by Reevik, Carl
Hans didn’t see much through the external windows he passed, he only saw his own reflection on the black glass. He reached the door, walked through the secretaries’ anteroom, which was as dark and empty as all the other offices he had passed, knocked and opened the door to the inner office.
The director-general’s office was dark and spacious, they must have left out several interior separator walls to create it. It was the size of at least four conference rooms. The only light sources were a lit desk lamp on the occupant’s workplace and a thin floor lamp illuminating the sofa to Hans’s right. Hans had been in here before, but it nevertheless had an effect on him even now. It wasn’t even the size itself, nor was it the furniture which was actually rather neutral. It was the fact that it was a corner office, with two rows of windows converging on a narrow edge beyond which shone the lights of the colossal main Commission building in the distance. Because of the gloom, the lights of the cityscape outside appeared bright and clear.
Geoffrey Clarke was reclined comfortably behind his desk, his face partly lit by his desk light. He smiled at Hans, without giving him the impression of having been interrupted. Hans stopped in the middle of the room and glanced to his right again. On the sofa next to the floor lamp, wearing the same dark blue business suit she had been wearing earlier at the press conference, sat Maria Schuster-Zoll. She got up and approached Hans with a friendly smile and an extended hand.
‘Good evening Mister Tamberg, I don’t believe we’ve met. Maria Schuster.’ She looked into his eyes. On television the Commissioner always appeared strong-willed but delicate. In person she radiated determination. There was nothing fragile about her.
He shook her hand, still standing where he had stopped, in the middle of the room. ‘Geoffrey was just telling me about your impressive work here at the Commission,’ she said. ‘My condolences about the passing away of Willem Tienhoven, I understand you worked together very closely.’
‘Please, have a seat, Hans,’ Clarke said. Schuster-Zoll had already returned to the sofa. Neither she nor Clarke had said a word about the condition of Hans’s face and clothes. Hans kept standing where he was.
Since nobody was saying anything further Hans started talking, addressing his most immediate superior which, in the absence of Tienhoven, was Clarke. ‘I have reason to suspect that statistically significant quantities of low-enriched uranium have been siphoned off on four occasions over the past two years,’ Hans said. ‘Each diverted shipment affected users in several European countries at a time. Someone inside the Commission falsified reports to hide the missing amounts.’
Clarke heard him out and nodded.
‘That is excellent,’ he said. ‘And we even know who it was.’
‘You believe it was Boris Zayek in Luxembourg?’
‘Who else?’
‘What if it wasn’t Zayek?’
Hans had expected a silence to fall now, or a snap at his impertinence, but Schuster-Zoll replied immediately instead of Clarke.
‘He was a Russian agent, Mister Tamberg,’ she said, her upper body held upright on the sofa, her legs pressed closely together and held to the side at an angle. ‘And this is deeply worrying. Just imagine if the political climate with Russia became even worse. If there were more of them, in higher and more sensitive positions. If we had such infiltrations, such discoveries more often. Such disruption. And such terrible violence.’
He’s not a computer specialist, not an engineering specialist, not a weapons specialist. Not a former commando or even paratrooper.
What if he’s not even meant to do anything, but just to sit there? To wait there to be exposed as a spy at the right moment?
‘Just think about the consequences, Mister Tamberg. For Europe the economic damage from such an escalation could be immense, not to mention the psychological effect on our work at the European Commission.’
Just look at the next candidate in the queue. You think Europe will even open negotiations with them, for membership in the future?
It has to, at least it has to open talks. Europe made a promise. We cannot go back on that just because Russia is bullying its neighbours.
Hans looked over to her. ‘This is about the membership negotiations, isn’t it? You’re afraid that if we take the next country in, if we even start talking to them, the Russians will become even more hostile than they already are.’
‘Nobody’s afraid of anything,’ Clarke intervened. ‘It’s just that public opinion does not fully appreciate the interest that Russia and Europe share. The mutual interest of staying out of one another’s way.’
Hans didn’t reply.
‘Actually in some countries all it takes is a little nudge,’ Clarke continued. ‘To show what will happen if we expand too far to the east. And above all the Commission itself needs a nudge. Or a firm push even. There are too many people in here who live their pan-European dream, completely oblivious to the fact that civilised international relations stop at the European Union’s external border. That beyond it the world is rough. That it’s the nineteenth century out there.’
‘You killed him,’ Hans said. ‘And Tienhoven, too.’
‘Nobody killed anybody,’ Clarke insisted. ‘Boris Zayek was exposed with the help of our German friends, he was a dangerous spy with his fingers deep in some nuclear fraud, so he put a bomb into his mouth and committed a messy suicide. And as for Willem Tienhoven, he died of a weak heart. Perhaps it had to do with his divorce, or with his daughter, or with the stress in Luxembourg. Perhaps it had to do with his bloody heart not bloody working.’
Hans said nothing.
‘Look.’ Clarke took a remote control out of a drawer and pointed at a television screen on the wall of his office. Hans turned around to see it. The recording showed a news broadcast of a press conference at the Russian foreign ministry. The Russian minister was looking into the camera and said, in his clear deep voice, that Russia was deploying its intelligence services like any other country. And if the European Union was behaving like a country, with expansionist ambitions towards Russia’s borders, it should expect to be treated accordingly.
