The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Page 65

That night the Millennium editorial offices were fully staffed. According to their plans, only Berger and the new managing editor, Malin Eriksson, were due to be there to handle any calls. But by 10:00 p.m. the entire staff was still there, and they had also been joined by no fewer than four former staff members and half a dozen regular freelancers. At midnight Malm opened a bottle of champagne. That was when an old acquaintance sent over an advance copy from one of the evening papers, which devoted sixteen pages to the Wennerstrom affair under the headline THE FINANCIAL MAFIA. When the evening papers came out the next day, a media frenzy erupted, the likes of which had seldom been seen before.
Eriksson concluded that she was going to enjoy working at Millennium.
During the following week, the Swedish Stock Exchange trembled as the securities fraud police began investigating, prosecutors were called in, and a panicky selling spree set in. Two days after the publication the Minister of Commerce made a statement on "the Wennerstrom affair."
The frenzy did not mean, however, that the media swallowed Millennium's claims without criticism - the revelations were far too serious for that. But unlike the first Wennerstrom affair, this time Millennium could present a convincing burden of proof: Wennerstrom's own emails and copies of the contents of his computer, which contained balance sheets from secret bank assets in the Cayman Islands and two dozen other countries, secret agreements, and other blunders that a more cautious racketeer would never in his life have left on his hard drive. It soon became clear that if Millennium's claims held up in a court of appeals - and everyone agreed that the case would end up there sooner or later - then it was by far the biggest bubble to burst in the Swedish financial world since the Kreuger crash of 1932. The Wennerstrom affair made all the Gotabank imbroglios and Trustor frauds pale in comparison. This was fraud on such a grand scale that no-one even dared to speculate on how many laws had been broken.
For the first time in Swedish financial reporting, the terms "organised crime," "Mafia," and "gangster empire" were used. Wennerstrom and his young stockbrokers, partners, and Armani-clad lawyers emerged like a band of hoodlums.
During the first days of the media frenzy, Blomkvist was invisible. He did not answer his emails and could not be reached by telephone. All editorial comments on behalf of Millennium were made by Berger, who purred like a cat as she was interviewed by the Swedish national media and important regional newspapers, and eventually also by a growing number of overseas media. Each time she was asked how Millennium had come into possession of all those private and internal documents, she replied simply that she was unable to reveal the magazine's source.
When she was asked why the previous year's expose of Wennerstrom had been such a fiasco, she was even more delphic. She never lied, but she may not always have told the whole truth. Off the record, when she did not have a microphone under her nose, she would utter a few mysterious catch phrases, which, if pieced together, led to some rather rash conclusions. That is how a rumour was born that soon assumed legendary proportions, claiming that Mikael Blomkvist had not presented any sort of defence at his trial and had voluntarily submitted to the prison sentence and heavy fines because otherwise his documentation would have led inevitably to the identification of his source. He was compared to role models in the American media who had accepted gaol rather than reveal their sources, and Blomkvist was described as a hero in such ludicrously flattering terms that he was quite embarrassed. But this was no time to deny the misunderstanding.
There was one thing that everyone agreed on: the person who had delivered the documentation had to be someone within Wennerstrom's most trusted circle. This led to a debate about who the "Deep Throat" was: colleagues with reason to be dissatisfied, lawyers, even Wennerstrom's cocaine-addicted daughter and other family members were put up as possible candidates. Neither Blomkvist nor Berger commented on the subject.
Berger smiled happily, knowing that they had won when an evening paper on the third day of the frenzy ran the headline MILLENNIUM'S REVENGE. The article was an ingratiating portrait of the magazine and its staff, including illustrations with a particularly favourable portrait of Berger. She was named the "queen of investigative journalism." That sort of thing won points in the rankings of the entertainment pages, and there was talk of the Big Journalism Prize.
