Craig Russell - The Carnival Master

Buslenko paused to let the image sink in. But this wasn’t an audience to be easily shocked. Buslenko clicked the mouse again. Another face replaced Vitrenko’s.

‘Now say hello to Valeri Molokov. Russian. Forty-seven years old. Ex-cop. Former member of the Russian OMON special police Spetsnaz. Turned the people he was supposed to be hunting down into business associates. For a while he was considered to be a highly effective OMON operative, because one way or another he was taking down so many of Russia’s key targets in organised crime. Turned out he had been steadily eliminating his competitors, or carrying out contract killings for other crime bosses with whom he cooperated. It soon became known that if you wanted someone taken out nice and cleanly, then Molokov was your man. Despite having served with OMON and their history in Chechnya, Molokov is known to have very strong links with the Obshchina Chechen mafia. Wanted in Russia for smuggling, drug-trafficking, seven counts of murder, eight counts of conspiracy to murder, rape and false imprisonment.’

‘Any traffic convictions?’ asked Stoyan with his handsome Tatar grin. Everyone laughed, including Buslenko. A little laughter in the face of enemies like these couldn’t do any harm.

‘Molokov is the only member of Vitrenko’s senior management we’ve been able to identify. He has his own team within the organisation and that’s Vitrenko’s first and only weakness: Molokov’s security isn’t a patch on Vitrenko’s. It was a hasty marriage of convenience… Basically Molokov was made an offer he couldn’t refuse by Vitrenko. Molokov’s activities were encroaching on Vitrenko’s, so Vitrenko intercepted several consignments of Molokov’s and set fire to the container lorries.’

‘What was the cargo?’ asked Olga Sarapenko.

‘It was a people-smuggling operation…’

‘Fuck,’ said Belotserkovsky. ‘ That was Vitrenko? The thing on the Polish border?’

‘I thought it was an accident,’ said Olga.

‘That was the version put out for the media,’ said Buslenko. ‘A few kilometres further on and it would have been the Polish police investigating and the whole thing would have come out. It was kept quiet to buy us time to track Vitrenko.’

‘So Molokov got the message?’ asked Belotserkovsky

‘He handed control over to Vitrenko – grudgingly – but was left in charge of the people-smuggling operation. The main difference is that he has no competition any more. He works for Vitrenko and if any smaller-scale operation starts up, Vitrenko ends it.’

‘So why is this a black mission?’ asked Stoyan. ‘Ukrainian criminals, Ukrainian police and security. Ukrainian victims.’

‘It’s a black operation for two reasons. Firstly, our mission is to intercept Vitrenko with maximum prejudice. We’re not coming back with a prisoner. The second reason is, as I said at the start, that we are operating outside Ukraine.’

‘Specifically?’ asked Olga.

‘Specifically the Federal Republic of Germany.’

There was an outburst of expletives. ‘Germany?’ said Belotserkovsky. ‘I’ve never been to Germany. My grandfather went there, though. Nineteen forty-four… with the Red Army. I think I may have German cousins.’

More laughter to defuse the tension.

Buslenko went through all the intelligence they had on Vitrenko and his operation. Buslenko told his team that Vitrenko was believed to have his base in Cologne, and still controlled much of the vice in Hamburg. The scope of his operation was vast, covering everything from luxury car rings to protection to electronic fraud. Buslenko wound up the briefing by laying out a map of Cologne marked with the three properties from which they would run their operation; a second map highlighted known Vitrenko-controlled operations. He then handed each member of the team a folder containing their individual mission objectives and responsibilities.

‘By the way, Vitrenko would kill you for the information you now have in your hands. He is desperate to find out how much has leaked to us from the Molokov side of his organisation and from other sources. He is on a traitor hunt.’

‘Is this everything we have on him?’ asked Olga Sarapenko. She was sitting by the lodge’s window and the light accentuated the blue of her eyes. When Sasha had recommended that she be brought on board Buslenko had seen the value, but now he found increasingly that her beauty distracted him.

‘That’s everything we’ve been given,’ he said abruptly. ‘The Germans have more information. A lot more, probably, but they are reluctant to share it with us. Like most Westerners they believe “Ukrainian” is synonymous with “crooked”. They’re worried about leaks.’

‘You can’t entirely blame them,’ said Olga. ‘We could have nailed Vitrenko in Kiev if Peotr Samolyuk hadn’t sold us out.’

Buslenko nodded, but he still found it difficult to believe that the Spetsnaz officer had betrayed them for money.

‘Before we wind this up,’ he said, ‘there are two wild cards in the pack that you should know about. They’re not likely to be an issue, but it’s best that you’re aware of them.’ He clicked the mouse. ‘This is Senior Criminal Commissar Maria Klee of the Polizei Hamburg… and this…’ he clicked the mouse again, ‘is her boss, Principal Chief Commissar Jan Fabel, chief of the Hamburg murder squad. These two are the only people to have come close to nailing Vitrenko. The price they paid included Vitrenko using Klee as a delaying tactic, leaving her with a near-fatal wound that Fabel had to deal with. And Vitrenko left two dead cops behind him.’

‘But you don’t think they’re still after Vitrenko?’ asked Olga Sarapenko.

‘The price you pay for coming close to Vitrenko is high,’ Buslenko said, closing the lid of his laptop. ‘Jan Fabel has quit the police and Maria Klee is a basket case.’

As he entered the kitchen, Benni Scholz paused to dip a spoon into one of the large pots on the huge brushed-aluminium cooker range. It was a split-pea soup that was still warm despite the hobs being switched off. A number of other pans had been knocked over, their contents splashed against the wall and across the floor where they mingled with other splashes – of blood. Scholz sipped the soup.

‘Are you deliberately trying to contaminate this crime scene, Senior Commissar?’ An attractive young woman in a forensics coverall scowled up at him from where she knelt in the centre of the kitchen floor.

‘I’ve told you many times before, Frau Schilling.’ Scholz’s dark eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘Any time you want to collect a DNA sample from me for elimination, I’d be more than pleased to supply one. But I think we should have dinner first. This place any good?’

‘I have a feeling they’ll be closed tonight,’ the forensics chief said flatly and unsmiling, turning her attention again to the mass of lacerated flesh on the floor before her. ‘In the meantime, please don’t touch anything else.’

Three other forensics technicians were working in the kitchen, each on a different area. There were also two other Criminal Police detectives from Scholz’s department: Kris, the young Criminal Police Commissar who had accompanied Scholz to the scene and Tansu, a young Turkish-German officer. The junior detectives lingered uncertainly at the doorway that led from the main salon of the restaurant to the kitchen. Both looked decidedly unwell, particularly Kris. Scholz scanned the kitchen. Everywhere there were signs of violence. The spilled pots. Blood smeared on the door frame. A stool upset. Pools of blood on the floor. The epicentre of the violence was the lump of meat that Simone Schilling now examined. It was also the cause of the nauseated look on the face of Kris Feilke.