“And he’s going to get up early just to drive me to the airport?”
“He mumbled something about how his daughter didn’t let him sleep late anyway. Hurry up and sit down before the pizza gets cold. Wait, pop in the DVD first. By the way, can I stay here next week?”
Daniel turned around with the DVD in his hand. The balconies and facade of Tom’s apartment building were being renovated. It would take almost a month, and the noise and dust were already unbearable, and it had only been a week. “Sure, why not? Or should I blow up the scaffolding?”
“I’ll take care of it myself if the work takes longer than it’s supposed to. Thanks, Daniel.”
“No problem. Are we supposed to drink out of the bottle? You know where the glasses are.”
Tom stood with an exaggerated sigh. Daniel watched him go into the kitchen. He could use the distraction. With a malevolent grin, he dropped onto the couch and wondered how Tom would react when he realized he would have to make do with the armchair. Nothing beat having true friends.
In the early evening the sky over California was still cloudless, and the sun bathed the airport building in warm light. There was no sign of the dreary weather of Northern Germany, to which Daniel would never become accustomed. In the arrivals area, a woman was holding up a sign bearing the logo of a car rental company and his name, giving Daniel the perfect excuse to end his small talk with a helicopter pilot with whom he was slightly acquainted. The Navy rumor mill was worse than any afternoon coffee hour in a retirement home, and it had not particularly surprised him that he had already been asked about a possible move from Germany to California.
Daniel enthusiastically looked over the gleaming black Mercedes convertible. His sister had succeeded in surprising him. With a car of this caliber he would easily beat the normal ninety-minute trip time. The car delivered what it promised, and Daniel found himself laughing as he sped over the Coronado Bridge, toward San Diego. Blue water and white beaches—the view from the bridge was breathtaking. While he used to take the view for granted, he now took in every detail.
Less than two hours later, he was enjoying a cold German beer on his sister’s terrace. “How can I pay you back for the luxury treatment?”
Ann set a bowl of salad on the wooden table and smiled. “By heating up the grill. And you can finally tell me what’s up with your appointment at the base.”
He wouldn’t be able to sidestep Ann this time; he owed her an answer. “Admiral Russell offered me a job as team leader in Coronado. I’m going to meet with him tomorrow.”
Bewildered, Ann sat down on a wooden chair. “Hang on, Danny. Slow down. The name of the guy who made your life hell back then was Russell, right? And since when have you cared about getting promoted? I thought you loved your job, your team, and your mysterious missions. Why do you want to give all that up for a bunch of routine stuff? And what does Mark have to say about it?”
“My boss wasn’t thrilled about it, but he’d understand because I’d be closer to you if I accepted the position.”
She took the beer out of his hand. After taking a large swig, she said, “So you’re doing it because of me. Because Dad’s dead? For God’s sake, Danny, wake up. I’m going to be forty in a few years, and I have a damned good life. I’d love to see my little brother more often, but not if it means he gives up the job he loves. That’s completely crazy. Punch the guy in the nose for what went down back then, and forget about it. Sometimes you’re really dumb, Danny.”
His sister had never been able to lie to him, and her uncomprehending reaction made his deliberations over the last weeks seem so absurd that he had to laugh. “OK, well, thanks. That’s pretty clear. But what’s up with you and that call you just took?”
“Nothing important. I’d have been able to get a spot at a medical convention in Atlanta, after all, from the waiting list. It has to do with alternative treatment methods for children in comatose states. I definitely wanted to go, but not with you here.”
Ann’s regret was obvious, and Daniel vaguely recalled a conversation with Stephan, whose wife was a doctor. “Is that the event with Henrik Fischer?”
Ann nodded enthusiastically. “How do you know him? That’s pretty unusual for the team doctor of a special unit.”
Since the world of medical luminaries to which Fischer belonged was fairly small, Daniel wasn’t particularly surprised. “Listen, go to Atlanta, and I’ll see to it that you get to speak privately with Henrik. And so you don’t have to worry about your little brother, I’ll fly back to Hamburg.”
