The guy who’d arrived earlier appeared, looking flushed and apologetic. He hurried down the steps, pushing his hair back behind his ears. Victor figured the man was saying sorry for being late and that the penthouse was ready for Farkas’s stay. Farkas looked at him with disdain but didn’t say anything.
Victor waited a minute before leaving. He entered a boutique on a nearby street where he bought an entirely new set of clothes, dressed in them in the changing rooms and carried his old clothes out in a store-supplied shopping bag. He took a seat outside the coffee shop on the same side of the street as the apartment building and ordered a cappuccino and chicken salad panini. His position offered him a more restricted view of the street than the bar had, but he could still clearly see the sidewalk immediately outside the building.
The afternoon was sunny enough to justify wearing sunglasses and
warm enough so that Victor draped his jacket over a chair. He took his time eating. The coffee shop had a selection of newspapers and he took one to pretend to read. He was hoping he wouldn’t have to pretend for long as his instincts told him Farkas wasn’t the kind of guy to stay cooped up inside on his first day. Either he would need to get down to business or more likely he would leave to get something to eat. Sooner rather than later.
By the time Victor was finishing his second coffee his wait was over. Farkas appeared with all of his four guys just after three p.m. They were laughing and joking, Farkas too, though far less enthusiastically.
Friendly, but not friends
, Victor noted. He watched as they passed, overhearing the one who’d arrived first mention something about a restaurant.
Victor waited until they were out of sight before leaving his chair. He used the set of copied keys to let himself inside and made his way up to the penthouse. He stood listening in front of the door for a moment to ensure no one was coming or going below him. The pick gun, though not loud, wasn’t exactly silent either.
He removed the gun from his rucksack, inserted the long pick into the penthouse’s lock, and squeezed the trigger. Immediately the pick vibrated rapidly and in seconds the lock was open. Victor hadn’t used one for a while – lock picks could be disguised or hidden more easily – but he couldn’t deny the pick gun’s usefulness.
He opened the door and stepped inside. The alarm made its dull warning beep. Victor approached the keypad and entered one, five, eight, two. It didn’t work so he tried two, five, eight, one. The warning beep stopped.
Victor entered the lounge and saw the Hungarians had already made themselves at home. The smell of tobacco hung in the air. There were mugs left on the floor next to the sofas and luggage sat on the coffee table. He scanned the area for anything he could use to his advantage but quickly dismissed the lounge as a strike point; then again, he’d never expected it to be.
The problem of how to place the bomb had been on Victor’s mind since arriving in Berlin. It had to be somewhere where it was sure to be triggered, but only where Farkas alone could trigger it. With another
four men sharing the penthouse with him, it meant that the answer hadn’t come easily.
Remote detonation was out. The bomb could be planted on the street outside the building and detonated when Farkas passed. However, there were no convenient trashcans where Farkas was certain to pass. The device could be placed under a car parked outside, but it would be a risk planting it in the first place and the car could easily be driven off before Farkas walked by. And that was without the very real risk of civilian casualties.
The bomb had to be set inside the apartment. It could be placed under Farkas’s bed and remote detonated when he climbed in, so long as he could be observed doing so. When the realtor had shown him around, Victor had looked through every window to see which buildings overlooked the master bedroom. There was one potential viewpoint, but if the bedroom drapes were closed it would render that position useless.
He toyed with the idea of placing the bomb on the underside of the mattress with a pressure sensor that would trigger the blast when Farkas lay down. The trouble was the bed was king-size and Victor had no way of knowing which side Farkas would sleep on. The sensor could only be set to trigger the bomb under considerable weight in case luggage or other items were placed on the bed. Someone else could trigger the bomb just by sitting or lying on that side of the bed; equally, if Farkas decided to sleep on the other side then the bomb would never go off.
The noise of the key in the lock registered instantly. Victor turned towards the bedroom door and gently pushed it closed. He listened as the front door opened and someone stepped inside; a lone man by the sound of the footsteps. One of Farkas’s entourage. If it was Farkas himself returning, all of his men would likely accompany him.
