Blood Eagle

by Craig Russell

  There was a silence at the other end of the phone. Then the Ukrainian said: ‘I don’t know if I can help you. There is certainly nothing I can give you right now. But meet me tonight, say eight o’clock, in the warehouse in the Speicherstadt.’

  The hard resolve on Fabel’s face remained undiluted when he came off the phone. ‘Werner, go get Maria. We’re going to visit the BAO.’

  Maria talked as the trio walked briskly along the corridor that led from the elevator to Volker’s office. She handed Fabel three or four pieces of paper stapled together.

  ‘I checked into Vitrenko. This is as close to a background as we’re likely to get. From what I can gather the Berkut unit is being built into a serious counter-terrorist and anti-organised-crime outfit, although its primary function has until now been basically that of a riot squad. As an operational unit it is similar to GSG9 here in the Bundesrepublik. They are clearly very highly trained. I contacted their headquarters in Kiev – they were cooperative but not overly forthcoming about Vitrenko. It would appear that he was one of their top experts on Islamic terrorism, mainly because of his time in Afghanistan and Chechnya. All I got from them was this résumé of Vitrenko’s career. Buried in amongst it all was this …’ Maria flipped over a couple of the pages Fabel was holding. There was a sheet headed with what Fabel guessed was the crest of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry above a page of Cyrillic text. The next page was the translation into German. ‘Look at this: two weeks training at a serial-offenders profiling unit in Odessa.’

  Fabel came to a halt. ‘And you said my Europol paper on the Helmut Schmied killings was circulated in the Ukraine?’

  ‘Exactly. I’ve still to get a reply, but I’ll bet a month’s salary that it featured or was available as part of the course.’

  Fabel felt the hunger that comes to the hunter when close to his quarry. ‘That’s why we’ve been dealing with a classic textbook case of psychotic serial murder; because it’s all based on textbook cases. And he chose me because he happened to read a paper I had published on serial offending.’

  Werner gave a bitter laugh. ‘So he thought he could pull all of your strings and have you look in the wrong direction.’

  ‘Except you didn’t,’ added Maria.

  Fabel handed the file back to her. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, and Maria and Werner fell in behind him.

  * * *

  The secretary did her best to stop the train of Fabel, Maria and Werner as it steamed past her and into Volker’s office. Volker was sitting behind his desk and was talking in English to two shirtsleeved men who sat opposite him. Fabel guessed that the two Amis were members of the six-strong FBI team that had been seconded to the Polizei Hamburg following the September 11 attacks. Volker hastily wrapped a smile around his naked annoyance at being disturbed.

  ‘I take it this is a matter of some importance, Herr Hauptkommissar?’

  Fabel did not answer but looked pointedly at the Americans.

  ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen,’ said Volker in what Fabel recognised as excellent English. ‘I wonder if we could conclude our briefing later?’

  As they left, the Americans cast glances at Fabel that lay somewhere between curiosity and anger. Volker leaned back in his leather chair and held his hand out, as if inviting Fabel to bring it all on. It was a gesture of arrogant casualness that Fabel realised was intended to push him into anger, and therefore nudge the balance of any exchange in Volker’s favour. Having recognised Volker’s strategy, Fabel paused before speaking, moving over and taking one of the chairs recently vacated by an American.

  ‘Yes, Oberst Volker, this is a matter of importance. And some urgency. I intend to call a press conference about the murders I’m investigating,’ Fabel lied. ‘I need to set a few things straight for the public. In fact I intend to render you something of a favour.’ Fabel smiled coldly.

  ‘Oh? How so?’

  ‘Well, I have prepared a statement which categorically denies that the BND is protecting the murderer, a former Ukrainian counter-terrorist officer called Vasyl Vitrenko, just because he may be of use as a source of information on al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organisations.’

  Fabel could see that Volker was using every ounce of his will-power to keep his face from betraying his emotions.

  Fabel continued. ‘I am going to make special mention that you, personally, would obviously have no truck with any such cover-up and all rumours to the contrary are false.’

  Volker’s lips slipped back from his teeth in something that defied description as a smile. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dare what? Protect your reputation in the face of such scurrilous rumours?’

