Craig Russell - A fear of dark water

‘I have, yes. And the more I’ve read, the more I’m convinced the Pharos Project is connected to the death of Berthold Muller-Voigt and the disappearance of Meliha Yazar. I am also pretty certain they are directly or indirectly behind the murder of Daniel Fottinger, and I think I know why. I wanted to talk to you because I think you can help me put the pieces together with the Fottinger case.’

‘I’ll do anything I can, Herr Fabel.’

Fabel gave an appreciative nod. ‘We fished a body out of the river and I believe he’s the motorcycle rider involved in the attack on Fottinger. He’s the guy I sent you a note about: Harald Jaburg.’

‘I know,’ said Menke. ‘You’re right that Fottinger’s death was arranged indirectly.’ He paused, looking out over the water for a moment before turning back to Fabel. ‘Do you know anything about quantum physics — superposition, unified string theory, holographic principle, that kind of thing?’

‘In a word, no.’

‘Quantum theory is throwing up ideas that would make your head hurt. And every cult, street-corner messiah, New Age guru and nut-job is giving these theories a spin to try to give their loopy philosophies some kind of credibility. And they’re using them to snare the more vulnerable in our society.’ Menke took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered one to Fabel, who shook his head. ‘Harald Jaburg is indeed a person of interest for the Bureau. As soon as the name went into the system I was alerted. He’s red-flagged: a known member of the Guardians of Gaia, an extreme environmental group.’

‘One of the extreme environmental groups you didn’t want to go into details about with Muller-Voigt?’ asked Fabel.

‘Exactly. This job has made me paranoid. The Guardians of Gaia believe in direct action against any individual, group or organisation they believe is endangering the environment. So far it’s been more protests and minor vandalism.’

‘Setting cars on fire?’ asked Fabel.

‘Among other things. Our intelligence is that they’re becoming more and more militant.’

‘There’s nothing more militant than four bullets in the head,’ said Fabel.

Menke shook his head emphatically. ‘No, that doesn’t seem right. As far as we’re aware, they haven’t yet injured anyone they see as the enemy, far less carried out internal executions. This is a weird one, all right. You mentioned in your message that Jaburg had a distinctive tattoo. The green gamma on the chest is their symbol for Gaia.’

‘The Greek goddess of the Earth?’

‘In name, yes. But their interpretation is more in the sense of the Gaia Hypothesis, formulated way back in the seventies. Back then it was considered weird and New Age-y, but now mainstream science is buying into it. It’s the belief that the Earth’s biosphere, of which we are part, is actually a single, integrated, living system. An organism in its own right.’

‘Sounds harmless enough,’ said Fabel.

‘Yes, well, the Guardians of Gaia has a distinctly paramilitary structure. They believe that “Gaia” is dying and that mankind is the infection that’s killing her. So I’m sure you understand our interest in the group. They see themselves as soldiers. Soldiers engaged in a war against the forces of globalisation and industrialisation. And in some ways against mankind itself.’

Fabel thought back to the pale, skinny corpse of a young man lying on a mortuary trolley. ‘I think someone may have just fired the first shot.’

‘Harald Jaburg was the most minor of minor players in the Guardians. A gofer. And definitely not an assassin type.’

‘A getaway rider?’

‘Entirely possible. Our intel tells us that Jaburg worked on several occasions with one Niels Freese, an entirely different kettle of fish. I know even more about Herr Freese than I do about Jaburg.’

‘In what way different?’

‘Freese is the one with the skewed perception of the world. He’s unpredictable, violent. History of severe mental disorders.’

‘Unlikely to have planned and executed the Schanzenviertel attack, then?’

‘I’m not saying that. Not by a long chalk. Freese is disabled, officially. Brain damage at birth, but that doesn’t seem to have blunted his intelligence. And he can function normally in many ways, but he does have all kinds of other problems, mainly neurological, and some that have made him outright delusional on occasion. But he’s smart enough, all right. He is, however, highly susceptible to manipulation, to suggestion. His mental state means he could be convinced of almost anything, if it’s articulated right and gels with his odd perception of the world.’

‘What is his problem?’ asked Fabel. ‘I mean specifically?’

‘It’s tragic, really. He really does experience reality differently from the rest of us: he suffers from almost constant promnesia, a highly disconcerting condition which is like having permanent deja vu. And he has frequent episodes of what the quacks call reduplicative paramnesia. When he’s in that state, the poor bastard thinks someone’s abducted him from the real world and built a perfect but counterfeit copy around him.’

‘I’ll ask my partner about it. She’s a quack, by the way.’

‘Is she?’ Menke looked only remotely embarrassed. ‘Ah, well, no doubt she can tell you more about the condition than I can. In any case, his condition has made Freese someone who can be influenced by feeding his paranoid beliefs. Not controlled, but influenced. The nature of his condition makes him easy meat for all kinds of mumbo-jumbo about quantum realities and environmental singularities.’

‘The kind of thing the Guardians of Gaia spout?’

‘And the Pharos Project.’

‘There’s a connection?’

‘Not that we can prove,’ said Menke. He paused as the two men watched a freighter, stacked impossibly high with containers, drift silently by. ‘But there has been a suggestion that the Guardians of Gaia are actually just a directly controlled arm of the Pharos Project.’

‘But surely their philosophies are totally different.’

Menke handed Fabel a sheet of paper with a handwritten note on it.

‘This is the last known address we have for Niels Freese. The second name is one that no one knows outside the BfV… except now you know. That is the name of the man we now believe to be the Hamburg commander of the Guardians of Gaia. If Freese carried out the attack that killed Fottinger — and it’s a big “if” — then that is the name of the man who ordered it.’

‘Jens Markull…’ Fabel read the name out loud. ‘Why the big secret about his name?’

‘He is… he was one of ours. You implied we must have infiltrators, undercover people working for us. Well, we do. He was one of them.’

‘He’s a BfV officer?’

‘No. Markull is simply someone whose principles were for sale. But it looks like something’s happened to make him shut up shop. We were getting really good intelligence from him, then it dried up. The last thing we heard was that he had met with some people from the Pharos Project. Then suddenly he’s promoted to Commander of the Hamburg division of the Guardians of Gaia and doesn’t seem to want to talk to us any more.’

Fabel put the note into his pocket and the two men started walking back to their cars.

‘There’s one thing I’d like to ask you about Niels Freese,’ said Fabel.

‘Go ahead.’

‘These neurological problems he has. Do they include a limp?’

Menke stopped and turned to Fabel, a look of surprise on his face. ‘Yes. As a matter of fact he does have a limp. The result of mild palsy caused by the oxygen deprivation at birth.’

Heiner Goetz was a burly man just on the right side of sixty. He had thinning grey hair brushed back from a broad heavy forehead and large wiry eyebrows. A pair of wire-framed reading glasses had permanent residence on his heavy nose, balanced almost at the tip. Fabel always felt the glasses were a deliberate affectation: something to mitigate the fact that Goetz looked as if he worked on a building site. But Heiner Goetz was no bricklayer; he was the Chief State Prosecutor for Hamburg.