The Oath

by Klaus-Peter Wolf

  She quickly got dressed again, and then neatly recorded the number in the notebook.

  When I’m fit and strong enough, then maybe I can ram the pen into his eye, she thought. At least he had been stupid enough to bring the keys with him into her cell. Maybe he’ll do it again.

  I’ll regain my strength, she thought. I’ll promise it to myself. I’ll eat, I’ll exercise, I’ll get strong again, and then I’ll kill you, my dear, just like I did my first two husbands. Only this time I don’t have to make sure it looks like an accident. Oh no. I can do what I want with you. Any court in the world would say it was self-defence.

  *

  Ann Kathrin asked herself if it had been a good idea to drink black tea with peppermint leaves at this hour, but Ubbo Heide was holding on to his cup as if it were his lifesaver. .

  The scent of tea filled the whole room and the hint of peppermint reminded Ann Kathrin more of a Bedouin tent in the desert than a home in East Frisia.

  Carola Heide was very sensitive to light. She couldn’t stand neon light at all, which is why there was only indirect lighting throughout the house and a couple of candles. For Ann Kathrin it felt almost like a sacred space.

  There was a seal made of marzipan perched on Ubbo’s knee. He petted the seal as soon as he put down his cup. Every once in a while he nibbled off some of it and pushed the little bits he’d rolled together between his fingers into his mouth.

  Ann Kathrin thought he looked liked he’d aged by several years. His lips seemed oddly twisted and slanted, as if he had had a stroke. But she didn’t dare express her suspicions.

  ‘I need your advice, Ann. I’m at my wit’s end.’

  There he sat, the great figure of the Kripo in East Frisia, fatherly friend and role model for an entire generation of police officers – beaten by life, shaken, in need of help.

  It was a given that she would stand by him. She didn’t need to say anything, but looked at him quizzically.

  He played with the seal while speaking quietly. ‘I’m racking my brains. I have to do something. But before I act, I want to ask you what you think. It’s important to me. In the end, I’ll have to do what I think is right, but—’

  ‘What are you thinking about, Ubbo?’

  ‘Should I publicly appeal to the killer? Is that what he wants? Should I publicly ask him to stop? Tell him what a terrible mess he’s making?’

  ‘He wants to have a conversation with you. Everything points in your direction, that’s obvious, Ubbo. But maybe you’d just incite him to do more.’

  ‘That’s exactly my fear, Ann. But I feel responsible for everything that’s happened. I have to ask him to stop.’

  ‘But what do you want to offer him, Ubbo? What’s the deal? What does he get if he stops?’

  Ubbo’s fingers moved as if they were autonomous, not under his control. They ripped off the seal’s head, then he dropped it and it rolled onto the floor between his legs. There the marzipan seal seemed to stare at him with its one remaining eye.

  Now Ubbo’s fingers tore the body to pieces, shaking with nerves.

  ‘I have to meet him, offer him a conversation.’

  ‘You want to show him that you understand him?’

  ‘Ann, this is all much more complicated than it seems. He’s turning my rage into reality. I got all it off my chest by writing it down, and sometimes I ask myself: isn’t he just doing what I was too cowardly to do because I didn’t want to put my family and career on the line?’

  *

  He listened to Ubbo’s words with triumph. He clenched his fists and raised them towards the ceiling, yelling with joy. ‘Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! You finally get it!’

  He tried to turn up the transmitter. The reception was bad. It crackled, and the words became quieter, then louder. But the sentences still unleashed an unbelievable feeling of joy.

  ‘So you want to set a trap for him, Ubbo? With yourself as the bait? We couldn’t risk that. You’re handicapped. You’re stuck in a wheelchair. You’re not the same old Ubbo. No,’ Ann Kathrin said decisively, ‘I don’t want you to do that!’

  ‘You’re misunderstanding me, Ann. We’d order a SWAT team if we were setting a trap. I want to meet him – for real.’

  ‘And then?’ she asked, flabbergasted.

  ‘Then I want to talk to him.’

