But it was better than trying to trawl through disparate CCTV feeds from around Berlin hoping to pick the vehicle up in one of them and follow it to wherever Schnieder dropped off Cristiana, so it was worth it.
The ease with which she found details from the car was disturbing. How easy could it be to find details of designated drivers, including their personal information and tracking them back to a point of weakness? How vulnerable, really, were profile politicians like Schnieder?
And how did she raise this without putting herself in the shit?
She was used to being the smartest person in the room; that wasn’t such a big deal when the other people in the room were Peter and Mitch, but this was different. There were plenty of people in this room who were a lot smarter than she was. That was going to take some getting used to.
Tracking down Schnieder’s car allowed her to see the route it had taken both before and after his dalliance at the nightclub. She tracked the glowing trail as it progressed along a detailed street map of the city with the names of buildings and businesses easily highlighted by fingertip contact on the touch screen. More submenus, all equally as easy to access, brought up ownership details, tax details, and other salient facts about the goings on in the various buildings.
She followed the car’s route from the depot to the door, with its time-stamped arrival within the minute of Schnieder’s filmed exit. It was precision. She assumed a cross-reference with Schnieder’s minder’s phone would show the summons a few minutes before the politician had decided to leave. It was all there.
The car stopped once between the nightclub and Schnieder’s home address. A touch revealed the name of the building: Hotel Q! on Knesebeckstraße. The car then drove on. It was deceptive. It was only when Laura went back to examine the time logs that she realized Schnieder’s car had been parked outside the hotel for an hour.
A lot could happen in a hotel in an hour.
The hotel room wasn’t going to be booked in Schnieder’s name, not if he was trying to keep their liaison on the down-low. It gave her another angle to follow, if nothing else, even if Schnieder had used a fake name when he booked that couldn’t be traced back to the girl or One World in any way.
After dropping Schnieder off, the car continued on to the assigned driver’s home address, no extra stops.
She thought about that for a moment.
There was a pattern, always. It maintained safety. First, Schnieder, Cristiana, and the bodyguard got into that car. First stop they drop off the woman, second the minister, with the bodyguard securing the politician’s house before handing over to the night shift and heading to his own home. He wouldn’t sleep at Schnieder’s house, there was a team stationed outside the politician’s place, maintaining his privacy.
Of course, he should have secured the hotel as well.
It was procedure. Even if the politician was having an affair. The man had to keep the principal alive.
FIFTY
Kask felt safe.
There was a familiarity to it, though there were a few startling differences from the last time he’d set foot within the compound.
The building had been refurbished and redecorated, the generator had been upgraded, but the biggest change was the perimeter fence. It was difficult to tell if it was there to keep the family in or the inquisitive out. The Shepherd hadn’t shared that wisdom with him. Yet. He would if he felt the time was right. John wasn’t above confiding in those he trusted. And Kask had surely earned that trust by now.
He had slept in one of the staff bedrooms, with instructions to remain unseen. It was strange to be alone with his thoughts, especially after John had asked him to teach the others how to kill. That wasn’t who he was, surely? No matter what the other man said there was a difference between necessity and cold-blooded rational killing. He had been forced to end Annja Rosen’s life for the greater good of the family. He had taken no pleasure from it. He wasn’t a monster. Had there been any other way, surely he would have taken it?
Surely?
In the darkest hours of the night it was hard to be sure of anything any more.
Tomas arrived with a breakfast tray, which he set down on the bed. Before Kask could ask about John or what he was supposed to do, the driver told him, ‘You stay here until you are collected. The girls will be moved first. You are not to be seen.’
So he ate his breakfast alone and waited.
It took another hour before Tomas returned to tell him to follow him outside. ‘Keep away from where the girls have gathered,’ he said, indicating a separate part of the compound. Kask nodded, eager to do as he was told. If The Shepherd wanted his presence to be a secret then who was he to question him? He was nobody.
It was a pleasant place, the fresh air agreed with him. There were certainly worse places he could be forced to live as an exile. He could even imagine taking charge of the compound, overseeing security. That was how the family worked, after all. It relied upon each of them offering their unique skill set to the collective. He had certain skills as a policeman none of the others possessed. He decided that if John asked he would make himself available. It was the least he could do.
To pass a little more time, Kask decided to walk around the compound. He made sure he stayed out of sight of the buildings so as not to go against Tomas’s instructions, and walked into the trees thinking it might be useful to familiarize himself with the improvements that had been made to the old place.
It was better than sitting brooding.
And he knew how The Shepherd liked to test his followers. There were countless challenges designed to stretch the individual and challenge their commitment to One World. Who was he to say that this wasn’t just another test for him?
The Shepherd would never stop testing him, he knew. Some might be physical, simple tests of endurance, while others came down to sheer force of will. He remembered the first time he had sat across from John, the other man taking his hand and telling him how incredibly proud he was that Kask had gone far beyond their expectations, and first suggested how he could best serve them.
What that experience taught him was that he had needed the other man’s approval desperately.
