Blood Eagle

by Craig Russell

  ‘Not a lot, but I’m getting an e-mail translated into English for sending to the FBI and Interpol.’

  ‘I think we should have another little chat with the Eitels,’ said Fabel. ‘And this time I think instead of us enjoying their corporate hospitality, they should enjoy ours.’

  Anna Wolff stood up. She still wore the smart dress she had for her date with MacSwain but had donned her trademark leather jacket over it. Her face looked drawn and wan under her make-up.

  ‘What about MacSwain?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Is he still a suspect or not?’ Despite her tiredness there was a defiance in her voice.

  ‘Not for these killings … no. But we’ll keep him under observation anyway. I still think he may have something to do with the abductions, which I now feel are unrelated to this main case. But I’ve got to be careful, Anna. Kriminaldirektor Van Heiden is becoming uneasy about more than the expenditure: he feels that if MacSwain twigs that we’ve been watching his every move without substantive evidence to indicate why he’s a suspect, we could end up with an embarrassing claim on our hands.’

  Anna sat down.

  Fabel, still standing, paused before addressing the whole assembly again.

  ‘Now for a history lesson …’ He had set a box file on the chair next to the one on which he had hung his Jaeger jacket. He flipped open the lid and took out a sheaf of papers. There was impatient shuffling from his audience. He froze them with a cold stare. ‘This is necessary. We are dealing with a ritualised method of killing that has a thousand-year history. Our killer – Vitrenko – lives as much in the past as he does in the here and now. We have to understand what perverted sense of history and destiny drives him. I have found out quite a bit that should interest us …’

  Fabel did not mention that he had woken up Mathias Dorn with a phone call. Professor Dorn had furnished him with the key facts he needed or the directions in which to look. More importantly, Dorn had remembered the name of the Viking king who had replaced King Inge the Elder when he refused to commit the nine-fold sacrifice at Uppsala. Fabel lifted a photocopy from the papers and taped it to the incident board, next to and almost overlapping the image of Vitrenko. The photocopy was of a nineteenth-century copperplate illustration. It showed an improbably broad-shouldered warrior mounted on a fierce-looking steed. He had long flowing light-haired locks and a huge moustache and a beard that was braided and beaded. He wore a mail tunic and a vast rug of fur sat as a cloak on the unlikely shoulders. His head was topped by an eagle-winged helm.

  ‘This,’ said Fabel, ‘is Vasyl Vitrenko’s true father. Not the Ukrainian who has been tracking him. At least, I suspect that is how Vitrenko sees it.’

  Fabel waited for the sudden chatter, including some laughter, to subside.

  ‘Now this is all only my supposition. I will need to run this by Frau Doktor Eckhardt tomorrow … I mean, later this morning … but this, ladies and gentlemen, is Sven. As in “Son of Sven”. His full name is Blot-Sven, Bloody Sven or Sven the Sacrificer, depending on how you interpret it. He was King of Sweden between 1084 and 1087. His half-brother, King Inge the Elder, converted to Christianity and refused to perform pagan rites of sacrifice at the temple of Uppsala. Sven took over the sacrifices and earned his name. Inge fled to Västergötland and Blot-Sven became king of Sweden, or Svealand, So, you may ask, what is the link between a Ukrainian madman and Sweden?’ Fabel taped a second, similarly heroic illustration next to that of Blot-Sven. ‘This gentleman is Rurik, the first Grand Prince of Kiev. Rurik was supposedly a Viking prince from around this part of Germany, maybe Frisia, or Friesland as we call it now. The warriors he led to conquer Novgorod and Kiev were called the Rus, or the “Rowers”, and it is from them that Russia gets its name. Rurik’s band included Varangians and other mercenaries. The story, unlikely as it may sound, is that the Slavs of what is now the Ukraine and Russia were living in anarchy and invited Rurik and his brother to come and establish order. It is the same fable that is told about the Saxons in England, in their case the brothers being Hengist and Horsa. Anyway, the point is that Rurik and his men were outsiders subjugating a strange land. Their allegiance was exclusively to each other. And their reward was wealth and success. They would go on to become the elite of this new land and the founders of Russian and Ukrainian aristocracy. Vitrenko and his men are doing the same thing here … and Vitrenko has wrapped it all up in his semi-mythical concepts of brotherhood under arms and arcane Viking ritual.’