  ‘There are no rumours …’

  Fabel looked at his watch. ‘No? So it isn’t true that an incriminating, anonymous package of information has been received by Stern or Hamburger Morgenpost …’ Fabel leaned forward in his chair and almost spat the final word at Volker: ‘yet!’

  ‘Like I say, you wouldn’t dare …’ said Volker, but his voice betrayed a shadow of uncertainty.

  ‘Oberst Volker, I would be obliged if you could fulfil our original agreement and share all the information available to you that is relevant to this investigation. Let’s start with the Eitels’ involvement with a Kiev-based cartel that is somehow profiting illegally from property-redevelopment initiatives in Hamburg. The Corporate and Financial Crime Division is questioning both Eitels as we speak. When I go downstairs after this meeting, Herr Oberst, I intend to hand them a lead substantial enough to allow the Staatsanwaltschaft to grant a search-and-seizure warrant. In addition I want to know where to find former Comrade Vitrenko and his principal officers. Now … if this were all to happen, these leaked documents and the press conference I mentioned may not be necessary.’

  Volker gave Fabel a long, dark stare. ‘I could make life very, very difficult for you, Fabel, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s kind of you to remind me, Volker. Particularly in front of two witnesses.’

  ‘Just what do you think we do, Fabel? Do you think we’re just some kind of dirty-tricks department?’

  Fabel shrugged. ‘I’m a policeman. I like to let the facts do the talking. And so far those facts tell me not only that you have been concealing evidence from me, but also that you obviously have your own agenda as far as Vitrenko is concerned.’

  Volker gave a bitter laugh. ‘For a senior officer investigating serious crimes you seem to have a habit of making the facts fit your particular agenda of prejudices.’

  ‘You’re denying that you are trying to tie up a deal with Vitrenko?’

  ‘No. I am not denying that. But not to the extent of ignoring these bloody murders, if that’s what you mean. And I’m not denying that our American friends are perhaps less squeamish about doing deals with the Devil, if it brings them the heads they’re after. But no. If –’ Volker emphasised the word and repeated it – ‘if Vitrenko is indeed your killer, then of course we would not consider dealing with him, although we would want to talk to him. And as for us not being forthcoming with information … you never thought to ask yourself if there was another possible reason for our reticence?’

  ‘Like what?’

  Volker stood up and leaned on his desk. ‘Like maybe you can’t be trusted. Like maybe one of your precious Polizei Hamburg is on the take. And maybe because of that, Klugmann – someone I recruited personally and a bloody good man – was killed.’

  ‘This is all a smokescreen, Volker.’ Fabel also rose to his feet.

  ‘Is it? Klugmann was onto the real leak of information from within the Polizei Hamburg. He found out that someone, someone at a high level – perhaps even a Kriminalhauptkommissar – has been selling high-level information to the Ukrainians.’

  Fabel took a second before responding. In that second he hastily constructed a web of cables and threw it over the anger that surged within him. ‘Are you telling me that that is why you have been withholding information on Vitrenko?
I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Ask Van Heiden. He knows all about it. Someone either within this Präsidium or in a major city-centre Polizeidirektion is selling Vitrenko information that is helping him to hit his main rivals and take over their operations and hijack their deals – like the Colombian deal where Ulugbay was wiped out.’

  ‘But you said Klugmann gave the Ukrainians the information …’

  ‘He did. And that’s why we think he’s dead. Klugmann sensed his contact, Vadim, was pulling back from him. Of course, deep-cover work makes you hyper-paranoid, but Klugmann was very concerned that the Ukrainians were becoming suspicious of him.’

  Fabel said nothing, but recalled Sonja’s fear when Fabel’s team had raided the flat in search of Klugmann. And how Klugmann himself had sought deeper refuge somewhere, only to end up lying at the bottom of a filth-strewn swimming pool. Volker could see that Fabel was considering his words, and he eased back into his seat. Fabel did the same. When Volker continued, his tone was markedly less aggressive.

  ‘You may remember, Herr Hauptkommissar, that you were more than critical of the way we supplied information to the Ukrainians, through Klugmann, about the deal where Ulugbay ended up being murdered. Well, we’re not as stupid or ruthless as you seem to think we are. We made damned sure that there were crucial gaps in the details Klugmann supplied about Ulugbay’s deal with the Colombians. The hit on Ulugbay took more – a lot more – than Klugmann gave them. And whoever really supplied the information must have sussed that Klugmann’s mole in the drugs MEK was a fiction.’

