Blood Eagle

by Craig Russell

  ‘What?’ Fabel’s confusion was genuine. ‘Who?’

  ‘Your killer. Every time he kills in this manner he is making a reference …’ Dorn looked towards the ceiling, but his mind was clearly somewhere else. ‘He has spanned a thousand years … he has reached into the darkness of the past to pull out a fragment that makes sense of his present. It would be remarkable if it weren’t so obscene.’ Dorn snapped out of his reverie and looked again at Fabel.

  ‘Are you saying that there is some kind of mythological or historical link to these killings?’ Fabel asked.

  ‘The Blood Eagle.’ Dorn held Fabel’s gaze.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The Blood Eagle. Your killer is not sexually motivated. He is religiously motivated. He is making sacrifices.’

  ‘Sacrifices? Blood Eagle? I’m sorry, Herr Professor, but what the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘As you know this part of northern Germany was the homeland of the Scandians. It was the Saxons who first founded the village of Hamm. The Franks and the Slavic Obertriten conquered it and made it Hammaburg. And then came the Vikings of Denmark. Look at Altona – right at the heart of modern Hamburg – that was a Danish city until the eighteenth century. Ours is the blood of Vikings … among others, of course. The gods worshipped here were Freya, Balder, Thor, Loki … Odin. These Norse gods were far from perfect. They were moody, petulant, envious, greedy … angry. Wise Odin, father of the gods, the Nordic Zeus, was no exception. It was his favour above all that our ancestors craved.’ Dorn paused. He reached over to the desk and picked up two volumes. ‘Odin demanded sacrifice. Like all the gods. But the greater the god, the greater the sacrifice. For example, Adam of Bremen wrote in his chronicle about, well, I suppose you could call it a “festival” at Ubsola – or Uppsala, as it’s known today. This festival was held every nine years and lasted nine days. Everyone – king, chieftain or commoner – had to send offerings. In fact, one Christianised Viking king – King Inge the Elder – was deposed for not taking part. On each of the nine days of the festival, nine of all living male things – cattle, fowl and humans – had their throats cut and were hung upside down in the grove beside the temple. Amazing. All because the number nine had some significance in the worship of Odin. Well, my point is that Odin demanded human sacrifice. And one form that that sacrifice often took was that of the Blood Eagle.’

  ‘Which was?’ Fabel could feel the adrenalin course through his system.

  ‘It was an offering that made its own way to Odin’s lair. A human being given the wings of an eagle.’

  ‘And how did that work exactly?’ Fabel asked, although he already knew the answer.

  Dorn looked Fabel directly and unblinkingly in the eye. ‘You would take a prisoner. Perhaps a woman brought back from one of your Viking raids. You would strip her and tie her down, spread-eagled. Then the Priest of Odin would take a broadsword and slash open her abdomen …’

  Fabel felt his heart begin to pound as Dorn spoke.

  ‘These priests had the skill of a surgeon. Their blows would slice the victim open, supposedly without damaging essential organs and killing her. Then they would tear the lungs out of the sacrifice and throw them over the shoulders. The wings of the Blood Eagle, do you see? Wings with which they could fly to Odin.’

  Fabel sat and stared at Dorn. He felt as if he were standing at the heart of a silent explosion: in a street where a thousand alarm bells had started to ring. ‘This is a documented historical fact?’

  ‘Documented, yes. Historical, yes. But how much of documented history is fact depends on the perspective of the chronicler. The Vikings were feared above all other raiders. Portrayed as demons in the chronicles of the time.’ Dorn flicked through the pages of one of the volumes. ‘Yes, here we are. Victims could be of either sex. For example, here’s an account of an English prince taken prisoner and held for ransom by the Vikings. The ransom wasn’t paid so he was sacrificed to Odin as a Blood Eagle. There are a number of other documented incidents.’ He stopped at another page. ‘This is an account of a bishop on one of the Scottish isles.’

  ‘And our killer is emulating these?’ Fabel’s voice was still full of disbelief.

  ‘Oh yes. I read some of the details in the paper. I could see that you tried to keep as many secret as possible, but from what was said about the dismemberment, I guessed the rest.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. It’s obscene.’

