“Rat poison for the rat. He’ll be dead before daybreak.”
The disbelief on Hornbauer’s face turned to horror. “You killed him?” She stood still for a few seconds, taking in what her lover had just said. She rushed forward in a frenzy and started slapping him wildly. “How could you?” she screamed. “You betrayed me!”
Tietjen stepped back and punched her in the face. He had promised never to punch her because it would show. She fell back against the mahogany desk. He grabbed her neck with both hands. For a second, she felt a tingle of excitement. Maybe this was a game? But there was something different in his eyes. He was squeezing her with such force that she was starting to black out. In a wild panic, she reached back onto the desk and grasped around. She found something and swung it towards him as hard as she could. Tietjen’s grip loosened. He staggered back, his eyes wide open. He caught sight of himself in the wardrobe mirror and gasped. A Cartier pen was sticking deep in his lower neck. He pulled it out and a fountain of blood shot from of his torn jugular, rising and falling with the beat of his heart. He held his hand over it but the flow was too strong. The blood oozed copiously between his fingers. Hornbauer screamed as he collapsed onto the bed. The top of his bathrobe turned deep red. He gurgled and stared at her. He held a pillow against his neck. She stood at the desk, petrified with horror as he crouched into the foetal position, rasping his final breaths. Then he stopped moving.
8.29 p.m
The convoy arrived in a hail of sirens. Two ambulancemen, flanked by a platoon of furious, jumpy close protection officers, crashed through the doors of the A&E department of Berlin’s Charité university hospital. Bruno Heise struggled to keep up as the trolley was raced down the corridor towards an emergency room where a trauma team was waiting.
Heise was with Gutman in the ambulance on the nine-minute ride, and saw the medics struggle with increasing desperation to keep his friend alive. When they arrived, a pack of news photographers were already there and blocked the ramp up to the entrance, until three police officers, assisted by Heise in a fit of violent rage, punched and beat them back to make way for Gutman, who had just vomited blood into his oxygen mask and was lurching and twisting so violently that he almost tipped over the trolley.
For Heise, as he jogged down the endless corridor, everything was in slow motion now: The bodyguards yelling at people to get out of the way, shocked nurses holding their hands in front of their mouths, the two doctors bounding towards them, the medic, out of breath and almost at the end of his wits, screaming “Pulmonary oedema! Quick, for God’s sake!” Heise slowed down. His heart couldn’t take it. Overcome by exasperation and sadness, he watched the trolley disappear down the hall. A trail of blood stained the grey linoleum floor. What the hell was he going to tell Birgit?
SPD Party Headquarters, 8.45 p.m.
The crowd was in shock. Tearful SPD supporters stood huddled in small groups talking and comforting each other, or staring at the empty stage and at TV screens blaring out live coverage from flustered reporters just metres away. A cameraman from an Arab network was jostled because of his Oriental appearance, and left the building in protest. Evans was phoning copy through to the Herald. Carver pushed his way out of the hall. Mission accomplished, Ludmilla. She was sure to be well away by now. Maybe even out of Germany. He got into a taxi. The driver turned to him. “Were you in there? Did you see it happen?” Carver nodded. “My God.” The old Berliner shook his head. “They’re saying it looked like a heart attack. No way. Fucking Islamists got to him somehow. What a tragedy. I queued for two hours to vote for him. I thought he was a gutsy lad. Fucking bastards.”
8.52 p.m.
Carver’s taxi arrived in Ludmilla’s street in Charlottenburg. He asked the driver to stop 100 metres from her apartment building. He stepped out of the cab and saw a woman emerge from the front door. Peroxide blonde, cropped hair. She was carrying a small rucksack and walked down the street towards Kurfürstendamm. Same build. Similar coat. He broke into a run but stopped when he saw her hail a taxi. He leapt into the street in time to prevent his own cab from driving off. He got back in and flashed two €50 notes. “Follow that car, please. Discreetly, if you can.” They reached Kurfürstendamm in a few seconds and spotted her taxi turning to head east. They drove through Tiergarten towards the Brandenburg Gate, down Unter den Linden, past the cathedral. They turned right at Alexanderplatz Square. Towering, communist-era apartment blocks swept by. The cabbie was earning his cash, always keeping a distance. They drove past Ostbahnhof station, where he saw his friend grapple with death just a few hours ago, and along the East Side Gallery. After another five minutes, they turned right and crossed the Spree. There was much less traffic now. “Can you keep back a little further?” Carver asked. Her cab turned off the street into a small car park in front of a large stone arch. “Drive on,” Carver said, keeping his head down. After 100 metres, he got the driver to turn into a side street. “That cab stopped at Treptower Park, didn’t it?”
