Ansgar lay in Ekatherina’s bed and watched her sleep contentedly. Their lovemaking had been dramatic, violent, almost frenzied. Ekatherina had clearly taken it as the release of Ansgar’s pent-up passion for her. She was, of course, in part correct: he had been totally consumed by her flesh and had stood breathless before her nakedness, but what she hadn’t realised was that it had been only part of his passion that had been released.
The sex had been good for him. Or at least as good as any normal sexual activity could be for him. But, as he lay in the half-dark, looking at the shadowy sweep of Ekatherina’s hip, he felt the frustration of someone who had enjoyed an appetising starter yet had been denied the main course. But that first step had been taken. They were now intimate. Perhaps, just perhaps, in time he might be able to fulfil his darkest fantasy with her.
It was Sunday morning and Ansgar’s day off. Ekatherina left for her shift. She told him he could spend the day in her apartment and they would have Sunday night together. When she returned after her shift, tired, flushed from the heat of the kitchen and her skin shiny with sweat, Ekatherina said she would shower before coming to bed. Ansgar told her not to bother and the passion of the night before returned, redoubled.
They breakfasted the next morning on orange juice, coffee and bread rolls filled with a meat paste that Ekatherina said had come all the way from Ukraine. Sitting there at Ekatherina’s breakfast table, Ansgar felt suddenly melancholy. He saw himself as if through the window of the flat: sitting with a pretty girl several years his junior, breakfasting together like a normal contented couple. What pained him most was the fact that at that exact moment he was contented.
They agreed to arrive separately at work and to keep their daytime relationship professional, but Ansgar could tell that Ekatherina was going to have very great difficulty in keeping this new romance to herself. He kissed her goodbye and headed up to the wholesalers on An der Münze to pick up some stuff they were low on in the restaurant.
The gloom of the last few days had lifted and the winter sun hung bright and low in the sky. Ansgar felt good. It seemed impossible for the darkness within him to surface into the brightness of the day, added to which he had, for the first time in years, a sense of normality. Of living a life as others lived theirs.
Ansgar took a taxi across the Zoobrücke and picked up his car. He was very fussy about where he sourced his meat for the restaurant and never bought main ingredients from the wholesalers, but he did stock up on everything else there. It was handy for the restaurant and they always delivered his orders accurately and on time, which was important to Ansgar and his unyielding desire for order in his kitchen.
He took a flatbed trolley and loaded it up with cleaning materials, hand-wash, surface-wipes and other non-food items for the wholesalers to deliver. Then he headed for the drinks section. Ansgar always bought his wine directly from vintners along the Rhine and from several small vineyards in France, but he used the wholesalers to stock up on beers and spirits.
He saw her. He just happened to glance into the food section and she was there. He froze for a second, then shrank back behind one of the ceiling-high stacks of shelves. She hadn’t spotted him. Ansgar had only caught the briefest glimpse, but there was no doubt it was her. He recognised the bright blonde hair, the intense red lipstick, the deep tan even in February. Most of all he recognised her from her build: broad-shouldered and dense, as she had effortlessly pushed a heavily laden cart towards the checkout.
Another trade customer muttered complainingly behind Ansgar, who responded by pulling his trolley closer into the shelves and allowing them to pass. His heart pounded. He had always dreaded this moment. He had hoped it would never come. Yet he thrilled at the thought. He had hoped that she had left Cologne in the time since he had last encountered her. It had been so long ago. And in total the experience had lasted no more than a few minutes. But she had seen. She had seen his true nature.
Maria found that now when she woke up each morning she felt disconnected from herself; from reality. It frightened her to feel that she was watching herself as if she were a character in a film, or some distant figure in a landscape. She knew she wasn’t well, and not like before. It was as if something was broken inside her. It frightened her to think that she was now capable of almost anything; that she was more or less prepared to do all that the Ukrainians asked of her. Yet something held her back.
Maria had been with them for three days now. They met each morning, early, at the small former meat-packing plant which Buslenko had rented in the Raderberg area of the city. Maria continued to spend her nights at the cheap hotel and drove down each morning. Something warned her to keep the location of Liese’s apartment secret and she decided not to move into it for a few days. Where Buslenko and Sarapenko slept was unknown to Maria, and she didn’t ask. For a two-man operation, the Ukrainians seemed extremely well equipped. It highlighted to Maria how inept her attempts and how half-baked her planning had been. Buslenko and Sarapenko had brought masses of electronic equipment, as well as two weapons bags. Maria reckoned that her involvement in the illegal movement of guns and military hardware into Germany was in itself enough to guarantee her a prison term.
