Buslenko paused. ‘I also have to tell you this mission isn’t just black, it’s wet.’ A ‘wet’ Spetsnaz mission was one where blood was spilt; where people died. Buslenko’s audience remained silent, their attention fixed on him and waiting for him to continue. He grinned and carried on.
‘Okay, now that that crap’s out of the way, let’s get down to brass tacks.’ He turned the screen of his laptop in their direction. He used a wireless mouse and the handsome face of a middle-aged Ukrainian officer appeared on the screen.
‘This is our target. I know you all have heard of him. Colonel Vasyl Vitrenko, formerly of the Berkut counter-terrorist unit.’ Buslenko nodded an acknowledgement to Belotserkovsky, the Berkut member of the team. ‘I want you all to take a moment to think of the most dangerous person you have ever come across in your career.’ Buslenko paused. ‘Now imagine someone twenty times more dangerous and you’re beginning to understand Vitrenko. He was nearly caught in Hamburg, Germany two years ago. He was being tracked by his own father, also a former Spetsnaz officer, as well as the Hamburg police. Vitrenko arranged a little spectacle for the Hamburg cops. He wired his
own father up to an anti-tank mine and put it on a timer so that the investigating cop could bear witness to Dad being splattered across half the city. When it comes to killing, Vitrenko sees himself as a poet. An artist. He has a taste for the symbolic and the ritualistic. Before he took up his command post in the Berkut in nineteen-ninety, he’d already had a distinguished Soviet career in Afghanistan and had then volunteered to help our Russian cousins in Chechnya. The story is that he went renegade, converting the loyalty of his men from the “Motherland” to personal loyalty to him. This group forms the basis of the criminal organisation he has built. Vasyl Vitrenko is as skilled a killer and torturer as you are ever likely to experience. Like I said, he sees himself as an artist …’ Buslenko clicked the mouse and another image filled the screen. It took a moment for the explosion of blood and meat to be recognisable as the remains of a human being. ‘He believes that Ukrainians are descended from Vikings, which is partly true, so one of his specialities is to copy the Viking Blood Eagle ritual. He tears the lungs from victims while they are still alive and throws them over their shoulders as the wings of the eagle.’
Buslenko paused to let the image sink in. But this wasn’t an audience to be easily shocked. Buslenko clicked the mouse again. Another face replaced Vitrenko’s.
‘Now say hello to Valeri Molokov. Russian. Forty-seven years old. Ex-cop. Former member of the Russian
OMON
special police Spetsnaz. Turned the people he was supposed to be hunting down into business associates. For a while he was considered to be a highly effective
OMON
operative, because one
way or another he was taking down so many of Russia’s key targets in organised crime. Turned out he had been steadily eliminating his competitors, or carrying out contract killings for other crime bosses with whom he cooperated. It soon became known that if you wanted someone taken out nice and cleanly, then Molokov was your man. Despite having served with
OMON
and their history in Chechnya, Molokov is known to have very strong links with the
Obshchina
Chechen mafia. Wanted in Russia for smuggling, drug-trafficking, seven counts of murder, eight counts of conspiracy to murder, rape and false imprisonment.’
‘Any traffic convictions?’ asked Stoyan with his handsome Tatar grin. Everyone laughed, including Buslenko. A little laughter in the face of enemies like these couldn’t do any harm.
‘Molokov is the only member of Vitrenko’s senior management we’ve been able to identify. He has his own team within the organisation and that’s Vitrenko’s first and only weakness: Molokov’s security isn’t a patch on Vitrenko’s. It was a hasty marriage of convenience … Basically Molokov was made an offer he couldn’t refuse by Vitrenko. Molokov’s activities were encroaching on Vitrenko’s, so Vitrenko intercepted several consignments of Molokov’s and set fire to the container lorries.’
‘What was the cargo?’ asked Olga Sarapenko.
‘It was a people-smuggling operation …’
‘Fuck,’ said Belotserkovsky. ‘
That
was Vitrenko? The thing on the Polish border?’
‘I thought it was an accident,’ said Olga.
‘That was the version put out for the media,’ said Buslenko. ‘A few kilometres further on and it would have been the Polish police investigating and the
whole thing would have come out. It was kept quiet to buy us time to track Vitrenko.’
‘So Molokov got the message?’ asked Belotserkovsky
‘He handed control over to Vitrenko – grudgingly – but was left in charge of the people-smuggling operation. The main difference is that he has no competition any more. He works for Vitrenko and if any smaller-scale operation starts up, Vitrenko ends it.’
