by Simon Harrak
The lobby was brightly lit from the back by a stained window decorated with detailed floral patterns of yellow, red, purple and green. More floral shapes intricately adorned the curved, bronze staircase leading to the second floor. The building had inherited an almost sacred quality from an earlier century, seemingly shrouded with divine light which Frederich’s shadow soon contaminated as he crept forward.
There were two apartments across from each other on the bottom floor. Frederich approached the left one first. It was dead quiet inside. Maybe. He went over to the opposite apartment, which had a shoe rack at the front with only women’s shoes on it. Drexler could have been hiding out with a girlfriend, he thought. He moved away from the door and climbed the elaborate, curved staircase to the top floor, where there were two more apartments. The smell of cooking hung in the air. The sounds of children screaming excitedly at each other came from the right, and the left apartment had its front door open. A vacuum cleaner turned on, causing loud whirring to invade the hallway, while the head of the vacuum cleaner protruded outside to clean the welcome mat. Frederich turned around and went back downstairs. He stood undecided in the light in the middle of the lobby. The silence of the first apartment made it strangely alluring, and Frederich found himself slowly creeping toward it, taking gentle, careful steps while listening for any intervening clues inside.
Scratching noises came from the front of the building. Frederich turned his head quickly, seeing a shadow beneath the crack of the door, and he rushed to a position behind the stairs. The outside door flung open, bringing the street noise in with it. It remained suspended, held open by the foot of the tattooed man from earlier. The man took the keys out of the hole and picked up two duffel bags, the strain of their weight showing on his arms. He then skewed left and dropped the bags onto the floor in front of the silent apartment. Upon unlocking and pushing the door open, he picked up his bags and disappeared inside before the apartment door slammed shut, and Frederich was left alone again inside a lifeless lobby.
He remained thinking in his spot. He was now almost sure that Drexler was in that apartment. Whatever the man was carrying in those bags, it was not business documents or groceries. The guy had some serious hardware in there. Despite that, Frederich wanted to be positive. He opened the back door and went into the yard; a tiny, fenced-off area with an entrance to the underground cellar beside a set of garbage and recycling bins. Each of the apartments had windows looking out into the yard, and Frederich checked them carefully before crawling in beside the bins and training his eyes on the first apartment. It had four windows; one from the kitchen, a small bathroom window, and the rest likely the living and bedrooms. Frederich waited and watched as the first hour ticked by, then the second, before eventually darkness set in and the lights inside the apartment went on. All the curtains were drawn, but Frederich could see the occasional shadow moving between the gaps. At one point the back door to the building broke open, and a heavy-set older woman came out holding a full garbage bag. Frederich shrunk deeper into the corner, and the woman thrust the bag into the bin and slammed the lid shut before walking back, mumbling something to herself in Polish.
Frederich sat patiently in the dark like a fox, alert but barely moving, sensing himself merging into the night as the time passed by and his anticipation slowly grew. From his position in the corner, he got the break he was looking for. If he had lost his focus for even a few seconds, he might have missed it. Without warning, one of the curtains was dragged open and someone appeared with a lit cigarette in his mouth. Frederich skipped a breath. That red, round face stood out like a match head. Drexler rolled the window open slightly with the crank handle, and as soon as he had appeared he was gone. Midnight approached, and the lights went out.
Frederich lingered in the shadows until 3:30 am with unbridled, festering thoughts, unable to stop his mind going back to the day of the bombing. The screams, the carnage; Ida and the innocent civilians, overwhelmed with suffering. Frederich’s rage resonated in his fingers, his legs grew restless. The pressure in his chest sucked the air out of him. That son of a bitch — the cause of it all — was inside that apartment, sleeping soundly. What was Frederich waiting for? ‘Make it messy,’ Scheffler had said. My pleasure, thought Frederich.
He rose out of the corner and marched out. First, he pushed the lobby door open and lodged it on the clip. Now the front door of Drexler’s apartment would remain in view. Frederich walked back into the yard and took out his pistol and a tear gas grenade. He fired a bullet at the living room window, the loud snap of the suppressor shattering the peaceful, morning silence. Shards of glass came crashing to the ground as he walked across and fired another bullet into the bedroom window. Using his pistol hand, he removed the pin from the tear gas grenade, shifted the curtain to the side and tossed in the grenade. Then he walked back across and followed it up by tossing another grenade into the living room. The tear gas rose up and gradually began filling the apartment. He took ten steps backwards and pointed his pistol into the white cloud while keeping the front door to the apartment in his sights.
Two distinct yells came from inside as smoke poured out of the window. Frederich focussed ahead, ready to snatch the life out of anybody moving inside. A shadow appeared, then disappeared, then flashed again at the left side before the front door burst open. It was the tattooed man with the cornrows who Frederich had seen earlier. The man bent over in the middle of the lobby, wearing tracksuit pants and a white singlet, coughing and rubbing his eyes. Frederich marched toward him and fired a bullet into his skull on approach, then followed it up with another headshot at point-blank range, showering the lobby floor with blood. Drexler was the next to come bursting out. Frederich heard his groan before he emerged wearing only boxer shorts. His shoulder ricocheted off the doorway, and he went tumbling. As he lay helpless on the floor, Frederich sent a stiff, forceful kick into his side.
