‘So you haven’t told them about my decision either?’
‘No… time enough for that.’
Fabel read through some of the file. It was filled with horror. Scores of murders initiated by Vitrenko across Central Asia and Europe, ranging from simple assassinations to killings of spectacular cruelty, intended to warn others of the price of crossing him. There was a detailed account of Vitrenko’s activities in Hamburg, including the attack on Maria Klee. There were details of the mass murder that Maria’s notes had referred to: thirty illegal migrants burned to death in a container lorry on Ukraine-Poland border. Fabel read about how a Georgian crime boss had refused Vitrenko’s offer of partnership, saying that his only partners would be his three sons when they were older. Vitrenko had sent the Georgian three packages, all arriving on Father’s Day, each containing a head. There was an account of how a beautiful Ukrainian girl forced into working as a high-class call-girl had tried to break free from Vitrenko’s grasp by contacting the Berlin police. She had been found tied to a chair, facing a full-length mirror. She had died from asphyxiation: her airways inflamed as a result of the sulphuric acid that had been thrown into her face. It was unlikely that she would have been able to see much of her own reflection. But she would have seen enough, thought Fabel, to satisfy Vitrenko. There was the assassination of a Ukrainian-Jewish crime boss in Israel that had Vitrenko written all over it. Fabel shook his head in admiration of Maria as he read. She had mentioned all of these in her notes. Without the resources of the BKA Federal Crime Bureau, she had been able to read Vitrenko’s hand in far-flung and seemingly unconnected incidents.
‘You won’t be surprised by any of this, I suppose…’ said Wagner. The file had included an account of how Vitrenko had murdered his own father; and the fact that Fabel had been a witness to it.
‘We’ve got to get Maria out of Cologne,’ Fabel said without looking up from the file. ‘If Vitrenko gets wind of the fact that she’s got a personal crusade going against him, he will make a point of amusing himself with her death.’
‘I agree, Jan, but the first priority has to be nailing Vitrenko. Maria Klee has got herself into this situation by her own actions.’
‘For which she is not entirely responsible…’ Fabel turned over another page and was faced with photographs of even more victims. He looked up and checked that none of the hotel guests was near enough to see the horror in his hands. ‘What’s this?’
‘Ah…’ said Wagner. ‘What you’re looking at are the remains of an elite task force made up of Ukrainian Spetsnaz specialists. Operation Achilles. The official story from the Ukrainian government was that they were going to approach us about liaison and try to nail Vitrenko in Ukraine. Our guess is that this was a last desperate attempt to take Vitrenko out of the picture by illegal assassination inside the Federal Republic.’
‘Is this in Germany?’ Fabel looked at the forest in the background of the photographs.
‘No. It’s outside a place called Korostyshev, to the west of Kiev. They were assembled there for a pre-mission briefing. At a hunting lodge. Get it?’
Fabel looked at the photographs again. ‘Very ironic. And very Vitrenko. No survivors.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Wagner with a knowing smile. ‘Like you said, it was all very Vitrenko. The bodies you see there were more than likely taken out by the other members of the team. All of whom have disappeared from sight. It took the Ukrainians a few days to put it all together, but they reckon they know who the infiltration-team leader was. There had been an attempt to grab Vitrenko a few days before on one of his rare trips to Kiev. The Ukrainian government had an inside man on the job, a Sokil Spetsnaz commander called Peotr Samolyuk who was playing triple agent. He pinpointed where and when Vitrenko would appear. But Vitrenko’s mole betrayed Samolyuk and he ended up castrated. And when this task force was assembled, the chief mole and two other infiltrators were in place. It looks like a couple of the team nearly made it to Korostyshev and safety before they were killed and dragged back to the lodge and… well, you can see.’
Fabel examined a picture of a man in his thirties who, like the others, had been stripped, gutted and hung outside the hunting lodge on the frame used for hanging the deer and boar killed by hunters. There was something painted in red, it looked like blood, on the wall behind the gutted corpse. It was written in Cyrillic.
‘What does that say?’ Fabel tilted the photograph towards Wagner.
‘Hmm… I wondered about that too. Very esoteric. “Satan has craft to be in two places at once.” Obviously Vitrenko being whimsical. I’m guessing it had some significance for the poor schmuck they ended up gutting.’
