Fuelling the Fire

by Roland Ladley

  In the third, he wore the same jeans—and she could see more of his face, so she knew it was him. But he wore a red hoodie, which also had a Bayern Munich logo on its front. He had different shoes on this time—dark army-style boots—could be German Army para boots. He was throwing a brick or a rock in the shot, his shortened sleeve exposing a watch. It was a silver-grey TAG Heuer. She zoomed in. She could clearly make out the red-and-green maker’s mark. It could be fake, but that didn’t matter.

  She sent all three photos to herself so that she could show them to Wolfgang later without having to access the secure cloud.

  She checked her watch again. It was 12.25.

  Sam unzoomed the last image, leaning back in the chair and taking in the whole scene. The photo was of a demonstration in a small town called Hoyerswerda. Reading the attached notes, it appeared that the group had come together under no particular banner, probably called to arms by a transient Facebook page. They were protesting against an influx of Syrian and Afghan refugees who had been afforded accommodation in the local church. The protest was ugly; a number of police had been hurt and three protesters arrested. But not Herr Bischoff this time.

  It was all pitiful. The whole thing. Xenophobia on the front line. Racism at its worst. The image on her monitor disgusted and unnerved her. She involuntarily shivered.

  Then Sam stopped thinking. Her mind went completely blank. Except for one thought: no, it can’t be? She felt her heart beating loudly between her ears, trying to escape. Her mouth went dry.

  She physically shook herself. And then focused back in on the image.

  Gently, as if she were defusing a bomb, she used her left hand to get a close-up of a man at the back of the crowd. A man she had previously ignored because he wasn’t in the thick of the riot. She zoomed in until it started to pixelate. Quickly, she pressed an icon at the bottom of the screen and Doris’s image-sharpening processor spun into life.

  There he was. Bold as brass.

  She knew she was right. The black man she was looking at had a can of Diet Pepsi in one hand—the same drink he’d reached for when he’d got out of the black Terrano in the training camp in Yemen. And he had a mobile phone attached to his ear in the other.

  Ralph Bell; my other friend from Sierra Leone. My God. You’re like a bad penny. Turning up all over the place.

  What on earth was he doing in Germany eighteen months ago?

  Flight BA136, Heathrow Airport, London

  It had been a rush to get to the airport and meet up with Wolfgang. As soon as she met him, he couldn’t stop talking at her about the dead man in the flat and his new list of “energy worthies” among the crash victims. What Sam actually wanted was to settle on the plane for two hours of nothing much.

  The aircraft taxied down the runway. At least now she was sitting down.

  “Well, what do you think, Sam?”

  “Sorry, Wolfgang, about what?” She was almost ready to focus, but not quite. Her mind still had momentum, moving with the flow of passengers, herded from place to place by the meanderings of Terminal 1.

  She was no good at airports. That was because somebody else was responsible for her; all that “go here,” “stand there,” and “put your bags through this.” She much preferred to be in charge, especially of her own destiny. If she never had to check in again, it would be too soon.

  “You know, the man hanged in the apartment?”

  Wolfgang was fidgety. All excited.

  She looked at him, a resigned, half smile signifying that he was too over-the-top for her at the moment. It seemed to make him shut up. For a moment.

  “Thanks, Wolfgang.” She gently touched his knee, stepping onto, but not over that boy/girl line. “It’s been quite a day. And I have some stuff for you, but let me finish this first.” She pointed at the complimentary pretzels and a glass of red wine. “And then we can start.”

  He smiled at her, pushed his head back onto the seat rest, and closed his eyes. Almost immediately he opened the one closest to Sam to check that she was still looking at him. She was.

  “Five minutes,” Sam added sternly.

  He closed the errant eye, nodded, and relaxed, breathing out loudly through his nose.

  Sam’s biggest problem at the moment was Ralph Bell. She knew her discovery was huge, and it was key in some way that she didn’t yet understand. But what to do? She could have exposed the whole Wolfgang thing to Jane this afternoon, which, even now, still seemed so off-the-wall that she didn’t want to have that conversation. Short of that, there didn’t seem to be any way of casually letting Jane know she’d found a picture of Bell at an antimigration riot in Germany eighteen months ago.

