The Bankster (Ravi Subramanian)
Page 30
‘The team’s found something.’ Karl was personally leading the forensic sweep of the Union of Jews Foundation apartment, given the sensitive nature of the case. ‘I wanted you to see it before we did anything about it.’
‘How many people do you have on site?’
‘Three. We have been as discrete as we possibly could. We’ve sent in a small tactical team, that’s it. No one has noticed us so far.’
‘Great. I’ll be there in fifteen,’ and Johann hung up. Jumping up from his seat, he instinctively reached out and patted the Smith and Wesson 1911, which was firmly holstered on the right side of his trousers. Taking it out of the holster, he admired its scandium alloy frame momentarily as he caressed its 4.25” barrel. He turned it around and performed the customary checks, making sure it was loaded with its usual two eight round magazines. ‘Hope I don’t have to use these,’ he said to himself as he put it back into the holster and rushed to his car. Wanting to keep it a low-key operation, he drove on his own. No pilot cars. No howling sirens.
In twelve minutes he was in Odeongasse. After driving round and surveying the neighbourhood, he chose a nondescript location to park his car. Johann was glad that he was in plain clothes. He had been invited to give a talk at his son’s school that afternoon. Not wanting to intimidate the kids by wearing a police uniform, he had chosen to wear a normal suit that day. No one noticed him as he parked two blocks away from the UJF and stepped out. There weren’t too many people around in any case. He patted his holster again to check for the S&W 1911.
He walked as fast as he could without attracting attention and reached the façade of the Jewish Towers. Vienna had encountered mild snowfall the night before which accounted for the wet pavements. He scanned the area to see if he was being watched. It took him just two seconds to realize that the old lady walking down the street was only a harmless morning walker. In any case, she was at a distance and was preoccupied with adjusting her muffler around her neck and wouldn’t have been able to clearly make out what he was doing there. Sprinting across the road, he entered the ground floor of the building. It was much warmer in there.
The lobby was empty. Even the day he had led a search party there, it had been empty. He quickly ducked behind the pillar to his right, towards the staircase and away from the lift. He waited there for a minute and a half. Despite his fitness levels, Johann was panting. It was the excitement. What had Karl found that he wanted Johann to see? In any case he was now only two floors away—not too far.
Stealthily he made his way up the stairs, trying not to make any sound. In no time he was standing in front of the door. Pulling out his mobile phone, he dialled Karl’s number. ‘I am outside,’ he whispered and turned around, only to see Karl standing at the door. ‘Welcome sir,’ Karl said and led him inside.
‘What’s this about Karl?’
‘Let me quickly update you on what we have done so far. Isaac, Nelson and I have taken this place apart over the last fourteen hours. We have scanned every inch. We haven’t found anything. They have scrubbed this place clean.’
‘Any neighbours? Spoken to anyone around?’
‘This building is surprisingly silent. There hasn’t been any movement whatsoever since yesterday. We haven’t spoken to people in neighbouring buildings yet. You wanted this to be as low key as possible, right?’
‘Then why did you call me here?’ There was a touch of irritation in Johann Schroeder’s tone.
‘Sir, we were about to call off the entire operation when we found something intriguing. A bit strange. I wanted to show it to you, before we moved forward. In fact that is the only thing we have got to show for this entire operation. Nothing else. No fingerprints. No clues. No nothing.’
‘What is it?’
‘Why don’t you come on in sir? Let me show it to you,’ and he walked further into the apartment, heading towards the far end that was closer to the exterior wall. Schroeder followed him wondering what was in store. Enroute, Karl stopped near a black box lying on the floor. He bent down, fiddled with the contents and within a couple of minutes was back on his feet. However, this time around he had something in his hand, which Schroeder recognized as a thermal scanner.
Karl walked a few more step still he was standing right adjacent to the washbasin fixed on the wall outside the bathroom. To the right of the washbasin was the door of the apartment bathroom. To its left was the wall, which had a small four feet by three feet window, which overlooked the street below.
