The Carnival Master jf-4

by Craig Russell

  ‘If you see her again, I need you to phone me on this number. Immediately. It is very important.’

  ***

  Back in the taxi Fabel examined his list of Cologne hotels. He had to try to think like Maria. He guessed that she had left this hotel because she had checked in under her own name. She would seek out somewhere even less conspicuous. He leaned over and handed the list to the taxi driver.

  ‘Which of these would be the best if you wanted to book in somewhere under a fake name and pay cash without too many questions asked?’

  The taxi driver pursed his lips in consideration for a moment, then took his pen and circled three names.

  ‘These would be your best bet, I reckon.’

  ‘Okay…’ Fabel leaned back in his seat. ‘Let’s start with the nearest.’

  8.

  ‘They’re stopping…’ Buslenko’s voice broke the radio silence that seemed to have gone on for hours. ‘We’re at some kind of disused industrial building next to a reservoir or a flooded quarry or something. There’s another car here. They’re obviously meeting someone.’

  ‘Can you see who?’ Olga’s voice crackled across the airwaves.

  ‘No… no, I can’t. Where are you, Maria?’

  ‘I’m on the A57 north of the city, near Dormagen.’ Maria felt sick. She realised she was retracing the route she’d taken the night she had played cat and mouse with Maxim Kushnier.

  ‘Right…’ Buslenko sounded hesitant. ‘You’ll be here in about fifteen minutes. Head out along Provinzialstrasse towards Delhoven and you’ll come to a bend in the road. Take a left and you’ll come to a farm track that leads off of that. I’ve hidden my car, a black Audi, up the track. I’ll see you there in quarter of an hour.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Maria and found her mouth was dry.

  ‘Olga.’ Buslenko transmitted again. ‘I’m going in for a closer look. I want to see who Vitrenko’s meeting with.’

  ‘Wait, Taras,’ said Olga. ‘Wait until Maria gets there. I think you should get in touch with the local police. This is our chance to nail him.’

  ‘That’s not how we’re going to deal with it. I’ll be fine. But I’m switching off my radio until I get back to the car. Vitrenko has probably posted guards.’

  ‘Be careful, Taras,’ said Maria. She put her foot down a little more on the Saxo’s accelerator. Now, she thought. Now it’s going to be over for once and for all.

  Olga guided Maria to the position Buslenko had last given. The roads became narrower and the houses fewer. Maria found herself in a landscape of open fields punctuated with scattered, dense clumps of naked trees. The inky blueness of the darkness outside yielded to a deeper black as she drove, marking the subtle change from late afternoon to true night. The rain stopped.

  ‘I’ve reached the junction on Provinzialstrasse,’ she radioed in to Olga Sarapenko. ‘Where now?’

  ‘Take a right and follow the road for about a kilometre. Then you should see the bend Taras talked about and the lane where he’s hidden his car.’

  To start with, Maria drove past the entrance to the lane: it was crowded in by dense thorny bracken and she had to reverse to turn into it. After about twenty metres she discovered Buslenko’s Audi. She got out and shivered in the cold winter air. That old shiver. There was something about the lane, about the night, that gave her the darkest form of deja vu.

  ‘I’ve found the car,’ she said into the radio, her voice low. She peered in through the rain-speckled side window. ‘But no sign of Buslenko.’

  ‘Sit tight,’ Olga responded. ‘He’ll still be doing his recon. He’ll be back soon.’

  Maria checked her watch. He had said fifteen minutes. It had taken her twelve to get there. Something caught her eye on the passenger seat of the Audi.

  ‘Olga… he’s left his radio in the car.’

  There was a static-crackled pause, then: ‘He said he was maintaining radio silence.’

  ‘But wouldn’t he have just switched the radio off instead of leaving it here?’

  ‘Maria. Just sit tight.’

