by Rob Sinclair
He wasn’t hit, but the soft squelch that two of the bullets made told him that Haroun was. Aydin didn’t have time to think about who was shooting or who the target was, instead he let his instincts guide him and when the blasting of the immediate assault paused a moment later, he burst up from the sofa and hurled the knife at the first thing he saw moving: the arcing beam of a small flashlight.
There were two lights in fact, he realised as he jumped forward over the top of the sofa, just as the knife hit home and there was a cry of pain.
Aydin was on the first dark figure immediately, grabbed him and twisted him round. Three more shots were fired. Two from the second man, and both the bullets hit the guy Aydin was holding. Together with the knife, Aydin was sure he was done for. The third shot was from the now dead guy’s gun, either an accident or a shot of desperation as Aydin wrestled for control. A good shot, though, from Aydin’s point of view, because he saw the torchlight of the second man collapse to the ground, and he knew exactly where the stray bullet had landed.
Aydin wrenched the suppressed gun from the man he was holding and the body dropped to the ground. He shone the light attached to the weapon over to his companion. He was on the ground, moaning and groaning and gargling. Aydin took a step forward and pulled the barrel up, pointed at the man’s head, ready to finish him off. He didn’t care much who he was.
Before he could pull the trigger there was a rush of air from his right, where the door was, and an unseen figure barged into him and the two of them crashed against the back of the nearest sofa and then to the ground.
‘You idiot!’ Itnashar yelled as they grappled on the ground.
Aydin quickly gained the upper hand and just a few seconds later he was in control, straddling his brother, the suppressor of the gun pressed up against Itnashar’s forehead, the light underneath the barrel blazing in his eyes.
‘I don’t want to kill you,’ Aydin said, the honesty in his words surprisingly strong given the position they were in. But it was true. Whatever had happened today, it wasn’t really of their making. From nine years old they’d been through so much together and Aydin didn’t blame Itnashar for what he’d done. Sometimes there really wasn’t a choice. ‘I don’t want to kill you, Itnashar, but I will. Unless you do what I tell you.’
‘You fucked up, Talatashar. Whether or not you kill me, there’s no way back for you.’
‘That doesn’t mean it’s over. Not for me, and not for you.’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘No, I’m not. I’m going to get off you. And you’re going to open that lab door. You’re going to get your computer, and you’re going to give me the addresses of every single one of our brothers.’
‘What! How––’
‘I know you have that information. Please. You don’t want to end up like Haroun. Do you?’
Itnashar said nothing to that, just huffed loudly. It was still dark in the room and he hadn’t yet seen what Aydin had done to his administrator – but he had seen what Aydin had done to others. Starting with that day back at the Farm.
‘Get the lights back on,’ Aydin said.
‘You need my phone. It’s in my pocket.’
Without moving the gun from Itnashar’s head, Aydin shifted just enough to allow his hand to feel around his brother’s waist, until it brushed the form of a phone under the material of his jeans. Aydin reached into the pocket and pulled out the device.
‘Now what?’ Aydin said, still not taking his eyes off Itnashar.
‘If you free my hands I’ll do it.’
‘Don’t be stupid. Just tell me.’
‘Figure it out yourself then.’
Aydin ground his teeth in anger. Itnashar was playing for time. The longer the lights stayed out the more chance there was that the neighbours would start roaming and someone would happen over them and call the police. Or maybe he already had back-up coming. What Aydin needed was to get the lights back on and the apartment door closed so he could finish this. Quickly and in private.
But there was no chance he was giving the phone to Itnashar. Among his many other gizmos he no doubt had a red alert rigged in there somewhere and it would only take him a second to trigger it, perhaps without Aydin even knowing.
‘Sorry,’ Aydin said to him.
In a fluid motion he stood up and pointed the gun down and pulled the trigger and there was another suppressed crack and a flash of light as the bullet tore out of the gun and smacked into Itnashar’s knee. Aydin dove back down to stifle Itnashar’s harrowing scream. Still holding on to the phone, he clasped his forearm tightly over his brother’s mouth as he fought through the agony – his other hand pushing the gun barrel against Itnashar’s temple.