  ‘But it’s all a pile of crap,’ Werner said. ‘They can’t really believe that they are a band of Vikings occupying a new land.’

  ‘Yes they can. And as for it all being a pile of crap, you can say that about any religion or system of belief if you stand on the outside. It isn’t what you believe in that’s important. It’s the act of believing that matters. No matter how bizarre or extreme it may seem to others. It’s what makes otherwise sane young men fly airliners into buildings full of people.’

  Werner shook his head. More in dull, sad puzzlement than in any sense of disagreement. Fabel continued.

  ‘I have no idea if Vitrenko believed any of this stuff to start with,’ Fabel went on, ‘or whether he used the myth as a cult-like device to manipulate those under his command. But I am pretty convinced that he believes it all now …’

  Fabel paused for a moment and thought back to the end of his conversation with the old Ukrainian soldier. His powerful shoulders had sagged as he spoke of Vitrenko the child. The pale boy with his father’s eyes who was capable of so much and who had revealed an early and vast appetite for cruelty. Tales of other children being manipulated, bullied and cajoled into carrying out acts of torture on small animals. Then on each other. Fabel continued.

  ‘And I am also certain that Vitrenko has been a psychopath for as long as he can remember. But instead of being treated and controlled, he was sent to elite Soviet military academies where his natural abilities, and psychopathy, were honed.’ Fabel picked up the papers from the table and they made a cone in his fist. He held them out before him as if they were aflame. A burning torch that he held out to his colleagues. ‘Vasyl Vitrenko is the most dangerous individual we have ever had to deal with. He will kill anyone whom he perceives as a threat. And that includes you. And it includes me.’

  Fabel couldn’t think what to say next. His mind flooded with the images of the victims, of Vitrenko’s father’s eyes as he had seized Fabel by the throat … the same cold, emerald eyes as his son’s. A shudder ran through him as he imagined Ursula Kastner, Tina Kramer and Angelika Blüm all locking gazes with those stone-cold, glittering eyes as their lives left them. The rest of the team must have each been in some similar, dark place, because the silence remained crystal whole for a few seconds before Maria Klee’s voice shattered it.

  ‘What about Vitrenko’s father? Did you bring him in?’

  Fabel shook his head.

  ‘But he assaulted a senior police officer. You. We can’t let him away with that.’

  ‘I can and I have. It was me he assaulted and I’ve called off the search for him. He has agreed to contact me whenever we need to share information again. I honestly believe he just wants his son stopped.’ As he spoke, the first e-mail echoed in his mind: You can stop me, but you will never catch me.

  ‘And what is Vitrenko’s father doing in the meantime?’ Maria’s frown lay somewhere on the edge of a scowl.

  ‘He is doing exactly what we are doing: he is trying to find and stop Vitrenko.’

  ‘And what if he catches our guy first?’ Werner picked up Maria’s thread.

  Fabel remembered asking the old man the same question as they had stepped out of the Portakabin and into the echoing gloom of the warehouse. The Ukrainian had turned to Fabel and said, in a quiet, flat voice: ‘Then I will end it.’

  Fabel locked eyes with Werner and lied. ‘He has given me his word that he will hand Vitrenko and any evidence he finds over to us. That is why I do not want him picked up
. I want him treated as a key informant. Okay?’ Fabel leaned forward again, knuckles on the table, his face set hard and tight over his tiredness. ‘I need things to start happening now. Firstly, I want the Eitels brought in for questioning. Now. If they protest then I want them arrested on suspicion of being accessories to murder. And Werner, get the corporate and financial crime guys to put together the questions they want to ask them. A joint interview would be good.’

  Werner nodded his assent.

  ‘Secondly,’ continued Fabel, ‘I want every Ukrainian informant turned over and worked on. Hard. I want operational locations for Vitrenko’s outfit and I want them before the end of today. And, just to be clear, I do not give a rat’s ass if you step on the toes of our Organised Crime colleagues over at LKA7. I will be doing a little of that myself, as well as squeezing our BND colleagues.’ Fabel’s expression darkened even more. ‘No one is telling us what we need to know. And that ends right now. Oberkommissarin Klee and Oberkommissar Meyer will assign your tasks. Werner, hang around a moment, I want a word.’

