Greville watched as they walked towards the small gate at the side of the large, sliding steel-panelled double gate the allowed vehicle entry to the courtyard.
“Quick on the uptake, your Miss Bloomfield,” he said to Müller.
“She’s no slouch.”
“You say that with pride, old man. Betraying your true feelings, what?”
“Greville.”
“Yes, old man.”
“Shut up.”
Greville allowed himself a huge grin. “Of course.”
“Look after, Aunt Isolde. She’s all the family I’ve got.”
“Goes without saying, old boy. Any…weaponry at your place?”
“My bedroom. Aunt Isolde will show you which one. Bedside cabinet, left. Top drawer. A Beretta 92R. Three magazines, 15-shot.”
“You do like that gun. It’s a cannon.”
“It’s perfect for my uses. The weight, the balance, the firepower. I prefer not to use a gun…”
“But if you have to, you want one that is reliable, and hits hard.”
“One way of putting it.”
“I understand perfectly, old boy. And I’ll see Isolde’s alright. No fear. I won’t let the buggers take her from me; not after all these years. Go in and see how she is, shall I?”
Müller nodded. “I’ll be along.”
In the luxurious bedroom suite overlooking the stream, Carey Bloomfield peered down from her window at the water. It’s gentle rush was soporific. She took a deep breath of air that had the freshness of recent rain, though the grounds were not even damp.
“It’s like coming home,” she said to Aunt Isolde who was standing behind her, looking on with a gentle, speculative smile.
“Then treat it as such. You know you are welcome here at any time.”
“Thank you, Aunt Isolde.”
“And how are things with Jens? I see you still address each other rather formally. Müller. Miss Bloomfield.”
Carey Bloomfield turned round. “In a funny way, it’s not really formal at all. It just seems that way. Actually, I am sort of quite comfortable with it. I’ve waited so long now for him to call me Carey, I think I’d die of shock if he did. Does that make sense?”
“I think it reveals rather more than either of you are prepared to admit.”
“I can’t just throw myself at him, Aunt Isolde. He’d run a mile.”
“Perhaps not as far as you think.”
“Just look at you and Greville,” Carey Bloomfield said. “Müller told me he fell for you in a heartbeat.”
“And do you think he did that all by himself?”
Carey Bloomfield stared at her. “You suckered him?”
“My dear,” Aunt Isolde said, smile widening, “all men like to think they did the running. It’s nice to leave them with their illusions, but not to the detriment of our own capability for taking the initiative when it suits us. Now I’ll leave you to unpack, and freshen up.” She paused at the door. “And don’t worry, we shall go up to Berlin tomorrow. I fully realise Jens would not have suggested it without very good reason.”
“You’re the only close family he has, Aunt Isolde. He worries about you.”
“I know he does. But it’s good to know he’s got you too.”
Aunt Isolde left before Carey Bloomfield could respond to that.
Müller, still outside, was on the phone to Pappenheim.
“They’ll be staying at my place. Can you have two people keep an eye on it for me?”
“Berger and Reimer would be my first choice, but they’ve drawn some diplo duty from tomorrow, for the next week. Whoever it was actually asked for Berger and Reimer. Seems they were remembered for a similar duty they pulled ages ago, and impressed notably. They’ve got to dress up.”
“Bet they liked that.”
“Bet they didn’t, is more like it. Berger was cursing, and Reimer moaned about standing his girlfriend up.”
“I think he needs that girlfriend of his just for the pleasure of moaning about his love life,” Müller said.
“And driving us crazy. But he is an excellent cop. This came in only about half an hour ago,” Pappenheim went on. “One of Kaltendorf’s cronies made a request, and of course the Great White jumped. Couldn’t deflect him, even when I tried to convince him I needed them both.”
“And do you?”
“I always need them. But I was forcibly overridden.”
“You?”
“Me.”
“Were you asleep?”
“I must have been.”
“Alright, Pappi. I’ve tagged along with the game. Why did you allow the GW to ‘forcibly’ override you?”
“Could be because the person they’re supposed to be babysitting has turned out to be one of the names we have.”
Müller digested this piece of news. “Then by all means let them dress up.”
“Thought you’d say that. So I’ll talk with Kommissarin Fohlmeister, she of the Ready Group, to see if I can temporarily poach a team from her.”
“And can Ilona help?”
“She will.”
“I like your certainties, Pappi.”
“Certain. That’s me.”
“They’re all coming out of the woodwork,” Müller said.
“Some of them seem to be. But they don’t know we know. That’s the beauty of it.”
“And we’ll keep it that way.”
“Are you quite sure Miss Bloomfield saw what she thought she saw?” Pappenheim asked.
“I’ve no doubt she did see it,” Müller said. “though, I didn’t. I was not looking in the right direction at the time; but in the present circumstances, I’m taking nothing for granted. I’d rather be wrong and prepared, than unprepared and vulnerable. They were all around the car, Pappi. Like excited children. But no one took the expected photograph.”
“They’re scientists, not click-happy tourists.”
