Nemesis: Innocence Sold

by Ross, Stefanie

  After a short time, the only people left between Sandra and the woman at the computer were a tall blond man with strikingly tanned skin and a teenager with an orange punk hairstyle, who was holding a light-blue teddy bear bearing the word Welcome and probably wanted to go to the obstetrics unit.

  She stopped speculating about whether the boy with the teddy bear could be the father of the newborn and how his outfit with its black leather and chains fit with the cuddly stuffed animal when the lady gruffly rejected the blond man’s inquiry. The blond man didn’t give up and showed her an identification card. Sandra immediately recognized the credit card–sized format. Ignoring the punk’s outraged look, she stepped closer to the counter and saw the emblem of Schleswig-Holstein but was still too far away to make out the name. Straining her ears, she listened to the quiet conversation and caught the name Mario Berger.

  Wearing a significantly more reconciled expression, the hospital employee typed on her keyboard again. Her smile, which had been friendly up to this point, took on a masklike aspect. It took a considerable time before she looked at the blond man again and told him something in a hush.

  His healthy color changed to paper white. Without another word, he stepped aside. Aimlessly, he walked a few steps toward a bakery in the medical center’s entrance area before he came to a stop, failing to notice that he was blocking the path of a man with crutches.

  The punk had received the desired information, and it was Sandra’s turn. With a grim look, she kept the gentleman behind her at a distance and pointed at a sign demanding discretion. “I have only one question. The blond gentleman who just asked about Mr. Berger—was his name Hannes Wartberg?”

  Before the lady could react, Sandra held out her police identification card and tapped the emblem of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg. “Up to now, we have only worked together over the phone and through the Internet. It’d be pretty embarrassing if I was trying to console the wrong colleague.”

  “That’s really tragic. Yes, that was the name on his ID. My condolences for the death of your colleague.”

  The honest sympathy caused Sandra to feel guilty about her deception, and she forced a smile. “Thank you.”

  Wartberg was still standing in the midst of the throng of students and patients. It was very tempting to burst out with the truth, but that would not only be dumb but also extremely irresponsible. The danger that the entrance area was being watched by their enemies was too great.

  Sandra had to address him three times before he noticed her. “We need to talk,” she said, showing him her identification.

  Wartberg nodded. Rage replaced his stupor. “How could this happen? Last night, they said he was out of the woods. The lady over there indicated that there had been an incident. She said I should speak to the ward physician regarding the details. I don’t understand.”

  “Come with me.” Wartberg didn’t react. When Sandra repeated her demand, he drew his blond eyebrows together. Then she grabbed his arm. “You have questions? Good; I have answers. But not here. Come on.”

  This time, he went with her. With mechanical movements he followed her to the forecourt of the medical center. Among the waiting taxis sat Dirk’s Audi and Daniel’s Mercedes. Neither of the two was paying any attention to the taxi drivers’ evil looks and unambiguous gestures.

  Sven whistled through his teeth in greeting after Sandra’s quick explanation. “That saves us time. Were you planning on doing anything in particular, Daniel? If not, I’d like to borrow Sandra for the upcoming questioning.”

  Dirk yawned and leaned against the Audi. “You can forget about me for the next couple hours. Michael’s gotten in touch by text. We’re going to pay a visit to his main client.”

  Daniel sighed. “There aren’t a lot of possibilities left. I’ll grab our new comrade and take a look at the documents Berger mentioned with Kat and Lars. Maybe we’ll find a clue. Have any of you had a look at that gangster wannabe from yesterday? A cross-check might give us something.”

  “You’ve gotten it all through e-mail,” Dirk said with another yawn.

  Wartberg had been listening to them in silence; now the rage he had held in check exploded. “Who do you think you are? I want to know how a colleague of mine just died. I don’t know you, and I have no idea what documents you mean, but I’m not going anywhere. You can’t tell me what to do. Is that clear?”

