Kubinke And The Disappeared

By Alfred Bekker

Kubinke And The Disappeared

Thriller by Alfred Bekker

The size of this book is equivalent to 119 paperback pages.

Ten years ago, a special unit of seven police officers took down a criminal network. Now four of these officers have disappeared without a trace. Detective Inspectors Harry Kubinke and Rudi Meier investigate the case of the missing colleagues. Is there still a chance of finding them alive?

Alfred Bekker is a well-known author of fantasy novels, thrillers and books for young people. In addition to his major book successes, he has written numerous novels for suspense series such as Ren Dhark, Jerry Cotton, Cotton reloaded, Kommissar X, John Sinclair, and Jessica Bannister. He has also published under the names Neal Chadwick, Henry Rohmer, Conny Walden, Sidney Gardner, Jonas Herlin, Adrian Leschek, Jack Raymond, John Devlin, Brian Carisi, Robert Gruber, and Janet Farell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alfred Bekker
• Release date: Jan 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393894780

Alfred Bekker

Alfred Bekker wurde am 27.9.1964 in Borghorst (heute Steinfurt) geboren und wuchs in den münsterländischen Gemeinden Ladbergen und Lengerich auf. 1984 machte er Abitur, leistete danach Zivildienst auf der Pflegestation eines Altenheims und studierte an der Universität Osnabrück für das Lehramt an Grund- und Hauptschulen. Insgesamt 13 Jahre war er danach im Schuldienst tätig, bevor er sich ausschließlich der Schriftstellerei widmete. Schon als Student veröffentlichte Bekker zahlreiche Romane und Kurzgeschichten. Er war Mitautor zugkräftiger Romanserien wie Kommissar X, Jerry Cotton, Rhen Dhark, Bad Earth und Sternenfaust und schrieb eine Reihe von Kriminalromanen. Angeregt durch seine Tätigkeit als Lehrer wandte er sich schließlich auch dem Kinder- und Jugendbuch zu, wo er Buchserien wie 'Tatort Mittelalter', 'Da Vincis Fälle', 'Elbenkinder' und 'Die wilden Orks' entwickelte. Seine Fantasy-Romane um 'Das Reich der Elben', die 'DrachenErde-Saga' und die 'Gorian'-Trilogie machten ihn einem großen Publikum bekannt. Darüber hinaus schreibt er weiterhin Krimis und gemeinsam mit seiner Frau unter dem Pseudonym Conny Walden historische Romane. Einige Gruselromane für Teenager verfasste er unter dem Namen John Devlin. Für Krimis verwendete er auch das Pseudonym Neal Chadwick. Seine Romane erschienen u.a. bei Blanvalet, BVK, Goldmann, Lyx, Schneiderbuch, Arena, dtv, Ueberreuter und Bastei Lübbe und wurden in zahlreiche Sprachen übersetzt.

Book preview

1

A department store in Berlin...

I will kill you all! the woman roared. Her face was flushed, her eyes unnaturally dilated. She was in her mid-thirties and completely out of it. In her right and left hand she held a rather long knife. Both knives were stained with blood.

She had been running randomly through the department store, stabbing anyone who was near her. There were already several seriously injured.

I was there more or less by chance. After closing time, I wanted to get something. It was rare enough for me to finish on time anyway. Being an investigator at the BKA is not like any other job. Normal office hours don't necessarily apply. After all, neither organized crime nor the deranged serial killer follow them.

I had my service weapon with me.

I had them in my fist now.

Kubinke, Criminal Investigation! I shouted in a piercing voice. Drop the knife - and drop it now!

The eyes of the mad woman flickered.

Her nostrils quivered.

The large pupils worried me.

There was almost nothing left of the iris.

This always indicates that someone has taken drugs. And then you can no longer guarantee anything.

I'll kill them all! the knife woman shouted in a shrill voice. She waved her knives around as if she were surrounded not only by department store customers and saleswomen, but additionally by invisible enemies.

Her face was a distorted mask.

Seven meters is considered a safe distance for a knife attacker. Knives are nasty weapons. One lightning-fast movement, then a second and third, and you have several punctures. There is no defense against that. You get a shock and are defenseless. Defenseless and as good as dead. It happens in a flash. Whoever claims to be able to disarm a knife attacker is lying. No one can. That kind of thing only works in the movies, but not in reality. In reality, there are only two things that can protect you against it: Keeping your distance is one.

That's the option you have if you don't have a firearm on you.

The other option you have only with a pistol.

It boils down to ending the knife attack with a well-aimed shot.

Seven meters.

I had been closer to her for a long time.

Much closer.

You are not human! she shouted, You are in fact reptiloids! You only look like humans! You disguise yourselves. But you are reptiloids who have been haunting the earth for millennia and dominating us all!

I'm Harry Kubinke from the CID, I repeated. Not a reptiloid. I swear.

