Bad Luck in Berlin: An Exclusive Short Story

CHAPTER 2

Adorján Farkas was a forty-year-old captain in a leading Hungarian criminal organisation based in Budapest. He lived and operated primarily on the Pest side of the Danube, but in eight days’ time would visit Berlin. According to the dossier, Farkas was personable and generous with everyone he met, but merciless with his rivals. A combination of cunning and brutality had taken him up the organised crime ladder at uncommon speed, and the addition of paranoia was keeping him there. Farkas paid his lieutenants considerably well to ensure their loyalty, but never kept anyone too close to his side for too long. That made sense to Victor. Farkas’s rise had coincided with the demises of those in positions of power above him.

The dossier provided by Victor’s new employer was extensively and somewhat unnecessarily detailed, with reams of information on Farkas and his various illicit business practices. Victor didn’t know if this was standard procedure for his employer or due to the fact there were a number of potentially problematic stipulations in the contract. Killing Farkas in Berlin was not one of them. When travelling abroad he would be far less secure than back home.

Farkas was well aware of this fact, and would be accompanied by a contingent of heavies, but this came as no surprise to Victor and was nothing he hadn’t dealt with numerous times before. Farkas’s precautions didn’t stop there, however, and where he would stay for his trip was the only piece of relevant information Victor’s employer had not been able to provide.

Whatever the destination, whatever the reason for the journey, accommodation was booked at the last possible moment, often just a day or two before he left Hungary. Farkas never used the same place more than once and always sent his most trusted man ahead to scout out a number of potential locations to get a first-hand look at their suitability. These were always rented apartments or houses. Farkas never stayed in a hotel. Victor didn’t blame him. They could be dangerous places.

He had to admire Farkas’s level of consideration to personal security, even if it made his job significantly more difficult. But that, of course, was the point.

Not impossible, however. Not even close.

The care and attention Farkas paid to his own safety was not evident in the man he sent as his advance party. Bence Deák had paid for his business class plane ticket and booked his hotel room two weeks previously, giving Victor’s employer a sufficient window of time to acquire all manner of personal details about him, such as his intolerance to wheat gluten and his passion for the roulette wheel. American roulette, not French.

Deák sauntered through the arrival gate the day after Victor, wheeling a gold-coloured hard-shell suitcase behind him. The flight from Budapest had only been ninety minutes, and no time zones had been crossed, but Deák looked drained. He had the pasty skin and red eyes of someone who had been awake half the previous night, and inebriated for the major part of it.

He had an emaciated frame and stood a little over six feet tall. His dark brown hair hung down to his jaw and its greasy sheen showed it hadn’t been washed in at least twenty-four hours. He wore a silvery grey suit that was more wrinkled than a short flight would produce, but was about right for one that had followed an all-nighter. His white dress shirt was untucked at the waist and unbuttoned down to his sternum. Ribs and curly hairs on his concave chest were visible through the gap.

Victor, standing with the crowd of people waiting to greet loved ones and business associates, waited for Deák to walk past, and followed.

Outside the airport, while Deák used broken German to instruct a short north African taxi driver on the correct way to place the golden suitcase in the trunk, Victor squatted down next to the taxi’s front wheel to tie his shoelace. As he stood, he slipped his fingers under the wheel arch. He left behind a small box made from hardened cellulose. It was adhesively backed and had the circumference of a two-euro coin with twice the depth.

As the taxi pulled away, Victor checked his cell phone to make sure he was receiving the signal. The box stuck to the car’s wheel arch contained an Italian made tracking device that was similar to a cell phone that couldn’t make calls: comprised of just a SIM card, transmitter and battery. The device could be pinged like a regular mobile to reveal its GPS location, which was readable from Victor’s phone. Because retrieving such things wasn’t always possible, and because Victor didn’t like to leave evidence lying around, he’d had the trackers cased in cellulose. As long as it was exposed to air the case would biodegrade and fall apart at about the same time as the battery ran out of power. Under the constant vibration of the taxi’s engine, and exposed to dirt and water thrown up by the tyre, this one would disintegrate within a few days, and the delicate components inside would fall away.

Victor climbed into his own taxi and told the driver to head into central Berlin. He knew where Deák was staying, but there was no guarantee he would go straight there. Deák’s room was booked for a single night and his flight back to Hungary left before midday. He had just over twenty-four hours to check out potential accommodation for his boss. Discounting eight hours for sleep and two to eat today’s lunch and dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast and another for the ride back to the airport, Deák had about thirteen hours with which to check possible locations. Depending on how long he spent inside each and how long it took to travel between them, dozens could be checked in that time frame. But someone who had so busy a schedule for so ruthless a boss wouldn’t have stayed up partying all night.

The internet would have provided enough information with which to compose a shortlist, so Victor expected Deák had no more than half a dozen locations to visit before close of business today, then the evening off to make the most of the trip before catching the flight back home tomorrow without having to rush in the morning.

Deák’s taxi dropped him off at his hotel, and that he spent over an hour in his room before reappearing told Victor he’d been right in his prediction.

Deák strolled through the hotel lobby in the same silvery suit he’d arrived in, but it had benefited from a few minutes with a press or steamer. He wore a new shirt, and his jaw-length hair was wet and pushed back behind his ears. He looked alert, if not wholly refreshed. A shower and strong coffee, but no actual rest.

He opted to walk, which made shadowing him simple, especially as he hadn’t had the most rudimentary training in counter-surveillance. He didn’t take any of the most basic precautions. He even walked slowly. The idea that someone might follow him seemed an alien concept. He was a poor choice for a scout, but Farkas had sent him based on loyalty, not competence.

If Deák’s role was solely as an information gatherer and the final decision was left up to Farkas, Victor would need to survey each and every one as a potential strike point before Farkas’s arrival. But in the same way Farkas would use Deák’s intel to decide which was safest for his stay, Victor could do the same to narrow down the list to arrive at the most likely to be used.

His employer, with considerable power and resources, could no doubt help Victor to do so with blueprints and schematics and anything else he might need, but the less contact Victor had with the nameless CIA officer who had recruited him, the better. This was Victor’s first contract for the man he’d met just once. His years of working freelance had taught him to trust no one — which was one of the primary reasons he was still alive — and those who paid for the services of a killer he trusted least of all.