There was a lesson in that, too.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ a voice behind him said. Polite but firm. Kask turned. He saw a young man, an assault rifle in his hands, watching him closely.
He hadn’t even heard the kid creeping up on him.
He was becoming careless.
These were basic lessons.
‘Remembering,’ Kask said. ‘I came in last night with John.’
The younger man relaxed a little at The Shepherd’s name. Kask figured he wasn’t sure how he was meant to act, but hearing John’s name was as good as The Shepherd himself vouching for Kask. No one wanted to get on The Shepherd’s wrong side, so by naming him Kask had given himself liberty here. He sympathized for the man, because really his only option was to treat Kask as an intruder, but who in their right mind wanted to risk offending The Shepherd’s guest?
‘Why don’t we go and find Elsa? She can vouch for me. Sound good?’
The man nodded.
He lowered his gun a fraction. Kask was calm. He was trained. He knew he would be able to disarm the young man if he had to. It could even be a part of his continuing education; a test for him to fail. It would certainly send a message in terms of security. But now wasn’t the time for lessons, that was just his own vanity speaking to him. He was a guest in the compound.
Kask took one last look towards the skirt of the woods.
He knew it was still there.
Did they still use it?
It was hard to believe they wouldn’t; it was a torment that had broken the best of them and destroyed the worst.
Without it, men like Kask would be a shadow of the souls they were now, for better or for worse.
Was it that place, that darkness, that pain, that had sown the seed that finally bore fruit in the death of An
nja Rosen?
He felt the cold shiver of remembered fear whisper not-so-sweet seductions in his ear. He felt it calling to him, but knew he would rather die than return to that place. That darkness.
Maksim Kask’s heartbeat raced. His mouth dried. His tongue cleaved against the palette. His lips clung to his gums. A sheen of sweat broke on his forehead despite the crisp chill to the morning air.
He looked away from the woods that hid the hole and all of the secrets that damned place had stolen from broken souls.
He would not go back there.
He had survived it once.
That was a miracle in itself.
No.
He needed to believe that they would keep him safe.
They were one family.
One World.
FIFTY-ONE
‘Change of plan,’ Laura said. ‘As much as my heart says Frankie, my head says Berlin.’
Peter Ash had spent the last two hours trying to relax in the lounge bar of his hotel. He was already checked out, and it wasn’t as if he had a lot of baggage to pack, so he was ready to go. And highly caffeinated. He ditched the potboiler he’d stolen from the shelf of abandoned books, some stupid first-contact alien thing by Ronan Frost.
‘Details?’
‘I’ve tracked your mystery Cristiana down. But there’s a clock ticking on her. She’s booked into a place in Berlin called Hotel Q! and yeah, the exclamation mark is theirs, not mine.’
‘And she’s still there?’
‘As of right now, yes. But since the news broke putting her face in the frame, she could bug out at any time. This is our window. Miss it and there’s every chance she could disappear.’
He nodded. He didn’t ask how she knew that. He was already moving, bag over his shoulder, heading out towards the terminal building to check the flight numbers to see which of the five terminals had flights departing for Berlin.
He talked as he walked.
‘Come on then, Law, you know you’re dying to tell me how you found her.’
‘Detective work, pretty boy. It’s what the best of us do while the rest of you run around like headless chickens. I tracked his ministerial car. It’s not rocket science.’
‘Sounds like it to me.’
‘That’s because you live in the dark ages.’
The mini-departure board at the end of the concourse walkway gave him two choices, Berlin Tegel, Terminal 5, or Berlin Schönefeld, Terminal 2. The only problem was a four-hour wait for the next flight out either way.
‘Not knowing what name the room was booked under made it more interesting. If people knew the kind of overreach we’ve got going on in this place, Pete, they’d shit a brick.’
‘Meaning?’
‘We’ve got backdoors built into all sorts of public-building CCTV cameras, for one. And plenty of private ones.’
‘Jesus, that’s a gross invasion.’
‘Thank fear and rising global terrorism for that, we’ve got all sorts of extrajudicial powers we wouldn’t have dreamed about even twenty years ago.’
‘The world is going to hell.’
‘Going?’
He laughed at that – a short bitter bark of a laugh. ‘Point taken.’
‘I watched the thirty-second footage of them coming into reception to collect her room key. And they still use keys,’ she said. ‘Good old-fashioned keys with big brass fobs with the room number embossed on them. She walked straight up to reception, Schnieder two steps behind her, and asked for her room key. The receptionist put it on the counter number-side up. I got lucky. Room 612.’
‘Nice.’
‘She was very much in charge, you can tell by the body language. She led him. She knew where she was going.’
‘And it’s definitely her?’
‘No doubt at all. The room was booked under the name Cristiana Albu, but the charges are being billed to a company called 1W.’
‘One World,’ Peter said, as a tannoy announcement came for a last call for passengers going somewhere a lot warmer than here.
‘On the money.’
‘The noose is tightening.’
‘Or we’re just going crazy, which is always a fun thought.’
