Private Berlin Read online

  “Niklas!” Mattie said sharply. “It’s Chris. That’s why Socrates is here.”

  Her son stopped and looked back at her, his face suddenly pale and puzzled as the cat arched and rubbed against his ankles. “What?”

  “He’s missing, Niklas. Chris is missing.”

  Niklas appeared even more confused. “What does that mean?”

  “No one knows where he is,” Mattie said, deciding not to tell him about the chip that was found. “And he’s been gone a long time without anyone hearing from him. Too long.”

  Niklas picked up Socrates, held him tight to his chest, and asked, “Who was he with? What was he working on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You used to know everything. You always knew what he was doing.”

  “Niklas, I…”

  Niklas’s expression turned bitter. “If you hadn’t said you weren’t going to marry him, you might know where Chris is. He’d probably be right here watching the game with me!”

  Mattie’s son burst into tears and stormed off down the hall toward his bedroom, holding on to Socrates like he was his last friend on earth.

  CHAPTER 18

  MATTIE’S AUNT CÄCILIA witnessed the entire episode. Upset, rubbing her hands on her apron, she shouted, “Niklas, come back here. You come back here and apologize to your mother right now!”

  But Niklas slammed the door to his bedroom shut behind him.

  Mattie put her hand on her aunt’s shoulder. “Let him go. He’s right. Chris and I used to share everything. I would have known.”

  Her aunt looked ready to argue, but then caught the tension in Mattie. “But he’s just missing, right? Couldn’t he have gone on a vacation?”

  “No. Definitely not a vacation.”

  “Then…”

  “I need to go talk to Niklas.”

  Her aunt nodded. “And then you come eat. Schnitzel with lemon zest.”

  Mattie kissed Cäcilia on her cheek and went down the hall to her son’s room. She knocked. He didn’t answer. She twisted the knob. Locked.

  “Nicky? Can I come in?”

  Several moments later she heard the lock freed. She went into the bedroom of her soccer-mad son. A big poster of Cassiano hung above his bed.

  Niklas climbed back onto his bed and curled himself around Socrates, who purred. Mattie sat on the bed next to them and rubbed her son’s back.

  “You have the right to be upset,” she said.

  For several moments, Niklas showed no reaction, but then he asked, “Is Chris alive, Mom?”

  “We have to believe so.”

  “And if he’s not?”

  Mattie did not answer.

  “Why don’t you still love him, Mom?”

  Mattie’s lower lip trembled. “I do love Chris. And I love you, and we’re going to get through this.”

  “And get him back?”

  “If it’s in my power. Now it’s time for pajamas and toothbrushes.”

  “No book?”

  “Aunt C will read to you,” she promised. “I’m starving.”

  The cat meowed, squirmed from Niklas’s hold, and pranced to the door.

  “Looks like he’s hungry too,” Mattie said.

  “There’s still some dry food that Chris left.”

  “I know where it is.”

  She left her son’s room, returned to the kitchen, and saw that her aunt had already found the cat food. It was in a bowl next to another filled with water. Socrates went to the food and ate hungrily.

  “And your supper is on the table,” Cäcilia said.

  Mattie kissed the old woman’s cheek again. “Niklas’s almost ready for you to read a little Harry Potter to him.”

  “I’ll need to find my glasses then,” Cäcilia said, pulling off her apron.

  Mattie went to the table and had her aunt’s incomparable schnitzel with lemon zest and twice-baked potatoes, a salad, and a cold Berliner Weisse. After she’d finished, cleared the table, and washed the dishes, she went into the refrigerator in search of a second beer. She needed it.

  She popped the top. Her cell rang. It was Katharina Doruk.

  “Burkhart called in and told me what happened,” Katharina said.

  “We’re all right,” Mattie replied.

  “So he said,” Katharina answered snippily. “I would have rather heard that from you, Mattie. You’re lucky the two of you weren’t arrested. A high-speed chase? You’re not cops.”

  Mattie sighed. “I know. It was the heat of the moment, and then I was too exhausted to call. I needed to take Socrates home and tell Niklas what happened.”

