The Last Compromise (21 page)

‘With
the Americans it’s a bit different,’ Majerus said. ‘We’re part of NATO, and we
contribute to international military missions and so on, but you know we
shouldn’t push it too much. We have a population of half a million. They barely
care about countries that are a hundred times our size, let alone us. I’ll send
a request, don’t worry. But I think the key is, as always, European
cooperation. The Commission helps us with this Hans Tamberg, and if you then
still need your James Lawrence, then we’ll ask for him together, as Europeans.’

Becker
looked out the window to his left. For just a moment he tried to enjoy the view
of the neat buildings of the city centre, of the enormous Luxembourgish flag
above the gorge, of the golden goddess standing on her tall obelisk, a laurel
wreath in her extended hands. She would have been shining brightly if the
weather had been better. She disappeared from view as the car turned right into
the castle-like complex of buildings housing the country’s supreme courts.

Majerus
shook hands with Becker and reminded him to send the exact details of both
witnesses to his assistant. Then he and the assistant got out, closed the doors
behind them and strode towards one of the entrances.

‘Back
to the airport?’, the driver asked.

‘Yes
please,’ Becker replied and shifted his behind over to the right, where Jacques
Majerus had just sat. So ‘Didier, please’ had meant ‘yes, it will take you
back’. But if he was being chauffeured in a limousine with an impressively
short number on the licence plate, then at least he should sit in the boss’s
place, he felt. Becker liked the fact that his ex-cousin-in-law was trying to
find solutions and help out, but that was about it. This wasn’t his world. It
was clear why Jacques was having daily meetings with ministers and Becker was
not.

The
Netherlands, Motorway E19, direction Rotterdam

The
trip from Petten to Rotterdam would take them about one and a half hours, and
all that time the bald gendarme wouldn’t say a single word. He drove in
silence, following the dark blue patrol car and the mute blue flashlights on
its roof. This suited Hans very well, because it allowed him to do some
thinking. There was nothing to do, and nothing to see. He was sitting immersed
in the steady roar of the diesel engine, the drumming of raindrops on the roof
and the grating and the windshield, and the hiss of the tyres of overtaking
cars on the asphalt that was getting wetter every minute.

First,
why was he being followed? Before the who came the why. He would go through it
in the way Viktor had done it the day before. Either it was because of the Zayek
situation, or it was because of something else, something unrelated. Hans felt
it safe to assume that it was not something unrelated.

Assuming
it was about Zayek, what exactly was it? Like he’d said to Siim and Clarissa,
it could be something he knew or something he had. What he knew was what he’d
seen. He’d seen Hoffmann, but so had everybody else, and that man didn’t seem
to be someone who was hiding his face. He’d seen Zayek, who was a Commission
employee in the open. Or he had been when he was still alive. He’d seen the
tight-lipped attacker, right before the American soldier had grabbed him by the
shoulder. If the attacker had just shoved an explosive device into Zayek’s
mouth, he might have been concerned about being spotted and committed to the
electronic memory of a camera phone. That’s why he’d wanted to take Hans’s
phone, thinking that Hans had taken a picture. But he’d been in a hotel with
security cameras, which would show him leave the bathroom area seconds before
the explosion. The man hadn’t been wearing a mask, not even sunglasses. He had
blue eyes, Hans had seen them. Hans was a witness, more or less, but not much
more so than any other person in the hotel lobby, and certainly not more than
Tienhoven, say. Assuming Tienhoven knew as much as Hans did about this whole
affair.

The
phone. There was the phone, and there was the box. Not what Hans
knew
,
but what he
had
. Except he no longer had the phone, Hoffmann had stolen
it. If it was Hoffmann who was following him, it couldn’t be about the phone.
So if it was Hoffmann who was worried about an object, it had to be the box,
although he could have taken it already at the hotel. If it was the attacker,
assuming he wasn’t simply Hoffmann’s associate, it could be about both. If it
was about the phone, the man didn’t know that Hans no longer had it. If it was
about the box, then Hans needed to think right now what he should do with it.

Yesterday’s
storm on the sea outside Petten had gotten stronger. The rain now fell heavier
on the grating and the windshield. The bald cop switched the wipers from
interval to continuous. The blue flashlights on the roof of the car in front of
them were reflected on the wet asphalt, and in the drops and streams of water
on the glass that was visible under the metal grille.

Clearly
it wasn’t the box itself, but something about it. The code on the inside,
particles like Clarissa had suggested. Something that could give the man away.
Fingerprints Hans had more or less ruled out because the man would have worn
gloves. Gloves to hold it, gloves to open it.

Hans
remembered opening the box in the upstairs bathroom in the hotel and again in the
lobby, to copy the number. It had taken him a big effort both times. It had
nearly broken his fingernails.