The cabbie nodded.
Carver got out and ran back towards the arch. The street was quiet. On his right, behind a thick screen of trees, was the biggest Soviet war memorial built outside the USSR. Her taxi was still there, parked behind some other cars. Its lights were out. He crept up to it and peered in the window. The driver was slumped down across the passenger seat. There was just enough light from the yellow street lamps to see that his head was covered in blood. Carver felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. He looked up at the arch. At the top, written in German and Russian, were the words: “Eternal Fame to the Heroes who Fell for the Freedom and Independence of the Socialist Homeland.” The path beyond was pitch black. Carver had been here before. Some 7,000 of the 22,000 Red Army soldiers who were killed in the battle for Berlin were buried here in mass graves. He ran into the darkness, sticking close to the side of the tree-lined path. Why the hell would she risk coming here? Why not do the handover in a public place? She must have nerves of steel. Killing the driver made sense. She knew her cover was probably blown. So wipe the tracks. What does one body more or less matter?
He reached a statue of a kneeling woman with her head bowed. Mother Russia in mourning, honouring her brave children. Out here in the open, it was light enough to make out the broad, long ramp ascending to the memorial. He crouched down and ran up it. At the top, two gigantic red granite triangles on either side framed a wide terrace overlooking a field of remembrance the size of a football pitch. It was an eerie sight. The mass graves were in a line of four grass-covered squares, leading to an imposing, 11-metre-high statue of a Soviet soldier at the far end, standing on top of a tall mound. On either side of the field stood columns of eight symbolic sarcophagi, their limestone carvings glinting white in the moonlight. Carver heard a noise at the foot of the ramp, like the scraping of a shoe. He swung round, but saw nothing. He bent low under a statue of a kneeling Soviet soldier clutching a submachine gun. He listened, but could only hear dried leaves scraping across the paving stones in the breeze. He was too exposed up here. The half-moon was behind him. He crept down the side of the stairway and dashed behind one of the sarcophagi. They were carved with scenes from the Great Patriotic War. His showed a line of Red Army soldiers storming ahead under a flag. He peered round the edge and scanned the area, but could see nothing. There was only one easy exit as far as he could tell, and that was via Mother Russia. The remainder of the site was surrounded by a tall, spiked iron fence. What now? Was he too late? A dim yellow light shone from a small chapel high up on the far mound, at the base of the gargantuan soldier, who was holding a little girl in his arms. From here he could make out the trooper’s sword and the shattered swastika beneath it. This place, stamped into the ground of a vanquished nation, was a thundering message to all those who would dare rise up against the might of the Soviet Union: Think again.
A loud rustling metres away sent his adrenalin surging. A rat scuttled out of a bush. He turned back round. A black figure stood in the light of the chap
el. He rushed forward to the next sarcophagus. An instant later, a loud crack burst through the silence, like the snap of a dry branch. The figure was gone. Carver ran closer. He was within 20 metres of the statue now. He could see something half-way up the steep flight of steps to the chapel. He waited. There was nothing, no movement. Just the trees rustling, and a distant hum of traffic. He was sure that was a person lying up there, injured or dead. He bounded to the steps. It was too dark to make out the face, but it was a man. Carver felt his neck. No pulse. He looked round. At the far end of the memorial, up on the terrace, the granite triangles and the two kneeling soldiers at their base were in sharp relief against the cloudless sky. Something was different. Then he saw it. A person stood up there, dwarfed by the statues. Could she see him? The outline became smaller and vanished. She was heading down the ramp. He got out his mobile phone to light up the man’s face. It was Wuttke.
