Private Berlin (4 page)

THE SKIES HAD taken on a coal and ash color by the time they reached that wooded area they’d seen on the satellite imagery. They circled
the woods, seeing only bike trails before finding the vine-choked drive that led to the old slaughterhouse.

The rain was squalling now, blown by gusts from the east.

Burkhart parked just as Mattie’s cell phone rang. It was Katharina.

“We’re just getting here, Kat,” Mattie said.

“The super at Chris’s building won’t let me in,” she complained. “He says he’ll let you in but not me.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be necessary,” Mattie replied. “Gabriel said he’s moving around inside.”

“Oh,” Katharina said, sighing. “Oh, thank God, Mattie.”

“I’ll let you know when we’ve got him,” Mattie said, and hung up.

She tugged up her hood and got out, heading straight into the vines, which she pushed and hacked through until she’d reached
a clearing of sorts.

The walls of the slaughterhouse were cement block and rose to a line of blown-out windows below the eaves of an arched roof.
The place was covered in old graffiti, including a skull stamped with a dripping bloodred
X
.

Mattie felt unnerved, which was completely unlike her. She’d been a full-fledged Kripo investigator for the Berlin criminal
police for ten years, five of them in homicide, and had another two years working high-profile cases for Private.

She’d seen the worst one man could do to another, and Mattie always handled these incidents like the professional she was.

But now, seeing that graffiti, she felt like ignoring years of training and yelling out to him.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Burkhart drawing his Glock. She drew her own pistol, whispering, “Bluetooth. I’m
going to call Doc.”

Burkhart fished in his pocket and came up with an earpiece. Then he donned latex gloves. Mattie did the same. The wind gusted,
amplifying the drumming of the rain on the leaves and causing a chain to clank somewhere.

“I think that door’s open,” Burkhart muttered.

Mattie moved toward it through the sopping-wet grass and weeds, redialing Dr. Gabriel’s number. He answered immediately.

“Give us a patch, Doc.”

She saw Burkhart pause, then touch his Bluetooth and nod.

“You reading our position?” Mattie murmured.

“Great signal,” Gabriel replied. “You’re a hundred meters from him.”

“Guide us,” Burkhart said. “We’re going in an open door on the southeast face of the longer, thinner section of the building.”

“You’re looking to go down through that long arm to the north,” Gabriel said. “He’s in the wider part. Looks like he’s up
against the east wall.”

Mattie followed Burkhart’s lead when he got out a penlight that he held tight to his Glock. He pushed at the barn door with
his foot. It creaked open, revealing a cement-floored hallway with drains set at intervals down its center and partitions
every four meters or so.

Mattie peered closer at the floor. It was covered in old trash and dust.

“No footprints,” she muttered to Burkhart, who’d stepped inside.

“Probably came in from the other end.”

Mattie stepped into the hallway after Burkhart, who moved forward like a cat while flashing his light into the side rooms.
Trash. Rat shit. Graffiti. Grime. And bolts sticking out of the wall about knee high and again about shoulder height.

Seeing the bolts, Mattie felt a distinct sense of menace around her.

“What did they do in here?” she whispered to Burkhart.

He twisted his head quickly. His neck made a cracking sound. “Look like animal stalls to me. They probably kept the livestock
in here awaiting slaughter.”

It made sense. But Mattie could not shake that sense of threat. Indeed, the closer they got to the barn doors at the end of
the hallway, the more pronounced the feeling became.

She could barely breathe when Burkhart slid back one of the double doors.

Pigeons spooked and flapped toward the empty windows.

“East wall,” Mattie said.

She and Burkhart both swung their beams in that direction, hearing Gabriel say: “He should be right there at thirty meters.”

Mattie felt her heart sink as their beams played over garbage, rusted bolts jutting from the floor, and old pipes sticking
out of the wall. “No one here, Doc.”

“What? That’s impossi—” Gabriel paused. “There, he’s moving.”

“Moving?” Burkhart said. “He’s not moving. He’s not here.”

“I’m telling you he’s moving north along that east wall.”

But they saw nothing but cobwebs, dirt, and old bottles and trash.

Then Mattie caught a flicker of movement and heard glass rolling on cement. She swung her light, the powerful beam finding
an enormous rat that froze, blinded, sitting up on its haunches, staring into the light, eyes blinking, and nose twitching.

There was something shiny between its teeth.

Boom!

