The Eagle's Covenant (3 page)

The car appeared, moving effortlessly up the slope. He brought the rifle up to his cheek and peered through the telescopic sight. The crossed hairs danced momentarily on the car, coming to rest on the white mark left imprinted on the driver’s door. The mark had been placed immediately below the driver’s shoulder. Trucco raised the sights until they were bearing on a point about eight inches above the mark. Although he couldn’t see the driver through the darkened windows, he could visualise exactly where his head and shoulders were. It was as though the man’s outline was etched on the glass.

Conor watched the first car go by. He was crouched, out of sight, a few metres off the road. The second car came into view, gliding smoothly towards him. He tensed and increased his grip on the limpet bomb.

Joseph had positioned himself on a curve just above the point where Trucco was hiding. They knew that once the car had been hit, it would not make the bend and would probably run into the trees. It was Joseph’s task to ensure no-one came out of that car with guns blazing.

Trucco moved the gun-sight, following the mark with extreme accuracy. As the car reached the point in the road almost opposite him, he raised the crossed hairs and squeezed the trigger. Through the magnified image in the telescopic sight he saw the driver’s window crystallise for a moment and then cave in as the hollow tipped bullet shattered the driver’s skull.

Immediately the car slowed as the dead man’s foot slipped from the accelerator. The bodyguards in the back seat knew immediately what had happened and were opening their doors before the car had come to rest. The first one out of the car died in a hail of bullets from Joseph’s gun. The second man took a bullet in the chest from Trucco. He was flung backwards by the impact and was thrown from the car like a discarded cloth.

Schiller’s driver reacted instantly. His training took control of his movements and he jammed the brakes on, intending to slam the car into reverse. It was almost his last thought as Breggie shattered the tinted window with a long burst from the Uzi. Above the cacophony of sound in the car was the sudden, frightened cry of a baby and the terrified, witless scream from Joanna.

Conor kept his mind on the third car. As it passed him he raced from his hiding place and whacked the limpet bomb on the side panel of the rear door. He threw himself backwards and rolled away from the car. In just a few seconds he heard the dull crump as the car ballooned under the inward explosion of the bomb.

The wheels on the car collapsed outwards and two of its doors blew out. Conor was on his feet instantly. He ran to the car and pushed his Heckler and Koch machine gun into the space once occupied by three live humans. He emptied the magazine, spraying it round the car to ensure there was absolutely no chance of anyone surviving.

In less than a minute, all three cars had been immobilised and all the occupants except Schiller, Joanna and the infant were dead. It was bloody carnage. An execution skilfully carried out and one from which none of the intended victims could possibly survive.

Breggie opened the door of the limousine and beckoned Schiller to get out. He looked terrified. His skin had lost its colour and he seemed to have aged tenfold. The flesh on his skull was like parchment, and the horror in his face was as deep and dark as the most frightening of all his nightmares. He couldn’t move his body. He was rigid with fear. Except his hands; they shook violently as he held them up in an ineffectual attempt to protect himself. Breggie reached in and pulled him bodily from the car.

Joanna had stopped screaming. She was intelligent enough to know that these beasts were not about to kill her. For the moment she was safe. Her mind filled itself with all kinds of eventualities; of what might become of her, of them. But although she wasn’t screaming, she was terrified out of her mind. She clung to her baby both to protect the infant and to garner some ridiculous comfort from the baby’s touch. The baby was still crying. Its little hands were working the air and sobs racked its tiny frame. Joanna tried to calm the infant, holding it close to her, kissing the wetness of the baby’s tears.

“Get out!”

Breggie’s command to Joanna was screamed at her. There was urgency in the woman’s voice that scared Joanna even more. She hesitated at first but knew resistance was futile. She climbed out of the car, still clutching the baby.

Schiller found his voice at last and started to protest. “What is the meaning of this outrage?” It was pathetically weak and died on his lips. He couldn’t comprehend it all. He was a man used to absolute power and control. Nobody dared challenge him. To do so would have been futile. Yet here were people who had put themselves above his power. They had challenged it with awesome swiftness and terrifying results. He tried to voice his protest again but there was such an aura of evil menace around the figure that stood before them that he could not find the courage. He felt useless and ashamed, and cursed the frailness that old age had brought to his body.