  Straight after the discovery, she had decided to exercise in the gym. During her six-kilometre run, she had come to the conclusion that she’d leave Ralph Bell until after the weekend. Something might come up with Wolfgang that would allow her to have a conversation with Jane that didn’t start with “I met this German count in the Alps. He’s a plane-spotter . . .”

  But, had she made the right decision? Doubtless, the CIA would want to know immediately of any new intel on Ralph Bell. And Jane would be furious if she found out that Sam was withholding key intelligence.

  And what about Bischoff, the Stasi link and David? She’d finished her run before she had any time to explore that link in any detail.

  She’d expose nothing for the moment. Decision made—for now. And that was that.

  Trying to push the Ralph Bell image to one side, she’d spent the rest of the afternoon on Ukraine, where she had found one more Russian. Which was a positive. She had typed up the report and winged it off to Jane. Unusually, she had left work promptly at five, telling Frank that she would be spending the weekend in Germany, “staying in a castle.” To which he had replied, “And I’ve got a hot date with Angelina, who’s on the rebound after Brad decided to leave her for another man.”

  London’s best transport system had still made a forty-minute tube journey to Heathrow into one that lasted an hour and a half. Sam had rushed through the terminal to meet up with Wolfgang just before the gate closed. He had met her with a smile. Which had been nice. Now her mind drifted as the glass of red wine took effect.

  The aircraft bumped a bit in some turbulence. It broke what little train of thought she was having.

  She was ready now. She spoke without looking at Wolfgang, who, she could sense, still had his eyes closed.

  “I could recognise Herr Bischoff at a thousand metres now. I know his whole wardrobe and what make of watch he wears. I also know where he lives.” Further digging into the Interpol database had handed over the last piece of information.

  Wolfgang kept his eyes closed.

  “And I have ten individuals, nine men and one woman, who were at the cutting edge of new methods of energy generation, before their lives were cut short by a sudden drop in air pressure.” He opened his eyes quickly and turned his head to her. “Sorry, Sam, that was insensitive, what with your Uncle Peter.”

  Sam smiled. I seem to do that a lot when Wolfgang is around.

  “And what about the Brit in New York?”

  He half turned in his chair, his face alive. His hands were scrunched together, white showing where the skin was tight over his knuckles.

  “I can’t be sure because the e-mail tracking only goes as far as a central junction box, which can supply up to eight individual lines. But, I reckon that the man who tried to hack my machine earlier this week killed himself. Can you believe that?”

  Sam stared away from Wolfgang, looking down the aisle. Thinking.

  “Or, he was murdered.” It was a casual statement from Sam. But its enormity wasn’t lost on her.

  She turned to face him and took a deep breath.

  “We have to be clear, Wolfgang, that this is not a game. Don’t ask me how I know, but I can tell you that people like this, like the ones who sent you the message, are ruthless. Deadly. I don’t mean to repeat myself, but it’s not a game. Trus
t me.”

  She touched his leg again.

  Schloss Neuenburg, German/Czech Border

  Sam was up early, had a quick shower in a wet room the size of Lower Saxony, and dressed in a pair of jeans, a pink cotton shirt, and a turquoise Lowe Alpine fleece—another T.K. Maxx special. She took out a paisley silk scarf that she’d been given for Christmas. It wasn’t really her, but she’d brought it with her in deference to the fact that she was staying in a castle. Oh, what the hell. She put it on.

  She packed the rest of her things away in her carry-on bag and headed down the stairs toward where she thought she remembered the kitchen was. At one point she wasn’t quite sure she was using the right staircase. However, a full-length portrait of an elderly man with Wolfgang’s eyes, standing alongside a stringed instrument bigger than a cello—is it called a double bass?—reminded her that she’d seen him yesterday on the way up to bed.

