‘Of course we didn’t set up the hit!’ Volker’s indignation was unconvincing. His eyes settled on a spot on Fabel’s desk. ‘It all turned to shit. Unlike what we’ve got on this new crowd, our intelligence on Ulugbay is excellent. We gave Klugmann details of a major drugs deal that was set to make Ulugbay millions. But we didn’t expect Ulugbay to turn up in person. Klugmann had details of the initial meeting, the names and details of the Colombians involved, the quantities, et cetera. Klugmann was able to claim that he had got the information through a contact he had some leverage on in the Drugs MEK unit. It was enough to flush out one of the Top Team. Vadim is obviously low down in the Team, but that’s all relative when you think of how much power each of them has. Anyway, all we wanted was to give Klugmann credibility. It was not an easy decision to make. We threw away a major drugs bust in the process, but we thought it was worth it to crack the Top Team. We reckoned that the Ukrainians would move in on the deal. We were right. We were more right than we wanted to be. Before we knew it, the Colombians were back on the plane to Bogota and Ulugbay had his brains splattered across an underground Parkhaus.’

‘Ulugbay thought he was meeting with the Colombians?’

‘Yes. But instead he met with a bullet. Like I say, he was not supposed to be there. We thought that the Ukrainians would muscle in on the deal or at the most heist the drugs.’

‘Christ, Volker, you really couldn’t have made much more of a mess of things, could you?’

Volker gave Fabel a defiant stare. ‘You don’t have a clue what we’re up against here, Fabel. We have ten or twelve ultra-hard Spetznaz-trained Ukrainians who are all, except one, totally faceless and nameless. Even the rumour trickle has dried up. They’re like ghosts, but they have almost all of Hamburg’s underworld in their grasp. Only Yilmaz and what’s left of the Ulugbay organisation lies outside their control, but not for long. This Ukrainian unit represents the greatest criminal threat to Hamburg ever. We have to take radical measures to stop them.’

Fabel gazed blankly at Volker as he absorbed the information. He could not believe that Volker did not know much more than Mahmoot had already been able to tell him.

‘What about the leader? I can’t believe you have nothing at all on him.’

‘We don’t have anything. All we know is that the Top Team is headed up by a former senior officer in the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. We don’t have a name, description or even an age, although we suspect that he has served in Chechnya. And he is rumoured to use unspeakable brutality to achieve his aims.’

‘Or even make a point? How can you be sure that it wasn’t this guy who is behind Tina Kramer’s murder?’