  ‘To us, yes,’ said Dorn. ‘But to the killer it’s noble. A crusade. He believes he is serving the ancient gods. He has the highest moral authority on his side. He is a proselytiser, a missionary returning Germany to its true faith.’ Dorn put the book down. ‘You are dealing with the darkest forces imaginable, Jan. This killer is a true believer. And what he believes in is truly apocalyptic, in a way the Christian mind cannot comprehend. The Vikings had their Judgement Day too. Ragnarok. But biblical apocalypses pale into nothing compared to Ragnarok. A time when Odin and the Aesir join battle against Loki and the Vanir. A time of fire and blood and ice when earth and heaven and all living things are consumed. This “Blood Eagle” believes in all of that. His mission is to see the heavens fall and the oceans to fill with blood.’

  Fabel sat, holding the newspaper limply in his hands and gazed, unseeing, at the headline. His mind raced.

  ‘How can you be so sure about him? We’ve got a criminal psychologist who profiles …’

  ‘I’m no psychologist, you’re right,’ Dorn’s voice revealed something close to anger. ‘But I have spent much of the last twenty years trying to understand minds like this maniac’s. Trying to make sense of what drives a human being to become a hunter, torturer and killer of other human beings …’ Dorn broke off. There was genuine pain in his eyes.

  Fabel sat motionless, still stunned. When he did eventually speak, it was as much to himself as to Dorn. ‘I just can’t believe it. He is out there living out some obscene fantasy, believing he has a mission to fulfil. If what you say is true, that is.’

  ‘What I am telling you is part of the historical record. Whether it really happened as recorded or not, or whether it was exaggerated to demonise the Vikings by those who documented it, doesn’t matter. It’s there. And your killer believes it.’

  ‘And if it is a mission,’ continued Fabel, ‘then he is going to go on and on killing. Until we stop him.’

  For some reason Fabel did not want to make the call from the visitors’ car park outside Vierlande Prison. Instead he drove out to the Neuengammer Hausdeich dyke. He stopped the car and climbed the steep bank of the dyke. From here he could see the Neuengamme Concentration Camp with its symmetrically laid-out buildings and blocks. Most of the prisoners here had been women. The prisoners of Neuengamme and its satellite camps had been used as slave labour to build temporary housing for the people of Hamburg who had been bombed out of their homes. When he had been brought here by his father, the ten-year-old Fabel had learned a new phrase, Vernichtung durch Arbeit: extermination through labour. The prisoners had been worked to death.

  He sat down on the grass and watched as an empty sun played with cloud shadows across the flat landscape, across the camp. He could just make out the memorial block before which, he knew, was the sculpture of The Dying Prisoner: an emaciated figure lying buckled and tangle-limbed on the cobbles.

  Fabel looked down at a place where women had been murdered in the name of some sick idea of German identity and thought about what Dorn had told him: about how there was an individual with a perverted sense of history and ethnology and faith who was using it as a justification for satisfying his basest instincts and his psychotic hunger for blood.

  Fabel needed time to gather his thoughts before phoning the office. He tried to get Mahmoot, but again reached his voice mail. Fabel cursed silently and flipped shut his cell phone. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all. He just hoped Mahmoot had had the sense to drop out of it when he heard about the hit on Ulugbay. He sat for a few more minutes, his arms wrappe
d around his knees and watched sun and shadow dance across the land; then he phoned Werner and outlined Dorn’s theory.

  ‘I’ll be back in an hour. We’ll have a meeting in the conference room. Better get Paul and Anna back in for it. Have they found anything on Klugmann?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I didn’t expect they would. Could you contact Van Heiden and see if he’s free for the conference. He’s going to love this.’

  Part Two

  Friday 13 June

  to Tuesday 17 June

  Friday 13 June, 1.50 a.m. St Pauli, Hamburg.