  ‘Sure, Chef …’

  It took a few minutes for the room to clear. Werner remained seated and Anna Wolff walked round the conference table to face Fabel. Her eyes were shadowed, but something akin to defiance smouldered in them.

  ‘So what do I say if he calls me?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘MacSwain. I’ve given him the allocated cell phone number.’

  ‘Cancel the number. I don’t want you having close contact with him again. And I can’t justify to Van Heiden any more expensive undercover ops. We need to check him out more, but he’s a low priority.’

  ‘I think he’s our man, Chef.’

  Fabel frowned. ‘Why, Anna? You’ve seen what we’ve got on Vitrenko.’

  ‘MacSwain is a predator. It’s in the way he observes you … the way he moves around you. Like you’re prey.’ She shook her head slightly, as if irritated by the inadequacy of her description. Then she fixed Fabel with a bright, hard, resolute gaze. ‘He is a rapist, Chef. And, I suspect, a killer. Our killer.’

  Fabel stared silently at his subordinate for a moment. He could not condemn a junior officer for responding to her instincts about a case or a suspect: it was how he operated himself, processing, in some deep part of his brain, the smallest details of how someone moves or talks or the minutiae of a scene. And from these deep processes would come forth a conclusion of which, like Anna, he would be certain, although he could not rationalise it with a solid piece of evidence. After all, it was just such a feeling, a judgement on the way MacSwain had reacted to finding two Hamburg policemen on his threshold that had led Fabel to suspect MacSwain.

  ‘Okay, Anna. I trust your judgement, but I can’t say I agree with your conclusion.’ The stubble rasped under rubbing fingers once more. ‘I’ll keep someone on MacSwain, just to make sure. But I definitely don’t want you seeing him again – especially if your instincts about him are right. Werner and I may pay him an official visit just to check out his whereabouts on the key dates. Of course that’ll alert him to the fact that we’re watching him.’ Fabel sighed. ‘But I have to say I think you’ve got it all wrong, Anna. We may not have a smoking gun, but the circumstantial evidence is pretty conclusive against Vitrenko.’

  ‘I know,’ Anna replied. ‘I see that. But thanks for keeping an open mind on MacSwain.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ Fabel took in Anna’s face. She looked totally drained. Fabel had never been undercover but knew many officers who had. It was one of the most physically, emotionally and mentally exhausting challenges for a police officer to undertake. The image of Klugmann, sitting opposite him in the interview room at Davidwache, slipped to the front of his mind. He remembered attributing the red-rimmed eyes to drugs. But it had more probably been stress. And the traces of amphetamine found in his autopsy would have probably been Klugmann’s way of taking the edge off it. Now Fabel detected the same leaden edginess in Anna’s movements, the same red rims and dark shadows around the eyes. ‘Listen, Anna. I’ve made sure you’re clear of duties for the next twenty-four. Go home and get some sleep.’

  Saturday 21 June, 10.00 a.m. Polizeipräsidium, Hamburg.

  At least Fabel felt cleaner. A change of clothes had been like sloughing off a layer of crumpled skin; but the couple of hours’ sleep hadn’t dispelled the shadow of tiredness that still clung to him, and he had to make an effort to shake it from his movements and thoughts. As promised, Werner had picked up Wolfgang Eitel shortly before eight a.m. and a second team, led by Paul Lindemann, had brought in his son at the same time. Eitel father and son were being kept apart, but their furious threats of litigation against individual officers, the Polizei Hamburg and the state government had been almost identical. Fabel knew that if they didn’t turn up something solid on the Eitels, these threats would have to be taken very, very seriously indeed.

  To underline the fact, a small cluster of legal types, including Waalkes, were waiting in the main waiting area of the Präsidium when Fabel arrived. Waalkes spotted Fabel just as he was about to step into the elevator and set off full steam towards him. Fabel called out an enthusiastic ‘Good morning, Herr Waalkes!’ as the elevator doors closed, Waalkes halfway across the reception area and halfway through an infuriated protest.

  Fabel called Werner out of interview room one, where he had been stalling Wolfgang Eitel, who was demanding immediate access to counsel.