‘So why is this a black mission?’ asked Stoyan. ‘Ukrainian criminals, Ukrainian police and security. Ukrainian victims.’
‘It’s a black operation for two reasons. Firstly, our mission is to intercept Vitrenko with maximum prejudice. We’re not coming back with a prisoner. The second reason is, as I said at the start, that we are operating outside Ukraine.’
‘Specifically?’ asked Olga.
‘Specifically the Federal Republic of Germany.’
There was an outburst of expletives. ‘Germany?’ said Belotserkovsky. ‘I’ve never been to Germany. My grandfather went there, though. Nineteen forty-four … with the Red Army. I think I may have German cousins.’
More laughter to defuse the tension.
Buslenko went through all the intelligence they had on Vitrenko and his operation. Buslenko told his team that Vitrenko was believed to have his base in Cologne, and still controlled much of the vice in Hamburg. The scope of his operation was vast, covering everything from luxury car rings to protection to electronic fraud. Buslenko wound up the briefing by laying out a map of Cologne marked with the three properties from which they would run their operation; a second map highlighted known
Vitrenko-controlled operations. He then handed each member of the team a folder containing their individual mission objectives and responsibilities.
‘By the way, Vitrenko would kill you for the information you now have in your hands. He is desperate to find out how much has leaked to us from the Molokov side of his organisation and from other sources. He is on a traitor hunt.’
‘Is this everything we have on him?’ asked Olga Sarapenko. She was sitting by the lodge’s window and the light accentuated the blue of her eyes. When Sasha had recommended that she be brought on board Buslenko had seen the value, but now he found increasingly that her beauty distracted him.
‘That’s everything we’ve been given,’ he said abruptly. ‘The Germans have more information. A lot more, probably, but they are reluctant to share it with us. Like most Westerners they believe “Ukrainian” is synonymous with “crooked”. They’re worried about leaks.’
‘You can’t entirely blame them,’ said Olga. ‘We could have nailed Vitrenko in Kiev if Peotr Samolyuk hadn’t sold us out.’
Buslenko nodded, but he still found it difficult to believe that the Spetsnaz officer had betrayed them for money.
‘Before we wind this up,’ he said, ‘there are two wild cards in the pack that you should know about. They’re not likely to be an issue, but it’s best that you’re aware of them.’ He clicked the mouse. ‘This is Senior Criminal Commissar Maria Klee of the Polizei Hamburg … and this …’ he clicked the mouse again, ‘is her boss, Principal Chief Commissar Jan Fabel, chief of the Hamburg murder squad. These two are the only people to have come close
to nailing Vitrenko. The price they paid included Vitrenko using Klee as a delaying tactic, leaving her with a near-fatal wound that Fabel had to deal with. And Vitrenko left two dead cops behind him.’
‘But you don’t think they’re still after Vitrenko?’ asked Olga Sarapenko.
‘The price you pay for coming close to Vitrenko is high,’ Buslenko said, closing the lid of his laptop. ‘Jan Fabel has quit the police and Maria Klee is a basket case.’
As he entered the kitchen, Benni Scholz paused to dip a spoon into one of the large pots on the huge brushed-aluminium cooker range. It was a split-pea soup that was still warm despite the hobs being switched off. A number of other pans had been knocked over, their contents splashed against the wall and across the floor where they mingled with other splashes – of blood. Scholz sipped the soup.
‘Are you deliberately trying to contaminate this crime scene, Senior Commissar?’ An attractive young woman in a forensics coverall scowled up at him from where she knelt in the centre of the kitchen floor.
‘I’ve told you many times before, Frau Schilling.’ Scholz’s dark eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘Any time you want to collect a DNA sample from me for elimination, I’d be more than pleased to supply one. But I think we should have dinner first. This place any good?’
‘I have a feeling they’ll be closed tonight,’ the forensics chief said flatly and unsmiling, turning her attention again to the mass of lacerated flesh on the
floor before her. ‘In the meantime, please don’t touch
anything
else.’
Three other forensics technicians were working in the kitchen, each on a different area. There were also two other Criminal Police detectives from Scholz’s department: Kris, the young Criminal Police Commissar who had accompanied Scholz to the scene and Tansu, a young Turkish-German officer. The junior detectives lingered uncertainly at the doorway that led from the main salon of the restaurant to the kitchen. Both looked decidedly unwell, particularly Kris. Scholz scanned the kitchen. Everywhere there were signs of violence. The spilled pots. Blood smeared on the door frame. A stool upset. Pools of blood on the floor. The epicentre of the violence was the lump of meat that Simone Schilling now examined. It was also the cause of the nauseated look on the face of Kris Feilke.
