A fear of dark water

Chapter Thirty-Two

Heiner Goetz was a burly man just on the right side of sixty. He had thinning grey hair brushed back from a broad heavy forehead and large wiry eyebrows. A pair of wire-framed reading glasses had permanent residence on his heavy nose, balanced almost at the tip. Fabel always felt the glasses were a deliberate affectation: something to mitigate the fact that Goetz looked as if he worked on a building site. But Heiner Goetz was no bricklayer; he was the Chief State Prosecutor for Hamburg.

He sat and stared out of the window of his office on Georg-Fock-Wall as Fabel ran through, for the third time that day, his suspicions about the Pharos Project and its role in the disappearance and probable murder of Meliha Kebir, as well as the killings of Berthold Muller-Voigt, Daniel Fottinger and Harald Jaburg.

Fabel did his best, but knew that he had no hard evidence on which to base his claims. Securing any kind of warrant was a distant hope. He looked at his watch and glanced across at Werner Meyer whom he’d brought along with him. They had been talking it through for the best part of the morning and Fabel wanted to get back to the Presidium. After his conversation with Menke the previous day, Fabel had initiated a major manhunt for Niels Freese.

Goetz did not turn from the window when Fabel had finished speaking and gave no indication that he had heard what the Chief Commissar had said. Fabel remained patiently quiet: he had dealt with Goetz on countless occasions before and knew that the Chief State Prosecutor always took his time to think things through. Either that, or he enjoyed making police officers desperate to close in on a suspect sweat.

‘So all of these deaths have been sanctioned to keep a secret?’

‘That’s what I believe.’

‘But you have no substantiating evidence?’

‘None, Herr Goetz. We need the warrants to seize computers and compel testimony. It’s the only way we’re going to get to the bottom of this.’

‘Herr Fabel, you have been a police officer long enough to know that if I granted warrants on this kind of speculation, and the execution of said warrants yielded nothing material, then you and I would both be looking for another line of work before long. Now, if you had asked for surveillance warrants — wiretaps, email interception, that kind of thing, through which we could gradually harvest more convincing evidence — then I would have given that more credence.’

‘But don’t you see, Herr Goetz,’ said Fabel, trying to keep the frustration out of his tone, ‘such measures are futile against an opponent who is infinitely better resourced in terms of technology than we are. There is no form of electronic surveillance that they would not immediately spot and counter.’

Another silence as Goetz continued to stare out of the window.

‘All this internet business,’ he said eventually. ‘It’s a whole new environment for crime and we don’t have the laws or even the basic understanding to combat it. About six months ago there was a case put up to me, not by your commission but by one of the child protection agencies. This girl — fifteen, if I remember right — threw herself under an S-Bahn train. She’d been a victim of so-called cyber bullying. She couldn’t get away from it. It was relentless — vicious, vile stuff sent constantly to her computer, to her phone… it was a real campaign to destroy the spirit of a human being and it was facilitated by all of this technology that’s supposed to make our lives better. She felt she couldn’t escape it so she threw herself in front of a train. Fifteen. A life over before it had properly begun. I really wanted to go after the girls who had driven her to it, but the laws aren’t there. The understanding isn’t there. That poor girl, driven to that…’

Turning suddenly from the window, he leaned forward onto his desk, the heavy shoulders hunching.

‘We’ve got four dead victims — and from what you’ve told me, these people have the arrogance to believe that they can go on killing whoever they feel is in their way, including a Hamburg State Senator, and attempting to murder a senior Hamburg police officer. If there’s one thing that really gets me fired up, gentlemen, it’s when someone thinks they’re beyond the reach of the law.’ Goetz slammed his open hands down on the desktop. ‘I’ll grant your warrants. Search, seizure and arrest. I’ll try to get them ready for this evening, but there’s a jurisdictional crossover because of the location of the Pharos or whatever they call this cult commune. I need to speak to the Lower Saxony Prosecutor’s office.’

Fabel stood up, beaming. ‘Thank you, Herr Prosecutor…’

‘When do we execute the warrants?’ asked Werner once they were back in the pool car Fabel had been given.

‘Tomorrow morning. When we get back I need you to do the liaison with the Polizei Niedersachsen.’

‘No problem.’

Fabel took his cellphone from his pocket and rang Susanne at her office in the Institute for Legal Medicine.

‘You okay?’ he asked. ‘You were a bit shaken up this morning.’

‘Can you blame me? Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, like I told you. Still a bit shaken up too, but I’ve got a job to do. Have you finished going through the psych assessment and history I got on Niels Freese?’

