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.
CHAPTER 12
Adorjan 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