There was a bullet hole in his forehead. What did you expect, you fucking idiot? His right leg lay at an impossible angle behind him. The flabby, brutish face stared up at the sky. “Rot in hell,” he muttered.
There was no time to lose. Carver ran back along the burial mounds, leapt up the stairs to the terrace and sprinted down the ramp. He got to Mother Russia. There were two exits, down paths to his right and left, both through grand arches. One was the way he’d come in. She wouldn’t risk leaving that way. Someone might have discovered the taxi driver. He raced towards the other arch which led onto Puschkin Allee, a broad, tree-lined boulevard that ran along Treptow Park. It was dimly lit and had wide pavements on either side. There was no traffic. He spotted her 100 metres ahead, striding towards Kreuzberg. He tore down the street after her. He was 10 metres away when she turned. She pointing a pistol at him. He stopped. She was illuminated by a streetlamp. Her face was devoid of all emotion. No surprise, no shame, no anger, no fear. The woman he had dined out with and slept with the night before was looking at him as if he were an inanimate object. The thought of being shot dead without being able to even hurt her was too dreadful to bear.
“You murderous, evil bitch,” he breathed.
Her semi-automatic glinted in the street light. “Who’s with you?”
“You poisoned my friend.”
“I let you live, Frank. Who’s with you?”
“Pull the fucking trigger. Who the fuck are you? Why did you fucking do it?”
She gave a thin smile. “Why do you think? Are you stupid?”
He snapped. Nothing mattered. He bent and charged towards her. He was picking up enough momentum to keep going even if she fired. Please God let me get to her. For the few moments of life I have left, let me tear her down, sink my teeth into her flesh, make her scream, make her bleed, break her piano fingers, punch and scar that pretty face. He heard dull cracks but felt nothing. He rammed his shoulder into her stomach and heard a low gasp as he hurled her to the ground. She was so light. The force of the fall flung him off her but he turned and lunged towards her, his left fist clenched for the first punch. He struck her face so hard that he jarred his wrist. He was about to grab her neck when he stopped. Her left eye was a black hole. He turned her head and saw pieces of brain on the pavement. Had she killed herself? No way. He looked up. Nothing. No one. “Who’s there? Come out! She’s dead!” Were they taking aim at him now? He no longer cared. The rucksack was slung over her shoulder. He rifled through her coat and jacket, found two passports and her wallet and stuffed them in his pocket. He kept expecting to see a figure emerge from the bushes or to feel the thud of a bullet. A car was coming down the street in the distance.
He gazed at her face one last time. The plaster was gone. There was no trace of any cut from the Bonn bombing. Her intact eye was open, scrutinizing him with lifeless contempt. Sellin flashed into his mind. Her paddling in the sea that night. And those tears of concern just a couple of days ago. What a pro. What an evil, callous, terrible human being. What a useless piece of meat. The car was coming closer. He tried to stand up but fell over. His ankle hurt. He dragged himself behind a tree. The car passed. The driver hadn’t seen Ludmilla. Who the hell had shot her? Had Wuttke brought guys with him? Why weren’t they dealing with him? He thought of picking up her semi-automatic, but decided against it. He resisted a powerful urge to kick her, to stamp on her, over and over again. It wouldn’t undo her deeds. And it wouldn’t alleviate his guilt. He struggled to his feet, picked up her bag, crossed the street and hobbled along the pavement towards the nearest subway station, stopping and turning every few metres to peer at the dark shape of her corpse fading into the darkness. Her death was too painless.
The train carriage was empty. Carver checked the passports. There was a Czech one for a Milada Kubikova featuring a photo of her with long blonde hair, and a Slovenian one for Alenka Barbarich, in which she had a short blonde bob. The wallet contained over 700 euros in cash, Ludmilla’s press pass and two credit cards in the names of Kubikova and Barbarich. The rucksack had a change of clothes, a toiletry bag, a blue and black bottle of Rive Gauche, two fat rolls of cash notes, one in dollars and one in euros, and a heavy red sack. He opened it and peered inside.
Berlin, Charité Hospital 10.02 p.m.
Heise sat in the waiting room. Birgit kept ringing every few minutes, screaming for updates. The door opened. The medical director of the Charité, Professor Doktor Hans-Peter von Schenck, a tall man who exuded calm authority, came over to him and took him aside.