  ‘What’s become of you, Ubbo? You can’t seriously think that you can negotiate with someone like that! How would that work? You think that he’ll stop and everything will be OK again? We’ll retract the warrant? Are you dreaming? He couldn’t let you go after that conversation, Ubbo. You’d know him then and—’

  ‘I have to put an end to this, Ann. We can agree on that, right? It feels like I threw a snowball and triggered an avalanche that’s now threatening to bury an entire village!’

  *

  If we meet, Ubbo, you’ll understand that your avalanche is destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, and you’ll be proud of having wiped out all that filth. I want to see whether I can make your wish come true.

  Ann Kathrin received a call. He couldn’t hear what she said. Either she was whispering or was too far from the recording device. He could only hear her words once she was speaking to Ubbo again.

  ‘Kaufmann rented a holiday flat on Langeoog. I assume he won’t be there yet, but we’ll be waiting for him when he arrives. I think you’ll be able to have a conversation with him soon.’

  ‘Yes, Willy loves Langeoog,’ Ubbo said, sounding resigned.

  ‘We can’t wait until the first ferry runs.’

  ‘Ann – I want to come along!’

  ‘But Ubbo; Willy Kaufmann—’

  Ubbo didn’t let her contradict him. ‘I can talk to him, Ann. Then maybe I can convince him to give up, if it comes to that. Or do you want it to end in a wild shoot-out on a holiday island? Willy’s a damn good shot; at least he was always much better than me.

  *

  The police on Langeoog were informed that very night, but were asked not to do anything because they were dealing with an extremely dangerous man who was surely armed and capable of anything.

  Two helicopters landed on the island’s airfield in the early morning hours. Martin Büscher, two snipers, and four young men from the SWAT team, exceptionally well trained, hooded, and wearing military clothing, climbed out of one. Ann Kathrin Klaasen, Frank Weller, the police psychologist Elke Sommer, Rupert and Ubbo Heide arrived on the island in the other.

  Now, as a retired head detective, Ubbo Heide glanced at the people from the SWAT team and grumbled. ‘They look like we’re about to film an episode of Star Wars.’

  There was a couple sitting on the dunes, newly in love. They’d just had the best sex of their lives, under the open sky, and were enjoying a joint. Their bodies were still perspiring. The sea air caressed them. Then they saw the advancing figures. Ubbo Heide’s wheelchair appeared like a throne upon which the king was being carried across the island, surrounded by his brave knights.

  ‘Man, this stuff is good,’ the woman said to her partner. ‘Did you grow it yourself?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nah, I bought it, but it blows your mind, doesn’t it?’

  *

  The steel door opened. Svenja Moers could see far into the hallway, but no one was there. She could smell something, though, which transported her out of her cell and into an Italian restaurant. She heard some clattering, and then Yves Stern appeared, like a pizza delivery boy on his first shift.

  He was awkwardly handling a huge pizza in a box, with two plastic plates, knives and forks and a litre of Coca-Cola balanced on top.

  The plastic cutlery fell onto the floor, and when he bent down to retrieve it an aluminum container fell off the pile and spaghetti carbonara hit the floor.

  He glanced at Svenja Moers, begging for forgiveness with a smile, and was with her, next to the bars, within a few steps.

  ‘The Grande Bouffe can begin,’ he said happily. ‘With lasagne al forno, then an extra large pizza with the works – ham, ch
eese, tuna, everything they have.’

  His manner was simultaneously amusing and terrifying.

  Then I’ll live, she thought.

  She tried to read the writing on the pizza box. The cardboard was white and the red-and-green logo seemed familiar, but she couldn’t recognise the name of a pizzeria.

  He handed her the bottle of Coke, then the spaghetti and the lasagna through the bars. He didn’t use the designated service hatch. He turned the pizza on its side and pushed it through.

  The food was still hot. She didn’t know where to start, and she realised that it would be impossible to eat everything.

  Cold pizza still tastes good, she thought, and attacked the lasagne first.

  After the second bite she knew that the food was far too heavy after the long period of fasting. She would have problems digesting it. Still, the main thing was that her body would receive sustenance and, in turn, energy.

  She examined the pizza box up close, but couldn’t find indication of a delivery service. There was a saying printed on it: People need two things to live: food and drink.

