JF05 - The Valkyrie Song (48 page)

‘For God’s sake, Otto.’ Fabel eased his friend back. ‘You know you said you could always become a policeman if the book trade died off? Forget it. I’m guessing you’d find covert surveillance difficult.’

Otto grinned. ‘Call it hiding in plain sight. As a matter of fact I do know him. Well, not
know
him, know
of
him. That’s Hans-Karl von Birgau. He’s some kind of business big shot, from an aristo family. I can’t for the life of me remember the kind of business he’s in. Does that help?’

‘Not really.’ Fabel frowned. ‘I just can’t remember where I’ve seen him before, but I have. Somewhere.’

‘Maybe he double-parked his Rolls-Royce and you gave him a ticket.’ Otto laughed heartily at his own joke.

The older man and his young consort faded from Fabel’s thoughts when they moved through to a table at the back of the bar. Fabel and Otto stayed in the bar for another hour or so, although Fabel, as usual, switched to Alsterwasser shandies.

Fabel suggested they get a taxi and he would drop Otto off on his way back home. After the warmth of the pub the night air was cold and damp. The breeze had picked up into a wind which maliciously threw chilled pellets of rain in their faces. Fabel had called for a taxi on his cellphone and he was annoyed to see that it hadn’t arrived. He spotted von Birgau and his youthful companion as they dashed past them from the pub. Lights flashed on a brand-new Range Rover Vogue that was parked a little way down the street. The man and the girl climbed in and they drove off.

‘Maybe it was his daughter,’ said Otto, with a wry smile.
A beige Mercedes pulled up and Fabel found himself checking its roof sign and licence number before getting in. Otto did most of the talking until they pulled up outside his house. Fabel was aware that he was tired. And something was nagging away at the back of his head.

‘Altona,’ he said when the taxi driver asked him where to go after they had dropped Otto off. They had only travelled a few blocks when his cellphone rang.

Fabel knew the restaurant. He and Susanne had eaten there once or twice over the last three years. It was that kind of restaurant: only the seriously rich or seriously careless with their money could afford to be regulars there. It had huge picture windows that looked out across the harbour. Or at least it used to have huge picture windows. Fabel got the taxi to take him as close as it could to the restaurant: the road was blocked by two huge green MOWAG armoured cars, the word POLIZEI emblazoned white on their angled flanks. Three Heckler-and-Koch-armed MEK police officers, in full riot gear, blocked his path.

‘Fabel, Murder Commission.’ He showed them his ID. ‘Bomb?’

‘Looks like it, Chief Commissar,’ said one of the MEK officers, a woman. ‘It was planted in a car, from what we can see.’

‘Is the area safe for me to go in?’

‘Yes, Chief Commissar. The forensics team are still in there, though, doing their stuff.’

‘I’ll try and stay out of their way.’ Fabel walked down the street towards the restaurant. A few of the street lights had been blown out and temporary lighting had been set up on stands to allow the police and forensic technicians to do their job. The glass-covered road and pavements glittered in the arc lights as if strewn with jewels.

‘Thanks for the call, Sepp.’ Fabel extended his hand to a tall heavily built man with a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. Criminal Chief Commissar Stephan Timmermann of the Polizei Hamburg’s Anti-Terrorist Branch shook Fabel’s hand.

‘Hi, Jan. Think nothing of it. We thought it was terrorists to start with, but the target was Gennady Frolov. He has his new yacht moored in the harbour. The
Snow Queen
. He was in the restaurant for some kind of business meeting when his car went up. And boy, did it go up. I remembered that memo you circulated asking for background on Frolov, so I thought you might be interested and gave you a shout.’

‘I appreciate it, Sepp. Any fatalities?’

‘Unbelievably, no. A few injuries, none too serious. The restaurant had valet parking – you know, like the Americans – and they use walkie-talkies to communicate from the maître d’ to the carhops so that the cars or taxis are always waiting as soon as a guest exits the restaurant. We reckon that by sheer chance the frequency they transmit on was the same as the remote trigger for the bomb. The maître d’ radios for a car and boom, you’ve got a two-ton bulletproof Mercedes scattered across Hamburg in bite-size pieces.’