‘All roads lead to One World,’ he said. ‘You know it and I know it. And I’ve not forgotten how this started as a supposed cover story to get me into Estonia. When I get home you and I are going to have words about all this, because I get the feeling you set me up here.’
‘Guilty as charged,’ Laura said. ‘Now get a move on. With luck you’ll be in and out of Berlin in a matter of hours, and back in Tallinn before morning.’
‘Speaking of?’
‘There’s been no sign of movement since yesterday, and she’s made no attempt to get in touch.’
‘So all’s good.’
‘All’s good.’
He didn’t want to think about the fact that it wasn’t actually reassuring; without eyes on her they had no way of knowing if Frankie was fine. But that’s what losing Mitch had done to him. It had his mind living in the dark places.
‘OK, so Tegel or Schönefeld?’
‘Tegel, leaving in twenty minutes.’
‘That’s not an option? I’m looking at the departures board right now, next flight out is four hours away.’
‘Terminal 5. Gate 9. I put a hold on it. Just show your badge at the door, they’re waiting for you.’
‘Priority treatment?’
‘We’ve got some clout, my friend. Strings that can be pulled that I didn’t even know existed.’
‘So, what you’re saying is you could get to like Bonn?’
‘There are definite advantages to being here,’ she said, and the way she said it he figured she wasn’t talking tech.
FIFTY-TWO
The room was dark.
A silver light flickered from the projector.
On the screen a fairly slick production showed a very one-sided history of One World, glorifying the early years. It was the usual evangelized nonsense about revelations and hardships, and how The Shepherd found his truth.
This canonized the guy. Seriously. It was like he was some sort of secular saint. And every time his face came on the screen there was an audible sigh. He was adored. It was creepy as hell. Even just saying his name seemed to have an almost orgasmic effect on the girls.
It was pure cult behaviour dressed in the trappings of organized religion.
And Frankie wasn’t learning very much watching this bullshit.
According to the scriptures on offer The Shepherd was a regular superhero. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do, be it daredevil exploring, curing the sick and the lame, inventing lifesaving techniques to feed the starving in Africa, or other nonsense that wouldn’t hold up to any actual study, but they ate it up.
The testimony of one girl, pulled from a burning building in the midst of an earthquake in Caracas, was particularly heart-breaking bullshit with the youngster talking about the fire searing her skin and the agony of it, and how John had reached her, and with nothing but his hands and his faith had healed her, soothing her burning skin and gradually taking the pain away. She had lost her mother and father in that building but had found a new family in One World and would for ever think of John as her true father. She touched her cheek where there should have been scars, and looking directly at the camera in that moment said, ‘He is a miracle-worker.’
One by one, the girls were called through to give their testimonies to Charles.
Frankie was the last to be summoned.
One obvious thing she noticed was that all of the girls had gone into the room with him looking unsure, their nervousness obvious, but they were full of smiles and obvious contentment when they emerged. Like magic. So whatever was said in there, no one was unhappy about it. She wondered what they were being promised, and what Irma had been promised when she’d walked into that same room six months ago?
‘No need to look so nervous, Ceska,’ Charles said as she sat down ac
ross from him. She wasn’t feeling nervous, but maybe it was his opening gambit for each of them, a little ‘hey don’t worry we’re all one big family, we wouldn’t hurt you’ to put them at their ease?
‘I’m fine,’ she said.
He nodded slightly, the gesture barely perceptible. ‘I’m glad to hear it. Tell me, Ceska, how do you think you are settling in here with the girls?’
‘Fine. Everyone is friendly. I feel,’ she chose her next words carefully, weighing the emphasis as she said, ‘like I belong.’
Charles’s smile was broader now, the nod more pronounced. ‘Good. That’s really gratifying to hear, Ceska, because everyone loves you. They’ve been talking about you all morning.’
‘They have?’
‘I’ve asked everyone the same question, which of the other girls do you most admire, and why. And yours was the name on their lips.’
‘Me? Why?’
‘Because you made a difference. You didn’t turn your back on young Alina’s pain. You sat with her. You talked to her. You helped her. You made a difference. That’s a rare thing, Ceska, believe me. Most go through this life not making a difference to the world in any way. Those who do, like you, they are special.’
Frankie shrugged. ‘I just talked to her. Listened.’
‘Well, you must have listened very well, and found the right words to bring her comfort.’
‘Really, all I did was try to get her to find something to look forward to rather than worrying about the past. I remembered what you said about the chains of the past weighing us down, and how it’s a new life here, we get to leave the bad stuff behind.’
‘It’s for the best, but we don’t force it upon people. It’s not like we can stand over them with cattle prods and shock them every time they think about their childhood.’ He smiled as he said it, but there was something utterly unconvincing about that smile. He was a hollow man. ‘So, now I will ask you what I’ve asked everyone else, what do you think you can offer One World?’
She looked him in the eye. ‘I’m a hard worker. I want to help people. The first time I felt any sort of contentment was working in the soup kitchen with Tasha. Maybe I could do something like that? Help feed the homeless?’
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