The Oktober Projekt (37 page)

Tapering away the road ran round the back of a hill, a high
point above the desolate beaches. Nick left the car by a wavy ridge of sand
craters and dunes forming the ragged edge of a tree line, a small plantation
spreading sleepily up and over an outcrop. A freak of nature, a bump not
flattened and stripped clean. The isolation made him feel totally at home and
Nick worked quickly, pouring out three-quarters of the vodka and added mineral
water. Carefully, he filled one condom with glucose powder and tied it securely
at the neck.

He walked on the sea wall as out in the channel steerage buoys
flashed at him, one big eye then another as incoming ships brighter than
palaces headed in from the open sea. A girl in her twenties lugged two rubbish
sacks up the pontoon from a motor cruiser. He watched the awkward sway on her
hips, the strain tell on her arms as she tossed the sacks into a battered skip
below the wall. She had a mass of pale blonde hair and freckles waiting for the
sun. She glanced curiously up at Nick.

‘You lost?’

‘Admiring the view,’ Nick shouted in return.

‘Why not, it’s free,’ she laughed and was gone.

Alone again, the cold wrapped itself round Nick’s fingers as he
checked the magazine clip. Satisfied, he tucked the H&K into the waistband
of his black cords, barrel down in the small of his back. A ghostly silhouette
of a ketch motored through the channel; its engine light and soft, overcome by
a scudding swelling tide racing over a sandbar. The coast was a dark thin line
of stillness and peace, the only light came from the hill, a pale glow. Tolz
was at home. He climbed up the headland avoiding offering himself as a
premature target, his ascent left and right never straight. Crouching between
fallen branches ripped off in a storm, Nick saw Tolz’s motorhome in an uneven
clearing levelled by spars, wooden staging boards making a temporary walkway
over the sandy earth. Parked next to it an expensive jeep facing down the
track, ready it seemed for a rapid escape.
 

Thirty, forty paces down the boards and Nick had made enough
noise to know he could only go on. A motion sensor spotlight fused him to the
top of aluminium steps, the muscles in his arms tightening. Nick hammered on
the door and its skin buckled under his fist; a sprinkling of twigs and stems
from a startled owl or bird in overhanging branches clattered on the
motorhome’s roof.
 

‘Tolz, Tolz, you hear me?’ Nick shouted, not sure where to
direct his message. ‘I need to talk. Tolz?’ He beat on the door again, holding
up his offering.

The latch turned and the door opened wide enough for him to
squeeze in, right into the twin tubes of a shotgun locked onto his chest.

‘Close it, my man,’ Tolz stepped back giving his visitor all
the room he needed. ‘Show me,’ Tolz swung Nick’s carrier bag with the shotgun
barrel. ‘Empty it,’ said Tolz, indicating a spot on the table for Nick to place
the cigarettes and vodka.

‘It’s a show of good faith,’ said Nick emptying his carrier.

‘Now let’s see if you’re clean.’ He waved the shotgun to show
how Nick should raise his arms and spread his legs. Tolz patted Nick’s sides
and pockets without any skill, missing the H&K in the small of his back.
‘What’s your handle?’ he demanded, prodding him into the centre of the van.
‘Your birthday tag? Many happy returns who?’

‘Greiz.’

The interior looked as though it had been searched and never
put right, dirty cups and plates were stacked in uneven piles on a stained
carpet. This is how it always is Nick thought, Tolz is too high to notice.
Twenty-six? Seven? And he’s hooked with a bad craving, needing the heater full
on, circulating the smell of grease from meals cooked for speed. He went where
the shotgun sent him, to a bench-divan. Tolz swayed by the cooker, the shotgun
balanced across his forearm as his free hand unscrewed the cap of the vodka
bottle.

‘You’re the investigator, Greiz, that right, that your gig?’ He
talked as though a hand were applying pressure to his larynx, strangling him
slowly. He gulped at the vodka and some ran wide of his mouth, a dribble
cascading down his unshaven chin, dropping onto his faded white T-shirt
dedicated to saving whales.

‘I hear you’re a friend of Sabine’s?’

