by Mark O'Neill
The Scorpion was delighted. Krause had delivered as promised. A full list of Meyer’s public appearances for the next three months. And in the end, it had cost him absolutely nothing, except one dead body.
He knew that now the list had been compromised, the chancellery would be cancelling all non-essential appearances. But there were some which could not be cancelled, due to long-standing arrangements, protocol, and family reasons.
He started highlighting all of the possibilities, thinking about how potentially he would do each one. Then the hotel room phone rang. He froze. He was inclined to ignore it, but hotel management knew he was in his room. Not answering the phone would look a bit suspicious.
He picked up the receiver. "Yes" he said quietly.
A muffled voice replied "I know who you are Scorpion, and don’t hang up because you need to hear this. Schäfer has been arrested by the government, and he is ready to trade your physical description for a deal. He is being transferred back to police headquarters. Do you want the route? Say yes or no now".
The Scorpion thought quickly. It could be a police trap, but could he afford to take that chance? Plus if it was the police, they already knew where he was. Why weren’t they crashing his door down to arrest him?
"Yes, I want it".
Three minutes later, he had grabbed his few belongings and escaped out the back service door of the hotel.
How had the caller known where he was hiding? The Scorpion could start to feel the whole edifice starting to shake and fall down.
Chapter Ten
Schäfer blinked from the sudden bright sunlight, as he was taken outside into the courtyard of the building, where he had been held. His wrists and ankles were tightly shackled and his once-pristine suit was now covered in dried blood and dirt.
Tall swarthy intelligence agents pushed Schäfer forward roughly, and propelled him towards the open car waiting for them. When he was tightly secured inside, the gate to the courtyard opened and the car began to slowly navigate its way out into the street.
The streets were narrow and not the best for a large armour-plated SUV. So they had to keep their speed slower than they normally would have liked. But they were not worried, as nobody knew the prisoner was being transported. And the windows were tinted black so seeing who was in the back seat was impossible.
But the Scorpion didn’t need to be able to see who was in the back, because he already knew. He had been given the location of the safe house, and the number plate of the vehicle. Which is all he needed.
He was standing on the roof of the building opposite. In his hand was a Russian RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher. A bit battered from years of use and various owners. But still working and still deadly efficient.
He waited until the car drew closer, taking care to conceal himself behind a chimney as much as possible.
Then he fired.
The rocket roared out of the launcher and arced down towards the car. The Scorpion had aimed it for just under the front wheels, so that the force of the blast would envelope the underbelly of the car, and lift it into the air.
He succeeded beautifully. The rocket hit under the front number plate head on and the resulting explosion quickly engulfed the outside of the car. The force of the blast propelled the vehicle into the air and as it rose, the petrol tank ignited, turning the car into a deadly fireball. It then dropped like a rock back onto the street and exploded again.
But with its close proximity to the other cars parked in the street, the explosion of the vehicle set off a devastating chain reaction. Cars exploded one after another, causing horrific damage.
Windows shattered, car alarms wailed, people screamed.
The Scorpion was shocked. He didn’t expect to make this much mess. He always strived to be very clinical in his work. To him, this was too messy and sloppy. He knew better than this. But the mysterious caller had given him absolutely no time to prepare. He had to wing it and this was the result.
At least Schäfer was dead. That was the main thing.
Throwing the RPG into a bag, he sprinted towards the back of the building where a rope had been tied, which he would use to abseil down the side to the alleyway below. He just hoped he could get away unseen.
Meanwhile, the sound of the brutal explosion had attracted Decker, Schmitz, and the others inside the building. They ran outside and down the street, but were forced back by the force of the flames, smoke, and heat. It was obvious to everyone there was no survivors in the car. There were also innocent civilians lying dead or injured in the street. In short, it was an unmitigated disaster.
"How many agents were in that car?" asked Decker, sombrely.
"Four" said Schmitz. "You can say goodbye to that description now".
"It has to be the Scorpion who did this" said an agent, looking up at the opposite buildings. "Who told him Schäfer was being moved?"
"I can tell you now" said Decker angrily, "that when I find out who it was, they will die”.
With Unterwald and Wagner’s help, the incident was quickly declared a matter of national security and the civilian authorities were ordered to stand down. But this didn’t stop Fischer from coming to see the remains of the blackened vehicle for himself.
"I hope he suffered" was all he had to say, when he saw what was left of the car. He turned and looked at Decker. "you know who did this don’t you?"
Decker paused for a moment. "Yes" she said finally, "but I can’t tell you who it was. Let’s just say Schäfer was ready to give up an even bigger fish in exchange for a deal. No deal was ever agreed upon. It was all in his head. But we didn’t disabuse him of the idea. We wanted that other person".
“So this other person decided to remove the threat first?".
Fischer was nothing if not perceptive.
"It looks like it, yes" said Decker.
“And ended up taking out the entire street in the process” said Fischer, “talk about making sure”.