The strange thing was that she was now physically stronger than she had been for months. Since she had started to eat normally again, her frame had begun to fill out and her limbs no longer felt leaden. Her resolve, like her hunger, had returned. The way to make up for Slavko’s death was to kill Vitrenko. The way to make up for everything was to kill Vitrenko.
‘We’ve set up twenty-four-hour surveillance on Molokov,’ Buslenko explained.
‘How? There’s only the two … the three of us …’
‘Molokov’s got a place out in Cologne’s leafy suburbs, between Lindenthal and Braunsfeld. It’s a huge villa that’s supposed to be owned by a Russian importer-exporter called Bogdanov. Whether he exists or is just an alias for Molokov or Vitrenko we don’t know. We have set up remote cameras outside his villa – it’s on the edge of the park and the street is lined with trees so it wasn’t too hard.’ Buslenko grinned. ‘I worked for the City of Cologne’s Parks Department for a day. Anyway, they’re safe and undetectable but not as close as we’d like. Ideally, I’d like to get a listening device or camera into his place, but that’s impossible.’
Olga Sarapenko had helped Buslenko set up a bank of three monitors. She tuned them in and different views of a large modern villa appeared on the screens. Olga adjusted the zoom and focus on each with a joystick.
‘Even if we could get a device inside,’ continued Buslenko, ‘it’s a safe bet that Molokov has his house electronically swept every couple of days.’ Buslenko laughed bitterly. ‘That’s the problem with being on our side of the fence. Molokov’s electronic hardware isn’t restricted by government budgets. I’ll bet his kit is far superior to ours.’
‘The thing is,’ said Maria, ‘I didn’t come to Cologne for Molokov.’
‘Believe me, Maria, nor did we.’
‘What can I contribute here?’ she asked, with a sigh. ‘Why did you make yourselves known to me? God knows there was no way I was going to get anywhere near Vitrenko. It would probably have been easier and more secure for you to operate invisibly. I really don’t see what I can bring to the table.’
‘We left three dead behind us in Ukraine,’ said Olga Sarapenko. ‘What you mean to us is an extra pair of eyes. And an extra gun if we need it.’
‘But your true value to us, Maria,’ said Buslenko, ‘is the connection you offer. The potential access to intelligence that we can’t get at ourselves. There’s a dossier on Vitrenko. In fact there are two, but one of them, the more comprehensive one, is held by your Federal Crime Bureau on a secure computer. Hard copies are on very restricted circulation. The Federal Crime Bureau task force dedicated to Vitrenko obviously has access to inside information. We only had sight of the Ukrainian version which misses out key intelligence.’
‘Vasyl Vitrenko is obsessive about security.’ Olga Sarapenko took over. ‘He is driven mad by the idea that he can’t get at the dossier. He suspects that the informer is on Molokov’s side of the operation, maybe even Molokov himself. But he can’t prove it. We want you to try to get us a copy of the Vitrenko Dossier. The full one. If we can identify the informer, we can pressure him into setting Vitrenko up. It gives us someone on the inside whose survival would depend on us taking Vitrenko out of the picture.’
‘But I don’t have access to the Vitrenko Dossier. In fact I’m probably the last person they’d allow to see it.’
‘But you have access codes and passwords for the BKA computer system,’ said Buslenko. ‘That would be a starting point. It’s not practical to think that we can carry out a complex mission like this in just a few days. It could be that the best thing for you to do is to go back to Hamburg in a few weeks and ideally resume your duties with the Murder Commission. The information you can obtain for us is of much more value to us than your presence here,’ Buslenko explained.
‘I’m here to see this through. To see Vitrenko get what he deserves,’ Maria said defiantly. She was willing to do almost anything to bring down Vitrenko, but Buslenko was asking her to access government files on behalf of a foreign military unit operating illegally in the Federal Republic. It would be a betrayal of her office. It would probably be espionage.