‘Trouble, first-rate bitch.’ He shook his head and a coil of
greasy hair skidded and smeared his round wire glasses. A pastiche of a 1960s
student refusing to reform, his hair ran to his shoulders, a thick Left Bank
moustache worn as a token of intent; symbols of a lubricious life lived in
hustling for the next plunge of the needle. ‘Greiz…well, well. Blümhof said you
might make a visit.’

‘He was right.’

‘Sure he is, Blümhof’s cool. Now my man, it’s time for a smoke
before I leave, I’m already late,’ said Tolz.

With one hand Nick tore the cellophane on the carton and lifted
a pack of Camel cigarettes out, laying them carefully on the edge of table.
Tolz pounced, the puncture marks down the inside of his arm as livid as insect
stings.
 

‘How was Sabine trouble?’ Nick asked as Tolz continually
sniffed.

‘Shut it! No more,’ he raged and pushed the shotgun forward.
‘I’m a peace loving guy, Greiz,’ he said breathing fast, sounding ready to
short circuit. ‘But you’ve screwed that all up.’ He pushed a holdall part full
out of his way with a cowboy boot that had a scuffed toe. ‘Blümhof is not
pleased, he’s not a guy to cross.’

‘Did Sabine cross him?’

‘That bitch crossed everyone.’ Tolz had smoked the cigarette
half through with long nervous draws. He flicked the ash in the tiny sink where
it stuck to a pan coated in fat. ‘Maybe I’ll get a reward for taking you out,
my man.’ Tolz brought up the shotgun. Stretching his neck to the window he
listened, an ear close to the glass that transmitted nothing but the groaning
of branches over the van. ‘You’re a threat, big bad threat. Yeah, number one
wanted man. Gold star, Greiz, gold star for me if I take care of you.’ The
cigarette, burnt out between his lips, flew into the sink after the ash. ‘A
main man is having to come and put Blümhof and Sergei’s operation back together
again. They not happy, they want you to suffer Greiz, suffer real bad.’

‘Who is coming?’

Tolz stared at Nick as though he were a hallucination. ‘You’re
not listening, man. Sergei’s main man, the one who gives the orders.’

‘When?’

Drinking from the bottle, Tolz’s mind tried to organise and
recoup his plans that Greiz had shattered. Hissing on a bunk built up over the
driver’s seat the gas lamp was getting into his senses, leaking into the
nerves, blocking his thoughts. Any second and he’d blow it out for good. ‘Look
Greiz, this isn’t personal. Only I’ve got to consider my future.’ He drank
harder, trying for a quick hit from the booze.

‘Where is Sergei’s boss going to meet them?’ Nick asked again,
and held his breath, worried he would never have chance to reach the H&K
digging into his back.

Going for more vodka Tolz changed his mind. A swing of mood and
his eyes took on a distant stare. ‘You think I’m dumb? You’re more crazy than
me. What you got to offer? You got something good as a starter for our deal?’
he asked, high pitched notes along with a thin grim line on his lips composing
a goodbye smile.

‘Something to let you forget that I called. Relaxation, while I
walk away,’ Nick proposed, and in slow motion brought out a bloated condom.
‘Free, a favour from me, Christmas come early.’

In disbelief Tolz waved the shotgun and Nick held up his hands.
Sweat streaked Tolz’s face, plummeting in steady droplets to soak the whale on
his chest. Balancing the shotgun in one hand, waving it determinedly at Nick’s
head, he laughed and grinned, now more than ever totally unpredictable. He
stuck out his left arm for the condom. Nick came off the bench seat fast. His
head down, the heat off
 
Tolz and
his stinking odour right in his face. Tolz squeezed the trigger and the pans in
the sink took the full force of the cartridges, bouncing, flying through the
van. One blow put Tolz on his back and Nick landed on him, his knee in Tolz’s
throat. He slammed the H&K into Tolz’s beating temple; Tolz screaming he
was blind, screamed and yelled until Nick jammed a scraggy piece of towel into
his hand.