  “How’s he taking it?”

  “He’s got Socrates.”

  “And you?”

  Mattie shook inside. She’d not allowed herself to reflect at all since arriving at the slaughterhouse. Now it threatened to spill out of her in a torrent.

  “You want me to come over?” Katharina asked.

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “Burkhart said the guy on the motorcycle got the hard drive from Chris’s laptop,” Katharina said.

  “Looked that way.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “The place was wrecked,” Mattie replied. “It was a little hard to figure—”

  She remembered the crumpled paper she’d retrieved from Chris’s wastebasket just before the burglar attacked her. “Hold on a second.”

  Mattie put the phone on speaker, dug out the paper, and unfolded it. She scanned the list in Chris’s distinctive scrawl. She smiled, but with little joy.

  “Looks like the burglar missed something,” she said.

  CHAPTER 19

  “WHAT?” KATHARINA ASKED.

  “A to-do list that Chris wrote,” Mattie said, picking up her phone, the paper, and the beer and heading toward her bedroom. “It’s dated last Tuesday and says he had an appointment with Hermann Krüger at eleven in the morning that day.”

  “Not the wife?”

  “No, it says H. Krüger, and it has an address on Potsdamer Platz, the Sony building, I think.”

  “So, what, he meets with Hermann, tells him he knows he has multiple mistresses and consorts with prostitutes and…?”

  “You’re assuming too much, Kat,” Mattie snapped. “Krüger’s name’s just here on a list. So is Cassiano’s. He was to meet with him at three that afternoon. And he has a third name here, Pavel.”

  “Maxim Pavel?” Katharina asked, suddenly excited.

  “Doesn’t say,” Mattie replied. “Why?”

  “Because Gabriel was able to trace a series of phone calls Chris made last Monday and Tuesday to a Maxim Pavel. He’s a Russian ex-pat. Owns two or three nightclubs, including Cabaret.”

  “The drag-queen show?” Mattie asked.

  “Very successful business according to Gabriel. But there’s more. He evidently has ties to Russian organized crime.”

  Mattie checked her watch. “It’s only eight o’clock; we could—”

  “We already checked,” Katharina said. “Pavel’s away in Italy. Won’t be back until tomorrow morning.”

  Mattie thought about that. “We’re going to need reinforcements.”

  “Way ahead of you again,” Katharina said. “I’ve called in Brecht from Amsterdam, and Jack Morgan’s on his way from Los Angeles in the Private jet.”

  “I’ll be at work by seven,” Mattie promised and hung up.

  She put the beer, the list, and her phone on her nightstand, and then went in to kiss Niklas good night.

  “I’m praying for Chris,” Niklas said after she’d shut off the light.

  “I am too, sweetheart,” Mattie said.

  She closed the door, told her aunt good night, and went into her bedroom. After showering and putting on her nightgown, she got in bed with the beer. She almost turned on the television, but then got out her laptop.

  She signed in to her Private e-mail account, and found a note from the Countess von Mühlen’s grandmother, thanking her for her prompt, efficient w
ork. Mattie replied that she thought Sophia was just a sweet, mixed-up kid and wished her well.

  Mattie quit out of the mailbox before she thought to sign in to her personal account. She hadn’t looked at that e-mail account in well over a week, but then again the only person to use it regularly was…

  Amid the spam, Mattie spotted an e-mail from Chris with a date stamp of the prior Wednesday evening at approximately 10 p.m. She opened it and saw only an MPEG attachment. She clicked on it.

  Chris’s face appeared on her screen. He was in his apartment, in the alcove, looking weary, and sounding partially drunk, with Socrates in his lap.

  “Hi, Mattie. I’ve tried to respect your wishes and not contact you, but…” He stopped, looking away from the camera.

  He cleared his throat, gazed at the lens again, and said, “Mattie, I’ve gotten on to something, and I feel that if I can see this through, then it’ll be better, better for me, and better for you, and for Niklas.”

