The Checkpoint, Berlin Detective Series Box Set

by Michele E. Gwynn

  Elsa watched as Faust exited the car and walked back inside. She could see his back as he stood at the customer counter through the plate glass window. White flakes swirled, obstructing the view. The snow had begun to fall in earnest, landing on the hood, and melting from the heat of the engine. A large truck pulled into the parking lot. It was towing a chunk of burnt metal. Elsa’s eyebrows pulled together as she realized it was the charred remains of a car.

  The tow truck parked near the office, drawing the attention of the two people inside. The rental attendant’s eyes grew wide. Faust followed her line of sight, blinking. As the attendant ran outside screaming questions, a police cruiser pulled in behind the tow truck. Faust stepped out onto the curb, hands in pockets. Elsa hit the button to lower the window, listening, but her Russian was wanting.

  A short, wide man with a round face that reminded her of a pug stepped out from behind the wheel. He approached the young attendant, flashing his badge. After a heated exchange, the girl grew quiet. Her expression changed, turning from angry to fearful. The police pug pointed at her, his finger inches from her face. Her eyes dropped. “What a bully!” Elsa found herself getting pissed. The officer redirected his short, fat finger to the office. The attendant immediately ran inside, behind the counter, where she typed rapidly on her computer keyboard. She then turned to grab the paper coming out of the printer behind her, and ran back outside, handing it over to the bullying cop.

  Faust kept his head low and made his way to the car. He slid behind the wheel, and put the window back up.

  “What was that all about?” Elsa asked.

  Faust looked straight ahead, seeming to take a moment before answering. His face was conspicuously blank. He cleared his throat. “Kreiss, there’s a new development.”

  “Well, what is it?” Her anxiety increased.

  Faust slowly turned his head towards her. “Elsa,” he began, “I think Joseph may be dead.”

  Elsa froze. She blinked twice, and then, “What do you mean? Why do you say this?”

  Faust gripped the wheel, his knuckles turning white. “That policeman there,” he nodded in the bully’s direction, “I heard what he was telling the attendant.”

  “Which was what? What, Herman!” Elsa felt fear rising.

  “He told her that there’s been a terrible accident, one of their customer’s cars was found on the side of the road burnt to cinders. He ordered her to print out the customer information, and then delete the history. He threatened her. That’s why she was moving so quickly.”

  “But how do you know it has anything to do with Joseph?” Elsa was angry, and on the verge of losing control of her emotions.

  Faust closed his eyes. “Because, my dear, he told her that Martin Lintz would not be coming back to settle the insurance claim.”

  Elsa blew out her breath, suddenly unable to breathe. She felt like a boxer had just punched her straight in the gut.

  “Elsa...” Faust reached over to take her hand.

  She snatched it back. “No! No, he’s not dead! He’s not! We have to talk to that policeman.” She began to unbuckle her seatbelt.

  Faust reached again, grabbing her hands, and stopping her. “We can’t! Kreiss, get hold of yourself! That’s an order,” he barked in his most authoritative voice.

  Elsa ceased moving. She panted, trying to regain control of the anxiety overtaking her, and crushing her heart.

  Faust’s grip on her hands loosened, becoming gentler, more comforting. “Don’t you see? He ordered that poor attendant to erase any history at all of a Martin Lintz renting a car there, under threat to her life.” He looked at Elsa, waiting for her to put it all together.

  “He did it. He’s involved, and he did it.” She turned her wide, green eyes on him.

  “Yes. And if he is involved, if he’s the one who did the deed, then he’s connected to whomever Joseph was investigating, which means Heinz found something...or someone.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We follow him. We need to know for which precinct he works, first of all. Then, I’ll try to get in touch with my contact again. If that fails, there’s always Plan B.”

  “This is Plan B! What is it with you and Plan B? We need a Plan C.” Elsa’s voice broke.