‘I understand your hunger for revenge,’ Buslenko explained. ‘But this is not a Hollywood western. Your value to us is to pass on to us everything that the German authorities know about Vitrenko’s operation. I’m sure you’ll find a way,’ Buslenko said, not unkindly. ‘In the meantime, you may stay here with us and help us set up our surveillance of Molokov.’
Maria took her shifts watching the monitors, logging the activities: who visited the Molokov villa, when they arrived, when they left, the licence numbers of the cars that came and went. Always waiting for the arrival of anyone who could have been Vitrenko. Although she refused to supply the Ukrainians with the access codes they needed, she did share what intelligence she had been able to gather. She felt that this, in some way, could be regarded as the legitimate exchange of information between law-enforcement agencies.
Their situation, Buslenko explained, was like two hunters in the forest at the same time. It was up to Buslenko, Sarapenko and Maria to make sure they got to the game before the BKA Federal Crime Bureau, and without detection. All he wanted the access codes for was to pinpoint where the other hunter lay hidden in the forest. Maria knew it was only a matter of time before Buslenko became more insistent.
It was on the third day of sitting at the monitors that Maria noticed a huge black Lexus pull up at the villa’s gates. It was admitted immediately. Buslenko’s surveillance camera was set up so far from the house that it was difficult to see clearly the men who got out of the vehicle. But the final figure sent a chill through Maria.
‘Olga!’
Sarapenko ran over. ‘What is it?’
‘Him …’ Maria felt her throat tighten, as if the name would choke her if she said it out loud. ‘It’s him.’
‘How can you tell? It’s just a shape from this distance.’
‘That’s him, I know it. The last time I saw him he was just a shape in the distance, like now, only then he was running across a field. Where’s Buslenko?’
‘He’s collecting some stuff. Our contact here … it’s best if you don’t know.’
‘Get hold of him on his cellphone. Tell him we’ve found our target and he is in Molokov’s place right now.’ Maria watched the figure on the monitor. At last. At last she had him in her sights. It gave her an enormous sense of power to know that she was watching him and he was unaware of her observation. The dark, indistinct figure whose identity Maria knew with absolute certainty turned to speak to one of his heavies, then disappeared into the villa.
Maria watched with a cold, hard expression of violent hatred as Vasyl Vitrenko disappeared from view.
‘Now,’ she said in a voice not much louder than a whisper. ‘Now I’ve got you.’
The television flickered mutely in the corner of the hotel room. A row of Funkenmariechen dancing girls in red-and-white microskirted versions of eighteenth-century Prussian military uniforms, complete with tri-cornered hats, performed a clumpily synchronised chorus-line high kick to unheard music. In the background the Elferrat, the Karneval Council of Eleven, presided with forced jollity over the proceedings. Karneval was beginning to build up to its Rose Monday climax. Fabel lay on his hotel bed, gazed blankly at the screen and reflected on the fact that the Karneval Cannibal too was probably building up for showtime on Women’s Karneval Night. Fabel had just finished talking to Susanne on the phone; it hadn’t gone well. After he had been unable to give her a clear idea about when he’d be back in Hamburg, they had fallen into a silence. Susanne had ended it by saying she would talk to him whenever he got back and had then hung up.
He stared at the silent TV, not taking in the grinning dancing girls who sidestepped their way in unison off the stage and were replaced by a man dressed in a barrel who delivered a comic monologue.
Fabel switched on his bedside lamp and picked up the file on Vera Reinartz, the girl who had been beaten and raped on Women’s Karneval Night in 1999. There was a photograph of Vera, taken with a couple of fellow medical students. She was a smallish, mousy-haired girl but pretty. She stood uncertainly at the edge of the group, clearly uncomfortable at having her photograph taken. The second photograph had been taken on a sunny day in a park or garden. Her light-coloured summer dress revealed her figure: slim but slightly pear-shaped with a fleshiness around the hips. Just like the Karneval Cannibal’s victims. Again, she had the look of someone who didn’t like to be the focus of attention.
Fabel went through Vera’s statement, doctors’ reports and the stark hospital photographs, the vividness of her bruises and the rawness of the abrasions and cuts on her face and neck emphasised by the severe lighting. Fabel couldn’t recognise the swollen mass of bruised flesh as the girl in the earlier photographs. There were images of the wounds on her body. Including bite marks. Bite marks were by no mean unusual in rape cases, but Fabel felt that Scholz had been far too dismissive of a potential link with the murders. Tansu Bakrac clearly struggled to assert herself in the shadow of Scholz’s seemingly relaxed but highly personal leadership.
