JF04 - The Carnival Master (6 page)

‘Well, as I said – Vasyl Vitrenko, his operation, his associates … it’s all someone else’s problem now,’ said Fabel.

Van Heiden and Wagner exchanged resigned looks.

‘Would you at least think it over?’ asked van Heiden. ‘I am prepared to hold your position open for a further three months. Senior Commissar Meyer has agreed to head the department in the interim. After that, I will have to replace you.’

‘You can replace me now, Herr van Heiden. My mind is made up.’

‘Listen,’ said Wagner. ‘I accept what you’re saying, but in the meantime I wonder if you would look at this for me.’ He handed Fabel a thick file. ‘Just for your opinion. I understand that you won’t want to be involved directly, but if you could look at it I’d be obliged. Just for ideas.’

‘What is it?’ Fabel took the file and eyed it suspiciously.

‘It’s from the Polizei Nordrhein-Westfalen … There’s a Criminal Commissar Scholz working out of the Police Presidium in Cologne. He asked me if you would consider going down there to help with this case, but I understand now that that is out of the question.’

Fabel gave a cynical laugh. ‘I see … a little bit of bait to see if you can reel me in.’

‘I won’t pretend that I wouldn’t be disappointed if this case
intrigued
you enough to consider visiting
Cologne and lending a hand. But I respect your decision. Nevertheless, I know that Herr Scholz would appreciate any comments or advice, Principal Chief Commissar Fabel.’

‘Okay …’ Fabel stood up, tucking the file under his arm. ‘I’ll take a look. But, as I said, that’s all I can promise.’

Van Heiden walked Fabel to the door. They shook hands.

‘We’re going to miss you,’ van Heiden said. ‘I have to tell you that I don’t see you as a computer salesman.’

Fabel smiled. ‘Educational software, Herr Criminal Director. For universities around the world.’

‘Whatever it is, you’re not cut out for it. You’re a policeman, Jan. Whether you accept it or not.’

Taras Buslenko sat in a steam bath in the Lukyanovka district of Kiev. There was only one other bather in the huge, porcelain-tiled steam room: a fat business-type whose paunch hung over his towel. Buslenko looked down at his own body and wondered if he too would end up fat and out of shape. An aged body was something he could never imagine for himself. His physique was hard and sculpted. A weapon. He ran his fingers over his scars. The most recent was the one on his shoulder, puckered with stitches and curved around the ball of muscle as if someone had tried to slice open an apple. The most noticeable was the bullet wound, enlarged by removal surgery, to the left of his stomach. He gave a half-laugh. It was no wonder he could not imagine his body older: the chances of him living that long were remote.

The steam bath was vaulted and Turkish in style. The walls and the floor were finished in ornate tiles and the bath itself had a distinctly Ottoman feel to it. The only things that reminded Buslenko that he was in Ukraine were the large porcelain panels, each identical, that punctuated the patterned
tiles. The panels showed a man sitting cross-legged, Turkish fashion, under a tree, his weapons hanging from its branches. The man smoked a pipe and played a bandura. It was a representation of Cossack Mamay, Ukraine’s national hero. Mamay was the legendary – probably mythical – protector of the Ukrainian people. The ultimate patriot.

The fat businessman on the far side gave a weary sigh, rose stiffly and left. After a few minutes three other men entered: a heavy-set middle-aged man and two younger men, both with the same hard, lean, muscled look as Buslenko. The two bodyguards sat near the door on the other side of the steam room. The older man sat down next to Buslenko.

‘You missed him,’ Oleksandr Malarek said, not turning to face Buslenko.

‘If he was there at all, Deputy Interior Minister.’

‘He was there. You know that.’

‘Yes. I know that. Someone was on the take. One of ours. Someone broke my cover and allowed Vitrenko to organise an escape route.’

‘Yes. Someone did,’ Deputy Minister Malarek said without looking at Buslenko. ‘It was Major Samolyuk.’

‘The head of the assault team?’ Peotr Samolyuk had been a Sokil unit commander with fifteen years’ service. Buslenko had always considered him a solid man. ‘Shit. Have you interrogated him? He could be the best lead we’ve got.’

‘Not a lead. A dead end. A
very
dead end. We found him this morning. He had been tortured and castrated before death. They stuffed his genitals in his mouth.’

‘He was going to talk? But he’d have gone to prison.’

‘We’ll never know. But if he had really been one
of Vitrenko’s men they wouldn’t have done that to him. There is no betrayal in Vitrenko’s organisation. They don’t see themselves as criminals, but as a military unit with total loyalty to him. My guess is that Samolyuk took a massive bribe. Maybe he got greedy and asked for more to stay quiet.’

‘Unlikely.’ Buslenko still spoke to Malarek’s profile. A bead of sweat gathered and hung on the tip of the older man’s long nose. ‘No one would be stupid enough to try to menace Vitrenko.’

‘He’s in Germany,’ Malarek said, ignoring Buslenko. The excruciating death of Samolyuk was clearly of no further interest to him.

‘Vitrenko?’

‘Our sources tell us that he is operating from Cologne.’

‘I didn’t think we had sources on Vitrenko,’ said Buslenko.

