The Carnival Master

9.

Maria’s instinct reacted faster than her brain could process the fact that a light had come on in the building and cast a yellow shaft across the field. She threw herself onto the cold, damp earth and lay perfectly flat for a moment, her arms and legs spread, her head down. Realising she could still be seen, she rolled swiftly on her side and back into darkness. She looked up. The barn window was an empty yellow square in the dark. Then a figure appeared briefly, but long enough for Maria to feel that same terrifying sense of recognition. She aimed her 9mm Glock at Vitrenko’s silhouette, but then it was gone. She got to her feet, keeping her gaze fixed on the window, and closed another twenty metres before dropping to the ground again. She scanned the field, the illuminated window and the perimeter of the barn. No one. This was too easy. And where the hell was Buslenko?

With a wave of raw panic, Maria suddenly remembered her radio. She had left it on and there had been no communication between her and Olga for several minutes. Olga could radio her at any moment and give away Maria’s location to Vitrenko’s goons. She scrabbled desperately in her inside coat pocket and clumsily pulled out the radio, dropping it on the ground. She placed both gloved hands over it to smother any sound and her finger found the off button. She breathed a sigh of relief, letting her forehead rest on the cold earth.

Maria was now too close to the barn to make the rest of the crossing upright, so she commando-crawled over the field. Eventually she reached the stone wall of the barn, pressing her back against it. She looked back across the empty field, fringed with bracken and hedge. Every instinct in her body was now screaming at her. This was wrong. So wrong. It all looked too much like that other field and barn. It had been too easy to cross the field undetected, just like it had been that other night, when Vitrenko had felt so confident that he had posted the minimum security. Surely he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. There was one significant difference between that night and this: this time Fabel wasn’t around to save her. Maria felt so cold. She checked her gun again and began to edge towards the window.

Maria realised that the stone-built structure was more some kind of workshop rather than a barn. The window was glazed with a reasonably new pane, but the glass was thick with grime which had gathered in particular density around the corners. Maria strained to hear anything from inside, but the wind had picked up and the glass muted any sound. Cradling the butt of her automatic with both hands, she eased forward, craning her neck to see through the edge of the window. She snapped her head back from the window and stood with her back to the wall. Her mind raced to analyse the split second’s worth of information she had taken in. Molokov was in there, with at least three henchmen. No sign of Vitrenko, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in there, hidden from view. Maria fought to keep her breath under control and her thoughts in order. Now was the time to start thinking like a police officer again. Fabel had always told them that the first duty of a police officer was to stand between the innocent and harm, between chaos and order. Maria knew that someone was about to die, probably horrifically, and within the next few minutes.

Maria’s snatched glance through the window had picked up someone who should not have been there. A man sitting on a chair in the middle of the room with his hands out of sight, presumably tied behind his back. He had been surrounded by the others, including Molokov. Torture would come first. Then death.

Maria pulled the radio from the inside pocket of her thick black coat. She would have to risk using it. She turned the volume as low as was practical, given the increasing whine of the wind.

‘Olga… come in, Olga…’

Silence.

‘Olga… come in…’ Maria’s voice was now desperate.

‘Maria – where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get you. Taras’s radio is still dead too…’

‘They’ve got him, Olga…’

‘What?’

‘They’ve got Taras. I think they’re going to kill him.’

‘My God – what are we going to do?’

‘We’re out of our depth, Olga. I need to become a police officer again. We need to do this right. I want you to phone the Cologne police right now and tell them that you’re a Kiev militia officer and that a Hamburg Murder Commission Commissar needs urgent assistance at this location. Tell them that we’ve got Vasyl Vitrenko pinned down here and the BKA Task Force will want to be here as well. But for God’s sake tell them to hurry.’

‘I’ve got it… I’ll do it now, Maria. Are you safe?’

‘For the moment. But I’m going to have to do something if the local police don’t get here before these bastards start on Taras. Do it now.’

Maria switched the radio off again, eased back along the wall and checked through the window. Molokov was shouting, ranting at Buslenko, gesticulating wildly. Occasionally he would look across to something or someone outside Maria’s field of vision.

Vitrenko.

Maria crouched beneath the sill and worked her way to the other side of the window and to the far end of the wall. She stole a look around the corner. A door, two heavies. Sub-machine pistols. No way in that way. That made things difficult: she wouldn’t have direct access to the room they were holding Buslenko in. She retraced her steps to the other corner.

She needed to get in there. She felt tears sting her eyes. She thought about all that she had been through in the last three years, about that night in the field near Cuxhaven, about Fabel, about Frank. Maria knew why she was crying: she was mourning. She was mourning the person she had been before it all happened. And she was mourning the life she knew she was about to lose. The local police would take too long to get here. She and Buslenko would both be dead and Vitrenko would probably once more vanish into the night. But she had to do this. End this. She would find her way into that room and use the one shot she would have before they gunned her down to take out Vitrenko. She was certain he was in there with them. She knew that she probably would not recognise his face; that would be changed totally by now. But his eyes. And his presence. Those she would recognise in a split second.

Maria steadied herself against the wall. She sniffed hard and wiped the tears from her face. She paused for a moment in the vain hope that she might hear the approach of police cars. The wind rustled through the bare trees and hedgerow behind the workshop with a strangely soothing sound. Maria took her service automatic from her pocket and now stood with a gun in each hand. She gave a small laugh. Like a movie. But it doubled her chances of hitting Vitrenko before they gunned her down.

With that thought she stood clear of the wall and walked calmly around the corner. Again alarm bells began to ring. It was too easy. This side of the workshop looked completely unguarded. There was a window into another room: this time the glass was broken and the room was in darkness. Maria looked at the luminous dial of her watch. Seven minutes since she had radioed Olga. It would be maybe another five or ten before the local police arrived. Again she hesitated. They wouldn’t come with lights and sirens, of course. She looked out back across the field to the road. No headlights, no movement. She peered in through the shattered window. The room was empty except for a couple of broken chairs and a grimy desk pushed against one wall.

Maria eased her hand through the broken glass and undid the latch. The window protested at having its decades-long rest disturbed by creaking loudly as she eased it open. It took a couple of minutes for her to ease it open enough for her to squeeze through. Again she paused and strained the night for the sounds of approaching rescue. Nothing. Where the hell were they? Maria tried not to think of the sound she inevitably made as she stepped in through the window and onto the debris-strewn floor. Despite the cold of the winter air, she felt beads of perspiration break out on her upper lip. She stood stock-still. There were sounds from outside the door. She aimed both guns at the grubby wooden panels but the door didn’t open and the sounds faded. Maria reckoned that the workshop was only big enough for the two rooms, both off a corridor. She crept across to the door; it was ill-fitting and a gap allowed her to see part of the hallway. She heard low voices, from the room next door. No screams.

Maria made the decision to act swiftly. She swung the door wide and swept the hall with the guns held in each hand, ready to shoot anyone she found there. The hall was empty but the light still issued from the room just over two metres away. They must have heard her. The voices in the room continued talking. She moved up the hall. The outer door was directly in front of her but she couldn’t see the two goons posted at it: presumably they were outside. Whatever happened in the room, she would have to be ready for them coming in at the sound of gunfire. Two highly trained Spetsnaz with machine pistols against an anorexic, neurotic cop on sick leave, armed with two handguns. Shouldn’t be a problem, she thought. She felt no fear. It had left her with her first step towards the open doorway of the room. She had heard that certainty of death can do that to you. With it came a new strength and determination.

Maria rushed forward and stepped into the doorway, swinging her guns round to bear on whomever she found inside.