  ‘You’re saying that it was a police officer who killed Klugmann?’ It was Maria Klee who beat Fabel to the question.

  Volker shrugged. ‘Directly? Perhaps, I don’t know. Indirectly? Probably. Whoever has been selling information has been demanding a high price, and I’m pretty sure they would go to great lengths to protect themselves. But they wouldn’t necessarily have to get their own hands dirty. If they tipped off Vitrenko’s mob that Klugmann was undercover, then the Ukrainians would gladly take on the burden of removing him.’

  ‘Chef …’ Werner, who had been standing behind Fabel, spoke in a low, tight voice.

  ‘Shit … of course. We brought our witness into the Präsidium. Damn it, Volker, if we had known all of this before, we wouldn’t have exposed him to danger. We never, for a moment, thought that bringing him here would mark him out.’ Fabel turned back to Werner. ‘Get Hansi into protective custody now.’

  ‘I’m on it, Chef,’ said Werner and left the office. Maria sat down in the vacant chair next to Fabel.

  A look of disbelief invaded Fabel’s expression. ‘So that, you claim, is why you have been withholding evidence from this investigation?’ asked Fabel.

  Volker sighed. ‘I haven’t been withholding anything. If you really believe that Vitrenko is behind these killings, then I’ll do all I can to help. In fact, our willingness to deal with Vitrenko died with Klugmann.’ Volker considered his next words carefully. ‘You don’t like me much do you, Fabel?’

  ‘I don’t know you. I neither like nor dislike you.’

  There was acid in Volker’s small laugh. ‘Well, let’s put it this way, you don’t like what I represent.’

  ‘I can’t say that I do, much.’

  ‘You’ve made it very clear that in your eyes I’m one step away from the Gestapo while your Polizei Hamburg represents all that’s good and pure. Well let me tell you something, Fabel, I’m lucky to be sitting here. If the Polizei Hamburg had had its way my family tree would have been axed in Hamburg Police Prison Fuhlsbüttel.’

  Fabel’s eyes widened.

  ‘Surprised? My father was a social democrat and trade unionist. A nineteen-year-old idealist. And so, inevitably, there was the knock on the door in the middle of the night. But it wasn’t SS or Gestapo who came knocking. It was your precious Polizei Hamburg who took my father off to the police prison at Fuhlsbüttel. It was reclassified soon after, wasn’t it Fabel? Konzentrationslager Fuhlsbüttel … the Polizei Hamburg’s own little concentration camp. Of course you’d like to forget all about that.’

  Fabel knew the history well: Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp, known as Kola-Fu. It was the darkest, most despicable chapter in the history of the Polizei Hamburg. After the Nazis came to power in Hamburg in March 1933, the Polizei Hamburg had been responsible for rounding up Communists and Social Democrat activists. It had been taken over by the SS in September of the same year, but those six months of police control had been enough to tarnish the Polizei Hamburg’s history indelibly.

  ‘Okay,’ said Fabel at last, ‘I take your point. But I don’t see its relevance.’

  Volker’s reply snapped at the tail of Fabel’s statement. ‘The relevance is that you have a whole lot of theories about why I joined the BND. Well let me tell you the truth. I joined because I wanted to defend the only things that stand between Germany and history repeating itself: democracy and the Grundgesetz. You see yourself as a defender of the law. Well I see myself as a defender of the Basic Law … the constitution. I do it because I believe that the only just way to govern is a true liberal democracy.’ He leaned back into his leather chair. ‘Do you know what I really am, Fabel? I’m a fireman.’ He jerked his head towards the window. ‘Out there, Fabel … out there are all kinds of losers and sad wankers who are playing with matches. Extreme right, extreme left, fundamentalist religious nuts … they’re all out there playing with fire in the dark. And my job is to kill the sparks before they become flames.’

  ‘Okay, I guess I owe you an apology,’ said Fabel. ‘But the fact remains that you withheld evidence from us.’

