Wolf Angel, Mark Hobson [best free ebook reader for pc .txt] 📗

uproar over the last thirty minutes he had completely forgotten about Sergeant Beumers.

Grabbing his mobile he rang HQ and asked to be patched through to whoever was in command back at the tower. A gruff voice came on.

“Dyatlov, make it quick.”

“Inspector Van Dijk here. Have you finished over there?”

“Van Dijk, I’ve been looking for you, where the hell are you?”

“Over at the science museum, but never mind that. Are there any survivors inside the tower? Sergeant Beumers was in there.”

“I can see the helicopter from here. Is that something to do with you?” demanded Dyatlov.

“Yes! But listen, is Beumers ok? Is he alive?”

There was a slight pause on the line and in the background Pieter could hear shouting, orders been relayed no doubt. Then Dyatlov came back on, his voice more subdued.

“Inspector, you need to get back here now. There’s something you have to see.”

The assault-squad leader was a short and stocky man with a severe buzz cut, who was ex-paramilitary from the Russian armed forces. Pieter knew him vaguely, having worked alongside him during a drugs operation a year or so ago.

Dyatlov met him as he clambered down from the armoured police vehicle that had ferried him back from the docks, then led him over the bridge past the wrecked tram and down towards the tower.

Laid out on the road were three rows of body bags, one set marked with small blue flags and the others with red and black flags.

“Nasty business,” Dyatlov informed him. He pointed at the row marked in blue. “Eight civilians, but that tally might rise as we have some seriously wounded who might not make it. And four police, your two uniformed officers plus one of my men who died when we stormed the place. The one’s in black are the bad guys. Five of those bastards. No prisoners.”

“Make that six,” Pieter told him, and briefly explained what had happened over at the science museum.

Dyatlov said nothing, merely grunted.

“You said four police? There’s only three bodies here?”

“The other’s still inside. I’m sorry Inspector, it’s your man.”

Pieter nodded and whispered, “OK.”

The squad leader led him over to the main entrance, where the door was hanging on its hinges. Before following him inside, Pieter diverted across to the line of body bags marked with their little black flags. Bending down, he lifted one of the sheets, seeing the face below was pock-marked with small burn marks on one cheek, but still clearly recognizable as another young teenager.

Pieter reached below and pulled out the boy’s hand. He saw on one finger a familiar-looking ring, identical to the one back at HQ. He let the hand go, and stepped through the doorway.

Inside there were signs of severe fighting everywhere. The walls were riddled with bullet holes and the floor littered with glass shards and wooden splinters where the windows had blown in. Hundreds, possibly thousands of copper shell casings were scattered underfoot. Over to the right an opening led to a flight of stairs leading down, probably to the boathouse below, and plumes of black smoke billowed upwards. One whole wall was gone where a grenade had exploded, and several firearms were laid about, abandoned or dropped by the gunmen. And in the far corner a spiral staircase disappeared through the ceiling. He heard voices up there, someone laughing, no doubt members of the assault team on a high after the fierce firefight.

And straight ahead, propped up against an empty fireplace, was the body of Daan Beumers, his head covered in a clear plastic bag. What looked like black tape was wrapped around his neck to shut off the life-giving oxygen. The face a sickly blue colour, with his red-veined eyes staring back at Pieter.

He looked away, his eyes filling up with tears.

You bloody fool, mate, Pieter thought to himself.

Dyatlov gave him a moment to compose himself and then indicated the spiral staircase

“There’s another one upstairs on the roof.”

Pieter followed him, their boots clunking on the metal steps. The doorway was built into the sloping side of the slate turret that capped the roof, and they stepped out into bright sunlight. They walked around to the far side.

Here, sprawled upright against the turret as though sunbathing, was a man’s naked corpse. Its ankles were tied together with a plastic cable-tie, and both arms were pulled up above the head and tied individually with lengths of rope to the weather vane atop the turret, giving his posture a Y-shape. Both eyes had been gouged out and the mouth was a wide, bloody hole, with a trail of red gore down his chin. The tongue had been ripped or cut out.

Daubed in blood across the body’s fat stomach was another symbol, different and more intricate than the one found on the alley wall. Some kind of pentagram inside a series of concentric circles, with various strange symbols around the edges, triangles, weird letters with dots inside them or arrows or crosses poking out from them, a crescent moon at the very top

At the corpse’s feet was a briefcase, innocuous amidst the debris of battle up here, which Pieter surveyed as he stepped away and looked out over the wall.

“We’re not sure if this one’s a civilian or one of theirs, so we left him here. He quite obviously died a different way too.”

“Oh, he’s one of theirs,” Pieter replied. He pointed at the briefcase. “I met him earlier, with Daan Beumers. His name is Levi Kohnstaam, a jeweller from The Jordaan. We had him under surveillance. Beumers phoned to tell me he was following him here. But now it looks like he deliberately led him to this place. Led him to his death.”

“And then they killed their own man?”

“And cut his tongue out, which has all kinds of hidden meaning.”

Dyatlov gave another of his little grunts, and said “Well, murder is your speciality. I just kick butt. Life is easier that way.”

Pieter turned and moved around the roof space. The squad leader trailed after him.

As with the room below and