Timebomb (Paul Richter)

by James Barrington

  ‘OK,’ Richter muttered, and sat down in the wheelchair. ‘You win.’

  Fifteen minutes later their unmarked car pulled to a stop outside the police station. Franz bustled round to the boot and pulled out the collapsible wheelchair, before opening the passenger door.

  ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ Richter demanded, as the German solicitously helped him into the wheelchair and began pushing it up a gentle ramp into the main entrance of the police station.

  ‘Actually, I can recall times when I’ve had rather more fun than this,’ Franz replied.

  In the briefing room itself, the mood was both hectic and subdued. Karl Wolff and Rolf Altmann sat opposite each other at a desk positioned at the front of the room, both studying papers and reports, while it seemed that almost all the telephones in the building were ringing simultaneously. Every other seat was occupied by police and BGS officers, either talking urgently on phones or working at the computers.

  Wolff stood up as Franz pushed the wheelchair over to the table. ‘How are you?’ he asked. ‘I’m pleased to hear it’s just a flesh wound.’

  ‘Fortunately it is,’ Richter replied. ‘A 9-millimetre in the thigh that went straight through but missed everything vital. I’ll be walking again – or at least limping – tomorrow, I hope. So what’s the news?’

  ‘Not good,’ the BGS officer said. ‘Four of Altmann’s men are dead, and three more of them in hospital. Fortunately, they should all fully recover.’

  ‘Was it a booby-trap, that explosion just after your men went in?’ Richter enquired, as Altmann climbed wearily to his feet and walked round the table towards them.

  The German first shook his hand, then nodded in confirmation. ‘About ten kilos of plastic. We guessed the door at the top of the stairwell might have a charge attached to it, so before our guys went up they fired a grenade at it. That took the door off its hinges, and fired a small anti-personnel charge. But these bastards had second-guessed us and, as far as we can deduce, they’d placed a second, much bigger, device on the ceiling directly above the foot of the staircase, right where my men were standing, and linked that charge to the first one. The two devices went off simultaneously, killing three of the four men who’d rushed in through the front door. The fourth one who died took a couple of rounds in the head from an AK47 before he even reached the building.’

  ‘I’m truly sorry.’ There wasn’t much else Richter could say.

  ‘The terrorists fared rather worse, though,’ Wolff continued. ‘There were six of them and—’

  ‘Six?’ Richter interrupted, turning to Wolff. ‘I thought your surveillance guys counted eight inside the building?’

  ‘They did,’ Wolff nodded, ‘but that was before we knew about the escape route they had devised. We now think at least some of them were regularly using that as well. Anyway, Altmann’s men accounted for three men in the building itself, and then there were the three you spotted coming out of the other end of the row of buildings. You yourself shot one, and the GSG 9 guys took out the other two. So we’ve now ended up with five dead terrorists, and one who’s in the operating theatre right now having your bullet dug out of what’s left of his shoulder.’

  ‘He’ll survive, then?’ Richter asked.

  ‘Unless something goes badly wrong at the hospital, yes. With any luck we should be able to question him tomorrow. The other bad news is that we didn’t get Hans Morschel himself. It looks as if he probably only paid one brief visit to the safe house and left it through the escape route, which ran along the first-floor level of the entire row of buildings. How did you guess that was what they’d arranged there? Or did you just notice the three men escaping?’

  ‘Both, really,’ Richter said. ‘I suddenly remembered how the mikes you positioned inside the bank had detected hammering and banging noises that could have indicated tunnelling activities. Then I recalled the design of the building as a whole, and put two and two together. But at almost the same moment I saw movement in the end shop. That pretty much confirmed my guess.’

  ‘Right,’ Wolff nodded, ‘it was our mistake not to cover the whole row of buildings, but it’s too late to do anything about that now. Hindsight is such a wonderful thing. Anyway, the result is that Morschel and at least three other members of the cell are still at large here in Stuttgart. I regret the surveillance teams lost contact with the two they were following just a few minutes before the assault went down. We’ve cleared the entire terrace and are quite satisfied there are no other hiding places inside the property, so now our forensic people are going through everything we’ve found.’