“You’re not serious, are you?”
“I am. Henrik is a very good friend of Stephan and his wife. Are we agreed?”
“I mean the part about flying back. You just got here.”
“That doesn’t matter. I have plenty of free flights. Besides, I have a feeling my sister will be showing up in Hamburg soon. Not to visit her neglected brother, of course, but to take a look at Henrik’s clinic.”
She gave him a withering look. When that failed to achieve the desired effect, provoking only a grin, she threw a pot holder at him. “Light the grill, Danny.”
Smiling, he saluted.
Sandra felt tired and rubbed her eyes. She avoided looking at the clock in the lower corner of her laptop. The increasing brightness outside her window showed that dawn was already breaking, and she had once again forgotten the time. But she had the feeling of being so close to a breakthrough that she couldn’t stop.
Despite her tiredness, she intently focused on the screen. By now she had developed a sense of how to interpret the text in the chat room and how to decipher which lines were harmless insinuations and flirting and which held hidden meanings. There were still ten users making promises to each other that they would never keep in real life.
In her mind, she formulated an ambiguous response to SexyHexy while she waited for Killer007 to answer the question from God666. Finally the text she had been waiting for appeared: “Will bring the perfect flower with me. Yellow on top, brown below. Waiting has paid off. Meeting in 2 d. 4y/50k.” The entry disappeared from the screen so quickly that the person who had sent it must have deleted it immediately after sending. Even if one of the others had noticed it, he would have thought it had to do with a harmless date because of the banter that had preceded it. Sandra read it differently: in two days a four-year-old boy with blond hair and brown eyes would be sold for fifty thousand euros.
She typed an answer to the person calling her- or himself a sexy witch and suggested, in uncouth language, that she wasn’t interested in vanilla sex but was looking for something new. Earlier she had already discreetly woven in comments implying that she had enough money to afford exotic things.
After having been invited into this chat room, she had hoped for quick success. Instead she was still looking for clues and had nothing solid to go on. She didn’t ask for sex with minors directly because she was afraid of destroying any chance of a breakthrough. She had to be patient and wait for “them” to make contact with her. She remained certain that repulsive deals were being made on this corner of the Internet. She said good-bye with a yawning smiley and logged out while a little program developed by her brother saved all the new lines of text. She smiled at the thought of Martin. She could easily imagine his reaction to her investigation—he would probably scream at her until her eardrums popped.
Tired, she dragged herself into her cramped kitchen, which was in dire need of a cleaning. After a sip of cola, she put the bottle back in the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of wine. She considered the amount of Rioja remaining in the bottle and finally filled the glass almost to the brim. Though the combination of a missed supper, the alcohol, and too little sleep would catch up with her in the morning, she needed the wine to calm her thoughts. What if a boy with blond hair and brown eyes disappeared in Northern Germany in the next few days? Then she would know that her theory had been correct. But at what price? Was it worth it? What should she do? No one had listened to her,
much less taken her seriously. Having had months of practice, she suppressed the question of how she should react if one of her chat room buddies insisted on meeting face-to-face. She took a large sip of wine and reached for an open bag of pretzels.
With her feet tucked up close to her body, she got cozy on the couch in the living room and sipped the wine. Without wanting to, she recalled her supper with Matthias. The temptation to use his connections became nearly irresistible. Part of her would do almost anything to escape her unloved workplace and chauvinistic boss, but the need to accomplish this on her own got the upper hand. Somehow she would turn things around, even if she really had no reason for optimism with regard to her personal life, which consisted only of phone conversations with her brother, or her job, where she was increasingly being shunted off onto a dead-end track, or her private investigation, in which no one believed. Self-pity washed over her, and she downed the rest of the wine and laid her head back. Somehow she would manage, she repeated like a mantra.
