Craig Russell - A fear of dark water

‘But — let me guess — Flemming is known on the bush telegraph as the go-to guy for getting your nearest and dearest out of the clutches of a cult?’

‘That’s about it. But there are rumours of Flemming and his helpers being rather forceful in extracting cult members. The word is that you don’t get in his way. Tough guy. Other than that, everything else he said about his business is true. They really do provide security advice and personnel for importers and shipping lines.’

‘Thanks, Anna.’

‘What now?’ asked Werner after Fabel had ended his call.

‘Let’s go and pay Herr Flemming a call…’

People had an idea, a stereotype, of what a model-train enthusiast should look like. Frank Lesing was aware of that and often laughed at the reactions he got when he told people about his hobby.

Frank was thirty-two, tall, with a handsome face and thick dark hair. His looks, he knew, had been an advantage in building up his business. In business, people liked to deal with the good-looking. It was superficial, but it was true. His looks and his easygoing personality had made him popular at school and university and had eased his speedy progress through the international bank that employed him. It had all been so easy for Frank; so easy that sometimes it just did not seem real. As a senior member of the team, he was generally expected to make his lunches working ones: eating a sandwich while tied up in meetings or taking clients out to lunch. But whenever he did have a lunchtime to himself, this was where he would come: to the model-railway museum in the city’s Speicherstadt. What had started off as a large model-railway display now stretched over nearly twelve thousand metres of track. The largest model railway in the world. But it had become much more than that: there were motorways, roads and streets with moving traffic; offices, churches, theatres; two hundred thousand models of people doing every possible human activity, and a perfect duplication of central Hamburg. Container ships, trains, buses, cars, fire engines — perfect scale models, regulated by computers in the central control room — moved around the miniaturised landscape, creating the illusion of looking down from a great height on a real, living city.

It had been quiet for a lunchtime and Frank did not have to wait long to get in: the exhibition controlled the numbers passing through at any one time. He stood for a full five minutes looking down on a section of the Elbe while a container ship sailed through real water before reaching the crane-forested docks. It was then that Frank became aware of the young man standing at his side. There was something about the man that concerned Frank. He was dressed in dark clothes that looked old and grubby and Frank could smell the rancid odour of stale sweat coming from him. His hair was matted and he had the look of someone who had slept rough. But it was not that aspect of the man’s appearance that troubled Frank, it was his eyes. There was a look of excited desperation in those eyes. The young man stared at the massive model of the Kohlbrandbrucke, the bridge that spanned the river where the South Elbe became the North Elbe again. It was one of Hamburg’s most striking landmarks and even the model of it was impressive: six metres long and one and a half metres high.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Frank tentatively. He knew it was a bad idea — the guy was probably a junkie — but Frank had always found the imperative to help someone in need irresistible.

‘I thought they didn’t let you on it,’ said the young man, without taking his wild eyes from the model of the Kohlbrandbrucke.

‘What?’

‘The bridge. I thought it was only for cars. There are people walking on it. Cycling.’

‘Oh, that…’ Frank smiled. ‘It’s supposed to be the cycle race. They open it for that once a year. And the people on foot are supposed to be environmentalists protesting.’

The young man moved a little further along, to change the angle of his view. Frank noticed that he limped a little as he did so. He frowned as he examined the replica structure.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ asked Frank.

‘Is it real?’

‘Is what real? I think I should get you some help.’ Frank looked around for an attendant.

‘Is it real?’ the man asked again, his voice dull.

‘What? The bridge? Of course the bridge is real. Everything here is a copy of the real thing.’

‘A copy? Everything here is a copy?’ The young man looked up suddenly and Frank saw, for the first time, the full turmoil in the eyes. A storm of anger and fear and confusion. Frank now felt very uneasy. He walked away from the young man, moving as casually as he could, while desperately trying to locate an official.

‘IS IT REAL?’ the young man screamed at Frank’s back. Everyone else in the museum stopped and turned to see who was shouting. When Frank turned around, he found himself facing the barrel of an automatic. It shook in the young man’s outstretched hands. Frank could see that he was crying now, thick rivulets of tears streaking his cheeks. ‘I… want… you… to… tell… me… IS IT REAL?’

‘Is what real?’ asked Frank, through his panic. He saw a member of staff over the young man’s shoulder, speaking into a walkie-talkie. ‘Do you mean the bridge? Do you mean everything here?’

‘Is it real?’ he repeated, calmer this time but taking deliberate aim along the gun’s barrel.

‘Of course it’s not real!’ Frank was shouting now. ‘It’s just a model. It’s just make-believe.’

The young man’s eyes widened and Frank waited for the sound of the gun. Time had slowed down, each second adrenalin-stretched, and he found himself wondering if he would hear the gun, or whether he would be dead before his brain could register the sound.

‘It’s not real?’ asked the young man, sobbing.

‘No. Of course it’s not.’

Frank flinched as the young man surged forward at him, shoving him to one side and pushing his way through the screams of the crowd and out through the exit.

Suddenly Frank felt his legs give way under him and steadied himself on the handrail. He found himself looking at the Kohlbrandbrucke at the level of the roadway and a hand-painted environmental protester stared back at him defiantly.

Quite appropriately, the offices of Seamark International were in the HafenCity. It was, on the face of it, a modest outfit. The offices were new and, like the rest of the HafenCity, were all about the new century and its promises. They were not, however, particularly big: just a reception and three offices.

‘I’ve been expecting you,’ said Flemming when Fabel and Werner arrived. ‘You better take a seat.’

‘So which is the biggest part of your operation?’ asked Fabel after the receptionist had brought in a tray with coffees. ‘The maritime security or the cult-member deprogramming?’

Flemming smiled. ‘I take it you’ve found out about my hobby?’

‘Rescuing and deprogramming cult members? Yes, I have. An interesting sideline.’

‘I don’t do it for money. If my expenses are covered that’s all I care about. And in some cases not even that. I hate cults. I hate what they do to people.’

‘And is the Pharos Project your particular focus of interest, Herr Flemming?’

‘Of late, probably. We live in strange times, Herr Fabel. Most of the religious and spiritual certainties have fallen by the wayside. Christianity, Marxism, Nationalism… Everything is changing, becoming more technological, globalised, faster. People feel overwhelmed and they’re looking to more and more abstract concepts for some kind of guidance. The Pharos Project is very clever with its pitch, particularly to the vulnerable. My personal belief is that it is the most dangerous cult on the planet.’