‘Who was he?’
‘He was in charge of Operation Achilles. A good man by all accounts,’ said Wagner. ‘Vitrenko’s chief mole in the operation is thought to have been a female Kiev militia officer called Olga Sarapenko. She probably had orders to give this guy really special treatment before he died. He’d been after Vitrenko for years.’
‘What was his name?’ asked Fabel.
‘Buslenko.’ Wagner sipped his drink. ‘Taras Buslenko.’
11.
Maria stood framed in the doorway. She swung her aim into the part of the room she had not been able to see from outside, expecting to find Vitrenko there. It was empty. She swung back. There were the two goons standing, Molokov and Buslenko seated. No Vitrenko. She had given up her life for nothing. Everyone in the room had turned to face her. She felt the guns kick in her hands. Two bullets hit Molokov in the throat and his right eye popped as a round passed through it and into his brain. He was still dropping when Maria swung her guns onto the first heavy. Some bullets smacked into the wall of the workshop but three caught him in the chest. She sensed the second man move but didn’t have time to react.
Buslenko threw himself from his seat and Maria was surprised to see that he hadn’t been bound. He slammed into the ex-Spetsnaz who looked shocked at Buslenko’s sudden attack. He recovered sufficiently to swing a boot at Buslenko, who feinted and rammed his own boot hard into the other man’s groin. He followed up with a slash with the flat of his hand across the man’s throat. There was the sound of something snapping and the heavy sank to his knees and started to claw at his neck, his face turning blue. Buslenko grabbed the man’s lower jaw and forehead and wrenched his head sharply to one side. A louder snap. The heavy’s eyes glazed immediately and Buslenko pushed him away and he crashed onto the grimy floor. Buslenko looked at Maria and nodded grimly. She spun round to deal with the guards rushing in from outside. No one appeared at the doorway. She stood, both automatics held at full stretch from her body, her hands now shaking violently.
‘It’s all right, Maria…’ Buslenko’s voice was calm, soothing. He reached out to her shaking hands and took the guns from her. ‘It’s all right. It’s all over. You did well.’
‘The guards…’ she said desperately. ‘Outside…’
‘It’s all right,’ again Buslenko soothed her. ‘It’s taken care of.’
Maria heard someone coming in through the door.
‘Olga?’ Maria gazed confused at Sarapenko, who stood in the doorway. She was carrying a sniper’s rifle that looked more like a piece of scientific equipment than a weapon. It had a heavy night-vision sight mounted on it and its barrel was elongated by a flash eliminator and silencer.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Maria. ‘The police… where are the police?’
‘We clear up our own mess,’ said Buslenko, pocketing Maria’s automatics. He placed his arm around her shoulders and guided her towards the door.
‘Vitrenko…’ Maria’s voice was faint and shook with the tremors that were beginning to take control of her body. ‘Where is Vitrenko? He was supposed to be here…’
Maria started to shake uncontrollably. She felt as if her legs could no longer support her. The story outside the door was easy to read. Both guards lay dead, each with bullet wounds to the body and head. The second guard still held his ma
chine pistol and his eyes gazed up dully at the dark clouded sky. Maria had read somewhere that that was how snipers always took out a victim: a bullet to the body to bring them down, then one or two to the head to finish them. She looked at Olga, who still held the precision tool of her sniper’s rifle. It was an odd skill for a Kiev city policewoman to have.
‘Stay here,’ said Buslenko. ‘I’ll fetch my car. Olga, I’ll drop you at Maria’s car and you can drive it back to Cologne. I want no evidence that we have been here.’
‘What about housekeeping?’ asked Olga, nodding at the bodies.
‘We’ll get these two inside. I’ll send someone out to clean up. But we’d better get away from here first.’
‘You’ll send someone?’ Maria’s voice was weak. She sounded dully confused. ‘Who do you have…’
‘You’re in shock, Maria,’ Olga handed the sniper’s rifle to Buslenko. She took a syringe from her pocket and removed the protective sheath from the needle.
‘Why have you got that with you?’ asked Maria, but she was too shaken and weak to resist as Olga bunched up the sleeves of Maria’s coat and the jumper underneath. Maria felt the sting of the needle in her forearm.
