Freese’s smashed body floating on the oily dark water of the Elbe. That way, part of him could believe that Freese’s wish had been fulfilled, and he was now in some other reality.
One that would be more kind to him. One where he could see things the way they really were.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Fabel looked up at the seven a.m. sky. It had been like waiting in for an overdue package to be delivered but here, at last, was a sign that spring had arrived. It was a bright, warm morning and the sky was cloudless.
‘Great, isn’t it?’ said Anna.
‘Long overdue.’ Fabel fastened the straps of the Kevlar body armour at his sides. ‘We all set?’
His team nodded: Anna, Werner, Henk, Dirk and Thomas. Nicola Bruggemann was still struggling with the body armour.
‘Am I the only person in the Polizei Hamburg with TITS…?’ She shouted the final word in the direction of the MEK team leader who had provided the armour. Then back to Fabel, ‘This shit is clearly designed by men.’ After some more struggling and cursing, she had the armour fastened.
In addition to Fabel’s team there was a squad of eight MEK special-tactics commandos, Fabian Menke and two other BfV men. A large custody wagon with three uniformed officers was parked behind the cars. They had parked around the corner from the squat, but Fabel knew they would have to move quickly. Even at this time in the morning, news of a police presence in the Schanzenviertel would spread fast.
‘Any movement?’ Fabel asked the team leader. There had been a single unmarked surveillance unit outside the squat since Niels Freese had taken a dive off the Kohlbrandbrucke the afternoon before. Fabel had managed to keep the story away from the press, despite the heavy police presence on the bridge and it being closed to traffic. There was an unofficial arrangement with the press that suicides from the Kohlbrandbrucke should be played down, in case it became an even more popular suicide spot.
‘Nothing much. A woman arrived about half an hour ago and let herself in. Odd thing — she was smartly dressed, not the usual type you would associate with a mob like this.’
‘Has she come out yet?’ asked Fabel.
‘No, she’s still in there.’
‘We’re all clear on what we’re doing?’ asked Fabel. More nods.
‘We shouldn’t have too much trouble,’ said Menke. ‘So far the Guardians have been all talk. We’ve no reason to believe they have weapons but, given their increased militancy of late, it’s best to be safe.’
Fabel nodded. ‘Right,’ he said, addressing the whole team. ‘When we go in, we arrest anyone we come across. Prone them, cuff them, search them, and then it’s a pass-the-parcel chain out to the custody guys. You’ve all seen the photograph of Jens Markull. He’s our main target. He is the link between Niels Freese and whoever ordered the murder of Daniel Fottinger. Nicola, I want you to take Thomas and Dirk and go round the back of the house with a couple of the MEK boys. The rest of us will go in the front door. Anna, you stay with the custody guys.’
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘I am not kidding anyone, Commissar Wolff. I’ve given you your post.’
‘Jan, I’m not going to get shot again. I’m definitely not going to get shot here. The worst thing these bozos are going to do is chuck lentils at us.’
‘Anna, humour me.’
‘Okay.’ She made a resigned face.
‘Remember, I want everyone out as fast as possible,’ Fabel spoke again to the whole team, repeating what he had said at the briefing. ‘It’s not so much them I’m interested in as any evidence we can seize. Since Freese took a high dive, we need to get evidence to tie the Guardians and the Pharos Project to Fottinger’s murder. Don’t give anyone a chance to delete data or destroy paperwork. And remember that Jens Markull gets priority.’
Menke had told Fabel that the house would normally have someone on lookout, so they decided not to approach on foot. Instead, on Fabel’s radioed signal, the cars drove around the corner and pulled up directly outside the building. The custody van followed seconds later, giving the officers enough time to leap from the cars and race to the door, led by the MEK men. Two carried a door ram and the heavy wooden door yielded with surprising ease.
Fabel followed the black-uniformed commandos into the house, yelling ‘Polizei Hamburg.’ He heard a splintering smash from the rear of the house and knew that the other team had gained entry. There were four grubby rooms on the ground floor. No lookout, just three men and one woman who had been sleeping on scattered mattresses, rudely awakened, hauled to their feet and handcuffed. They looked unwashed, underfed and overwhelmed by the sudden violence of the raid. Fabel swiftly took in the faces: all too young to be Jens Markull.
‘Where’s Markull?’ he barked at the girl, who responded by spitting at him.
There was a sound from upstairs.
‘Henk, you come with me. You too,’ Fabel called to one of the MEK men. They took the stairs three at a time. Four more rooms upstairs. Fabel nodded to Henk and he and the MEK commando kicked open the door closest to the landing. Nothing. Another sound.
‘Here!’ shouted Fabel and kicked open the second door.
It took him less than a second to take in the room, but for that sliver of time his brain could not process it all. This room did not look like it belonged to the rest of the house. It was spotlessly clean and contained banks of expensive-looking computer hardware that filled the room with a quiet hum. The windows had been completely boarded up but the room was brightly lit. Fabel recognised Jens Markull instantly. He sat behind a large desk, staring directly at Fabel, but it was clear that the activist was incapable of seeing anyone. The side of his skull was smashed in, his dark curly hair matted with deep red blood and brain matter. He looked like he had been killed and then sat back up in his chair.
And there was a woman in the centre of the room. Fabel recognised her instantly too. She was wearing exactly the same grey business-style suit that she had on the night when she had approached him down at the docks and given her identity as a woman already dead and waiting to be found.
‘Stay exactly where you are!’ Fabel aimed his SIG-Sauer at the woman but there was no hint of alarm or aggression or fear in her expression. She simply stood still in the centre of the room, staring at Fabel with eyes that were almost as dead as Markull’s. She had something in her hand. Not a gun. Something smaller. Like a TV remote control.
Fabel was aware of the MEK officer at his shoulder. Then, suddenly, the commando grabbed the collar of Fabel’s Kevlar vest and tugged him violently out of the door frame and back onto the landing. Fabel was about to protest when he heard the MEK officer scream ‘Bomb!’ at Henk Hermann and anyone else who could hear.
The three police officers had only got halfway down the stairs when the device detonated. Fabel felt simultaneously that someone had stabbed him in his left ear with something hot and sharp and that the world had disappeared from beneath his feet.
Fabel, Henk and the MEK officer plunged together with the shattered staircase into the ground floor. Suddenly Fabel was aware that Werner was leaning over him, then Anna. It felt as if someone was blowing a high-pitched whistle in his ear and he had had the wind knocked out of him. Apart from that he and the other two seemed to be in one piece.
‘Thanks for that,’ he said to the young MEK officer when they had both been helped to their feet.
‘We had better get out of here,’ the MEK man said. ‘There could be other devices and we’ll need the bomb squad here. We have to get everyone out.’
‘Sure,’ said Fabel. But he knew there would be no other bomb in the squat. The one upstairs had only been big enough to do the job it had been intended for: to destroy all the computer equipment and any data stored on it.
As he made his way outside, Fabel could not get the face of the young woman who had detonated the device out of his head. She had not come there to die.
‘I take back my lentils crack,’ said Anna, once they were a safe distance away from the building. Black smoke