CHAPTER 2
Under the incredulous gaze of his wife, Dirk Richter stuffed some clean clothes in his duffel bag. She wrinkled her nose and surveyed his outfit. “You wear those pants in the yard, and the T-shirt stinks. There’s no way you can go to the office in that.”
He grinned. The last few days he had waited until he arrived at police headquarters to transform himself into an unemployed, gambling-addicted man in his midforties, so his wife’s reaction didn’t surprise him. “You forgot to mention that I could have washed my hair.”
“I would have mentioned that next, but I’ve just realized what this means. You’re working undercover. And this time it’s not as an accountant in a suit.”
“That’s right, and for that reason I was extra careful not to let any shampoo get too close to my hair after my jog with Mark. But wait until tonight with your questions. If all goes well, you’ll be able to read about our success on the Internet by then.” He interpreted his wife’s wrinkled brow correctly and gave her a brief hug. “Don’t be afraid. I have more backup than I need. Sven and some people from the MEK are going to make sure no one harms a hair on my head. Also, you know I can take care of myself.”
“So—this isn’t one of your solo jobs, and you’re not running amok with the SEALs. By the way, why is Mark in such a bad mood?”
He preferred this subject to the subject of today’s mission and therefore decided to answer the question honestly. “Because he has to stay home today working on office stuff and still doesn’t know what Daniel’s decided.”
“Aha. And what does your mission have to do with?”
So much for changing subjects. Dirk zipped the duffel bag. “It has to do with a group that gets people who are already down to take out loans and then deprives them of their last remnant of dignity because they can’t pay the exorbitant interest. After the mission I’ll take a shower at headquarters, and tonight you’ll no longer have a reason to complain.”
A door slammed on the floor above them. Seconds later the tousled blond hair of his son appeared over the railing. Shining brown eyes looked at him. “Hi, Daddy. I have to go pee. Don’t leave.” His wife ignored the lack of a greeting. “Put your gun away before Tim jumps on it.”
Dirk rolled his eyes before he attached the holster to his belt. “I’m standing right next to it. And Tim wouldn’t find it nearly as interesting if you didn’t forbid any contact with it so vehemently. Given my job it’s expected that he’s going to see me with it. Let me give him a reasonable explanation of it one time, and it won’t be an issue anymore.”
“And what comes next? He gets to fire your assault rifle?”
Any discussion of this topic when she was in this kind of mood would be a waste of time. Dirk said, “We’ll talk about it later.” Fortunately Tim raced down the stairs and threw himself into Dirk’s arms, ending the discussion.
Inspector Sven Klein, Dirk’s partner in the economic crime unit of the LKA (State Office of Criminal Investigation), raised his hand apologetically and lowered the window of his BMW. “That beer on your T-shirt stinks like hell.”
“You mean I should have drunk it? That would have really been too much to ask,” Dirk said, smiling.
Leo Dunkler, the leader of the Hamburg MEK (Mobile Task Force), leaned forward from the backseat and switched off the microphone on his headset. “My boys are in position. Do you want to drink a beer first to obscure our intentions, or should we move forward?”
“Very funny. The latter.” Dirk stowed his gun in the glove compartment, pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans, and checked the settings. “It should work now.” He stuck the smartphone back in his pocket and looked at his partner, who was already pressing his own cell phone against his ear. “Test?”
“You’re reaching me in stereo. Directly from the passenger seat but also clearly through the phone. When you’re in action, I’ll turn on the loudspeaker for the boys from the MEK.”
“And we’ll politely refrain from asking any questions about how Dirk’s phone can be used as a bug despite the fact that it looks like it’s turned off,” Leo said.
“Well, you have to have the right friends,” Dirk said with a wink. He was aware of the curiosity of the MEK officers and knew they would have very much liked to inquire about the rumors of cooperation with the Americans. Dirk was about to get out, but Sven held him back. “Don’t take any risks. Be careful, partner.”
