This much-discussed empire was like a living, formless, pulsating organism that
kept changing shape. It consisted of options, bonds, shares, partnerships, loan
interest, income interest, deposits, bank accounts, payment transfers, and
thousands of other elements. An incredibly large proportion of the assets was
deposited in post-office-box companies that owned one another.
The financial pundits’ most inflated analyses of the Wennerström Group estimated
its value at more than 900 billion kronor. That was a bluff, or at least a figure that
was grossly exaggerated. Obviously Wennerström himself was by no means poor.
She calculated the real assets to be worth between 90 and 100 billion kronor, which
was nothing to sneez eat. A thorough audit of the entire corporation would take
years. All in all Salander had identified close to three thousand separate accounts
and bank holdings all over the world. Wennerström was devoting himself to fraud
that was so extensive it was no longer merely criminal—it was business.
Somewhere in the Wennerström organism there was also substance. Three assets
kept showing up in the hierarchy. The fixed Swedish assets were unassailable and
genuine, available to public scrutiny, balance sheets, and audits. The American firm
was solid, and a bank in New York served as the base for all liquid capital. The story
was in the business with the post-office-box companies in places such as Gibraltar
and Cyprus and Macao. Wennerström was like a clearing house for the illegal
weapons trade, money laundering for suspect enterprises in Colombia, and
extremely unorthodox businesses in Russia.
An anonymous account in the Cayman Islands was unique; it was personally
controlled by Wennerström but was not connected to any companies. A few
hundredths of a percent of every deal that Wennerström made would be siphoned
into the Cayman Islands via the post-office-box companies.
Salander worked in a trance-like state. The account—click—email—click—balance
sheets—click. She noted down the latest transfers. She tracked a small transaction
in Japan to Singapore and on via Luxembourg to the Cayman Islands. She
understood how it worked. It was as if she were part of the impulses in cyberspace.
Small changes. The latest email. One brief message of somewhat peripheral
interest was sent at 10:00 p.m. The PGP encryption programme (rattle, rattle) was a
joke for anyone who was already inside his computer and could read the message
in plain text: