The Serbian Dane (16 page)

He sauntered across to the flight of steps above which hung a sign saying ‘Reventlowsgade, Left Luggage Office, Lockers’, then made his way down the steps and to the left. The walls were grey and cement-like. Vuk descended another flight of steps. He peered through the double doors leading to the left-luggage area. He saw a long room with banks of lockers running down either side. There were lots of people milling around them, mainly kids. With rucksacks and small holdalls. Above each bank of grey steel lockers was a sign with a number on it. Vuk stopped in front of section 22, locker number 02. There was no one at the actual baggage counter, but Vuk noted that the whole area was monitored by closed-circuit cameras. Most of the lockers were taken; he could tell by the red squares in the little windows on their fronts: when a
locker was free a green square showed instead. These new-style lockers were worked by means of ticket consoles, he slid his card into the slot on the one nearest to him. He felt his pulse quicken as he stood there with his back turned and unprotected, but there was no hint of that tingling in his spine that had so often alerted him to danger. The sounds behind him fell sharp and clear on his ears. Time seemed to stand still for a moment. The machine swallowed his ticket. He heard it chuntering away for a second or two, then his locker opened with a little click. He lifted out a locked grey, hard-sided Samsonite suitcase and headed for the exit without a backward glance: past another counter, then a bike shop and up the stairs branching off to Reventlowsgade and platforms 1-12.

Suitcase in hand he headed towards the platform for the suburban lines at a normal walking pace, slipped his travel card into the machine on the platform and clipped it once, then hopped onto the first train to pull into the station. He alighted at the next station, stood for a moment looking up and down the train before jumping back on just as the doors were closing. Everything seemed normal. No panic on the platform. Nobody frantically trying to make contact on a walkie-talkie or a mobile phone. He stayed on the train for another two stops then took a taxi back to the hotel. Normally he steered clear of taxis, preferring to use buses and trains. Taxi drivers are given to being alert and observant. They tend to have better memories than most other people.

Back at the hotel he made sure the door was locked before opening the case. Inside were the items he had requested: a Dragunov sniper rifle with telescopic sight and a Beretta 92F pistol, together with ammunition for the two guns, both of which looked new and well-oiled. The rifle was separated into three parts. He proceeded to assemble it with CNN running quietly in the background. Working with this gun that was so familiar to him had a soothing effect on him. He knew he could hit a target bang-on at up to eight hundred yards with the long-barrelled rifle, developed by Soviet weapons technologists as the SVD. It had a relatively short butt, and the magazine could hold ten bullets. Vuk had trained with and used many weapons in his time. The SVD might not be the most sophisticated of weapons, but he found it reliable, pleasant to handle and accurate.

Now all he needed was a time and a place and these he was certain his new agent, Ole, could obtain for him, willingly or otherwise. As he worked, his thoughts went to Emma. He would write to her from wherever he went once the job was done, and ask her to start a new life with him. He had been giving more and more thought to the idea of Australia. Not only was it a new country, it was a new continent too, offering every opportunity for a fresh start. He had had enough of Europe. It was splitting into a rich side and a poor side, but both the rich and the poor sides of the old continent were doomed to disaster. Yugoslavia had been only the beginning, he thought, carefully wiping every single tiny section of the guns with one of the washcloths he had bought a few days earlier. With Emma he could start again. They each bore their own psychological scars, but Australia and Emma would put an end to the nightmare, and the blood-roller could stop running. In Australia he would be able to shut off all the horrors. In Australia he would find it possible to feel again, and the hollow empty sensation inside him would be gone.