“Exactly my thoughts. But a sneak shot of the four of us, from the bus, was definitely out of phase.”
“Well don’t you worry about Wilmersdorf,” Pappenheim said. “I’ll make sure they’re looked after.”
“I appreciate it. And I have to ask. Any news from Max?”
“He and his team have left, and should be there any time now.”
“Thank God for that. And thanks, Pappi.”
“Nada.”
“Nada?”
“Something Hermann Spyros said earlier.”
“Now you’ve lost me.”
Pappenheim’s chuckle sounded in Müller’s ear as they ended the conversation.
Carey Bloomfield looked down at the stream from the wide window of her room. Slightly to the left was the small, arched wooden bridge that crossed. Both brought back several memories, some of which she would have preferred to forget.
To avoid flooding of the grounds during heavy rain, the banks of the stream had been substantially raised all along the section where it crossed the property. Today, it was flowing peacefully and was so clear, she could see the bottom. But the day she and Müller had faced Dahlberg, the stream had been a torrent in pouring rain; and she had been in it, at night, trying to make her way across to the hotel.
Under fire.
She had been crawling across the bridge, when a bullet had whacked into it, very close. She now wondered whether the bullet were still there, or had been dug out, and the gouge smoothed over. She assumed it had been.
Müller had left her in the car with strict instructions to call Pappenheim, and then leave. But unknown to Müller, she had been after Dahlberg herself, the man who had tortured her brother by peeling him alive; and also unknown to Müller, she had brought her own gun.
She shut her eyes briefly in an effort to blot out the vision of the bloody, mutilated thing her brother had become, in that hell-hole in the Middle East. But the vision was etched upon her mind.
Dahlberg, despite using Aunt Isolde as a shield in a last, desperate attempt to escape, had not made it.
&
nbsp; “We got you, you bastard,” she now said, in a barely audible voice.
Both she and Müller had shot at the same time.
She looked down at the stream once more. Dahlberg, dying, had fallen in, to be swept away.
She was still staring down at the stream, when a knock sounded on her door.
“It’s open!” she called, turning to look.
Müller opened the door a crack. “May I?”
“Of course. I was just admiring the stream…and remembering. Seems a long time ago.”
“It does, at times,” Müller agreed, entering. He left the door slightly open, as if not sure that he should be in the room with her, with the door fully closed.
“But if feels good to be back. I love this room.”
“It’s yours any time you want it.”
She nodded. “Aunt Isolde said. It’s very kind of her.”
“She did not say it to be kind. She said it because she wants you to know you can look upon this place as a home.”
“Keep this up, and I’ll be embarrassed by the generosity.”
“Don’t be.” He joined her at the window, and looked down. “You were very brave that night.”
“Scared,” she corrected. “I thought there were snakes in there. During a vacation in Florida I was a kid, I got bitten by a cottonmouth in a creek. It’s a memory that stuck. My brother saved my life that day. He did everything right. That’s why I went after Dahlberg, to get the bastard for what he did to him.”
“Although your orders were to take him alive.”
She nodded. “I’ve no regrets.”
“Neither do I,” Müller said. “Given the slightest chance, he would have killed Aunt Isolde. Do you believe,” he went on, “that this incident could have been the trigger for Adams?”
“You mean the moment he decided he would betray me one day?”
“Yes. After all, Dahlberg was part of The Semper, or worked for them.”
“I don’t think so. I think Adams had his own agenda and that moment would have come anyway, whenever he was ready to do it; whether I had killed Dahlberg, or not.”
Müller nodded slowly, still looking down at the stream. “That is my reading of the situation. I’ve been thinking about Vogel’s place in Wannsee,” he continued. “I have been searching my memory to check whether I might have seen something, but not consciously registered it.”
She looked at him. “You’re really bothered about hidden cameras, aren’t you.”
Müller was thoughtful. “Something’s nagging at me. It’s a feeling.”
“You mean they bugged him?”
“In their position, wouldn’t you? Years of guilt was taking its toll. They would expect him to crack one day. These people are adept at long-term planning. Easy enough to plant devices in a wide-open building like that, with a sole occupant.”
Carey Bloomfield was tracking Müller’s thoughts. “So if there were bugs, or cameras, in there…or both…”
“We’ve been seen and, or, heard.”
“As Pappi would say, not good.”
He turned from the stream, to look at her. “Not good at all. I’ve asked Pappi to send in a clean-up team. They’ll scour the place.”
“But you’re still worried.”
“Pappi won’t waste time getting people in there.”
“But the others might be faster.”
“There is that possibility. We don’t know where they are. The information we have so far, pinpoints some of the top people; but their…drones…if you like, can be anywhere. They may well have had people watching him for years.”
“Then they would have seen us arrive. They could have shot him to stop him talking.”
Müller shook he head. “Too crude. They want as little attention as possible drawn to them.”
“What about that fake cop who tried to take me?”