Clarke commented, still looking at the screen, ‘Obviously we also leaked to the press that it was the Russians liquidating one of their own agents, even though the official version is a suicide. Rumours like that are even better for these purposes. Much better than actually saying that it was a liquidation.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if you make such allegations, then all you get is a drawn-out investigation with no proof in the end. And people start to doubt if he even was a spy to begin with.’
Clarke wagged his finger at Hans and added, ‘But he was, Hans, he was. The Russians gave us just the nudge we needed.’
Maybe he’s not a real defector, and this is just their way of asking us to check on Zayek.
Wait there to be exposed.
The Russians exposed him themselves. To show the Commission that it was a target, to show that they were willing and able to put people on the inside. And then they sent the man on the ferry, the man in the lobby. They killed Zayek before he could even say anything.
Hans asked, just to be sure, ‘You don’t want to know where exactly the uranium went? Or to have definitive proof that it was Zayek who falsified the reports?’
‘Every year there are loads of isotopes disappearing worldwide,’ Clarke replied, turning off the screen with his remote control. ‘Nothing weapons-grade, it’s just common theft. A big investigation into what Zayek was up to will only make it look like the Commission was making life easy for uranium smugglers. Major reputational damage to all of us, for very little gain. And as for proof, it’s easy,’ he put the remote back into his drawer. ‘We don’t need to go after the proof. The proof will come to us. We keep an eye on the statistics. If it doesn’t happen again, it means it was Zayek. Easy and efficient.’ Clarke leaned forward on his desk. ‘Meanwhile, Hans, we need to remember how superbly we exposed a foreign agent. Think about that. And th
ink what this could mean to you personally.’
Hans glanced to the right. Schuster-Zoll smiled at him. ‘Mister Tamberg, Hans. What Geoffrey probably means is that we are thinking of building up some capacity, here at the European Commission. To better deal with such situations in the future. Anti-fraud in its current form is ill-suited to meet foreign intelligence threats in any systematic way. There could be a new unit, perhaps a whole new directorate.’
Clarke nodded energetically. ‘With your experience, with your talents, I think you should apply. When the time comes. For now you are doing great, too. I understand that we’re going to bust some corrupt mayor who stole some road-building money, and that’s brilliant, I love that. We’ll call the press to take pictures of us rolling in and overseeing the arrest. Bang! But there will be a time for more than that, Hans. The time will come. Soon.’
Hans did not reply. He nodded to Clarke, then to the Commissioner, turned around and left the office without saying another word.
***
Hans took the stairs down to his own floor, walked through the long empty corridor, entered his own office, switched on the light and turned on his computer. While it was starting up he picked up the envelope he’d sent to himself from Rotterdam. It had been lying in his in-tray on the desk. He opened the envelope, took out the Russian’s empty black box and put it on his desk.
The computer was ready and waiting for his login. He typed in his name and password and hit the button. While the second part of the loading was in progress, he took out two big empty envelopes from a drawer and put them on the desk, too.
He looked at his own reflection in the dark window for a few moments.
The computer was ready. Hans opened the digital version of the content of his files regarding Saar and the Tallinn harbour extension. He made the necessary mouse clicks to print them all out. The printer came to life. While it was working away, Hans opened his work e-mail and went through the backlog, starting with the oldest messages.
There was one of the usual security warnings. Due to a European summit meeting, parts of the Schuman roundabout area will be closed for traffic in the morning on Wednesday next week.
Next was a message from Viktor: Hans, please call me, it’s urgent. The message had been sent during the night after Viktor had brought Hans to Brussels. It included a Luxembourgish mobile phone number. Hans picked up the receiver and dialled it. Checked the corner of the computer screen. It was late.
‘Hello?’, Viktor’s voice said.
‘This is Hans. Hello Viktor. I talked to your girlfriend’s father in Helsinki today.’
Silence. Then Hans heard Viktor move to another room and close the door behind him.
Viktor whispered, ‘After you and I left for Brussels, a man came to our house here in Luxembourg. He threatened my wife.’ His voice did not sound neutral. Its usual calmness was missing. ‘We were lucky our children weren’t at home then.’
‘You can relax,’ Hans said. ‘The man will get what he wanted from me and will be happy.’
A sigh. ‘She had to tell him that I was bringing you to your anti-fraud office in Brussels, and she confirmed the model and licence plate number of our car. I’m very sorry. But she didn’t know your name, so she couldn’t tell him.’
‘I said relax. And your Anneli can relax, too. Her colleague Zayek has been covering up the missing uranium. There will be no investigation into her unit.’
Viktor’s answer would perhaps give him away, but there was only breathing at the other end of the line.
Hans continued, ‘You gave me a ride to Brussels to convince me the theft was a Russian scheme, though.’
‘I wanted to hear what your assumptions were. You were suspecting this Zayek, that’s all I needed to know. And now it turns out that it was actually true, too.’