‘See this?’ Karl said, pointing towards the washbasin. Schroeder nodded his head and looked towards the basin. It was a normal white basin, with a fancy faucet on top. A white plastic pipe was connected at the bottom of the basin which drained out the water. ‘This white pipe connects to a secondary pipe, which is concealed here under the flooring,’ and he tapped the floor below the basin, ‘inside the floor here.’
‘Hmm,’ nodded Schroeder.
‘This secondary pipe is short, three feet long, and runs beneath the floor and exits the building through this wall,’ and he pointed to the wall which had the small four feet by three feet window. Outside the building, it connects to the primary drain pipe, through a T-joint. And by the way, the secondary pipe is exclusively for draining water from this washbasin.’
Schroeder stepped up to the window, stretched himself, pulled the curtain aside just a bit, and looked outside the building through the window. ‘Hmm. Yes, I can see it. The primary pipe connects the secondary pipes from all the apartments and goes straight down to the ground.’
‘Yes’, said Karl. ‘It goes about thirty-five feet vertically down and connects to the underground sewage system of the city.’
As Schroeder drew the curtain back and turned towards Karl to listen to the rest of the story, he could see a Wien Sewers Authority (WSA) service van pull up into the road adjoining the building from the corner of his eyes. It was not too difficult for him to figure out that it belonged to the WSA—its logo and the colour combination were distinctive enough to make it recognizable from a distance. ‘The city has woken up,’ he said to himself as Karl went on. Schroeder curtailed his impatience and decided to allow Karl to proceed unhindered. Karl was one of the best forensic experts they had; Johann had trained him himself.
Karl saw the questioning look on Schroeder’s face and volunteered, ‘The thermal scan of this area confirmed all that I just told you. We pulled data from the WSA network. It revalidated what the scan told us.’
‘Alright. What then?’ When Schroeder said this, Karl stepped closer to the washbasin and brought his hand up to the knob on the right of the faucet.
Instantly Johann moved his gaze to Karl’s hands only to see that Karl was wearing his gloves. ‘Standard operating procedure. I learnt it from you, remember? Don’t be paranoid.’ Johann smiled.
Karl pressed the knob and water started flowing into the basin. ‘Wait for a second,’ said Karl and didn’t move his gaze from the basin. Within five seconds, water started to accumulate, indicating a back flow from the drainpipe into the basin. Hurriedly Karl pressed the knob again and the flow of water stopped.
‘A drainage problem? Is that what you are here to check son?’ Johann asked him.
‘Come on Johann. Give me some credit. It’s the second floor. This white pipe, then three feet of the secondary pipe and then a thirty-five feet drop to ground. The pipe from this basin is the only pipe that feeds into the secondary pipe. Nothing can get stuck in that thirty-five feet. It’s very unlikely that there is a drainage problem. In fact it is definitely not a drainage problem.’
Schroeder looked outside. Karl was right. ‘But if it’s not a drainage problem, what is Wien Sewer Authority’s truck doing here?’ His eyes were riveted on the WSA service vehicle that had just driven in.
‘Must be here for some other apartment or building.’
‘Possibly. But what is the relevance of the water and drain pipes to what you called me here for?’
‘Let me show you.’ Karl p
icked up the thermal scanner and moved some dials on it, presumably to adjust it and looked at Schroeder. The screen of the thermal scanner lit up in shades of red, orange and black. He pointed the scanner towards the 250 watt bulb hanging in one corner of the room, and a portion of the scanner screen, which in any normal camera would have been occupied by the image of the bulb, became red, indicating the presence of a heat generating substance. ‘I know Karl that the thermal scanner measures the differences in temperature, which cannot be normally perceived by any normal human being. Can you please move on?’ Schroeder couldn’t contain his impatience. If he could go straight to the result, he would have. But he was the one who had taught Karl that, in forensic analysis, it’s always helpful if one goes through the process of deduction while presenting it to anyone, else the veracity of the end result would always be questioned.