‘What…?’
‘It’ll relax you,’ said Olga and already Maria felt a warm sleepiness swell through her body. She felt as if she were already asleep, but remained on her feet. Her shaking had stopped.
‘I thought I was going to die…’ she said absently to Olga, who didn’t answer.
‘I’ll get the car,’ Buslenko said and ran across the field towards the road.
Maria felt completely relaxed, devoid of any fear or anxiety, as she watched Buslenko’s shrinking figure and realised that she had seen him run across a field very like this one, a long time ago. It was funny, she thought as she felt Olga’s grip tighten on her arm, that she hadn’t recognised him before; that it was only from a distance, like on the surveillance monitor, that she knew for sure who he was.
I am going to die, after all, thought Maria and turned to Olga Sarapenko, smiling vacantly at the irony of it all.
CHAPTER NINE
9-11 February
1.
Fabel was surprised to look up and find Benni Scholz standing next to him.
‘What are you doing here?’ Fabel said, closing the dossier. ‘Oh, this is Herr Wagner of the BKA…’
Wagner stood up and shook hands with Scholz.
‘We’ve met before,’ said Scholz. Wagner frowned. ‘That Internet fraud case – two years ago…’
‘Oh yes…’ said Wagner. ‘Of course… How are you?’
‘The best,’ Scholz grinned, but looked at the blank covered dossier on the coffee table. ‘Sorry, am I interrupting something?’
‘No… not at all,’ said Fabel. ‘I was just taking the opportunity to chat with Herr Wagner about a Hamburg case we’re both involved with. Can I get you a drink?’
‘Well… as a matter of fact I called by on business. As you know I was tied up almost all morning in this bloody Karneval committee meeting, but I got Tansu and Kris to check out some of those leads on Internet sites your technical guys put together But you weren’t around this afternoon…’
‘Ah, yes… sightseeing, if I’m honest.’
‘I see… anyway, we’ve got something. There’s a website hosted from here in Cologne. It’s called Anthropophagi and it’s devoted to all things relating to cannibalism. Not overtly sexual content, but if you dig deeper there is some pretty sick stuff in there. And there’s a chat room. We don’t know who actually runs the site, but we know the company that provides the server space, design, etc. I thought we could go over there tomorrow.’
‘Sounds good. Sure you won’t have a drink?’
‘No, thanks. You see, that’s not all. I wondered if you wanted to take a little trip with me. You’ll be pleased to know that we’ve also followed your suggestion and trailed every reported assault or incident involving biting. There’s something you and I should take a look at…’
The hotel contrasted sharply with the plush and trendy one they had just left. It wasn’t that it was shoddy or seedy, rather that it was at the budget end of the market. The kind of place where tourists on a tight budget or the lower class of business traveller would overnight. It was, as Fabel realised he already knew, also a place where you could pay in cash and not be asked too many questions. Scholz pulled up outside the main door and as he and Fabel got out a doorman approached, clearly to complain that he wasn’t allowed to park there. Scholz silenced him with a flash of his Criminal Police ID. He turned for a moment when he noticed Fabel pause and look up at the hotel.
‘Everything okay, Jan?’
‘What? Yeah… sure.’
‘There was the report of a disturbance here a few weeks ago,’ Scholz explained to Fabel. ‘The patrol car was effectively turned away – the hotel said it had all blown over and their own people had dealt with it. Sorry to have troubled you and all that crap. Truth is these places don’t want their clientele to see the lobby full of uniforms. Puts them off their dirty weekends.’
Scholz slapped his gloved hand down on the chest-high reception desk and grinned at the male receptionist.
‘Cologne Criminal Police,’ he said. ‘I want to speak to Herr Ankowitsch, the manager.’
A tall, slim man appeared at reception. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked Scholz. Then, seeing Fabel: ‘Oh, hello again, Herr Fabel… I didn’t expect to see you twice in one day. Is this about the same matter?’
‘No… not related at all…’ Fabel said. He ignored Scholz’s frown.
‘We’re here about an incident on January twentieth,’ said Scholz, turning back to Ankowitsch. ‘You called the police about a disturbance.’