‘You never got round to the important details. Where is the
meeting going to be held?’ Nick yelled, retrieving the shotgun and tossing it
up on the bunk. He poured vodka onto Tolz’s scalp turning the blood pale. ‘I
still want to hear?’

‘Bad, I’m hurting bad,’ Tolz groaned, bending the crook of his
glasses over his ear one handed, the other clamped the towel to his wound. ‘A
couple of snorts, medicine, make me complete again,’ he pleaded.

‘Try it,’ said Nick and threw the condom down to Tolz who bit
open the knot, licked his finger and dipped it into the powder.

‘Wise man, a bad trick you’ve pulled,’ he said, the glucose
running through his fingers onto the filthy carpet. ‘Bad man, Greiz.’

‘Where?’

‘Place owned by Blümhof.’ Weary, unable to stop his nose
running, he tipped his head back and closed his eyes.

The vodka finally caught up with him and the cold sweat thinned
out. Emptying all the vodka over Tolz’s head Nick watched as the torrent ran
down his face, hanging in the thick moustache that Tolz licked with real
desperation. Nick smashed the bottle into the table. ‘Where?’ He lifted a pan
out of the sink full with dregs of food and oily water. ‘Tell me?’ He emptied
it slowly over Tolz’s bowed head.

Spitting it out, sitting straight up, Tolz shook it off in a
fine spray. ‘Blümhof has a boatyard in Blankenese, uses it to import and export
things, bad things, good things. The main man is due to call soon, in a day, a
couple of days. I don’t know, he didn’t share the details with me.’

‘Great, now move, get up, move.’

‘You mad? You crazy? Where?’ Tolz stared up at Nick, one scary
monster too many. One of those weird creatures he’d had dealings with before;
shapeless forms that came looking for him from a planet with an inky cold moon.
He blinked but this one wouldn’t disappear and the more he looked, the more
real it became.
 

‘Move it.’ Nick stood clear as Tolz grappled with his legs,
useless funny pieces of skin, bone and muscle that he didn’t quite know what to
do with.
 

A prolonged burst of automatic rounds came from the tree line,
rupturing the motorhome’s panels.
Nick
threw himself forward towards the driving compartment as the photographer’s
body twitched and jerked. Rapid fire spraying the cabin; glass, metal, fabric
and wood flew around in swirls of dust. The noise piercing, as though Nick were
inside a metal drum some demented half-wit was determined to beat flat.

Hugged down on the musty
carpet Nick clambered over the front seats, pushing himself flat into the
footwell. Reaching up Nick opened the passenger door then bundled himself out,
rolling, clinging to his drawn H&K. Hunkering down by the wheel arch
 
Nick
waited.

A full minute passed before Nick heard feet crunching over the
debris inside the motorhome, pause at Tolz and move towards the driving
compartment. Raising his H&K, Nick’s aim traversed with the footfalls.
Bracing himself Nick fired in rapid succession, aiming high then low, sweeping
along the panels. There was no cry of pain just a dull heavy thud. Nick
reloaded and slowly straightened up, his H&K in a double-handed grip.

Slowly Nick eased open the motorhome’s main door, entering not
at a rush, but a foot at a time. Nick moved forward his H&K levelled at the
prone figure lying by the front seats, a Russian he vaguely recalled from
Moscow or maybe it was London, blowing frothy red bubbles, his fingers itching
for an assault rifle Nick kicked out of reach. Raising his H&K, Nick fired
a single shot into the Russian’s forehead. The body jerked one final time. Nick
wiped his mouth with the back of his hand looking around; the interior was
trashed and so was Tolz: a soft toy ripped apart. Drifting through the air,
dust and fragments settled on the wreckage. Stepping through the mess, Nick
dropped into a hunched ball on the motorhome’s step, drew up his knees and
rested his head on his arms.