‘You are the boss,’ said Karl and he adjusted the thermal scanner in such a way that it pointed towards the white pipe. Schroeder could trace the path taken by the water through the pipe, the flow of which had generated a miniscule variation in temperature, which the scanner had registered. A feeble orange glow on the scanner in an L-shaped cylinder indicated the flow of water through the white and secondary pipes. Once the water flowed outside the building, the external chill made it too difficult for the scanner to register any variations in the temperature and hence the screen was largely black in the area, which would have corresponded to the T-joint on the primary drainpipe.
‘It’s not clear,’ said Schroeder.
In response, Karl just lifted his hand and moved it to the knob on the left of the faucet. Schroeder was focused on the screen of the scanner. Karl pressed the knob. Hot water rushed into the basin and thereon into the white pipe, onto the concealed secondary pipe and out of the building into the primary pipe. And as it did so, the image on the thermal scanner underwent an intriguing transformation. In no time, the scanner recorded the dramatic variation of temperature on account of hot water flowing through an otherwise cold pipe. An L-shaped cylindrical image in orange appeared on the screen of the scanner almost instantaneously, tracing the entire route of the water, till it disappeared into the main pipe. He looked at Karl, who pressed the knob to stop the water flow and joined Schroeder. This time the thermal image right up to the T-joint was visible. The outside chill and the hot water inside the secondary pipe had caused a definitive variance in temperature, thereby aiding the thermal scanner in recording the same.
‘Well, clearly the water flow is fine. There’s no drainage problem. But what the hell is the damn issue?’
‘This is the issue sir, which I haven’t been able to figure out,’ said Karl pointing at the T-joint on the screen. Schroeder could not figure out what he was referring to.
‘Sir, look at the flow of water. When it flows through the first tube from the basin to the pipe below the floor, it flows in a straight line. An orange vertical cylinder is all that you see corresponding to the water flowing through the white pipe.’ Schroeder nodded.
‘Now this is where the water hits the horizontal concealed secondary pipe which leads water through the building wall to the external pipe here,’ Karl traced the entire orange cylinder on the screen, from the source to the external drainpipe. ‘At first sight, everything seems normal. But when you look closely at the T-joint, something is not right here.’
Schroeder strained his eyes and looked at the image on the thermal scanner. ‘Yes, the point where the water flows from the secondary pipe into the main pipe is uncharacteristically different from the remaining path of water. The water flow here is not a steady stream of orange.’ Karl nodded.
‘Why is it peppered with dots of black?’ Schroeder looked at Karl with raised eyebrows. There was silence for a moment and then Schroeder exclaimed, ‘A filter!’ His eyes were wide open.
‘A filter with very minute holes sir. Thermally speaking, such an image of orange peppered with black spots would mean that at the T-junction, despite the hot water flowing through it, there are spots which are cold, i.e. not at the same temperature. Which can only mean that there is something else there. And the pattern of these black spots within the orange suggests that there is a metallic filter there. Surely that’s why the flow of water is being blocked.’
‘No one puts in such a filter, particularly in drain pipes.’
‘Yes sir. But that’s not it. Look at this.’ Schroeder’s eyes followed Karl’s fingers as they moved to spot on the screen, just before the T-Junction and the filter
‘Look here. Before the two pipes meet, there is a ball of orange.’
Schroeder looked at the image closely. A horizontal rod-like cylindrical stretch of orange colour marked the image of the water flowing in the secondary pipe till the T-junction, except at one point. Just before the T-junction, the red colour seemed to momentarily dip into a small abyss and then recover its trajectory before heading straight into the filter marking the intersection of the two pipes. The trajectory followed by the red at that point seemed to be like an inverted omega symbol (Ω). ‘The hot water is accumulating at a point before the filter. Looks like a niche,’ Johann Schroeder noted, surprised.
‘This means, sir, that there is a chamber there, in the drain pipe. The hot water flows out of the apartment, and accumulates in the niche. This accumulation of water is what caused a back flow, which resulted in clogging of water when I opened the knob earlier. Only water that escapes the niche goes out through the filter into the external pipe.’
‘Why would someone design a pipe like that? Is this in the Wien Sewer Authority master layout?’
