A shadow falls, p.35
A Shadow Falls, page 35
part #2 of Jenny Aaron Series
Out of the corner of her eye she sees Makata running up the stairs.
The bodyguard collapses. All the colour has drained from his face. Blood spouts from his leg like water from a fire hose. Aaron tears his Colt out of its holster, throws it into a corner and grabs the Browning.
Makata is upstairs. She sprints after him.
‘Adaja is standing in the middle of the room and is aiming at the door,’ Pavlik tells her. ‘Damn, hurry up!’
In his gun sight Pavlik sees the door fly open. Makata marches towards Adaja, without fear, as if her hands were empty. A hundred and fifty kilos of pure self-assurance.
‘She can’t do it,’ Pavlik murmurs.
He shoots Makata in the arm.
It doesn’t stop the colossus.
Aaron leaps into the room. Makata grabs the revolver and spins round with Adaja. He holds the gun to her temple. Tears are running down her face.
Aaron aims exactly at the bridge of Makata’s nose. ‘You’re not going to get out of here. Let the woman go.’
His sweaty forehead is pulsating. ‘You won’t get me alive,’ he scoffs.
The alarm system is silent.
‘I can’t shoot him in the head, the window frame is covering him,’ Pavlik mumbles. ‘Get ready.’
Glass bursts. Makata staggers. Pavlik has sent a bullet into his other arm. He lets go of Adaja. Aaron dives into the room, performs a roll and kneels beside him. She grabs his revolver hand, pulls on it, wraps both legs around Makata’s arm and brings him down.
He shoots into the floor.
Her master says: The earth’s energy flows into your body through the kyusho point in the soles of your feet. This is also true when you’re in a house. If your feet aren’t touching the floor, use your hand for it. The Yang meridian at the base of your cranial is your point of contact with the sky. You are a lightning conductor. The energy has to leave your body through your other foot or your other hand in the direction of your enemy.
Aaron presses her right hand onto the carpet and rams her left fist into Makata’s jaw angle with colossal force. He instantly loses consciousness.
She stands up. Adaja hasn’t moved from the spot. Her eyes are like dead leaves.
Two shots ring out downstairs, revolver. A whispered reply, silencer. Then a scream. Chloé. Aaron runs from the room. When she’s at the top step, she sees the motionless child. A red crater gapes in Manon’s chest. Lutter is reeling, blood running down his temple. In the doorway lies the bodyguard he shot in the neck.
Wailing, Chloé falls to her knees beside her daughter. The bodyguard’s revolver is lying on the floor, a metre away. Lutter collapses.
Chloé reaches for the gun and aims it at him.
Her make-up is smeared, her lipstick a pale pink like Jackie Kennedy’s. She is wearing a flower in her hair. She tears her mouth open and shrieks something in an African language.
Aaron pulls the trigger. The bullet splits Chloé’s head in two.
Butz and Fricke come storming in. Fricke runs over to Lutter. It’s a graze wound. ‘Clean,’ Fricke reports to Pavlik.
‘Butz, help me,’ Aaron calls. She runs back to Makata. He is still unconscious. Adaja is sitting on a chair, her hands folded in her lap, as if she were waiting for a job interview. Aaron tears down a curtain cord. Butz takes Makata’s shirt off, cuts it with his knife and applies makeshift bandages to the bullet wounds. There’s barely any blood, no ruptured arteries, the two bullets are embedded in the fat. They tie him up and gag him.
Aaron pulls Adaja to her feet and drags her down the stairs. In the entrance hall she takes her by the shoulders and says: ‘You have to disappear immediately. Drive to Marseilles. Do you know where Jerôme lives?’
Adaja nods mechanically.
‘Go away with him. Do it tonight.’
She nods again, staring at the three corpses.
‘How much have you got on you?’ Aaron asks the others.
They always carry cash on their body during an operation like this, to enable a quick exit. She pulls her jeans down to her knees and fishes two thousand Euros in large notes out of the sewn-in pocket. Fricke adds a thousand; Lutter has regained consciousness and is also digging out two thousand. Butz joins them, he’s got three thousand.
Aaron places the money in Adaja’s hand. ‘What’s the phone number I told you to ring?’
Adaja stammers the numbers.
‘Good. Now go.’
Adaja stumbles out of the house.
The bodyguard whose leg artery Aaron ruptured is lying in a red lake. He is still conscious. She shoots him in the head.
Pavlik steps over the dead man in the doorway.
‘I thought I’d dispatched him,’ Fricke mutters. ‘My fault.’
Pavlik looks at his watch. Quarter to nine. Makata’s guests will soon be here. ‘Butz, Fricke, clear away the bodies at the front of the house. Aaron, kill that bloody light in the grounds.’
Lutter is staring into space. ‘Suddenly the girl comes running out of the room. The guy crawls through the door and fires at me. The girl ran straight into his follow-up shot. I got him too late.’
What if the police turn up? The alarm system has drowned out the revolver blasts, apart from the last two. But it was blaring out for four minutes.
There are no sirens.
Just silence.
Lutter stays in the house, the others take up position outside. When the car arrives, Lutter will open the gate so it can enter the grounds. They don’t know whether the men will arrive with bodyguards.
It doesn’t matter.
They’re going ahead with it. They wait.
It turns nine.
Half-past.
Ten.
Nobody.
All of this happened for nothing.
They go upstairs to Makata. Aaron removes the gag from his mouth. ‘You’ve been stood up. Who is this man you spoke of?’
She reads the question in his eyes.
‘Your wife and daughter are alive. Nothing will happen to them if you cooperate with us.’
Makata is in pain. He groans.
Pavlik fixes him with his eyes. ‘Is that your reply?’
Makata thinks.
Then he gives up. ‘I don’t know.’
Fricke gives a bitter laugh.
‘I don’t know his name. He called me, in a hotel in Tripoli. On a number that only six people have. He said: “If you want, you’ll be the president of the Republic of Congo a month from now.” I thought he was joking. He said: “There’s a box outside your door.” I opened it. Inside was the head of the president’s most important advisor.’
‘What did he want in return?’ Aaron asks.
‘That’s what I was going to find out tonight.’
His voice is firm. He’s telling the truth.
They look at each other mutely. They can’t take Makata to the Federal Public Prosecutor now. Not anymore. Once they announce his arrest, the French will know who was in Avignon. They had factored that in. Only the plan hadn’t included nine dead, seven of them French citizens. This kind of bloodbath would cost Lissek his job. And it would cost them theirs too.
But should they allow Makata to live?
Who will ever hold him to account?
His eyes are as cold as a spent cartridge case. His naked chest shows a tattoo, Jesus on the cross.
Pavlik is the first to draw his gun.
Then Aaron. Fricke. Lutter. Finally Butz.
30
Today
There is a small room next to Demirci’s office, where she spends the night every now and then. With some missions, she finds herself constantly staring at the phone. In these situations she prefers to be here, rather than in her apartment on Potsdamer Platz. Pavlik has told her that Lissek sometimes camped out in this room for weeks. At first she was surprised; she had been under the impression that her predecessor was a bit of a cold fish. That was silly of course. If he had been, those forty men and women wouldn’t have followed him through thick and thin.
She is lying on the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling. The traffic noise throbs away behind the window. Helmchen had stayed until ten. Demirci sent her home; it’s enough if one of them drives herself crazy.
Two a.m., three hours until the jet takes off.
Draped over the chair are a pair of overalls, a waist belt, knife, balaclava, ballistic helmet, protective vest, thigh holster and tactical gloves. Guppy must have brought the stuff over. She knows that Lissek used to accompany such missions dressed in combat gear, to demonstrate that he is one of the team.
She won’t be using any of these things. Demirci will wear a business outfit. Her message will be: I know what you are capable of, and you know it too.
The special phone rings. She instantly grabs it. ‘Yes?’
‘It’s me.’
Aaron.
‘Where are you?’
‘Atlas mountains, a small hotel. Pavlik has gone to lie down, he didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. We’re setting off in four hours.’
‘Any new developments?’
Aaron’s voice is flat. ‘You know I was in Avignon eight years ago.’
Demirci’s heart skips a beat.
‘Of those that were there, only Pavlik, Fricke and me are still alive. Lutter died that same year in Santiago, and Butz five weeks ago.’
Aaron goes on to give an account of Layla’s interrogation.
They talked about someone. Bas Makata. They wanted to meet with him. In Avignon.
She describes what happened in the Congo. She takes her time. She can still remember every detail.
What God would allow that?
Aaron tells her how it all turned into a nightmare. The Night of the Long Knives. Nine dead. The head of the presidential advisor in a box.
Demirci’s voice is raw: ‘You liquidated Makata.’
‘We wanted to. But we couldn’t do it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we’re police, not executioners.’
‘What did you do?’
‘We loaded him into the transporter, with the bodies of his wife and daughter. We buried the two bodies in the Camargue. Then we drove Makata to Marseilles. Butz and Fricke knew where Jerôme lived; the house was shared by lots of Africans. We chucked Makata inside the entrance, naked and tied up, and wrote on his belly: I am Bas Makata, the butcher of Kinshasa. We waited in the Ford. An hour later Adaja arrived. We left then. His body was never found, but a week later an arm was washed up on the beach of Bandol. It had been sliced off clean, as if cut with a machete.’
Demirci eventually finds her voice: ‘Did you tell Lissek?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did he condone it?’
‘As you will,’ Aaron replies.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because you believe in justice and because you aren’t a heartless arsehole.’
A long silence follows. Then Demirci asks: ‘Why do you think Varga and Berg didn’t go to Avignon?’
‘They were probably there, an hour or even a day earlier. Their bodyguards may have been watching Makata’s property and seen what was happening.’ Aaron’s voice is bitter. ‘We were so close.’
A headache is hammering against Demirci’s forehead.
‘Where are we flying to tomorrow?’ Aaron asks.
‘You’re taking Layla to the safe house in the Alps.’
‘The Teufelsbach hill farm?’
‘Yes. You’ll continue to interrogate her there.’
‘She needs to go to a hospital, she has cancer.’
Damn.
‘Can the treatment be delayed?’
‘I’m not a doctor,’ says Aaron, ‘but I doubt it. She’s very ill.’
‘We can’t give her the same level of protection in a hospital. And we’ll have to find a solution for the boy too.’
‘It’s never easy. Says so on the board in the corridor.’
‘What do you think: does Layla know more?’
‘She’s worried about her son. It will be easier once we’re in Germany.’
‘Try to get some sleep too.’
Aaron doesn’t reply. Nor does she hang up.
She knows something. But she isn’t sure whether to trust me with it. It would mean losing her information advantage.
The silence at the other end continues.
Demirci says: ‘I’m glad that you’re back with us. I haven’t even got round to—’
‘There’s something I’m puzzling over,’ Aaron interrupts her. ‘It’s doing my head in.’
‘Yes?’
Aaron tells her that Holm wanted to have the deposit box number forty-seven. She lists everything that could be a part of the puzzle: Alexander the Great, Georges Noël, Château Lafite, Beverly Wilshire, Robert Browning, Judith Traherne, Bach, Lubichowo, the Rosa Luxemburg quote.
‘What quote is it?’
‘Patience is a revolutionary virtue.’
‘Which works by Bach?’
‘The cello suites.’
‘How do you spell Lubichowo?’
‘I don’t know.’
Demirci suddenly feels hot. ‘What’s the name of the painter that Holm mentioned? Noël?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s an anadrome.’
She hears Aaron’s breath quicken.
‘You know, a word that forms a different word when read backwards. Reverse Noël.’
Leon.
Aaron gathers her thoughts: ‘Load Leon Keyes’ file and check whether the number forty-seven figures in it.’
Demirci runs into her office. She logs on and opens the document. She enters ‘47’ into the search field.
The writing blurs in front of her eyes. She lights a cigarette and smokes half of it to calm herself down.
Then she picks the receiver up again. ‘Leon Keyes’ firm was based in Friedrichstrasse. But it hadn’t been there for long. He moved three months before you went to Rome. The previous address was Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse 47.’
31
The red of the sunrise they are driving into burns itself onto Aaron’s retina. For two hours, they’ve been lurching along winding roads that have been turned into mud slides by last night’s rain. They’re heading downhill now, perhaps you can already see the Sahara from here. On the rear seat, Layla and Luca are so quiet it’s easy to forget they are there.
Pavlik sits mutely behind the wheel. Aaron let him sleep after her phone call with Demirci. Just before they set off she took him aside and told him.
Pavlik said: ‘You’ve solved it. Would have pleased Holm.’
‘I’ll have it written on a wreath for his grave.’
‘Finally.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve buried him.’
*
Ten things that Aaron didn’t recognize:
her father’s illness
the truth about Barcelona
the bullet in Helsinki
the hole in the ice on the pond
that friendship proves itself in adversity
what André wanted to tell her before he died
how great her mother’s unhappiness was
what it means to be appointed to the Department
Vesper
that Leon Keyes is the Broker
*
I could give you the key to the enigma.
The answer was so easy.
Key – Keyes.
She played it through in her head a hundred times, until she understood.
The consulting firm in Berlin was just a cover. The perfect operational base for his business with death. He isn’t the kind of man who hides away. He enjoyed his pasta with salsiccia at the Gendarmenmarkt, cruised through the Tiergarten district in his silver Porsche and had a subscription for the most expensive box at the Berlin State Opera.
At first she thought that he had made a mistake with the illegal money in the Caribbean.
Good.
If he’s made one mistake, he’ll probably make others too.
Then it dawned on her that it wasn’t a mistake.
It was ingenious.
The illegal money was already a part of Keyes’ plan. He made sure that the BKA came across it. Simultaneously, he established his relationship with Varga. Keyes deposited the bug in his Porsche himself, in order to create the impression that he needed protection in Rome.
Aaron was nothing more than a tin opener for him.
Getting the list of politicians from Varga’s safe meant he had half of Europe in his pocket. Corruption is the basis for everything.
Those were his men in the hotel. The well-aimed shot in his leg was just to create the impression that they were after him too. Their submachine guns contained blanks, Keyes was wearing a vest with blood capsules.
That’s why they let her live: so that she could witness his death.
The cellar of the Gran Sasso was teeming with security when Pavlik arrived. He only saw what he thought was Keyes’ body from a distance. When Aaron was being taken away in the ambulance, he and the team rushed to stop it on its way to the hospital. They got Aaron out and raced to the airport with her. Keyes was long gone by then.
Corrupt or fake policemen. Easy to arrange.
Just one thing still puzzled her in the end: if he was just after the contents of the safe, Keyes could have simply sent an army into Varga’s house. Luring in the BKA was extremely risky.
Then she remembered what Holm had said: He needs it as a stimulant, it’s his drug. And it was the perfect opportunity for Keyes to disappear into thin air, to settle down in a different city on a different continent, to change his persona once again.
That same night, he had Varga liquidated. Probably by his own bodyguards, everybody has his price. They got rid of the body, and Keyes bagged the Cranach as a bonus.
Jet fighters tear past above the car; the Moroccan king is flexing his muscles on the border with the despised Algeria. Aaron’s pulse flies with them.
Back then in Avignon they saved Adaja.
