Damnation Read online

  When Winter stepped through the frosted glass door that led to Ben’s section, Grizzly welcomed him with open arms. As ever he was wearing a suit with a matching black shirt.

  ‘Winter, it’s been a long time! You look as if you’ve just come back off holiday. Perfectly rested,’ Ben said.

  ‘Hi Ben. Yes, I’ve been in the mountains. Hiking.’

  They shook hands.

  ‘The helicopter’s destination was the Gatterli mountain hut?’ This was more a statement than a question from Ben. Strittmatter’s coordinates were in the system. Winter nodded. Ben had had a few hours to prepare for this visit. Although time was scarce in his job and he skipped any small talk, he radiated the serenity of someone who had all the time in the world.

  ‘I’ve ordered us a late lunch.’ Room service at the airport.

  He walked along a short corridor and placed his palm against a small screen. The door to Ben’s sanctuary opened. On a wall of flat screens two colleagues were monitoring the comings and goings at the airport. Ben headed for a recess housing more screens, keyboards and technological equipment.

  ‘I’ve localized the transfer. The Gulfstream touched down yesterday evening at 20:14. It’s a nice piece of kit: range of more than twelve thousand kilometres and a top speed of nine hundred kilometres per hour. Catalogue price: fifty million dollars. They arrived from Norway and got in contact ninety minutes before landing. They taxied straight to the apron, where the VIP Transportation Corporation chopper was waiting.’ Ben had done his homework.

  ‘Strittmatter was a reliable guy.’

  ‘The helicopter landed at 19:47, received the passenger from the Gulfstream at 20:19 and took off again at 20:23. Al-Bader was our guest for four minutes.’ Ben said.

  Winter was not surprised that the airport’s head of security had identified his fleeting guest by name, and asked, ‘Has the FASI Board said anything about the crash yet? Informally, I mean?’

  ‘I called them earlier and they’re saying we’re going to have to wait for the report that they won’t be able to write until they’ve carried out a more detailed analysis. Examining the flight recorder alone takes a few weeks. They don’t want to make any mistakes and end up in court with the insurance companies.’

  ‘And informally?’

  ‘The report will probably say that there was a fire in the cockpit, making the helicopter unstable and causing it to plummet into a ravine. The bodies of the passengers exhibit third and fourth-degree burns.’

  Winter pictured the Höllentobel in his mind. Anne’s twisted body.

  Ben paused, before adding breathily, ‘I’m sorry.’ And after a longer pause, ‘The other passenger was your deputy, Anne, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. This was her first time accompanying Al-Bader.’ An outsider would have found Winter’s voice normal. Ben, however, could hear a latent quiver of sadness and anger. They both stared into space. ‘It should have been me on board. I took the day off yesterday.’ He raised his chin and looked across Ben’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Winter. There’s really nothing you could have done about it.’ Pause. An invisible bridge. The silent offer to listen if Winter wanted to spill out his heart. Ben put his hand on Winter’s shoulder.

  Grateful, Winter tried a tentative smile. But he didn’t want to talk about Anne, not now. ‘What have they said about the cause of the fire?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s tricky. It could have been a burned-out cable, a spark in the wrong place. It wasn’t lightning. The weather was fine.’

  ‘Explosives?’

  ‘No obvious traces. I’m assuming that parts of the helicopter are already in the laboratory in Spiez.’ Spiez was home to the Swiss laboratory for analysing explosives, which worked closely with Ben, for obvious reasons. Every explosive substance has its own chemical composition and thus can be identified, even after an explosion. The more specific the characteristics, the easier it is to identify the manufacturer.

  The late lunch only came as far as the security doors, where it was taken by one of Ben’s colleagues and brought to the recess. Coke, four ham sandwiches and two chocolate bars. No wonder that Ben looked so comfortable. All part of the disguise. Ben typed something then bit into the first sandwich and pointed it at one of the screens.

