Alexander Zalachenko

Dag Svensson dies for getting too close to Zala, and so does Bjurman, who had ties to him. With the police hunting her, Lisbeth follows the trail alone to an isolated farmhouse near Gosseberga, where Zala lives in hiding with Niedermann, and learns the truth: Zala is Alexander Zalachenko, a Soviet spy who defected to Sweden, runs a trafficking ring and is her father. He's the man who beat Lisbeth's mother, and the man Lisbeth, still a child, set on fire inside a car. The giant Niedermann, who killed Dag, Mia and Bjurman on his orders, is Zalachenko's son, and her father tells her so himself at the farm. Lisbeth records the conversation on a hidden phone and puts the confession online. Her father shoots her and buries her alive. She climbs out of the grave and buries an axe in his leg.

Zalachenko ends up in the same Gothenburg hospital as his daughter. For years, the Section, a secret group inside Swedish security, hid who he was, and Lisbeth was locked in a psychiatric clinic to keep the secret. Now that it could all come out, the Section solves the problem: the aging Evert Gullberg walks into the hospital and shoots Zalachenko dead. Gullberg tries to get to Lisbeth too, fails and kills himself. Fredrik Clinton, another Section man, takes over the plan to send Lisbeth back to the clinic. What the Section did to protect Zalachenko, including psychiatrist Teleborian's fake diagnosis, is exactly what Lisbeth's defense exposes at trial.

In the 2018 film, Zalachenko is played by Mikael Persbrandt and appears in the past. The film opens with young Lisbeth escaping her father, an abusive crime lord, and leaving her sister Camilla behind. The mercenary Holtser, who kills Frans Balder and kidnaps August, worked for him, and following that link is how Mikael gets to the Spiders. Camilla, who stayed with their father, endured years of abuse before faking her own death. The house where it all happened becomes the setting for the climax.

Georgi Staykov played Zalachenko in the Swedish films, and Mikael Persbrandt in the 2018 film. The book goes into his history with the Section in far more detail.