McGrave

by Lee Goldberg

  "This is my ex-husband, Karl," Maria says, then gestures to McGrave. "This is John McGrave, a detective from America."

  "Isn't that my shirt?" Karl says.

  Maria ignores him and turns to Erich. "What happened? All they told me was that you were in a fight with another boy."

  Karl speaks up before his son can. "It was a shocking act of violence and depravity."

  McGrave glances at Erich. There isn't a scratch or bruise on him. "He looks like he came out okay."

  "He's been expelled for a week," Karl says. "That is hardly 'okay.'"

  McGrave nods. "What's Axel look like?"

  Erich breaks into a big, proud grin, but before he can speak, Karl answers for him again. "Erich broke the boy's arm."

  Maria gasps.

  McGrave smiles, which is all the encouragement Erich needs.

  "It was great," Erich says in an excited rush, eager to share the experience. "He swung at me and I took him completely by surprise, just like you showed me."

  Karl glowers at Maria. "Congratulations, you've turned our son into a sociopath."

  Maria isn't any happier about this than Karl is. She turns to McGrave and crosses her arms under her chest, mostly so she won't be tempted to hit him.

  "You taught Erich how to break someone's arm?"

  "I showed him how to defend himself," McGrave says, and glances at Karl. "It's about time somebody did."

  Karl shakes his head and looks at Maria. "What were you thinking, bringing this caveman into your bed?"

  "I'm not sleeping with him," Maria says.

  "He's just wearing my clothes and teaching my son how to kill," Karl says. "I'm sure the judge will find your promiscuity and choice of men very interesting. I just hope it's not too late to save my son."

  "Oh, stop being so melodramatic," Maria says.

  Karl gives his son a hug and stands up. "I will see you soon. Be strong."

  "He is now," McGrave says. "No thanks to you."

  "Shut up, McGrave," Maria says.

  Karl walks away. Maria turns to Erich.

  "Stay here." She pulls McGrave aside, out of Erich's earshot, and then lays into him. "Do you realize what you've done?"

  "You don't have to thank me. Just seeing the confidence and pride on Erich's face is enough."

  "You may have just cost me custody of my son," Maria said.

  "Erich was being bullied by Axel for weeks. Axel had this coming. You should be happy your son defended himself."

  "I'll tell you what's going to make me happy," she says. "Putting you on the next flight to Los Angeles. It leaves in two hours, and you're on it."

  "Not without Richter," McGrave says.

  "Yes, you are. I know all about you, Tidal Wave. I talked to your captain today."

  McGrave winces. "That was the call you got in Mitte this afternoon. You needed privacy because you were speaking in English and didn't want me to hear you."

  "That's right. I know you're not a cop anymore. You're a fraud."

  "If you knew, why didn't you say anything to Duke?"

  "Because I'm a fool. I was going to let you stay one more night to see Richter get caught."

  "You still can," McGrave says.

  "Not now, not after this," she says. "I'm taking you to the airport or I am taking you to jail. It's up to you."

  McGrave is fucked.

  It's almost nightfall. Torsten and Heinrich are in the same panel van that was parked outside of Der Reizvolle. The images on the two monitors are divided into quarters so the detectives can simultaneously watch views of the street, the tunnels, and several angles on the auction house.

  "It smells disgusting in here," Torsten says.

  "The surveillance went on for weeks and this is a tiny space," Heinrich says apologetically. "And we had a little accident with the Porta-Potty."

  "What kind of accident?"

  "It might have spilled."

  "It might have or it did?"

  Before Heinrich can answer, a report comes in over the radio from one of the observers.

  "This is Unit Two. We've got something. The construction site on the northeast corner."

  Torsten taps Heinrich on the shoulder. "Show me."

  Heinrich hits a button and a feed comes up full screen on one of the monitors.

  What they see is an enormous pit that has been excavated and reinforced for what will be an office building's foundation and underground garage.

  The construction site is closed.