  The airport’s security cameras had saved grainy images of the apron. The wet ground reflected the surrounding lights. It was raining slightly. Strittmatter landed at 19:47. He flicked a few switches, studied a checklist, then swapped his helmet for a baseball cap. He got out, walked around the helicopter and checked the passenger seats. He opened a hatch in the tailpiece of the helicopter, peered in, then closed it again before climbing back into the cockpit. He made a phone call and then started reading a paperback.

  Ben pressed the fast-forward button until Al-Bader’s taxiing Gulfstream came into view. On his last visit the sheikh had explained to Winter that his Gulfstream had only twelve seats instead of the usual nineteen. The extra comfort was of help when it came to discussions with business partners.

  A young steward opened the door and converted it into some steps. Inside the plane Winter could make out the back of a figure in traditional white robes, handy for the desert. Al-Bader said goodbye to people on board. Business friends? Bodyguards? He came down the steps with a leather travel bag. Alone. Al-Bader was leaving behind his bodyguards and placing his safety in the bank’s hands, in Winter’s hands. Winter rubbed his burning eyes.

  Right at the bottom of the screen a white car stopped, bearing the airport logo. Anne got out on the right. She was wearing one of her tight-fitting trouser suits and holding a cylinder-shaped carton in her left hand. The large box of chocolates with the fat bow was clamped under the same arm. Al-Bader loved Lindt & Sprüngli confectionery. Her right hand – her shooting hand – was free. Good.

  Anne stood up straight, surveyed the situation and glanced up at the grey sky. A light drizzle.

  The driver had got out too. He was wearing a customs officer’s uniform and put on his cap. ‘That’s Heinz,’ Ben said with his mouth full. Heinz went up to Al-Bader, who took a case containing his passport from a side pocket of his elegant leather bag. Heinz took a cursory look at the document, stamped it with a sort of punch, saluted and returned to his car.

  Anne stepped forward and greeted Al-Bader with a formal handshake and a nod. Winter and Ben could only see her from behind. She said something and raised her left arm with the welcome gift. From Al-Bader’s smile Winter inferred that Anne had found the right words. She pointed to the helicopter and they walked side by side across the wet tarmac.

  At one point Al-Bader briefly turned around, but there was nobody at the door of the Gulfstream.

  From inside Strittmatter opened the rear door of the cockpit and the two passengers climbed in. The rotor blades started spinning immediately. A few seconds later the helicopter flew out of the picture.

  Ben pressed fast forward. The car disappeared from view, leaving tyre marks in the shining ground. Soon afterwards the Gulfstream vanished too.

  ‘The Saudis are waiting for Al-Bader’s body,’ Ben said.

  ‘I know. Can you tell me who else was on that plane?’

  ‘No, we don’t have a passenger list and as long as they don’t pass through customs we don’t have any authority to check who was on board.’

  The screen showed an empty apron. For a while the two friends remained sitting in silence in front of the screen. Winter was lost in his thoughts and felt grief seizing hold of him again. He was thankful for this small oasis of tranquillity. Then he snapped out of it. ‘Ben, could you get me a copy of that?’ he asked, pointing at the screen.

  Ben handed Winter a DVD sleeve from the table. ‘Here you go, already done.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Another pause.

  ‘Did anything strike you as unusual?’

  ‘No, it was a perfectly normal transfer.’ No sound apart from the quiet hum of the control room. Then: ‘Did he always arrive without bodyguards?’


  ‘Depends. He felt safe in Switzerland. Especially in the mountains. I think he wanted to talk to his business partners as discreetly as possible. In town, when he went shopping with his clan in Geneva or Zürich, he usually had his men with him. He’s directly related to the Saudi royal family.’

  ‘That’s the problem.’ Ben switched off the screen.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I need an espresso.’

  Winter nodded. They passed through the security doors, then along a windy corridor until they came to a coffee machine. Ben put two plastic cups under the machine, swiped his smart card, pressed a button and waited patiently as the coffee was ground and the two cups were half filled.

