The Valkyrie Song

by Craig Russell

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then you will know that we have very carefully selected these twelve girls. They all meet a consistent set of criteria. Each of these young women displays athletic or sporting ability, they are all of above-average intelligence and they all have, for one reason or another, displayed a certain disconnectedness in terms of their emotions.’

  ‘Yes. I saw that in the file. But that disconnectedness, as you put it, has for the most part come about from some psychological trauma in their pasts. I have to say that one could describe them as, well … disturbed. These are problem children.’

  ‘None of the girls is mentally disordered.’ It was the older woman who responded this time. Drescher was not surprised to hear her speak German with a Russian accent. ‘Nor are they truly sociopathic. But through experience or simply by nature they are emotionally less responsive than their peers.’

  ‘I see …’ said Drescher. ‘But surely that on its own is hardly a qualification for what we expect of them. I mean … how can I put this … I know we live in the ideal society of gender equality and opportunity, but there is no doubt that the male … well, the male is more aggressive. Men are more inclined to violence. Killing comes more naturally.’

  Adebach smiled wryly and rose to his feet. He walked around the table and stood behind the seated woman. ‘Perhaps I should introduce you,’ he said to Drescher. ‘This is Major Doctor Ivana Lubimova. The major has been assigned to us by our Soviet comrades. I should tell you that Major Lubimova also served in the Great Patriotic War. She fought with the Seventieth Rifle Division. Special weapons training at Buzuluk.’

  ‘Sniper?’ asked Drescher.

  ‘Thirty-three confirmed kills,’ said Lubimova, blankly.

  ‘And now you’re an army doctor?’ said Drescher, thinking of thirty-three dead Germans.

  ‘Psychiatrist. And not for the army.’

  ‘I see,’ said Drescher, and he knew that the matronly Russian hadn’t had far to come: just from Karlshorst, immediately to the south of Lichtenberg. KGB headquarters.

  ‘I specialise in the psychology of combat,’ continued the Russian. ‘What you have said is actually true: women are much less inclined to kill in hot blood than men are. The vast majority of murders around the world are committed by men and are fuelled by rage, sexual jealousy or alcohol. Or any combination of these elements. And you are also right to say male soldiers perform more aggressively in front-line combat, particularly hand-to-hand. However, when it comes to cold-blooded killing – planned, premeditated homicide – then the pendulum swings the other way. Women who kill often kill in cold blood and for motives other than rage: motives that can be quite abstract. That was why so many of my female comrades made such excellent snipers. That is why these girls are perfect for what we have planned.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Drescher. ‘The killing is only a small part of it. These girls … women … will have to exist isolated from their controls.’

  ‘That is where you come in, Major Drescher. You have a great deal of experience in Section A,’ said Adebach, referring to the ‘education’ unit of the Stasi’s HVA, responsible for training East Germany’s spies. ‘You will head up a team of instructors that will train these girls in the broadest spectrum of skills. The kind of skills they will need to infiltrate and maintain deep cover in the West.’ Adebach took his seat again.

  Drescher sipped his coffee and smiled: Rondo Melange. Drescher was a man who enjoyed good coffee. He had tasted the best around the world – in Copenhagen, in Vienna, in Paris, in London – but for Drescher nothing compared with Rondo. It was one of the few things that the GDR manufacturing monolith had managed to get right.

  ‘What do you have in mind?’ Drescher said.

  Adebach nodded to his adjutant, who passed a file to Drescher. ‘Are you familiar with the Japanese term kunoichi? The kunoichi was the female counterpart of the male ninja. Both kunoichi and ninja were trained as the ultimate assassins, but there was a recognition that gender had a role to play in how they went about their tasks. The kunoichi were expert in all forms of unarmed combat, but they were also trained in the art of seduction. They were experts on the human body, both on how to make it respond erotically and on where the weak spots were: how to kill swiftly and with the minimum of force and, whenever necessary, leaving little or no evidence of violence. They were also experts at concealment – disguising themselves as servants, prostitutes, peasants – and concealing weapons or improvising them from household objects. Added to this, the kunoichi were the ultimate poison-masters: they were trained in botany and could extemporise a deadly toxin from what they found growing around them. What we are aiming to achieve, Major Drescher, is to develop our own kunoichi force and bury it deep in the fabric of Western capitalism. These operatives will have all the skills of the kunoichi … but they will also be expert with every form of modern weapon.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Drescher. ‘I mean, why specifically this type of operation? Why now? And why are the Stasi being asked to run it?’