Despite his suppressed tension, Dirk left with a careless wave. After just a few yards, he had adjusted his gait and posture to match his supposed background. Although he had walked this route for days, he hadn’t gotten used to the dilapidated area, which bordered on the Hamburg City South area with its stylish office buildings. He looked from the half-ruined shedlike buildings to a high-rise towering some distance away. There he had worked undercover for the LKA for the first time, together with an American accountant who had only later revealed that he was a SEAL and who was now one of Dirk’s closest friends. Thinking of Mark made him grin. If all went well, they would soon be able to celebrate another successful mission with a beer on the terrace. He was sure his performance as a down-on-his-luck former insurance agent would earn him some remarks from his friends.
The flickering neon sign for the gambling hall put him into character, and he concentrated on his role. Although Dirk looked around inconspicuously, he was unable to spot any of his colleagues from the MEK. He inwardly admonished himself; if he had been able to, it would have been best for the officers of the special unit to change careers.
After a last regretful look at Northern Germany’s for-once-cloudless sky, he pushed open the door and waited for his eyes to adjust to the murky light of the gambling hall. Only a single gambler was there, inserting coins into a machine with the repetitive movements of a robot. There was a blonde working behind the counter. He forced himself not to stare at the burgundy curtain that concealed a door to the back rooms. If their plan worked, he would find out who and what was behind it, and his visits to this dive would finally come to an end.
With uncertain steps, he walked up to the counter and fished two crumpled fifties out of his pocket. “Please change these and give me a Jever,” he said, avoiding the gaze of the woman in heavy makeup. He hoped he seemed shy and was concealing his disgust sufficiently. He couldn’t stop thinking about the interview with Hellwig, a teacher who had retired early and found enough courage to testify against the loan sharks. Hellwig had given a detailed description of the role the woman behind the counter had played.
She gave him a small bucket of coins and a bottle of beer with a paper cup over the neck. “You have a long month ahead of you. Wouldn’t you like to do something better with your money?” she asked with apparent concern, leaning over the counter to give him a closer look at her impressive cleavage.
Dirk stared at the bottle. “What were you thinking? Six months ago the branch manager at my bank was still greeting me by name and shaking my hand—this morning the ATM confiscated my
card.” He pointed at the coins. “That’s all I have for the rest of the month, but whatever. Today’s the day I hit the jackpot.”
It was easy for Dirk to recognize the appraising gaze behind the woman’s friendly facade; she looked at his jeans, which were dirty but displayed the label of an expensive brand, and at his watch, a Breitling diver’s watch he had been given by the US Navy to thank him for his participation in a dangerous mission.
“Don’t you have any savings?” she asked with feigned empathy. “Shouldn’t you be saving your money?”
As in the last few days, Dirk did not respond to the woman’s friendly speech. “Who needs money? My apartment’s paid for but empty. My wife took everything. Absolutely everything. No one believes it. But who cares?”
He felt her gaze following him as he turned away and, leaning heavily on a machine, let one coin after another disappear into the slot. When the machine occasionally spit out small payoffs, Dirk quietly cursed. Now it would take even longer before he was supposedly broke. Finally, all the coins from the small bucket had disappeared into the machine. With his head hung low, he slunk back to the counter. “Can I have another beer?”
“Do you have enough money?”
“I won’t for a while. At some point things will get better again. You’ll see. No one can always be this unlucky.”
“So what are you going to do the rest of the month? Still twenty days left.”
Nineteen, but it wouldn’t have matched his cover if he had corrected the woman. He shrugged and said nothing.
With an exaggerated sigh, the woman bent down and placed another bottle of beer on the counter. “I think I can help you, honey. You can call me Alicia. After all, we’re friends, right?”
Dirk managed to swallow the lukewarm beer and smiled. “What do you mean?”
She came out from behind the counter and patted his hand. “Give me a few minutes.”
Nemesis: Innocence Sold Page 2