Angel in the Shadows Read online

  Walter Lucius

  * * *

  ANGEL IN THE SHADOWS

  The Heartland Trilogy

  Part 2

  Translated from the Dutch by

  Lorraine T. Miller and Laura Vroomen

  Contents

  Part One: ATTACK

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part Two: RITUAL

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part Three: FLIGHT

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part Four: PRAYER

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part Five: BETRAYAL

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  For Anny – everything at the end of the rainbow

  Every act of enlightenment

  – all ambitions to save souls,

  all the basic impulses – is so dogged

  by the weight of what follows it,

  the shadows, the violence that has

  accompanied the Enlightenment.

  – William Kentridge

  If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

  – James Madison, The Federalist, Feb. 6, 1788

  Part One

  * * *

  ATTACK

  1

  She could see her reflection in the lens of the digital camcorder. Standing behind it was the bald man with the vulture eyes who looked like a condor. He’d flung her into the boot of the armoured Falcon four-wheel drive and driven into central Moscow. Once there, he dragged her down long, empty corridors, like a hunk of meat. The few words he bothered to utter were in English, with that thick Slavic accent so typical of Russians. He spoke gruffly, barking commands. His movements were hurried and stiff, mirroring the cold-blooded expression on his face. The only sign of weakness was his panting. Every so often he sucked on an inhaler.

  In a tiled room with blacked-out windows, he’d tied her to a chair in front of the camcorder. A man dressed in camouflage gear entered. He was holding a Kalashnikov and wearing two ammunition belts as well as a holster containing a powerful gun. From the way he talked to the condor, she figured the two must know each other well.

  A woman in a black robe and a headscarf was filming everything on her mobile. With her pale skin and blue eyes, she looked quite striking. The man in the fatigues barked something at her, after which she disappeared and reappeared again seconds later, shoving a girl of barely twenty ahead of her. He took the girl and forced her to kneel down beside the condor, who switched the camcorder on and, without looking at the girl, casually pressed the barrel of his Zastava against her temple.

  The girl begged for her life. Her mutterings in Russian sounded like a whispered prayer. The condor took no notice of her. He had eyes only for the woman handcuffed to the chair opposite him. His tattooed finger pointed to the lens.

  ‘Look at this!’

  Farah Hafez raised her head and stared into the camcorder’s reflective black hole.

  ‘Now say what I want you to say, bitch. And do it convincingly. You can save this girl’s life.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ Farah murmured.

  ‘Repeat after me.’ Farah listened to the words he’d prepared for her, words that were not hers, words that would never even occur to her. She moved her lips in an effort to repeat them. The girl mustn’t die.

  Her vocal cords barely vibrated, and the lines came out as little more than a sigh. The condor cocked his Zastava. The camcorder’s red light flickered. The girl flinched.

  That’s when the words came. Unexpected and forceful. Like vomit.

  ‘I, Farah Hafez, support the jihad against President Potanin’s criminal regime.’

  The condor smiled coldly and pulled the trigger anyway.

  The Zastava’s dry click betrayed an absent bullet. When the girl fainted, the pungent stench of urine filled the air.

  Farah swore at the man, yelled at him in Dari that his mother was worse than a whore – she’d done it with dogs and he was the spawn of that coupling.

  The condor charged at her like he’d lost control. Despite being tied up, she kicked him as hard as she could in the shins. When she tried to avoid his next charge, she fell over, chair and all. Undeterred, he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her, still bound to the chair, out of the room and down a corridor to an auditorium, where a large group of young men and women had been herded together and were being held at gunpoint by a woman in black.

  She was still handcuffed to the chair, and now he stuffed a piece of cloth into her mouth and taped her lips shut – she could hardly breathe. Then he picked up a small, flat, metallic box, connected to a laptop with wires, and strapped it to her chest.

  He stood before her, sweating profusely and sucking hard on his inhaler.

  ‘You’re going to go out with a bang, you bitch.’ Somehow he reminded her of a giant bubble about to burst. He marched away.

  2

  The red-hot ash rain and thick, grimy smoke drifting across the road from the woods prevented the armoured Falcon from speeding ahead, allowing journalist Paul Chapelle and his Russian colleague Anya Kozlova to shadow it in their Škoda. They drove in the direction of the Seven Sisters, their destination the Moscow State University’s Mass Media Centre, where hundreds of students were being held hostage by Chechen rebels. A few hundred metres from the besieged building a ring of Russian Army tanks and trucks had hermetically sealed off the complex.

  Paul and Anya were amazed that the Falcon, after a brief stop, was allowed on to the grounds.

  The crisis centre was in complete chaos. No one could tell them what had happened, how many people were involved or what was going on inside.