She stared at me.

You?

Put the knives down, now.

You're the only real person here!

Then you can trust me, I said. So drop the knives!

You are a good person!

Put the knives down!

The only real person here!

I'll take you to safety, I said. But only if you put down the knives first!

She seemed undecided about what to do next.

After all.

She reflected.

That was more than I had dared to hope for.  The hands with the knives sank down a little.

A good sign, I thought.

I believed that I had reached her. That I had somehow reached her and could still influence her for the better.

A mistake, as it unfortunately turned out.

She made a lunge to the side.

There stood a young saleswoman. Probably still in training, as young as she looked.

She had been frozen the whole time. Pure terror had paralyzed her and despite the sign I had made to her, she had not moved more than two steps to the side.

The mad stabber had pulled one of her blades through her neck in a flash. Blood splattered all the way over to me. The saleswoman held her neck, but the blood flowed through her fingers.

I shot and hit the crazy knife woman in the head. She flailed her arms as if she wanted to stab many more invisible opponents - probably camouflaged reptiloids - and then fell to the ground like a felled tree with a dull sound.

She remained motionless.

Her posture was strangely contorted.

The eyes stare.

2

No one blames you, said my boss, Kriminaldirektor Hoch, as I sat there with my colleague Rudi Meier and we talked about the incident. That was days later. And in the meantime there were new findings on the matter.

I blame myself, I said.

The woman had taken designer drugs, according to forensics. I'll spare you the exact chemically correct designation. It is ultimately a powerful psychotropic drug that can cause hallucinations and delusions. That's exactly what happened here.

I thought I could save them, I said.

Someone like that is unpredictable, said Detective Director Hoch. You did your best.

Unfortunately, that wasn't good enough.

You can't save everyone.

I know.

As I said, someone is blaming you.

I should have shot right away, I said. At least then the saleswoman would still be alive. But I thought I could end the situation without bloodshed.

You couldn't have known exactly what was going on with the woman, my colleague Rudi Meier interjected. Something like that can happen to any of us.

That may be, I said. But that doesn't make it any better.

3

A rain-soaked night in Hanover. BKA investigator Detective Chief Inspector Theo Görremann was leaving the 'Magic', a posh disco once considered a transshipment point for cocaine and designer drugs. Görremann turned up the collar of his coat. His car was parked across the street in front of a snack bar that was open around the clock.

Görremann felt his cell phone vibrate and took the device out of his deep coat pocket.

He seemed to have been waiting for this call. I'll be right with you, he said in a hushed tone. Yeah, I talked to him.... We'll talk about it later, you hear? I found out something there that's hard to believe, and honestly, I also think you should check it out first... A short pause followed, while Theo Görremann's face took on a strained look. You can't do that on the phone. We'll talk more later!

Görremann ended the call and pocketed the cell phone again. He turned around. The bouncer of the 'Magic' looked in his direction while he put the walkie-talkie to his mouth and talked to someone.

Then Görremann crossed the street. With the help of his electronic key, the doors of the service Chevrolet he had been provided with were already opening.

Görremann had just crossed half the road when a car suddenly sped up. A van with tinted windows and no license plates. The engine howled. Before Görremann really understood what was happening, the van's cowcatcher caught him. Görremann was thrown through the air and then landed on the asphalt in a strangely contorted position. The van stopped. A man got out of the passenger door and approached the commissioner who was lying on the ground. In his hand, the man held a pistol with a screw-on silencer. Smiling, he looked down at Görremann.

But he didn't need the gun.

He's dead, he thought. Then he holstered the gun and turned on his heel and got into the van. The driver immediately let him speed away. With screeching tires, the van drove around the next corner.

4

Rudi and I arrived punctually at the headquarters of the Federal Criminal Police Office in Berlin in the morning. Nevertheless, Dorothea Schneidermann, the boss's secretary, met us with a look so serious that one might have suspected we were late. Instinctively, I looked at the watch on my wrist. Amused, I noticed that my colleague Rudi Meier had obviously had the same thought.

Mr. Hoch is already expecting you, Dorothea said.

Isn't there even time enough to say good morning?, I asked back.

The smile remained restrained. Not today, Mr. Kubinke. You shouldn't waste another second. And with that she pointed in the direction of the office door of Kriminaldirektor Jonathan Hoch, our boss.

Can you at least tell us where we're going this time? Rudi interjected.

Please! said Dorothea Schneidermann again. She seemed much more tense than usual, and this was certainly due to the fact that Kriminaldirektor Hoch had given her very clear instructions in his usual insistent manner. And the most important of these was obviously that she had to make sure that we were in his office without delay.

Rudi tried again anyway. Somehow he had probably not understood how seriously Dorothea Schneidermann meant what she had said. I had noticed. After all, I knew her well enough by now to be able to judge.

"Just tell us where