  ‘I’m sure the comrade major won’t mind me saying this’ – Adebach nodded in Lubimova’s direction – ‘but we have by far the best success rate in penetration of Western security services and organs of state. Of course, we enjoy an advantage that none of our allies in the Pact possesses – we speak the same language as our main opponent.’ Adebach lit a Sprachlos cigarette and drew on it slowly.

  ‘As to why we are launching this now …’ Major Lubimova picked up Adebach’s thread. ‘We need new strategies to fight the West. We need to use a scalpel rather than a blunt instrument. As you know, we have just stood down from our greatest mobilisation. Late last year the West took us to the very brink of full-scale nuclear war. We now believe that NATO did not realise how close we came to launching a pre-emptive defensive attack. The so-called “Operation Able Archer Eighty-three” turned out, after all, simply to be a NATO exercise, but it was the biggest deployment of Western arms and forces since the end of the War. The capitalists were stupid enough to make it completely accurate, right down to the transmissions they sent between command structures. Transmissions which we intercepted. Added to which, our monitoring revealed that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was in daily encrypted contact with President Reagan, often several times a day. What we didn’t know then, but do now, is that this contact was about the Americans invading Grenada, and not preparations for a major war. It was simply two imperialists squabbling over who had the colonial rights to a scrap of land.’

  ‘I can tell you, Major Drescher,’ said Adebach, ‘that the ordinary man and woman here or in the West will never know how close we came to cataclysm. The only thing that prevented all-out nuclear war was the collection and analysis of intelligence by the covert intelligence services – on both sides, it has to be said. Our agents only just managed to stop the Cold War turning hot. We have got to find new ways of striking at the enemy without escalation to war. Your department has achieved great things in infiltrating the West with intelligence gatherers. Our experience last year has emphasised just how impractical it is to use conventional military means against each other. If we have to take the fight to our enemy then we must do so on the “invisible front”. We have several operations in planning, all of which aim to use intelligence, sabotage and subversion as they have never been used before. This is one of them. These young women will become our weapons deep inside enemy territory. They may sit there in the West and never be deployed, or they may be in continual use, depending on the prevailing political situation. The main thing is that, if the need arises, they can seriously impair the enemy’s capabilities, or disrupt their plans.’

  ‘By assassination?’ Drescher refilled his coffee cup. ‘I have to say, comrade colonel, that we already have the means and personnel to carry out eliminations in hostile territory.’

  ‘We’re not talking about Scandinavian journalists or the odd errant football star,’ said Adebach, with a glance across at Mielke’s port
rait. ‘I am talking about the ability to kill key personnel, even leaders, in the West. And, where the need arises, to do so without raising suspicion. For example, we have a plan to infiltrate a Valkyrie into one of the terrorist groups we sponsor in the West.’

  ‘Valkyries?’ Drescher suppressed a grin. Barely. He knew of Adebach’s fondness for Wagner. ‘Is that what we’re going to call them? Isn’t it all a bit, well … Wagnerian? It sounds like they could have been a special division of the Nazi League of German Girls.’

  ‘That is the code name we’ve assigned to them,’ said Adebach sternly. ‘Your job, Major Drescher, is to head the team of instructors who will train these young women. Twelve girls, of whom only three will make final selection for deployment. And these final three … let me put it this way: there will never have been three assassins, three killing machines so perfect. Until then, you, comrade major, will be father, mother, confessor, teacher and keeper of these girls. It’s all in there …’ Adebach nodded to the file in Drescher’s hands. ‘Take that with you but make no copies. The status of each of these young women will be that of a UC, an Unofficial Cooperator like many of your freelance operatives. At the end of the week I want the file returned. All personal files on your students will be destroyed on completion of the training. There is to be no surviving record of the preparation and deployment of these operatives.’