  Having given Winter one espresso, he emptied two packets of sugar into his cup and mixed it in with a flat wooden stirrer. Clasping the brew with his paw, Ben swilled the cup around thoughtfully, as if it were a tumbler of whisky. ‘What I’m going to tell you now, you didn’t hear from me, alright? Here at the airport I’m the one who makes the rules, but otherwise it’s the intelligence service in Bern. And the Americans.’

  ‘I’m quick to forget things, even my own birthday.’

  ‘Al-Bader is pretty high up on the CIA list of individuals who supposedly finance terrorists. The Americans assume that his image as a successful businessman is just a disguise. It’s alleged that he secretly bankrolls fundamentalist groups through his companies.’

  ‘Where’s the proof ?’ If it got out that his bank was aiding terrorism it would be dreadful for business. Just for a change, communications would have a real challenge on their hands.

  ‘As far as I know,’ Ben said, ‘there isn’t any, either for or against. I’m just telling you what I’m hearing on the grapevine. And for some people in today’s world that’s enough to launch a cruise missile or a drone.’

  Even for Winter, a rocket in the Swiss Alps was something new. ‘No, I can’t imagine that.’

  ‘Who knew Al-Bader was coming?’

  ‘I don’t know who he told. His business partners in Egypt, definitely. Have you ever heard of Orafin?’

  ‘Don’t they develop telephone networks? These countries aren’t building fixed landlines anymore; they’re investing directly in mobile networks. Leapfrogging a stage of development. That’s lucky for us as it means the conversations on these networks are more or less public.’

  Winter drank his already lukewarm espresso in one gulp. Horrid, but after such a night he could do with the caffeine. ‘Ben, I need to ask you another favour: have you got an explosives detector? Dog or machine, I don’t mind which.’

  Ben grinned and, with a nod, gestured to Winter to follow him. After another march through the warren of the corridors they came to a hall where hand luggage and passengers were screened. Slightly to one side was the chemical detector, which was able to pick up the minutest volumes of explosives residue. Ben unclipped one of the belt barriers for managing queues and gestured to Winter to follow him.

  ‘We use this thing as a hairdryer,’ Ben said, grinning and nodding to his colleague responsible for the machine.

  When Winter entered the cabin he felt the blast that blew the tiny, invisible particles from him. Taking the chocolate-box bow from his pocket, he held it in the wind for a bit, put it back, left the cabin and went to the screen behind.

  A red light was flashing.

  Explosives.

  JULY 25 – 16:49

  Winter drove into Zürich city centre, but got caught up in a traffic jam caused by a Lady Gaga concert, and so was late for the crisis meeting that Känzig had called for 16:30. He parked in the underground garage.

  Housed in the historic building above him was the bank’s most important branch as far as turnover was concerned. The head office was still in Bern, where the private bank had been founded. It also had branches in Geneva, Lugano and the tax oasis of Zug, as well as in the financial centres of New York, London, Singapore and Hong Kong. Most recently in Abu Dhabi too.

  This branch might be soon be merged with one of the financial group’s, which owned almost half the shares. Rumours were gathering apace that the financial group was intending to integrate the small private bank altogether. Was it a coincidence that the crisis meeting had been scheduled here in Zürich? Had there been negotiations today at their headquarters in the functional, glass building in the Zürich suburb of Glattbrugg?

  Dismissing this thought, Winter locked the car and entered the lift. Using his black security card he went up to the fourth floor. The building was on Bahnhofstrasse, the city’s most expensive street. It was more than a century old, but the inside had been completely modernized with glass and steel. The shell of the building, which was protected by a preservation order, radiated tradition, while the interior represented the modern element. The architect responsible for the conversion had explained that this solution allowed the bank to speak equally to young people with money as well as old.

  The meeting had been called at lunchtime by his manager, Känzig. When Winter listened to his voicemails following his encounter with the Egyptians, he heard the rather terse message: ‘Winter, where the hell are you? A helicopter crashes with one of our best foreign clients and you’re not contactable. We’re meeting at 16:30 in “Eiger” to analyse the situation and coordinate where we go from here.’

