“Keep it internal. If the story shows up anywhere, we’ll know who put it there. In a
very few months, if anyone asks us about it, we’ll be able to tell them: you’ve been
listening to baseless rumours, and we’ve never considered
closing Millennium down. The best thing that could happen is for Dahlman to go
out and tip off the other mass media. If you’re able to give Dahlman a tip about a
plausible but fundamentally idiotic story, so much the better.”
They spent an hour concocting a script and dividing up the various roles.
After the meeting Blomkvist had coffee with Malm at Java on Horngatspuckeln.
“Christer, it’s really important that you pick up Erika at the airport and fill her in. You
have to convince her to play along with the game. If I know her, she’ll want to
confront Dahlman instantly—but that can’t happen. I don’t want Wennerström to
hear any kind of buzz and then manage to bury the evidence.”
“Will do.”
“And see to it that Erika stays away from her email until she installs the PGP
encryption programme and learns how to use it. It’s pretty likely that through
Dahlman, Wennerström is able to read everything we email to each other. I want
you and everyone else in the editorial offices to install PGP. Do it in a natural way.
Get the name of a computer consultant to contact and have him come over to
inspect the network and all the computers in the office. Let him install the software
as if it were a perfectly natural part of the service.”
“I’ll do my best. But Mikael—what are you working on?”
“Wennerström.”
“What exactly?”
“For the time being, that has to remain my secret.”