Margaret Truman's Undiplomatic Murder

by Margaret Truman

  “The clothes she’d evidently been wearing when she was attacked were neatly piled near her body, as though whoever did it might have stripped her after he strangled her, or made a neat pile after raping her. A neat rapist. Interesting MO.”

  “Why would he do that?” Donna asked. “Strip her after strangling her?”

  “I don’t know,” Brixton answered, “unless he wanted to make it look like it was a sexual assault. The ME will come up with whether she’d been raped.”

  “You’re assuming she was strangled by a man,” Donna said.

  “Fair assumption,” Brixton muttered.

  “They were both homosexuals,” Kogan said. “Reads ‘bias crimes’ to me.”

  “She was a lesbian,” Donna said. “Homophobes don’t usually go around killing lesbians. They get off on lesbian porn. It’s gay men they hate.”

  “What about both victims working for embassies?” Kogan asked. “That’s why we’re involved in the first place.”

  “Coincidence,” Donna repeated.

  “She’s probably right,” Brixton said.

  “Provided another embassy employee doesn’t get killed,” Kogan said. “Two’s a coincidence. Three?”

  “Or another gay guy or lesbian,” Donna mused.

  Donna and Brixton started to leave, but Kogan stopped them.

  “What’s up?” Brixton asked.

  “I said before that the murders wouldn’t be just a coincidence if another one pops up. Well, there has been another. I got the report from DSS this afternoon. The German embassy is considering Peter Müller’s murder part of a possible terrorist plot.”

  “That’s a stretch.”

  “Maybe not. This other murder of a German embassy employee took place last week, in New York. The victim worked here for a while but was transferred to the consulate in New York a couple of months ago.”

  “Male, female?”

  “Male.” Kogan opened a file folder and consulted its contents. “The victim had an important job, according to the embassy, not enough to warrant any notice by the press, but he wasn’t a clerk.”

  “How was he killed?”

  “Gunshot, late at night, on the street.”

  “Like Müller,” Donna said. “I don’t suppose he happened to be gay.”

  “They haven’t said.”

  “Let’s say that he was gay. That would mean there’s a German homophobe knocking off gay German embassy employees.” Brixton laughed. “How’s that for a comic scenario? Sounds like a far-out movie that Mel Brooks would write.”

  “Ms. Dabrowski wasn’t German, Robert,” Kogan said. “The point is that German intelligence is looking at the murders as possibly being part of a terrorist operation, maybe tied to an al-Qaeda cell inside Germany. They’ve been having plenty of trouble lately with jihadists.”

  “Who isn’t having trouble with them these days? But what’s this have to do with us? That murder happened in New York. The one we have to deal with is Müller, here in D.C.”

  “That’s right, but DSS has to take the Germans seriously. I want you to make an appointment tomorrow with someone at the embassy. His name’s Axel Herrmann. He was Müller’s boss in the Defense Attaché Office. See what he has to say about Müller.”

  “Does it matter what he says? A couple of employees get killed, and the Germans go to Code Red. That’s the real threat the terrorists pose. They chatter on the Internet, and we scramble, spend another ten million bucks to secure a parade or football game. These employees get killed, most likely because somebody was after their wallets or don’t like who they sleep with, and the government goes into full anti-Muslim mode.”

  Kogan leaned back in his chair, formed a tent beneath his chin with his hands, and smiled.

  “I know, I know,” Brixton said, “I’m being a pain in the ass.”

  “Glad you recognize it. Go have a drink and a good dinner.” He handed Brixton a slip of paper on which he’d written contact information for Axel Herrmann. “These two murders might not seem important to you, but our German friends are taking them seriously, very seriously.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  Brixton called Mike Kogan at his SITQUAL office first thing the next morning before setting a time to meet with Axel Herrmann at the German embassy. “Thought I should check in with you before I call Herrmann,” Brixton said.