Breggie ignored him and spoke directly to Joanna.

“Give me the baby.”

Joanna couldn’t respond. Her maternal instincts were as powerful in her as any mother. The demand from Breggie did not register.

“I said give me the baby!” Breggie held her hand out. In her other hand was the Uzi which was pointing at the ground. She felt relaxed and in control of herself. She knew, however, that time was not on their side. Soon the security guards at the top of the hill would realise something was wrong. They might assume one of the cars had broken down, but whatever they thought, someone would be coming down that road to investigate. If they had been able to hear the gunfire, much of which would have been cloaked by the trees, they would be bringing an army down with them.

“No.” Joanna pulled the baby closer as if that simple act was sufficient to make the woman change her mind.

Suddenly Schiller found his voice. “Go away. Please. I will pay you anything you like. Anything.”

Breggie ignored him and kept her eyes on Joanna. “You will give the baby to me. Now!”

“No!” Joanna screamed at her. “I will not. You have no right.”

Breggie swung her fist at Joanna’s unprotected jaw. The blow was so swift and unexpected that Joanna was unable to avoid it. Breggie’s fist crashed into her jaw and sent her flying. The baby fell from her arms but before it hit the ground, Breggie scooped the infant up and clutched it to her camouflage jacket. Then she turned quickly and ran into the forest.

Joanna lay on the ground, not moving. Schiller looked on in horror as the masked figure of Breggie de Kok and his grandson disappeared. He glanced down at Joanna. More in hope than anything else, he looked up the road towards the silent Mercedes. It had rolled to a stop, its bonnet hard up against a tree. Down the road the other car was like a collapsed ball. He knew his men were all dead. The ferocity and speed of the attack left him in no doubt. He bent down and knelt beside Joanna. He took her hand and massaged it gently. He felt hopeless. All around him was death and silence.

All but the stark, vibrant sound of a woodpecker.

Someone claimed they had reached the scene of the crime within five minutes of the last shot being fired. No-one bothered to ask how such an accurate assessment could be made. The police, however, had reached the scene within four minutes of a call being made from the cell phone of the security guard who had reached Schiller first.

Within seconds the senior police officer had called for a massive back-up. All available units were ordered to the area as the hunt for the killers began. The highest priority had immediately been put on this one. As the police units converged, so the wires began buzzing on the news services and television networks. Reuters set up a special desk and ran a dedicated computer link in so that no other low priority news item could possibly delay the smallest gem of information on this most dramatic attack on one of the world’s most powerful men.

A world media hungry for information were already setting their satellite dishes up and those fortunate enough to be within two hundred miles of the place were driving down motorways eager to snatch the smallest advantage over their terrestrial rivals.

Within twenty minutes of the security guard’s cry for help from his cell phone, the senior officer on the scene was Oberkommissar Erich Hoffman, of the
Zentrale Kriminalitatsbekampfung.
This department, the ZKD, was the equivalent of the British CID. Hoffman was thirty eight years of age and had served in the
BundesPolizei
from his cadetship as a seventeen year old. All of his service career, with the exception of the first two years out of cadet training, he had been with the ZKD. He was renowned as a hard man and blessed with the patience of Job. All of his subordinates respected him. Very few crossed him.

He stood quietly surveying the carnage. Beside him was
Obermeister
Uwe Jansch. They had already organised teams to secure the entire area from the media, the public and anybody else that might trample vital evidence in their efforts to get a closer look. While forensic experts began their painstaking examination of the cars, the bodies and the surrounding area, the two policemen stood quietly contemplating the carnage.

The lead car contained three bodies; all male. Schiller’s limousine contained just the body of the dead driver. Schiller himself and Joanna were up at the house under police protection and receiving medical treatment. The last car had four bodies inside; three male and one female. It had been quickly established that the female was the baby’s private nurse, Helga; a young woman whose life and career had been tragically cut short by the selfish aims of violent people.

Hoffman felt the anger rise up in his chest. Like any policeman, he always made a silent promise to find the perpetrators of any particularly nasty crime, come what may. This of course, was no different and he made the same promise; whoever carried out this carnage would be brought to book, one way or another. He knew that as a policeman, he could only bring these people to court, but he knew that, given the chance, he would put a bullet in each of them with his own hand.