  “Yes, well...” he chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, then pulled out his mobile, aiming it at the policeman who was heading back to his car. Faust clicked the camera shutter three times in quick succession. With just a few keystrokes, he sent the pictures off. “Plan C. Happy?” He put the car in gear, preparing to follow the police cruiser.

  “That depends. What did you just do?”

  “I sent the pictures to my favorite hacker. HackTwice will run them through facial recognition software. We should have some kind of answer soon. In the meantime, buckle your seatbelt. This just became ten times more dangerous.”

  Elsa snapped the belt into the clip, and then reached into her pocket, pulling out a small notepad and pen. She began writing down the license plate number on the police cruiser, and then scribbled notes, being as detailed as possible.

  Faust glanced over. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting it all down.” She looked around, adding in landmarks as they passed.

  “Picking up Mahler’s habits?” He raised an eyebrow.

  Hearing her name brought a lump to Elsa’s throat. She swallowed hard. “She is thorough.”

  “That, she is.”

  “Herman, how will we ever tell her?” Elsa whispered the words, afraid to voice them at all.

  “We won’t.” He continued looking forward. He just couldn’t look Elsa in the eye at the moment. It would break his heart. “I will. Before he left, Joseph gave me explicit instructions in the event...” He slowed down to turn right, following the police cruiser two vehicles back.

  “...he didn’t come back,” she finished his sentence. Tears stung Elsa’s eyes. She blinked them away. There would be time for that later. Right now, she needed to keep a cool head. And it wasn’t easy with grief threatening to swamp her. She’d lost so much in her life. First, her parents, and then, almost losing her only brother. Now Heinz. It was too much to lose one loving father, but to have two torn from her felt like punishment. And she would have to tell Anno. It just wasn’t fair. “Why the hell did he do this, Herman? Why come here after all this time?” Pain radiated in her tone.

  Faust shook his head. “His damn sense of honor.” Without thought, he reached over and took Elsa’s hand. “Push it down, Kreiss. Push all of that pain and anger down. Save it and use it later. We don’t know anything for sure. Not yet.”

  MAHLER PICKED UP THE Minister and drove him to the Reichstag. From there, she settled herself in a chair outside of his office. Oppel was not yet in. He was running an errand for Obermeyer to set up a conference and wasn’t expected for at least two hours. It gave her time to check up on the investigation. She called Niederlander in forensics.

  “Anything yet on the Obermeyer emails?”

  Jensen Niederlander chuckled. “Good morning to you, too, Detective.”

  “Don’t be a smartass.” She smiled into the phone. Jensen was practically still a kid, a computer genius recruited straight out of school after getting into more trouble than one teen should hacking into the school computers and failing the entire senior class as a prank. He was now the same age as her own son, Jan. Despite his sarcasm, Mahler was fond of him.

  “You know I can’t help it. Anyhow, I did find some interesting information.”

  “Spill it. I want to wrap this case up as soon as possible.”

  “I get it. Obermeyer is a dick. So, I traced the IP addresses on the emailed threats. Not surprisingly, they bounced around all over the globe. Most digital forensic examiners would’ve given up, but I pursued it, and finally found the origin.”

  “Which is?”

  “A business. Elite Worldwide. Its address says it’s located in Switzerland, but the digital thumbprint was traced right back here in Berl
in. The IP user is roeliteww. It’s a laptop.”

  “What kind of business does it say it is?” Mahler flipped open her notebook and jotted down the information.

  “It doesn’t, at least, I’m not finding any description, but there are satellite offices mentioned, and the paperwork shows property ownership here as well, three locations. Jensen fired off the addresses one at a time, but it was the last one that grabbed Mahler’s attention.

  “Did that help?”

  Mahler took a deep breath. “Yes. You did well, Jensen.”

  “Yeah, but then, I’m a genius.” The sound of a bag rattling followed by the crunching sound of chips being devoured came over the line.

  “You’re a pain in my arse, is what you are.” Mahler chuckled. “Anything new with the voice messages?”