Again Fabel reflected on the unknown city outside his hotel window, with its strange customs, its Karneval, its dancing girls and costumed clowns. Its killer stalking women on the one night of the year when they were supposed to be free of male tyranny. And Maria, putting herself in mortal danger by stumbling around in the dark. And that made him think about his appointment. The one he had made for the next day. The one Scholz mustn’t know about.
Tansu had added a lot of background information on Vera Reinartz. She had been bright; brighter than her peers and destined for a significant career in medicine. She had the kind of intellect that tended to be steered into specialism or research. She had had boyfriends but the medical examination had confirmed her own statement that she had been a virgin. Where are you now, Vera? Fabel thought to himself as he read. How could you just disappear?
Fabel breakfasted well. He had muesli with fruit and yoghurt, a couple of bread rolls with Leberwurst and a soft-boiled egg with fruit juice and coffee. He left the hotel early but did not head for the Police Presidium. It was the first opportunity Fabel had had since he had arrived in Cologne: Scholz had to go to a Karneval police committee meeting that would go on all morning. To start with, Fabel had assumed it was a strategy meeting to discuss the massive but delicate task of policing Cologne’s Karneval.
‘No such luck,’ Scholz had said gloomily. ‘It’s about our Karneval float for Rose Monday. They’re after my head because the finishing of the float and costumes is so far behind schedule.’
Fabel walked into town from his hotel and climbed the cathedral steps above the Bahnhofsvorplatz, the main square that sat between Cologne Cathedral and the city’s central railway station. Ahead of him was the Collonaden shopping mall attached to the station. The winter sun was knife-sharp in the cold air and scarf-muffled crowds milled around the square. This was the heart of the city. It had been for nearly two thousand years and the concentric circles of Cologne’s main thoroughfares radiated from it like ripples in a pond. Maria was out there somewhere on some half-baked revenge mission. She was here to catch up with Vitrenko. The chances were that she would. And that he would kill her.
He had only been waiting for ten minutes when a tall man with greying hair approached him. Fabel noticed that Ullrich Wagner was much more casually dressed than he had been the last time they had met, in van Heiden’s office in Hamburg.
‘I see you got my message,’ said Fabel. ‘I’m glad you could come.’
‘After what you told me on the phone the other day, I could hardly not come.’ Wagner looked up at the dark mass of the cathedral. One of the spires was encased in scaffolding that looked toothpick-fragile compared to the spire’s mass. ‘There’s always scaffolding somewhere on it … it took three hundred years to build and it looks like it’ll take an eternity to repair.’ He smiled. ‘I must say it’s very Graham Greene … meeting at the cathedral and everything.’
‘I didn’t want to meet at the Police Presidium. I’m working this Karneval case with Benni Scholz. I didn’t want, well … to confuse things. I didn’t have time to head out to BKA headquarters, and you said you would be in Cologne …’
‘Listen, it’s not a problem. By the way, I just wanted to ask you … your decision … you know, what you said on the phone. Is that your final decision?’
‘Yes …’ Fabel thought back to his phone call to Wagner from his office in Hamburg immediately after he had heard from Dr Minks about Maria’s absence.
‘I have to say, I agree that we have to get Frau Klee out of the picture. Not just because she’s compromising our operation again, but for the sake of her well-being. But I have to be frank, Herr Fabel …’
‘Call me Jan …’ Cologne’s informality seemed to be affecting Fabel.
‘I have to be frank, Jan: I think Frau Klee is finished as a police officer.’
‘Let’s concentrate on saving her life first, then we’ll see about saving her career.’
Fabel had only been in the cathedral once before and as he and Wagner stepped through the double doors into the main body of the building he recalled his previous awe. It had to be one of the most impressive buildings ever built. The vast vaulted space that opened up before them seemed too huge to be sustained in the fabric of the building. For a moment the two men remained silent as they each took in the majesty of the cathedral and its enormous stained-glass windows. On the way in Fabel and Wagner passed a shortish, stocky man with thick sand-coloured hair and a dense bush of moustache. He appeared to be wearing several layers of woollens under his stockman coat. His spectacles were perched on the top of his head and he was peering up, frowning, at one of the detailed stained-glass panels. He had a pen and a thick notebook clutched in one hand and a guidebook in the other.