Had the guy noticed that the alarm had been switched off? If so, Victor couldn’t tell by his movements. He heard the man in the lounge, the sound of his shoes on the floorboards growing louder as he headed for the bedrooms. Maybe he was back because he’d forgotten something. Or maybe he was back because Farkas had forgotten
something. Victor’s gaze found the slim leather-bound notebook sitting on the bedside table. A schedule, maybe.
He squatted down to look under the bed. Finding it only a few inches in height, he stood back up, glanced at the wardrobe. It was full of hanging suits and suitcases. No room for him as well. The en suite bathroom was the best place to hide, except for the chance that the guy would decide to check his reflection before he left. If that happened there was only one way for Victor to deal with him and the job would fall apart.
The footsteps grew louder, closer.
The Hungarian with the long dark hair opened the bedroom door and stepped inside. The room was larger and nicer than the one he was sharing with two of the others. It smelled better too. He saw the black notebook and scooped it up into a hand. He slipped it into his inside jacket pocket for safekeeping.
He turned to leave, but on a whim of boredom opened the door to the adjoining bathroom.
Again, it was much nicer than the main bathroom that was quickly becoming a mess with the toiletries of four men competing for space. The shared toilet was already filthy with the bowl ringed by piss puddles. The Hungarian examined the expensive bottles that Farkas had lined the sink with and selected an intriguing tube of cream. He opened it, sniffed it, squeezed out a drop, and rubbed it into his hands. They felt soft afterwards. He replaced the tube exactly as he had found it. Farkas was a good boss most of the time but he was careful to maintain the hierarchy.
The Hungarian left the bathroom, reset the alarm and left the apartment. He didn’t remember disabling it but he didn’t think twice about it.
Victor heard the front door shut and remained as still as he could for exactly sixty seconds just to be sure before moving from his position. He pulled the curtain to one side and dropped down from the window sill where he’d been balancing with his legs contorted, his back pressed flat against the glass, arms stretched out for support. The sill hadn’t
been as deep as he would have liked, but the guy hadn’t noticed the hang of the drapes wasn’t quite as straight as they should have been.
The moment his shoes touched the carpet the alarm started to beep. Victor hurried to the panel and typed in the code.
Back in the bedroom, he took his bag from the wardrobe where he’d placed it with Farkas’s luggage, set it on the bed, and took out the bomb. Confident in his decision, it took him less than four minutes to place the bomb and he was outside the building shortly after resetting the alarm. For Victor the job was effectively over.
Now it was all down to Farkas.
Adorján Farkas was drunk. A couple of beers had preceded his steak and more beers and a few cocktails had followed the meal. His men had convinced him to make a night of it, and when five Hungarians did that the results were often messy. While in a country where no one knew Farkas, or how he made his money, he felt more relaxed than he often did at home, but he was in Germany on business and as such had to keep some level of control.
The members of his entourage had shown less restraint, downing copious amounts of German beer with their own meals before moving on to a range of spirits in the bar. They were well behaved, as he liked, and it was good to see his men having fun. Farkas encouraged such behaviour because socialising strengthened the bonds of loyalty. He had been a boss in the Hungarian mob long enough to know that he only maintained his position because his men allowed him to be in charge. They needed him to pay them and he needed them to carry out his orders and protect him against the hazards of the organised crime trade. Farkas knew that without his men to exert his will he was all but impotent.
There was a line though, a line between employer and employee that could not be crossed. His men needed to like him and respect him and in turn feel that he liked and respected them, but he could never be friends with them. There might be a time when a man in his service became a problem, either deliberately or unknowingly, and Farkas had found it was hard to torture and kill a friend. With no friends working for him, he was free to operate without interruption from that annoying little thing called guilt.
