The Blameless Dead

by Gary Haynes

  Dusk was morphing into night, the clouds high and wispy, the sky above Bonn awash with light pollution. The assaulters had a wide assortment of weaponry, including Swiss, Belgian and Austrian assault rifles, and bolt-action sniper rifles. They wore charcoal-grey combat fatigues and khaki body armour, dark balaclavas and camouflage Kevlar helmets and the German flag as a patch on their right breasts and left biceps, above their insignia. Their identities were top secret.

  The four Hueys split formation four miles out from Potsdam. Two headed for the farm, the other pair for the villa. Video cameras had been mounted on the helicopters’ fuselages and their individual helmets, relaying real-time images to flat screens at base.

  The land around the target sites had been cordoned off by armed state police. They had searchlights and German Shepherd protection dogs at the ready. No one was getting in, or out, at ground level.

  *

  The pilot in the lead Huey heading for the villa, his head encased in a huge aviator helmet, informed the assaulters that the ETA to the insertion point was in five minutes. The amber LED lights were cut. The assaulters rechecked their equipment, pulling out the magazines from the wells, adjusting sights a fraction, rechecking their modes of communication. Some shuffled their feet. Others sat as still as pillars.

  *

  The Huey began to vibrate, due to an uplift of trapped air as it hovered about eight feet inside the wall and ten yards above the grass at the rear of the villa. An assaulter flipped off a lens cap and aligned the swivel cheek piece of his suppressed sniper rifle. He aimed out of the open cabin door, scanning the terrain, cast a muted green by the night vision.

  The lead assaulter fast-roped adroitly in black leather mitts from the iron bar jutting out from the fuselage, landing in a cloud of swirling grit and loose topsoil. He was propelled forward by the rotor wash and took point about seven yards from the hovering Huey, adjusting his small headphones before speaking into his cheek microphone.

  The villa was directly in front of him, a few outbuildings and vehicle ports left and right. He scanned around with his Heckler and Koch HK G36 assault carbine, fixed with a thermal imaging scope and a red dot laser. The night air was mild and there was no breeze.

  The seven-man team moved up behind him, their bodies weighed down by equipment bags, extra magazines and sixty-pound ballistic plates. The second Huey hovered at the front of the villa, its on-board infrared checking for heat signatures as the assaulters slid down the rope. It would circle above, its remaining occupants ready to act as reinforcements, its cabin as an emergency air ambulance facility.

  102

  The farm, the same day.

  Gabriel had done his best to control his emotions after the old man had said Sangmu was there. Was she still alive? He had to believe it, although part of him didn’t. His breathing had become shallow and rapid, his hands had trembled. He’d felt as if his brain had swelled. He’d felt the rapid beats of his heart against his chest.

  He knew now that to ensure no one else died, he had to convince the old man that he couldn’t risk any more bloodletting, that he was on the cusp of spending the rest of his miserable life in prison.

  Gabriel said, ‘Some people thought you’d died in 1945. But there was an article in Der Spiegel about the murder of a young woman in her own apartment in West Berlin in 1954. Brigitte Bayer. The only witness was the daughter, Helma. She told the authorities who’d done it after a photograph of you was shown to her. It was Brigitte’s photograph. One you’d given her, no doubt.

  ‘But there was a lot going on back then to occupy them, as you know. Besides, you’d slipped back over to East Germany. They couldn’t have reached you even if they’d had the time and inclination. No one could get to you. You had vanished. Except you hadn’t, because all men have an Achilles heel, and yours is your daughter, especially after what you’d done to her mother. You rang her periodically. She said that she screamed at you at first. Then she would slam the phone down. Lately, she just listens to your pleas for forgiveness. Your vile snivelling. Her words, not mine.’

  The old man’s expression hadn’t changed. There was no indication of what he was thinking.