While Vuk was cleaning his guns, Per Toftlund was parking his car next to Fælledparken, on the side just behind Rigshospital, close to the Pavilion. He had called Igor and arranged to meet him there. The circular building was closed and deserted. Behind its pale slender columns, the café inside was in darkness. Some teenage boys were playing football on the grass in front of the old bandstand that, in the summer, formed the setting for music, eating and drinking. A couple of tables and chairs still stood outside. Per sat down and watched the boys playing. A woman in shorts jogged past with her dog on a leash, a lone cyclist rode slowly by and a couple strolled arm in arm. A mother and her baby were sitting on a bench. Normality. Everything in Denmark seemed so normal, but Per had a strong suspicion that they had an assassin in the city. The undercover guys were starting to ask around, and Per had had meetings with the uniformed branch and the crime squad. He had informed them of Sara Santanda’s visit and told them what he knew. The most critical point would come with the press conference out on Flakfortet. And even though the politicians could have seen her far enough, the top brass at police headquarters were nothing if not professional. On the day itself he would be given all the officers he needed. They would guard the Østerbro apartment,
provide an escort and lend assistance at Flakfortet, which Per himself would be making a recce of, along with Lise Carlsen. Everyone was taking seriously the Russians’ averred certainty that a contract had been taken out on Santanda and that this contract would be carried out. But they didn’t have a helluva lot to go on: the back of a blond head, a Serb – possibly. No name, no nationality, no description. Well, maybe the Russians could help. They would have to.

He saw Igor coming down the road. The Russian stepped onto the grass, prodded it with the toe of his shoe to see if it was wet, discovered that it wasn’t and cut across the green to where Per was sitting. Igor was wearing the same dark suit and navy coat as before, but he looked a little nettled. As far as he was concerned, the case was closed, he had not welcomed the idea of another meeting, but Per had insisted.

The policeman stood up, and they shook hands briefly. Per came right to the point. This was not going to be quite so pleasant a meeting as last time, and he saw no reason to pretend otherwise by asking after the wife and kids, indulging in chitchat. When he played his ace, he wanted Igor to know that he had had it up his sleeve all along. He owed the Russian that much at least.

Per said curtly:

‘I want you to bring in that guy in the picture, Kravtjov or whatever his name is, for a little talk. And I want it done yesterday!’

Kammarasov would make a good poker player, Per thought. He saw the Russian’s eyes narrow, but his face remained impassive.

‘It can’t be done,’ was all he said.

‘In Berlin. To tell us who he’s talking to in that picture. As soon as possible.’

‘It cannot be done, Toftlund.’

Per considered Kammarasov for a second: held his eye while he drew a black-and-white photograph from the inside pocket of his jerkin. He lifted it up to the Russian, who broke free of his gaze and glanced down at the photograph. Per studied Kammarosov intently. God, what a pro, he thought, impressed in spite of himself. The Russian merely blinked once or twice but remained otherwise unmoved. Per turned the picture round to have a look at it himself. It was a good clear shot, showing Igor together with a young boy who could not have been any more than fourteen or fifteen. It had, Per knew, been taken in HC Ørsted Park one spring evening. Igor’s features were slightly
distorted by the pleasure of what the boy’s mouth was doing to his rigid member, but there was no doubt as to who the man in the photograph was.

Per turned the picture round again, to let Igor look at it. He didn’t want to, Per could tell, but he couldn’t help himself. The boy’s name was Lars and he was seventeen now, but he had been just fourteen when the photograph was taken. It was only four months since they had stopped seeing one another. Per had interviewed Lars personally and got him to describe the nature of their relationship. Per could see from the look on Igor’s face that he knew this, but Per kept him dangling a while longer before saying:

‘Democracy or no, this sort of thing is still a no-no back home, isn’t it, Igor?’

Kammarasov made no reply. They could hear the shouts of the boys playing football; other than that, they were alone in the world. They stood facing one another, like old chums getting together for a good old natter. Kammarasov did not seem able to drag his eyes away from the picture. Per thought it filthy and disgusting and felt nothing but contempt for the Russian, not least because he knew from Lars that Igor had honestly loved the bloody little rent boy.

‘It’s illegal in Denmark too, you know, Igor. Not being queer – screwing minors, I mean.’

A tremor passed across the Russian’s features, a fleeting flicker of pain before he regained control of his facial muscles and said, in a voice that shook only very slightly:

‘So the age of dirty tricks is not yet over?’

‘Like I said, Igor. We’ll never be out of a job, you and I. Would you like to have it? A nice little memento?’

Kammarasov took the picture and gave vent to his anger by ripping it to shreds, tearing and tearing at it frenziedly, until the pieces could be no smaller, then he tossed them into the air to be caught by the breeze and blown across the gravel, round the corner of the Pavilion and into the bushes.  Then he got a grip on himself again.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he croaked.