Aydin didn’t trust that his brother wouldn’t find a way to fight back if he took his sight from him for more than a second, so he flicked his eyes from the phone screen and then back to him, back and forth, over and over, as he quickly navigated through the phone. He found the homemade app in a few seconds, but he needed a code to open it.
‘I’m going to take my arm away from your mouth,’ Aydin said. ‘No screaming, just give me the code. If you don’t, I’ll shoot the same fucking knee again and again until your damn leg falls off. Got it?’
Itnashar nodded. Aydin took his arm away.
‘Four, four, one, eight . . . five, four,’ Itnashar said, grimacing with each number.
Aydin punched the digits in and within seconds there was that clunk again and the lights were back on and the hum of electricity returned to his ears. Taking a calculated risk he jumped up from Itnashar and strode over to the front door. Out in the corridor he heard talking among the other residents, asking each other questions about what was happening, but no one sounded particularly panicked – just inconvenienced about the blackout – and he didn’t see anyone on their level as he pushed the door closed and locked it.
With the lights back on Aydin quickly took stock of the two men on the floor in front of him. He saw now it was the same two from earlier. One was very clearly dead. The handle of the knife was sticking out from his chest and he had a bullet in his shoulder and in his neck, and a wide pool of blood underneath him. The other man had a circle of blood on his chest where his friend shot him. There was no sign of him being alive either, though Aydin didn’t stop to check because out of the corner of his eye he saw Itnashar hauling himself to his feet.
Aydin marched over and reached out and took Itnashar’s weight then helped him over to the sofa.
‘I can’t believe you shot me,’ Itnashar said, grimacing, though his manner was surprisingly placid and almost jovial.
‘I can’t believe you and your goons tried to kill me,’ Aydin said in return with less warmth.
Itnashar said nothing to that. Aydin grabbed Haroun’s shirt from the floor and tore off the sleeve. Itnashar was staring over at his ex-administrator. Not at the two bullet holes in his abdomen but at the bloody mess of his left foot.
‘I need the codes,’ Aydin said to Itnashar, as if in explanation. He grabbed Itnashar’s leg by the ankle and wound the cloth around above the knee, tying it tightly. ‘Get me into your computer. Once I have the addresses I’ll leave.’
Itnashar shook his head. ‘Listen to yourself. What do you expect will happen to you next? Where did you go so wrong?’
How could Aydin possibly answer a question like that?
‘Just do it.’
Itnashar sighed. ‘It needs my fingerprint, not just the code,’ he said, looking over to the keypad by the lab door.
‘Fine,’ Aydin said.
He grabbed Itnashar under the armpit and lifted him back to his feet then helped him to hobble over. Itnashar first placed his finger onto the small pad before he typed in the six-digit code and there was a bleep of acknowledgement.
‘Key?’ Aydin said.
‘Pocket.’
Aydin fished around and found the key and turned it in the lock and pushed open the door. He let go of Itnashar, who hopped forwar
d, holding on to the metal racking to keep himself upright. He opened the laptop on the shelf in front of him and pressed the standby button. The screen flicked on and Aydin watched as Itnashar punched in yet another six-digit code.
‘The information I have might not even be right any more. You know only Wahid has all the details.’
‘Let me worry about that.’
Aydin heard movement behind him. He turned, holding the gun out. It was the man on the ground. He was still alive – just. Though he wasn’t looking like he was about to jump up and tackle anyone, so Aydin didn’t bother to fire. But the distraction was enough for Itnashar. Aydin heard the scrape of metal on metal as Itnashar picked up the hidden weapon, and he spun round to see the blade of a knife arcing towards his neck. He tried to step back but, stuck in the doorway to the lab, there wasn’t enough space to escape, so he lifted up his arm just as the knife swooshed across. The blade cut into his flesh and a stinging pain swept through his limb and up his shoulder, all the way into the bundle of nerves in his neck.