  “Morning, Sam.”

  Her thoughts were broken by Wolfgang coming into the kitchen. She was standing by one of the pine worktops, staring at a very elaborate espresso machine that had too many buttons to decipher. She felt clueless.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Eh, yes, thanks. The bed is bigger than the queen-size one I have in the flat. I didn’t realise they made them that big. I’ll have to get a new one.”

  “We Germans like our sleep, Sam. Hence the bed and the feather duvets. All designed to help you recover from a hard day at the brewery.”

  She laughed and continued. “I’d offer you some coffee, but the espresso machine here has more dials than a hydroelectric power station. I’d be frightened of opening the sluice gates and drowning a small valley nearby.”

  It was his turn to laugh now.

  “I think, first, we should go for a walk on the grounds. We agreed to leave for Leipzig at nine?” It was a question. Wolfgang waited for Sam to nod, which she did. “Tomas will knock up some breakfast for us while we’re out.”

  “Is that really necessary, Wolfgang? I’m capable of getting the cereal out of the cupboards. I can even boil an egg.”

  “Not like Tomas, you can’t.” He softened his tone. “It’s his job, Sam. If we do it for him, he’d have to find another castle in which to boil his eggs. That is, of course, a metaphor for all the fabulous things he does round the house.” He looked at her across the huge pine table that tried, without success, to fill the middle of the enormous kitchen floor.

  “OK. If you say so.”

  “Are you ready to go outside now?” Wolfgang was reaching for his boots, which were in a separate cupboard by a door; it appeared to lead to the garden.

  “Yes. Think so.”

  Sam hadn’t seen the outside of the schloss in daylight. It had been dark when they arrived, although tell-tale lights indicated that it was big—and turreted. Out on the expansive lawn, she turned back to take a look. Sure enough, she found a Balmoralesque castle, but in red sandstone rather than grey granite. There were towers, wings, turrets, and tall, green roofs, the tiles pleasantly stained by the elements. The lawn was about half a football field in size and looked like it curved around to the front of the castle. But there were no far-reaching views. Everything stopped at the dark green pine forest, which clung to the edge of the lawn and gently rose up into the low clouds.

  They were in a bowl, of sorts, which was secluded and breezeless. It felt achingly quiet. Sam stood still and listened. All she could hear were Wolfgang’s feet, quietly pressing against the lush grass of the lawn as he ambled toward the wood.

  Still nothing. Not a sound. Except, just then, a single screech of a buzzard, probably waiting for the cloud base to lift so it could go hunting.

  It was idyllic and like nothing she had ever encountered. A castle in the depths of the forest. Where are the witches and gingerbread houses?

  She jogged along a few yards and caught up with Wolfgang, who seemed to be lost in the silence.

  “I love it here.” He looked down at her. He was maybe five inches taller than she was. He smiled again. “It is my favourite place.”

  They both walked casually on, lost in the tranquillity.

  Then Wolfgang continued. “When my father died, I spent three months here trying to fathom the unfathomable. Hoping to reconcile why God had decided it was his turn. I didn’t get anywhere. It was all a sea of emotion. Nothing in my head stood still long enough for it to be understood. That was, until Tomas joined me one day on the lawn. I was just over there on that bench.” He pointed to his left. “It was unusual for him to sit next to me without being asked, but he did.” Wolfgang stood still at that point, his head raked slightly upward as if he were still looking for answers.

  “Do you know what he said?”

  Sam knew it was a rhetorical question and didn’t answer.

  “He said, ‘Your father didn’t die so you could sit here all day and think about what is wrong with the world. He died so you could go out there and fix it. That’s what Neuenburgs do.’”

  Sam waited for something else. Nothing came. She touched his elbow.

  “And you are. You’re doing something. He would be proud.”

  Wolfgang looked at her, his eyes ever so slightly moist.

  “Come on. There’s a short walk in the woods that takes us down to a hidden stream. Let me show it to you, and then we must eat some of Tomas’s very best boiled eggs.”