  ‘There are enough of them downstairs,’ said Fabel. ‘Tell him he’s entitled to one legal representative to be present, but let the Corporate and Financial boys soften him up first. Same deal with Norbert.’

  Fabel went to his office and closed the door behind him. He picked up the phone and called Susanne at the Institut für Rechtsmedizin. He had phoned her after he left the Speicherstadt the night before and a strained cord of worry had been stretched through her voice. He had reassured her that he was fine but that he would have to head off to the Präsidium and that she should sleep. As he had hung up, he felt slightly guilty about the warm glow he experienced from having someone to worry about him again. Now he called her to give her a summary of the evidence he had uncovered and to outline his theory about Vitrenko and his ‘spiritual father’ Blot-Sven.

  ‘It makes some sort of sense, I suppose,’ said Susanne, but she sounded less than convinced.

  ‘But?’

  ‘I don’t know. Like I say, it all makes sense. And I think you’re right. At least in the main part. I have no sound professional grounds for doubting your theory. I just feel uneasy because of the scope of participation.’

  ‘What do you mean, Susanne?’

  ‘He doesn’t act alone. He may not even act at all. Remember Charles Manson in America? The mass killings in the Tate and LaBianca homes? Manson wasn’t even present at the Tate home and left the LaBianca residence after ordering his followers to murder the tied-up victims, but before the actual killings took place. So Manson didn’t actually commit the crimes personally. But they were his crimes. He manipulated others to commit them for him. He engineered a wider scope of participation that not only involved his so-called family, but excluded himself.’

  Fabel thought over what Susanne was saying. He had studied the Manson murders in depth: Manson had cemented the bonds in his ‘family’ by having sex with all of ‘Charlie’s Girls’, the female members of his group. It was the same trick that Svensson had used to ensnare the loyalty of his female acolytes, like Marlies Menzel and Gisela Frohm. Fabel had come to realise that he and Gisela had not stood alone on that pier. Svensson had been there too. Invisible, insidious. His presence evident only to Gisela. Fabel exhaled loudly, as if blowing the ghosts from his skull.

  ‘I don’t know, Susanne. I see Vitrenko as a hands-on butcher. And, if I’m right, he sees himself as the natural heir of Blot-Sven, the master of the sacrifice …’

  Fabel could hear her breath at the other end of the line. ‘Just be careful, Jan. Be very careful.’

  Werner came int
o Fabel’s office just before lunchtime. The Corporate and Financial Crime officers were still with both Wolfgang and Norbert Eitel, two detectives questioning each man separately.

  ‘Markmann from Corporate Crime reckons we’re on to something with this property deal, but there’s no hard evidence as yet,’ Werner said glumly. ‘He’s setting up teams to raid Galicia Trading and the Eitel Group’s offices but the Staatsanwaltschaft is being a bit coy about granting a warrant on such flimsy evidence.’

  Fabel nodded. He’d already had a call from Heiner Goetz, the chief state prosecutor, who had made clear his concerns about bringing in such high-profile personages on suspicion. Fabel had known Goetz for years and there was more than a little mutual respect between the two men, but Fabel knew that Goetz was a cautious and methodical prosecutor who didn’t like short cuts. Fabel also knew that Goetz would see through any hastily spun screen of bluster, so he had had to admit that he was taking a big chance with the Eitels. It all came down to a judgement call, and Goetz was prepared to allow the Hauptkommissar some latitude. Fabel, however, chose not to enlighten Goetz at this stage about his plan to bring MacSwain in for questioning: Fabel hoped that MacSwain would want to make a show of cooperation.

  ‘Corporate Crime say they’re screwed if the Staatsanwaltschaft won’t accept that they’ve established reasonable grounds for seizure,’ said Werner. ‘And without the paperwork to prove wrongdoing they can’t bring a case.’

  Fabel’s face hardened and he snatched up the handset of his phone and dialled the cell phone number the Ukrainian had given him.

  ‘I was not expecting to hear from you so soon, Herr Fabel,’ said Vitrenko senior, in his perfect but accented German.

  Fabel explained the situation with the Staatsanwaltschaft state prosecution service. ‘I need something, anything, concrete that gives us grounds for detaining the Eitels longer and getting our hands on their files. The Eitels are our only potential link to your son’s organisation.’