The Lucifer Network (50 page)

The journey to Grinzing took twenty-five minutes. On the last stages of the route, the tram climbed steadily. Most passengers seemed to be tourists with cameras round their necks and when they reached the terminus Chursin saw why. Grinzing was a pretty village of mellow yellow houses, souvenir shops and taverns. He stepped down from the vehicle and stood to one side as the other passengers dispersed. The tram trundled round a loop line to head back into the city and he was alone on the pavement, the coolbag full of smallpox dangling from one hand and a plastic shopping bag from the other.

He waited for a good five minutes before an elderly Volkswagen Golf pulled up and a dark-haired woman leaned out from the driver's window.

‘Herr Prinz?'

‘Yes.'

‘Please.' The rear door of the car opened for him to get in. Chursin slid onto the back seat and the woman drove off. The car wound through the village, climbing
steadily. Next to the woman driver was a brown-haired man who kept his eyes on the road as if not trusting her ability to avoid the kerbs. His head was like a small dog's, wiry and pointed. Neither of them spoke as the car left the built-up area and headed into woodland interspersed with vineyards. Their silence made Chursin uneasy.

After about ten minutes, the woman swung the car into a lane which quickly became a rutted track, ending at a small, darkly painted wooden house with a barn behind it. The large doors were open. The woman drove in and switched off.

Still without speaking, she got out and indicated he should do the same. Chursin was uncomfortable with this couple. It had been more straightforward with the professional-sounding man he'd dealt with last time. There was something sinister about this pair. A cold efficiency about their actions that was not entirely human. And the garage had a faint smell of chloroform about it.

‘You will show us what you have brought,' the man told him, walking over to a workbench and indicating that Chursin should open his bag on it.

‘You have money for me?' he checked, defensively.

‘Ja, ja. Alles in Ordnung,' the man grunted, opening a drawer in the workbench and pulling out a fat brown envelope.

Chursin's eyes widened at the thickness of it. He unzipped the seal on the coolbag and removed four bottles.

‘These contain serum,' he explained, holding up the two larger ones. ‘Infected serum. Other two bottles are vaccine.'

‘It is good?' the terrier-faced man asked him. ‘It will protect us?'

‘One hundred per cent.' Mentally Chursin crossed his fingers as he said it.

‘We must use the vaccine how long before?' the woman checked.

‘Any time before infection.'

‘And for the virus you have . . .' She didn't know the English word. ‘
Eine
Spritze?
'

Chursin picked up his plastic shopping bag and pulled out an insecticide spray with a pump handle and a reservoir tank.

‘You see, it is made special so the droplets are right size,' he explained. From their frowns he wasn't certain they were following his English properly.

‘First you mix serum with water. Fifty-fifty. Understand?'

‘
Ja.
We understand.' The couple looked at one another and nodded. ‘Alles in Ordnung.' The man handed him the envelope. When he smiled he revealed a wide gap between his front teeth. ‘Your money. You must to count it.'

Chursin felt intensely relieved. He slit open the envelope with his thumbnail and pulled out a sheaf of $100 bills. As he concentrated on them, dividing them into tens, he failed to notice the man walk round behind him. The notes were crisp and new. Like the life he envisaged they would buy him.

Suddenly a bag was pulled over his head. Dark, smelly plastic. He went rigid with shock, tightening his grip on the cash and swearing in Russian. Then his elbows were wrenched behind his back and pinioned. He struggled but was pulled off balance. His wiry assailant had the strength of a bear.

He breathed in sharply, air that smelled of manure. He felt outraged and foolish, but when he tried to protest again his voice failed, as if some part of him realised there was no point in speaking. He seemed to be standing outside his own body, watching a process as
relentless and terminal as when a spider traps a fly. He felt fingers unbutton his shirt in the middle of his chest, then a probing to locate the base of his sternum, followed by an excruciating pain in his heart.

