sex trade.”

“I’ve met her,” Eriksson said suddenly. “I did an interview with her two years ago when she published a report comparing the way men and women were treated by the courts.”

Svensson smiled. “That did create a stir. But she’s been researching trafficking for five or six years. That’s how we met. I was working on a story about the sex trade on the Internet and got a tip that she knew something about it. And she did. To make a long story short: she and I began working together, I as a journalist and she as a researcher. In the process we started dating, and a year ago we moved in together. She’s working on her doctorate and she’ll be defending her dissertation this year.”

“So she’s writing a doctoral thesis while you …?”

“I’m writing a popular version of her dissertation and adding my own research. As well as a shorter version in the form of the article that I outlined for Erika.”

“OK, you’re working as a team. What’s the story?”

“We have a government that introduced a tough sex-trade law, we have police who are supposed to see to it that the law is obeyed, and we have courts that are supposed to convict sex criminals—we call the johns sex criminals since it has become a crime to buy sexual services—and we have the media, which write indignant articles about the subject, et cetera. At the same time, Sweden is one of the countries that imports the most prostitutes per capita from Russia and the Baltics.”

“And you can substantiate this?”

“It’s no secret. It’s not even news. What’s new is that we have met and talked with a dozen girls. Most of them are fifteen to twenty years old. They come from social misery in Eastern Europe and are lured to Sweden
with a promise of some kind of job but end up in the clutches of an unscrupulous sex mafia. Those girls have experienced things that you couldn’t even show in a movie.”

“OK.”

“It’s the focus of Mia’s dissertation, so to speak. But not of the book.”

Everyone was listening intently.

“Mia interviewed the girls. What I did was to chart the suppliers and the client base.”

Blomkvist smiled. He had never met Svensson before, but he felt at once that Svensson was the kind of journalist he liked—someone who got right to the heart of the story. For Blomkvist the golden rule of journalism was that there were always people who were responsible. The bad guys.

“And you found some interesting facts?”

“I can document, for instance, that a civil servant in the Ministry of Justice who was involved with the drafting of the sex-trade law has exploited at least two girls who came to Sweden through the agency of the sex mafia. One of them was fifteen.”

“Whoa.”

“I’ve been working on this story off and on for three years. The book will contain case studies of the johns. There are three policemen, one of whom works for the Security Police, another on the vice squad. There are five lawyers, one prosecutor, and one judge. There are also three journalists, one of whom has written articles on the sex trade. In his private life he’s into rape fantasies with a teenage whore from Tallinn—and in this case it’s not consensual sex play. I’m thinking of naming names. I’ve got watertight documentation.”

Blomkvist whistled. “Since I’ve become publisher again, I’ll want to go over the documentation with a fine-tooth comb,” he said. “The last time I was sloppy about checking sources I ended up spending two months in prison.”

“If you want to publish the story I can give you all the documentation you want. But I have one condition for selling the story to
Millennium.”

“Dag wants us to publish the book too,” Berger said.

“Precisely. I want it to be dropped like a bomb, and right now
Millennium
is the most credible and outspoken magazine in the country. I don’t believe any other publisher would dare publish a book of this type.”

“So, no book, no article?” said Blomkvist.

“I think it sounds seriously good,” Eriksson said. There was a murmur of agreement from Cortez.

“The article and the book are two different things,” Berger said. “For the magazine, Mikael is the publisher and responsible for the content. With regard to the book publication, the author is responsible for the content.”

“I know,” Svensson said. “That doesn’t bother me. The moment the book is published, Mia will file a police report against everyone I name.”

“That’ll stir up a hell of a fuss,” Cortez said.

“That’s only half the story,” said Svensson. “I’ve also been analyzing some of the networks that make money off the sex trade. We’re talking about organized crime.”

“And who’s involved?”

“That’s what’s so tragic. The sex mafia is a sleazy bunch of nobodies. I don’t really know what I expected when I started this research, but somehow we—at least I—had the idea that the ‘mafia’ was a gang in the upper echelon of society. A number of American movies on the subject have probably contributed to that image. Your story about Wennerström”—Svensson turned to Blomkvist—“also showed that sometimes this is actually the case. But Wennerström was an exception in a sense. What I’ve turned up is a gang of brutal and sadistic losers who can hardly read or write; they’re total morons when it comes to organization and strategic thinking. There are connections to bikers and somewhat more organized groups, but in general it’s a bunch of assholes who run the sex business.”

“This is all made clear in your article,” Berger said. “We have laws and a police force and a judicial system that we finance with millions of kronor in taxes each year to deal with the sex trade … and they can’t even nail a bunch of morons.”