  “Glad you did, Robert. I was about to call you. There’s no need to call Herrmann. The meeting is set for four this afternoon. It won’t be with Herrmann alone. Two members of the German intelligence service in Berlin flew into D.C. last night. They’ll want to know everything that you and Donna know about Peter Müller’s murder, including the interview you had with Müller’s lover. Let Donna take the lead. Just make sure that the Germans know that SITQUAL is involved.”

  “I’ll hang a sign around my neck.”

  “I can think of other things I’d like to hang around your neck sometimes, Robert—tight.”

  “What about the murder in New York?” Brixton asked, ignoring the comment.

  “Donna has been briefed on that. I know you don’t think there’s anything to this, no terrorist plot, and you’re probably right. But the Germans have been having their problems lately with their growing Muslim population and are skittish. Can’t blame them. Just take in what they have to say, tell them what you know about Müller, and call it a day.”

  They ended the call, and Brixton slowly finished his coffee. Kogan was right. Brixton had dismissed the murder of Peter Müller as a bias crime. That two German intelligence authorities would hop on a plane in Berlin and fly to Washington seemed silly, unless they were looking for an excuse to visit the United States on their government’s dime. Maybe one of them had family to visit or were tired of German food. The reason didn’t matter. They were here looking for information about the murder of one of their embassy staffers, and the State Department had an obligation to provide what help it could.

  But his cynicism wasn’t total. It was a dangerous world with crazed people looking to inflict damage on anyone who didn’t see things their way. Maybe the Germans were right. Maybe Müller’s murder was part of some conspiracy. Who would have believed that nineteen young Muslim men would hijack three commercial airliners and kill so many innocent people? Who would have believed that a guy would get on a plane with explosives in his sneaker and try to bring down the plane, or wedge a bomb in his underwear with the same intention? Who would have believed lots of things in what had become a turbulent, upside-down world?

  During his phone conversation with Mike Kogan, Brixton had been told to attend an internal DSS briefing at the State Department from eleven until one that afternoon. He sat with Donna Salvos as a succession of DSS officials droned on about the most recent threats to American embassies around the globe and the potential for terrorist activity in the homeland. It was a little after one when Brixton and Salvos left State.

  “Lunch?” Brixton asked.

  “I’m meeting someone.”

  “See you at four with the Germans,” he said.

  His growling stomach alerted him that he was hungry, and he decided to indulge in seafood at a restaurant on “Eye” Street, next to the George Washington University campus in Foggy Bottom. But as he walked to it, he stopped in front of a red town house in which a known student hangout, Lindy’s Red Lion, was located. Brixton had heard that the hamburgers there were good, and that the prices were right. He debated going in; being with a group of college students wasn’t something he aspired to, but it was past lunchtime. Besides, it was summer when most of them—hopefully—were back home mooching off their parents.

  He stepped inside, looked around, and opted to go up to the second-floor bar. He was glad he did. Sitting at a table were Annabel and Mac Smith.

  “Don’t want to disturb your lunch,” Brixton said.

  “We just finished,” Annabel said. “Sit down.”

  He kissed her on the cheek and shook Mac’s hand.

  “
You’ll have to excuse me,” Mac said. “I have to get to a faculty meeting.”

  “I thought professors had the summer off,” Brixton said.

  “Mac thought that, too, when he took the job,” Annabel said. “He was wrong. What brings you here?”

  “I’m killing time until a four o’clock meeting at the German embassy. I just came from a briefing at State.”

  “Anything interesting?” Mac asked.

  “Nothing new, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I read about the murder of that young German embassy employee,” Annabel said. “Have they found the murderer?”

  “That’s the MPD’s job,” Brixton said. “The Germans want to make sure it didn’t involve terrorists. I don’t think it did, but it’s not my call. They’re looking for information, that’s all. A couple of their intelligence people arrived from Berlin last night. That’s who Donna and I are meeting with at four.”

  “Donna?” Mac asked.