“If it hadn’t been for Pappi, he would have got away with it. For the brief period necessary to do the job, he would have been well within the time frame. The gun would have been silenced. No one would have paid much attention to a policeman leaning into a car to talk to the occupant; especially as it was raining. Before anyone suspected anything was amiss, he would have been long gone, and no probable witnesses would have been able to say more than that they saw a policeman. People tend to avoid looking at uniformed police. They’re the ‘invisibles’ of society. There, but not there. A uniform is a uniform is a uniform.”
“Well that’s true enough. It’s the same anywhere, I guess. You don’t look at cops, in case they look back at you with interest.”
“Exactly.”
Carey Bloomfield gave a slight shiver as Müller again turned to look down at the stream. “I could have been dead right there in that rain. I was caught flat-footed. Like a damned rookie.”
“Pappi is no rookie,” he said to her, “and see what happened to him.”
“Trying to make me feel better?”
“No. Just emphasising how dangerous these people are.”
“I’m convinced,” she said. “And I haven’t forgotten about the guy in the bus who took our picture.”
“It could have been a simple tourist shot, of course.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“No.”
“Nor that a bunch of genetic scientists coming here was coincidence.”
“Aunt Isolde gets all sorts of people here.”
“But you think they came to observe Greville.”
“I did not say that. I’m simply keeping all options open. If there’s nothing to their presence. Fine. If there is…” Müller left the rest unsaid.
She gave him a surreptitious glance. Why don’t you just take hold of me? she said in her mind.
But he made no such move.
“I’ll leave you to get on with settling in,” he said, turning again from the stream. “Off to my room. Then we’re expected in the breakfast room. Aunt Isolde is preparing something. I’m sure you’re hungry.”
“Are you saying I like stuffing my face, Müller?”
He smiled. “It’s a pretty face.”
He went out, leaving her staring at the closed door.
“A compliment!” she said to the door. “Do I faint now? Or later?”
Pappenheim had received a surprising phone call. .
“What do you mean there’s no body?” he barked at Max Gatto.
“Sir, there’s nothing. No body. No blood. No gun.”
Pappenheim thought about that for half a second. “And the local colleagues? What were they doing? Sleeping?”
Gatto’s cough was apologetic. “As a matter of fact…yes.”
“What?”
“Not of their own volition. Someone put them down. Needles. Some kind of knock-out drug. We found them in their car. “
“Shit,” Pappenheim said. “Are they okay?”
“They’re still asleep, but otherwise fine.”
Pappenheim took a drag of his cigarette, exhaled a twin stream of smoke through his nostrils, then blew out the residue out as a single, perfect smoke ring.
“I assume you have checked through the villa.”
“Completely,” Gatto, a Kommissar, replied.
“Any surveillance equipment?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Not even a hole to show where anything had been removed.”
“Very curious. Max, is there anything about the place that does not feel right to you?”
“Apart from a body that seems to walk?”
“Don’t try the jokes with me, sonny.”
“Sorry, sir,” the other said quickly. “Just being…”
“Forget it. Now think about that villa. What doesn’t seem right?”
“Everything’s as it should…be…”
“Yes?” Pappenheim said in anticipation, straightening in his chair.
“Television:”
“What about it?”
“No television in the house.
Not in any room. No radio, either. No CD player, no CDs; no video, no tapes, no satellite receiver. I can’t believe anyone living by himself in a place like this would not have a single item of home entertainment.”
“As would no one who had been a professional newsman. Now we know how they did it.”
“They hid them in the systems. No tell-tale signs. Now they no longer need them, all they had to do was unplug everything and take them away. Easy.”
“As you should know, having done it yourself on occasion. ISDN through the phone system, a local, secure network, and you’ve got sound and vision 24 hours a day.”
“Phones are gone too.”
“What a surprise. They’re thorough, if nothing… Anything else around?”
“There’s a boathouse, and a small pier…”
“Do you have anyone near that boathouse?” Pappenheim asked sharply.
Startled by the tone of voice, Gatto replied, “Er..no, sir. We were just about to…”
“Be very careful. They could have put everything in there…body, all the equipment and phones...”
“And booby-trapped them.”
“Exactly.”
“Paul Zimmer is with us. He’s our explosives man. He’s got all his gear. I’ll ask him to have a look, shall I?”
“Alright. But the back of my neck’s itching. Tell him to be extra careful. No heroes, Max.”
“Paul is one of the most careful people I know. He takes his time. A snail is a racing car by comparison.”
“Even so. I don’t want another dead body.”
“I’ll make certain he understands that.”
“Thanks, Max.”
“I still don’t like it,” Pappenheim said to himself as he replaced the phone.
He blew another smoke ring at the ceiling. This time, it was not one of his better efforts. The ring staggered upwards, collapsing upon itself as it went.
“I don’t like it,” he repeated.
He knew if anything went wrong out there, it could damage Müller. Despite the fact that a serious crime had been committed, Kaltendorf would see the deployment of the clean-up team as an unauthorised use of a special unit for private reasons. Kaltendorf would attempt to show that Müller had been working on a personal case. Vogel had died because Müller had gone to see him.
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