  Outside, next to a waiting ambulance, Anya spoke in hushed tones for a few minutes with two paramedics. Paul watched from a distance. Her persuasive body language was all too familiar: in the end, she got the men to hand over two white doctors’ coats and a handful of medical supplies. Paul saw her slip them a few rouble notes.

  Dressed in medical garb and claiming some of the hostages needed immediate medical attention, they were allowed through the line of infantry surrounding the building where Anya herself had once studied and later taught. They had no problems entering the premises through a basement door, where they quickly dumped their white coats. Anya pu
lled out her press card and shoved the Nikon into Paul’s hands.

  ‘Zhurnalisty!’ she called as they made their way down a dark corridor. Within seconds they were surrounded by three women wearing black headscarves and brandishing Kalashnikovs.

  ‘Anya Kozlova, Moskva Gazeta. I’m here for Chalim Barchayev. He knows me. I’ve interviewed him before.’

  The women planted the barrels of their rifles in Paul’s and Anya’s backs and led them to the canteen. It had been transformed into a command centre.

  Barchayev’s brooding presence, Paul thought, made him look like Che Guevara reborn. He hugged Anya as if she were one of his girls. She was bluffing. He could hear it in her voice. But that didn’t stop her from chatting to him like an old friend. She wanted to report on the hostage-taking: to tell the world his side of the story. She asked if it was okay for her photographer to take some pictures.

  In the auditorium, facing a large black flag inscribed with an Arabic text, Paul saw her. She was handcuffed to a rickety chair, sweating and trembling all over, a wide piece of tape across her mouth. A green metallic-looking box with the words FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY was strapped to her chest. Paul recognized the military explosive. It was filled with hundreds of steel balls designed to make just as many bloody wounds in the young bodies of the hostages. Two wires were connected to a laptop that showed a digital clock counting down.

  It was as if he could feel her breathing, hear her heart pounding, faster and faster, just like his.

  One of the black widows kept a close watch on him through the sight of her Kalashnikov. He tried to avoid any indication that he recognized her.

  He brought the camera to his eye and slowly clicked … click, click.

  Farah opened her eyes wide. It looked like she was out of her mind with fear.

  Fear.

  That was the last word that crossed Paul’s mind before a bash to the back of his head stopped time and snuffed out the light.

  3

  The heat was oppressive, and Farah was trembling all over. She’d stopped smelling the stench of urine, shit and cold sweat, and her limbs had become numb.

  For a moment, she thought she was hallucinating.

  Paul was standing before her: his tall frame; his longish, dark-blond hair more unkempt than ever; the distinctive square jaw that made him the spitting image of his father; those ice-blue eyes staring at her.

  But she wasn’t imagining things.

  The fear in his unshaven face, which was covered with scars, stitches and plasters, was very real. He was holding a camera, pretending not to know her. And, although her head felt like it was filled with blood-soaked cotton-wool, she got it.

  They weren’t supposed to know each other.

  Then she saw what was happening behind him. She opened her eyes wide, as wide as possible. It was the only way she could warn him. Although the gag in her mouth stopped her from producing a sound, inside she was screaming.

  Turn around, turn around!

  But he didn’t get it and came closer, snapping away with his camera.

  The butt of a Kalashnikov slammed the back of his head and he crumpled to the floor.

  The condor looked almost winded as he regarded his latest victim, sucked up some more oxygen and then dragged Paul out of the room by his legs.

  Not long after, a dull explosion could be heard from another part of the building. Shouting. A flare was shot into the auditorium and commandos charged in. Russian special forces commandos: the Alpha Spetsnaz. Muffled shots rang out, sounding like a series of champagne bottles being uncorked, as all the women in black received a bullet to the head.

  Seeing this, Farah lost consciousness.

  Paul’s voice brought her to again. But he was standing behind her, so she couldn’t see him. She was still tied to the chair. When he removed the piece of tape and pulled the gag out of her mouth, she retched. All this time, she could hear his voice – snippets of sentences that would stay with her forever.

  Do you know how that feels? Listen to me, it feels brilliant. It feels amazingly brilliant! We’re going to be okay, you hear me, you and I.

  She felt his breath as he leaned over her, and drops of blood as thick as melting wax dripped on to her shoulder. He’d tell her later that it was blood mixed with bits of skin – the condor’s, to be precise. While he was talking to her, three commandos were trying to defuse the explosive attached to her body. Behind them, the man in fatigues came into view. He emerged from a cloud of dust, wailing like a wounded animal, his Kalashnikov aimed at the commandos. Bullets from the machine gun of an Alpha Spetsnaz commando riddled his body.

  Farah looked into the solemn eyes of the commando leader who’d carried on defusing the bomb strapped against her chest.

