Craig Russell - The Valkyrie Song

‘ Shit,’ said Fabel in English. ‘Don’t stop… don’t stop…’ he said under his breath, willing the officer following the woman to keep walking. He did. He kept his step and pace unbroken and walked straight past her.

‘She’s one hundred metres from the bench,’ the officer said over the radio. ‘I’m going to pass Kaiser Two. There’s a bench twenty metres past him. I’ll sit there and wait.’

‘No,’ said Fabel decisively. ‘Turn up the path towards Milchstrasse and cut back along Harvestehuder Weg. Herzog Four — where are you?’

‘I’m still in position,’ answered Anna Wolff. ‘South-west corner. I have the woman in sight.’

‘Get over there as fast as you can without drawing attention to yourself. Herzog Six and Seven, stay where you are but be ready to move in.’

He watched Anna as she started jogging in the woman’s direction.

‘She’s on the move again,’ said Anna over the radio.

Fabel swept the binoculars along the path.

‘All units, stand by.’

The woman was now less than ten metres from Werner. Five. Two.

She walked past him without so much as a glance in his direction.

‘Do I stick with her?’ asked Anna.

Fabel was still tracking the woman with his binoculars. She greeted a man coming in the opposite direction, looping her arm through his. Fabel watched as the couple turned off the Alsterpromenade and headed off together up the avenue towards Poseldorf.

‘It’s obviously not her. She’s meeting someone.’ He felt his heart sink. He knew then that she wouldn’t be coming. She was probably doing exactly what he was doing at that moment: surveying the scene from a distance, through binoculars, and failing to be convinced by Werner’s unconvincing wig and too bulky frame.

‘Stay sharp,’ Fabel said into his radio. ‘She’s maybe still going to show.’ He scanned the Alsterpromenade, following it from the south, along the water’s edge and up to the Fahrdamm. Nothing. He saw Werner still sitting on the bench. He followed the couple walking arm in arm up the avenue and past the MEK troops dressed as park workers. He noticed the dark Lycra-clad Anna jogging past them.

‘Herzog Four,’ he radioed to Anna. ‘Loop round and take up your previous location.’

Anna didn’t reply.

‘Herzog Four, do you read me?’

‘Stand by…’ Over the radio, he heard Anna breathing hard as she ran. He watched her through the binoculars. She stopped jogging and leaned forward, hands on her knees, as if exhausted from a much longer run than her brief jog. The couple, arm in arm, passed her.

Anna straightened up and pressed her hands into the small of her back, stretching her spine. A casual gesture.

‘She-wolf! She-wolf! She-wolf!’ Anna’s voice over the radio was so urgent and excited that Fabel found himself looking at her casual figure again. Then the adrenalin surged into his system, slowing time. ‘Herzog Four to Kaiser One, I have a visual on She-wolf.’

‘Where? Where is she?’ he shouted into the radio.

‘The couple,’ said Anna. ‘It’s her. I can’t be sure, but I think she’s got the guy at gunpoint. I think she made Kaiser Two and sussed it’s a set-up and just grabbed the guy as a decoy.’

‘Shit.’ Fabel cursed to himself, then pressed the send button to call the MEK unit. ‘Wolf Five — it looks like we have a potential hostage situation.’

‘We heard,’ said the MEK commander. ‘If it is, we’ve got to take her before she gets out of the park and into Poseldorf. Do we go?’

Fabel hesitated. ‘Herzog Four, are you sure it’s She-wolf?’

‘I can’t be positive, Kaiser One. She’s got a tight grip of his arm and he doesn’t look happy. She’s pressed against him and could have a gun in his ribs.’

‘Wolf Five to Kaiser One. Do we go or not?’

Fabel checked Anna through the binoculars. She was still playing the part of a spent jogger. He could see that half of the MEK troops disguised as park workers had disappeared into the back of the van. He followed the couple with the binoculars as they made their unhurried way out of the park. If it wasn’t the Valkyrie, he had nothing to lose. If it was, then she clearly knew they were on to her. She would spot anyone following her into the city. If Fabel let her go unfollowed, she might let her hostage go unharmed. Or not.

The alternative was to try to take her down in the park. The chances of the hostage surviving were not good; nor were the odds against one of the police team being injured or killed.

‘Wolf Five to Kaiser One…’ Fabel could hear the impatience in the MEK commander’s voice. ‘I repeat: do we go or not?’

Fabel lifted the radio to his mouth.

‘I didn’t think you’d be back today,’ said Ivonne. She brought in a coffee and a pile of papers, which she laid on Sylvie’s desk. ‘How did you get on in the Far East?’

‘Fine. I’m close to finding who it is I’ve been after. The person with all the answers. I’m only back in Hamburg for a few days. Is this the stuff?’

‘Yep — everything you asked for. All the information I could dig up on Gennady Frolov as well as everything I could find on the NeuHansa companies you asked about. And the latest copy as well as a few back numbers of the magazine you asked about — the one behind the protest in the Kiez the night that English pop star was murdered. By the way, Andreas Knabbe is looking for you. You should answer your cellphone messages sometimes. Actually, you should answer your cellphone sometimes.’ Ivonne made a pained face. ‘When I say Herr Knabbe is looking for you, I mean it in an angry-mob-with-burning-torches way. I don’t think he was too happy that you weren’t here to cover that bomb blast down by the harbour. The word is that Gennady Frolov was one of the diners in the restaurant.’

‘Frolov?’ Sylvie frowned. ‘Sounds like he was probably the target. What does he want? Knabbe, I mean.’

‘Probably your scalp. Oh, another thing. There’s been something funny going on in Altona, not far from where you live. Four days ago the street was blocked off and a pile of police were going through a couple of apartments. Then nothing.’

‘What’s the official line?’

‘At the moment there isn’t one.’

‘They’re stalling,’ said Sylvie. ‘They won’t give out misinformation, so they’re trying to say nothing for as long as they can. Who’s on the story?’

‘That creep Brandt is following it up.’ Ivonne wrinkled her nose in distaste. ‘You know, the one who smells.’

‘He couldn’t find his ass with both hands, far less uncover a story,’ said Sylvie. ‘Anything else?’

‘Nope… should there be?’

‘It’s just that I was expecting a message. No one called Siegfried has phoned or emailed?’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’

After Ivonne had left her office, Sylvie began leafing through the information Ivonne had compiled. She was in the middle of the latest issue of Muliebritas when an announcement caught her eye: an extract from Njal’s Saga.

The heavens are stained with the blood of men,

As the Valkyries sing their song.

Now that, she thought to herself, is one hell of a coincidence.

He was hesitating. She could sense it. She knew it would be Fabel, head of the Murder Commission, who would have oversight of the operation. She cursed her stupidity: after all these years, after all the coded messages and rendezvous with Uncle Georg, she had simply not considered that it would be a set-up. She should have thought it through. Especially that other announcement, in the wrong place.

‘I have a wife and children,’ said the man whom she held tight with her arm looped through his. ‘Please don’t kill me.’