“Ah!” yelled Drexler, filling the lobby with his screams.
He rolled over and clutched his side with one arm, groaning and rubbing his irritated eyes with the other. Frederich glanced at the neighbour’s apartment. The door remained closed, the person inside having the good sense not to come outside. It also meant they would be cowered somewhere near a telephone, terrified and desperate for the police to arrive. Frederich had to move quickly. He dropped his pistol the ground.
“Drexler!” he yelled, bending down and grasping Drexler’s sweaty face by his cheeks.
“No!” yelled Drexler, struggling to break free of Frederich’s grip. His eyes were teared up, and his nostrils full of mucus.
Frederich picked up his pistol again, aimed it at Drexler’s knee cap, and fired.
The metallic echoes of the bullet fire were horrifyingly loud, piecing Frederich’s eardrums. Drexler’s screaming became hysterical. Frederich put the pistol down again.
“Look here!” he yelled, grasping Drexler’s face again with an iron grip. “Eyes here, you piece of shit.”
He held Drexler’s head in place and stared into his swollen eyes. Drexler’s yells became a wail, and he was eventually able to lock onto Frederich’s face for a moment. Once Frederich was sure that Drexler could see him, he looked deep into Drexler’s eyes and poured in all the hatred he could conjure. Drexler paused, his eyes opening wide against the tear gas spasms trying to force them shut. The message seemed to have come across.
“I’m sorry!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, beginning to hyperventilate. “I had no choice. It hurt too much. It was too much!”
Drexler began weeping and howling. Frederich let go of his head and backed away, leaving the pistol on the ground. He looked on, speechless, unsure what to do next. Drexler seemed to be hallucinating, grasping at the air and talking to himself.
The flicker of the shooter’s shadow probably saved Frederich’s life. He had likely been holed up in the bathroom, waiting for the smoke to disperse. Frederich turned quickly and leapt to the side just as the man fired from the doorway. Fr
ederich’s pistol was out of reach. Instead, he ran away at a sharp angle as the second bullet flew by, then went straight at the shooter and jump-kicked him. The two of them went tumbling to the floor, the man grunting as he collided with the surface. The shooter was still holding his pistol, and he lifted his hand to fire. Frederich took hold of his wrist, and with the memory of Elias Khartoum flickering by, he head-butted him in the nose once and then twice. The man let go of the pistol.
It came, hurtling from the beyond, and Frederich knew it was too late to catch it. Not that he ever had a chance. It came on so strongly that the blackouts began almost immediately. He knew he had done damage with his fists, and that he had used the hunting knife. The rest came in visual and audible flashes. Drexler’s horrible screams. The sound of flesh tearing. The pools of blood, as well as the dark red imprints from Frederich’s footsteps as he fled the building. There was the piercing ringing in his ears as he stumbled down the street and marched quickly to his car. He blacked out again in places, and when he came to, he was sitting in the driver’s seat soaked in blood. He took out his keys and worked them into the hole with strangely steady hands. He put the car into gear and drove away, racing to the end of the small street and making a hard left. Police sirens in the distance forced him to speed up. He did everything by instinct, following the directions he had studied, eventually climbing onto the 92 and racing westwards toward Berlin.
8
The faces of Kalakia’s Four Generals glowed orange in the candlelight, while a thick layer of cigar smoke hung above the empty weapons storage room. A chilly, early-morning breeze pushed through the cave tunnel of The League’s mountain fortress, causing the candles along the walls to flicker. Kalakia was leaned over with his hands flat on the table, inspecting the world map spread over its surface. Red crosses marked the spots where Stirner had carried out his initial attacks. Berlin was also marked. In green were the places where The League proposed to counter-attack. Each of the Four Generals possessed a portion of the list of targets provided by the Five Eyes. In the back corner, Francois was slumped on a chair with one leg crossed over the other, supporting his neck from behind with his hand.
“Gentlemen, we have decisions to make,” said Kalakia.
Marco Lessio leaned back casually on his chair and sucked on his cigar before contributing to the cloud of smoke hovering above them. The shadow of Daps Limbaba’s intimidating frame stretched over the table, where he had his elbow resting with his cigar pointing outwards, a heap of ashes piled up beneath it. He stared unflinchingly at Kalakia with absolute focus. Tamju Lau rubbed on his greying moustache and cleared his throat.
“I agree that we must act,” said Lau. “I only fear that Stirner has a greater plan which we have yet to comprehend.”
“He’s shitting his pants,” said Lessio. “He messed up the Kalakia hit, so he’s lost the element of surprise. Now he’s relying on terror tactics. We need to hit hard and finish him quickly.”
“My men await my word. They are ready for anything,” said Limbaba.
Kalakia paused then turned to the quietest General in the room.
“Vincent?” he said.
Scheffler had been sitting forward, tapping his fingers on the table while deep in thought.
“I’ve got concerns,” he said. “Suspicion’s growing. The online chatter is way too loud. Plus tributes aren’t being paid. Word’s going around that The League is losing authority. We’ve worked too hard to let this bastard take it away from us. Our pride’s at stake here.”