  “No. Could really be anyone. They’re pretty generic. Whoever sent those went out of their way to mask the original tracks.”

  “Okay.” Mahler stared at the IP user address. “Jensen, is there any way to see if this IP address has been used anywhere else?”

  “You mean like on social media or something?” Mahler heard the tap-tap of fast typing. “Sure. Give me a little time to run it. If it was used to sign up for any accounts, I’ll find them.”

  “Good. Let me know as soon as possible.” She hung up.

  The ‘ro’ in the address bothered her. That was Ritt Obermeyer’s own initials. Here it was an election year, and the unpopular Minister of the Interior was suddenly getting weird, yet unsubstantiated threats. They were vague, and he seemed mostly unconcerned by them. Was it all a ploy to garner sympathy from the voting public? It wouldn’t be the first time a politician used underhanded strategies to boost their polling points. Turn tragedy into sympathy, sympathy into votes. The bastard. If she found out this was the case, then she would personally see to it he was publicly humiliated, ending any hope whatsoever of re-election.

  Mahler checked her texts. Still no message from Joseph. Now she was getting angry. He could at least take a moment out of his fun trip to answer her. She fired off another text.

  “Joseph, call me!” She kept it short. When he called, she’d unload on him then. “If he’s knocking back vodka and salted fish with tall, blonde, Swedish bimbos, I’m going to kill him myself,” she muttered under her breath.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “YOU! HEINZ FOCUSED on the familiar face, shocked.

  “Yes, me.” Lana Karakova sat on the side of the bed.

  “But, you are...how?” Heinz felt a tightness in his chest. He winced, taking short breaths.

  “Be calm, Herr Lintz. I’ve bandaged your ribs, but the bump on your head worries me. You’ve been unconscious for almost nine hours.” She leaned over him, placing a cool cloth over the bump in question. It sat, raised, on the left side of his head just behind his temple.

  “I take it you don’t really work in the tech field?” His sarcasm was strong.

  “No more than you are actually Martin Lintz. But since I’m not privy to your given name, I will leave that for now. No, I do not work in tech. Actually, I’m a private investigator.”

  “A PI? I thought the Kremlin cornered the market on investigating its own people.”

  She smiled. “I sometimes take contracts from the government, but mostly, it is individual cases. I spent ten years on the police force before going into business for myself.”

  Heinz eyed the woman wondering how he could have been so duped. But he knew the answer. Her beauty, and his own smug self-confidence was the key. So sure was he of his own deception that he failed to realize the truth. Beautiful women didn’t just walk up and invite themselves to dinner.

  “I can see the wheels spinning in your head trying to figure it all out. It’s really very simple. Being a PI for the last five years, I’ve developed quite a network both inside Mother Russia, and outside of her borders as well. Now and again, I’m commissioned to keep an eye on people who come into the country—agents, officers, and those who operate on the wrong side of the law. The LKA Direktor sent me your information, said you’d be here, searching for a missing girl. My job was to keep you in my sights, report back, make sure you didn’t get yourself into trouble. Simple. Only, not so simple. You’ve managed to find trouble after all.”

  Heinz’s nostrils flared. Herman! Herman had him followed, even after telling him he’d be on his own. He didn’t know whether to be happy about it or royally pissed. He looked around the unfamiliar room. The beige walls were plain save for a few landscape paintings. The faded curtains were open letting in the morning light. There were no items on the dresser, and the room was bare except for the furniture.

  “And where am I?”

  She glanced around. “It’s a safe house. I keep it for clients. Sometimes, it’s necessary to hide them.”

  “How in the world did you get me here? How did you even find me?” It had only just dawned on Heinz that he was last in a ditch next to a burning rental car.

  She laughed. “GPS tracking. It’s on your mobile. I was given the coordinates by our mutual friend.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “HackTwice?”

  “The one and only. As for how I got you here, well, it was no easy task. I had to haul your unconscious body to my vehicle and lift you inside.” She rubbed her neck. “You’re heavier than you appear.”

