JF01 - Blood Eagle by Craig Russell Page B

I break the news to the Kriminaldirektor or will you?’
     
    Before making his way up to Van Heiden’s office Fabel made a call to LKA7, the special division of the Landeskriminalamt dedicated to the fight against organised crime. He arranged an appointment to see Hauptkommissar Buchholz, who commanded the team that targeted the Ulugbay organisation. There was something about Buchholz’s tone that made Fabel feel that his call had been expected but was not particularly welcome. Buchholz agreed to see Fabel at half past two. After he had made the call, Fabel pulled out Klugmann’s blue file – the one containing his Hamburg police-service record. There it was, as he had expected: Klugmann had spent six months – in fact the six months immediately before his departure from the force – working under Buchholz’s direct command as a member of one of the Mobile Einsatz Kommandos.
    Fabel had just gathered his papers together before heading up to Van Heiden’s office when Werner stuck his bristle bullet head round the office door.
    ‘Jan, we’ve had another message in from Professor Dorn. He’s asking again if he can see you.’
    ‘Did you get his number?’ Fabel did not look up and continued to gather his files.
    ‘Yep. He says he can help us with this case. He’s very insistent, Jan.’
    Fabel still did not look up. ‘Okay. Arrange it.’
    Werner nodded and disappeared. Fabel tucked the files under his arm and made his way out of the office and towards the elevator. As he did so he felt an unpleasant stirring deep in his gut, as he recalled the face of his old tutor. He could see it quite clearly. Then he tried to recall another face, a face that he also associated with the name Dorn, but found he could not.
    Van Heiden’s office was on the fourth floor of the Polizeipräsidium. Leaving the lift, Fabel was immediately faced with an attractive and smiling young receptionist in civilian clothing. Her butter-blonde hair was brushed back from her face in a ponytail and she wore a sober white blouse and black suit of skirt and jacket. Fabel could have been walking into a bank, except he knew that the pretty young receptionist was a Polizistin and would have a nine-millimetre SIG-Sauer PG automatic clipped to the waistband of her skirt. After confirming his appointment, the receptionist led Fabel along the hall to a large meeting room: a long rectangle with large windows along one side which looked out, as did the briefing room below, over the Hindenburgstrasse. A long cherrywood table was flanked on each side by black leather chairs. Three of the chairs, towards the top of the table, were occupied: Van Heiden sat between a squat, powerfully built man with short black hair receding at the temples whom Fabel did not recognise and an overweight man with sandcoloured hair and a mildly florid complexion that looked as if his skin had been recently scrubbed. Fabel recognised him as Innensenator Hugo Ganz, Hamburg’s Interior Minister. Over by the window a fourth man stood with his back to Fabel, looking down at the flow of traffic below. He was very tall and wore an elegant suit that was not German, probably Italian. The three men at the table were in detailed, mumbled discussion, continually referring to notes that lay before them.
    Fabel looked directly over the table at the unknown man. Van Heiden caught the look and made the introduction.
    ‘This is Oberst Gerd Volker of the BND. Oberst Volker, Kriminalhauptkommissar Fabel. Please sit down, Fabel.’
    Here we go, thought Fabel. The BND – Bundesnachrichtendienst – was the intelligence service, charged with protecting the Grundgesetz: the Basic Law, or constitution, of the German Federal Republic. It was the job of the BND to monitor terrorist and extremist groups, both right and left, active or dormant, in Germany’s political landscape. And, since 1996, the BND had been involved in the fight against organised crime. Fabel’s distrust of the BND was profound.