by Gabriel Kron
More questions were being raised about Mueller’s handling of the case than were being asked about the main suspect, Daniel Bateman, other than how was it he was avoiding capture.
The second email from the FSL was the ballistics reports. The slugs that had delivered the fatal blow to Sophia Locke and her grandfather had been fired from the same gun that Maria Becker had handed in. However, there were no useful ballistics from the Nil Café am See scene. The round used was a hollow point and had broken apart on impact.
There were also the spent cartridges found where Bateman had confronted the local lads when fleeing Germany. These were found to have been fired by a Walther P08 Luger 9mm. Yet another gun they were potentially contending with.
The forensics report from the Locke Farm incidents showed a match in blood to that of what was assumed was Bateman's blood from the Café shooting. There were other finger prints found at the scene that had not been found during the first investigation of the Locke shootings.
Bateman knew Sophia Locke and had been seen earlier that night at the Wielandshöhe restaurant. The Maître D remembered them well, as it was a favour to Dominik Becker that they had managed to get a table. So why had Bateman later that night turned to murder and arson? Why did Bateman and Sophia Locke have dinner that night? What was the Englishman’s business in Stuttgart?
He opened the witness statement of Maria Becker and scanned through for something he thought he remembered.
Maria Becker had told them that Daniel Bateman was a regular visitor to Stuttgart and always stayed at their hotel. He normally shopped for antique equipment, but on this occasion he was tracking down a piece that he had told Maria Becker was “…something a lot of powerful people don’t want found.”
Was that it? Had Bateman found what he wanted and then killed to get it?
Wolf read over the statements from each of the witnesses again. He looked over the plan views of each of the crime scenes along with the corresponding scene photographs.
The one question that was bothering him now was how did Mueller get involved?
Wolf tried calling his office in Stuttgart. He needed to update Director Werner as soon as possible. He had to give this to him directly. The repercussions if he was right were huge.
Director Werner wasn’t available and was in meetings all afternoon. The only message he left was on Director Werner’s voice mail, short and concise, “Sir, Wolf here, we need to talk about Stuttgart.”
He checked his watch and headed straight back to the Legoland building for the update briefing.
Vauxhall Bridge, London. Day 49.
Rourke leant against the metal railing overlooking Vauxhall Bridge and knew that Reaves was right. He was his best ally. Reaves had been Rourke’s sponsor when he was selected for membership after the Gulf War. It was Senator Reaves who had managed to get the CIA involved in trying to perform an extraordinary rendition. Bateman was either extremely lucky or was trained in the dark arts of survival and escape. Either way, he was still on the loose with the notebooks.
“Time to flush him out William. Carry on targeting those around him, but hit anyone close, like family, hard and bring him out of the woodwork. Too much time has passed already for any kind of amicable arrangements, don’t you think?” Reaves said.
“It was never going to be amicable,” Rourke said knowing that this was taking too long and it was going down on his watch.
As Rourke hung up, he saw Sebastian Wolf returning.
“Good afternoon detective,” Rourke said as he joined Wolf entering the building.
“Good afternoon Sir,” Wolf said and followed the procedure of having his laptop bag scanned.
“Cornell tells me you’ve been reviewing the forensics reports from Stuttgart. Is there anything new that we haven’t had already?” Rourke said as they walked to the bank of lifts and waited.
“Yes, reports from the second Locke farm incident and the gun used in the original Locke murders have been handed in. We have ballistics and print analysis,” Wolf patted his laptop bag.
“Anything that will help us track Bateman down?” Rourke asked.
“Not really, but it does raise some interesting questions.”
The lift arrived and Rourke selected the sixth floor for Operations. As the doors closed and the lift started rising, Rourke opened a panel door below the buttons and keyed the Disable Lift switch. The lift stopped.
“What kind of questions?”
Unsure of what to say, Wolf took a step backwards and leaned against the lift wall. “Questions about Detective Mueller mainly. Why have we stopped?”
“Don’t worry. Even in a place like this, it can be hard to find a quiet corner to talk. Tell me about Mueller,” Rourke’s tone was light, almost jovial.
“Nothing conclusive as such, but there are some discrepancies that the print analysis brings up that I can’t answer. Not to mention how the BKA ever got involved in the first place. The paper trail on this just doesn’t exist.”
“Obviously I can’t answer for the BKA or for Detective Mueller, but Bateman does present a clear and present threat to National Security and Mueller is dead.”
“True, but we only assume that Bateman shot Mueller. Bateman was also shot. No one saw him shoot Mueller and apparently, according to Maria Becker, Bateman was searching for a so called energy device. How has this become an issue of International Security?”
“Anything nuclear is a threat.”
“This has gone from a simple murder hunt into an international nuclear threat. How did that come about?” Wolf was still trying to put together the bigger picture.
