‘What about the
Berkut
… this counter-terrorist unit to which he belonged?’ asked Fabel.
‘Basically they’re the Ukraine’s all-purpose riot-squad and counter-terrorism unit. Concerns about their conduct have been raised by Amnesty International. They are run by the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior. From what I can gather, Vitrenko’s brief went far beyond the
Berkut’s
usual operational parameters. He was a high-flyer with an expertise across the board of civil, political and terrorist crime. The Ukraine has a real problem with organised crime and there are massive tensions between the minority Russian and majority Ukrainian populations. Added to this, they have probably the highest incidence of serial murderers in the world. Which is why they lead the world in tracking down serials.’
Fabel rubbed the twenty-hour-old stubble on his jaw. ‘If Vitrenko’s father is on a one-man crusade to track him down, who is the girl who is working with him? And why?’
‘I think I have an answer for that,’ said Maria, again shuffling through her notes to find the relevant fact. ‘I suspect she is Lieutenant Martina Onopenko. She was, until recently, an officer in the Kiev police.’
‘A detective?’
‘No … uniform branch. But she has some military experience. It also turns out she is the younger sister of the journalist who was killed. She, apparently, shares the old guy’s conviction that it is truly Vitrenko who is guilty of her sister’s killing. She resigned from the police force when they refused to reopen the case.’
‘It’s an unlikely partnership,’ mused Fabel. ‘The sister of a victim and the father of the chief suspect …’
Maria shrugged. ‘I’m merely assuming that’s who your girl is. They certainly were active together in the Ukraine after Vitrenko’s disappearance.’ She handed Fabel a head-and-shoulders photograph of a young woman. ‘I had this e-mailed to me by our Ukrainian friends …’
Fabel examined the photograph. In many ways the girl in the photograph was similar to the old Ukrainian’s assistant, but the hair was darker and the face more oval.
‘She looks similar, but this isn’t her …’
‘I know. This is the murdered Kiev journalist. Valerie Onopenko.’
‘Then this is definitely the sister of the woman with Vitrenko senior. This entire case seems to be about bloody families.’
‘Speaking of which –’ Werner eased to the front of the gathered team – ‘I checked out our friends the Eitels. I know we’re not looking at them directly for the murders, but they both have solid alibis for the first killing. The father has a corroborated alibi for the second and Norbert Eitel for the third. I’ve spoken to some of our financial and corporate crime guys on the second floor, but they say they’re not looking at the Eitels for anything at the moment, although they are now taking an active interest in these allegations of property fraud. I’ve handed over a copy of our file. They were able to give me a full breakdown of the registered companies and interests controlled by the Eitels or in which they have an interest. And, right enough, they are directors of Neuer Horizont.’ It was Werner’s turn to flick through his notes. ‘They also have an interest in Galicia Trading. It is a holding company that seems to be doing on-paper trade with the Eitel Group’s property wing. It’s this news that has whetted the appetite of the financial and corporate crime squad. I’ve been able to establish that Galicia Trading is co-directed by Wolfgang Eitel, Norbert Eitel, Pavlo Klimenko and an American businessman called John Sturchak. Galicia Trading has been buying quite a bit of Hamburg real estate recently.’
‘And Pavlo Klimenko is one of Vitrenko’s men.’ Fabel thought for a moment. ‘What do we know about this American?’
‘Not a lot, but I’m getting an e-mail translated into English for sending to the FBI and Interpol.’
‘I think we should have another little chat with the Eitels,’ said Fabel. ‘And this time I think instead of us enjoying their corporate hospitality, they should enjoy ours.’
Anna Wolff stood up. She still wore the smart dress she had for her date with MacSwain but had donned her trademark leather jacket over it. Her face looked drawn and wan under her make-up.
‘What about MacSwain?’
‘What about him?’
‘Is he still a suspect or not?’ Despite her tiredness there was a defiance in her voice.
‘Not for these killings … no. But we’ll keep him under observation anyway. I still think he may have something to do with the abductions, which I now feel are unrelated to this main case. But I’ve got to be careful, Anna. Kriminaldirektor Van Heiden is becoming uneasy about more than the expenditure: he feels that if MacSwain twigs that we’ve been watching his every move without substantive evidence to indicate why he’s a suspect, we could end up with an embarrassing claim on our hands.’