He walked behind his men as they made their way back to the apartment building. He was quiet while his men joked loudly with one
another. Though collectively they had enough alcohol in their systems to kill a bull, he knew that they still had their wits about them. In Farkas’s business one of the primary traits a man needed for success was to be able to handle his drink. A couple would probably spend most of tomorrow swallowing aspirin, but by the evening they would be ready to work.
On that day Farkas was due to meet some potential new suppliers. He was always looking to expand his burgeoning empire and he felt good about this trip’s prospects. The suppliers came highly recommended and if things went well they would help round out Farkas’s arms inventory. He shipped cheap Eastern European Kalashnikovs down to an Egyptian dealer, who in turn sold them throughout the Middle East and Africa. The money was okay and the risks minimal, but Farkas knew if he could get his hands on more sophisticated Western weaponry, he wouldn’t have to deal with the Egyptian bastard – who Farkas knew ripped him off – he could go straight to the smaller dealers. He would cut out the middleman and massively increase his margins.
With luck, these German suppliers might be able to help him do just that. He had his eye on some nice Heckler & Koch gear: MP5s, G36s, UMPs, the works. The market was there, ready and waiting. Farkas just needed to get his fingers on the goods. He also wanted a new pistol for himself. Something flashy that the other bosses back home didn’t have.
In the penthouse, his men started raiding the kitchen for anything edible or drinkable. Farkas likened them to a pack of scavengers, already full and intoxicated but eager to gorge on whatever could be found. One of his men grabbed the TV remote and began flicking through the channels in search of porn and Farkas knew it was time to call it a night when he saw the genital-to-genital close-up on the screen.
His decision provoked some jeers but he waved his hand dismissively and headed to his bedroom. He turned on the main light and began undressing, throwing his dirty clothes in one corner. Then he unzipped his suitcase and rifled through until he found his pyjamas.
In the en suite, he brushed his teeth and washed his face before
returning to the bedroom. He switched off the main light and climbed into bed. Taking the novel he’d brought along for the trip off the bedside table, he flicked on the lamp.
Farkas read a few pages before tiredness got the better of him. The book wasn’t that good anyway – some thriller with too much talking and not enough killing. He folded over the corner of the page he’d reached and put the book down. He flicked the lamp off.
He lay in the dark for a few moments before switching the lamp back on and getting out of bed. He walked into the bathroom to relieve his bladder. Farkas pushed down the handle to flush the toilet. It didn’t flush.
He pushed the handle down again, harder.
Inside the tank, the handle rose to open the flush valve. It drove the firing pin taped to the top of the lever into the detonator attached to the underside of the tank lid. The detonator blew and ignited the main charge of RDX packed into the empty tank.
The shock wave travelled outwards with an explosive velocity of more than eight thousand yards per second, obliterating the tank, and everything inside the room. The door blew off its hinges and smashed into the far wall of the adjoining bedroom, followed by flames and debris.
Chunks of Farkas dropped from the bathroom ceiling.
Linz, Austria
Before he was due to, Victor found himself awake on his hard hotel-room bed. There was a racket coming from the corridor outside. Running, yelling, laughing, banging into things. It sounded like a couple of kids playing up to their parents, who in turn were louder still in trying to quiet their children down. That was the problem with being a light sleeper who primarily slept when others were awake. People were even less considerate than they were the rest of the time.
It was something he’d been forced to get used to, as he had no fixed sleeping routine. He slept when he could, for as long as he could. If it wasn’t enough, he’d sleep another time. Those first few operations behind enemy lines had taught him the importance of getting rest whenever and wherever it was available, whatever the circumstances. It was a lesson he still put into practice. If he’d needed a comfortable bed and a good eight hours’ uninterrupted sleep each day to be at the top of his game he would have died a long time ago.
Victor employed a controlled breathing technique to induce sleep quickly, which was one of the most important skills he’d trained himself in, though today it wasn’t working. No amount of controlled breathing was going to defeat two screaming children and two yelling parents. Earplugs would have helped, but they’d also help anyone who might want to get into his room uninvited. Occasionally waking prematurely was preferable to never waking at all.