He turned, his foot scraping noisily on the gravel, and began walking up the slope towards Schiller’s limousine. He could hear a woodpecker somewhere among the trees, but ignored it. Jansch followed. They paused beside the car. There was little left that was recognisable as the driver’s head. Blood and flesh congealed on the leather upholstery. In amongst it shards of broken glass glittered abominably like small gems on a madman’s canvas. They could hear the persistent buzz of the gathering flies.

Hoffman waved his hand across his face to ward off a fly and moved on to the lead car. Its bonnet was pressed up against the trunk of a tree. The driver was still sitting in his seat but had slumped against the wheel. He had been shot through the head. The entry point of the bullet was relatively clean. The other side of his head wasn’t there. The three dead passengers, two inside the car and one lying at a crazy angle in the road, had all been killed by machine gun fire.

Hoffman was already forming a picture in his mind of how the attack had been carried out, but what intrigued him more than the skill, total ruthlessness and speed of its execution was the fact that the act of kidnapping Schiller’s grandson had even been contemplated.

He turned suddenly to Jansch.

“Why would you want to kidnap Herr Schiller’s grandson?”

Jansch looked at his boss. He arched his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t.”

“I know you wouldn’t. But amuse me, please.”

Jansch studied the car for a moment. “Leverage,” he said eventually.

Hoffman’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s interesting. Not money?”

Jansch shook his head. “Must have cost them a small fortune to set this one up, so they must have money behind them; no doubt about it. It has to be something they want and I don’t think its money.”

Hoffman considered Jansch’s assessment. He had never met Schiller at all but knew enough about the movers and shakers of this world to know that Schiller came out at the very top. The absolute top.

“You are right, of course Uwe,” he acknowledged. “But why kidnap a baby? Schiller wouldn’t budge on that. Would he?”

Jansch coughed and rolled his shoulders in a shrug to ward off a sudden chill that was seeping into his bones. The sun was still high in the sky, but it made little difference to the sense of horror that Jansch felt. Hoffman’s statement that Schiller would not budge was empirical: simply an experienced policeman’s observation.

“You believe he would sacrifice the child rather than concede to the kidnappers?” Jansch asked him.

Hoffman nodded slowly. “Nobody gets to Herr Schiller’s position without a streak of ruthlessness in him, and I expect he could be ruthless enough whenever he wanted to.” He sighed deeply. “But I suppose it depends what the kidnappers’ demands are.”

The sound of someone approaching cut through their subjective discussion. They both turned to see one of the forensic team, dressed in a white overall and rubber boots, walking towards them. He stopped, glancing quickly at the car. He was carrying a small, evidence bag.

“Sir, it looks like the kidnappers were here overnight,” he said to Hoffman holding up the bag. “We found some human excrement.” He pointed a thumb in the general direction. Hoffman curled his lip.

“You are sure it isn’t dogshit?” Jansch asked phlegmatically.

The forensic officer was unimpressed. “The lab will confirm that for us, but I’m quite sure it’s human.”

Hoffman smiled. Jansch had a way of ruffling feathers. “Of course you are. We’ll get a DNA sample, won’t we?”

In their fight against crime, all well run security forces worldwide were building up data banks of genetic fingerprints gleaned from DNA tests. The data banks were by no means complete, but if a criminal had been arrested and convicted by any of the German Police Forces, his or her genetic fingerprints would be on a computer file. Interpol would also have a comprehensive DNA data bank for the use of all European police forces. It would be a major boost to the investigation if this particular killer was on file with their own police force, but if not, a trace would be put out through the services of Interpol.

“The information should be on your desk by the morning, sir.”

“That will be too late,” Hoffman informed him. “I want the results on my desk this evening. Understood?”

“Yes sir.” He nodded, wondering just how much the police chief understood about laboratories and testing DNA samples, and walked away muttering to himself.

Jansch watched the man go. “I have a gut feeling that all we shall learn from that is what the man had for dinner last night.”

Hoffman grinned. “Pessimist, what makes you think it was a man? It could have been a woman. Someone has got to look after the baby.”

*

Conor had no idea where they were going. The inside of the van was lit only by the light that filtered in from a curtain drawn between them and Joseph Schneider who was driving. Breggie sat behind the driver’s seat. She had the baby with her and had already given the infant a bottle of milk. The child was asleep now. Earlier Conor had lit a cigarette and had been ordered to put it out by Breggie because of the baby. It was ironic, he thought, that she could kill so ruthlessly but consider the health of an infant because of someone smoking.