‘Excuse me …’ He turned and spoke to them in English as they passed. ‘Could you tell me … there is a coat of arms up there. You see …’
‘It probably signifies one of the wealthy merchant families in Cologne,’ said Fabel.
‘That is the strangest thing,’ said the man, perplexed but smiling. ‘That is quite definitely … absolutely definitely … a rhinoceros … But the guide states here that this panel dates back to the Middle Ages. I thought in Germany you would not know of such things at this time …’
‘Are you Spanish?’ Fabel spoke his mother’s language like a native and had an ear for foreign accents in English.
‘I live in Spain, but I’m Mexican, actually. Paco is my name,’ said the tourist and smiled broadly. ‘I am a writer and such things interest me.’ He shook his head in awe. ‘And this is a most interesting city …’
‘I’m afraid I have no idea. I’m from Hamburg myself …’
‘Maybe it was a family who traded with Africa,’ said Wagner. ‘But Cologne started off as a Roman city and had contacts throughout the Empire. It’s always been a trading centre for the rest of Europe. For the world. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you what the significance of the rhinoceros is.’
‘Thank you, anyway,’ said the tourist.
They were about to walk away when Wagner checked himself. ‘Oh, there is one meaning it might have.’
‘Oh?’
‘There was a lot of symbolism borrowed from pagan times to represent the various aspects of Christ. They were big on bestiaries in the Middle Ages and used exotic animals as symbols for Christ or the resurrection. The Phoenician myth of the phoenix and the image of the pelican were both used to represent the resurrection.’
‘Why the pelican?’ asked Fabel.
‘Back then they thought pelicans ripped open their own chests to deliver their young.’
‘And the rhinoceros?’ asked the tourist.
‘The rhinoceros was a symbol of Christ’s wrath. Righteous vengeance.’
‘Most interesting …’ said the Mexican. ‘Thank you.’
Fabel and Wagner left the tourist still looking up at the stained-glass window, shaking his head in wonder.
‘Impressive …’ said Fabel, with a smile.
‘I was brought up in a very Catholic family,’ said Wagner wryly. ‘A lot of it sticks.’
Fabel and Wagner sat on a pew near where the immense stained-glass window soared high and wide, splashing the floor’s flagstones with puddles of red, green, blue.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ said Wagner. ‘Did you know that Cologne Cathedral was the world’s tallest man-made structure until the end of the nineteenth century? It was the Eiffel Tower that replaced it, I think. Or the Washington Monument.’
Fabel nodded. ‘So much stone. No wonder it took three hundred years to build.’
‘This isn’t simply a place of worship: it’s a physical statement. A big statement. Big God and little us.’
‘I take it that despite your Catholic upbringing you’re not the most religious person, Ullrich?’
‘After going through the Vitrenko Dossier it’s pretty easy to believe in the Devil, if not in God.’
‘I’d like a look at the dossier. Would that be possible?’
A cathedral guide in a monk’s habit, with a cash box and a guidebook dispenser strapped to his belt, walked past. The monk paused to ask an American tourist to remove his baseball cap.
‘This is still a place of worship,’ the monk-guide said in English.
‘It’s on strictly controlled release,’ said Wagner after the American and the guide were out of earshot. ‘You have to sign a register to even look at it. But I’ll see what I can do, Jan. However, if you are getting involved in this, we need you to get involved professionally. One renegade Hamburg cop trampling all over this operation is enough.’
‘Fair enough. Were you able to run the checks I asked for?’
Wagner’s expression suggested it had not been an easy task. ‘Hotel Linden off the Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer. She checked in three weeks ago. The nineteenth of January. Stayed a week and checked out on the twenty-sixth. You do know that getting this information was not entirely legal?’
‘You’d make a good spy, Ullrich.’ Fabel smiled. He remembered that the Linden was on the list of hotels that he and Anna had found in Maria’s apartment. ‘Could I have a look at the Vitrenko file tonight?’
‘Tonight?’ Wagner pursed his lips. ‘I’ll see what I can do. I’m not supposed to take a hard copy out of the office … I’ll come by your hotel about eight.’