Per Toftlund was enjoying this situation. He had nothing against having this big man from the superpower to the east dangling like a cod from his hook.
‘That’s what happens when you start thinking with your dick,’ as Vuldom had put it when he had told her about what they had on Igor.

‘What was the penalty in the old Soviet Union – five years in the clink, wasn’t it? Not to mention the loss of your career, your wife, your reputation and all that crap. I don’t suppose the general view on poofters in the new Russia has changed all that much, or has it?’

By now Kammarasov had completely regained his composure; he eyed Toftlund with something approaching disdain:

‘That’s enough. Do try to be a little professional. I told you, I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Good, Igor. And make it quick, eh? It’s amazing how easy it is to make copies from a negative.
Pravda tavarijs
?’

‘I’ll call you,’ Igor said and walked off.

‘Enjoy the rest of your day,’ Per called and kept his eyes on the Russian as the latter marched off, cutting diagonally across the grass of the boys’ football pitch. He did not look back but walked with his head held high, deaf to the angry shouts from the players. Per felt a little guilty for crowing over him like that. It wasn’t professional, even if it had felt good. But Christ, the Russian had balls. Igor would deliver the goods all right. Per preferred not to think about what would happen to Kravtjov now. Igor had been trained in a hard and brutal school, and when it came to saving his own skin he would be every bit as ruthless as those men who had, down through the ages, manned the Russian security services. Tsar, general secretary or democratically elected president, it made no difference to those who worked undercover for the state. They would always believe that they had been specially chosen and were thus above the law.

Igor knew very well that if he could not come up with something within the next forty-eight hours, he might as well just jump into the harbour and get it over with. But he had been in the business a long time and knew exactly who to call in order to have Kravtjov brought in for a little chat about life and death and a hit man hiding out somewhere in the Queen’s Copenhagen.

Igor Kammarasov acted fast, and the three heavies whom the former KGB’s Berlin HQ had used in the past picked up Kravtjov that same evening as he was taking his usual promenade along Unter den Linden to view all the new
restaurants and shops which seemed to spring up every day. He was walking along, lost in thought, when a grey Mercedes drew up alongside the kerb. At that same moment a powerfully built man drew level with Kravtjov, poked a pistol into his ribs and hissed:

‘Get in, Comrade! Or I’ll blow your balls off.’

Thus began his hours in Hell.

They took him to a basement in the Turkish quarter in Kreutzberg, divested him of his jacket and shirt, placed him on a high-backed chair, tied his ankles tightly to its legs with wire and pinioned his wrists behind his back with the same agonizing stricture by means of handcuffs.

Then they beat him with socks filled with sand until his face swelled, and his arms, back and kidneys were sending such white-hot flashes of pain shooting through his brain that he wanted only to pass out, to die. But these were professional heavies; they stopped when they could see that he was on the brink of losing consciousness. They beat him systematically and unerringly, and only after they had given him a good going over did they start asking questions. The three men, all in their thirties, were muscular and brutal. Had they not been in the pay of a state they would have been doing the same strong-arm stuff for the Mafia or some other bunch of crooks. They didn’t really care who was paying. They did what they were told to do and never gave any thought to the rights and wrongs of it. They might not have gone so far as to say that they enjoyed their work, although they certainly did gain some satisfaction from inflicting pain on other people. It wasn’t in their nature to wonder about the meaning of life or come up with motives for the things they were told to do. There was just one thing they were good at: acting as the muscle for cooler, more rational minds that did not always care to know the source of the information they procured. Violence was an inextricable part of their lives; they were called upon when someone had to be punished, or when information had to be obtained on the spot. Two of them were married; they loved their children and respected their wives. The third had been an esteemed member of the local wrestling club back in Vladimir. Once the fat elderly man now wallowing in a pool of his own blood, vomit, urine and excrement had told them what they wanted to know, they would chuck him out of the car onto one of Berlin’s countless building sites where he would
just have to hope that someone found him and got him to hospital. They had been instructed not to kill him. Somewhere along the way he was evidently part of the family and would not, under any circumstances, go telling tales. To do that, he knew, would be tantamount to signing his own death warrant.