  ‘I tracked down your daughter to her home near Palm Springs. It wasn’t difficult. She was adopted by a military attaché at the US Embassy. I went to see her. She told me what you had done, told me face-to-face. But you were a shadow. Even the FBI couldn’t find you. She confirmed what the article had said was true, that her mother had signed an affidavit after the war that stated her child was a war child, the daughter of Joseph Kazapov, a Russian NKVD officer. A man with a scar that runs from his shoulder to his neck. I suspect it’s still there. Your daughter is now named Barbara Murray. She gave me a translated copy of the affidavit.’

  Now the old man’s face had reddened, and he was nodding a fraction.

  ‘Barbara Murray still had the photo. She gave that to me too. You’re in an NKVD uniform. I think you killed Brigitte Bayer because she knew something. I don’t know what. It doesn’t matter. Your daughter asked me to find you and bring you to justice.’

  ‘Because you told her what I have done?’

  ‘What I suspected, yes. I did,’ Gabriel said.

  ‘I wish you hadn’t done that.’

  Gabriel forced himself to grin.

  He said, ‘Records were recently released to the US Holocaust Museum, detailing what happened in Kalmykia to Jews in World War Two. Other atrocities too. Four women went missing there, all with the name of Kazapova. Your mother and your sisters, given their ages and the fact that you yourself wrote the report. The Kalmyks killed them. You found that out too. But you didn’t report that, because you knew someone could make a connection then. That’s the reason for all this, isn’t it? I know it like I know my own face. Everything is in the letters. Every detail.’

  The old man seemed to teeter on his feet. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

  He said, ‘The game is up?’

  ‘It’s up.’

  ‘Except it’s never up, is it, Mr Hall? It’s like a perpetual game of cards and I have another card to play. The Queen of Hearts.’

  Gabriel looked down at his chaffed wrists and up at Joseph Kazapov’s aged and now half-grinning face.

  ‘Carla Romero, the good mother, will remain silent to prevent her daughter from an unspeakable death at the hands of certain Russian acquaintances. I can guarantee that. She will resign from the FBI and live out her years with her daughter in the country of her ancestors, which is fitting. You will never speak of these things either. I will give you your niece and you will go home and Sangmu will recover, in time. With the right treatment, which both you and her parents can afford. You will do this because I don’t have to tell you what the alternative will be.’

  ‘You really have her?’ Gabriel said, tears forming in his eyes, his breath quickening. ‘She’s alive?’

  ‘Vezzani will fetch her for you and you will agree to the things I have said.’

  ‘I will,’ Gabriel said.

  ‘No tears, Mr Hall. We all have what we want. Our paths part from here.’

  ‘And the killing is over?’

  ‘It’s over,’ the old man said.

  He walked towards the door, opened it and called Vezzani in.

  ‘Release Mr Hall, if you please. We have come to an understanding.’

  Vezzani shook his head but walked over to Gabriel, removing a butterfly knife with mother-of-pearl handles from his back pocket. He flipped his wrist, releasing the blade. He sliced through the nearest flex-cuff before stepping over to release the other.

  ‘Bring me the girl,’ the old man said.

  After Vezzani had left the room again, the old man said, ‘When you return home, Mr Hall, tell my daughter that she will never hear from me again. I am returning home too, it appears.’

  ‘Why did you continue killing for so long?’

  ‘Why? You want to know why?’ he said, as if Gabriel might no
t be able to bear it. ‘You do not have Georgian blood in your veins. You would never understand.’

  Gabriel said, ‘I need to know.’

  ‘You need to?’ the old man said, mockingly.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Very well.’ The old man nodded. ‘Your niece’s great-grandfather was a man named Chon, which means wolf. He did things on the Kalmyk steppe that you are unable to imagine. He did things to my youngest sister, Oksana, that I will never speak of.’

  Gabriel saw Kazapov’s eyes harden, even now, even after all the years.

  ‘I thought about tracking them all down and doing to them what I had seen done by the NKVD torturers. But then I decided that was too good for them. I didn’t want them to die. I wanted them to suffer.’

  He ran the back of his right hand across his mouth, removing something viscous from his lower lip.