Scorpion dumped the RPG in the River Spree, and made his way to another hotel. This time, he used a different fake identity and he wore a heavy disguise. The ID he had been using in the last hotel was obviously compromised so that had been burnt.
After getting inside the room, he shaved, had a long hot shower and then changed into fresh clothes. Putting the disguise back on, he ordered room service, and when it arrived, he pulled off the wig, beard, and clear lens glasses.
He then ravenously tucked into his steak, the blood dripping out of it when he stabbed it with his fork. He hadn’t eaten in almost 14 hours, which was not normal for him. The Scorpion liked to eat.
When he was finished, he took Meyer’s schedule from his pocket, which by now was creased and dirty, and ran his finger down the list. He resolved to get this job done as soon as possible, as he was starting to get sick of it.
The chances of getting the other ten million Euros were virtually impossible now. It was sitting in escrow, and with Schäfer now dead and his associates in prison, there was nobody on their side to authorise the release of the money. That meant his fee for the job was now ten million Euros, the amount he had been paid at the very start. Not an amount to be sniffed at, but since the danger had multiplied greatly, and he would have to disappear for the rest of his life afterwards, losing the other ten million angered him greatly.
Of course, he could disappear with the money without doing the job. But although Schäfer was dead and his empire more or less dismantled by the state, the Scorpion didn’t know how many others would be willing to come after Scorpion on Schäfer’s behalf.
Besides, he was now pissed off. He wanted to finish the job. His professional pride was at stake now.
Meyer was going to die.
The Scorpion took a pen and circled one of the events on the list.
That was where he would do it.
Chapter Eleven
"What the hell happened, Captain?"
Meyer turned from her office window and stared at Decker, who stood stiffly at at
tention.
"This is supposed to be a top-secret warehouse, operated by the security services. Only a handful of people knew Schäfer was being moved. But despite that, the Scorpion managed to intercept the vehicle, kill Schäfer, four highly trained government agents, and eight civilians, then escape the scene again. Please feel free to interrupt me Captain, if I am misrepresenting any of the facts. I wouldn’t want to unfairly paint you in a bad light".
"No, you’re right so far". Decker’s mood was grim. She had heard of Meyer’s explosive tempers, and this sounded like the prelude to one.
"And now any chance we have had of identifying the Scorpion is now completely gone".
"Yes"
"Tell me there’s an upside to all of this".
"As you said, only a handful of people knew Schäfer was being moved. Those inside the safe house, including Schmitz and I, and Unterwald here at the chancellery. And of course the agents inside the car. But I highly doubt one of them would throw away his life by telling an assassin which car to hit".
"Unless you are blaming Unterwald, which I would strongly caution against, I suggest you focus your attention on the agents inside the building" said Meyer, sitting back down behind her desk. "I will have to assume it wasn’t you or Schmitz. That leaves the others that were with you inside. I assume they are being checked out and questioned?".
"Yes, Schmitz is doing it. Their phones have been confiscated and they are being individually questioned. They’re obviously furious they are under suspicion, but quite frankly I don’t care".
"Fine" said Meyer, "so do you have any clue where the Scorpion is likely to try to go for me?"
"Looking at what remains of your schedule, yeah, I have a pretty good idea where".
The Scorpion, in yet another one of his disguises, walked past the target location, and scouted around to find its doors. Before going into any building, the Scorpion needed to know where the alternate escape route was.
This policy had saved his life on many occasions, and on one job, when he hadn’t bothered to check for an alternate route, he had to throw himself through a window to get away. Needless to say, the pain from that was agonising and he was lucky to escape with relatively little scars from the glass.
So from that point on, he resolved never to go into another building without knowing all the ways to get out of it again.
The street itself was pretty busy, with lots of people walking with their kids, or talking on their phones. Kids were nosy people and phones meant cameras and videos. All of that made him nervous, and for a long moment, he reconsidered whether or not this was the best place to hit Meyer.
Yes, he decided to himself. This was the ideal place. For many reasons.
He knew the security would be intense, but every place had weaknesses. The biggest weakness was overconfidence. Security details made the mistake of thinking weapons and overwhelming numbers would make them the victor in any fight. But the Scorpion had learned that all you needed was a disguise to slip past. If you could do that, all the weapons and manpower in the world wouldn’t matter one tiny bit.
Besides, he liked a challenge, and his professional pride was at stake. If he could pull this off, people would be whispering his name for years. He would become a legend.
Decker met up with Schmitz inside the Chancellery. He was coming down a corridor, looking intensely at a file folder and frowning.
"How is it going with the background checks?"
"All of them have come back clean as a whistle" said Schmitz, "but considering that Krause also had a whiter than white reputation, I am not putting too much faith in the rest of the detail. It will be immensely unfair to the innocent ones, but until this situation is resolved, I am rotating the rest of the detail off the Chancellery and bringing in new faces".
"That will make you as popular as a kick in the balls" said Decker, wryly.
"Better a few hurt egos than a dead chancellor and a rampaging chief of staff" replied Schmitz. “The protection detail are professionals. They’ll get over it”.