“It’s a tremendous assault on human rights, and the girls involved are so far down society’s ladder that they’re of no interest to the legal system. They don’t vote. They can hardly speak Swedish except for the vocabulary they need to set up a trick. Of all crimes involving the sex trade, 99.99 percent are not reported to the police, and those that are hardly ever lead to a charge. This has got to be the biggest iceberg of all in the Swedish criminal world. Imagine if bank robberies were handled with the same nonchalance. It’s unthinkable. Unfortunately I’ve come to the conclusion that this method of handling the problem would not survive for a single day if it weren’t for the fact that the criminal justice system simply does not want to deal with it. Attacks on teenage girls from Tallinn and Riga are not a priority. A whore is a whore. It’s part of the system.”

“And everyone knows it,” Nilsson said.

“So what do you all think?” Berger said.

“I like it,” Blomkvist said. “We’ll be sticking our necks out with that story, and that was the whole point of starting
Millennium
in the first place.”

“That’s why I’m still working at the magazine. The publisher has to jump off a cliff every now and then,” Nilsson said.

Everyone laughed except Blomkvist.

“He was the only one crazy enough to take on the job of publisher,” Berger said. “We’re going to run this in May. And your book will come out at the same time.”

“Is the book done?” Blomkvist said.

“No. I have the whole outline but only half the text. If you agree to publish the book and give me an advance, then I can work on it full-time. Almost all the research is done. All that’s left are some supplementary details—actually just checking stuff I already know—and confronting the johns I’m going to hang out to dry.”

“We’ll produce it just like the Wennerström book. It’ll take a week to do the layout”—Malm nodded—“and two weeks to print. We’ll complete the confrontations in March and April and sum it all up in a final fifteen-page section. We’ll have the manuscript ready by April 15 so we’ll have time to go over all the sources.”

“How will we work things with the contract and so on?”

“I’ve drawn up a book contract once before, but I’ll probably have to have a talk with our lawyer.” Berger frowned. “But I propose a short-term contract from February to May. We don’t pay over the odds.”

“That’s fine with me. I just need a basic salary.”

“Otherwise the rule of thumb is fifty-fifty on the earnings from the book after the costs are paid. How does that sound?”

“That sounds damn good,” Svensson said.

“Work assignments,” Berger said. “Malin, I want you to plan the themed issue. It will be your primary responsibility starting next month; you’ll work with Dag and edit the manuscript. Lotta, that means I want you here as temporary editorial assistant for the magazine from March through May. You’ll have to go full-time, and Malin or Mikael will back you up as time permits.”

Eriksson nodded.

“Mikael, I want you to be the editor of the book.” Berger looked at Svensson. “Mikael doesn’t let on, but he’s actually one hell of a good editor, and he knows research. He’ll put each syllable of your book under
the microscope. He’s going to come down like a hawk on every detail. I’m flattered that you want us to publish your book, but we have special problems at
Millennium
. We have one or two enemies who want nothing more than for us to go under. If we stick out our necks to publish something like this, it has to be 100 percent accurate. We can’t afford anything less.”

“And I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“Good. But can you put up with having somebody looking over your shoulder and criticizing you every which way all spring?”

Svensson grinned and looked at Blomkvist. “Bring it on.”

“If it’s going to be a themed issue, we’ll need more articles. Mikael—I want you to write about the finances of the sex trade. How much money are we talking about annually? Who makes the money from the sex trade and where does it go? Can we find evidence that some of the money ends up in government coffers? Monika—I want you to check out sexual attacks in general. Talk to the women’s shelters and researchers and doctors and welfare people. You two plus Dag will write the supporting articles. Henry—I want an interview with Mia Johansson—Dag can’t do it himself. Portrait: Who is she, what is she researching, and what are her conclusions? Then I want you to go in and do case studies from police reports. Christer—pictures. I don’t know how we’re going to illustrate this. Think about it.”

“This is probably the simplest theme of all to illustrate. Arty. No problem.”

“Let me add one thing,” Svensson said. “There’s a small minority on the police force who are doing a hell of a fine job. It might be an idea to interview some of them.”

“Have you got any names?” Cortez said.

“Phone numbers too,” Svensson said.

“Great,” Berger said. “The theme of the May issue is the sex trade. The point we have to make is that trafficking is a crime against human rights and that these criminals must be exposed and treated like war criminals or death squads or torturers anywhere in the world. Now let’s get going.”

Äppelviken felt unfamiliar, even foreign, when for the first time in eighteen months Salander turned into the drive in her rented Nissan Micra. From the age of fifteen she had come twice a year to the nursing home where her mother had been since “All The Evil” had happened. Her mother had spent ten years at Äppelviken, and it was where she finally died at only forty-six, after one last annihilating cerebral haemorrhage.