‘Yes. It’s an interesting one, I’ll give you that. According to his records, Freese suffered brain damage at birth that’s left him prone to Delusional Misidentification Syndrome.’

‘In layman’s terms?’

‘We all suffer from a mild form of it every time we experience deja vu. Just as we experience the delusion of having experienced something before, patients with full-blown DMS have more florid and specific delusions.’

‘What kind of delusions?’

‘Take your pick. Fregoli’s Delusion makes you think that everyone around you is actually the same person in disguise… if you’ve got Capgras Delusion you believe your family members or friends have been replaced by identical impostors… and if you’ve got Cotard’s Delusion you don’t believe you’re even alive. What Freese seems to have is Reduplicative Paramnesia. The poor bastard thinks he’s been transported to an exact copy of the world.’

‘Well, I have to say, that makes him sound pretty mad to me.’

‘The sad thing is that these delusions are never the result of a mental illness. The root always lies in neurological damage: a brain injury, stroke, Alzheimer’s or something like that. Poor Freese has had this since birth. His reality is one that’s almost impossible for us to imagine, Jan. Just think of it: almost continuous deja vu, constant feelings of deep significance provoked by the most ordinary object, person or event. And then the long periods of short-circuited memories and the belief that everything around you is a fake, a conspiracy. All the trappings of paranoia without the schizophrenia. Niels Freese is a sane man who lives in an insane reality.’

‘But he’s a killer; and from what you’re saying, these people are not dangerous…’

‘Anyone who’s delusional is dangerous. There are instances of people suffering from Capgras Delusion slicing open their spouse to look for the mechanical workings or the robotic circuitry inside. People with Cotard’s Delusion frequently kill themselves or others, believing it doesn’t matter because no one is alive anyway. If you want my professional opinion, Jan, then I suggest you find Freese quick. Before he harms himself or others.’

‘I need to find him quick, all right,’ said Fabel. ‘Freese is the key to reality as far as I’m concerned. He ties everything together.’

After he hung up from his call to Susanne, Fabel dialled Anna’s number.

‘Did you get the information I asked for?’

‘Yep, Chef. Tim Flemming is exactly who he claims to be and his background is what he said. No disciplinary or other problems, either while in the Kiel harbour police or as a naval frogman. But something interesting did come up. His younger sister became involved with an extreme religious group that later became a focus for the attention of the BfV. Flemming apparently removed her from this group against her will and held her at a secret address in Denmark, where he worked with established deprogrammers to undo the brainwashing. It worked, so no charges were ever brought.’

‘But — let me guess — Flemming is known on the bush telegraph as the go-to guy for getting your nearest and dearest out of the clutches of a cult?’

‘That’s about it. But there are rumours of Flemming and his helpers being rather forceful in extracting cult members. The word is that you don’t get in his way. Tough guy. Other than that, everything else he said about his business is true. They really do provide security advice and personnel for importers and shipping lines.’

‘Thanks, Anna.’

‘What now?’ asked Werner after Fabel had ended his call.

‘Let’s go and pay Herr Flemming a call…’

People had an idea, a stereotype, of what a model-train enthusiast should look like. Frank Lesing was aware of that and often laughed at the reactions he got when he told people about his hobby.

Frank was thirty-two, tall, with a handsome face and thick dark hair. His looks, he knew, had been an advantage in building up his business. In business, people liked to deal with the good-looking. It was superficial, but it was true. His looks and his easygoing personality had made him popular at school and university and had eased his speedy progress through the international bank that employed him. It had all been so easy for Frank; so easy that sometimes it just did not seem real. As a senior member of the team, he was generally expected to make his lunches working ones: eating a sandwich while tied up in meetings or taking clients out to lunch. But whenever he did have a lunchtime to himself, this was where he would come: to the model-railway museum in the city’s Speicherstadt. What had started off as a large model-railway display now stretched over nearly twelve thousand metres of track. The largest model railway in the world. But it had become much more than that: there were motorways, roads and streets with moving traffic; offices, churches, theatres; two hundred thousand models of people doing every possible human activity, and a perfect duplication of central Hamburg. Container ships, trains, buses, cars, fire engines — perfect scale models, regulated by computers in the central control room — moved around the miniaturised landscape, creating the illusion of looking down from a great height on a real, living city.

