The Valkyrie Song

4

You surround yourself with things, she thought. With stuff. You surround yourself with things to fill the gaps. At one time it had all seemed so important. To have nice things. Like the coffee table she had had specially imported from Japan. Or the Danish Hans Jorgen Wegner-designed Ox chair that had cost her over six thousand euros. She sat on the sofa and stared at the magazine.

Maybe it was Uncle Georg who had got to her. He had been so… melancholic when they last had met. It had disturbed her. They had all called Georg Drescher ‘Uncle’. With hindsight, like everything else they had done to Anke, Liane and Margarethe, it had been so very carefully calculated. Not quite a father figure. Definitely not a lover. An uncle. An older male to whom they could turn and on whom they could always rely. Their trainers had tapped into adolescent female psychology to position Drescher perfectly in their minds. Socialism didn’t matter. The GDR didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that they would never, ever let their Uncle Georg down.

Then, when the world had shifted on its political axis, socialism disappeared, the GDR was no more. Even Margarethe and Liane, by that time, were no longer there: Margarethe was now so disturbed that she was useless as a potential agent. The only thing they had achieved, Uncle Georg had confided in Anke later, was to turn a seriously disturbed girl into a dangerously disturbed killing machine. And Liane

… well, Liane had been too perfect. Liane had exactly what they had been looking for: a singular ruthlessness and complete disregard for others. But that had also included Uncle Georg, the Stasi, the state. Liane had learned every lesson to perfection and had been deployed in the West before they had realised their mistake. Liane would use the skills they had taught her exclusively to achieve her own ends.

That left only her. Anke. Not that she had called herself that in years. She had been Uncle Georg’s favourite. After the Wall had come down, Drescher had set up his own little enterprise, sending Anke out to kill people she didn’t know on behalf of people she didn’t know. Not for ideology, not for state security, but for cold, hard cash.

And that had suited her fine. Anke had known that Margarethe had been smarter and Liane had been prettier, but Anke had had the sense to recognise a successful partnership. And the partnership with Uncle Georg had worked out just fine. But now there were hints of sentimentality creeping in with the old man. And there was no room in this business for sentimentality.

Uncle Georg had kept the old, Cold War methods of staying in touch. Using the magazine for rendezvous messages. There were five dead-letter drops that he used throughout Hamburg. He had told Anke that he was an old dog who had learned his last trick so long ago. But Anke knew the truth: Uncle Georg used these methods to keep Anke at arm’s length; the snake charmer’s fear of being bitten.

But it was an unjustified fear. Uncle Georg was as close to family as Anke had ever known. Or would ever know. That was not to say that she had never considered the possibility of killing him, to protect her identity should he through age or for whatever other reason lose his professionalism. But she knew that when the time came for them to part ways, she would let him live out his retirement in peace. Probably.

She put the magazine down. This made no sense at all.

Two messages. One from Uncle Georg. And the other. The other message was as wrong as it was possible to be. The wrong place and the wrong time. Muliebritas was the signal Uncle Georg used to alert her that he needed to see her; that he had another meeting for her to fulfil.

But this shouldn’t be here. She read it again: The heavens are stained with the blood of men, as the Valkyries sing their song.

It had been their code. The one they had agreed on if they ever wanted to contact each other. But she had never wanted to keep in touch with the other two. She had known, even then, that she was the only true Valkyrie. Margarethe was mad and Liane had her own agenda.

Anke knew it couldn’t be one of the other girls. Muliebritas had not existed back then. And their plan had been compromised. Whoever had placed the announcement knew she would know it wasn’t Liane or Margarethe. Too obvious to be a trap.

She looked again at the decoded message from Uncle Georg. An appointment tomorrow. She would keep it. She would ask Uncle Georg what he made of the other message.