  The bass thumped relentlessly. The lights strobed across 400 sweat-sheathed bodies that writhed like a single creature with every pulse of the music’s beat. She clung to him as if they were both adrift in this ocean of humanity. His tongue probed her mouth and his hands explored her body. She took her mouth from his and placed it to his ear, shouting something into it that was all but drowned by the deafening music. He smiled and nodded vigorously, indicating the way out with a couple of jerks of his head. He backed away from her, still holding her hands and still smiling, guiding her through the crowd towards the club’s exit. God, he was good-looking. And sexy. His T-shirt was soaked with sweat and showed the hard lines of his muscles. He was tall and slim; his hair was dark and sleek and his eyes the most incredible colour of green. She wanted him badly.

  Hitting the air outside the club was like diving into a plunge pool. The doormen did not even glance in their direction as they spilled out, still entangled. The street was quiet except for the muffled thumping from the club, and for a moment she paused, the cool air and the decrescent effect of the E she had taken making her suddenly more wary. After all, she didn’t even know his name. He sensed the resistance in her body and moved towards her. He beamed a handsome grin at her, revealing perfect teeth that glittered like porcelain in the street lights.

  ‘Hey baby, what’s up?’ For the first time she heard his voice clearly. There was a hint of some kind of accent.

  ‘I’m thirsty. I took some E earlier. I don’t want to get dehydrated.’

  ‘Then let’s go to my place to chill. I’ve got some mineral water in my car. It’s just around the corner. Come on.’ He took her firmly by the arm.

  His car was a sleek, new silver Porsche and they fell against it, becoming entwined again. She pulled away. ‘I’m really thirsty … maybe we should go back …’

  He beeped off the alarm and leaned into the car, pulling out two half-litre Evian bottles. He twisted the cap off of one and handed it to her, drinking from the second himself. She took the water and gulped greedily.

  ‘It tastes salty,’ she said.

  He ran his tongue up her neck, from the shoulder strap of her top to the lobe of her ear. ‘So do you.’

  She felt suddenly dizzy and slumped against the car. He moved swiftly and caught her, his hands under her arms. ‘Easy …’ he said solicitously. ‘You’d better sit down.’ He guided her towards the open door of the car. She looked up and down the empty street and then into his eyes. They had changed: they were still the same amazing green, but now they glittered cold and empty.

  But she was not afraid.

  Friday 13 June, 11.50 a.m. Alsterarkaden, Hamburg.

  Fabel had left the Präsidium immediately after the case conference. They had reviewed the progress made over the last week: none. Klugmann was still on the loose, and as an ex-policeman, he would know how to stay on the loose; the leads from the last murder had run cold and they still did not have an identity for the dead girl; even Fabel’s green-eyed Slav seemed to have walked from the murder scene and evaporated into the night. Other than the fact that Dorn had given a name and provenance to the ritualism of this killer’s barbarity, they were no closer to nailing him. Fabel was also deeply concerned about Mahmoot, with whom he had still not made contact. Mahmoot was notoriously difficult to reach, but he would have known that not returning Fabel’s calls would set alarm bells ringing.

  Fabel was not the only wrong-footed cop in Hamburg. Almost every law-enforcement officer in the city had been unnerved by the failure of a gang war to erupt. There had been no retaliations for Ulugbay’s murder. In fact, there seemed to have been no intergang violence at all, which in itself was very strange. The Präsidium still buzzed with BND and LKA7 personnel, but the adrenalin-charged intensity had dissolved into an uneasy, frustrated readiness.

  This case had begun to suck the light from Fabel’s life. It wasn’t the first to do so and Fabel knew it wouldn’t be the last. It was like hacking his way into dense jungle, slicing a swathe through the clinging undergrowth, only to find that it had closed in behind him, shutting off the way back to the open, to his own life and world, populated by the people he loved. The only way was to press on, cutting a path forward and out into the light.

  Fabel had phoned Gabi, his daughter. She had planned to stay the weekend with Fabel, but he explained that he’d have to work at least part of the weekend. He hated having to give up his precious time with Gabi, but, as usual, she had understood. Renate, Fabel’s ex-wife, had responded less positively, her tone on the phone laced with an acid resignation.