  Drescher stood up. ‘Very well, but surely that is unnecessary … no outsider is ever going to set eyes on the files of the Stasi …’

  iv.

  Off the coast of Jutland, Denmark

  August 2002

  Goran Vujaić watched the blonde girl stretch languidly on the steamer chair at the stern of the yacht. Her limbs were long and lithe but she didn’t have the skinny, boyish narrowness across the hips that the other girl had. Vujaić liked his women to look like women. He sipped his beer, appreciating its chill on the hot day. And it was hot. Vujaić hadn’t expected it to be just as warm as it was. He was no great lover of the northern European climate: he belonged in the humid Mediterranean heat of the Adriatic or under the baking sun of a Balkan summer. But today the weather was good, and he could watch the girls dive from the rear of the boat into the North Sea. He would have the blonde one. That would be part of the deal, a goodwill gesture of trade: that he would get to fuck the blonde one. After all, that was what women were for. That, and being deck ornaments.

  ‘This little rowboat of yours must have cost you,’ he said to Knudsen, running his hand over the red leather and varnished teak of the recessed deck sofa. Vujaić the Bosnian Serb spoke to Knudsen the Dane in English: the international language of business. And of organised crime.

  ‘It’s worth about five million euros. But I managed to get it cost,’ said Knudsen wryly. ‘I came to an agreement with the owner. Sure you don’t want champagne?’

  ‘I’m fine with the beer just now,’ said Vujaić, glancing over his shoulder again at the girls. ‘But maybe later …’

  ‘Yes,’ said Knudsen. ‘Later you can let your hair down a little, huh, Goran? After everything is taken care of.’

  Vujaić smiled. He felt relaxed. But not relaxed enough not to have brought Zlatko along with him. Zlatko stood mutely behind them, unsheltered from the sun and sweating menacingly into his Hawaiian shirt. It amused Vujaić to think that he now had a Croat watching his back. How times had changed.

  Knudsen, a tall, tough-looking Dane, sat with Vujaić in a plush recessed area of the deck at the stern of the motor yacht. Uniformed crew members stood in the shade of the awning, far enough away not to hear the conversation, waiting to serve lunch. Vujaić breathed in deeply, as if inhaling the yacht’s odour of wealth.

  ‘You know, Peter,’ he said, ‘this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. And do you know why? Because we complement each other. Supply and demand. What you need, I can deliver. This little operation of ours will become the main trading route for major drugs into Scandinavia and Northern Germany. You and I, my friend, are about to become very, very rich. Or in your case richer. Maybe I’ll get a yacht like this – if you can find another one going at cost.’ Vujaić grinned at the blonde girl. ‘And maybe some of the fixtures too …’

  ‘Tell me, Goran,’ said Knudsen. ‘Are you sure you’ve got everything tied up at your end? I mean on the distribution side. I heard that you had problems with some of your competitors.’

  ‘Not any more. Any problems there had been were all dealt with before we first talked. I told you at our first meeting that I was totally in control of the distribution network. And I still am. I had to arrange for a few people to retire from the business. Permanently. Unfortunately I had to be more discreet than usual, so it all proved a little more expensive than expected.’

  ‘You hired an outsider?’ asked Knudsen.

  Vujaić didn’t answer for a moment. Instead he sipped his beer, keeping his gaze on the tall Dane as if weighing up how much he could trust him. Vujaić knew that Knudsen was rich. Well connected. Everything about him had checked out. But Vujaić had fought in war; often in wars where he had no place to be fighting. For the Serb, experience had taught him to divide men into two clear groups: fighting men and the others. Just like women were divided into the ones you’d fuck and old women. Knudsen bothered him: he was late forties, maybe early fifties, but there was no softening about him; none of the angles had been dulled by the good life. But there again, maybe that was just down to membership of an expensive gym.

  ‘You know I have a partner … another partner,’ Vujaić said at last, leaning forward and lowering his voice conspiratorially. This was clearly not even for Zlatko’s ears.