“You have a right to be concerned,” said Kalakia. “Our spies tell us the elite are publicly speaking out against us. Recent events have emboldened them.”
“I’ve already told my soldiers to make an example of anyone who doesn’t pay,” said Marco Lessio.
“This will not solve the deeper problem,” said Daps Limbaba. “We must cure the disease, not attend to the symptoms.”
“I think Kalakia’s idea makes sense,” said Scheffler. “Our surveillance on government and public figures is airtight, which means Stirner’s using the underworld for muscle. We take the list and we strike hard, all at once. We’ll make those bastards sing. When the dust settles, we’ll know what we’re dealing with, and we can round up the string pullers. Stirner won’t have anywhere to hide after that.”
“You do not appear convinced, Tamju,” said Kalakia, turning toward Lau, who was rubbing his chin and frowning.
“I have an unsettling feeling,” said Lau. “There are sinister forces at play.”
“What do you suggest?” said Kalakia.
“Caution,” said Lau, his eyes lighting up. “Utmost caution.”
The ominous nature of Lau’s shift in mood gripped the entire table. Marco Lessio sat forward and studied the proud-statured old man.
“We find ourselves in unprecedented territory,” said Kalakia after a long silence. “Our enemy knows us far better than we know him.”
“You know Stirner. What’s your guess about what he’s up to?” said Scheffler.
Kalakia looked away, focussing on one of the candles flickering in the distance. The League was as powerful as a firestorm where it counted but could be as fragile as a tiny flame in the fickle minds of the masses. One wrong move and the tide of public opinion would turn, sending through a gust of wind that would put out The League’s light. Kalakia was the man holding The League together. The flame continued to burn because he was on the throne, and he succeeded by remaining a step ahead. The League’s survival hinged on his capacity to outmanoeuvre Stirner.
Meanwhile, the longer he waited, the more fragile The League’s flame would become. With Inselheim in Stirner’s hands, it was only a matter of time before the geopolitical balance tipped in Stirner’s favour and the gust found its way to Kalakia. Morale and momentum were everything. As leader, his role was to remain steadfast in the face of uncertainty. The fate of The League depended on it. He turned back to his Generals.
“Stirner is a cunning man, driven by power and prestige,” he said. “His ego is fickle and infested with hubris. That will be his downfall. He plans to slay The League and establish his own global empire over its ashes.”
“Not going to happen,” said Marco Lessio, scowling and making a tight fist.
“He will be the first and the last to challenge us,” said Limbaba.
“We have a slim window to avoid catastrophe,” said Kalakia. “And we must make the most of it. Show of hands who supports the counter-attack.”
All four men raised their hands. Kalakia completed the vote by raising his.
He turned his attention to the map again. New York, Zurich, Doha, Tokyo, Cape Town. Stirner had gone global with his surprise attack. He had wanted to demoralise The League by cutting off its head while inflicting significant damage. The attacks were evenly spread, and information about the origins of the attackers was scarce at best. Stirner had used his intimate knowledge of The League with deadly effect while conspiring with Navolov and likely other members of the leadership. The attackers had struck with ski masks and mostly retreated without a trace. Kalakia’s hunch that there had been only a few traitors proved correct — otherwise, a revolt would have broken out when he annihilated The Generals and The Council, and he would be a dead man. As always, Kalakia bet that power was with the people. He was proven correct. The foundation on which he had built The League remained solid.
“Our objective is to uncover the scope of our enemy,” said Kalakia. “Strike quickly, and move your targets to a secure interrogation facility. Kill only when necessary.”
“What if we get a lead? Do we follow it or wait?” asked Marco Lessio.
The question highlighted a serious dilemma. The surprise nature of the first wave was aimed at reducing casualties, after which Stirner’s people would be on red alert.
“Report it to Intel, then pursue,” said Kalakia.
The table seemed satisfied.
“I believe Francois has some good news for us from Poland,�
� said Kalakia, turning to the corner.
Francois sat up and cleared his throat.
“The Berlin bomber is dead,” he said coldly. “Frederich Abel terminated him this morning.”
“Wonderful!” said Daps Limbaba while slapping the table with his mighty hand.
“Spit out the details,” said Scheffler. “Everybody needs to know.”
Francois wrinkled his brows and his face turned grim.
“Abel terminated Drexler and two of his associates with utmost prejudice. The news reported over thirty stab wounds on one of the victims. The city is in total shock.”
Kalakia studied the reactions of his Generals. Marco Lessio was licking his lower lip and smiling. Daps Limbaba narrowed his eyes and was nodding repeatedly. Tamju Lau stared off into the distance.
“If that doesn’t send a lightning bolt up Stirner’s ass, I don’t know what will,” said Scheffler.
“Why have you done this?” Tamju Lau asked Scheffler. “Where is the honour in such madness?”
“Honour?” said Scheffler. “Do you want to discuss honour with the families of Drexler’s victims? How about all those mutilated people laying in hospital beds? Or how about the fact that they killed our brothers and tried to assassinate our leader?”
“Senseless barbarity only begets more barbarity,” said Lau calmly. “A bullet to the head would have sufficed.”