  Sven put his hand through his hair. “This is the wrong place for lengthy explanations. Too many interested listeners. If it’s not enough for you that Berger trusted us, I can call Dr. Eisenberg to ensure your support. Aside from that, I have the right to give you instructions in cases of imminent danger. And I’m doing so: get in the Mercedes! You’ll get details from my colleague. Sandra, say good-bye to Daniel. We have to go.”

  “If we’re going to meet at headquarters, I can just ride with Daniel. It’s not going to take that long to collect our colleagues’ documents,” Sandra said. She didn’t care for Sven’s look. “Kat and Lars are not particularly familiar with the material; I want to use the ride to speak to Wartberg. Man, cut out the stupid innuendos; I can keep my job and private life separate.” Annoyed, she turned away and practically threw herself onto the passenger seat of the Mercedes. Damn it, she regretted the outburst. Although a casual tone was usual among them, Sven was a number of steps above her in the hierarchy, and one didn’t speak to superiors like that. The slight pressure behind her temple increased to a painful pounding—the last thing she needed. With her eyelids closed, she tried to relax her stiff neck. Someone got in the car. She knew it was Daniel and sensed his disapproving look. When she opened her eyes a crack, she saw that she had been mistaken. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for and unprofessional; it won’t happen again, boss,” she said with a tortured smile.

  “I’d say he deserved it to some extent. Lean forward some.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it. Keep your shoulders loose. Sven and Wartberg will be done any minute. I want to make good use of the time until then.”

  Curious, Sandra obeyed, although she couldn’t imagine what Daniel was planning. He stroked her neck with a featherlight touch; then, he began exerting strong pressure. A brief pain was replaced by pleasant warmth. Her muscles and sinews seemed to move into their correct positions; the tension in her neck disappeared along with the pounding behind her temple.

  “Better?”

  How were men able to express in a single word a mixture of self-satisfaction, concern, and understanding? “Yes. The headache’s as good as gone. How did you know that?”

  “I’m a doctor. If the pain comes back, I’ll give you ibuprofen. That’s best for headaches, but it’ll probably be enough if we tell Wartberg about the real circumstances of Berger’s passing, don’t you think?”

  “Is it that easy to see through me?”

  Daniel smiled. Sighing, Sandra was about to respond when the rear car door was yanked open. Wartberg appeared to be boiling with rage as he dropped onto the backseat. “The instructions from the inspector were clear. What happens now? Tell me. I’ll jump.”

  Sandra took a deep breath and ignored his aggressive tone. It was bad enough that Daniel looked as though he might explode any second; that wouldn’t get them anywhere.

  “Do you have a car here?” she asked, controlling herself.

  “No, I’m on foot. I live around the corner. Why?”

  “I would have ridden with you. Please calm down. Normally, a special task force of ten or twenty men would be working a case like this. We’re far fewer than that and have been working day and night.”

  “My sympathy knows no bounds. Are you sure you spend your nights on police matters?”

  This uncouth remark, which was obviously a consequence of Sven’s earlier words, was the last straw for Sandra. She turned around and said, “For your information, Mr. Wartberg, my partner was on duty for almost twenty-four hours without a break, until the early hours of the morning. He was engaged in a firefight and operated i
n an environment you wouldn’t dare to enter in broad daylight. I swear to you: one more inappropriate comment and you’re going to see what I’m really like! You want to help your partner? Then act like it.”

  Wartberg seemed to shrink in front of her eyes. He cleared his throat several times and avoided Sandra’s gaze. “You can drive to Hamburg. I’ll get back somehow.” He took out a USB stick from his jacket pocket. “Everything’s on here.”

  After a last look, Sandra turned back around and put on her seat belt. They left the medical center and drove past the federal police training grounds where Sandra had gotten to know the impressive firing range the previous day.

  “There are some places I’d rather be right now,” she said.

  “Same here.” Daniel held out his cell phone. “Call Dirk and tell him we’re driving the same way. He should make sure no one’s following us.”

