Nemesis: Innocence Sold

by Ross, Stefanie

  “It’s not,” Stephan said, perching next to Daniel on the edge of the desk so he could look directly at Hannes. “I understand the last few months have worn you down quite a bit. It’s tough to carry out an undercover investigation of one’s own colleagues and superiors. It must be murderous to almost lose your partner, as well. For that reason, each of us more or less has sympathy for you. But your distrust must come to an end now. If personal relationships bother you, you’re in the wrong place here. Daniel’s one of my closest friends, but he’s not in charge here because of it but because he’s best suited to be. We can keep the two separate without difficulty.”

  Stephan gave Lars and Kat a sidelong glance that made it clear that their close relationship hadn’t escaped their boss before he once again turned to Hannes.

  “Of course, our composition is unusual, but then again it’s not very difficult to explain: Dirk and Sven officially work for the economic department, but often their investigations peripherally involve organized crime. Since we’re also friends, and the chief of police knows how well we work together, I usually provide personnel support if they need it. That means we have a short distance to travel and are usually pretty fast. Sven’s coordinating with the prosecutor’s office right now. You can’t get any more official than that. The only anomaly with us is that in cases of imminent danger we like to use unusual means. The involvement of the BKA was such a case. Our BKA colleague is a computer expert and has worked with us since this morning to crack the access to this catalog. I admit that it’s only thanks to his help that we are able to use this evidence officially. But let me ask you very directly, Hannes: If we have the opportunity to look at the e-mail account of this newspaper publisher to find out who wanted to have Sandra watched, should we refrain from doing so only to comply with the laws? Would it have been better to have waited for days for the result from our technicians—until they finally had time for Sandra’s computer or the photographer’s hard drive?”

  “No, of course not,” Hannes said.

  “We’re not going to do any more than this. As far as I’m concerned, you can go drink a cup of coffee in peace and think about what you want to do. Either you’re in . . . or out.”

  Volker unexpectedly barged in. “I’d prefer if you’d abandon your reservations. I have something here. If you insist, you can handcuff me yourself afterward because of the damned raid, but at the moment we need you. Even if I’d prefer to do without you. I’ve had enough of your annoying remarks.”

  Hannes managed a nod at Stephan and Daniel. Without addressing the topic further, he turned to Volker and spread his hands. “How have I helped you?”

  Volker joined them, carrying a sheet of paper with some recorded dates. After attempting to smooth out the crumpled paper, he tapped the first date. “Here I still thought it was a coincidence, but not when I had a total of four matches. On each of these dates, I was on an excursion to the grounds of the trucking company with Blumenthal, and on each of these dates, according to the files Hannes requested, a child disappeared. Each of these cases wasn’t investigated further but was closed with reference to family disputes or unclear circumstances. Since all the children have a so-called migratory background, nothing further happened with regard to these cases. It’s incredible.” Volker reached back and threw four photographs on the desk. “Take a look. Damned cute. I wouldn’t want to know what they’re going through now, if they’re still alive.”

  After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, there was a lively discussion between the two Lübeck policemen, in which Volker once again described in detail all the meetings on the trucking-company grounds. They were certain that after the boy’s kidnapping there would be another meeting in the near future, at the same time as before.

  Daniel listened in silence so as not to disturb the fragile truce between the two Lübeckers. He only nodded when they came to the conclusion that it must have to do with the transfer of money, papers, or other objects closely connected to the kidnapping.

  Daniel pushed himself away from the desk. “Can you exclude with absolute certainty that one of the children was nearby?”

  “Not with absolute certainty, because the all-terrain vehicle had tinted windows, but I don’t believe one of them was.”

  The prospect of encountering armed resistance in the large truck parking lot, of which it was difficult to maintain an overview, didn’t appeal to Daniel. The thought of leaving the kidnapped boy in the hands of the criminals a moment longer than necessary appealed to him much less. A direct approach was out. They could arrest the involved parties, with the exception of Blumenthal, without sufficient evidence, but they would have to release them after twenty-four hours, and Daniel had little hope that they would be able to get these guys to talk within that short time.