‘Aaagh . . .' He felt he'd been impaled. His pulse faltered like some seized engine. The stench from the sack was choking him. His head began to spin and his legs gave way. He sank backwards into the steadying arms of his attacker. Then his mind went black.

The woman finished emptying the horse syringe into Igor Chursin's heart and withdrew the needle, leaving a tiny hole in his white skin from which a thin rivulet of blood trickled. After a few seconds it stopped of its own accord. The man lowered Igor Chursin to the ground. The two of them stood side by side, observing the end of another life, watching the onset of death in the quietly satisfied way that they'd done many times before in the last twenty years. Ending people's lives was an art they took pride in, using skills their Stasi trainers had inherited from the Gestapo and refined under the tutelage of the KGB.

In the corner of the barn was a stone sink with a brass tap. The woman took the veterinary syringe over to it, washed it out and replaced it in its container in the workbench drawer. Then from a box on a shelf behind it she retrieved two disposable syringes in sealed plastic packs, opened them and filled them from one of the vaccine bottles. The man bared his upper arm and she plunged in the needle. When she'd done, she rolled up her own shirt sleeve for him to do the same to her. Finally they transferred the bottles of infected serum to a thermo-electric camping coolbox which they placed on the floor at the back of the car, connecting its power cable to the cigar lighter socket.

The man knelt beside Chursin to check that his pulse
was flat. Then the two of them lifted him into the boot of the car, folding down half of the rear seat to make it easier for his legs. They covered the body with a blanket, and dumped two suitcases on top of it.

The pair nodded at one another. The job was done. Their next mission awaited. They got into the car and reversed from the barn, locking the doors behind them.

They had a long journey ahead.

On board an RAF HS
₁₂₅
en route
to Vienna

Unlike the exhausted marines, Sam had forced himself to stay awake during the flight, checking and rechecking the computer files. He'd done a word search on every document, but Schenk's name hadn't registered. Nor had rabies. If Schenk was to be nailed, then somehow they were going to have to get him to admit his involvement.

He kept thinking of what Julie had gone through with Schenk thirty-six hours ago. He felt a strong wish to see her again. Almost as strong as a longing.

Thirty minutes later the small jet touched down at Vienna's Schwechat Airport and taxied to the business terminal. Willie Phipps stirred from his slumbers to bid Sam goodbye. He shook his hand warmly and wished him luck. After a brief passport check, Sam was taken to the city by the same cautious British embassy driver who'd been so meticulous about speed limits on the day of Kovalenko's murder.

Once beyond the airport perimeter, the driver handed him a phone. ‘Mr Collins thought you might want to get
up to date with what's been happening in London,' he suggested.

Sam rang Waddell's number first, but finding him unavailable, dialled Stephanie's line at the Yard. She sounded unusually harassed.

‘Where the hell are you?'

‘Vienna.'

‘He calls himself Peter. The mastermind.'

‘I know. Waddell told me.'

‘Is it Schenk?'

‘Everything points that way. There
was
a biological weapons lab on Palagra and we have found links to Vienna. But I can't prove it's Schenk. Tell me about the bloke you've arrested.'

‘Aged thirty-two. Former securities trader with no previous convictions. Shacked up with a nurse. No known associations with racist organisations, but his computer hard disk was stuffed with downloads from white power websites and he'd failed to erase a whole bunch of e-mails from his leader.'

‘Waddell said they gave no clue to his identity.'

‘Not so sure about that. There's been a new missive this morning. Tell me something. How good is Schenk's English?'

‘Pretty fluent. Makes the odd error.'

‘Would you recognise one?'

‘Try me.'

‘The e-mail's full of sympathy about the mistake Petrie made in Golders Green – blowing up a crocodile of schoolkids rather than a restaurant full of Jews. All written in near perfect English until the end when he says
I also
have
must
to
make
such a sacrifice.
Ring any bells?'

Sam pondered for a moment. ‘No. But it does sound sort of German. What was the precise context?'

‘He seems to be talking about having to sacrifice partners who don't support the Lucifer Network's views on life . . .'