  ‘Anything interesting so far?’

  ‘It’s too early to tell, but we’ve recovered pretty much what you’d expect: a lot of explosives, most of it Semtex, plus weapons and ammunition. More interestingly, we’ve found a couple of laptops, one intact and the other damaged, but not too badly. We should be able to extract some useful data from their hard drives.’

  ‘That’s good news, at least.’

  ‘We also recovered six mobile phones, and the tech staff have already started analysing all the numbers dialled, messages received and so on. That, too, should provide plenty of leads we can follow up.’

  ‘Have you identified which of the mobiles received the call that tipped off these terrorists, and the number it was made from?’ Richter asked.

  ‘Based on the exact time the assault began, we already know which phone took the call, but the originator concealed his number so it showed up on the receiving mobile as “private”. But that shouldn’t be a problem and we’ve got the network provider looking at it right now. We ought to have an answer shortly.’

  Richter was silent for a few seconds, his gaze wandering around the room. Then he looked back at Wolff. ‘Who do you think tipped them off?’ he asked. ‘I mean, are we looking for Morschel himself or another member of the cell who just happened to notice that the street was filling up with police vehicles and immediately rang his comrades to warn them? Or is there something else going on?’

  ‘Like what?’ Altmann demanded.

  ‘That’s the trouble. I don’t know,’ Richter admitted. ‘But just look at what’s happened over the last couple of days. We’ve found out about two terrorist cells operating in two different countries which, as far as I know, had no connection with each other. One was discovered because of a peculiar tip-off, the other by an alert police officer.’

  ‘What do you mean, “peculiar”?’ Wolff interrupted. ‘I thought the man who alerted the Onex police was the owner of the apartment.’

  ‘So did the Swiss police, at first,’ Richter replied, ‘but they were wrong.’ He then explained about Rolf Hermann and his as yet unidentified doppelgänger.

  ‘We hadn’t heard about that,’ Altmann admitted, ‘but I don’t think it’s particularly significant. Maybe the man discovering the cell simply decided to alert the authorities but didn’t want to use his real name. Perhaps he was a criminal, or even a cell member who’d fallen out with the others.’

  ‘You might be right, and we may never find out who he was or why he did it. But what I was going to say was that both events – the police assaults on terrorist cells here and in Switzerland – are linked in one way. In both cases, somebody telephoned the bad guys literally a few moments before the police moved in.’

  ‘That could just be a coincidence,’ Wolff suggested.

  ‘It could be,’ Richter said, ‘but I’m not a big fan of coincidence. And it’s also possible that in both cases there was another cell member located somewhere nearby who tipped them off. But there could be another explanation.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I’m wondering if what we’re seeing here is some kind of vigilante action. Maybe someone’s infiltrating these terrorist cells, making sure that the police find out about them, and then giving a warning at the last minute, just as the good guys move in.’

  ‘But why? And, more important, how?’

  ‘Yes,’ Altmann sa
id, ‘don’t forget that the whole reason terrorist groups operate in cells is precisely because they don’t trust any outsiders. Unless your hypothetical vigilante is vouched for by one of the other cell members, there would be no way he could infiltrate it. To do that once would be difficult enough, but doing it twice, with two different terrorist organizations in two different countries, in the same week, would be impossible. But,’ Altmann went on, ‘your idea that just one man is behind this does make some kind of sense. What we have to do is work out how. And, obviously, who and why.’

  ‘If you’re right,’ Wolff said, the tone of his voice clearly suggesting he was unconvinced, ‘why is he warning the terrorists? Surely he could serve his purposes better by letting the police, or whoever else carries out the assault, take them alive? By issuing a warning to them, he’s almost guaranteeing that there’ll be a shootout and a high death toll on both sides.’