  ‘I made the men responsible suffer, day after endless day. They knew why their girls were being taken. Deep down they knew. Retribution for what they themselves had done. I killed their daughters, and the daughters of their daughters, and so forth. They are good breeders, like rats. I killed them on their eighteenth birthdays. Some that had given birth to girls already. Others that hadn’t. They never knew who would be next. As for the one man that didn’t have daughters, I disembowelled him while he was handcuffed to a gurney. Their very souls were filthy, Mr Hall. Their surviving relatives know this, now.’

  Gabriel drew his open hand over his face, as if he was trying to cleanse his own soul in the process. After what he’d just heard, the thought of seeing Sangmu and what would’ve otherwise happened to her, were competing emotions that were threatening to overwhelm him.

  103

  The villa.

  Four assaulters at the rear of the villa ran to the flanks. Those that remained in their positions hunkered down. There was no sound from within the building, but their thermal imaging picked up three heat signatures in the room to the left on the ground floor.

  The assaulter responsible for entry moved forward. He placed a ten-by-three-inch adhesive strip of breaching explosives over the lock of the heavy, oak-panelled door. He primed it with two blasting caps to guard against a single malfunction and reeled out the connecting wires. Now that they knew the occupants were aware of their arrival, due to the proximity of the helicopters, despite the soundproofing, they wanted to announce their entry with an explosion.

  There was a four second delay. The door was flung outwards, sending a flurry of metal shards and splinters into the air with the smoke as the shockwave careered down the brick façade. The three assaulters closest to the front entrance activated their head torches and those affixed to their weapons. They moved at speed towards the smoky doorway.

  Once inside, the man with the blast shield took point and the other two formed a short human chain behind him. Breaching charges were deemed too dangerous to be used here, especially given the possibility of the suspected recent kidnap victims being in situ. The assaulter carrying the Remington model 870 pump-action shotgun would use shells called Hatton rounds on the hinges of any locked doors. These dispersed into a harmless powder following impact. The assaulter behind him held a flash grenade and a Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol. They were joined now by another four assaulters, extending the human chain.

  They shuffled towards the door of the room where the three heat signatures had been detected, once the pilot in the circling Huey had confirmed there had been no escapes from the sides and the rear, and that all the assaulters were in position if any were attempted.

  The man with the Remington ran to the side of the door as another assaulter positioned himself on the other side, his hands grasping flash grenades. The door’s hinges were blown off and the door thundered to the floor. The discharge of submachine guns from inside the room echoed, the multiple rounds shredding the doorframes and cutting chunks from the lintel. The side wall behind the assaulters was peppered with bullets, the plaster flying off in jagged chunks. The air filled with the acrid smell of the explosive powder. Unperturbed, the assaulters inserted earplugs.

  Three seconds later, the stun grenades were lobbed into the room.

  The two flashes were seen outside the door and looked as if lightening had struck the room, the loud blasts causing, the assaulters knew, both a temporary loss of hearing for those inside and a disruption to the fluid in their ears. They’d either been knocked off their feet or lost their balance. Depending on how close they’d been to the grenade as it had detonated, the blast may also have caused injury, the heat generated sufficient to ignite flammable material.

  Five assaulters rushed through the doorway, their weapons raised. Amid the smoke, a man could be seen lying on the carpeted floor, blood oozing from his nose. A second man was stumbling backwards, his hands fumbling around to find a reference point, his eyes blinking. A third man had his head in his hands as he kneeled on the floor.

  The flashes had activated all the photoreceptor cells in their eyes, making vision impossible for around five seconds until the eyes restored themselves to their unstimulated state. The assaulters knew too that an afterimage would be visible for a longer time, impairing the men’s ability to aim with precision.

  The man still standing was disabled easily, with a kick behind his knee followed by an assault rifle butt to his shoulder blade after he’d sunk down. He fell forwards now, like a plank of wood.