  “All right. We have just enough time to prepare ourselves for this possible meeting.”

  “It doesn’t sound as though you’re planning to arrest Blumenthal and the driver of the all-terrain vehicle,” Hannes said. “That clearly wouldn’t get us anywhere. What’s plan B?”

  Daniel liked the Lübeck policeman’s quick and accurate assessment, and despite his own reservations, he smiled. “Ask me in a few minutes. First I have to convince my boss to sacrifice his beloved motorcycle for us. Kat, come with me. I want to discuss this with you and Mark in peace. Stephan? You don’t need your office, do you?”

  “Make yourself at home. I’m just waiting for Sven. Whatever you’re planning, take Sven’s bike. It’s the oldest.” Stephan bent down to Daniel and whispered. “And it could increase your chances of surviving. Mark will kill you if you dismantle his Yamaha. I’d miss you.”

  Smiling, Daniel punched his friend in the side. Although his plan was in its beginning stages, his mood had improved. Improvising was part of their job, and the fate of the boy was motivation enough for everyone to give their best.

  Kat was already on her way to Stephan’s office when Lars turned to Daniel. “What can my partner do that I can’t? You don’t need a sniper, do you?”

  “No. I was thinking more of her abilities as a former rally driver.”

  Lars’s eyes widened. “Anything but that. She drives like a maniac, and that’s putting it mildly. If you encourage her now, I’m going to have to suffer for months because of it.”

  Sandra nudged him and smiled. “I’ll tell her that.”

  “Damn . . .” Lars raised his hands in resignation. “I bow to superior numbers. Come on, Sandra, we’ll leave these two to their cops-and-robbers and take a look at this luxury private school. It’d be ridiculous if we couldn’t find the connection to Mr. X. It has to be there.”

  CHAPTER 28

  During the drive from police headquarters in Hamburg to Lübeck, Sven had been mostly silent, confining himself to providing only necessary information.

  Stephan gave him an appraising sidelong look, but it got him nowhere. According to the satnav’s display, they would reach their goal, a community garden in which gardeners worked, and sometimes lived on, their own allotments, within the next fifteen minutes. It was time to bring the brooding to an end.

  “What’s with you?”

  Sven only shrugged.

  “OK, so we’re a step further and are going to arrive on time for Daniel’s showdown near the trucking company. That’s not it, is it?”

  “No.”

  “You got the second guy from the moor to talk. Even if the contact with the great unknown man was through the Internet, we’ve gotten further there, too. It’s a question of time before we run across the name, but I’m not telling you anything new there, right?”

  “No.”

  Irritated, Stephan gave up. “Out with it.”

  With a recognizable hint of guilty conscience, Sven turned to Stephan. “I’m sorry, I should have said it a long time ago. Instead, I’ve been thinking the entire time about how it fits into the overall picture. Dirk called. They were successful and have worked their way through a pile of e-mails from that
newspaper bozo. He had deleted them, but in such a way that one could easily retrieve them. The wish to know more about Sandra came from Friedrichsen—and with that our area of influence ends.”

  Stephan needed a few seconds to recognize the name. “Just a second. Not Wilhelm Friedrichsen?” The notion that the former top-level German politician, who had to be around eighty years old at this point but was still active as a consultant and lecturer, could be involved in the selling of children was surreal.

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “Shit. He’s the only politician of the last few decades I actually admired. I have his books at home and have even read them. This can’t be right.”

  “Unfortunately, it is. Aside from the fact that he’s still surrounded by a pack of bodyguards and has a schedule that’s probably busier than the federal president, he’s simply a league too high for us. Tannhäuser’s going to see if he can do anything. Apparently, they know each other. It’s not surprising—real Hamburg old boys’ network.”