Five days after Millennium fired the first salvo, Blomkvist's book The Mafia Banker appeared in bookshops. The book had been written during those feverish days at Sandhamn in September and October, and in great haste and under the utmost secrecy it was printed by Hallvigs Reklam in Morgongava. It was the first book to be published under Millennium's own logo. It was eccentrically dedicated: To Sally, who showed me the benefits of the sport of golf.
It was a brick of a book, 608 pages in paperback. The first edition of 2,000 copies was virtually guaranteed to be a losing proposition, but the print run actually sold out in a couple of days, and Berger ordered 10,000 more copies.
The reviewers concluded that this time, at any rate, Mikael Blomkvist had no intention of holding back since it was a matter of publishing extensive source references. In this regard they were right. Two-thirds of the book consisted of appendices that were actual copies of the documentation from Wennerstrom's computer. At the same time as the book was published, Millennium put the texts from Wennerstrom's computer as source material in downloadable PDF files on their website.
Blomkvist's extraordinary absence was part of the media strategy that he and Berger had put together. Every newspaper in the country was looking for him. Not until the book was launched did he give an exclusive interview to She on TV4, once again scooping the state-run stations. But the questions were anything but sycophantic.
Blomkvist was especially pleased with one exchange when he watched a video of his appearance. The interview was broadcast live at the very moment when the Stockholm Stock Exchange found itself in freefall and a handful of financial yuppies were threatening to throw themselves out of windows. He was asked what was Millennium's responsibility with regard to the fact that Sweden's economy was now headed for a crash.
"The idea that Sweden's economy is headed for a crash is nonsense," Blomkvist said.
The host of She on TV4 looked perplexed. His reply did not follow the pattern she had expected, and she was forced to improvise. Blomkvist got the follow-up question he was hoping for. "We're experiencing the largest single drop in the history of the Swedish stock exchange - and you think that's nonsense?"
"You have to distinguish between two things - the Swedish economy and the Swedish stock market. The Swedish economy is the sum of all the goods and services that are produced in this country every day. There are telephones from Ericsson, cars from Volvo, chickens from Scan, and shipments from Kiruna to Skovde. That's the Swedish economy, and it's just as strong or weak today as it was a week ago."
He paused for effect and took a sip of water.
"The Stock Exchange is something very different. There is no economy and no production of goods and services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so many billions, more or less. It doesn't have a thing to do with reality or with the Swedish economy."
"So you're saying that it doesn't matter if the Stock Exchange drops like a rock?"
"No, it doesn't matter at all," Blomkvist said in a voice so weary and resigned that he sounded like some sort of oracle. His words would be quoted many times over the following year. Then he went on.
"It only means that a bunch of heavy speculators are now moving their shareholdings from Swedish companies to German ones. So it's the financial gnomes that some tough reporter should identify and expose as traitors. They're the ones who are systematically and perhaps deliberately damaging the Swedish economy in order to satisfy the profit interests of their clients."
Then She on TV4 made the mistake of asking exactly the question that Blomkvist had hoped for.
"And so you think that the media don't have any responsibility?"
"Oh yes, the media do have an enormous responsibility. For at least twenty years many financial reporters have refrained from scrutinising Hans-Erik Wennerstrom. On the contrary, they have actually helped to build up his prestige by publishing brainless, idolatrous portraits. If they had been doing their work properly, we would not find ourselves in this situation today."
Blomkvist's appearance marked a turning point. In hindsight, Berger was convinced that it was only when Blomkvist went on TV and calmly defended his claims that the Swedish media, in spite of the fact that Millennium had been all over the headlines for a week, recognised that the story really did hold up. His attitude set the course for the story.
After the interview the Wennerstrom affair imperceptibly slipped from the financial section over to the desks of the crime reporters. In the past, ordinary crime reporters had seldom or never written about financial crime, except if it had to do with the Russian mob or Yugoslav cigarette smugglers. Crime reporters were not expected to investigate intricate dealings on the Stock Exchange. One evening paper even took Blomkvist at his word and filled two spreads with portraits of several of the brokerage houses' most important players, who were in the process of buying up German securities. The paper's headline read SELLING OUT THEIR COUNTRY. All the brokers were invited to comment on the allegations. Every one of them declined. But the trading of shares decreased significantly that day, and some brokers who wanted to look like progressive patriots started going against the stream. Blomkvist burst out laughing.