  ‘Yes, your other partner …’ Knudsen frowned. ‘I still don’t like it, Goran. I mean, not knowing who this third party is.’

  ‘But it doesn’t affect you, my friend. My business with my other partner has nothing to do with what we’re doing here. Just like you don’t know anything about them, they don’t know anything about you. Different businesses. I supply your pharmaceutical needs, while I’m a sort of recruitment consultant, you could say, for my other partner.’ The Serb laughed at his own in-joke. ‘And anyway, yours and mine is more of an equal partnership. Substantial as our little enterprise here is, it would be peanuts to my other associate. We’re talking about a big fish. A really big fish. They play a much bigger game than you or I do, Peter. And for stakes beyond even your reach.’

  ‘And what is their game?’ asked Knudsen.

  ‘Not drugs, if that’s what’s worrying you. Like I say, I supply them with …’ Vujaić ran his hand over the close-cropped bristle on his scalp while he considered the best description ‘… workers. And if I knew all of it, which I don’t, I couldn’t tell you about it. Anyway, as I was saying, I needed to sort out some difficulties with competitors. My other partner knows a contractor. The best in the business, apparently.’

  ‘A hit man?’

  ‘Yeah. Or maybe a hit woman, if the code name is anything to go by.’ Vujaić leaned even closer; lowered his voice more. ‘The Valkyrie. But what woman would be capable, huh, Peter? This so-called Valkyrie is based in Germany. Hamburg, apparently. He – or she – is supposed to be the best contract killer in the world.’

  ‘Better than the Mexican?’ asked Knudsen.

  ‘Carlos Ramos? Last I heard he’d quit the business. But yes. At least as good, maybe better. I mean, I could take care of things myself. God knows I took care of a lot of things back home in the nineties …’ Vujaić cast an eye over his shoulder as if to check that Zlatko could not hear him, then he turned back to the Dane. ‘But this little exercise needed a little more finesse, if you know what I mean. So, this Valkyrie took care of all of the loose ends. Made most of them look like accidents or suicide. The cops are only looking into two of them. Really nice work. Tidy. Anyway, the important thing is that you don’t need to worry about the distribution side.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Knudsen, ‘if you say so, Goran. Are you ready?’

  �
�I’m ready …’ Vujaić turned and nodded to Zlatko. The huge Croatian bodyguard laid a computer case on the deck table in front of Vujaić, who took out a slim black laptop. The Serb tapped on the keyboard and the secure bank website opened up on the screen. ‘Isn’t Bluetooth wonderful?’ He grinned.

  Knudsen beckoned to the blonde girl. She folded a wrap around herself, came over to the men and handed Knudsen a cellphone. Knudsen made two calls: both brief.

  ‘My contact has taken delivery of the merchandise,’ he said and handed the phone back to the girl.

  Vujaić closed the laptop. ‘And the transfer of the funds has been confirmed.’ He grinned at the blonde girl again, his eyes penetrating the diaphanous wrap and following the curves of her body beneath. ‘Maybe now we should celebrate. Now we can party. You want to party, honey?’

  ‘Ask the boss,’ she said. ‘It’s his yacht.’

  ‘You own everything around here?’ Vujaić asked Knudsen.

  Knudsen stood up and beckoned to the deck crew. ‘You can serve it now.’

  Vujaić didn’t have time to react.

  Suddenly the calm was shattered with a dozen voices shouting at him, commanding him to be still. The uniformed deck crew had drawn automatic weapons from where they had been hidden on the serving trolley. At the same time, the deck doors flew open and heavily armed figures in black uniforms and body armour burst out onto the deck. Vujaić heard Zlatko being wrestled to the deck behind him. There was nothing he could do. Instinct had moved his hand towards the Beretta tucked into his waistband and concealed under his loose shirt, but he checked the movement, knowing it could cost him his life.

  ‘That’s a good boy …’ The blonde whispered into his ear in English, simultaneously jabbing the barrel of her service automatic painfully into the soft, stubble-covered flesh under his jaw. ‘Wanted to fuck me, did you, Goran? I’ve got news for you, you piece of shit – you’re the one who’s fucked …’