  “So—wait and see. Damn—but it’s all right you didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t have had anything to say, either.” Stephan looked at the road signs and noted with satisfaction that the signs and his navigation system indicated the same direction. “How’s Dirk handling it?”

  Sven was silent for such a long time that Stephan no longer expected an answer. “Outwardly he has a grip on himself, but inside he’s boiling. I understand him. This morning my son wanted to shower with me, and I let my wife dry him off because . . .”

  Stephan waved this aside. “I know what you mean. I accidentally held Hope so tightly that Shara took her from me. This kind of crime triggers something in all of us. I thought I was over it, but it would be a pleasure to shoot the man responsible for this shit and only inform him of his rights afterward.”

  Sven smiled and indicated a sign. “Up there on the right. Nice idea, Stephan; I see it similarly, but just make sure our prosecutor doesn’t find out about what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m not insane. Besides, those are just fantasies; in the end it’s surely much worse for the guy to have to spend years behind bars. And if a deal gets worked out that I don’t like, I’m going to give some serious thought to handing some inmates a tip.”

  “If I haven’t taken care of that already.”

  Stephan stopped the Mercedes in the sandy parking lot. No further agreement between them was necessary. Child molesters were at the very bottom of the prison hierarchy, and their crimes were often not made public for good reason. But this case was different. They both knew a way or two to spread targeted rumors, and if necessary they would exploit these channels.

  With a mixture of curiosity and condescension, Stephan surveyed the allotment-garden club’s area. Röhrich’s assistant had described the route to his boss’s allotment in detail, but he still had difficulty imagining the Lübeck officer in such an environment. “Well, I don’t know—this wouldn’t be anything for me. All you need’s a garden gnome to perfect the leafy idyll.”

  “Ditto. Come on, let’s get this over with. Backup for Daniel’s crazy plan seems more important than this conversation.”

  “Crazy?” Stephan asked. “With any luck, you’ll get a new motorcycle out of it.” Stephan changed the subject. “Row nineteen, section A. We should be able to find it.”

  On their way to the allotment, they received a number of curious looks, but Stephan appreciated the reticence and had to admit that the individual allotments were lovingly arranged and well cared for. He smiled and pointed to an area to the right of them where a garden gnome greeted visitors with his pants down and his bottom bare. “I’ve changed my mind about garden gnomes; I’d like to have that one.”

  “And what about that one?”

  Beside the garden gate that interrupted the perfectly trimmed hedge stood a gnome with a cowboy hat and an oversized revolver in his belt. “No, I really don’t think so.” Stephan’s gaze flashed to the number on the gate. “Nineteen? You have reached your goal,” Stephan said in a perfect imitation of his navigation system.

  “It looks that way. I suppose there would be no point in knocking.” Sven pushed the gate open and walked quickly toward the wooden house, which was the size of a small bungalow. He raised a hand to knock and stopped. “Oh, shit,” he whispered.

  At the same time, Stephan, too, heard hoarse groaning. He reached for the doorknob, but Sven stopped him. “Don’t. Look. On the frame.”

  Sven had been considerably faster and more attentive and had probably saved their lives. He looked first at the outer blinds covering two windows and then at the barely visible wire at the height of the doorknob. “Just a second.”

  Sven ran off and was back in a few seconds. “No second door. There’s another window in the back, but we won’t get in that way, either.”

  Stephan pushed him aside. “Get away. Twenty-yard safety distance. At least.”

  “No way. I hope Doc’s as good a tutor as he is a doctor.” Sven held out his pocketknife.

  Stephan smiled and cautiously tested the tension of the wire. Daniel had taught him the basics of disarming bombs. An excerpt from his friend’s theoretical lectures came to mind. According to this excerpt, people who planted bombs were creatures of habit. That would mean the explosive mechanism should be identical to the one in the clearing in the forest. Theoretically. They had neither the proper equipment nor time; the groaning from inside the garden house was becoming weaker every second. When he was relatively sure there were no further contact traps attached to the door, he carefully removed the wire, maintaining its tension with his hand. Only when he was sure that he could safely open the door did he give Sven a sign.