‘It must have been a big bomb,’ said Fabel. The cold night air was helping him to shake off the fuzziness he still felt from his beers with Otto.

‘It was,’ said Timmermann. ‘I reckon it was placed underneath the chassis. The car was one of those heavy bulletproof jobs, like I said, and its mass actually absorbed a lot of the blast. But I think that was the intention. The Merc was designed to withstand bullets from outside, so the bomber placed the device underneath, knowing that the blast energy would be concentrated in the cabin of the car. It’s called confined detonation velocity. However, it still produced enough explosive brisance to shatter every window around. But whoever planted this device knew there would be a limit
to the shrapnelisation of the car body – because it was so heavily reinforced. All the injuries to bystanders are from flying glass.’

‘What kind of bomb?’

‘Early days, Jan, but you know we’ll be able to put it together. However, if you’re asking for my initial feeling, it would all indicate a blast velocity of somewhere around the eight-thousand-metres-per-second mark. That means it wasn’t TNT. My money’s on military-grade Composition C or some other RDX-based explosive. Electrical ignition. And remote radio initiation seems obvious. One of the lab rats has picked up a fragment of what looks like a semiconductor. Very professional job –
except
the one thing the bomber forgot to do was to build in a signal shield. That’s why the busboy’s radio set the bomb off.’

‘Is Frolov one of the injured?’ asked Fabel.

‘No. He was inside the restaurant and away from the windows. One of his bodyguards was outside at the time and has had her eardrum burst. Martina Schilmann. Ex-Polizei Hamburg. Of course, you know her, don’t you? Weren’t you and she …?’

‘Long time ago.’ Fabel sighed. ‘Is she all right?’

‘A percussive injury like that from a blast causing a burst eardrum could be nasty. And it will definitely be painful. But apart from that she’s fine. One of the carhops is in a worst state, but nothing life-threatening there either.’

‘Is Frolov still here?’ asked Fabel.

‘Yep. Back inside for the moment. We moved him into a MOWAG armoured unit until we did a full sweep of the restaurant for a second bomb. It’s an old terrorist trick: set off one bomb prematurely to send a mass of people running for cover to exactly the place where they’ve hidden the second, bigger device. But nothing.’

‘We’re not dealing with a terrorist here.’ Fabel frowned. A bomb. ‘But it doesn’t fit my suspect either.’

‘Oh?’ said Timmermann. ‘Why?’

‘The bomber missed his or her target. My girl doesn’t miss. Ever. The other thing is I wouldn’t put a bomb down as her choice of weapon. A bomb is the weapon of choice of the indiscriminate and the cowardly – the terrorist at the end of the command wire or who has set the timer in advance to keep as much distance as possible between himself and potential harm, without caring how many innocent people get in the way.’

‘And that doesn’t fit with who you had in mind?’

‘No – I’m dealing with a perfectionist. A precision thinker and worker. This is all too … too
sloppy
. This doesn’t feel right for my girl.’

‘I’m not too sure, Jan,’ said Timmermann. ‘I’d take issue with this not being a precision weapon. The confinement of the blast and the sophistication of the explosive and the device … Like I said, the only thing that doesn’t fit with me is that the bomber didn’t shield the detonator from third-party radio transmissions.’

‘Anyway,’ said Fabel. ‘I think it’s time I had a chat with our Russki chum.’

‘I’d do that,’ agreed Timmermann. ‘Frolov’s own security people are kicking up. They’re all ex-Soviet special-forces types. All they’re interested in is putting as much distance as possible between Frolov and the scene.’

‘Then I’ll try not to detain him. See you later, Sepp.’

There was even more glass inside the restaurant than there was on the street outside. Fabel again had to hold up his ID to an MEK cop wearing a black riot suit and body armour and cradling a Heckler and Koch MP5 machine pistol.

