The Carnival Master

7.

Scholz put his arm around Fabel’s shoulders and gently eased him up.

‘You okay?’

Fabel looked down at his punctured coat and jacket. ‘Just winded.’

‘It’s a good job you were right about his weapon of choice. If he’d brought a gun that stab-vest wouldn’t have helped much.’

‘Let’s go,’ said Fabel.

The uniformed officers had already grabbed two of the masked men and pulled their masks from their faces. Fabel, Scholz and half a dozen uniformed officers pushed on through the crowd which thinned out the further they moved away from the procession.

‘There!’ shouted one of the uniforms and pointed to where a dark figure had cleared the crowd and ran off in the direction of the Rhine.

‘No… wait,’ shouted Scholz. ‘There’s another one.’ He pointed to a second figure, heading off towards the railway station. ‘And another

…’ A third gold mask flashed in the winter sunlight as it turned in their direction before running towards the back of the cathedral.

‘We’ll have to split up and go after them all,’ shouted Fabel. ‘But a minimum of three men on each. These are dangerous bastards. Benni, we’ll take the cathedral guy. You armed?’

Benni reached deep into his oversized outfit and produced his SIG-Sauer automatic. He ordered one of the uniforms to come with him and Fabel and they sprinted off in the direction taken by the third masked man. They came round to the south side of the cathedral and suddenly they were alone. The cheering of the crowd was still loud but seemed to Fabel to belong to another universe. They stopped and caught their breath.

‘He can’t have got round the rear,’ said the uniformed cop. ‘He didn’t have time.’

Fabel strained his neck to look up at the immense looming mass of the cathedral. They were on the south side and a row of massive flying buttresses, each tipped with a spire, flanked the cathedral’s nave like a rank of soldiers. His eyes fell to street level and caught sight of a side door.

‘Is the cathedral open today?’ he asked.

‘Not to the public,’ said Scholz. ‘But there’s a special Fastenpredigt pre-Lent Mass later. They’re probably preparing for that.’

‘He’s gone inside,’ said Fabel. ‘The cathedral is like a crossroads itself. He’s trying to lose us and come out on another side. Come on!’

The heavy door yielded, then slammed echoingly behind them. There was a man lying on the flagstones immediately inside the door. His white hair was dishevelled and was stained red with blood on one temple.

‘Are you all right?’ Scholz bent over the elderly security man.

‘I… I tried to stop him. Told him the cathedral was closed. He hit me…’

‘You – stay with him,’ Scholz ordered the uniform. ‘Radio in. I want men at each portal of the cathedral. Jan, you stick with me. Chances are this is one of Vitrenko’s decoys, but it’s better to be safe.’

Fabel unholstered the automatic that Scholz had issued him with before the meet with Vitrenko. They walked down the centre of the aisle, past the window where Fabel had discussed rhinoceroses with a Mexican writer.

‘This place is the size of a football stadium,’ he said to Scholz. ‘The bastard could be anywhere.’

‘You check along the pews on the left, I’ll take the right.’

They worked their way up the aisle, the sounds of Karneval outside now even more remote. They reached the crossing of the transept and Fabel found himself looking through the retrochoir to where the Shrine of the Three Kings, a huge golden reliquary, gleamed behind its glass. There was a sound to his left.

‘Over there, behind that screen…’ he hissed to Scholz and swung his gun around. Scholz put a restraining hand on Fabel’s arm.

‘For Christ’s sake don’t shoot. That screen, as you call it, is the Klaren Altar. It’s priceless.’

‘So’s my life.’ Fabel nodded past the triptych screen. ‘You go that way.’

Fabel kept his aim locked on the screen and moved towards it, taking slow steps and ready to fire. He checked that Scholz was in position. Fabel swung around the edge of the screen. Something slammed hard into him and he toppled sideways. He heard his gun clatter across the flagstones and felt cold steel pressed against his cheek. He looked up at a gold mask.

‘Now why don’t you stand the fuck up and drop that gun,’ Fabel heard Scholz say calmly but firmly. ‘Or I’m going to have to pop one in your head.’

‘Let me go or I’ll kill him,’ said the masked man. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘And then you’ll die,’ said Scholz. ‘And nobody comes out of this on top, Vitrenko.’

The man took his automatic away from Fabel’s face and laid it on the flagstones. He stood up and pulled his mask from his face. He was dark-haired and younger, thought Fabel, than Vitrenko would have been.

‘It’s not him,’ said Fabel. ‘I don’t think it’s him.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Scholz. Fabel scrambled to his feet and recovered his automatic. He stood beside Scholz and also locked his aim on the figure.