  In the mirrored lift Winter was once more assailed by grief and anger. He put the grief aside for the time being and tried to channel his anger. The lift door opened. Nodding to the middle-aged woman at reception, smartly dressed in a suit, Winter made for the small conference room at the end of the corridor. He paused at the frosted-glass door. Behind it he could see the vague outlines of people. The room was soundproofed and beside the door it said in big letters, ‘EIGER’ so that their many older clients could read them without difficulty. All the meeting rooms in Zürich were named after mountains: Mönch, Jungfrau and of course Matterhorn. Was there a ‘Gemsstock’ room too?

  Winter entered, closing the door behind him, and saw Känzig in front of a flip chart at the other end of the room.

  As usual, he was doing the talking.

  The flip chart was full of keywords, some underlined. Känzig was wearing one of his virtually black suits, with a white shirt underneath. Today his uniform was completed by a tie, which like his suit was almost black, but sprinkled with tiny red dots. He’s already gearing up for the funeral, Winter thought, before nodding to the assembled company and looking for a seat.

  Känzig interrupted his flow. ‘Ah, Herr Winter is honouring us with his presence. Better late than never.’

  Winter smiled at his superior’s sarcasm and ignored him. Känzig suffered from John Wayne syndrome: always intent on having everything completely under control, he was destined to fail from the outset. Swamped by too much work and emotionally drained by too little confidence.

  With both hands Winter pulled the Egyptians’ pistols from his waistband and placed them on the conference table. The barrels were aimed at Helfer, the head of communications, who slumped in his chair. Then Winter sat calmly in the one remaining free chair. ‘Al-Bader, Anne and Strittmatter were killed,’ he said. Now he definitely had the undivided attention of his colleagues.

  ‘Who says so?’ asked Känzig.

  ‘I do. There was a fire on board the helicopter. I’m working on the assumption the fire was caused by an explosive. It was supposed to look like an accident.’

  Känzig wrinkled his nose. ‘Gentlemen, let’s get back to the facts. We were just setting out our communications strategy.’ Turning his back to Winter he gestured to the head of communications.

  Helfer leaned back, made a triangle with his fingers and said, maliciously, ‘As I said, we’re lucky that the accident happened late yesterday evening. It wasn’t an important enough story for the print media and it was too late to be researched. All we have is one brief report on a Lucerne local paper’s website. Someone was probably listening to radio traffic and snapped up the story. But we wer
en’t mentioned by name. There was too little information for the late-night news, and what there was wasn’t interesting enough. It didn’t add up to a story. On the internet more widely…’

  Winter ran an eye over the individuals present. Opposite Känzig, at the other end of the small conference table, sat Schütz, the account manager, whose official title was the rather pompous ‘Vice President, Client Relations’. He looked tired, absent and, in spite of his substantial weight, a little shrunken. One of his clients had crashed in the bank’s helicopter, which obviously was going to put a substantial strain on client relations.

  Although Schütz looked lethargic, he was known for his killer instinct in the closing phase. He could adapt perfectly to any client. In front of him lay an overflowing presentation folder.

  Helfer had stood up and was clutching the flip chart. As he spoke, he wrote:

  1. CONTAINMENT

  2. PASSIVE COMM.

  KEY MESSAGE:

  – PRIVATE VISIT

  – MOUNTAINS = DANGER!

  – ACCIDENT!!!

  To Winter’s left sat Hodel, the lean chief legal advisor and the bank’s chief risk officer. He came from Bern’s aristocracy. In such circles it was the norm to speak with a French accent. He was elderly, highly methodical, a man of integrity and an old friend of the CEO. He was also responsible for the bank’s salary and bonus policy. According to the organisational chart he was at the same hierarchical level as Känzig, but in practice he was the most powerful man in the room. He was listening with his eyes half closed.

  Beside Känzig sat a man in a black suit whom Winter didn’t know. He was around Winter’s age and with his slicked-back hair looked like the ambitious sort. In front of him was a writing pad from the financial group. Out of the corner of his eye Winter watched his manicured fingers fiddle, bored, with an expensive fountain pen and make the occasional note.