The tables nearest the windows were empty and Fabel noticed the strange mix of the normal and the abnormal that one always found at scenes of sudden, violent crime. One table had the food still in place, untouched on its plates, the
restaurant’s exclusive cutlery untouched and the expensive table linen still white and crisp, except for a vivid spatter of blood that had begun to spider at the edges, like red ink spilled on a blotter. Dark droplets dotted the knocked-over silver candlestick. Other tables had been upended, either by the blast or by panicked diners rushing to seek refuge at the rear of the restaurant.

A man in his fifties with greying blond hair and a goatee beard sat at one of the tables at the back with a group of other men. Two were standing, watching Fabel as he approached. Fabel could tell from their conformation that these were not the brains of the outfit.

‘Herr Frolov?’ As Fabel drew near, one of the bodyguards placed a restraining hand on Fabel’s shoulder. Fabel looked up at the heavy and smiled.

‘I’m going to have you arrested if your hand is still there by the time I finish this sentence. Do you understand, Ivan?’

The man with the goatee said something in Russian to the heavy and the hand was lifted.

‘Yes, I’m Herr Frolov.’ He stood up. ‘And you are?’

Fabel held up his ID. ‘Principal Chief Commissar Fabel of the Polizei Hamburg Murder Commission.’

‘Murder? But no one was …’ Frolov made a sweeping gesture with his hands that indicated the chaos in the restaurant.

‘I know. More by chance than anything, I have to say. But my main interest in this incident is that it may be connected to some other murders. And you were the target.’

‘Undoubtedly.’ The Russian spoke with only a slight accent and his German had the near-perfect grammar of someone who had studied the language seriously. ‘The device was placed in my car. By the way, you must excuse the zealousness of Ivan and my other
protectors
. As you can imagine, they are rather agitated by what has happened.’

‘Who did it?’ asked Fabel.

‘The bomb?’

‘You must have some ideas,’ said Fabel.

‘Because I have so many enemies?’ Frolov smiled bitterly. ‘That would be because I’m a Russian
oligarch
, wouldn’t it? And that means, of course, that I can’t be entirely straight. Scratch a Russian businessman and you’ll expose an organised criminal. Isn’t that right?’

‘Herr Frolov, you’re doing all the talking here. I didn’t imply anything by my question. And I know that you’re not a crook. I’ve already checked you out.’

Frolov laughed. ‘Corporate crime division?’

‘And organised crime. Both say you’re clean.’

‘Ah, but do you believe them, Herr Fabel? Someone with my wealth and influence could bury a lot of embarrassing evidence under a mountain of money.’

‘They have no evidence against you – which doesn’t mean that you’re not involved with anything criminal. But, for what it’s worth, I’ve had years of dealing with crooks and I can smell them a mile away.’

‘And do I
smell
, Herr Fabel?’ Frolov seemed to be trying to read something in Fabel’s face.

‘No. You don’t.’

‘I do not do anything that is illegal. You have my word. I broke the laws of the former Soviet Union, I was a black marketeer. I sold illicitly distilled vodka and dealt in prohibited luxury goods. But that was the only way to do business back then. My crime was to be a businessman in a society that criminalised entrepreneurship. But this is not the Soviet Union. Hamburg is built on entrepreneurship. I don’t have to break the law to be what I am. In fact, I am a champion of the rule of law here.’

‘Like I said,’ said Fabel, ‘I believe you.’

‘But you don’t understand what I’m saying. I’m explaining
why
I was targeted.’

‘Because you don’t break the law?’

‘Because I scrupulously investigate every deal I’m potentially involved in. I have any potential partner examined to the tiniest detail. And if I find
anything
untoward, I report it to the relevant authorities.’

‘Were you about to report something?’ asked Fabel.

‘I don’t think whoever planted the bomb was sure what I was or wasn’t going to discuss with OLAF next week.’

‘Did you say Olaf?’ Fabel felt something tingle on his neck. The name in Jespersen’s notebook. ‘Who exactly is Olaf?’

‘Not who –
what
. OLAF is the European Anti-Fraud Office. OLAF is an acronym of its French title,
Office Européen de Lutte Anti-Fraude
.’

‘Of course.’ Fabel shook his head. ‘I just didn’t make the connection.’

Frolov looked at Fabel for a moment. ‘I take it this information has some significance for you?’