“I’m afraid Herr Gutman has slipped into a coma. He has had a very serious heart attack and is very weak. We have been finding it very difficult to stabilize him.”
“What are his chances?” Heise asked.
“The prognosis is not good,” said the old surgeon. There was a hint of sadness in his voice. “We think Herr Gutman ingested something highly toxic.”
“You mean he was poisoned?”
The doctor nodded. “A chemical poison. Our toxicologist thinks it might be Fluoroacetate. It used to be used as rat poison. No smell. No taste.”
“My God,” Heise said. “Make no public statements yet, please.”
Five minutes later, Simon Hertz bustled into the waiting room, spotted Heise and rushed over to him. Heise’s heart sank. That was all he needed.
“I want to see him,” Hertz insisted, dabbing sweat off his brow with a handkerchief.
“Herr Hertz, no one can see him,” he answered. “He’s in intensive care and in bad shape.”
Hertz stared at him. “Is he going to die?”
Heise didn’t answer, sat back down and looked at the carpet.
Hertz sat next to him. “I knew it,” he sighed. “Germany wasn’t ready for him. It was too soon.”
“What do you mean it was too soon?” Heise burst out. “We voted for him! We gave him a clear majority! The nation chose him!”
“Yes,” Hertz retorted, furiously nodding his head. “And look where he is now!”
10.04 p.m.
Carver checked the news on his phone. Gutman had suffered a suspected heart attack and was in an intensive care unit at the Charité. One report cited “security sources” who noted that Gutman’s father had died of heart failure, and that the candidate had obviously been under “enormous strain” in recent days. Carver gave a bitter laugh. As if anyone was going to believe he died of natural causes.
The train pulled into the station above Alexanderplatz square, which had turned into a gigantic carpet of lights. He limped off. A vast crowd had gathered in the square, tens of thousands, holding candles and cigarette lighters in a silent demonstration of hope and support for Gutman. Thousands more were heading down the street towards the Brandenburg Gate. Carver followed them. People had placed candles all along Unter den Linden, which was closed to traffic. A line of little flames stretched on both sides of the avenue as far as he could see. In the candlelight, he saw faces wet with tears. People squatted on street curbs hugging each other or looking into the candles. There was an even bigger crowd around the Brandenburg Gate, the city
’s symbol of freedom and reconciliation, and the avenue beyond. How convenient for Beedham, who was probably watching from his hotel balcony. Carver could imagine the Chronicle’s headline: Gutman Suffers Heart Attack After Winning Election.
Gutman wasn’t dead, but people were mourning him. There was a collective sense of foreboding, a feeling that the candidate, the chancellor-in-waiting, was doomed, and had been the victim of an attack. For the moment, Germany was too stunned to look for scapegoats. But that would start happening soon. And the finger was bound to be pointed at Islamists again. Carver had to get his story out. There wasn’t a minute to lose.
He found a taxi and headed to Bettina’s flat. Her face was flushed and her eyes swollen from crying. “That was an assassination attempt wasn’t it?”
“He was poisoned, Bettina. So was Renner. Renner’s in hospital, in a bad way. It was a Polish journalist who called herself Ludmilla Janowski. She was my girlfriend. She got me to help her into the foreign press association. She played me. All this … it’s partly my fault.”
Bettina looked at him as if he were mad. She sat down. “I can’t take all this in. Have you been to the police?”
“I rang them and gave them her name. But it was too late. I don’t know if they believed me.”
She started sobbing. “The world is so shit. I was so happy he got in. The whole office cheered.”
“Bettina.” Carver sat down next to her. “You’ve got to help me get this story out. The Chronicle’s fired me. They don’t want to know about it. I know who did this. I need to publish this. I owe it to Renner.”
She wiped her eyes. “Send it to all the papers?”
“I’ll do that, I’ll mail my story to them. But I’m not sure how much good that will do. Some of them might investigate further. But look how the Chronicle nixed it, and I worked for them! I want Renner’s name above the scoop. I want his story out, unadulterated and intact.”
The Jewish Candidate Page 27