The
man had had to take his gloves off to open the lid.

He
may not have had enough time to wipe it.

There
could be prints on the box.

A
loud swoosh interrupted his thoughts. They overtook a lorry right as both cars
were driving through a large puddle.

Whatever
it was, Hans needed to decide. He could keep the box on him. If he got
attacked, they’d just take it from him, and that would be it. Maybe that would
be best, too, because then they would be more certain that Hans hadn’t yet had
an opportunity to take any fingerprints off it or send it to a lab. So they
would have it. Maybe they’d kill him afterwards. They had already killed
someone, probably.

The
second option would be to deliberately place the box outside his control. Send
it to anti-fraud by mail, for example. There it would be received and archived
as evidence.

But
that would mean it would no longer be retrievable. He couldn’t make any deal to
obtain something in return for the box. They could kill him just out of sheer
frustration. Or to remove a witness who wasn’t even able to recover what they
wanted.

So
he could send it to someone for safekeeping. To Caitlin from money-laundering,
for instance. Or to his brother Lennart. Or to Viktor. But that didn’t seem
right. Caitlin had a son, Lennart had two daughters, Viktor had a wife and
kids, too. He didn’t want to endanger Siim and Clarissa, so he shouldn’t be
endangering anybody else either.

The
decision was taken. As soon as he got the chance, Hans would mail the box to
himself, to his Brussels office. He wasn’t going to ask the bald cop to please
stop at the next post office, so he’d do it in Rotterdam. And he’d be in
Rotterdam as soon as they’d get through the rain, which was spending its water
so generously now that it looked like the top five centimetres of the North Atlantic
Ocean were being sprayed over the Dutch coastline.

The American.

He’d
been lying on the floor, too. He’d just been checking out. As it happened, he’d
been standing there right when it’d happened. He’d pressed Hans to the floor.

You
okay buddy?

And
then he’d picked up his suitcase and left the jurisdiction.

He
could have taken the box right there, though, Hans had even offered it to him.
And he had helped take care of Tienhoven after the heart attack. Had he changed
his mind afterwards? Or was it not about the damn box at all? Was it about the
investigation in general? In that case at least Tienhoven and director-general
Clarke and Nathalie Bresson from legal knew just as much, maybe less. Maybe
more.

Hans
exhaled, inflating his cheeks. The driver glanced at him disapprovingly.

Hans
didn’t care about the American, because it didn’t change his approach. Whoever
had dropped the little black box, and whoever was after him now because of it, the
solution stayed the same. Keep it at arm’s length. Away, but not away forever.
If it wasn’t about the box, he couldn’t do anything anyway.

Becker was back
from his little trip with the chief prosecutor. He tried the Commission numbers
again just in case, but there was no answer. Tamberg wasn’t answering his phone
at all, his boss Tienhoven was in meetings, apparently, working away right
after his recovery.

At
least crime scene had taken fingerprints at the victim’s office, and Felten had
retrieved some fibre or tissue samples from the man’s apartment that morning; cooperation
with the police of Rhineland-Palatinate had been smooth as usual, although, as
expected, they hadn’t allowed him to take fingerprints. Felten had also asked
around a little. According to him, the landlady had referred to Zayek as the
lonely man with the funny name; the other neighbour had said that Zayek worked
in Luxembourg somewhere. None of them had mentioned any family or friends, not
even visitors. The living room, according to Felten, was creepy: no books, no
pictures, just a TV, a table, and a cupboard with spare cutlery.

The
desktop phone rang, Becker picked it up.

‘Moïen,
this is Doctor Offerbrück from forensics. I have the first autopsy results.’

‘What,
the DNA test, already?’

‘No,
I said autopsy.’

Becker
sighed.

‘Should
I come over to the lab to have a look?’

‘Why?
It’s the naked body of a man with no head. The pieces of his head lie on a tray
next to him. What are you hoping to see?’

‘Are
the pieces good enough for facial reconstruction?’

‘First
things first, Inspector. I can tell you already now that the prints do match
the victim’s fingers. The DNA testing takes longer, but if that’s positive, too,
you won’t need any facial reconstruction, will you? Which is good, because it’s
pretty expensive.’

Another
sigh. Doctor Offerbrück had again managed to make Becker look stupid, and he
did it almost every time. It had become a deeply unpleasant routine.

Becker
said, ‘Just in case his identity is called into question at some point.
Toxicology results?’

‘Nothing
unusual. Slightly elevated levels of a toxin that could have induced acute
nausea, but it could also be that the victim ate too much liverwurst.’

‘General
impression?’

