The October Man by Ben Aaronovitch

Author:Ben Aaronovitch [Aaronovitch, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Published: 2019-05-30T21:00:00+00:00

Besondere Umstande—Special Circumstances, also known as the fire brigade and/or reality control—is the KDA’s rapid response team. In the fifties and sixties there were half a dozen teams based around the country and each had its own armoured personnel carriers and helicopters. As all the main werewolf caches and “sites of historical interest” were cleared and neutralised, their numbers shrank. And despite a brief surge of activity following reunification, they were down to one team based in a small industrial park outside Wiesbaden.

They’d also lost the helicopters and the army surplus armour, but gained a fleet of nondescript Mercedes Sprinter vans that caused a great deal less comment. Likewise, they dropped their forest green uniform in 2003 and instead turn out in jeans, corduroys and, ironically, army surplus jackets. Which made them almost indistinguishable from Frau Stracker’s workers, who were currently clearing the firebreak at the top of the field. These days when Special Circumstances roll into town, people start asking what band they roadie for.

Earth, Wind & Fire, I thought, as I saw the first of the Mercedes park on the lane below. Which, strangely, was the band I reckon was the one thing my parents must have had in common all those years ago, because it sure as hell wasn’t the role of nuclear energy in the economic development of the nation.

Special Circumstances were led by Elton Schuster, a former captain in the pioneers, an irrepressible man in his late thirties who had embraced his new role with huge enthusiasm. Not least because it allowed him to blow things up as well as fix them. He came bounding up the field towards me, radio in one hand and a wooden walking stick in the other.

“Tobi,” he called, “you never disappoint me.”

I introduced him to Frau Stracker and watched while they tried to out-rural each other. Elton is from a small village in eastern Saxony, so naturally he won, although it was surprisingly close. He inspected the firebreak and declared it suitable.

“But let’s try to avoid needing it,” he said.

I stayed where I was sitting and let them get on with it.

In the meantime one of Elton’s minions, a young blonde woman in a Russian pattern camouflage jacket three sizes too large for her, dropped a plastic bag in my lap. Inside were a couple of bottles of apple spritzer and a slightly dented chicken schnitzel sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper.

Frau Stracker sat down next to me and I gave her one of the bottles of apple spritzer.

Trier, I thought, is not so large a town that people don’t know each other.

“Does the name Heinrich Brandt mean anything to you?” I asked, because it’s always worth a try.

“Not a happy memory,” said Frau Stracker.

“Why’s that?”

“He tried to rape me when I was twelve,” she said.

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