‘We didn’t. We still don’t, not directly. We have informants who work for Molokov and that’s as close as we can get.’ Malarek wiped the sweat from his fleshy face with the palm of his hand. ‘Vitrenko is selling our people like so much meat, Major Buslenko. He is a traitor of the worst kind. He debases Ukraine by debasing our people. His main centres are Hamburg and Cologne. But he travels back to Ukraine regularly. Part of the intelligence we have gathered is that Vitrenko has had extensive plastic surgery. The photographs we have on file are now useless, according to our sources.’

‘Do you have any information on when he will next be back here? The next time …’

Malarek turned to face Buslenko. ‘There won’t be a next time. Vasyl Vitrenko moves like a ghost. He has so many contacts and informers here that if
he does come back, he’ll have evaporated into thin air again before we even know about it. That’s where you come in, Major Buslenko. Vasyl Vitrenko’s reign is an embarrassment to Ukraine. We cannot expect the world to take our new democracy seriously while we are seen as the cradle of the new Mafia. We need Vitrenko stopped. Dead. Do I make myself clear?’

‘You want me to go to Germany without the knowledge or approval of the German government? That’s illegal. Both here and there.’

‘That’s the least of your worries. I want you to take a Skorpion Spetsnaz unit with you. And just to make sure there are no misunderstandings, this is a seek-and-destroy mission. I don’t want you to bring Vitrenko back to face justice. I want you to put him in his grave. I take it I have made my wishes completely unambiguous?’

‘Perfectly. And I assume that if we get caught you will deny all knowledge of us? That we will be left to rot in a German prison?’

Malarek smiled. ‘You and I have never even met. There is something else … I want it done quickly. The longer it takes to organise, the more chance there is for Vitrenko to find out about it. Unfortunately he has more militia in his pocket than I care to think about.’

‘When?’

‘I want you to be ready to go in a week or so. I know that gives you practically no time to select and brief a team, but it also gives Vitrenko less time to compromise it. Can you do it?’

‘I know someone who can help me put a team together. Discreetly. But not just Skorpions. I want a mix of background and skill.’

Malarek shrugged. ‘That’s your thing. I just need to know if you can do it.’

‘I can do it.’

After the Deputy Interior Minister and his bodyguards left, Buslenko sat alone in the steam bath and gazed again across the bath at the image of Cossack Mamay. Mamay stared out somewhat melancholically from his steam-wreathed porcelain panel, giving nothing away about how hard it was to be the Great Protector of the Ukrainian people.

‘This is a big step for you, Jan. I want you to understand that I do appreciate that.’ Roland Bartz sipped the sample of wine, swirled it in his mouth and nodded to the waiter who then filled both men’s glasses. ‘And I understand that resigning as head of a murder squad is a lot more complicated than most job handovers …’

‘But …?’

‘I’ve been waiting a long time now, Jan. I agreed to hang on till you tied up that last case of yours, but I really need someone to take over the foreign accounts now.’

‘I know. I’m sorry for the delay. But, as I told you, I now have an official end date and I’ll be sticking to it. You won’t have to wait any longer.’ Fabel forced a tired smile.

‘You okay?’ Bartz frowned with what Fabel thought was overdone concern. Bartz was the same age as Fabel. They had grown up in Norddeich in East Friesland together, gone to school together. Back then Bartz had been a gangly awkward youth with a bad complexion. Now his skin was bronzed, even in midwinter Hamburg, and his awkwardness had been transformed into urbane sophistication. To start with, Fabel had
seen Bartz through childhood’s eyes: recognising the similarities with the boy he’d befriended. But it had quickly become clear to Fabel that the Roland Bartz of today was a different person from Bartz the schoolboy. Fabel knew that Bartz had become a multi-millionaire, but it had only been since their chance encounter and Bartz’s offer of a job – and a way out of the Murder Commission – that Fabel had discovered just how vast his schoolfriend’s wealth was. And now he was getting to know the businessman. Fabel preferred the awkward, spotty youth of his memory.

‘I’m fine,’ said Fabel unconvincingly. ‘Just been a tough day.’

‘Oh?’

Fabel related brief details of his encounter with Georg Aichinger, without giving any information that the press wouldn’t already have by then.

‘God …’ Bartz shook his head in disbelief. ‘Not me, Jan. I could never do that job in a million years. You’re well out of it. But sometimes, to be honest, I don’t know if
you
feel that way.’

‘I do, Roland. I really do. When I was there today there was a young MEK trooper with me. Just itching to squeeze off a few rounds. You could almost smell the testosterone and gun oil in the air.’ Fabel shook his head. ‘It’s not that I blame him. He’s just a product of the times. What police work’s become. It’s time I got out.’

The restaurant was in Övelgönne and its vast picture windows looked out onto the Elbe. Fabel paused to watch as a massive container ship drifted silently past with unexpected grace. He had been here before with Susanne, on special occasions. The prices made it a special-occasion kind of place, but clearly not for Bartz and his expense account. It had been here that Fabel
had had the chance encounter with Bartz that had led to his dramatic decision to change career.

‘It’s time for me to be someone else,’ he said at last.