‘Thanks. I really appreciate it.’
‘That’s okay, Jan. Just remember what we agreed.’
‘I will,’ said Fabel. ‘See you tonight.’
He watched as Wagner walked towards the west door of the cathedral, past the Mexican tourist who still stood writing notes and studying the stained-glass window detail of a rhinoceros that should not have been there.
Olga Sarapenko spoke to Buslenko on her cellphone while Maria kept her gaze fixed on the monitor screen, focused on the indistinct grainy image of the front door to Molokov’s villa, waiting for Vitrenko to re-emerge.
‘Taras says we’ve to stay put,’ Olga said after she hung up. ‘He’s going over to Lindenthal. It’ll take him at least twenty minutes to get in position. If Vitrenko doesn’t leave before he gets there, Taras will pick up the Lexus and tail it.’
‘Alone. Buslenko’s taking the same risk I did.’
‘Taras knows what he’s doing.’ Olga made an apologetic gesture. ‘Sorry, you know what I mean. He’s specially trained.’
‘So are the people he’s tracking.’ Maria spoke without shifting her attention from the screen.
Olga pulled up a chair next to Maria and they both sat watching the lack of activity. Two guards. One on the door, the other patrolling the house. It seemed an age before Olga’s cellphone rang. The exchange was brief.
‘He’s in position. We have to let him know which way the Lexus turns when it comes out of the gates.’
Fabel ate on the way back to his hotel. He sat in a corner booth on the ground floor café-bar of an old brewery close to the cathedral, drinking the traditional Cologne beer which, like the unique dialect of the city, was called Kölsch. Kölsch was always served in the small, narrow, tube-like glasses called Stange and Fabel noticed that as soon as he drained one another was brought without him ordering it. Then he remembered it was a Cologne custom that, unless you placed your drink mat on top of the glass, you would be continually supplied with fresh Kölsch. The way he felt at that moment, Fabel found the arrangement more than satisfactory. He thought about how good it would be to sit in the cosy brewery café and get quietly drunk. But of course he wouldn’t. Fabel had never in his life been truly, falling-down drunk. To do so would mean losing control, allowing himself to become subject to the random, the chaotic. A waiter in a long apron appeared and said something completely unintelligible. Fabel stared at him uncomprehendingly then laughed, again remembering Cologne traditions. In a place like this the waiters were called Köbes and spoke in thick Kölsch, usually peppered with colourful phrases. The waiter grinned and repeated his question in High German and Fabel placed his order.
Cologne was so different to Hamburg. Was it possible, Fabel wondered, to change your surroundings and change yourself to suit? If he had been born here, instead of in the North, would he be a different person? The waiter arrived with his meal and a fresh glass of beer and Fabel tried to put it all from his mind. For now.
It had been four hours but Maria had turned down Olga’s offer to take over watching the monitors. It was getting dark and the villa was reduced to a dark geometry broken up by the brightness of the windows. Suddenly two lights came on above the front door, illuminating one of the guards.
‘Tell Buslenko they’re on the move …’ Maria barked at Olga.
The door swung open and Vitrenko’s bodyguard emerged. The Lexus door opened for someone still inside the villa and out of sight. Then a tall dark figure was framed in the bright doorway. Again a shudder of recognition. He might have changed his face, but at this distance some primeval instinct identified a form burned into Maria’s memory. He stopped, his silhouetted head angled. Maria felt ice in her veins: it was as if Vitrenko were looking through the camera, directly at her.
He stepped forward and into the Lexus, out of view.
Maria followed the car as it drifted silently down the drive and out of the gate. ‘They’re turning right.’
The Lexus was gone. Vitrenko was gone.
‘Taras has picked them up,’ said Olga Sarapenko. ‘They’re heading out towards the autobahn. He wants you to help him with the surveillance.’ She tossed Maria a walkie-talkie. ‘Channel three. Taras will guide you in. I’m to man the command post here. I’ll liaise between you and Taras and update you on any developments.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better for you to go?’ asked Maria. She suddenly felt very afraid and ill-equipped to deal with the consequences of catching up with Vitrenko. ‘Aren’t you better trained for this?’
‘I’m just a police officer like you. The difference is that you’re a German police officer. Taras thinks that might be useful if things get complicated.’