  A van drives up to the locked gate.

  A man dressed in black, his back to the camera, gets out of the van with a pair of bolt cutters and snaps the chain securing the gate. He holds the gate open and the van drives in, parking under one of the big, blue elevated water pipes that snakes out from the site, across the street, and down to the Spree.

  Four men dressed in black, wearing balaclavas over their heads and carrying large gym bags, get out of the van and make their way down into the enormous pit.

  Torsten picks up the mike. "Attention, all units. The robbery is in progress. Hold your positions." He turns to Heinrich. "Where are Vogt and McGrave?"

  They are in Maria's Passat on a busy boulevard, headed towards Berlin-Tegel Airport. Maria is driving, resolute in her mission. McGrave sits beside her, pissed off but helpless. Erich is in the backseat, sitting in the middle so he can see them both.

  "You can't make him go, Mom," Erich says.

  "Watch me," she says.

  "But I broke Axel's arm, not McGrave. Send me to America," Erich says. "Disney World, for instance."

  Her cell phone rings. She answers it and begins carrying on a conversation in German. McGrave's name is mentioned. He looks over his shoulder at Erich.

  "What's she saying?" McGrave asks.

  "She's says you can't participate in the operation. Something urgent came up."

  "What could be more urgent than catching Richter?"

  Erich listens to his mother talk, then: "She says you have food poisoning. You can't stop vomiting."

  Maria ends the call and wedges her phone into the ashtray. McGrave looks at her.

  "It's happening, isn't it?" he says.

  "You were right, McGrave. It's tonight. Richter has walked into a trap and he doesn't even know it. We got lucky."

  "And I'm missing it," McGrave says.

  "We'll send you a postcard."

  On a rooftop in Mitte, a cop wearing a headphone mike aims a camera at the auction house across the street. It's the kind of camera that picks up heat signatures.

  Torsten's voice comes through the cop's earpiece. "Are they inside?"

  The cop looks at the tiny screen on the camera and sees an X-ray-like image of the auction house and the distinct red silhouettes of four men climbing up through the floor.

  "They're in," the cop says.

  Heinrich is on his hands and knees in the van, scrubbing the floor with a rag and cleanser. Torsten is at the console, leaning into the mike.

  "All units, hold your positions. No one moves until I say so."

  Maria and McGrave aren't moving, either. Their car is stuck in traffic, right beside a billboard advertising the Fabergй egg exhibit.

  Which is in Mitte.

  Where all the action is happening.

  Without him.

  It's salt in the wound.

  Actually, it's more like ground glass, battery acid, and gasoline in the wound.

  McGrave drums his fingers on the armrest.

  Maria looks at him. "Would you please stop that?"

  "I was lost here. I've never been to Berlin and I don't speak German. But I outflanked Richter anyway."

  "You had a little help," she says.

  "You're right, I did. You picked up rumors about someone looking for tunnelers and alarm pros. You found unique dirt particles that led us to a specific

  neighborhood. And I stumbled on an auction of Egyptian toilets, just like the ones Richter was trying to steal in LA."

  "Toilets?" Erich
says, a note of disappointment in his voice. "You're chasing a guy who steals toilets? What kind of supercriminal is that?"

  "It all fell together so easily," McGrave says.

  Maria shrugs. "Sometimes it does."

  "It never does," he says.

  "It does when you work with a skilled team, in a precise and thoughtful manner, rather than charging into the streets on your own. You hate that you needed help."

  "That's not it."

  "And now you're furious because Richter is going to be arrested in the middle of his robbery and you'll be somewhere over the Atlantic when it happens."

  "I'm not going to be there," he says. He looks out the window again at the billboard.

  "That's right," Maria says, as if reprimanding a child. "I hope you've learned a lesson from this."

  "You see that egg?" He gestures to the billboard. "Where is that exhibit?"

