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

the streets outside the rooftop was like a warzone. The walls and turret were blasted everywhere with burn marks and holes, and piles of debris and shell casings carpeted the floor. Opened ammo boxes, some with bullet casings or magazines still inside, lay overturned, alongside grenades and assault rifles and sun-machine guns.

Pieter stood there and looked at it, shaking his head in amazement.

“Where the hell did they get this stuff from? There’s enough firepower here to equip a small army.”

“My guess is that it probably came from Slovakia. That’s the main route for gun smugglers these days. This kind of gear is legal over there, all you need to do is walk into a gun shop with some ID, and you can buy whatever you want. Ex-army assault rifles, C10’s or C15’s, anti-personnel mines, even rocket launches. It’s all surplus stock from the days of the Cold War. Then all they’d need to do is smuggle it back across the border into Holland. Which is pretty simple these days with open borders everywhere. Yep, if you’ve got the money and the motivation, it’s not difficult at all my friend.”

“Yeah but these guys, from my limited amount of experience, they were well trained. Getting the stuff is one thing, but knowing how to use it is another, surely?”

“True, they certainly knew what they were doing. But there are training camps all over the place. A few in the Balkans, in Scandinavia even.”

This made Pieter look up. “In Finland?”

“Sure, why?”

“Just a bit of info we received with possible links to an old far-right group based there.”

“Well there are thousands of places up there where they could set up a training outfit, real remote places off grid. Yeah, it would be an ideal location.”

Pieter nodded.

“I could ask around if you like? I’m still in touch with some of my buddies from my days in the military. A lot of them went into private security, executive protection for dodgy politicians in the Middle East or the rich and famous in the west. It’s big business these days. They might have heard of something, the odd rumour perhaps.”

“Yeah I’d appreciate that. Some of them are still out there remember?” He nodded at the corpse tied to the roof turret.

Dyatlov followed his gaze. His mouth turned up like there was a bad smell. “As for that crap, the fucking witchy signs and occult nonsense, it’s all mumbo jumbo to me.”

CHAPTER 13

FEVER DREAMS

The rest of the afternoon and evening went by in a blur. A city-wide sweep for the escaped fugitives sprang into immediate action. The speedboat could potentially be on the far side of Amsterdam within ten minutes once it was on the main canal network. After 60 minutes it was decided to extend the search into a nation-wide manhunt, and check all border access points, and police forces across Europe were put on maximum alert.

A fierce debate began immediately within Dutch law enforcement agencies as to whether to treat this as a terrorist or domestic incident. Opinion was divided, for although on the surface it had all of the hallmarks of a terrorist attack like the Paris atrocities, the occult nature of the murder of Levi Kohnstaam led others to wonder if they were dealing with some kind of crazy cult. The symbols found on the alley wall suggested the latter.

Predictably the world’s media descended on Amsterdam, with news crews from as far away as Japan and Australia clambering for exclusive updates. The media liaison department was swamped with queries, and Pieter himself had to fend off questions thrown at him by Dutch reporters gathering close to the crime scenes. It soon became a media frenzy, and photographers taking pictures from high vantage points in the surrounding buildings, using telephoto lenses, were able to capture images of Kohnstaam’s body up on the roof. These pictures hit the internet within minutes, showing not just the jeweller’s corpse but also the pentagram sign daubed in his own blood.

Over at the science museum the helicopter had located and retrieved the body of the youth, and his corpse, along with all of the others, was transferred to a temporary morgue. Then news had reached Pieter of another incident. There was a fire reported in Jordaan near to Rozengracht Bridge, a bakery and office premises above were engulfed in flames, and fire crews were at the scene. Eyewitnesses were talking of a malfunctioning oven in the small bakery, but Pieter suspected otherwise. It was just too much of a coincidence.

Rumours and speculation were rife all across town. The full might of the Dutch National Police Force was swinging into action.

The questions on everybody’s lips were: Just who was responsible for the series of barbaric crimes and attacks? Where had they gone to ground? And when would they strike again?

One thing was clear: Whoever they were, they had announced themselves to the world in a spectacular fashion.

◆◆◆

It was after midnight by the time Pieter made it back home. Lotte had left a note for him on the kitchen unit. He read her message:

Wake me when you get in. Lotte xx

It was too late to disturb her, and besides he was exhausted. Instead he quietly opened the bedroom door and looked at her sleeping form. They had gone back to their original sleeping arrangements after the first night, she in the big bedroom, and he in the smaller one. Seeing her helped to ease the worries racing around in his mind, if only temporarily. But they could talk in the morning, and so he gently closed the door again.

Passing through to the living room he briefly switched on the TV. It was still tuned to a 24hr news channel, and Pieter sat on the couch to see the latest developments, but the reporting mostly consisted of shaky footage captured on mobile phones by members of the public.

He watched for a while, reliving the intense firefight which the media had already christened THE BATTLE OF WEEPING TOWER. But very soon