“And a major economic threat as well, just to add to the mix. Sebastian, our jobs are vital to more than the visible threats to our way of life. What if Bateman has found the secret to free or even just cheap decentralised energy? At first glance this doesn’t seem like a threat. The nuclear threat is real obviously, but the economic damage that would result if it hit the markets would be unprecedented. Overnight the futures markets on fuels and energy would plummet. The National grids would start to become redundant if the device could be scaled up, and if it can be scaled down, the battery industry would die. Over twenty billion batteries are sold worldwide every year. As an industry it would die if an everlasting battery hit the market. It’s a bit like why the light bulb industry doesn’t produce an everlasting bulb even though they could.”
“And this is why you want to stop him?”
“We all have our roles in society. Some of us have to defend the public from itself. Some of us are tasked to do this and sometimes it involves doing things that are ugly, but vital. Sometimes there are necessary casualties.”
Necessary casualties, thought Wolf. Were the Lockes, Mueller, Becker and even Bateman necessary casualties?
“I’m not sure I fully understand what you mean, General. I’m only interested in catching the Lockes’ murderer and therefore I need to update my Inspector with the new evidence. Can we go?” Wolf asked, indicating the open panel where Rourke had stopped the lift.
General Rourke hesitated for a second, assessing the young German BKA detective in front of him. He had hoped to be able to recruit him. The loss of Mueller was unfortunate, but Rourke knew who to blame for that.
“Certainly,” Rourke said and started the lift again. “You haven’t shared this yet then?”
“Not yet.”
Within a few seconds the lift arrived at the sixth floor. General Rourke started to walk out, stopped and turned to face Wolf. “Go back to your hotel and report back to your Inspector. What you’ve got there isn’t pertinent to catching Bateman, only convicting him. I don’t think this guy’s going to get as far as being convicted. Thank you for your help, detective.”
Wolf waited until the doors of the lift had shut again before he breathed easy. What had just happened? Necessary casualties, economic security, futures, stocks and batteries. Batteries, was this really about batteries? Not pertinent, no conviction. Why not a conv
iction?
~~~
As soon as the lift doors had shut, Rourke called Agent Cornell. Detective Sebastian Wolf couldn’t be recruited Rourke decided, and the evidence that Wolf had collected, along with the reports, needed to disappear. No great problem with the right foot-soldiers capable of performing what some dubbed as ‘Magic.’
Vauxhall Bridge, London. Day 49.
For Sebastian Wolf, sunset made the walk from SIS, over Vauxhall Bridge, that little bit special with silhouetted buildings against the sky’s golden red and orange hues.
He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and then start whistling. He expected it to be Director Werner.
“Hallo, Wolf,” He answered as he put his bluetooth headset on and continued walking across the bridge.
“Sebastian?” the familiar warm softened tones of Angelique, his wife’s voice was far more welcome than that of his Inspector. She had grown up in France which had softened her dialect in comparison to his own typical German.
“Oh the voice of an angel,” Wolf said and stood to one side of the pavement and admired the view down the Thames.
“Are you busy?” Angelique asked.
“Not any more, I’ve been dismissed by the General, so I’m on my way home, Angel.”
He had spent far too much time away from his family since the beginning of the Bateman case, and he feared that the latest revelations regarding the fingerprint analysis and ballistics would mean even more absence.
“Children back from school?” he asked and looked over the large red iron parapet at the Thames below.
Angelique was telling Wolf about what Max and Lea had been doing at school and how his parents were always fussing too much.
“...What time will you be back?” she asked.
“Not sure what time the planes are—” Wolf paused as he felt something wasn’t right. He looked around him, but the Bridge was empty and quiet. Perhaps that was it, what had been very busy only a few minutes ago was now eerily quiet. The only vehicle on the bridge was a single black London Taxi Cab.
“Here’s a taxi. Taxi!” he called out. “I’m just about to get a taxi back to the hotel, I’ll see you later tonight sweetie—”
Wolf was about to hang up the phone when the black Taxi he had flagged down suddenly accelerated and veered sharply, hitting the pavement at an accelerating speed. The front tyres both burst as the rims slammed into the concrete curb and the black taxi left the pavement. It hit Wolf square across his hips, driving him backwards into the iron parapet. The force of the impact instantly severed his lower spine, and he lay folded across the crumpled black bonnet with a large dent where his head hit. The crumpled front end of the taxi had pinned Wolf to the parapet, his lower body completely shattered.
“Sebastian!” Angelique yelled having listened to the sickening crunch of metal against immovable metal. “Sebastian, are you all right? Sebastian!” There was desperation in her voice.
The driver’s door opened and from behind the bent steering wheel climbed a dazed but unharmed ‘cabby’ dressed in jeans and a white shirt.
“Sebastian please! Tell me you're okay,” Angelique was pleading. She had no idea what had just happened, but she knew with a dreadful certainty that something had just been ripped from her heart.
The cabby rubbed his forehead from where he had head butted the steering wheel and checked the bridge was still empty.
“Nein, nein, nein, nein. Sebastian!” Angelique’s pleading German could be heard from Wolf’s hands-free ear piece.