‘
Lucifer
Network?'

‘Seems to be the name of the organisation. There was reference to it in one of the other e-mails we found. Want me to read the whole text?'

‘No. Fax it to the Embassy in Vienna. For the attention of Pat Collins. I'm on my way there now.'

‘Okay. I'll tell you one other thing, though. It ends with the words
chin
up.
Is Schenk a fan of P.G. Wodehouse?'

‘God knows.'
Chin
up.
He'd heard someone else use the words recently, but couldn't remember where. ‘Ask Julie.'

‘I will. Oh, I saw her last night. She's keen to talk to you. In fact I get the impression she's rather keen altogether.'

He ignored her innuendo. ‘Where is she?'

‘In the virology lab at St Michael's Hospital. She told me she'd be working there all weekend.'

The car turned into Jauresgasse and stopped outside the British Embassy.

‘D'you happen to have the phone number?'

‘You mean you
don't
?'

‘Leave it out, Steph.' She gave it to him. ‘Thanks. And we'll do that curry soon. Right?'

‘Right.
If
Miss Jackman can spare you . . .'

He handed the phone back to the driver.

Chin
up.

He walked into the Embassy still dressed in the crumpled trousers and sweatshirt that he'd worn under his dry suit. And judging by the way the secretary who escorted him upstairs wrinkled her nose, he wasn't smelling too fresh any more.

Inside the SIS offices Collins was on the phone and
waved him to a seat. The station chief's ruddy forehead bore a perplexed frown.

‘Vielen Dank.' He rang off, puffing out his cheeks with surprise. ‘Well . . . there's a turn-up,' he exhaled. ‘I think you may have had a wasted journey.'

‘Why? What's happened now?'

‘Austrian security pulled Schenk in for questioning again just before lunchtime today, to confront him with your evidence of the link between the germ warfare lab and Vienna,' Collins gabbled, spluttering. ‘And, wait for it – Schenk confessed.'

‘
What?
' Elation swelled inside him like a balloon.

‘But not to what we wanted him to confess to.'

The balloon burst. Sam clasped his scalp with both hands. ‘Explain.'

‘He's admitted doing a deal with Harry Jackman.'

‘Fantastic.'

‘But not the deal you have in mind. He categorically denies being involved in biological terrorism. And to prove it he's shown Austrian security what it was he
did
buy from Jackman.'

‘Which was . . .?'

‘Medical equipment. Some quite flash stuff. Gear donated to a hospital in Africa by a European aid programme. It had been sitting in some flyblown storeroom for a year and a half because the locals didn't have anybody who could operate it. Then money changed hands and the equipment quietly disappeared, turning up in Schenk's clinic at half the price he'd have paid if he'd bought it through the usual channels.'

‘The little shit.' Sam sank back in the chair in disbelief.

‘And this was no fantasy on his part. The serial numbers on the gear in his clinic match with those of the equipment sent to Africa.'

Sam rested his head on the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling. It was too pat. Too well-prepared an excuse for someone who only a few hours earlier had denied ever meeting Harry Jackman.

‘What makes you think this is the
only
deal Schenk did with Jackman?'

‘Because we have no evidence of any other. Nothing connecting him with Palagra.'

Sam stared at the ceiling again. Every fibre of his body told him Schenk was guilty of something far more sinister than receiving stolen property.

‘If Schenk is unscrupulous enough to deprive Africans of life-saving equipment, he could easily have been involved in racist murder too.'

‘Of course he could,' Collins concurred. ‘Trouble is, his denials have been very convincing.'

There was a tap at the door and a secretary handed Collins a sheet of paper.

‘What's all this?'

‘A fax.'

Sam looked over his shoulder. ‘If it's from Scotland Yard and the text of an e-mail, then it's for me.' Collins gave it to him.

Sam sat down again, rubbing his forehead as he read. The caring tone of ‘Peter's' message intrigued him. He was reminded of Hoffmann's homily about a good general caring for his troops. He lingered over the penultimate paragraph.