‘But I don’t know this city …’
‘We’ve got all the geopositioning kit we need to direct you. Use your own car. You’d better go. Now.’
It was dark, wet and cold. Cologne glittered bleakly in the winter evening. It was a straight drive to Lindenthal through Zollstock and Sülz. The radio lay mute on the passenger seat. After ten minutes and as she approached the Stadtwald park, Maria picked it up.
‘Olga … Olga, can you hear me?’
‘I hear you.’
‘Where am I supposed to go?’
‘I’m on the autobahn heading north …’ It was Buslenko’s voice. ‘Head for the Kreuz Köln-West junction and take the A57 and head north. I’ll let you know if we turn off. Olga, guide Maria through Junkersdorf onto the autobahn. Vitrenko’s car is not moving fast, but Maria won’t catch up to us till we stop. Olga … any idea where this takes us?’
‘Hold on,’ said Olga. There was a pause. ‘It looks like Vitrenko’s heading out of the city. Could be that he’s heading back up north. Hamburg.’
‘Unlikely at this time of night,’ Buslenko said. His voice over the radio a universe away. Maria felt isolated, cocooned by the darkness and the thick, sleety rain against the windscreen. How had she got herself into this situation? She had taken so much on trust with these people. Who was to say that they were who they said they were? She shook the thought from her head: they had saved her life; they had found Maxim Kushnier’s body and disposed of it; they had given her ill-planned, half-assed mission some kind of coherence and at least a hint of viability.
Maria pressed the call button of her radio. ‘Tell me where I’ve got to go …’
The Hotel Linden was only a few minutes from where Cologne’s Hansaring joined the Konrad-Adenauer Ufer which ran along the Rhine’s edge. It somehow gave Fabel hope to sense something of the old Maria in her choice: the Linden’s situation gave her as central a base as possible without being conspicuous. He told the taxi driver to wait for him and trotted up the steps into the hotel’s small lobby. A pretty dark-haired girl smiled at him from behind the reception desk. Her smile gave way to a frown when he showed her his Polizei Hamburg ID card.
‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ he reassured her. ‘I’m just trying to trace someone.’
Fabel showed the receptionist a photograph of Maria. ‘Ring any bells?’
Her frown deepened. ‘I can’t say that it does … but I’ve been off the last week. Let me get the duty manager.’
She disappeared into the office and returned with a man who was too young to wear such a serious expression. There was a hint of suspicion in the way he eyed Fabel.
‘What’s this all about, Herr …?’
‘Principal Chief Commissar Fabel.’ Fabel smiled and held out his ID again. ‘I’m down from Hamburg looking for this woman …’ He paused while the pretty receptionist handed the photograph to the manager. ‘Her name is Maria Klee. Our information suggests that she stayed in this hotel. But she might have used another name.’
‘What has she done?’
‘I don’t see that has anything to do with your answer to my question.’ Fabel leaned forward on the reception desk. ‘Have you seen her or not?’
The duty manager examined the photograph. ‘Yes, I have. But she doesn’t look like that now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She checked out of here a couple of weeks ago.’ He typed something into the reception computer. ‘Yes, here it is, the twenty-sixth. But when she checked out her hair was cut really short and dyed black. The other thing was her clothes.’
‘What about them?’
‘They were always different. I don’t mean just a change of outfit … I mean completely different styles of clothes. One day really expensive, the next scruffy and cheap.’
Surveillance, thought Fabel. She had a lead and was following it. ‘Anything else? Did she ever meet with anyone here?’
‘Not that I’m aware of. But she did park her car in the hotel car park without registering its licence number with us. We nearly had it towed away, but one of the porters recognised her as a guest. I was going to have a word with her about it but she checked out before I had a chance.’
‘Did you get the number?’
‘Of course …’ The prematurely pompous duty manager again referred to the hotel computer. He scribbled something down on a pad and handed it to Fabel.
‘But this is a “K” plate … a Cologne licence.’ Fabel looked at the number again. ‘What kind of car was it?’
‘Cheap and old. I think it was a Citroën.’
‘Would you have any idea where she was going from here?’
The duty manager shrugged. Fabel scribbled his cellphone number on the back of a Polizei Hamburg business card.
‘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.’
‘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 déjà 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.
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.
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.
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.’
‘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.’
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 machine 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.