As the cabby approached the front of the mangled taxi, he could see that Sebastian Wolf was not going to survive. A dark pool of blood had appeared from under the car and if not dead yet, he soon would be.
“Sebastian, can you hear me? Sebastian... Please Sebastian, talk to me.”
Trapped between the front headlight and the parapet was the briefcase. The cabby started to try and pull free the brown leather briefcase Wolf carried his laptop in.
Suddenly Wolf took a sharp gurgled intake of breath and stared with bloodied eyes directly at the driver.
“Shit! I thought you were dead,” the cabby said as the bag freed itself. The driver looked at Wolf. Blood was seeping from his mouth, nose, eyes and ears. Behind his ear was lodged a bluetooth hands-free ear piece, a white LED flashing to show a call was in progress.
The cabby reached forward to take the ear piece; the phone itself was probably in one of his pockets. He held it to his ear and listened to a sobbing woman. He threw the ear-piece into the Thames.
Wolf coughed feebly, dark blood spluttering as he tried to speak, “C-C-Cor-nell?”
Using a small two-way radio Agent Cornell radioed confirmation of the hit as he walked briskly back towards the SIS building. “Alpha. Package secure. Re-open the bridge.”
~~~
With only one Operations Room technician, General Rourke gave the nod for the traffic lights at either end of the bridge to revert back to normal operation and the four Field Agents, two at either end of the bridge, to remove the POLICE - DO NOT CROSS crime scene tape from across the road and allow pedestrians access again. They had to work quickly, performing the whole operation in less than three minutes, to prevent Police involvement too soon. They knew the risks working for the General, but that was why they were paid accordingly.
Evidence Room, Federal Office of Criminal Investigations, Stuttgart. Day 49.
Inspector Albert Bergmann handed the Evidence Request form to the desk sergeant and waited. It took only a couple of minutes for the Sergeant to return with the evidence box.
Bergmann inspected the seals and then signed the manifest.
“Danke,” was all Bergmann said, then he left the building, placing the evidence box on the passenger seat of his Range Rover.
Once in the car Bergmann sent a single text message from his phone that simply read: “Secured.”
As instructed, Bergmann headed towards the municipal incinerator just south of Heidelberg where he would personally watch the box and its contents be consumed.
Before placing the box on the conveyor belt just below the furnace feed, Bergmann opened the box and placed his police badge, warrant card and the paperwork he had just signed in the name of Bergmann, into the box and took a photo with his smart-phone, ensuring to get the handgun in the shot.
Again, once he was back in his car he sent another single worded text message that simply read: “Completed.”
The Yard. Day 50.
I was growing to like the Yard more and more as I developed parts to better suit living there. Between the container that served as a workshop and the one used as a storage room, I had made a timber frame and created a covered decked platform. This became my outside living room as trying to live inside with no outside light was driving me nuts. I had also hung up a large punch bag.
There was plenty of light in the containers as two solar PV panels had been given to Lee by another of the disbanded OTG group, Mario Krag in Switzerland. Since Clive had sent out the snail mail letters, several others from the group had managed to make contact with either Lee or Clive.
The 180 watts of solar panels were used to charge a large bank of lead acid batteries that I was beginning to build up. The bank was large enough to provide light for several days. However, maintaining a fridge, using the computer and any of the workshop machinery would reduce that time down to a matter of hours, so a dual fuel 5 Kilowatt generator was available for use when real power was needed.
The hardest part of enforced Off the Grid living is the sourcing and disposal of water. The Yard had neither a supply nor a sewer, so a large water container became a much monitored resource and I was able to fill it, for free, at the local service station.
I had continued my daily regime of beginning every day with a one hour training session, and since living at the Yard, I had taken up jogging as well. The perimeter of the quarry offered a measured two miles covering a variety of terrain and obstacles.
Construction of the Lo
ckridge device was progressing slowly. The absence of a flatbed milling machine meant that the modifications needed to be done by hand. Hacksawing, filing and polishing. Bit by bit.
The slow construction process wasn’t really a problem yet. Despite the copious details given in the notebooks, there wasn’t any mention or reference to how the carbon brush assemblies were constructed. Not even what materials were used.
We had the single split carbon brush I had found in Johann Locke’s burnt out desk, in the tin which also contained the Locke Cipher. I had spent hours researching cryptography, but could not make any breakthroughs with the page of typed numbers. Both Clive and Lee were also attempting to decode the page. We all felt, or more accurately hoped that it was construction details for the brushes. We also hoped that what we had was actually for the device itself. The schematics in the notebooks showed two wires and this did have two braided copper wires, one in each half.
It was obviously carbon based, but there were many different types available, depending the application. The brush connected the electrical circuit of the device to the rotating parts of a motor or generator via what was called a commutator.
Placing our brush under my geological microscope salvaged from my apartment, I adjusted the light and focused in on the surface. The carbon looked more like metal graphite, which meant that it could have been graphite with copper, lead, tin, silver, gold, platinum, bronze or a myriad of other metals. Research indicated that even as far back as the 1920’s, metal graphite brushes were common.