  ‘Unless he is some kind of vigilante, and wants the terrorists killed rather than just captured,’ Richter said. ‘But I have to agree with Rolf that the infiltration argument doesn’t really work. I don’t know who he is or why he’s doing it, but I do think we’re probably looking at just one man here. And there’s something else. If I am right, and he intends that all the terrorists get themselves killed, he might now make an attempt to finish off the wounded survivor in hospital.’

  ‘Relax, Paul,’ Wolff said. ‘We have armed police officers waiting outside the theatre suite, and there’ll be at least one man with him at all times once he’s back in the ward.’

  At the very moment Karl Wolff issued this assurance, Helmut Kleber was pushing his way through the double doors of a hospital building not too far from the police station. Carrying a black briefcase, he walked briskly across to the reception desk, produced a leather identification wallet and asked a couple of questions. The receptionist didn’t know the answer to one of them, but a short telephone call soon produced the required information.

  Kleber thanked her and strode away towards the lifts. As one arrived he stepped inside and pressed the button for the fifth floor. Once the doors had closed behind him, he put down the briefcase and pulled a small bottle of yellowish liquid and a tiny syringe from his pocket. He removed the sheath from the needle and, with the deftness born of long practice, slid the point through the rubberized cap of the bottle, inverted it and extracted about a quarter of its contents. Then he replaced the sheath on the syringe and slid it and the bottle back into his pocket.

  When the doors opened on the fifth floor, he picked up his briefcase and walked down the corridor, looking for a particular room. It didn’t take too long to find, since the uniformed policeman stationed outside the door immediately identified it.

  As Kleber headed towards it, the policeman turned to face him, his right hand automatically dropping to his holstered pistol.

  ‘Relax,’ Kleber snapped as he halted a few feet away. ‘I’m Superintendent Schröder of the Bundesgrenz-schutz.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out the identification wallet. ‘I just want to take a look at the prisoner. How is he?’

  ‘He came out of theatre about thirty minutes ago, sir, so he’s still unconscious.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Kleber said. ‘How many guards are there?’

  ‘Two, sir. Myself and another officer stationed inside the room.’

  ‘Only two? Don’t your superiors realize how important this man could be? Who’s your reporting officer?’

  ‘Sergeant Brandt, sir. He should be here in about an hour.’

  ‘Well, when he comes, I suggest you tell him I’ve recommended a minimum of four officers should be stationed on this floor. Now, open the door.’

  The policeman stepped forward, turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open for the visitor. Inside was a single bed on which lay the almost naked body of a man in his late thirties, his left shoulder swathed in bandages, and with various drips and monitoring leads attached to an array of machines behind the head of the bed. Beside the bed were positioned a couple of steel and plastic chairs, and on one of them sat another police officer, a novel open on his lap. As Kleber entered the room, he stood up sharply.

  ‘Superintendent Schröder, Bundesgrenzschutz,’ Kleber snapped and walked over to a side table. He put down the briefcase, clicked the catches and extracted a blue ring-binder from inside it. He opened it, strode over to the end of the bed and began flicking through the binder, comparing what he could see of the face of the unconscious man with the police mugshots, as if looking for a match.

  He’d glanced through about twenty when he found one that, oddly enough, was a fairly close match – he hadn’t expected to get that lucky – and spent a couple of minutes alternating his gaze between the photograph and the man lying in front of him. Then he motioned the police officer out of the way and moved to the side of the bed so he could look more closely at the recumbent figure.

  Then he shook his head and turned to the officer. ‘Your eyes are younger than mine,’ he said. ‘Take a look at this picture and see how it compares with him.’ He handed the binder to the officer.

  Inevitably, the policeman accepted the binder in both hands, and so for a few seconds Kleber’s right arm was shielded from the officer’s gaze. But that was all the time he needed. His fingers closed around the tiny syringe in his jacket pocket, but, before taking it out, he slipped the sheath off the needle with his thumb.

  ‘Well?’ he asked, turning slightly towards the police officer, an action that served to further conceal what he was doing. ‘What do you think? Is that Fritz Gras?’

  As the policeman studied the black-and-white photograph in the ring binder, Kleber’s fingers found the unconscious man’s flaccid left arm, lying outside the covers, and slid the tiny needle into his biceps muscle. In less than a second he’d depressed the plunger and withdrawn the syringe, dropping it back into his pocket.