The rear windows of the van had been blacked out so none of them in the back could see out. Nor, for that matter could anybody see in. Inside the van with Conor and Breggie were the rest of the team: Karl Trucco, Franz, Heinz and Michael. Franz was the man who had impersonated the security guard at the bottom gate. Heinz and Michael were the two police impostors who had led the convoy from the hospital and signalled to Trucco that the convoy was on its way.

At first the team had been jubilant; still high on their success. The plan had been brilliantly executed. Their escape route through the hillside forest to the perimeter fence had been well marked and meant that they were on their way, inside the van within five minutes of the attack. Now they were sitting silently with their own thoughts.

Conor tried guessing in which direction they were travelling by judging the sunlight filtering through the curtain. He reckoned there would be a back-up car travelling with them in case the van broke down or some other unplanned event compromised them. It made sense that the organisation, whoever they were, would have a contingency plan should anything go wrong.

He decided they must be on an
autobahn
now because the van had been motoring steadily without turning for much of the journey. He wanted a cigarette but knew there was no point antagonising Breggie. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the girl, far from it, but inside the back of the van was no place for an argument. And he sensed the others were also offended by the thought of him smoking in such a confined space. So he retreated into his own world and gave up wondering where they were heading or how long it might be before they reached their destination.

It was two hours after beginning their journey that Joseph turned into an estate on the edge of a wooded area. The engine laboured briefly as they followed the road up a hill. At the lower end of the estate, the houses were relatively close together, but as they reached the summit of the hill, the road levelled out and each house had a larger area of land to itself and much more privacy.

They all felt the van turn sharply and then slow to a stop. Joseph got out of the van. They heard a garage door open. Then Joseph was back in the van and it moved with a lurch until it came to rest again. The engine died and they waited in the encroaching silence until Joseph opened the van’s rear doors. 

Conor led the others out of the van in relief after being cramped up for so long. It was quite spacious inside the garage and there was all the usual bric-a-brac one finds in most suburban garages. He immediately pulled a cigarette out and lit up. Breggie glared at him as she swept by.

“Don’t bring that rotten thing into the house,” she snapped at him.

Conor gave her a blank look and drew the smoke down deep into his lungs. The others said little as they followed Joseph through an internal door. Conor let them go, enjoying his cigarette. He wasn’t happy with the situation by any means because he wasn’t in control. And he was used to knowing exactly what the plan was, what the alternatives were and a way out should he need it.

They had been told, by Joseph and Breggie, that after the operation they would be brought to a safe house where they would be paid off. He didn’t like that either; he would have preferred to have gone back to his flat in Cologne, lay low for a couple of days, and then pick up his money.

He shrugged; better to remain careful and expect the unexpected, he thought and dropped the cigarette on the floor where he crushed it with the heel of his boot. He then went back to the rear of the van and opened the doors. Inside was an Adidas sports bag. All their weapons were there. Breggie had insisted that they were ‘clean’ in case they were stopped by a traffic patrol. This had been much against Conor’s better judgement but, potentially, Breggie and Joseph were their paymasters and he had little choice but to agreed, particularly as Trucco and the others had tossed their weapons into the bag without a murmur. It had been suggested they dump the weapons and have someone else pick them up for disposal, but this had been vetoed by Joseph. Conor knew there was always a chance the weapons would be found and the forensic scientists would garner valuable clues from them. Joseph was right; far better for the organisation to remove and dispose of the weapons later.

He pulled his Browning automatic pistol from the bag and stuffed it in his inside pocket. Then he slipped a couple of spare magazines into another pocket. He would like to have taken the Uzi but that would have been rather obvious. He felt a little better now. He zipped the bag up and closed the van doors. Then he went into the house where he found most of the team in the dining room. The television was on but some of them were reading magazines. Breggie was in the American style open kitchen area with Joseph. They were talking.

Conor went into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee which somebody had made. They had eaten sandwiches in the van so he wasn’t particularly hungry. Nevertheless, he was looking forward to a hot meal. He took his coffee into the room where the others were sitting. They took little notice of Conor as he made himself comfortable in a vacant chair.