three killing machines so perfect. Until then, you, comrade major, will be father, mother, confessor, teacher and keeper of these girls. It’s all in there…’ Adebach nodded to the file in Drescher’s hands. ‘Take that with you but make no copies. The status of each of these young women will be that of a UC, an Unofficial Cooperator like many of your freelance operatives. At the end of the week I want the file returned. All personal files on your students will be destroyed on completion of the training. There is to be no surviving record of the preparation and deployment of these operatives.’
Drescher stood up. ‘Very well, but surely that is unnecessary… no outsider is ever going to set eyes on the files of the Stasi…’
IV
Off the coast of Jutland, Denmark
August 2002
Goran Vujaic watched the blonde girl stretch languidly on the steamer chair at the stern of the yacht. Her limbs were long and lithe but she didn’t have the skinny, boyish narrowness across the hips that the other girl had. Vujaic liked his women to look like women. He sipped his beer, appreciating its chill on the hot day. And it was hot. Vujaic hadn’t expected it to be just as warm as it was. He was no great lover of the northern European climate: he belonged in the humid Mediterranean heat of the Adriatic or under the baking sun of a Balkan summer. But today the weather was good, and he could watch the girls dive from the rear of the boat into the North Sea. He would have the blonde one. That would be part of the deal, a goodwill gesture of trade: that he would get to fuck the blonde one. After all, that was what women were for. That, and being deck ornaments.
‘This little rowboat of yours must have cost you,’ he said to Knudsen, running his hand over the red leather and varnished teak of the recessed deck sofa. Vuja i c the Bosnian Serb spoke to Knudsen the Dane in English: the international language of business. And of organised crime.
‘It’s worth about five million euros. But I managed to get it cost,’ said Knudsen wryly. ‘I came to an agreement with the owner. Sure you don’t want champagne?’
‘I’m fine with the beer just now,’ said Vujaic, glancing over his shoulder again at the girls. ‘But maybe later…’
‘Yes,’ said Knudsen. ‘Later you can let your hair down a little, huh, Goran? After everything is taken care of.’
Vuja i c smiled. He felt relaxed. But not relaxed enough not to have brought Zlatko along with him. Zlatko stood mutely behind them, unsheltered from the sun and sweating menacingly into his Hawaiian shirt. It amused Vuja i c to think that he now had a Croat watching his back. How times had changed.
Knudsen, a tall, tough-looking Dane, sat with Vuja i c in a plush recessed area of the deck at the stern of the motor yacht. Uniformed crew members stood in the shade of the awning, far enough away not to hear the conversation, waiting to serve lunch. Vuja i c breathed in deeply, as if inhaling the yacht’s odour of wealth.
‘You know, Peter,’ he said, ‘this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. And do you know why? Because we complement each other. Supply and demand. What you need, I can deliver. This little operation of ours will become the main trading route for major drugs into Scandinavia and Northern Germany. You and I, my friend, are about to become very, very rich. Or in your case richer. Maybe I’ll get a yacht like this — if you can find another one going at cost.’ Vujaic grinned at the blonde girl. ‘And maybe some of the fixtures too…’
‘Tell me, Goran,’ said Knudsen. ‘Are you sure you’ve got everything tied up at your end? I mean on the distribution side. I heard that you had problems with some of your competitors.’
‘Not any more. Any problems there had been were all dealt with before we first talked. I told you at our first meeting that I was totally in control of the distribution network. And I still am. I had to arrange for a few people to retire from the business. Permanently. Unfortunately I had to be more discreet than usual, so it all proved a little more expensive than expected.’
‘You hired an outsider?’ asked Knudsen.
Vuja i c didn’t answer for a moment. Instead he sipped his beer, keeping his gaze on the tall Dane as if weighing up how much he could trust him. Vujaic knew that Knudsen was rich. Well connected. Everything about him had checked out. But Vujaic had fought in war; often in wars where he had no place to be fighting. For the Serb, experience had taught him to divide men into two clear groups: fighting men and the others. Just like women were divided into the ones you’d fuck and old women. Knudsen bothered him: he was late forties, maybe early fifties, but there was no softening about him; none of the angles had been dulled by the good life. But there again, maybe that was just down to membership of an expensive gym.
‘You know I have a partner… another partner,’ Vuja i c said at last, leaning forward and lowering his voice conspiratorially. This was clearly not even for Zlatko’s ears.
‘Yes, your other partner…’ Knudsen frowned. ‘I still don’t like it, Goran. I mean, not knowing who this third party is.’
‘But it doesn’t affect you, my friend. My business with my other partner has nothing to do with what we’re doing here. Just like you don’t know anything about them, they don’t know anything about you. Different businesses. I supply your pharmaceutical needs, while I’m a sort of recruitment consultant, you could say, for my other partner.’ The Serb laughed at his own in-joke. ‘And anyway, yours and mine is more of an equal partnership. Substantial as our little enterprise here is, it would be peanuts to my other associate. We’re talking about a big fish. A really big fish. They play a much bigger game than you or I do, Peter. And for stakes beyond even your reach.’
‘And what is their game?’ asked Knudsen.
‘Not drugs, if that’s what’s worrying you. Like I say, I supply them with…’ Vujaic ran his hand over the close- cropped bristle on his scalp while he considered the best description ‘… workers. And if I knew all of it, which I don’t, I couldn’t tell you about it. Anyway, as I was saying, I needed to sort out some difficulties with competitors. My other partner knows a contractor. The best in the business, apparently.’
‘A hit man?’
‘Yeah. Or maybe a hit woman, if the code name is anything to go by.’ Vuja i c leaned even closer; lowered his voice more. ‘The Valkyrie. But what woman would be capable, huh, Peter? This so-called Valkyrie is based in Germany. Hamburg, apparently. He — or she — is supposed to be the best contract killer in the world.’
‘Better than the Mexican?’ asked Knudsen.
‘Carlos Ramos? Last I heard he’d quit the business. But yes. At least as good, maybe better. I mean, I could take care of things myself. God knows I took care of a lot of things back home in the nineties…’ Vuja i c cast an eye over his shoulder as if to check that Zlatko could not hear him, then he turned back to the Dane. ‘But this little exercise needed a little more finesse, if you know what I mean. So, this Valkyrie took care of all of the loose ends. Made most of them look like accidents or suicide. The cops are only looking into two of them. Really nice work. Tidy. Anyway, the important thing is that you don’t need to worry about the distribution side.’
‘Okay,’ said Knudsen, ‘if you say so, Goran. Are you ready?’
‘I’m ready…’ Vuja i c turned and nodded to Zlatko. The huge Croatian bodyguard laid a computer case on the deck table in front of Vuja i c, who took out a slim black laptop. The Serb tapped on the keyboard and the secure bank website opened up on the screen. ‘Isn’t Bluetooth wonderful?’ He grinned.
Knudsen beckoned to the blonde girl. She folded a wrap around herself, came over to the men and handed Knudsen a cellphone. Knudsen made two calls: both brief.
‘My contact has taken delivery of the merchandise,’ he said and handed the phone back to the girl.
Vuja i c closed the laptop. ‘And the transfer of the funds has been confirmed.’ He grinned at the blonde girl again, his eyes penetrating the diaphanous wrap and following the curves of her body beneath. ‘Maybe now we should celebrate. Now we can party. You want to party, honey?’
‘Ask the boss,’ she said. ‘It’s his yacht.’
‘You own everything around here?’ Vuja i c asked Knudsen.
Knudsen stood up and beckoned to the deck crew. ‘You can serve it now.’
Vuja i c didn’t have time to react.