It had been quiet for a lunchtime and Frank did not have to wait long to get in: the exhibition controlled the numbers passing through at any one time. He stood for a full five minutes looking down on a section of the Elbe while a container ship sailed through real water before reaching the crane-forested docks. It was then that Frank became aware of the young man standing at his side. There was something about the man that concerned Frank. He was dressed in dark clothes that looked old and grubby and Frank could smell the rancid odour of stale sweat coming from him. His hair was matted and he had the look of someone who had slept rough. But it was not that aspect of the man’s appearance that troubled Frank, it was his eyes. There was a look of excited desperation in those eyes. The young man stared at the massive model of the Kohlbrandbrucke, the bridge that spanned the river where the South Elbe became the North Elbe again. It was one of Hamburg’s most striking landmarks and even the model of it was impressive: six metres long and one and a half metres high.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Frank tentatively. He knew it was a bad idea — the guy was probably a junkie — but Frank had always found the imperative to help someone in need irresistible.

‘I thought they didn’t let you on it,’ said the young man, without taking his wild eyes from the model of the Kohlbrandbrucke.

‘What?’

‘The bridge. I thought it was only for cars. There are people walking on it. Cycling.’

‘Oh, that…’ Frank smiled. ‘It’s supposed to be the cycle race. They open it for that once a year. And the people on foot are supposed to be environmentalists protesting.’

The young man moved a little further along, to change the angle of his view. Frank noticed that he limped a little as he did so. He frowned as he examined the replica structure.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ asked Frank.

‘Is it real?’

‘Is what real? I think I should get you some help.’ Frank looked around for an attendant.

‘Is it real?’ the man asked again, his voice dull.

‘What? The bridge? Of course the bridge is real. Everything here is a copy of the real thing.’

‘A copy? Everything here is a copy?’ The young man looked up suddenly and Frank saw, for the first time, the full turmoil in the eyes. A storm of anger and fear and confusion. Frank now felt very uneasy. He walked away from the young man, moving as casually as he could, while desperately trying to locate an official.

‘IS IT REAL?’ the young man screamed at Frank’s back. Everyone else in the museum stopped and turned to see who was shouting. When Frank turned around, he found himself facing the barrel of an automatic. It shook in the young man’s outstretched hands. Frank could see that he was crying now, thick rivulets of tears streaking his cheeks. ‘I… want… you… to… tell… me… IS IT REAL?’

‘Is what real?’ asked Frank, through his panic. He saw a member of staff over the young man’s shoulder, speaking into a walkie-talkie. ‘Do you mean the bridge? Do you mean everything here?’

‘Is it real?’ he repeated, calmer this time but taking deliberate aim along the gun’s barrel.

‘Of course it’s not real!’ Frank was shouting now. ‘It’s just a model. It’s just make-believe.’

The young man’s eyes widened and Frank waited for the sound of the gun. Time had slowed down, each second adrenalin-stretched, and he found himself wondering if he would hear the gun, or whether he would be dead before his brain could register the sound.

‘It’s not real?’ asked the young man, sobbing.

‘No. Of course it’s not.’

Frank flinched as the young man surged forward at him, shoving him to one side and pushing his way through the screams of the crowd and out through the exit.

Suddenly Frank felt his legs give way under him and steadied himself on the handrail. He found himself looking at the Kohlbrandbrucke at the level of the roadway and a hand-painted environmental protester stared back at him defiantly.

Quite appropriately, the offices of Seamark International were in the HafenCity. It was, on the face of it, a modest outfit. The offices were new and, like the rest of the HafenCity, were all about the new century and its promises. They were not, however, particularly big: just a reception and three offices.

‘I’ve been expecting you,’ said Flemming when Fabel and Werner arrived. ‘You better take a seat.’

‘So which is the biggest part of your operation?’ asked Fabel after the receptionist had brought in a tray with coffees. ‘The maritime security or the cult-member deprogramming?’

Flemming smiled. ‘I take it you’ve found out about my hobby?’

‘Rescuing and deprogramming cult members? Yes, I have. An interesting sideline.’

‘I don’t do it for money. If my expenses are covered that’s all I care about. And in some cases not even that. I hate cults. I hate what they do to people.’

‘And is the Pharos Project your particular focus of interest, Herr Flemming?’

‘Of late, probably. We live in strange times, Herr Fabel. Most of the religious and spiritual certainties have fallen by the wayside. Christianity, Marxism, Nationalism… Everything is changing, becoming more technological, globalised, faster. People feel overwhelmed and they’re looking to more and more abstract concepts for some kind of guidance. The Pharos Project is very clever with its pitch, particularly to the vulnerable. My personal belief is that it is the most dangerous cult on the planet.’