Nineteen

The Turning of Vilhelms Bliska

Winterthur, December

After
landing at Zurich airport Nick took a local stopping train to
Winterthur, slowly starting to doze his mind swimming with various
possibilities that offered no clear solution, only a host of complications.
With his eyes still hazy Nick stepped into Winterthur’s Bahnhofplatz and a hail
shower. The cold night chilling him to his core as he fed in a handful of
francs and dialled from a pay phone under the station canopy. Returning the
handset, Nick made a show of searching for a second number on a scrap of paper.
In the square a trolley bus lurched along, blue sparks spitting from the
overhead wires in the moist air. From a bar opposite the heavy beat of a disco
thudded like mortars as a police car toured slowly through the square, turning
by the Migros Grocery store, and Nick felt the dryness settle on his lips.
 

The cold ran into his hands as the car took forever to pass,
the policeman glaring into the night, his blond moustache as bright as his
badge of office. Ring, Ernst, ring, he urged, working on five separate excuses
in the empty minutes before Sargens returned his call. And after the brief
exchange of more clear code merely confirming details, Nick, dead on his feet,
secured a room in the Station Hotel using yet another discoloured smile as the
clerk made an epic of booking him in, of offering the menu even though the
restaurant had closed.

Depositing the bare minimum that he carried with him in his
room, Nick hurried out again a different hotel in his sights. This one the
Hotel Wartmann where outside a sign creaked to and fro, toiling under its
message:
Haldengut Bier. Echt gut Haldengut
.
Inside they were waiting for him; Bransk and Ernst Sargens huddled together
like Horatio and Marcellus waiting for the ghost, in a private room behind the
hotel’s main bar. The room had no windows and the biggest cowbell in
Switzerland slung behind the door. The hot air reeked of leather from the tack
hanging off the walls, bridles and halters and the odd saddle. On their table a
candle flame spluttered in the heady air, licking the inside of a clear glass
cup on a sandstone base. Ernst rose to greet him. Stocky and dark haired he had
a gypsy tint to his skin that some women adored; his broad smile had the
makings of a handshake all its own, but they still made a formal greeting.

‘Nick, Nick, but this isn’t a day too soon. How are you? My
boys and girls I loaned you, they behaving?’ Ernst smiled, on his feet and
sprinting nowhere. ‘They should, they get paid damn enough.’

With one of Nick’s hands clamped firmly in his own, Ernst
pumped it up and down as if he was parched and badly needed water from a well.
Thirty-nine and he spoke with a dignity and formal kudos of a sixty-year old.
Ernst Sargens, ex-German special forces, a respected member of the Kommando
Spezialkräfte, the KSK. Sargens appraised him. Nick the serious Englishman he’d
adopted, cared for and protected on some dangerous missions; a surrogate
brother not of Christ or crime, but the good time.

‘It’s good to see you Ernst,’ said Nick when they had settled at
the table. ‘It’s been a long time.’

‘Too long,’ replied Ernst, saddened by the fact. ‘This I know
is personal Nick. A bad business. Harry has told me the details. We do all we
can to help.’

A waitress brought a third coffee to the table without it being
ordered, grinning angelically at Ernst.

‘Appreciated Ernst,’ said Nick, and out of embarrassment
stirred his coffee.

‘Then we start,’ decided Bransk after an uncomfortable minute.
‘This is the lay of the land, Nick, okay. A rough outline and no more. It’s
almost Ernst’s backyard so he can run you through it.’

As a preliminary gesture that marked all of Sargens’ briefings,
he offered his cigarettes; the smoke remaining over their heads in a dense
pall, clashing with the smell of cracked leather and food.

‘I would say then, Nick, if you don’t mind,’ opened Ernst.
‘That all the indications point to us carrying off a successful operation if
you wish, nothing too complicated here, we’ve plenty of options to get at our
target,’ he concluded, handing over a package Danny Redman had delivered from
London on behalf of Aubrey-Spencer.

By five the next afternoon they had as they say, walked the
course. Römerstrasse was a long wide avenue built for prosperity, a pretty
enclave with a view of the hills. An oasis of villas, each an individual
statement, each one grander than its neighbour, each isolated behind walled
gardens and electronic gates. The light had faded, slipping by them in an
ebbing tide, a dull uneven gloom creeping into its place. Bare rowan and ash
branches flailed in revolt as welcome home lights turned the drives into
morning. A winter finality marked the day’s close; a bitterness that stayed on
Nick’s skin, causing him to shiver for much of the walk.