  ‘I don’t know, sir. There’s certainly a resemblance.’

  ‘I think so too,’ Kleber said, taking back the binder, ‘but that’s not enough. It doesn’t matter. I just thought we could save ourselves some time. We’ll have to wait for the fingerprint results to come back from Interpol and the other databases.’

  He returned the binder to his briefcase and closed it, then nodded to the officer, walked over to the door and stepped out into the corridor. There, he exchanged a few further words with the policeman on duty outside, then moved away towards the lifts.

  Twenty-three minutes after Kleber had let the outer double doors of the hospital swing closed behind him, the unconscious man in the bed in the private ward on the fifth floor began to experience difficulty in breathing. This alarmed the police officer guarding him, and he immediately rang the bell to summon a nurse.

  A few moments later, the patient convulsed just once, and then his body went into spasm. Alarms shrilled as his heart stopped, and the regular pattern undulating on the monitoring instruments was replaced by a flat line.

  The first medical staff arrived at the ward with the crash-cart within ninety seconds, and they worked on him for nearly a quarter of an hour before finally giving up.

  Chapter Eight

  Thursday

  Stuttgart, Germany

  The pathologist was not best pleased to be called in early that same morning to perform an autopsy on a dead terrorist, which he considered the worst kind of criminal. In his experience, the deceased were not usually in any particular hurry and could normally await his convenience. But the senior BGS officer had been most insistent. Ninety-five minutes after beginning his external examination of the body, the pathologist stepped away from the table, a frown clouding his face. The injury to the man’s shoulder had been severe, but certainly not life-threatening, and the operation to repair the damage seemed to have been performed very competently by the surgeons at the local hospital. Apart from the bullet-wound, the man had appeared to be in good health, with no indications of any underlying cause that might have contributed to his sudden demise. In
fact, despite his best efforts, he could find no obvious reason for the man’s sudden relapse and death. The only cause that seemed even faintly plausible was shock caused by the massive trauma the terrorist had suffered, and that wasn’t a diagnosis the pathologist felt at all comfortable with, particularly in view of the information he’d received about the circumstances of the man’s death.

  He extracted a number of tissue samples, including several from the heart and liver, and specimens of blood and other fluids, and placed them in plastic containers known as ‘tox jars’. These contained no preservative, because that would destroy any toxins that might be present. The jars were prominently marked ‘TOXICOLOGY’, and the pathologist attached a self-adhesive label to each one, the label listing the case number of the deceased. Normally it would bear the patient’s name, but at that stage they still had no idea of his actual identity.

  Leaving his assistant to close up the body, the pathologist discarded his gloves, mask and gown and retreated to his office in order to phone Karl Wolff.

  ‘I’ve really no idea what killed him,’ he admitted once he was connected. ‘The shoulder wound was serious, but he was basically a fit man and therefore should have had no trouble in making a full recovery.’

  ‘So we’re looking at some kind of drug or poison being administered?’ Wolff asked.

  ‘Yes, there’s really nothing else it could be. I’ve sent samples off for toxicological examination, but that will take time.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Wolff didn’t sound as unhappy as the pathologist was expecting. ‘Let me know the results as soon as you have them, please.’

  In fact, the tests would reveal nothing unusual when the results were returned within a few days. A small and extremely covert unit based at Fort Detrick in Maryland, USA, had already seen to that.

  Hammersmith, London

  Richter caught the 1125 British Airways flight out of Terminal One at Stuttgart Airport, gained or lost an hour during the flight – he was never quite certain which was the correct expression – and landed at Heathrow, in the rain, at ten past midday. He’d exaggerated his limp and tried out his best smile on the grim-looking BA check-in girl and thus, surprisingly, had been able to persuade her that he needed a seat with rather more legroom than the cattle-class offering he was used to. He’d ended up with an aisle seat next to an emergency exit and had enjoyed a marginally more comfortable flight than he might have expected.