‘An
ordinary man around forty with an office job. He didn’t smoke, and if he drank
it wasn’t much. He was not overweight, but some exercise would have done him
good.’

Yes,
Doctor. Happy birthday to you, too.

‘And
the cause of death for the moment is simple, I’m afraid,’ Offerbrück concluded.
‘Ceased functioning of the brain due to its abrupt disconnection from the body.
There are burns and explosive residue on what used to be the inside of his
mouth and nose and throat. He wasn’t shot in the head, as your colleagues from
crime scene have remarked as well. There has been an explosion. And I confirm
that it has gone off inside the victim’s mouth.’

Becker’s
computer made a sound, announcing the arrival of an e-mail.

‘Thank
you, Doctor’, he said. ‘I will call you if I have something relevant for you,
please do the same.’

‘You
are welcome. I will now continue on what is left of his skull, and I will tell
you once the DNA test is done. Goodbye, Inspector.’

Becker
hung up.

He
took out his e-cigarette and looked at his screen. When he saw what the e-mail
was about he put the cigarette back. It was the mother of the woman whose son
had gone missing.

Becker
read through the first lines of text. He relaxed. Of course, he hadn’t been
missing. The boy was with his mother and grandmother. It wasn’t a big surprise,
but it was nevertheless a relief. Child abductions by strangers existed mostly
in the fantasy of people who didn’t know the crime statistics. But even those
who knew them probably felt uncomfortable all the same about the topic. Becker
had read somewhere that statistically, if you deliberately wanted to let your
child be abducted, you’d have to let it stand on a street corner day and night
for three hundred thousand years before the first kidnapper would show up to
offer candy. The cases he’d had were all teenagers running away from home, or divorcees
leaving and taking their children with them. Still, Becker couldn’t blame
people for feeling uncomfortable. He’d felt so, too, when his own son had still
been living with him.

He
typed a brief answer to the grandmother.
Thank you, Madame, you did the
right thing. My colleague will come to you right away, and together we will
find a solution. Please stay where you are. All the best, Didier Becker.

He
sent it off, then he picked up the phone and dialled the number he’d been
waiting to dial ever since he’d talked to the boy’s father. ‘This is Becker,
please put me through to Inspector Lambertz from domestic violence.’

Rotterdam,
the Netherlands

The
bald gendarme delivered Hans to the front entrance of the main building of the
Rotterdam police, a low but extended wedge-shaped construction with a shiny
façade covering the lower floors.

During
the last minutes of the ride Hans had been listlessly staring out of the
window. The architecture was that of a post-war city, all grey asphalt and
concrete in the grey rain. Caitlin from money-laundering liked to refer to
well-preserved historical town centres as ‘sloppily bombed’, one of the very
few quips of hers that Hans actually found a bit tasteless. In any case
Rotterdam clearly was the opposite of sloppily bombed. It was a stark contrast
to Tallinn’s medieval and renaissance core, which had been largely spared in
the war. Hans thought of one ugly brown block of cement with windows in the old
town, though. It had been constructed to replace a building that, as far as
Hans knew, had been bombed, during the German occupation, by a Soviet women
aviators’ squadron to celebrate international women’s day on 8 March 1944.

Hans
said goodbye to the bald driver, neither expecting nor receiving an answer, got
a little wet in the rain before reaching the door, and entered the building as
the van and the escort drove off. The guard in the crowded entrance hall
promptly told him the office number. They had been expecting him.

Hans
started looking for the right place. Visser’s office had to be at the far end
of a large open office space on the ground floor. There were dozens of desks
staffed by men and women in uniform, with cops and visitors and witnesses and
suspects and complainants walking and chattering all around them. He crossed
the space, found the door, knocked and, since among all the chatter he wouldn’t
have heard any reply through the door anyway, carefully opened the door.

There
was only one man inside, and he was just putting down the receiver of his
desktop phone.

‘Good
morning. Mister Visser? I am Hans Tamberg from the Commission,’ Hans said. ‘Thank
you for organising the ride.’

Visser
got up and shook Hans’s hand, then mutely offered his visitor a chair across
his desk. Hans closed the door and sat down. Visser sat down as well, in his
own chair, and waited. He was about Tienhoven’s age, but he wasn’t as skinny as
his boss. And his hair wasn’t grey but a slightly reddish blond.

The
office was relatively quiet with the door closed, although Hans could still
hear the noise outside.

‘Willem
Tienhoven and you know each other, I guess?’, Hans said. He’d said it slowly
because he didn’t know yet how good Visser’s English would be.

‘We
haven’t talked in a long time,’ Visser answered, in perfectly fine English. ‘Not
since the divorce. His call came as a surprise.’

Tienhoven
had had a divorce? ‘Whose divorce?’