  Maria slipped her radio into her coat pocket. She made her way back along the lane to the road, the mud yielding beneath her boots. Once out onto the road she checked, her body still concealed by the bracken, for cars coming in either direction. She heard nothing, but the chill breeze rustled as it stirred the naked branches. She made her way along the road to the bend. On the other side she could see an exposed field with a barn-type building at one edge. There were two cars parked outside. Maria felt the nausea well up inside her again and her heart hammered in her chest. The scene she looked upon was like some landlocked version of the field and barn near Cuxhaven. The place she’d last encountered Vitrenko. She found herself looking up at the starless, cloud-heavy sky and at the winter barren field as if to assure herself that she had not travelled back in time. No stars, no swirling grasses. Maria crouched low as she ran back along the road, the lane and into her car. She slammed the door shut and gripped the steering wheel tight. She looked at the keys in the ignition, still with the label of the garage she’d bought the car from attached. She could turn that key, reverse out onto the road and in minutes she’d be on the autobahn heading for Hamburg. She could put it all behind her. Start again.

  Maria snapped open the glove compartment with a sudden decisiveness and took out both her service SIG-Sauer automatic and the illegal 9mm Glock and slipped them into her pockets. She reached over again, grabbed her binoculars and headed back out on foot along the lane.

  There was no cover in the field. It would be almost impossible to cross undetected. Buslenko knew what he was doing. Vitrenko and his team certainly knew what they were doing. But Maria didn’t have the kind of training for this kind of stealth. She moved quickly and quietly to the corner of the field where a thin, wind-bowed tree and some leafless shrubbery offered meagre cover. She scanned the field, the parked cars, the barn with her binoculars. Nothing. No guards, no signs of life. There wasn’t even any hint of a light inside the barn. And no sign of Buslenko. She sat down on the damp grass, leaning her back against the tree. Apart from the wind, there was no sound. No hint that another human being shared Maria’s dark, frightened universe. She took one gun, then the next, and snapped the carriages back, placing a round in each chamber and snapping off the safety. She put her service SIG-Sauer back in her pocket. She could see the fumed ghosts of her hard, fast breathing in the chill air.

  Maria took a deep breath and set off across the field towards the barn, bent over as much as she could while running, the Glock automatic held stiffly out and to one side.

  She was about halfway there when the light came on.

  9.

  Maria’s instinct reacted faster than her brain could process the fact that a light had come on in the building and cast a yellow shaft across the field. She threw herself onto the cold, damp earth and lay perfectly flat for a moment, her arms and legs spread, her head down. Realising she could still be seen, she rolled swiftly on her side and back into darkness. She looked up. The barn window was an empty yellow square in the dark. Then a figure appeared briefly, but long enough for Maria to feel that same terrifying sense of recognition. She aimed her 9mm Glock at Vitrenko’s silhouette, but then it was gone. She got to her feet, keeping her gaze fixed on the window, and closed another twenty metres before dropping to the ground again. She scanned the field, the illuminated window and the perimeter of the barn. No one. This was too easy. And where the hell was Buslenko?

  With a wave of raw panic, Maria suddenly remembered her radio. She had left it on and there had been no communication between her and Olga for several minutes. Olga could radio her at any moment and give away Maria’s location to Vitrenko’s goons. She scrabbled desperately in her inside coat pocket and clumsily pulled out the radio, dropping it on the ground. She placed both gloved hands over it to smother any sound and her finger found the off button. She breathed a sigh of relief, letting her forehead rest on the cold earth.

&n
bsp; Maria was now too close to the barn to make the rest of the crossing upright, so she commando-crawled over the field. Eventually she reached the stone wall of the barn, pressing her back against it. She looked back across the empty field, fringed with bracken and hedge. Every instinct in her body was now screaming at her. This was wrong. So wrong. It all looked too much like that other field and barn. It had been too easy to cross the field undetected, just like it had been that other night, when Vitrenko had felt so confident that he had posted the minimum security. Surely he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. There was one significant difference between that night and this: this time Fabel wasn’t around to save her. Maria felt so cold. She checked her gun again and began to edge towards the window.