Anna sat down.
Fabel, still standing, paused before addressing the whole assembly again.
‘Now for a history lesson …’ He had set a box file on the chair next to the one on which he had hung his Jaeger jacket. He flipped open the lid and took out a sheaf of papers. There was impatient shuffling from his audience. He froze them with a cold stare. ‘This is necessary. We are dealing with a ritualised method of killing that has a thousand-year history. Our killer – Vitrenko – lives as much in the past as he does in the here and now. We have to understand what perverted sense of history and destiny drives him. I have found out quite a bit that should interest us …’
Fabel did not mention that he had woken up Mathias Dorn with a phone call. Professor Dorn had furnished him with the key facts he needed or the directions in which to look. More importantly, Dorn had remembered the name of the Viking king who had replaced King Inge the Elder when he refused to commit the nine-fold sacrifice at Uppsala. Fabel lifted a photocopy from the papers and taped it to the incident board, next to and almost overlapping the image of Vitrenko. The photocopy was of a nineteenth-century copperplate illustration. It showed an improbably broad-shouldered warrior mounted on a fierce-looking steed. He had long flowing light-haired locks and a huge moustache and a beard that was braided and beaded. He wore a mail tunic and a vast rug of fur sat as a cloak on the unlikely shoulders. His head was topped by an eagle-winged helm.
‘This,’ said Fabel, ‘is Vasyl Vitrenko’s true father. Not the Ukrainian who has been tracking him. At least, I suspect that is how Vitrenko sees it.’
Fabel waited for the sudden chatter, including some laughter, to subside.
‘Now this is all only my supposition. I will need to run this by Frau Doktor Eckhardt tomorrow … I mean, later this morning … but this, ladies and gentlemen, is Sven. As in “Son of Sven”. His full name is
Blot-Sven
, Bloody Sven or Sven the Sacrificer, depending on how you interpret it. He was King of Sweden between 1084 and 1087. His half-brother, King Inge the Elder, converted to Christianity and refused to perform pagan rites of sacrifice at the temple of Uppsala. Sven took over the sacrifices and earned his name. Inge fled to Västergötland and
Blot-Sven
became king of Sweden, or
Svealand
, So, you may ask, what is the link between a Ukrainian madman and Sweden?’ Fabel taped a second, similarly heroic illustration next to that of
Blot-Sven
. ‘This gentleman is Rurik, the first Grand Prince of Kiev. Rurik was supposedly a Viking prince from around this part of Germany, maybe Frisia, or Friesland as we call it now. The warriors he led to conquer Novgorod and Kiev were called the Rus, or the “Rowers”, and it is from them that Russia gets its name. Rurik’s band included Varangians and other mercenaries. The story, unlikely as it may sound, is that the Slavs of what is now the Ukraine and Russia were living in anarchy and invited Rurik and his brother to come and establish order. It is the same fable that is told about the Saxons in England, in their case the brothers being Hengist and Horsa. Anyway, the point is that Rurik and his men were outsiders subjugating a strange land. Their allegiance was exclusively to each other. And their reward was wealth and success. They would go on to become the elite of this new land and the founders of Russian and Ukrainian aristocracy. Vitrenko and his men are doing the same thing here … and Vitrenko has wrapped it all up in his semi-mythical concepts of brotherhood under arms and arcane Viking ritual.’
‘But it’s all a pile of crap,’ Werner said. ‘They can’t really believe that they are a band of Vikings occupying a new land.’
‘Yes they can. And as for it all being a pile of crap, you can say that about any religion or system of belief if you stand on the outside. It isn’t
what
you believe in that’s important. It’s the act of believing that matters. No matter how bizarre or extreme it may seem to others. It’s what makes otherwise sane young men fly airliners into buildings full of people.’
Werner shook his head. More in dull, sad puzzlement than in any sense of disagreement. Fabel continued.