  “Theoretically, that was it.”

  “Theoretically?” Sven asked.

  “I’m still looking for a volunteer to test my theory. The wire can’t break.” Stephan bent down and laid the loosened piece on the ground.

  “Understood.” Without hesitating, Sven pushed the door open and jumped into the hut, service pistol drawn. “Röhrich’s unconscious, head injury; ambulance, immediately,” he shouted to Stephan, who nodded, despite the fact that Sven could hardly see this, and was already dialing emergency services on his cell phone. While he gave his status report, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and was simply thankful his rudimentary knowledge had been sufficient. In the future, he would leave disarming bombs to Daniel. He looked at the fist-sized lump attached to the end of a bottle of propane and decided not to get too close. He would leave the complete disarming to the experts.

  While Sven administered first aid to the Lübeck policeman lying on the floor, Stephan looked around the interior of the garden house. The large room appeared to serve both as a dining room and a bedroom. A kitchenette separated from the rest of the room by a kind of counter had been cleverly integrated. Otherwise there was only one other door. Although the matter was actually clear, owing to the booby trap, Stephan checked the small but comfortable bathroom. As he had expected, it was empty. An opened box of tablets on the shelf over the sink didn’t fit in with the general orderliness. He knew the name of the medication, an antidepressant that was only prescribed in extreme cases and had a high black market value.

  He returned to Sven. “How does it look?”

  “Pulse and breathing stable. Some scratches and bruises—typical self-defense injuries, if you ask me—and also a wound on the back of the head. Could be two. More than that, I can’t say.”

  Stephan looked at a chair that had been knocked over and a newspaper lying on the floor. “I assume there was a struggle and he struck the counter.”

  “Good deduction. Do you know who the attacker was?”

  “His boss? And when the thing escalated, he called in the guy who knows about explosives to help him,” Stephan suggested. “A kind of suicide scenario? With the option of calling it an accident? The bottle belongs in the kitchen, no doubt.”

  “That’s all very possible. Tannhäuser should arrange for Kiel to take
on Killinger and for proper personal protection for Röhrich.”

  Röhrich’s eyelids fluttered, and he came to, groaning. He looked around, disoriented, before his memory returned and panic overwhelmed him. “No . . . ,” he said.

  Sven laid a calming hand on his shoulder. “You’re safe. A doctor will be here any second. Who was it?”

  Only now did the injured policeman appear to recognize Sven. “You?” Then his eyes widened in panic. “There are explosives.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ve disarmed them. Who was it?”

  “Killinger. Envelope. Marianna . . .” He groaned, broke off, and closed his eyes.

  “We’ll take care of that bastard,” Sven said. The officer was already unconscious again.

  Stephan turned his head to the side. “Sirens. I’ll fill our colleagues in and try to find out whether we’ll find this Marianna here.”

  “Do that, but watch out. It’d fit these bastards to wait around for the big bang. If it doesn’t come, things may get unpleasant.”

  At first Stephan was inclined to shrug the warning off; then he had second thoughts. Sven’s intuition had shown them the right path often enough. “I’m ready for that and in exactly the right mood for a meeting with one of those treacherous sons of bitches.”

  Less than fifteen minutes later, Röhrich’s allotment was crawling with activity. While the paramedics carried out their tasks in practiced fashion, the police were puzzled as Sven provided only the most necessary information. Stephan caught that the emergency doctor had identified a serious concussion but no life-threatening injuries and turned to the numerous onlookers.

  He caught sight of a woman who stuck out from the crowd of curious gardeners not only because of her colorful fringed skirt and bright yellow blouse but also because she was engaged in a bitter battle of words with a uniformed policeman. When it looked like the lady, who was in her fifties, was going to attack the officer, Stephan hurried over.