Maria started to shake uncontrollably. She felt as if her legs could no longer support her. The story outside the door was easy to read. Both guards lay dead, each with bullet wounds to the body and head. The second guard still held his machine pistol and his eyes gazed up dully at the dark clouded sky. Maria had read somewhere that that was how snipers always took out a victim: a bullet to the body to bring them down, then one or two to the head to finish them. She looked at Olga, who still held the precision tool of her sniper’s rifle. It was an odd skill for a Kiev city policewoman to have.

‘Stay here,’ said Buslenko. ‘I’ll fetch my car. Olga, I’ll drop you at Maria’s car and you can drive it back to Cologne. I want no evidence that we have been here.’

‘What about housekeeping?’ asked Olga, nodding at the bodies.

‘We’ll get these two inside. I’ll send someone out to clean up. But we’d better get away from here first.’

‘You’ll send someone?’ Maria’s voice was weak. She sounded dully confused. ‘Who do you have …’

‘You’re in shock, Maria,’ Olga handed the sniper’s rifle to Buslenko. She took a syringe from her pocket and removed the protective sheath from the needle.

‘Why have you got that with you?’ asked Maria, but she was too shaken and weak to resist as Olga bunched up the sleeves of Maria’s coat and the jumper underneath. Maria felt the sting of the needle in her forearm.

‘What …?’

‘It’ll relax you,’ said Olga and already Maria felt a warm sleepiness swell through her body. She felt as if she were already asleep, but remained on her feet. Her shaking had stopped.

‘I thought I was going to die …’ she said absently to Olga, who didn’t answer.

‘I’ll get the car,’ Buslenko said and ran across the field towards the road.

Maria felt completely relaxed, devoid of any fear or anxiety, as she watched Buslenko’s shrinking figure and realised that she had seen him run across a field very like this one, a long time ago. It was funny, she thought as she felt Olga’s grip tighten on her arm, that she hadn’t recognised him before; that it was only from a distance, like on the surveillance monitor, that she knew for sure who he was.

I am going to die, after all, thought Maria and turned to Olga Sarapenko, smiling vacantly at the irony of it all.

CHAPTER NINE

9–11 February

1.

Fabel was surprised to look up and find Benni Scholz standing next to him.

‘What are you doing here?’ Fabel said, closing the dossier. ‘Oh, this is Herr Wagner of the BKA …’

Wagner stood up and shook hands with Scholz.

‘We’ve met before,’ said Scholz. Wagner frowned. ‘That Internet fraud case – two years ago …’