‘His
and mine.’

Tienhoven?

‘He
divorced his wife at the same time I divorced my wife,’ Visser explained. ‘His
first wife is my second wife. You understand that it wasn’t easy, yes?’

Hans
took a moment to consider this. What a mess. But difficult or not, his boss had
recommended this man Visser as a contact person. So there they were.

Hans
cleared his throat. ‘We are investigating an illegal operation that is making uranium
disappear in several European countries, and that covers its traces in
Commission reports.’

Visser
kept listening.

‘I
believe there is a shipment that should have arrived very recently at the port
of Rotterdam, or that did arrive and then got diverted. It would be a container
for radioactive material, sent by an Austrian company called A&C and
intended for the research reactor in Petten.’

Visser
looked into Hans’s eyes for another moment, and asked, ‘If we go and ask the
people at the port, what are you hoping to find?’

Answers,
of course, but that would have been a stupid thing to say. ‘If a shipment was
cancelled, and if shipments have been cancelled before, on exactly the moments
when we think the illegal activity took place, then it would confirm our
assumptions. Then we could go directly after A&C in Vienna. If the
shipments did arrive and got diverted, we could follow the cargo and find out who
else is involved.’

Visser
waited for another moment, and said, ‘Okay, we go and ask the port.’

That
was quick.

‘Before
we leave, I have two more requests,’ Hans said. ‘Both are part of the case.’

‘Tell
me.’

That’s
what Tienhoven often said, too. It fact Hans recognised quite a few behavioural
traits.

‘I
would like to post something,’ he said. ‘Can I please have an envelope, a large
one with padding inside, and can you put it in your outgoing mail, as an
overnight delivery to Brussels?’

‘Yes,
we can do that. What’s the second thing?’

‘The
second thing is to check whether there is a missing person in Bulgaria. The
name is Boris Zayek. He probably disappeared five years ago.’

All
the information he had got about Zayek being a spy had come from Hoffmann and
the BND. Even if Hoffmann had told him the truth, which wasn’t certain, all
his
information had come, at least initially, from a Russian defector. Maybe there
was a real Zayek, maybe there wasn’t.

Visser
replied in an almost joyful spirit. ‘Yes, we can do that, too. Since Bulgaria
joined the European Union they’ve been connecting them to all kinds of
information-sharing technology. They didn’t really trust the police over there,
in the beginning. Corruption and mafia and so on. But they’re investing
heavily. Forensics, databases, everything.’ Visser got up and added, ‘And
they’re right. You don’t catch criminals by stopping everybody at the border
and checking their stupid passports, like in the old days. You do it by sharing
police information. Borders are open, travellers are happy, we are happy,
everybody’s happy. But not the gangsters. Come on, let’s go. Here’s your
envelope.’

He
handed Hans a padded brown envelope from a drawer and picked up the phone to
talk to someone in Dutch while standing up. In the stream of words Hans
understood the word ‘container’. As he was talking, Visser took out a pack of
chewing gum and offered Hans a strip. Hans gladly accepted. He still hadn’t
brushed his teeth.

***

‘How’s
Willem’s daughter?’, Visser asked, turning back to Hans.

Visser
was sitting in the passenger’s seat of a police car driven by a uniformed cop.
It was still raining. They had nearly reached the port, Hans could already see
the cranes during the short flashes of clear glass between the turns of the
windshield wiper.

‘I
never met her,’ he answered. ‘Just know her from a picture on his desk, if it’s
her. And he never talks about her.’

Visser
turned around to face the rain-whipped windshield again.

Hans
felt he should ask something, too. He said, ‘The car that picked me up in
Petten, was that normal police?’

‘No,
that was the royal marechaussee.’

‘What
are they?’

‘They’re
part of the military,’ Visser said, cheerfully. ‘They’re also border guards,
special police. If we’re the Wehrmacht, they are the SS.’

Hans
frowned. What an idiotic thing to say. Why had Tienhoven’s wife swapped her
husband for this arsehole? Hans’s boss would never say a thing like that. Maybe
that’s why he was fighting fraud for the Commission, while his rival was
chasing junkies on the rainy streets of Rotterdam.

But
Hans depended on this man’s cooperation. His help, in fact, in a case that
wasn’t too solid, and that could well expire within an hour. So he shut his
mouth. And he kept it that way until they arrived at a large glass-and-concrete
building. Beyond it lay the industrial vastness of the port reaching into the grey
water that was incessantly lashed by the heavy rain.

***

Visser,
Hans and the uniformed policeman who had been driving the car reached the third
floor and entered the room.

The
guard at the entrance had clearly been used to the police visiting, he’d let
them through without asking any questions. Maybe he’d even recognised Visser.