  “Donna Salvos. She’s with DSS, State’s security and intelligence office. Nice gal. She speaks a lot of languages. I pretty much go along for the ride. You had burgers?”

  “We shared one. They’re very good,” Annabel said.

  “So I’ve heard.”

  As Mac prepared to leave, Brixton perused the menu and settled on a Redskins burger, with salsa and nacho cheese, and a draft beer. “Sounds good,” he said. “I like the name of the burger. The only thing I ever appreciated about Washington was the Redskins football team. They used a lot of older guys.”

  “They didn’t do very well,” Annabel offered.

  “That’s okay. At least they valued age and wisdom.”

  Annabel decided to leave with her husband. “Leave some room on your social calendar, Robert,” she said. “We’d like to have you come for dinner one night soon.”

  Brixton laughed. “My social calendar is one big blank, Annabel. “You name the date and I’ll be there.”

  Brixton’s burger and beer were delivered, and he ate and drank slowly, reflecting on what he considered two wasted hours spent at State. As he ate, the room started filling up with young people, obviously students. He decided to run by his apartment to pay a few bills before the meeting at the German embassy, so he covered his tab and left. An hour later, after dropping his paid bills at the post office, he was in his car and on his way to the meeting with Axel Herrmann and the two representatives of Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), its Federal Intelligence Service.

  Brixton parked a block away from the German embassy and walked to the main entrance where Donna Salvos waited. A uniformed security guard checked their State Department IDs, and they were directed through a metal detector that worked; their handguns triggered a response, and they were instructed to leave them at the security post. Brixton gave the guard his best smile as he handed his weapon over and received a chit.

  A phone call confirmed that they were expected, and they were directed to the Defense Attaché section, where a woman also checked their IDs before asking them to take a seat in a waiting area as stark as the building itself.

  Fifteen minutes later a young man appeared and led them to an elevator that took them to an upper-floor conference room, where they were greeted by Axel Herrmann, a balding, middle-aged man wearing a three-piece black suit and small, round rimless eyeglasses; a woman of the same age with a perpetually stern expression on her chiseled face; and another man, tall, gray, and gaunt, whose name was Luka Becker. After some small talk about the recent good weather, complaints over the cramped seats on the plane that had brought them to D.C., and Becker’s prediction of how the German national football team—“soccer to you Americans,” he pleasantly added—would fare in the next World Cup, they got down to the reason for getting together.

  “I must admit that your State Department’s security forces are quick to react when we report problems.”

  “We try to be,” Brixton said, despite not really feeling an integral part of the wider State Department security and intelligence apparatus.

  “As you know,” Herrmann said, “and I’m certain you can understand, the recent killing of two of our embassy employees has led us to question whether their deaths are random and coincidental, or point to something more systematic.”

  “Terrorism,” Donna said.

  “Yes,” the woman, Hanna Krause, said. “One of the victims was here in Washington, a second in New York City. While we have not established a link between those two deaths, it would be irresponsible of us to not investigate to the point that we can unequivocally rule it out.”

  “Do you have any evidence that terrorists are behind those murders?” Brixton asked.

  “Not at the moment. However, we currently have at least a dozen leftist groups in Germany that support terrorism. Our intelligence convinces us that one or more of these groups are actively planning an attack not only in Germany but in cities where we have a diplomatic presence. We recently intercepted a young man who’d trained in Pakistan and traveled overland to Germany from Poland. He had in his possession, hidden in his underwear, a DVD of a pornographic movie that was confiscated by our agents.”

  When she didn’t elaborate, Brixton said, “I don’t get the connection between a porn movie and terrorism.”

  Becker elaborated. “Embedded in that DVD were more than a hundred al-Qaeda documents outlining plans for future terrorist attacks, including seizing cruise ships. It was their plan to dress the passengers in orange jumpsuits, like those worn at your Guantánamo Base where suspected terrorists are held, and execute them one-by-one, their murders videotaped and played for the world to see, until those prisoners at Guantánamo are released.”