"Any ideas yet as to where Krause got his immaculate new identity from?"
"That’s the other thing bothering me" said Schmitz, "without an original identity, I can’t look up the name to see who issued him with the Krause name. But he is absolutely nowhere else. His fingerprints are not on any database, except for when he applied to join the Federal Police. And he is not on any criminal databases, either here or abroad. Facial recognition gave us squat".
"I have a nasty feeling he has someone in the government protecting him" said Decker, "Meyer doesn’t have a whole lot of fans, especially in the Intelligence community. I can easily see a disgruntled senior spook covering up for the Scorpion, supplying him with weapons and advance information. We obviously can’t prove it at the moment, but we have to assume it until we know otherwise. That means keeping everything to ourselves".
"Lying to Meyer and Unterwald?" said Schmitz, surprised.
"Even that" said Decker, "call it ‘saving them from themselves’"
"I call it the fast track to getting fired" said Schmitz, "but whatever. You’re the boss".
The Scorpion did one final check of the property before the planned hit the next day. He had disguised himself as a homeless alcoholic, which he was capable of pulling off very well. When he had left the Legion, he was briefly homeless and alcoholic, so he was doing what he already knew.
There were already men in suits there, which the Scorpion assumed to be bodyguards. They were securing the perimeter of the building, checking doors and windows, and doing a thorough search of the interior and exterior of the building.
The Scorpion had to admire their thoroughness and resourcefulness, but he knew such measures were useless. He already knew how to get in. They would let him march right through the front door. The simplicity of it made him want to laugh out loud.
Before someone got suspicious and decided to question him, the Scorpion decided it was time to leave. He knew he would eventually have to trust in luck and do it. The opportunity he had been handed tomorrow was a priceless one which would probably not come up again for a long time. He did not intend to wait that long.
Tomorrow was a go.
Tomorrow, the Chancellor of Germany, Claudia Meyer, would be dead, and the whole world would be shaken to its core.
Chapter Twelve
Meyer’s public appearance was set for two o’clock in the afternoon, and she was scheduled to stay for no more than a couple of hours. But the Scorpion was already up and about early, as he needed to make a visit first.
The one thing he had learned from many years in the job was that, in order to circumvent security, the best way was to pose as someone they were expecting. It was strangers that stood out. It was strangers they questioned more closely. But if they were expecting a certain person in a certain role, they were less likely to look too closely.
Of course there was a first time for everything. So the whole theory could quite easily go wrong very quickly. In which case he would have to improvise, and he was no good at improvisation.
Stealing a car which was parked on a quiet street, the Scorpion drove to another area of the city. He had the person’s address, which he had found on the Internet the previous day. As he had thought before, people put too much on the Internet, and giving away his address was going to get this man killed.
The Scorpion finally saw the small house and saw to his satisfaction that it was surrounded by a tall fence. Even better, there didn’t seem to be any dogs. It wasn’t long ago that he had gone to kill a target and his German Shepherd had leapt out and planted its teeth in his leg. He had no desire to go through all that again. There were days when his leg still ached from the bite.
There was also nobody walking in the street, and a quick examination of neighbouring houses revealed nobody looking at him suspiciously. He couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, so he had to hope his luck was in today.
He got out of the car cautiously, and keeping h
is head down, walked towards the garden gate. Cautiously pressing the latch, he realised the gate was unlocked and it swung open.
Unbelievable. This was almost starting to get too easy.
Closing the gate, he walked up to the front door of the house, and rang the bell.
"Yes?". A woman appeared at the door, looking at the Scorpion curiously.
"Hello, are you Frau Winkler?"
"Yes, that’s right"
"I was wondering if your husband was home, Frau Winkler. I have a possible job for him".
Frau Winkler frowned. "Well..we really don’t like people coming to the door. It would be much better if you called him at his office tomorrow morning".
"But he is here?" pressed Scorpion.
"Yes" she said finally with great reluctance.
"Good" said Scorpion, who pulled out a silenced gun and shot her in the head.
Frau Winkler fell back onto the hallway floor with a crash. The Scorpion quickly came in and closed the door behind him. Examining the body, he could see that the bullet had hit Frau Winkler dead centre between the eyes. The eyes themselves were half-open, as if her final seconds were consumed with how disappointed she was at her untimely demise.
"Gretl?". The uncertain and nervous voice came from upstairs. “Is everything OK dear? I heard a noise. Did you drop something?”
Before the Scorpion could move to the stairs, he could hear Herr Winkler coming down. Obviously, the lack of a response from his wife made him concerned for her well-being.
The Scorpion ran into a side-room and waited for Herr Winkler to come down and reveal himself. When he finally did, he gave a shout of horror and rushed towards the corpse in the hallway. The Scorpion could see it was Herr Winkler, the man he had come for.
Pointing the gun straight-ahead at eye-level, he moved out of the room. Winkler saw him, and looked terrified.