‘That’s our friend’s.’ Ernst pointed to a villa over the road,
heavy with rococo charm. ‘It’s been in his wife’s family for years, bought as
an investment. Left to her by her father, a local politician who built his
reputation as a major player when he served on the Zurich Canton Council. She’s
quite a wealthy lady in her own right, our friend did his homework for sure.
He’s landed on his feet since he became a Swiss national. The flat over the
garage is for domestics, a live-in couple who do the cleaning, cooking and
gardening. Our friend has four kids, but only one still lives at home and they
just converted part of the garage into a sauna. The back is a nightmare, Nick.
Fountains, statues, you just can’t move at night without risking breaking your
neck. There’s even a grotto but that’s used for the Dobermanns.’

‘There was no way we could make an approach to him at home,’
Harry explained, as they came level with the gates. ‘He has the place well
stocked. Pressure mats, beams, only a fool would make a forced entry.’ As if to
emphasise the point, a large dog made a charge down the drive.

The sky began to clear. There was going to be a frost, Nick
felt the chill sharpen as headlights passed them in a rush to get home.

‘It’s got to be outside then?’ presumed Nick. ‘Our best chance
will be in the open?’

‘We shouldn’t have any problems,’ Bransk said. ‘Ernst’s put a
good team together.’

‘My boys and girls are good, Nick, they’ve all got previous
experience, know the ropes, know what’s needed, you worked with some of them
previously. Anja cut her teeth with the military. Liesel and Ursel, they’re
fine, can take it.’

‘Backup?’

‘All reliable,’ Sargens assured him. ‘Markus and Ignaz are
steady, not likely to get shaky. Lukas is the driver, he can handle whatever
comes his way.’

They were strolling side by side Nick and Ernst divided by
their thoughts, Harry forever concerned about security dawdled at their heels.
Why do we always end up plundering another life? Nick wondered. Lubov died at
one end, the traitor is waiting at another. How many lives will need destroying
in order to make the traverse, to get safely across? he asked himself.
 
              

• • •

The house in Goldenberg was new,
typically Swiss, a split-level chalet with a flagpole for National Day. It
stood behind the Kantonsschule and it had all the conformity to make it
anonymous, thought Nick from the van. They were parked on a corner Markus
flicking through the morning paper, Nick a clipboard on his lap. At eight
o’clock Klara Tobel began her journey. Her Fiat sparked first time, its newness
impressive as she drove on by. At the junction with Rychenbergstrasse, she
stalled and Nick had a heart stopping couple of seconds until the engine came
back to life. Over gunning it, she turned left by the
Musikschule-Konservatorium before turning down into Winterthur the morning overcast
and cold, a thin mist stuck to the wooded hillside, deep cloud shutting out the
sun.

Markus, a man of habit, waited exactly fifteen minutes before
driving up to Tobel’s house as on previous mornings, down the van’s side the
name of an electrical contractor dreamed up by Ernst, and a telephone number
manned by Ursel in case anyone should ring. A rough key needed firm pressure,
taking no more than a couple of twists before the door swung in. She has a few
friends, Sargens had declared. Lives by herself and only has the one visitor
who treats it like his second home. She never uses the front door, she keeps it
chained and comes out of the back. Entering on Markus’s heels, Nick found the
kitchen still warm, a smell of fresh coffee roaming in the air, but Nick
couldn’t see a cup or mug. In the dishwater he told himself, and checked to
satisfy his curiosity. The machine was empty leaving him unreasonably
disappointed, as if finding an ordinary cup might have given hope that Klara
Tobel really existed.

‘The power is off and the phone is dead,’ Markus told him,
unpacking his case, laying out the instruments clean enough for any operation.
‘She never leaves a thing out of place. You would think that no one lived here,
except for the audio and video.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Nick, watching Markus go to work, surgical gloves
on his eager hands.