  “Do you see anyone?”

  “Impossible to say. This is the fastest way to get to the autobahn. Two cars left the medical center after us. One’s directly behind us.”

  After the brief phone conversation with Dirk, Sandra let Wartberg in on their investigation, leaving out the activities of the SEALs. If he was still angry, he gave no sign of this and asked sensible questions; Sandra was unable to answer these.

  He exhaled. “Now I understand what you meant. Though we have a lot of material, we’re completely unable to tie it all together. The only chance is to lay out all the pieces next to each other. The connections must be there, and we just have to find them.”

  “That’s exactly what we intend to do. Then we have the interrogations and the conversation with Weinreich. Tonight we’ll surely gain some ground,” Sandra said.

  They had finally reached the A20. Daniel accelerated and passed Dirk’s Audi. Close together, the two vehicles raced along the autobahn, ignoring the speed limit. Daniel’s cell phone vibrated in Sandra’s hand: a call from Dirk’s phone, but Sven was on the line. “Everything’s clean. You can give him the happy news.”

  Wartberg gave her the perfect segue. “Now that we’ve cleared up that part, will you finally tell me how Mario died?”

  Sandra began with Pat’s call the previous day and his amazement at the fact that no personal protection had been arranged.

  “That’s just unbelievable,” Wartberg said, and again his rage broke loose.

  “That’s what we thought, too, and we took on the personal protection ourselves.”

  “Unsuccessfully, unfortunately,” Wartberg said with regret.

  “That depends on how one sees it. A friend of ours was injured in the course of the attack but managed to overcome three attackers and save Berger’s life. Officially, your partner died as a consequence. The doctors identified the cause as a stress-related symptom as a result of the attack.”

  “Officially?” Wartberg asked in a brittle voice.

  “The attackers had help from within the medical center. We could no longer guarantee his safety there. I’m sorry we couldn’t let you in on this, but deception was necessary. Berger’s safety was an absolute priority.”

  When Wartberg remained silent, Sandra resisted the temptation to turn around. The car didn’t offer much of a private sphere, but she wanted at least to give him a few minutes to process his feelings.

  Wartberg’s words surprised her. “It makes no sense. I hope we can make progress together.”

  His teeth were clenched so hard that his jaw muscles ached, but he couldn’t turn his gaze away from the photo. He refused to think about why the sight of the blond American wouldn’t let him go. He had devoted only a brief glance to the information regarding the other men who thought they could take him on. They were of no interest to him and would soon discover that it had been a mistake to challenge him. In the case of this American there was something different, though he couldn’t, or rather didn’t want to, figure out why. He ignored the internal voice he didn’t want to admit was right in saying that the youthful laugh and unfettered joy in life attracted him. All his life he had succeeded in controlling this part of his personality with an iron will; nothing about that would change. To a controlled extent, he allowed himself the rewards he had earned, but this was something different.

  It was a pure stroke of luck that Reher’s driver had decided to follow the blond man for some yards and that, disguised as a tourist, he had managed to take some pictures of the little group that had enjoyed their Italian meal in high spirits. In this way the cowardly fellow had somewhat made up for his failure to help Reher and had avoided punishment for the time being.

  The blond man’s nerves were admirably steady. Less than an hour before, he had taken on Reher, truly no easy man to beat. Nothing of the danger he had confronted showed in his laugh. Not the slightest tension was evident in any of the photos, only obvious pleasure in the food and the company.

  “Daniel Eddings.” He spoke the name like a caress. Rage at his weakness extinguished any other feeling. “I’m looking forward to our encounter. You’ll have no reason to laugh when I’m finished with you,” he said to the photo.

  He forced himself to calm down until his pulse was once again within the normal range, and then he analyzed why he had reacted so violently to the American. Treasury? No chance. He agreed with his contact person at the LKA in Lübeck: Eddings belonged to the FBI or a similar organization. No accountant or tax expert would have dispatched Reher so easily. The information from the clinic suggested that Eddings had extensive medical knowledge. Despite his youthful appearance, the American possessed abilities that demanded his respect.