  Chris’s eyes glistened, watering with tears. “These past few weeks have been the worst I can remember since I was a kid. I miss you, Mattie. I miss Niklas, too. And Aunt Cäcilia. Call me? Or send me a message back? However you want to contact me, I’ll be waiting. I love you both. I always will.”

  The clip ended and went dark.

  Mattie collapsed into sobs so loud that Aunt Cäcilia came running.

  CHAPTER 20

  IT’S JUST AFTER dawn, my friends, and the rain pours as I drive south out of Berlin in the Mercedes Benz ML500 I picked up last year. Do you know the ML500? It’s like a tank in wet conditions, my power vehicle, my go-anywhere car.

  Normally I’m the picture of confidence behind the 500’s wheel. But I’m nervous as I drive, thinking about the police at the slaughterhouse last night. When I awoke, I desperately wanted to pass by again this morning, but I had such a long way to drive and so little time before I needed to be back at work.

  Southeast of Halle, I find a two-track lane that goes down by the river, a secluded spot. Especially in this foul weather.

  I park and wait, thoughtless except for the pleasant task before me.

  Twenty minutes later, a motorcyclist rides up wearing rain slickers and a black helmet. The deluge has ebbed to a light drizzle. I get out wearing a rain jacket with deep pockets and my gloved hands shoved into them.

  My friend pulls off the helmet, revealing a swarthy man in his late thirties, a Turk who is also a thief. And as a thief would, my friend says, “I want more money. I almost got caught. I almost got killed.”

  “So you said on the phone last evening,” I reply agreeably. “Fifty thousand euros instead of the twenty-five. Will that cover it?”

  I could see the thief had expected an argument, but now he nods.

  “You show me yours,” I say. “I’ll show you mine.”

  My friend goes to dig in his saddlebags. I open the rear of the Mercedes. Next to the tarp that contains the body of the computer hacker, I find a leather satchel. I open it and draw out a little something to help speed things along. Then I pick up the bag as if I were serving it at a fine restaurant, the jaws gaped so the cash inside is visible.

  I walk to the thief. He’s holding the hard drive.

  I make as if to hand him the moneybag and then stumble. The bag pitches from my hands.

  My friend instinctively reaches out to catch it.

  I stick him with a stun gun and jam the trigger.

  He jerks violently and collapses.

  I stun him again, then drop the device and ram the screwdriver up under the nape of his skull.

  Now the thief quivers on his own, but I hold him tight, feeling the mystery drain from him and fill me once more.

  But on this occasion I cannot pause to savor the moment or the sweet stillness that follows death. I’m in the open. It is raining. But I could be seen if I remain too long.

  Instead, I superglue the wound, and drag the thief’s body to the riverbank. I wade out and push him into the main current, hoping that the cold rushing waters will take him deep and far away.

  I get out, chilled but not caring.

  I get the satchel and fling it in the back of the Mercedes. Then I drag the tarp and the carcass of my friend the computer genius to the river. I roll the bundle into the river, pull the tarp, and roll his body into the water.

  The thief’s body is already out of sight.

  I quickly fold the tarp and put it beside the satchel in the ML500.

  I hurl the helmet into the river. I start the motorcycle, put it in gear, hold the brake, gun the throttle, pop the clutch, and let go.

  The bike roars forward, flies off the bank, and disappears.

  I have to hurry back to Berlin now. I can’t take it any longer. I have to check the slaughterhouse.

  I have to make decisions about its future, my friends.

  Terrible decisions.

  CHAPTER 21

  MATTIE PUT HER right eye to Private Berlin’s retina scan at six forty-five on Monday morning. She’d slept fitfully. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. She wondered if it would affect the scan, but it did not, and the bulletproof doors hissed open.

  Dawn was just breaking when she walked through the glass hallway above the park. No lights had been turned on yet. She was the first to arrive.

  Or so she thought. When she entered the lounge area, meaning to start coffee brewing, she flipped on the light. Someone groaned loudly.

  Mattie jumped and looked at the couch. “Who’s there?” she demanded in German.

  Jack Morgan sat up from the other side and looked at her blearily. “I don’t speak German, Mattie. What time is it?”