  Maria realised that the stone-built structure was more some kind of workshop rather than a barn. The window was glazed with a reasonably new pane, but the glass was thick with grime which had gathered in particular density around the corners. Maria strained to hear anything from inside, but the wind had picked up and the glass muted any sound. Cradling the butt of her automatic with both hands, she eased forward, craning her neck to see through the edge of the window. She snapped her head back from the window and stood with her back to the wall. Her mind raced to analyse the split second’s worth of information she had taken in. Molokov was in there, with at least three henchmen. No sign of Vitrenko, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in there, hidden from view. Maria fought to keep her breath under control and her thoughts in order. Now was the time to start thinking like a police officer again. Fabel had always told them that the first duty of a police officer was to stand between the innocent and harm, between chaos and order. Maria knew that someone was about to die, probably horrifically, and within the next few minutes.

  Maria’s snatched glance through the window had picked up someone who should not have been there. A man sitting on a chair in the middle of the room with his hands out of sight, presumably tied behind his back. He had been surrounded by the others, including Molokov. Torture would come first. Then death.

  Maria pulled the radio from the inside pocket of her thick black coat. She would have to risk using it. She turned the volume as low as was practical, given the increasing whine of the wind.

  ‘Olga… come in, Olga…’

  Silence.

  ‘Olga… come in…’ Maria’s voice was now desperate.

  ‘Maria – where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get you. Taras’s radio is still dead too…’

  ‘They’ve got him, Olga…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’ve got Taras. I think they’re going to kill him.’

  ‘My God – what are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re out of our depth, Olga. I need to become a police officer again. We need to do this right. I want you to phone the Cologne police right now and tell them that you’re a Kiev militia officer and that a Hamburg Murder Commission Commissar needs urgent assistance at this location. Tell them that we’ve got Vasyl Vitrenko pinned down here and the BKA Task Force will want to be here as well. But for God’s sake tell them to hurry.’

  ‘I’ve got it… I’ll do it now, Maria. Are you safe?’

  ‘For the moment. But I’m going to have to do something if the local police don’t get here before these bastards start on Taras. Do it now.’

  Maria switched the radio off again, eased back along the wall and checked through the window. Molokov was shouting, ranting at Buslenko, gesticulating wildly. Occasionally he would look across to something or someone outside Maria’s field of vision.

  Vitrenko.

  Maria crouched beneath the sill and worked her way to the other side of the window and to the far end of the wall. She stole a look around the corner. A door, two heavies. Sub-machine pistols. No way in that way. That made things difficult: she wouldn’t have direct access to the room they were holding Buslenko in. She retraced her steps to the other corner.

  She needed to get in there. She felt tears sting her eyes. She thought about all that she had been through in the last three years, about that night in the field near Cuxhaven, about Fabel, about Frank. Maria knew why she was crying: she was mourning. She was mourning the person she had been before it all happened. And she was mourning the life she knew she was about to lose. The local police would take too long to get here. She and Buslenko would both be dead and Vitrenko would probably once more vanish into the night. But she had to do this. End this. She would find her way into that room and use the one shot she would have before they gunned her down to take out Vitrenko. She was certain he was in there with them. She knew that she probably would not recognise his face; that would be changed totally by now. But his eyes. And his presence. Those she would recognise in a split second.

  Maria steadied herself against the wall. She sniffed hard and wiped the tears from her face. She paused for a moment in the vain hope that she might hear the approach of police cars. The wind rustled through the bare trees and hedgerow behind the workshop with a strangely soothing sound. Maria took her service automatic from her pocket and now stood with a gun in each hand. She gave a small laugh. Like a movie. But it doubled her chances of hitting Vitrenko before they gunned her down.