  While she ate, he disappeared briefly, but was back a few minutes later, placing a folding chair in front of the bars. He took a seat, folding his left leg over his right, and watched with amusement while she ate.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘We’re not at the zoo.’

  She immediately regretted her comment, scared that she’d make him angry. But, at the same time, with the intake of food, her will to fight was returning.

  *

  The house lay invitingly before them, hidden in the darkness between the dunes. Only the windows on the upper storey were illuminated.

  The men from the SWAT team prepared themselves. Two snipers took up positions in the dunes.

  Ann Kathrin Klaasen stood next to Ubbo Heide. Behind them, Rupert was joking with the men from the SWAT team.

  Thoughts shot through Ann Kathrin’s head like overexposed photographs. One after another, fast as lightning, only interrupted by shots and screams.

  A SWAT man kicked in the door.

  Wood splintered.

  People yelled.

  Orders were mixed with screams of fear.

  Wilhelm Kaufmann was hit by several bullets. Arms spread, he danced through the large room with big black spots on his shirt.

  Then he was on the ground.

  The rotating flashing blue lights illuminated the scene.

  A police officer in the doorway fought for his life. Blood spurted from his neck.

  These were only pictures in her head, but for Ann Kathrin they were so real. She screamed out loud for them to stop.

  Everyone looked at her.

  Rupert wisecracked in the direction of the elite unit, ‘Girls! That’s just the way they are. The lower they go, the higher-strung they get!’

  Weller was furious with Rupert and went to punch him, but Elke Sommer calmed him, claiming it was gallows humour, and just the way that some people deal with severe high stress.

  ‘No,’ Weller stated, ‘he’s simply an idiot.’

  Ubbo Heide trusted Ann Kathrin’s instincts and took it very seriously when she called for them to stop.

  ‘We should give him the chance to surrender. He knows our capabilities and that he won’t get out of the place alive. The island is a trap anyway. We shouldn’t just storm in and should instead make an attempt to reason with him.’ Ann Kathrin pleaded.

  ‘Yes,’ Ubbo Heide said, ‘I agree.’

  But the power to give these orders did not rest in the hands of the retired chief of police.

  ‘I have a very bad feeling about this,’ Ann Kathrin continued, but didn’t have the power to stop it either.

  Rupert mimicked Ann Kathrin to the SWAT team. ‘She has a very bad feeling. Uh-oh! We’d better call for reinforcements. The last time she had a bad feeling the Sunday roast didn’t turn out right.’

  No one laughed at his joke.

  *

  Johannes Dunkel’s friends always called him ‘Johnny Dark’. He knew there was no courage without fear, and he was damn scared. He was afraid he’d be shot and spend the rest of his life like Ubbo Heide, in a wheelchair. Strangely enough, he didn’t think about the fact that the bullet could kill him. He was still at an age when young men seem to think they’re invincible.

  But there was something else. For a couple of weeks now he had been in love like never before in his life. He wanted to get married, have kids, and never again sleep with another woman.

  But his Vivien didn’t like guns. She didn’t see him as a hero who freed hostages or stopped dangerous criminals. She was a pacifist and believed peace was always the way. He was afraid she would leave him if an unarmed, perhaps even innocent person died because of him.

  As he jumped from the roof and through the window of an unfamiliar house, while his comrades broke down the door below and stormed the rooms, he thought about Vivien.

  He’d practised this operation with his team countless times and only once – truly only one single time – had he shot a target of an unarmed women with a baby in her arms that had popped up behind him. Before that he had correctly targeted the four pictures of a bearded man with a gun at the ready.

  He didn’t want to make this mistake again. Not for real. Especially since he knew that there was a former cop in the flat.

  But this was a former cop who would know exactly how a raid played out. He wouldn’t have the chance to get out. If he wanted to avoid getting arrested, he would have to shoot at the person coming through the window, use his rope to climb onto the roof, and disappear from there.

  The former cop must be around sixty, maybe even older. But that by no means meant that he wasn’t flexible enough to pull off that feat. It certainly meant that he had enough life experience to know that there wasn’t any other option.