  Like many Germans, Mattie spoke fluent English. “Ten of seven,” she replied. “Jack, I’m sorry I didn’t…”

  Private’s owner waved a hand at her and got to his feet. He wore a pilot’s leather jacket, jeans, and low-heel cowboy boots. A tall, lean man who always seemed in a hurry, Morgan pushed back his dark sandy hair and said, “Don’t worry about it. They say you’re better off staying up, right?”

  Mattie smiled. She liked Jack Morgan. He was smart without being overbearing, and he owned the company but didn’t act like God.

  He came over to her. “How are you?”

  Mattie shrugged and started making coffee. “As well as you can be when you find out that your…uh, colleague and friend is missing except for a tracking chip dug out of his back.”

  “It’s why I came,” Morgan said sympathetically. “The moment I heard.”

  “When did you get in?”

  “About an hour ago,” Morgan said. “Thirteen-hour flight.”

  “You must be beat,” Mattie said, flipping on the coffeemaker. “I can bring you up to speed on what’s happened while you’ve been in transit. Do you want to go have a real breakfast somewhere?”

  “Coffee’s fine for right now,” Morgan said, taking a seat at the lounge table. “And I would appreciate a briefing, but first, because it was bugging me the entire flight, why did you and Chris break off your engagement?”

  Mattie made a puffing noise and looked away from him. She rarely talked about her personal life except with Katharina and her aunt. But her boss had just flown thirteen hours to help her find Chris. She figured an honest answer was the least she could offer.

  In a strained voice Mattie said, “We had a whirlwind romance shortly after you hired me. We were engaged in six months. But I eventually found out that Chris was a troubled man, Jack. There was a part of him that I could not reach, that I could not know. He never talked about his childhood. But there was something from that time that haunted him. The longer I was with him, the more I could feel how large a space it occupied in his soul. I pleaded with him to tell me, but he refused. Finally I decided I couldn’t marry a man with so much unknown inside him, no matter how much I loved him. It wouldn’t have been fair to me. And it would not have been fair to my son, Niklas.”

  “So you ended it?”

  Mattie nodded. “One of the mo
st difficult things I’ve ever done.”

  “How’d Chris take it?”

  “Like he’d been expecting it. He said he didn’t blame me, and that he still loved me.”

  “No idea what this secret was that he carried?”

  “I just know that he used to have these nightmares. They’d come in waves. And he’d start crying in his sleep, calling for his mother. Sometimes screaming for her.”

  “You ever ask about the nightmares?”

  “Only if I didn’t want him speaking to me for a few days,” Mattie replied, pouring coffee into a mug and offering it to Morgan.

  He took it. “I knew he grew up in East Berlin and that his parents died when he was eight or nine. And he grew up in an orphanage out in the countryside, right?”

  Mattie nodded. “That’s about all he ever tells anyone. He once told me that the past is best forgotten, but I don’t think he’s ever forgotten. He just won’t tell anyone about it.”

  CHAPTER 22

  KATHARINA DORUK ARRIVED at seven fifteen. Dr. Ernst Gabriel checked in at half past the hour. So did Tom Burkhart.

  Together they and Mattie briefed Morgan on what they’d found so far, including the slaughterhouse, Chris’s scheduled meetings with soccer star Cassiano and billionaire Hermann Krüger in the days before he disappeared, and the various phone calls he’d made to the nightclub owner Maxim Pavel and others.

  For a man operating on just a few hours’ sleep, Mattie thought Morgan acted soundly when he decided to split the investigation three ways.

  Katharina would take the lead on Hermann Krüger.

  After he arrived from Amsterdam later in the morning, Daniel Brecht would begin working the Cassiano angle with Morgan helping. Private’s owner had conducted several major sports investigations in the past. Brecht spoke six languages, including Portuguese, the Brazilian striker’s only tongue.

  Gabriel would track Chris’s movements in more detail while Mattie and Burkhart continued shadowing the official police investigation and pitching in on the other veins of inquiry as needed.

  But when Mattie and Burkhart were preparing to leave for their scheduled meeting with Dietrich, her cell phone rang. It was the high commissar himself.