Acting on pure adrenaline and survival instinct, Itnashar was quickly bringing the knife back round for a second attempt. Aydin kicked out, against the side of Itnashar’s injured knee, and he screamed in pain as his leg buckled. The blow took all the strength from his attack and Aydin grabbed his wrist, twisted, and pulled the knife free. Itnashar was already falling to the ground from the leg strike, and Aydin dropped down with him, landing on top, both his hands around the grip of the knife as he plunged it deep into his brother’s chest.
Aydin pushed the knife further and Itnashar gargled and spluttered as his chest swallowed up the blade.
‘I’m sorry, my friend,’ Aydin said to him, feeling an unexpected well of sorrow and regret as he watched the life fading from Itnashar’s now goggly eyes.
‘Your sister . . .’ Itnashar struggled to say. ‘She knew . . . too much. About . . . your father.’
The next second the dying man went still.
Aydin stayed there, looking into Itnashar’s death stare for just a few seconds, those last words sloshing around his brain. But he was afforded no more time than that for remorse, or for wondering exactly how his trip to Bruges, like London, had ended so tragically, because he soon heard the faint noise of sirens. Police. Alerted by a neighbour, perhaps? Or had Itnashar somehow sent a call for help?
It really didn’t matter. Aydin couldn’t stay any longer. He dragged the knife out of Itnashar’s chest and quickly wiped it clean on his dead brother’s shirt. He stood up and slammed shut the laptop, grabbed it and moved across the apartment. He picked up his backpack and stuffed what he needed inside, then headed for the door.
THIRTY-TWO
Berlin, Germany
The interior of the police-run warehouse on the outskirts of Berlin was brightly lit and modern with shiny grey lino floors and white-painted walls and LED lighting. The remnants of the burned-out van were in front of Cox, the contents from the vehicle laid out all around it in neat lines on top of plastic sheets.
‘How far have you got in identifying the victims?’ Cox asked in German. Polizeikommissar Rahn of the Landeskriminalamt – the criminal investigation division of the state police – raised an eyebrow at Cox’s near perfect pronunciation, though said nothing of it. Rahn was a similar age to Cox though she carried an air of superiority that was already grating and Cox had only been in the room with her for ten minutes. With short dark hair, Rahn was short and plump though her face was thin and, every now and then, there was a glimpse that a human perhaps lay beyond the usual hard glare.
‘Not far,’ Rahn said, replying in her native tongue. ‘The bodies are all but cremated.’
Cox looked across the six small piles of ash and bone that equated to the entire remains of the six victims.
‘We’re hoping there may be some DNA still intact within the bone or teeth fragments but it’s going to be hard to retrieve, and it will take us some time to do the testing.’
‘Is there anything at all you’ve found so far?’
Rahn gazed over the findings as if wracking her brain. Cox knew Rahn was the lead investigator, so in theory she would know more than anyone else, but so far Cox had been hitting brick walls with her. Perhaps Rahn just didn’t like that Cox was coming onto her patch. In her experience police officers were quite often like that. Cox’s cover in Berlin was that of an Interpol agent – a legend she’d used previously in Europe. Flannigan had done the leg work to get Cox access to the crime scene evidence though it was clear her presence wasn’t fully welcomed by Rahn, who was openly suspicious as to the reason for Interpol’s interest – not that she’d questioned it. Yet.
‘We believe each of the victims was an adult male. Simply because of the size of the bones and the teeth we have. But that’s just a guess. And really it could even be less than six men. There were six piles of remains, we thought, but perhaps the bodies were already in pieces when they were burned and that’s why the parts were separated.’
Cox felt herself shiver at the gruesome thoughts running through her mind. Rahn on the other hand acted as though this was the most normal thing in the world. Cox knew little of the policewoman, other than she was an inspector who worked largely in organised crime. As well as her unflinching manner, Cox also got the impression that Rahn wasn’t overly fussed about the deaths of the men, as though she’d already written it off to gang violence and that nobody would really care about the victims or about catching the killers.