  They set off across the lawn to a piece of the edge of the forest that was darker than the rest. When they got close, Sam realised it was a path winding its way through the wood, its base soft with a thick coat of old, brown pine needles. They walked in silence for ten minutes, both in their own worlds. The forest and path weren’t as dark as they first seemed. There were shafts of light illuminating the floor, thick, lush grass growing where the forest and the brown, ageing bracken had succumbed. Just ahead there was more of an alleyway of light, snaking left to right. Sam assumed it was the hidden stream. She was at peace. Work, Uncle Pete, David in his hospital bed, Jane, Tony James, Bischoff, even her past life—they were all as far from her mind as they could be.

  And then that peace was shattered.

  Crunch.

  She heard the sound behind them. Twenty or thirty metres away. It was so out of place that her nerves twanged. Wolfgang didn’t seem to register a change; he just kept walking slowly by her side. But, for Sam, everything was now on edge. Her hearing tuned to all frequencies; her pupils set at exactly the size to let in the right amount of light.

  Click.

  It was almost imperceptible. It could have been anything. But to Sam it sounded like metal on metal. A key in a lock. A latch lifted on a gate. The safety catch of a rifle being set to “Fire.”

  And then everything all happened at once.

  “Get down!” she screamed.

  Crack!

  She pushed Wolfgang away from her, whilst dropping to her knees, turning at the same time.

  Thump. The sound of the explosion reached them from the rifle’s chamber. There was rustling in the woods behind them. Sam looked across at Wolfgang. He was on the ground, holding his upper arm, blood seeping between his fingers.

  “I’m OK.” It was a whisper. Not the voice of a frightened man. Just loud enough for Sam to hear.

  She was below bracken height. She looked back at Wolfgang. They were both below bracken height. The rustling from the woods behind them was getting closer. Sam kept Wolfgang’s attention. Using just one hand, she pointed to him and then in the direction of the stream. She did it again, this time more forcibly.

  Wolfgang looked confused, but then the penny dropped. Wincing with pain, he nodded, turned, and started to crawl on two knees and one working hand toward the stream. Sam looked round for a weapon. Nothing. She looked back at Wolfgang. All she could see was his backside moving off into the distance. He’d be at the stream in no time. The good news was that he was making some noise. A target for the shooter to follow. She might go unnoticed.

  To her right wa
s the nearest tree. Sliding on her stomach, she got to it and knelt up, listening. The crunching had stopped now. It had been replaced by steady but purposeful steps. The shooter had made it to the path and was heading their way. She put her back against the tree and impatiently felt on the ground for anything heavy. Nothing to her right. Come on!

  Wait . . .

  To her left she found a rock, about the size of half a house brick. She picked it up and transferred it from hand to hand—she still couldn’t use her right one without some pain, but needs must. In no time she had a curved bit of stone nestling in her palm, with a sharp piece of rock sticking out. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do.

  Step. Step. Step. In quick succession, getting louder.

  She couldn’t see Wolfgang. He must have made it to the stream.

  And then the shooter was there. Half a step, and then one step, and then two steps in front of her. Sam leaped at him, her right hand above her head, launching her new favourite weapon at the back of the man’s head. He heard her. Bending and turning to face her, the rifle came round, following the turn.

  Smack!

  She hit him on his left shoulder with a force that hurt her hand like hell and made the rock bounce away into the bracken. The man dropped the rifle and cried out, his knees giving way. His right hand reached for the wound over his shoulder, trying to protect it from further assault.

  Sam was on her haunches panting. Adrenalin was coursing through her veins, trying to escape through her ears.

  The man, hunched on the ground, clearly hurting, looked across at her. Immediately he seemed to realise that his assailant was a woman. His pained face became rage, his cowering now set to unleash his own attack.

  Sam looked for the rifle, but couldn’t see it. Her initial reaction was to run. Strike and run. It had always worked for her. If she ran now she could get away. She’d be quicker than this guy. But what about Wolfgang? She couldn’t leave him.