‘You’re right, Fabel. I’m not Vitrenko. He’ll be long gone by now. He told you that he wouldn’t walk into a trap.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Pylyp Gnatenko. As far as you’re concerned, a nobody.’

‘A nobody prepared to die or go to prison to buy your boss a few minutes to escape?’ asked Fabel.

‘If that’s what it takes. You still know nothing about our code, Fabel.’

‘Step out of the shadows. I want to see your face properly.’

There was a sound from behind them and Fabel spun around.

‘Maria?’ Fabel stared uncomprehendingly at the figure before him. Maria was dressed in cheap black clothes and looked painfully thin, her face pale and pinched. Almost grey. There was an ugly swollen welt across her forehead. Her blonde hair had been cropped and dyed black, just as the hotel clerk had told Fabel. She was aiming two automatics directly at the Ukrainian. Scholz swung his aim round onto her.

‘It’s okay! It’s okay!’ shouted Fabel. ‘It’s Maria. The officer I told you about.’

‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ said Scholz, ‘could you tell me what the fuck is going on?’

‘That’s him,’ said Maria. ‘The devil is here.’

‘We don’t know if it’s Vitrenko,’ said Scholz. ‘He says he’s just one of his stooges. I think you’d better give me those guns, Frau Klee.’

‘His eyes, Jan. Look at his eyes. He couldn’t change his eyes.’

‘Step out of the shadow. Now! ’ Fabel kept his gun trained on the figure.

He smiled as he stepped into the light. He was too young, too dark to be Vitrenko. But Fabel knew, as soon as the emerald eyes glinted in the light cast from the high windows, that that was exactly who it was. ‘I thought my new face might fool you, but unfortunately Frau Klee has already seen it.’

‘He told me he was a Ukrainian called Taras Buslenko.’

‘The policeman they sent after him?’

Maria nodded.

Vitrenko placed his hands on his head. ‘I am your prisoner,’ he said. ‘No tricks.’

‘You’ll give in that easily?’ said Fabel. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘There are many ways to escape,’ said Vitrenko. ‘As Frau Klee has already discovered. We found the remains of the guards, Maria. Poor Olga. It would appear your bite is worse than your bark. Anyway, like I said, there are many, many ways to escape. And I know that your Federal Crime Office will want to negotiate over what information I can give them. After all, I’ve given them a lot already.’

‘I know,’ said Fabel. ‘The dossier you took from me was blank pages, but you knew I wouldn’t hand it over, didn’t you? And you didn’t really need to see it at all.’

‘May I repeat my request of earlier?’ Scholz, his gun still aimed at Vitrenko, frowned angrily. ‘Could someone tell me what the fuck is going on?’

‘The so-called Vitrenko Dossier is all crap. The mole inside the organisation was Vitrenko himself. Misinformation. A few scraps of genuine intelligence and the rest was all bollocks. This whole idea that he was desperate to get his hands on it was to convince the Federal Crime Bureau of its authenticity.’

‘Buslenko died for a lie?’ The question cracked in Maria’s throat. ‘Everything you did to me? It was all a masquerade?’

Vitrenko shrugged. ‘What can I tell you? I became caught up in the spirit of Karneval. But the lie Buslenko died for was that Ukraine was worth dying for. A patriot. A fool. Now, if you don’t mind, if you’ll handcuff me and deliver me to a cell somewhere. Of course there’s a lot of evidence against me. It’s all in the Vitrenko Dossier – oh, wait, that’s all fake, isn’t it? I wonder how long you’ll be able to keep me…’

‘There’s the murder of the policeman in Cuxhaven. The attempted murder of Maria. The container full of human cargo that you let burn to death. I think we’ll find something.’

‘And I think my lawyers and their medical experts will have a lot to say about Frau Klee’s psychological credibility as a witness.’ Vitrenko grinned. ‘You see, Fabel, I’m getting away again. Just like the last time. It’s just that I’m taking a different route.’

‘No…’ said Maria, her voice dull. ‘ Not like the last time.’

Fabel and Scholz didn’t have time to react. Maria fired both guns, squeezing the triggers until the magazines emptied. The shots hit Vitrenko in the chest and gut and he staggered backwards until he hit the wall. His emerald eyes became dull and unfocused and he slid down the stone surface, leaving a smear of blood behind him. Maria let the guns fall. At the same time Fabel saw something empty from her face.

Even in the midst of his shock he knew that what had left her would never return.