‘You wanted to keep Anneli out of trouble because you were sleeping with her,’ Hans said.
‘I love her,’ Viktor replied, without hesitation. Perhaps he felt they were now beyond tiptoeing around each other’s private sensitivities, or perhaps he would have answered in this way at any other stage, too. ‘I met my wife early in my life. And I met Anneli much later. It could have been the other way around, but it wasn’t. I married the woman I loved. And then I met the woman I also would have married, had I met the two in reverse order.’
It didn’t seem like Viktor had already heard about Mäkinen’s death. Hans gave Viktor a second before asking his next question.
‘Why did you keep helping me with the statistics, then?’
‘Why should I not have? I didn’t know anything was really going on in the first place, and then I also wanted to find out who was doing it.’
There was some more breathing. Viktor had no idea it was her. His secret love affair hadn’t told him a thing.
‘Now you know,’ Hans said. ‘It was Zayek.’
‘It’s been very tough,’ Viktor said. ‘My wife still doesn’t know.’ Another pause. ‘I have ended things with Anneli yesterday. You know, broke up. I think she was through with me, too. It was just an episode. She never stopped loving her real life.’
Hans waited.
‘You know, maybe that’s for the better anyway,’ Viktor said. ‘Even if I forget about the children. Let’s say I marry Anneli now. There will always be someone else, someone I will meet even later than her.’
‘You do as you like,’ Hans said, and hung up. He checked the printer, which was still rattling along, and turned back to his e-mails.
There was a standard notification that the nuclear reports investigation was closed, with the request to finalise the dossier for archiving. At that time Hans had already been sitting around in Rotterdam, reading celebrity news.
Two more standard notifications, telling him that he had been assigned new cases in the meantime. He did not open them to see the details.
A message from Caitlin from money-laundering from the same afternoon. She had heard about Zayek’s death the day before, had seen that Hans hadn’t returned to the office, and was worried where he was. Take care. Caitlin.
Another message, with the scanned birth certificates of the parents of the director’s consultant attached. The proof whether the person she had hired was her nephew or not. Tienhoven must have approved and forwarded the request for the certificates himself, in Hans’s absence. Hans skipped that message as well without opening it.
Then there was a message sent by Siim, again from the same afternoon, when Hans had been getting ready to spend the night in a Rotterdam prison cell: Hans, something happened to Clarissa while she was in town, please call. Siim.
Hans checked the printer, it needed more paper. Hans opened the lid and fed it a fresh stack of blank sheets. He pressed the button to tell the machine to continue working, and looked back at his screen.
There was no need to call Siim. Whatever had happened to Clarissa when the Russian had taken her pictures, it wouldn’t change Hans’s interest in giving him his box back. Although the Russian could have taken her captive, which Hans would need to know before making contact.
He picked up the phone and called Siim’s mobile number which the e-mail had mentioned. Hans didn’t know it by heart, it had been saved in his mobile phone, which was gone.
‘I got your message, Siim,’ Hans said. ‘I’m back now.’
‘I don’t know what to say Hans,’ Siim said. ‘I don’t know what to think about you. Maybe it’s not your fault, or maybe I should never talk to you again.’
‘Where is she?’
‘She’s right here in Petten. It was, I don’t know. He made her strip, Hans. And he…’
Hans waited.
Siim whispered, ‘And he took pictures of her.’
Meaning there hadn’t been anything else.
‘The man was a professional assassin,’ Hans said while looking whether there was enough space for the printed pages or whether he needed to take the first pile out. ‘It could have been much worse. But it’s over now.’
‘Let’s talk maybe after Easter,’ Siim said. ‘Give it some time first, okay?’
‘Is that Hans?’ It was Clarissa’s voice in the background. There would be either reproaches or forgiveness or more questions from her. All of that could wait.
‘Yes,’ Hans said to Siim. ‘Let’s do that.’
He hung up.
The most recent message on the screen was from Tienhoven, from Friday night. By that time Hans had already been trying to get some sleep in the prison cell. Hans, I am on sick leave for one or two weeks. It’s the heart again. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone. Willem.
That was all.
Hans closed his work e-mail and opened his private e-mail account. There were four new messages from Julia. He closed the programme without opening any of them.
Then he opened the browser and looked up the address of the Estonian chief prosecutor’s office. They had moved to a new building. He wrote the address on one of the two blank envelopes that he’d put on his desk.
The printer had finished. Hans took out another blank piece of paper and wrote, in Estonian: Don’t tell the Commission, don’t mention me, bring him down on your own, and hurry. One week, two weeks maximum. If Saar says I came to talk to him about this, ignore it. Good luck. H.
He put the printed Saar file inside the envelope, together with the handwritten note, and sealed it. He left his office and put it in the outgoing mail tray in the corridor. On Monday it would be machine-stamped with the Commission’s logo, but that was fine. His former colleagues in Tallinn would know anyway who the package was from, it wasn’t strictly speaking anonymous.
When he came back he sat down again and looked up the phone number of the Russian embassy in Brussels. There was a twenty-four-hour number one could call to ask for consular assistance.