‘Oh, that… that was all dealt with at the time. Something and nothing. A woman was heard to scream from one of the rooms and came running out. But she didn’t want to press charges.’
‘Yes, I know all that. What I want to know about is what she said had happened to her. According to the police report, she claimed someone had bitten her in the arse. Bitten her badly.’
Ankowitsch grinned. ‘Yes, she did, as a matter of fact.’
‘This isn’t a laughing matter. We’re here in case this event is connected to a couple of murders we’re investigating. Now, no bullshit – was she a hooker?’
Ankowitsch leaned over the counter and craned his neck to check there were no guests on the stairs. ‘Yes. Yes, she was. I’ve seen her before. We don’t encourage it but we do turn a bit of a blind eye. There are a lot of ships passing every night of the year here. So long as there is no trouble, and that it is contained and discreet, we don’t delve too deeply into whether the relationships between our guests are personal or professional.’
‘Who was with her?’ asked Fabel.
‘A man, about thirty-five… Well-dressed. Good-looking. I got the impression that they’d been somewhere, well, swankier than here beforehand. She was smartly dressed too.’ Ankowitsch gave a small laugh. ‘Although I must say I thought her choice of costume was a bit ill-advised.’
‘In what way?’ asked Scholz.
‘Well, she was wearing this figure-hugging skirt. Like a nineteen-fifties pencil skirt. It looked expensive, but it was really inappropriate for her.’
Scholz made an impatient face.
‘She had this enormous backside. Huge. She was a really attractive girl otherwise. But it was almost as if she was trying to attract attention to it. That’s why we thought it was so funny… you know, when she came running out later screaming that the guy had bitten it.’
‘Was she badly bitten?’
‘Oh yes… there was quite a lot of blood and one of our Polish girls here, Marta, had to help her. Marta said the bitten girl was Ukrainian, but she understood everything that Marta said to her in Polish. They can understand each other, apparently. Anyway, Marta said it was a really bad bite and told the girl that she would have to go to hospital, but she didn’t want to.’<
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‘Where was the man while all this was happening?’ asked Fabel.
‘As soon as the commotion started he must have grabbed his stuff and made a run for it. Down the stairs – he didn’t use the lift. I went straight up to the room with a porter but the guy was gone when we got there.’
‘And the room. Did he pay for it or did she?’
‘He did. Cash. He said he had left his credit-card wallet at home. We usually ask for a credit card so that we can charge anything taken from the mini-bar, but he gave us a hundred-Euro deposit instead.’
‘Let me guess: he didn’t pick up the deposit,’ said Fabel.
Ankowitsch reddened. ‘No.’ Fabel guessed that the deposit would have gone into the manager’s pocket.
‘We need to find this girl,’ said Scholz. ‘You say you have seen her before?’
Ankowitsch looked uneasy. ‘Yes. She’s been here once before. Maybe twice.’
‘And the man?’
‘No. I can’t say I ever saw him before that night.’
‘Do you have any idea where we could find this girl?’ asked Fabel.
Ankowitsch’s unease seemed to intensify. He got the phone directory from under the counter, flicked through it and noted down some details on a pad. He tore the sheet out and held it out to Fabel.
Scholz took it from his hand. ‘Thank you for your cooperation,’ he said.
‘I suspect Herr Ankowitsch has a liking for big bums himself,’ Scholz said to Fabel on the way back to the car. ‘He seemed to be pretty sure which escort agency she worked for.’
Fabel sat back in the passenger seat of Scholz’s VW and suddenly felt very tired. It had been a long day and he had probably had more Kolsch beer than he should have had earlier. He found himself grateful that Scholz was uncharacteristically taciturn as he drove through the city. Fabel watched Cologne go by as they drove, glittering in the blue-black night. Fabel began to realise that it was taking them longer to get back to his hotel and that he didn’t recognise the area they were in. All of a sudden they were down by the Rhine. There was a lot of building going on by the river and the superstructure of two vast buildings, shaped like oversized shipyard cranes, loomed above them. Scholz braked hard as he parked his VW on a concrete slipway and got out, slamming the door and walking to the water’s edge where he stood illuminated in the car headlights.
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