  ‘We owe each other nothing, Fabel, other than a little mutual respect and not to make each other’s job more difficult than it is.’ Volker picked up his desk phone, stabbed a button and gave an order that the Vitrenko file was to be brought in.

  After the file was handed to Volker he flipped it open and removed a single sheet of paper. He handed the sheet to Fabel. It contained several rows of initials and numbers. He scanned it a couple of times before giving it to Maria.

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything to me,’ said Fabel. He looked at Maria who shrugged.

  ‘But it will mean a great deal to your Corporate Crime colleagues.’ Volker tilted his leather chair back and interlocked his fingers before him. ‘These are transaction trackings. They detail movements of funds between accounts – times, dates and amounts.’ He let the chair snap forward again and handed Fabel two more sheets from the file. ‘This is the key to the accounts. It details who holds each account. There is also a federal court warrant –’ Volker smiled, almost maliciously – ‘just to prove we obtained the information legally.’

  The list of account holders included Galicia Trading, Klimenko International, Eitel Importing and several others Fabel didn’t recognise.

  ‘There’s enough there for you to get a seizure warrant. If your fraud people prise open the cracks in some of these phoney accounts they’ll find a trail that leads straight back to the Eitels. And I mean personally. Not to their businesses. There may be some other surprises for you in there as well.’

  Fabel raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Just get your experts to look into it all.’ Volker leaned forward, resting the weight of his broad shoulders on his elbows. ‘As for Vitrenko … I honestly cannot give you any clue about where to find him. It’s like he’s a phantom. We do, however, have locations for a couple of his lieutenants.’ Again he dipped into the file and pulled out a couple of photographs. He placed them both on the desk, turned round for Fabel and Maria to see. They were typical close-surveillance images: taken from a distance through telephoto lenses. Both men were in their late forties; one was lean and wiry; the other heavy set. Both had the dangerous look of seasoned soldiers. Volker tapped the image of the lean man.

  ‘This is Stanislav Solovey. It was he who pointed out the advantages of retirement to Yari Varasouv. The other is Vadim Redchenko.’

  ‘Klugmann�
�s contact?’ asked Maria.

  ‘And possible executioner,’ added Volker.

  Fabel shook his head. ‘Hansi Kraus said the killers spoke unaccented German. And they deliberately left a Ukrainian security-services handgun to be found. I think they were trying to point us in the wrong direction.’

  ‘Well, Redchenko is a killer through and through, whether he took out Klugmann or not. He was based in Reinbek, running a drugs factory and network from a disused mill. We launched a raid in conjunction with the drugs MEK unit a month back.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Maria, ‘no one was home?’

  ‘Exactly. In fact the place burst into flames just as we took up position. Some kind of Soviet mine and strategically placed vats of flammable chemicals did the job. Very professional and very thorough. It destroyed any evidence we might have picked up. Since then we’ve been unable to track Redchenko to any particular address, although we do have a couple of operations he visits regularly. Every time he does, we put a tail on him, and every time he loses us. These people could not be better trained. Take Vitrenko himself – it’s not been easy getting information out of the Ukrainians, but from what we have uncovered he served not just with MDV Kondor and Alpha brigades, but also the Vysotniki brigade, as did some of his current group. Vysotniki was – and still is – based on the British Special Air Service model, made up of small operational units of eleven men. From what we have been able to squeeze out of our contacts, Vitrenko set up such a unit in Afghanistan and revived it in Chechnya. But instead of eleven it had thirteen men. We think that’s how many he has with him here.’

  ‘That fits with our information,’ said Maria.

  Volker placed his hands behind his head. ‘Our operation with Klugmann and Tina Kramer was intended to gather intelligence on Vitrenko. I never misled you on that count, Fabel. I do admit that our ultimate objective was to offer him some kind of deal – immunity from prosecution for his organised-crime activity on the condition that he cooperate with the Amis and, of course, that he give up all illegal activities. But it is difficult to make immunity from prosecution sound very inviting when there seems to be almost no chance of you ever being found, far less arrested and enough evidence scraped together to prosecute you. And, of course, if Vitrenko really is behind these killings, then all bets are off.’ He lowered his arms and leaned forward in the chair. ‘You do believe that, don’t you, Fabel?’