  So Johannes Dunkel was prepared to shoot. Fortunately the room was illuminated. Dunkel rolled from the window into the middle of the room. He pulled up into a crouch in front of a table on which there was a half-bottle of Hennessy and a brandy glass.

  Holding the gun in both hands, Dunkel pointed at the man standing in the doorway. He was naked and rubbing himself dry with a towel, which he now held up in front of his body for protection.

  ‘Hands up! Show me your hands!’ Dunkel yelled.

  Wilhelm Kaufmann put his hands in the air, but he was still holding the towel in his right hand. There could well have been a gun concealed beneath it.

  Dunkel was able to see into the bathroom and the kitchen and spotted a shirt hanging over a chair. It was covered in blood.

  ‘Drop the towel!’ Johannes Dunkel yelled.

  Kaufmann did that too. He wasn’t dry and drops of water ran down his body. His damp hair stood on end. His knees were shaking, and his member had shrunk, as if it wanted to pull back into his body.

  ‘I’m unarmed,’ Kaufmann said. ‘Can I get dressed?’

  Johannes Dunkel heard his colleagues storming up the stairs and said, ‘No, you stay right there. And turn around slowly. Hands against the wall!’

  Wilhelm Kaufmann was smart enough to do what he was told. He felt the young officer’s nervousness. He didn’t want to give him the slightest reason to pull the trigger.

  He positioned himself exactly as he would have demanded of a criminal: legs wide, leaning forwards his hands pressed against the wall, and then he said, ‘My name is Wilhelm Kaufmann. I’m a former police officer.’

  ‘Shut up!’ someone yelled.

  Ubbo Heide was waiting downstairs in his wheelchair. Ann Kathrin, Weller, Rupert and Büscher ran up the stairs. When they entered the room, Kaufmann was lying naked on the floor, his hands behind his back and bound with the modern plastic cuffs that Weller always thought looked like cable ties.

  Johannes Dunkel patted down Kaufmann’s clothing which was hanging over a chair. He raised the gun he’d fished out of the trousers and sniffed it.

  ‘He had a Walther in his pocket. It’s rece
ntly been fired. He was probably having a shower to get rid of the powder residue and blood.’

  Kaufmann griped at Büscher and Ann Kathrin. ‘What’s this about? Can’t you people do a proper arrest anymore? Does it automatically have to be this Hollywood blockbuster shit? I would have rung you tomorrow morning anyway,’

  *

  Svenja Moers couldn’t get through half of the lasagne, hadn’t even tried the spaghetti or the pizza, but she already felt sick.

  ‘What?’ he asked. ‘Keep eating.’

  She burped. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can’t what?’

  ‘I’m full.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit. You’re supposed to eat!’

  ‘But I’m not hungry anymore. I’ll be sick if I eat more.’

  He jumped up from the chair and completely lost it. Although he was, in her estimation, almost two metres tall, he still seemed to her like a furious, nasty little rat. He kicked out with his right foot, clenched his fists and sprayed spittle while screaming.

  ‘You goddamn ungrateful bitch! I serve you with my best and what do you do? You insult me! Do you want to starve in here?’

  Now she was glad that the bars were between him and her. She considered the steel bars as protection against his rage.

  ‘No,’ she said, trying not to let him sense her fear. ‘I’m not ungrateful. But I’m being held against my will. This isn’t a real prison. This here,’ she pointed to her cell, ‘is neither approved nor allowed by the state. The jurisdiction of the world is different. When it becomes clear what you’re doing with me here, you’ll be punished for torture, not just for kidnapping and false imprisonment. Is that what you want?’

  ‘Torture?’ He screeched. Did you say torture? You have no clue what you’re talking about! Should I show you what torture looks like?’

  Tears came to her eyes. She felt her cheeks suddenly become damp, and salty drops covered her lips.

  She regretted every word she’d said. She’d got herself into a terrible situation. She didn’t want to give him a reason to torture her.

  ‘Please, she said,’ I’m sorry. ‘I’m already eating again.’

  Then she took the lasagne, dug into it with the white plastic fork and shovelled up as much as she could. She didn’t swallow, only stuffing more and more lukewarm, greasy pasta into her mouth.