  With his eyes closed, he leaned far back in his desk chair. His gaze fell on the picture in the silvery, shining frame that harmonized perfectly with the color of his flat-screen monitor. His wife and two children. That was real life; his skill in business had earned him the respect of his father, who would never discover that one pillar of his son’s success stood on an unusual foundation.

  With a gesture of contempt, he swept the printouts containing information on Sven Klein and Dirk Richter into a large pile. Economic crime unit? They were nothing more than an annoyance.

  A fly circled him and landed on the edge of his espresso. He patiently waited until the insect was moving across the surface of the desk. With a well-directed blow, he killed the pest. The thought of doing the same to Richter and Klein appealed to him. The two would come to realize that there are boundaries you don’t cross. Eddings and his little girlfriend were a different matter, worthy of his personal attention. Afterward his thoughts would no longer circle around the American. He could depend on the silence of Weinreich and the two spoiled brats and also on Reher keeping his mouth shut. There were, then, no unsolved problems.

  A knock at the door. Then the door flew open, and his two wild blond rascals raced toward him. Smiling, he bent down and pulled his daughter and son onto his lap.

  “We’ll take the interrogation room off our corridor,” Sven said.

  “And how do you imagine proceeding?” Damn, that sounded too aggressive. “I just mean whether I should follow along from the room next door,” Sandra said.

  Sven smiled and loosened up, as he held the glass door open for her. “You’re going to be there. The room’s all the way at the back, past Dirk’s office.” When Sandra raised an eyebrow at the sight of the uniformed colleague who had taken up a position there, Sven smiled. “Now don’t tell me you expected this.” “I’d never dare criticize you, honored Inspector. Who are you going to start with?”

  “Then Daniel’s teaching methods do work?” Sven looked serious again, too soon for Sandra’s taste. “We don’t have a lot to choose from. Frank, a colleague, has taken on the others. As expected, they didn’t have much to say. Pros through and through. They gave up what they knew in order to get the prosecutor’s office to tread lightly on their cases. For them, this was a job like any other. All of them have a military background and are working as mercenary wannabes. They couldn’t think of anything about their client.
Everything was arranged through a middleman, known only by a first name. Continuing to ask about this will be unproductive. The only interesting thing was their mission: in addition to the obvious, they were supposed to make sure nothing happened to Daddy’s sons.”

  To Sandra it was obvious Sven already had a suspicion he was following up on, but what was equally obvious was that he didn’t want to talk about it. A few days ago, she would have insisted or been annoyed by his reticence; now she was silent.

  Once again, he seemed to see through her and winked. “And? How’s the mood?” Sven asked the policeman.

  “Our mood or the man in there?” he said. “I could use a coffee, and the curtain’s coming down in there. First arrogant, then enraged, now calm. Sixty minutes of insecurity and boredom probably don’t appeal to the gentleman.”

  “Sven?” The shout came from the other end of the hall. A colleague hurried toward them. “Change of plans: Tannhäuser wants to see you—immediately. He’s already called back Dirk, too.”

  “Shit. I was afraid of that. I switched off my phone for exactly this reason. Can’t you just say you didn’t see me?”

  “Forget it. Little Walter’s already thought of that and threatened to pick you up herself.”

  “Shit,” Sven said, embroidering the curse with some interesting details in English. For a moment he hesitated. “Sandra, this is Frank Placiesky, who’s something like my reluctant secretary. He’s the one who’s been nice enough to take on the other guys from the moor. Frank, Sandra Meinke. She actually works for Stephan, but she’s helping us with the thing with Tim.”

  Rumors spread through police headquarters at light speed, so Sandra wasn’t surprised her uniformed colleague was putting his oar in. “Is the guy in that room involved in the thing with Tim?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Sven said. “And please do me a favor and don’t let anyone go in there, period. He needs to continue to stew.”