  “They’d fail,” Brixton said. “Our government wouldn’t give in to blackmail.”

  “Yes, I’m certain that you are right,” said Becker, “but I offer it as an example of how active al-Qaeda is in Germany. Hezbollah too has become more aggressive in recent months. Much of the material taken from that DVD points to a terrorist assault being planned here, patterned after the Mumbai attack.”

  Ms. Krause added, “There is also talk of launching smaller attacks on German citizens, targeting individuals.”

  “That’s what I have trouble with,” said Brixton. “Terrorists, at least based upon past activity, aren’t content with killing individuals. They want to make a bigger splash, kill as many in one swoop as possible, grab the headlines. Granted, having two of your embassy employees killed within a short span of time raises doubts about whether their deaths were a coincidence. I’m not questioning why you’d want to see whether there’s a pattern that might link to a terrorist organization. But there’s another factor to consider: Peter Müller was a gay man. An employee of the Polish embassy in Washington was killed the day after Müller was. She was a lesbian. And I understand that your victim in New York might also have been homosexual. Isn’t it possible that—?”

  “That is not the sort of personal information that should be made public.” Krause was angry.

  “Hey,” Brixton said, “I’m not going to the newspapers with it. But it has to be factored into any investigation. It could be that the ‘terrorists’ are only some nuts who hate gays and lesbians.”

  “Preposterous,” said Krause.

  Brixton shrugged. His initial reaction upon shaking Krause’s hand was that he probably wasn’t going to like her. He’d been right.

  “What can you tell us of Peter Müller’s murder, aside from what we already know?” Mr. Herrmann asked.

  “There isn’t much to tell,” Donna said. “He was gunned down on the street early one morning. We’re here because we were instructed to provide you with any information that might be helpful to your investigation of your embassy employees’ murders. It’s obvious that we can offer little beyond what you already know.”

  “Not true,” said Herrmann. “We have a strong mutual interest in anything that is of concern to you and our presence in Washington. Chances are these two deaths are purely coi
ncidental, but all information is helpful.”

  Becker smiled as he said, “Please don’t think that our trip has been wasted. If you can think of anything, even the smallest detail concerning Müller’s demise that might provide additional insight, we’d be most appreciative.”

  Brixton shifted in his chair against a stabbing pain that emanated from his back and shot down his leg. “If we think of anything else, Mr. Becker,” he said, “we’ll sure pass it along. But as far as I know, we came here today to learn from you about Peter Müller. And what can you tell us about the murder of your embassy staffer in New York? He was shot to death, right?”

  “Yes. On the street late at night.”

  “Like Müller.”

  “Yes, I suppose the deaths are similar.” Becker turned to Hanna Krause. “Maybe there is a connection with them both being homosexual.”

  “Highly unlikely,” Krause responded.

  “The news of Peter Müller’s murder was tragic,” said Herrmann, shifting attention away from Hanna Krause. “He was well liked by everyone in this section.”

  “No enemies? Resentments?”

  “Peter? No, of course not.”

  “I ask because he was a homosexual. He was killed as he left a gay nightclub.”

  Herrmann formulated a response. “Some of us were aware of Peter’s sexual preferences, but no one held it against him. You know, terrorism is not unknown to us. We haven’t had a nine/eleven as you have, thank goodness, but such terrorist organizations as Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and the Salafists have become increasingly active across the Continent, with Germany as their unofficial headquarters.”

  “I know about Hezbollah and al-Qaeda,” Brixton said, “but who are the Salafists?”

  “A Sunni terrorist organization,” Herrmann replied. “Al-Qaeda is Shiite. The Shiites and Sunnis don’t get along, as I’m sure you know. The lingering chaos in Iraq testifies to that.”

  “I have trouble keeping them straight,” Brixton admitted.

  “The point is that because of the increased activity in Germany, any unnatural deaths of people associated with our government must be carefully evaluated.”