‘So Herr Kebir believes Meliha has been recruited and brainwashed?’

‘No, I’m afraid we’re all pretty sure that Meliha has been murdered. She wasn’t an acolyte, she was an infiltrator. But I won’t stop searching for her until we are sure one way or the other. There is always the chance that they have kept her alive somewhere.’

‘Berthold Muller-Voigt was her lover. He was convinced she’d uncovered a secret that would have done massive damage to the Pharos Project. Do you think she was onto something big?’

‘I don’t know,’ Flemming shrugged. ‘It could be. I only came into this after the fact, as it were. But I think it’s entirely possible that she found out something about either the Korn-Pharos Corporation or the Pharos Project. She was totally dedicated to exposing false environmental prophets, from what I’ve been told.’

‘But you’ve had experience of dealing with people who have been involved with the Project?’ asked Werner.

‘We’ve liberated four former members so far. Technically, we’ve broken the law each time but after the rescued member has been “deprogrammed” they have been grateful rather than wanting to press charges. You asked me why I’m so secretive about what we do. I think you are beginning to get an idea of how ruthless Pharos can be. They don’t like losing members; not just because they resent the loss of a revenue stream, but because ex-members are likely to talk about what goes on in the cult.’

‘And the ones you’ve liberated — have they talked?’

‘Yes, but the cult is structured in such a way that each member has a very restricted view of the whole organisation. But, by piecing things together, we’ve built up an idea of some of the more secret aspects of the Project.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as unregulated experiments in Brain Computer Interface — a branch of neuroscience that just happens to fit in with Dominik Korn’s weird ideas. It’s all about micro-thin sensors implanted in the brains of people with disabilities to connect them to external technology — blind subjects being able to see again through an external artificial eye, amputees having full sensory control over robotic prostheses, that kind of thing. There are even complex versions already developed to help people with specific kinds of paralysis. I’m sure you can see why Dominik Korn, given his condition, has a vested personal interest in funding development of this area.’

Fabel found himself thinking of Johann Reisch, a man desperate for exactly that type of technology. But it had been too late for him.

‘So are you really suggesting that the Pharos Project is carrying out illegal surgery on members in pursuit of a better class of electric wheelchair for Korn?’ he asked.

‘You have to remember that many of the cult’s members are only too willing to take part. “Enhancement” is seen as a step on the path to realising singularity.’

‘God…’ said Fabel. ‘These people are really taken in by this stuff?’

‘No matter how sophisticated their technology or how much cash they’ve got in the pot, the Pharos Project is just another destructive loony cult like any other. And that means the same old tricks. They restrict the calorie intake and the amount of sleep of their members to dull their mental responses. Sometimes even sedate them slightly. It all makes new subjects more amenable to indoctrination. The problem we have is that when we “liberate” one of them, it is, to all intents and purposes, abduction. We hold them against their will in a secret location and use the same kind of brainwashing techniques as the cults we’ve freed them from, except in reverse. Then we introduce them back to their families. That’s usually the end of it, except some cults make an effort to track down ex-members. In the case of the Pharos Project, they use Consolidators — officers of the Consolidation and Compliance Office.’

‘And that’s who you think pushed my car into the Elbe?’

‘I’m certain of it. There are even rumours that some Consolidators have been “augmented” — taken that extra step on the path to becoming consolidated. Special implants to boost hearing, improve sight by giving them infrared vision, that type of crap. Personally I think it’s all cult hype. Even the Pharos Project doesn’t have that kind of technology at its disposal. Yet.’

‘Well,’ said Fabel. ‘I have to say your intelligence gathering is excellent. I mean, you seem to be extremely well informed…’

‘We have to be. We’re up against sophisticated enemies.’

‘Mmm…’ said Fabel thoughtfully. ‘Do you happen to know someone called Fabian Menke? He works for the BfV.’

‘No. Can’t say I do,’ said Flemming, and there was nothing in his expression for Fabel to read. ‘Should I?’

‘No. It’s just that I thought your paths might have crossed.’

They had just left Flemming’s office when Anna Wolff called Fabel on his cellphone.

‘Jan, I think we’ve found Freese.’

‘That was quick.’

‘To be honest, he’s made it pretty easy for us. There’s a guy walking across the Kohlbrandbrucke bridge. He’s taken potshots at passing motorists. It sounds like the same guy who was reported to have waved a gun around at the model-railway museum in the Speicherstadt. From the description, it sounds like Freese.’