‘We checked. It’s not there. The master plan, which we pulled out, showed a normal pipe. Nothing out of the ordinary.’
‘So is this a secret storage for something? If so, what could that be?’ Schroeder pulled back the curtains and looked out again.
‘Karl,’ he called out and even before Karl could respond, ‘trouble,’ he added. Karl quickly ran up to the window and looked out in the direction towards which Schroeder was intently staring. ‘What is it?’
‘Why is the Wien Sewer Authority truck backing up into this building and extending its telescopic turntable ladder towards this apartment? As far as I know, this building has been empty for some time now.’
Karl looked out again. Johann too, silently observed what the WSA truck was doing. A mid-ship, like the ones used by firemen to rescue people stranded on higher floors in case of a fire, was affixed to the ladder being raised. Two men were standing on the road adjacent to the WSA van and were looking at their colleague who was inside the mid-ship. From a distance, the man on the mid-ship looked too polished to be a WSA employee.
‘Ask for back-up’, whispered Schroeder, turning towards Karl. ‘Quick! We have a team stationed at Nestroy,’ and looking at the other two men who were with Karl, but had stayed quiet all this while, he added, ‘You two watch the door. If anyone walks up, and you don’t get answers, shoot. And use silencers. We don’t want the entire neighbourhood rushing in here.’
Karl immediately got away from the window, and made a call. In no time, he was back to give Schroeder company. Schroeder took out his S&W 1911 from the holster and brought his hand up to the stainless steel slider. He cranked it back, and took position. ‘How long?’ he asked. ‘ETA, seven minutes,’ Karl responded.
‘They’re clearly not WSA employees. It’s a façade. If they are not what they are pretending to be, then I presume they are the ones who killed the Indians.’ The wind was strong. The jacket that the intruder in the mid-ship was wearing moved just a bit, but it was enough for the razor sharp eye of the deputy chief of police to catch the outline of a revolver tucked inside the trousers. ‘The bastard’s armed.’ Schroeder did a quick calculation and whispered, ‘It will take him three minutes to get the ladder down, so if he takes at least four minutes at the drain pipe, we will get them. Murderers. Bastards.’ Johann Schroeder was furious. Vienna was his city, and crime of any sort was unacceptable.
The intruder lifted the piece of the pipe which had come loose and carefully placed it next to him. When Johann saw what was below the piece that the intruder had lifted off, he was shocked. Concealed below the cover pipe that had come off, was a keypad. The intruder keyed in a six-digit code and the layer came free. He carefully removed that layer and one could see water in the pipe below. The suspect pulled out a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and wore them in a jiffy, post which he put his hands inside the pipe, into the niche and pulled out four tiny packets. Each packet was of the size of a pouch containing about ten Hershey’s kisses. The packets quickly disappeared into some secret compartment in his clothing. The intruder placed the keypad back, locked it with a code, and screwed on the top of the pipe back. Schroeder looked at his watch. Two minutes and the back-up would be there. He would be covered on the ground level and could take his chances. He drew back the curtain and threw open the window. Cold breeze caressed his face as he took aim and screamed, ‘Freeze!’
The intruder looked up and was shocked to see someone in the apartment, that too with a gun in his hand. Instinctively he reached out for his revolver with his right hand. Johann Schroeder fired. The bullet ricocheted off the railing of the mid-ship and disappeared somewhere in the thirty-five feet abyss down below. ‘Next time I will not miss. Put your hands on your head, where I can see them,’ cried Schroeder. The hands came up, in an indication of submission, and snaked their way up to the head, where they finally came to rest. The intruder looked down. For a minute he contemplated jumping. But it was too high, too risky. Chances of survival were limited. He dismissed that as a bad idea. Suddenly three police patrol cars with sirens blazing raced into the street and came to a screeching halt near the WSA van. Eight men jumped out of the cars and took positions, ready to fire at the two accomplices of the intruder, on the ground, just in case they tried to flee. They were hiding behind the WSA van. Schroeder looked down. He was glad that he had things under control. The case was close to getting solved—almost.