Unplugging
the
kettle,
Markus
removed
the
socket
cover retrieving the room transmitter.
With a satisfied smile, he returned the
original cover and screwed it back in place. It is so easy thought Nick,
stealing pieces of other people’s lives, power sockets, telephone sockets, even
the adaptors used for Christmas lights could carry away conversation.

‘How many rooms did you wire?’

‘Each room,’ Markus answered, his nimble fingers extracting two
black micro wireless devices from a table lamp. ‘This is easy, yes. She has no
knowledge, no friends to make a sweep, so I can afford to be generous. A main
transmitter for sure, then I also provide a backup. Two to a room, no failures,
the full story nice and clear.’

Weary, tired and irritable, Nick moved on.

Upstairs he found the same sterile scene; bleached floorboards
supporting furniture cut to a simple pattern and finished by hand. Below in the
living room he heard Markus scratching at a wall socket, as frantic as a mouse.
In the bathroom, flying fish embossed on the shower screen dripped silently
into a white plastic tray. He smelt a delicate fragrance; perfume or soap, he
wasn’t sure. Tobel had nothing of value, he decided as Markus cheerfully
whistling now somewhere upstairs, collected his precious transmitters and
cameras. She has a lover who brings nothing but himself; for there were no
touches of him here either, no second toothbrush, no shaving set, no large
bathrobe behind the door.
 

Across the landing built as a poor minstrels’ gallery, Nick
came on the main bedroom where a double bed rested opposite the window, its
quilt matching the walls in their blank whiteness, a statement of virtue that
failed to impress. I am becoming an expert on bedrooms he thought, remembering
Sabine’s. On his hands and knees, Markus replaced the original socket for the
bedside lamp.

‘The quality of sound could be better,’ Markus said, finishing
off, packing his case. ‘Not too bad, you should have a close-up or two,’ he
said, handing Nick a laptop, the audio and visual footage uploaded from what
he’d picked up on the receiver and feeds in the back of his van.

‘Just as long as we have his face,’ said Nick to Markus’
departing back. Hung above the bed a solitary picture one of them must be able
to see when they made love; a print of a desert island, the sun just rising or
setting, a dream or illusion? wondered Nick. Klara’s joke perhaps? He looked to
find an earring, a book with a page turned down, some loose change, even dust,
anything to give Klara Tobel some shape; a reference that he could attach to
her sullen face and make destroying her easier.

Standing back from the window Nick saw the Volvo arrive; a
black estate with false plates and Sargens driving. A shot of pale sun broke
through the clouds scorching Nick’s face through the glass. Casting glances
along the block Ernst conducted the removal of a broad figure out of the
estate, a bodyguard protecting an important guest. The man appeared to be in a
shock, pale and ill, either that or they’ve hit him too hard, thought Nick.
Liesel linked arms with the man, his pinstripe suite out of place, unnatural
against Liesel’s tight jeans and sweatshirt; Anja and Lukas bringing up the
rear, bags of shopping for cover.

A BMW drew up behind the Volvo with Ignaz at the wheel. And
what could be more natural than for Klara Tobel’s lover to park his car outside
her house? If Nick required proof that any of the neighbours should show
customary Swiss zeal and inform the police, he had it at that precise moment.
Two mothers wheeling prams passed the cars, neither of them offering so much as
a second glance. Downstairs Nick heard raised voices, and someone put a CD on;
a little music for the friends of Klara, that is not unusual either, decided
Nick. Then the footsteps on the stairs, slow, assured, not a hangman’s coming
to measure him for the drop, but Harry Bransk, actually smiling, the biggest
smile of his life. Red in the face, the smell of a fresh Swiss morning on his
jacket, he grinned broadly, bringing personal thanks from an ecstatic team to
their elected coach.

‘No problems?’

Harry shook his head without losing his grin. ‘They’re one of
the best teams I’ve worked with.’

‘No worries about being seen?’

‘A dream, total team effort, we took him clean,’ said Harry.

‘Then we should be fine,’ said Nick, appreciating that without
Ernst, Danny and Harry he’d be playing to an empty house. ‘I think it’s time
that you brought up our guest,’ said Nick, checking he’d everything ready.