  ‘Front towards enemy,’ he said in broken English, pointing to the text on the metallic box. ‘You no enemy.’ He smiled. ‘You free.’ With that, he removed the box, no longer wired up to the laptop.

  She rose unsteadily to her feet and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him on the cheeks and thanking him. He gave her a hug and laughed in her ear – a resonant, masculine laugh.

  She floated back down the same long corridors towards the exit.

  A tiny, fragile bird in Paul’s arms.

  Outside, she was blinded by floodlights. Male voices were asking questions in Russian that were answered by a woman. Anya – the name came back to her now. She was the Moskva Gazeta journalist.

  Then she heard Paul’s voice again, talking to her calmly. ‘You’re safe. I’m with you.’

  Those were the same words she’d spoken to the boy injured in the hit-and-run in Amsterdam barely two weeks ago. Now she realized that talking like this to someone in shock actually helped. She was lifted into an ambulance.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘A hospital. I want to be sure you’re okay.’

  Inside the Casualty Department of Hospital Number 5, the paint at the bottom of the walls and doors was peeling and the gurney’s squeaky wheels scraped across grimy linoleum. Farah saw Anya handing the doctor a bunch of rouble notes while whispering to him.

  ‘He hasn’t actually done anything yet,’ Farah muttered.

  ‘This is a way of thanking him in advance,’ Anya assured her.

  Farah’s lungs were checked by a skinny doctor with a long nose and a face as drab and blotchy as his soiled white coat. It was like being examined by the spectre of death. Number 5 was known as one of the better hospitals in Moscow. But, however decent it was, it was always better to stay clear of any hospital at all when in Russia. There were more humane ways of kicking the bucket.

  When the room began to spin, she asked Paul to take her hand. As he did so, she felt a needle enter her arm. Doctor Death explained that everything was fine. The injection had merely been to calm her nerves.

  All went quiet inside and darkness descended around her.

  4

  After leaving the hospital, they navigated through what, to Paul, remained an impenetrable web of streets and made their way towards Zamoskvorechye, the old commercial district south of the River Moskva. Sirens could be heard in the distance: police cars, ambulances, fire engines. There were helicopters in the sweltering night sky. The entire city was wrought with chaos.

  Given the possibility of checkpoints, Anya avoided the busier streets. Finally, she parked the Škoda beside a sparsely lit stretch of river bank, right by the entrance to an old block of flats. The hazy conditions provided some cover. They got Farah out of the car, hoisted her in between them to make it look like she’d had a few too many, and carried her into the lobby.

  Paul thought there was a risk the ancient lift would get stuck halfway, so he carried Farah up eight flights of stairs, all the way to the old building’s rafters, where Anya’s attic apartment was located. They lay her down on the bed, closed the curtains, which felt thick enough to stop bullets, and let her sleep.

  ‘Her breathing’s irregular,’ Anya said.

  She and Paul sa
t down to eat borscht and dark rye bread, washed down with wine, and switched on the television. Channel-hopping between the likes of Rossiya, NTV and Channel One, they saw on-the-scene reporters and newsreaders behind their studio desks, all giving them the latest updates about the hostage-taking in the university’s media centre. The message was that Russia was not only besieged by foreign enemies, such as NATO and the CIA, but also by Muslim terrorists from Chechnya.

  At a special press conference, President Potanin praised the commandos of the Alpha Spetsnaz anti-terror unit, who’d not only managed to free the hostages unharmed, but also eliminated all the terrorists, including their leader, Chalim Barchayev. There was to be a comprehensive security review. ‘Chechen terrorists now have the capability to penetrate the heart of Moscow and threaten the lives of innocent Russian citizens. We will hunt them down, track them to every last hiding place in Chechnya and eradicate them.’

  Anya wanted to crawl inside the television and beat the shit out of him. ‘He’s using the hostage-taking as an excuse to start a new war against Chechnya!’

  Potanin had immediately asked the Dutch government to clarify the role of their journalist who’d been involved in the hostage-taking and was now on the run.

  At that point, Farah appeared on screen, and they got to see her on-air statement for the first time.

  Paul had never seen her so fired up as on that screen, so out of control.

  ‘I, Farah Hafez, support the jihad against President Potanin’s criminal regime.’

  The image froze. An emergency phone number appeared on screen. The rich male voice issued an urgent appeal to all Muscovites: anyone who spotted this ‘fugitive terrorist’ – whose Afghan background had made her sympathetic to the Chechen cause – should call immediately.

  Paul heard a shriek.

  Farah was standing in the doorway, white as a ghost, staring at her terrorist self on television.

  5

  She felt like she’d slept the sleep of the dead. And, when she woke, she had the weird sensation that she’d never be able to sleep again. Her whole body was rigid with tension. Her head was teeming with images of recent events. Panic racked her body. She remembered the hospital and the needle going into her arm.