  "It's in a private museum created to show off the art collection of Matthias Balz, the international real estate tycoon," she says. "It's in a renovated air-raid bunker built by the Nazis to evacuate travelers from Friedrichstrasse train station."

  "Where's that in relation to the robbery that's going down?"

  "A few blocks away," she says.

  McGrave sits up straight in his seat. "And we aren't there."

  "Stop whining, McGrave," she says. "It's childish."

  "What I'm saying is that we aren't there." McGrave points to the billboard. "That's where Richter really is, stealing the Fabergй eggs and God knows what else. We were set up."

  "Oh really?" she says. "Then who is robbing the auction house right now?"

  "Whoever they are, they have been set up by Richter, too. It's all a distraction from the real robbery."

  Maria shakes her head. "You're reaching. You're just desperate to stay off that plane."

  "Maybe I am. But what if I'm right? You have nothing to lose by checking it out," he says. "If I am wrong, I promise I will take the next flight."

  "You're like a child who doesn't want to go to bed."

  "You have to help him, Mom," Erich says.

  "Why should I?" Maria says. "Thanks to him, you're expelled and the judge is going to say I'm responsible for it. I could lose you."

  "You'll never lose me."

  Maria looks in her rearview mirror at her son. He looks right back at her.

  "He helped me, Mom, even if you don't think so," Erich says. "You may not owe him anything, but I do."

  Maria knows she's going to regret this, but…

  "Don't ever tell your dad about this."

  She makes a sharp U-turn over the grassy median and veers across the path of oncoming traffic, causing a dozen cars to come to a screeching, rubber-ripping stop to avoid collisions.

  And then she floors it, weaving around the cars ahead and speeding towards the center of Berlin.

  Erich lets out a cheer.

  Maria has just become the coolest mother ever.

  The Fabergй Egg

  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (and because it's compiled, fact-checked, and updated strictly by anybody with an Internet connection, it is the most detailed and reliable source of all human knowledge)

  A Fabergй egg is any one of the thousands of jeweled eggs made by the House of Fabergй from 1885 to 1917. The most famous eggs were the larger ones made for Alexander III and Nicholas II of Russia; these are often referred to as the "Imperial" Fabergй eggs. Of the fifty made, forty-two have survived. All of the eggs are made of precious metals or hard stones decorated with enamel and gems. The Fabergй eggs have become the ultimate symbol of luxury and are considered masterpieces.

  Stefan leads the elite assault team that is standing around in an empty storefront in their heavy assault gear with their assault weapons, all anxiously waiting for the go-ahead to assault.

  Torsten's voice suddenly crackles in Stefan's earpiece.

  "The robbers are leaving the auction house. Take position around the construction site and be ready to apprehend them as they emerge from the pit."

  Stefan takes out his badge and drapes it on a chain around his neck, McGrave-style, so it hangs over his Kevlar vest.

  He looks cool and he knows it. If only there was someone around to take a picture.

  Stefan alerts his team with a few tactical hand signals, which he's been practicing with his girlfriend for months while shopping at the enormous and crowded KaDeWe, and they move out the door with professional resolve and military precision.

  ####

  The five-story air-raid bunker that houses the Balz Collection is a monstrous symmetrical block of exposed reinforced concrete, its six-foot-thick walls and narrow window slits still showing the pockmarks and chips left by bullets and artillery fire during World War II.

  It was later used by the GDR as a massive storage bin for imported Cuban fruits and vegetables set aside for the consumption of the government elite. After the Berlin Wall fell, the fortress-like bunker became an enormous, and extremely hard-core, techno-fetish club, which is how Matthias Balz discovered it (and a lasting appreciation for the erotic possibilities of neoprene).

  It wasn't until the early 2000s, after the club had died, that Balz bought the empty bunker and renovated it at a cost of millions to expose his fabulous art collection, by appointment only, to select members of the public.

  But he isn't the only one who has bought up neglected architectural relics of the Third Reich and dumped enormous amounts of money into them for renovation. The entire city block is under construction. Huge cranes loom all around the bunker and the neighboring buildings. Those elevated blue water pipes are everywhere.