‘I have no idea if Vitrenko believed any of this stuff to start with,’ Fabel went on, ‘or whether he used the myth as a cult-like device to manipulate those under his command. But I am pretty convinced that he believes it all now …’
Fabel paused for a moment and thought back to the end of his conversation with the old Ukrainian soldier. His powerful shoulders had sagged as he spoke of Vitrenko the child. The pale boy with his father’s eyes who was capable of so much and who had revealed an early and vast appetite for cruelty. Tales of other children being manipulated, bullied and cajoled into carrying out acts of torture on small animals. Then on each other. Fabel continued.
‘And I am also certain that Vitrenko has been a psychopath for as long as he can remember. But instead of being treated and controlled, he was sent to elite Soviet military academies where his natural abilities, and psychopathy, were honed.’ Fabel picked up the papers from the table and they made a cone in his fist. He held them out before him as if they were aflame. A burning torch that he held out to his colleagues. ‘Vasyl Vitrenko is the most dangerous individual we have ever had to deal with. He will kill anyone whom he perceives as a threat. And that includes you. And it includes me.’
Fabel couldn’t think what to say next. His mind flooded with the images of the victims, of Vitrenko’s father’s eyes as he had seized Fabel by the throat … the same cold, emerald eyes as his son’s. A shudder ran through him as he imagined Ursula Kastner, Tina Kramer and Angelika Blüm all locking gazes with those stone-cold, glittering eyes as their lives left them. The rest of the team must have each been in some similar, dark place, because the silence remained crystal whole for a few seconds before Maria Klee’s voice shattered it.
‘What about Vitrenko’s father? Did you bring him in?’
Fabel shook his head.
‘But he assaulted a senior police officer. You. We can’t let him away with that.’
‘I can and I have. It was me he assaulted and I’ve called off the search for him. He has agreed to contact me whenever we need to share information again. I honestly believe he just wants his son stopped.’ As he spoke, the first e-mail echoed in his mind:
You can stop me, but you will never catch me
.
‘And what is Vitrenko’s father doing in the meantime?’ Maria’s frown lay somewhere on the edge of a scowl.
‘He is doing exactly what we are doing: he is trying to find and stop Vitrenko.’
‘And what if he catches our guy first?’ Werner picked up Maria’s thread.
Fabel remembered asking the old man the same question as they had stepped out of the Portakabin and into the echoing gloom of the warehouse. The Ukrainian had turned to Fabel and said, in a quiet, flat voice: ‘Then I will end it.’
Fabel locked eyes with Werner and lied. ‘He has given me his word that he will hand Vitrenko and any evidence he finds over to us. That is why I do not want him picked up. I want him treated as a key informant. Okay?’ Fabel leaned forward again, knuckles on the table, his face set hard and tight over his tiredness. ‘I need things to start happening now. Firstly, I want the Eitels brought in for questioning. Now. If they protest then I want them arrested on suspicion of being accessories to murder. And Werner, get the corporate and financial crime guys to put together the questions they want to ask them. A joint interview would be good.’
Werner nodded his assent.
‘Secondly,’ continued Fabel, ‘I want every Ukrainian informant turned over and worked on. Hard. I want operational locations for Vitrenko’s outfit and I want them before the end of today. And, just to be clear, I do not give a rat’s ass if you step on the toes of our Organised Crime colleagues over at LKA7. I will be doing a little of that myself, as well as squeezing our BND colleagues.’ Fabel’s expression darkened even more. ‘No one is telling us what we need to know. And that ends right now. Oberkommissarin Klee and Oberkommissar Meyer will assign your tasks. Werner, hang around a moment, I want a word.’
‘Sure,
Chef
…’
It took a few minutes for the room to clear. Werner remained seated and Anna Wolff walked round the conference table to face Fabel. Her eyes were shadowed, but something akin to defiance smouldered in them.
‘So what do I say if he calls me?’
‘Who?’
‘MacSwain. I’ve given him the allocated cell phone number.’
‘Cancel the number. I don’t want you having close contact with him again. And I can’t justify to Van Heiden any more expensive undercover ops. We need to check him out more, but he’s a low priority.’