‘What’s the story?’ Scholz asked.
‘Ukrainian,’ Kris said at last. ‘A kitchen worker. More than likely an illegal. There were three other staff in the kitchen at the time. Two Ukrainians and a Somalian. The Ukrainians won’t say a word … scared shitless. But the Somalian said that three masked men came in and started shouting at the victim. Not in German, so I’m guessing they were Ukrainian too. Specially as the two Ukrainian kitchen staff have been struck dumb. One of the masked men picked up a meat cleaver …’ Impossibly, the young detective’s pale complexion paled further. ‘Anyway, he did that to him.’
Scholz moved over towards the body. Simone Schilling stopped his progress with another cute scowl.
‘I suppose it’s too early to ascertain a cause of
death?’ Scholz grinned. It was difficult to see the features of the figure on the floor. One side of the face gaped open where the meat cleaver had sliced cleanly through skin, muscle, sinew and bone. Similarly, a straight-edged flap of flesh had separated from the upper arm, just below the cuff of his T-shirt. The cleaver’s sharp edge had made the wounds unnaturally rectilinear. Scholz reckoned there were at least a dozen slashes on the body. ‘But I’m guessing it wasn’t a gunshot.’ Scholz laughed at his witticism. Simone Schilling didn’t. She stood up.
‘You’ll get a full report from the pathologist. Herr Dr Lüdeke will be carrying out the autopsy.’
‘He’s got his work cut out for him …’ said Scholz and laughed, alone, at his joke.
Simone Schilling cast her eyes around the floor, where her team had tent-flagged various bloody smears. ‘His attackers certainly didn’t care about leaving evidence. We’ve got half a dozen bootprints in the blood. Clear patterns.’ She looked at Scholz with disdain. ‘Mind you, half of them are probably yours by now.’
Scholz looked at the body again. Four or five of the slashes on the forearms. Palm split open, exposing bone. Defensive wounds.
‘Do we have a name?’ He called to the two detectives by the door.
‘Slavko Dmytruk,’ said Kris. ‘Or that’s the name the restaurant have for him. The owners reckon he’s about twenty-three or -four.’
‘Are you okay?’ asked Scholz.
‘Never been good with this side of the job …’
‘What’s not to be good with?’ Scholz nodded to the corpse. ‘That’s not a person any more. It’s nothing
but meat. Whoever Slavko Dmytruk was, whatever made him who he was, has got nothing to do with what’s left here. You’ve got to get past that. If you don’t, you’ll walk into a murder scene and find some little kiddie dead and you’ll go to pieces. It’ll be your last day on the job.’
Kris was looking at the partially dismembered corpse and did not look at all convinced.
‘Have you had anything to eat?’ asked Scholz. ‘It’s always worse if you’ve got an empty stomach.’ He turned and dipped a ladle into the still-warm soup. He held it out to the young detective. ‘Try some of this … it’s really good. Split pea …’
Kris turned suddenly and bolted out into the restaurant, in the direction of the toilets. Tansu Bakrac scowled disapprovingly at her boss. When Scholz turned back to Simone Schilling, she was staring at him in disbelief.
‘What?’ he said defensively, the ladle still extended. ‘I was trying to help him feel better …’
‘Not everyone is as insensitive to human suffering as you, Herr Scholz.’
‘Call me Benni.’
‘Okay. You can call me Frau Doctor Schilling.’ She nodded in the direction of the departed detective. ‘Shouldn’t you check that he’s okay?’
‘He’ll be fine. If not, he’s in the wrong job. Anyway, I’m not insensitive to human suffering. I feel for the victim. Horrible death. But I don’t lose my lunch every time I look at a stiff. Like I said, they’re not people any more. Just meat. No one knows that better than you.’
‘You’re right,’ said Simone Schilling. ‘A corpse isn’t a person to me. It’s a store of evidence. But it took years to become accustomed to it. Now I look
at them professionally, not emotionally. But you … you’re just an insensitive pig.’
Scholz smiled. He liked it when she insulted him. ‘I’m not insensitive. Just practical.’
The young detective reappeared.
‘You okay, Kris?’ asked Scholz. He turned to Simone Schilling. ‘See? Sensitive.’