  With that thought she stood clear of the wall and walked calmly around the corner. Again alarm bells began to ring. It was too easy. This side of the workshop looked completely unguarded. There was a window into another room: this time the glass was broken and the room was in darkness. Maria looked at the luminous dial of her watch. Seven minutes since she had radioed Olga. It would be maybe another five or ten before the local police arrived. Again she hesitated. They wouldn’t come with lights and sirens, of course. She looked out back across the field to the road. No headlights, no movement. She peered in through the shattered window. The room was empty except for a couple of broken chairs and a grimy desk pushed against one wall.

  Maria eased her hand through the broken glass and undid the latch. The window protested at having its decades-long rest disturbed by creaking loudly as she eased it open. It took a couple of minutes for her to ease it open enough for her to squeeze through. Again she paused and strained the night for the sounds of approaching rescue. Nothing. Where the hell were they? Maria tried not to think of the sound she inevitably made as she stepped in through the window and onto the debris-strewn floor. Despite the cold of the winter air, she felt beads of perspiration break out on her upper lip. She stood stock-still. There were sounds from outside the door. She aimed both guns at the grubby wooden panels but the door didn’t open and the sounds faded. Maria reckoned that the workshop was only big enough for the two rooms, both off a corridor. She crept across to the door; it was ill-fitting and a gap allowed her to see part of the hallway. She heard low voices, from the room next door. No screams.

  Maria made the decision to act swiftly. She swung the door wide and swept the hall with the guns held in each hand, ready to shoot anyone she found there. The hall was empty but the light still issued from the room just over two metres away. They must have heard her. The voices in the room continued talking. She moved up the hall. The outer door was directly in front of her but she couldn’t see the two goons posted at it: presumably they were outside. Whatever happened in the room, she would have to be ready for them coming in at the sound of gunfire. Two highly trained Spetsnaz with machine pistols against an anorexic, neurotic cop on sick leave, armed with two handguns. Shouldn’t be a problem, she thought. She felt no fear. It had left her with her first step towards the open doorway of the room. She had heard that certainty of death can do that to you. With it came a new strength and determination.

  Maria rushed forward and stepped into the doorway, swinging her guns round to bear on whomever she found inside.

  10.

  Ullrich Wagner was ten minutes late. Fabel had positioned himself at the bar from where he could see the hotel lobby and Wagner as he arrived.

  ‘Drink?’ he asked as he steered the BKA man into the bar.

>   ‘Why not?’ said Wagner. They took their drinks and sat down on a sofa over by the window with a view across Turinerstrasse, towards the railyards and the spires of the cathedral. ‘Should we do this up in your room?’ he asked, taking a thick file from his briefcase. ‘There are some unpleasant images in here. By the way, I need you to sign the register to view it.’

  Fabel surveyed the hotel lounge. There was a huddle of business types at the far side of the bar. A group of six, all in their twenties, talked and laughed with loud, youthful energy. A couple two sofas away were too engrossed with each other to notice even if the hotel had caught fire.

  ‘We’re okay,’ said Fabel. ‘If it gets busier we can go up.’

  Wagner snapped back the binding on the dossier.

  ‘This is heavy, heavy stuff. We are dealing with the forces of evolution here. Vitrenko has changed. Adapted. He is without doubt the major figure in East-to-West people smuggling. Added to that, he controls much of the illegal prostitution racket in Germany. But he has focused on a specialism. A niche operation, you could say.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There are a lot of people out there who have, well, let’s say special requirements. Vitrenko’s prostitution businesses are there to fulfil that need. I don’t think I need to draw a picture for you… we’re talking about very unpleasant stuff indeed. And most of the prostitutes are not voluntary. He sells people like meat, Jan. Everything we’ve got so far is summarised in there. I have to tell you that there are a lot of people who are not very happy that you have this information.’

  ‘Others know? Do they know why I want it?’

  ‘No… if I had mentioned Frau Klee’s involvement I dare say there would be a warrant out for her arrest. I told them that I was trying to involve you in this investigation in order to persuade you to reconsider setting up a proposed Federal Murder Commission.’