Free Chasing the Storm by Martin Molsted Page A

thought he recognized a pair of black Vibram-soled loafers, and quickly ducked into an alley, walked across to a parallel street, and took a taxi to the Chilehaus bar. He stayed there the whole afternoon, making sure to let the bartender know that he was back in Hamburg to do more work on the Evagas project and that he’d spent the morning in the office.
    April 19
    As the days passed, Dmitri got to know the commandos. At first, in their wet suits and balaclavas, they had seemed like a tribe of identical siblings: burly and barking. His fear had homogenized them. But they had removed their balaclavas and were dressed now in looser khaki. And though they still brandished identical squat machine guns, and were all shaved down to the scalp, he began to discern them. The kitchen commando, who watched over Dmitri and Ilya in the galley, was a ropy, sour character. Once, Dmitri had offered him a piece of raisin bun, and he’d snarled and told him to keep his treats. But a couple of the others were more jovial, and one, a blue-jowled, blue-eyed giant whose forearms were completely submerged in tattoos, even cracked an occasional joke while he was watching over their meals.
    Dmitri, almost unconsciously, began to divide the hijackers into two groups. The first group, to which the kitchen commando belonged, spoke flatter Russian, some of them with a high-class accent, others with a foreign accent. They were surlier, more taciturn, and watched over their charges with a steadier gaze.
    The second group, which included the jovial giant, spoke to each other in a salty Russian that Dmitri occasionally found incomprehensible. He’d heard the argot before, though, in certain bars: it was the Russian of the criminal class. He noticed something: the commandos watched over their meals in pairs. And the pairs always contained one commando from each group. Dmitri couldn’t be sure, but he thought the “elite commandos” were in charge, because once or twice he’d heard one of them say something to his companion in a sharp tone.
    The ‘criminals’, as Dmitri thought of them, were all intricately tattooed. When he commented on this one evening in the room, Wolfie said that they were from Siberia.
    “How do you know?” Dmitri asked.
    “I was in prison for five years. I got to know all the tattoos. These are the Siberia guys. Look at the backs of their necks. They’ve all got the little shape, looks like a spider. Like an evil little spider crawling up their necks. The Siberians are the worst. They aren’t afraid of anything.”
    “But why are only half of the commandos tattooed?”
    “Fuck knows. Best thing not to think about it.”
    That was the advice Ludo had given him, but Dmitri couldn’t help it: he thought about it all the time, and it was torturing him. Why were there two groups of hijackers? What were they protecting? What was in the hold?

Chapter 6
    Speicherstadt
    April 27
    The next morning, Rygg left himself a good hour to get to the Speicherstadt. He sauntered across the canals, swinging the briefcase normally, checking the passing shoes automatically, looking for anything static: someone reading on a park bench, someone buying roses. He glared suspiciously at a man tying his shoe, then laughed when the man looked up at him in alarm and walked quickly off. Easy there, Torgrim , he thought. You’re fine. No one’s on your tail .
    He came down Speicherstadt from the canal, looking at the ducks on the water. The ducks trailed long, intersecting Vs of light on the water, which widened and batted the shore. He leaned against the railing, watching the webs of light. He still had seven minutes. And in a quarter of an hour or so, you’re all done, he told himself. He felt almost sorry. It seemed too easy, after all the preparation. Once, when he had looked down at the briefcase and thought about the concealed knife, he felt a little surge for action – that sensation he’d stepped away from twenty years ago and still