But Cox was still holding out hope that there was more to the story than that.
Her eyes scanned over the remains of the van and the contents that had been taken from the inside. She understood from Rahn that her team had been busy the last two days simply cataloguing the various fragments in a vain attempt to find something useful in the charred remains. They hadn’t any tangible leads yet though.
‘What do you think that is?’ Cox asked, looking over to a rounded piece of metal sheet.
‘A container of some sort,’ Rahn said. ‘What’s left of it anyway.’
Cox had a blurred thought in her mind, but it didn’t take hold and she quickly moved on, trying to find something else to follow.
‘Was anything found inside the building?’
‘Nothing obvious. There was an area of floor that had been bleached. Probably recently, given the smell. We’ve sent samples for tests, again looking for traces of blood and DNA, but we don’t have results yet.’
‘So it’s possible the victims were killed inside the warehouse?’
‘Possible. Or maybe they were burned alive in the van. But we very definitely did find some blood traces outside. It’s much harder to clean the blood up from broken tarmac.’
‘But you haven’t matched that blood to anyone?’
‘I’d have told you if we had. Do you understand the process of DNA identification?’
Rahn asked the question as though Cox was an idiot. ‘Actually, yes I do.’
‘Then you’ll know that we can only identify someone from their DNA if we have it on record, or if we have something else to match it to – something that belonged to them, a hairbrush perhaps. Yes, it is likely we’ll get some useful sequences from the blood traces; after all, we can amplify the DNA from as little as ten or twenty cells, but unless we have something to match against it’s meaningless.’
‘What about CCTV?’ Cox asked, her brain whirring with different thoughts.
‘What CCTV? Have you seen where this van was found?’
Cox hadn’t, but she knew it was an abandoned warehouse on a road filled with abandoned warehouses. But still, the van had got there from somewhere. And whoever lit the fire had to escape somehow. If they looked in the right places there would be a trail that could help to identify both the victims and the culprits, and more importantly, why.
‘Do you have a map of the area, of street cameras, of businesses nearby?’
Rahn sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Cox, I know my boss told me to look after you, but I r
eally don’t have time to be watching endless hours of CCTV tapes today. We’ll get to it but I have much more pressing matters.’
Cox didn’t bother to ask what was more pressing than identifying six murder victims.
‘Then let me do it,’ she said. ‘Just show me how.’
Rahn glared at Cox for a few seconds as though she wasn’t yet sold on the idea. Cox had to hope that at least this way Rahn would be satisfied that Cox was out of her hair. ‘Fine,’ Rahn said eventually. ‘Come on, let’s go back to the office.
Cox looked over to the van again and paused. The thought that had been gnawing away at the back of her mind returned.
‘What colour did you say the van was?’
‘The VIN number we found on the engine block indicates it was white.’
Cox walked over to the van. The metal panelling of the vehicle was crumpled and melted in places, though the basic shape remained. There was certainly no white paintwork visible any more, everything was simply black.
Well, almost everything.
‘What would you say that is?’ Cox said, pointing to a spot on the inside wall of the van where the soot looked like it had been washed away, revealing a blueish tinge on the bare metal surface underneath.
‘It was raining heavily the night it was found. It’s lucky because the rain helped to keep the fire under control. Sort of. Probably helped to preserve the little we have left. We covered the evidence as soon as we could but still, what you’re seeing there is just the effect of the rain.’
‘No, it’s not the smudging I’m asking about. It’s the blue colouring. It’s a white van, so what’s the blue?’
Rahn now looked confused. Cox wasn’t sure whether the inspector had no clue what she was getting at, or whether she was deep in thought and on the verge of processing the potential significance.
‘I said the van was registered as white,’ Rahn said, clearly not yet there, ‘but who knows what colour it ended up as. It was stolen. Maybe the thieves re-sprayed it.’