The pressure got to be so great that sombre men in dark suits put on a concerned expression and broke with the most important rule of the exclusive club that made up the innermost circles of Swedish finance - they commented on a colleague. All of a sudden retired industrial leaders and bank presidents were appearing on TV and answering questions in an attempt at damage control. Everyone realised the seriousness of the situation, and it was a matter of distancing themselves as quickly as possible from the Wennerstrom Group and shedding any shares they might hold. Wennerstrom (they concluded almost with one voice) was not, after all, a real industrialist, and he had never been truly accepted into "the club." Some pointed out that he was just a simple working-class boy from Norrland whose success may have gone to his head. Some described his actions as a personal tragedy. Others discovered that they had had their doubts about Wennerstrom for years - he was too boastful and he put on airs.
During the following weeks, as Millennium's documentation was scrutinised, pulled apart, and pieced together again, the Wennerstrom empire of obscure companies was linked to the heart of the international Mafia, including everything from illegal arms dealing and money laundering for South American drug cartels to prostitution in New York, and even indirectly to the child sex trade in Mexico. One Wennerstrom company registered in Cyprus caused a dramatic stir when it was revealed that it had attempted to buy enriched uranium on the black market in Ukraine. Wennerstrom's apparently inexhaustible supply of obscure post-office-box companies seemed to be cropping up everywhere, linked to all manner of shady enterprises.
Berger thought that the book was the best thing Blomkvist had ever written. It was uneven stylistically, and in places the writing was actually rather poor - there had been no time for any fine polishing - but the book was animated by a fury that no reader could help but notice.
By chance Blomkvist ran into his old adversary, the former financial reporter William Borg, in front of Kvarnen when Blomkvist, Berger, and Malm took the evening off to celebrate the Santa Lucia holiday along with the magazine's other employees, going out to drink themselves senseless at the company's expense. Borg's companion was a very drunk girl about Salander's age.
Blomkvist's loathing for Borg was palpable. Berger interrupted the macho posturing by taking Blomkvist by the arm and leading him into the bar.
Blomkvist decided that when the opportunity arose, he would ask Salander to do one of her personal investigations of Borg. Just for form's sake.
During the whole media storm the main character in the drama, the financier Wennerstrom, was for the most part invisible. On the day that Millennium published its article, the financier was forced to comment on the text at a press conference that had been called for a different purpose. He declared the allegations unfounded and said that the documentation referred to was fabricated. He reminded everyone that the same reporter had been convicted of libel only one year before.
After that only Wennerstrom's lawyers would answer questions from the media. Two days after Blomkvist's book came out, a persistent rumour began circulating that Wennerstrom had left Sweden. The evening papers used the word "fled." During the second week, when the securities fraud police tried to contact Wennerstrom, he was nowhere to be found. In mid-December the police confirmed that Wennerstrom was formally sought, and on the day before New Year's Eve, an all-points bulletin was sent out via the international police organisations. The very same day one of Wennerstrom's advisers was seized at Arlanda as he was boarding a plane for London.
Several weeks later a Swedish tourist reported that he had seen Wennerstrom get into a car in Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados. As proof of his claim, the tourist submitted a photograph, taken from quite a distance away, showing a white man wearing sunglasses, an open white shirt, and light-coloured slacks. He could not be identified with certainty, but the evening papers contacted stringers who tried without success to track down the fugitive billionaire.
After six months the hunt was called off. Then Wennerstrom was found dead in an apartment in Marbella, Spain, where he had been living under the name of Victor Fleming. He had been shot three times in the head at close range. The Spanish police were working on the theory, their statement said, that he had surprised a burglar.