  104

  At the farm the door opened and Vezzani came in, pushing Sangmu in a wheelchair. Her head was bowed, her body limp. Her hair looked damp with sweat. She was dressed in a T-shirt and joggers. Drugged, Gabriel knew.

  He wanted to run to her, to hold her and take her home. He felt something break deep within him and something simultaneously lift, this second round of competing emotions rendering him speechless and immobile.

  Vezzani looked uncharacteristically nervous and his smartphone phone rang. He took the call.

  ‘Security has been breached at the villa,’ he said. ‘The Russian woman has confirmed it. We must leave.’

  The old man glanced at Gabriel accusingly. Gabriel shook his head. The old man raised his chin, pointing it at the ceiling, which was crisscrossed with lagged pipes and electrical cabling and wires, as if to communicate that he was above all that would transpire. He brought his hand down over his eyes, revealing a face that looked both unsurprised at the events that were unfolding, and unrepentant as to their cause.

  Vezzani jabbed a finger in Gabriel’s direction. ‘He’s to blame. You should let me kill him.’

  The old man clasped his hands. ‘Put him in the pit.’

  ‘And the girl?’ Vezzani said.

  The old man shook his tortoise-like head.

  ‘What do you mean the pit?’ Gabriel said. ‘What pit? We have a deal. I’m taking her home.’

  Vezzani put his smartphone away and drew his pistol, pointing it at Gabriel’s face.

  ‘We had a deal,’ the old man said.

  ‘No,’ Gabriel said. ‘Sangmu, it’s me. Can you hear me? It’s me. I’ve come for you. We’re going home. I swear it.’

  Vezzani walked over the concrete floor to a mouldy throw rug. He bent down, aiming the pistol at Gabriel. He lifted a hinge and a trap door with his free hand.

  ‘I keep them down there for a few weeks to subdue them,’ the old man said.

  The smell that rose from the disused well was loathsome.

  ‘What about the letters?’ Gabriel said, his voice betraying his desperation. ‘What are you going to do to her? I’ll fucking kill you.’

  ‘Shall I gag him?’ Vezzani said.

  ‘No need. If he speaks again, shoot the girl. If he doesn’t go down, shoot her.’

  Vezzani used the pistol to motion towards the hole.

  Gabriel got up, wobbling on his feet. He stepped slowly towards Vezzani, his mind a maelstrom of emotions.

  ‘Hurry up, goddamn you,’ Vezzani said.

  Stumbling, Gabriel saw the edge of the hole, the stench c
lawing at his nostrils. There was a rusted metal ladder close to the lip. He knew he would have to climb down it. He knew that all was lost.

  As he lifted his leg onto the first rung, he felt as though he was descending into a kind of hell. The walls were made of natural stone and damp. The darkness and the odour threatened to stifle his movement. But he went down forty feet or more and stood, looking up.

  Vezzani’s ugly head appeared and he pulled up the ladder.

  *

  The somewhat muffled sound of automatic gunfire, explosive charges and multiple footfalls had been heard in the villa’s cellar. The woman who’d referred to herself as Fury had looked at first startled and perplexed, and then adamant that she wouldn’t panic. She’d made a call, a fact that worried Carla, even though she still hoped she and Monize were in the middle of a recue situation. But she didn’t have a clue how that may have come about.

  She heard footsteps on a staircase and across the stone slabs outside now, followed by whispers behind the door to the cellar they were in.

  ‘It’s over,’ Carla said.

  Fury glanced at her, the eyes electric. She pulled a SIG SAUER 9mm pistol from under her blouse where it had been tucked into the back of her jeans. She held it skyward.

  She said, ‘Tell them not to use grenade or shoot. Tell them you FBI. That child here.’

  Carla hesitated, although knew it was the right thing to do. What other option do I have? she thought.

  She said, ‘I’m FBI Special Agent Carla Romero. My four-year-old daughter is in here with me.’

  She thought about telling them Fury was in the room, but the woman’s eyes were on her now, the muzzle of the pistol aimed at Monize.

  ‘Move away from the door. Do it now,’ a voice said.