  Maria drives up and easily finds a parking spot behind a tiny yellow Smart Fortwo, which looks like a car made for Smurfs.

  She turns to Erich in the backseat. "Stay in the car with the doors locked, no matter what happens. If there's trouble, call the police on your cell phone."

  Erich nods, a big grin on his face. Life has become a lot more exciting since McGrave showed up.

  Maria and McGrave get out of the car and cross the empty street towards the bunker. It's a stark, cold, imposing structure, designed to convey the invincibility of the Third Reich.

  The street is empty.

  No traffic.

  No people.

  No sound.

  It's about as lifeless as a movie studio back lot.

  "Face it, McGrave," Maria says. "You're wrong."

  Stefan and his team are in position at the construction site around the edge of the pit, their weapons aimed into it, waiting for the robbers to emerge from the tunnels below.

  There's no way Richter and the robbers can escape. They are surrounded from above and there's another assault team coming up behind them in the tunnel from the auction house.

  It's basically over. The robbers just don't know it yet.

  So for Torsten, Heinrich, Stefan, and all the other cops involved, it's anticlimactic.

  Everyone's attention is on the pit. No one is paying any attention to the van that the robbers arrived in.

  And why should they?

  Nobody is inside it.

  They looked.

  But they didn't look underneath it.

  If they did, they would have seen the bomb.

  ####

  The van explodes, obliterating the water pipe above it.

  ####

  From where Maria and McGrave are standing, they can feel the rumble from the blast and see the flash in the night sky several blocks away.

  "It's showtime," McGrave says.

  ####

  The force of the explosion and the blast of water from the severed pipe sweep the assault team off their feet, hurling several of them into the pit.

  ####

  Bombs explode under key portions of the elevated water pipes throughout Mitte, one after the other, releasing torrents of water onto the streets, mowing over people, and snarling traffic.

  ####

  Maria and McGrave can hear the
pandemonium: the honking horns, the sirens, and the countless alarms set off by the percussion of the blast. Water rolls down the street towards them. They look at each other, then at the bunker, just as its alarm goes off.

  "Okay, you were right, I was wrong." She takes out her cell phone.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Calling for backup."

  "They'll never get here in time," he says. "The streets are going to be gridlocked."

  "Then how is Richter going to get away?"

  McGrave looks up. So does she, just in time to see Richter atop the bunker, wearing a backpack. He leaps onto a line dangling from a construction crane and swings to the next rooftop.

  Spider-Man, eat your heart out.

  "Not again," McGrave says, and looks at the Smart Fortwo parked beside him.

  The Smart Fortwo is the midget offspring of a drunken, corporate one-night stand between Swatch, maker of rubber watches, and Mercedes-Benz, maker of fine automobiles. Swatch ran off in the morning and left Mercedes to raise the Fortwo, which measures a mere eight feet long and five feet wide, about the same as a typical golf cart. The Fortwo is propelled by a three-cylinder, seventy-one-horsepower, rear-mounted engine that is about as powerful as a decent outboard motor or the combined force of twenty-three elderly women in their motorized chairs.

  McGrave takes a step back, lifts his right leg, and sticks his foot through the driver's-side window of the car, smashing out the glass. He opens the door, sweeps away the glass from the seat with his jacket, and squeezes inside.

  ####

  Maria takes out her gun and shoots at Richter, who eludes her, fleeing across the rooftops using his amazing parkour skills.

  McGrave yanks some wires from under the dash, starts the car, and pulls out of the parking space, nearly hitting Maria.

  "What are you doing?" she says.

  "Giving chase," he says. "Are you coming or not?"

  She points to Erich. "Stay here."

  Maria hops in the car and McGrave speeds off.

  McGrave races their car down the empty street, peering up at the buildings as he steers to follow Richter's progress jumping from rooftop to rooftop.