  Heinz watched the movement. “I’m sorry. Thank you.”

  “What, no flowery speeches? No owing me your life?” She joked.

  “I’m not a flowery speeches man. But I do owe you one.”

  She straightened. “Yes, you do. And you can begin by telling me exactly why you’re here, and how you ended up in that ditch.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Listen, I’m a private investigator. Who better than me to help you find a missing girl? I think I’ve earned the right to know.” Strength flashed in her light brown eyes.

  The sun coming in from the window lit them from within. Amber, not dark brown as he had originally thought that night at the hotel diner. Why am I even noticing her eyes, he thought. Heinz contemplated her words. Finally, he began telling Lana Karakova about Marlessa Schubert. It was a long story, one in which he still held back disclosing his true identity, but by the end of it, she looked determined.

  “Okay.” She stood up.

  “Okay?” Heinz watched her walk to the bedroom door.

  “I’m going to make you some breakfast, and then, I’m going to leave you alone to rest. You need it.”

  “I don’t have time to rest. And I need to get back to my hotel.”

  “That’s not a good idea. They’ll be there.” She eyed him pointedly.

  “The Bratva? I didn’t get the impression that Brezhnev would bother.”

  “Not the Bratva, the police. That officer will be erasing all evidence of you from that room as soon as possible if he hasn’t already. Plausible deniability. If it looks like you checked out, then your death does not need to be investigated. He’s in the clear.”

  “I left my passport there.”

  “I can get you another, but it will take a few days.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Heinz pounded the mattress with his fist. “My money is there too.”

  “It’s gone then. He’ll take it as a bonus.”

  Heinz looked at her. “How am I to get back without money?”

  She smiled. “We’ll think of something. For now, please take those pain pills there on the nightstand.” She pointed at the two white pills sitting next to a glass of water. “They’ll help you with the pain.”

  He reached over, careful not to move his torso too much, and popped the two pills into his mouth. A swig of water and they were down the hatch.

  “I’ll be back in a few.” She left him there.

  He could hear her in the kitchen rattling dishes. He thought about all that had happened in the last eighteen hours or so. He’d messed up. The moment he’d decided to enter that house was his first mistake. Now he was injured an
d presumed dead by the Saint Petersburg police, and by the leader of the Russian mafia. If he persisted in trying to find answers, and was caught again, they would surely kill him, and make sure the job was done this time. Worse, now Lana Karakova was involved, pulled into this dangerous situation. He didn’t like being responsible for her as well. What if the corrupt officer or the Bratva found out? They would kill her too.

  And if he returned home too soon, with possibly cracked ribs and a banged-up face, Birgitta would know he had lied to her. He was a dead man either way.

  Lana came back in with a tray in her hands. She placed it over his lap.

  “It’s not much, just some hot cereal, toast, and coffee.”

  The aroma from the java perked his senses. He smiled. “It’s fine, I’m sure. Thank you.”

  He picked up the mug and sipped the black brew. A slow sigh escaped him.

  “Eat up. I want to make sure you’re fed before I leave.” She sat down on a chair by the wall.

  “Where are you going?” Heinz picked up the spoon and lifted a bite of the hot cereal to his lips.

  “To my office. I’m going to do some digging around on Brezhnev. I’ll check out that address you gave me and see if there’s any connection to our police. Your description of his lapdog should help.”

  “Bulldog. He looked like a bulldog.” Heinz finished the cereal and munched the toast. He felt light and happy. “I’d be happy to help you. I just need my clothes.” He looked around, realizing for the first time that he was not wearing anything beneath the covers.

  Lana stood and quickly took the tray from him. “I don’t think so.” She set it on the dresser.

  Heinz felt lethargy invade his limbs. “What’s wrong with me?” He tried lifting his hand but couldn’t.

  “It’s just the medication taking effect.” She tucked the covers up around him.

  “You drugged me?” His speech slurred, and a scowl marred his forehead. “You said they were pain pills!”