How It All Goes Down
Final Audit, Thursday, November 27 – Tuesday, December 3
- Millennium publishes the special issue devoted to Wennerström. It rocks the Swedish stock exchange. Wennerström committed the biggest fraud in Swedish history.
- This time Millennium has evidence to back everything up.
- Next, they publish The Mafia Banker, the book Blomkvist wrote at the cabin in Sandham.
- They also publish Wennerström's computer in PDF files on Millennium's website.
- Authorities link "the Wennerström […] companies […] to the heart of the international mafia" (Epilogue.33).
- Authorities hunt Wennerström for six months. Since he took his same laptop with him on the run, Salander knows where he is. But nobody asks her.
- It comes as no shock to her when he's found shot dead in an apartment in Marbella, Spain.
- See, when she took that money from his accounts, some dangerous guys didn't get paid.
- Here's what happened: After the search for Wennerström is called off, she makes a call to a certain lawyer she knows wants to talk to Wennerström. She gives him Wennerström's address in Marbella.
- She eats sandwiches while watching news reports of Wennerström's death.
- Blomkvist is at Millennium, reading an article in Financial Times.
- It says that 260 million dollars were stolen from Wennerström's account by Monica Sholes the day before Millennium published the special issue.
- Monica is being sought by Interpol.
- Blomkvist carefully studies the picture of Monica and then almost dies laughing.
- On Christmas Eve, Blomkvist sees his daughter for the first time since her visit to Hedeby.
- He thinks he's a bad father.
- Salander and Blomkvist spend the holidays together at the cabin in Sandham.
- Salander pays him back the money he loaned her.
- At Sandham, she realizes she's in love with Blomkvist, but thinks he could never love her back.
- After Christmas, Blomkvist goes to Hedeby to talk to Henrik and get paid.
- Cecilia's not home, so he leaves her a note apologizing to her.
- Back in Stockholm, Salander cleans her apartment and dreams of Blomkvist.
- She knows he loves Elvis, so she buys him an Elvis sign from the 1950s that says "Heartbreak Hotel" (Epilogue.128).
- When she gets near his apartment with it, she sees him walking down the street with Berger.
- She feels instant pain and considers doing violence to Berger.
- Instead, she walks away, tossing the Elvis sign in the trash.