  Instead of taking his car, Fabel had hailed a taxi to take him up to the covered Arcade on the Alster. The sun was shining and the lack of a breeze – unusual in Hamburg – meant that it felt pleasantly warm outside. As always, the Arcade was packed with shoppers and Fabel weaved his way through the crowds with an unhurried purposefulness. His goal was the Jensen Buchhandlung, a bookshop run by a university friend of Fabel’s, Otto Jensen.

  Fabel loved this bookshop. Otto had invested in the most stylish minimalist interior design – clean, straight beechwood shelves and tables and bright lighting – most probably at the behest of his infinitely more organised and style-conscious wife, Else. Otto, on the other hand, was a moving focus of chaos: a gangling, one-metre-ninety tangle of arms and legs who continually seemed to be knocking things over or spilling a cascade of books and papers from overfull arms. Books were stacked on every surface, magazines heaped on the floor or piled on the counter. But the range of titles was stunning, and the disorder simply turned every visit into a voyage of discovery. In some strange way the disarray was the purest language of the bibliophile. It was a language Fabel spoke.

  As Fabel entered, he saw Otto sitting behind the counter. He had a book on his lap, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. It was a pose that Fabel had associated with Otto since their university days: a posture that made Fabel think that Otto was drawing in his gangly limbs to form a cage, cocooning himself from the outside world and committing himself exclusively to the universe that existed between the covers of whatever book he was reading.

  Fabel walked over to the counter and leaned both elbows on a pile of books. It took a couple of seconds for Otto to realise someone was there.

  ‘Sorry … can I help y—’ The question broke into a broad smile. ‘Well, well, well … if it isn’t the powers of law enforcement …’

  Fabel grinned. ‘Hello Otto, you old dope.’

  ‘Hello Jan. How are you?’

  ‘Not bad. You?’

  ‘Crap. I have a store full of people who browse until they see something they like, and then go home and find it second-hand on the Internet. And the rent on this place is astronomical. The price of a trendy location, Else says.’

  ‘How is Else?’ asked Fabel. ‘Still not realised she’s far too good for you?’

  ‘Oh no, she tells me that all the time. Apparently, I should be eternally thankful that she took pity on me.’ Otto smiled his gormless smile.

  ‘She has a point. Have you got my order in?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Otto ducked behind the counter and fumbled for a moment. There was the sound of books tumbling onto the floor. ‘Just a minute …’ Otto called. Fabel smiled. Good old Otto: never changes.

  Otto reappeared dramatically and thumped a block of books onto the counter. ‘Here we are!’ He tore a yellow order slip from under an e
lastic band wrapped around the volumes. ‘All English authors … all in their original English versions.’ Otto looked across to Fabel. ‘A little light reading, huh? How could I forget you were such an Anglophile … your mother’s English of course, isn’t she?’

  ‘Scottish …’ Fabel corrected him.

  ‘That explains it!’ Otto slapped his forehead in a dramatic gesture.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why you never pay for lunch!’

  Fabel laughed. ‘That’s not because I’m half Scottish … it’s because I’m a Frisian. Anyway, it’s your turn to pay. I paid last time.’

  ‘Such a fine mind,’ mused Otto, ‘such a lousy memory … Oh, by the way, I’ve got a present for you.’ More fumbling beneath the counter. He added a reference book to the pile. ‘Someone from the university ordered it and never collected it. It’s a dictionary of British surnames. I thought what kind of dull no-life would take this off my hands … and I thought of you.’

  ‘Thanks, Otto … I think! What do I owe you?’

  ‘Like I said, it’s a gift. Enjoy!’

  Fabel thanked Otto again. ‘Otto, do you have anything on old Norse religion?’

  ‘Sure. Believe it or not there is quite a demand.’

  ‘Really?’ Fabel said disbelievingly.

  ‘Yep. Odinists mainly.’

  ‘Odinists? You mean people still practise this religion?’ A faint electric current ran across Fabel’s skin.

  ‘Asatru … I think they call it. Or just Odinism. Harmless lot, I suppose. Just a bit sad, really.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ said Fabel. ‘You say you get many in here?’

  ‘The odd one or two. And I do mean odd. Although there’s one guy who has been in once or twice who doesn’t have the oddball or hippy look.’