The gunshot surprised Mattie so much she jumped hard left, landing and then tripping on one of the bolts on the floor. She
sprawled in the dirt.

She glared up at Burkhart. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“It had something in its mouth,” Burkhart said, crossing to the east wall, light trained on the dead rat. As Mattie struggled
to her feet, he crouched over the rodent a moment, then stood and turned to face her. “We need to call in Kripo now.”

She felt her heart break. “Why?”

Burkhart held up what looked like a thin hearing aid battery partially wrapped in a chunk of gnawed and livid flesh.

HAVE YOU EVER seen that old movie
The Invisible Man
?

Claude Rains, the same guy who played the enigmatic French captain in
Casablanca,
stars as a mad scientist who turns homicidal after he figures out how to erase his visible body.

Not surprisingly, it’s one of my absolute favorite films of all time.

One scene in particular never fails to leave me howling with laughter. In it, Rains is covered in bandages and has taken refuge
at an inn run by the Irish actress Una O’Connor. She happens to enter Rains’s room when he’s removed the bandages on his head.

He looks decapitated, but alive.

O’Connor’s eyes bulge. She goes over-the-top insane. She starts to shriek bloody murder.

It’s my special moment. One I wish I could re-create in my own life.

But alas, attaining invisibility is an art more than a science.

For instance, I have found over the past twenty-five years that the best thing you can do to remain unseen is to relax and
inhabit your mask so thoroughly that people come to think nothing of you, especially in Berlin, my beautiful city of scars.

I’m not being poetic here. I’m telling you the truth. Pay attention now.

My friends, let me state unequivocally that if you are relaxed in Berlin, comfortable in your own scarred skin, and not causing
outward trouble, the millions of scarred Berliners around you will just go on about their silly days, unaware of beings like
me.

Or at least not believing in their wildest nightmares that someone like me could still live among them.

Unexposed.

Unrecorded.

Still hunting.

With all that in mind, I am very, very cool as I drive an unmarked white panel van—one of a small fleet of vehicles I’ve collected
over the years—through the rainy Berlin streets, past the scars of Hitler, and the Russians, and the Wall, way out to a forest
north of Ahrensfelde, and down a wet wooded lane to a children’s camp on Liepnitz Lake not far from the sleepy village of
Ützdorf.

Do you know Ützdorf?

It doesn’t matter.

Just understand that there is no one at that camp today. At least that’s how it appears at first glance. Then again, why would
there be? It’s pouring out and cold and there’s dense fog building out on the water around the island.

I park near the dock. No sooner do I shut off the engine than my young genius friend appears on the porch of the boathouse.

He’s bearded, midtwenties, and his soaking-wet hair hangs on his fogged glasses. He takes them off and tries to dry them on
a wet sweatshirt that features the emblem of the Berlin Technical University.

I take a gym bag from the passenger seat of my van and climb out, leaving the engine running.

“How did you get here?” I ask, climbing up onto the porch, out of the rain.

“Bus and walked, like you said. I got fucking soaked.”

“Ever heard of a raincoat?” I ask.

“Wasn’t raining when I started,” he says, irritated. “You have the money?”

I hold up the bag. “Twenty-five thousand euros, as agreed.”

“Let me see,” my friend says, reaching for the bag.

I keep it just out of his reach. “Not before I see what I’m buying.”

He looks pissed off, but he goes to a hiker’s pack against the boathouse wall. He retrieves a disk and hands it to me, saying,
“All of Schneider’s work files.”

“Did you look at them?” I ask in a super relaxed manner.

“That would be against my ethics,” he replies.

But his body language says otherwise.

Once he hands me the disk, I play along and give him the bag of money.

He opens it and checks several packets of fifty-euro notes.

“Nice doing business with you,” he says, zipping the bag up.

“Yes,” I say, pocketing the disk and finding the handle end of a flat-head screwdriver. “Need a lift to the bus stop?”

“That would be great,” he says, turning back toward his knapsack.

I take two quick steps behind him, grab his hair, and drive the sharpened blade of the screwdriver up under the nape of his
skull.

MY YOUNG GENIUS friend never has the chance to scream.

But as the blade finds the soft spot where spinal column becomes brain, his entire body goes electric and herky-jerky.

When at last he drops my money and sags against me, I’m panting, spent and rubber-legged, as if I’ve just had the most explosive
sex imaginable.

What a thrill! What an amazing, amazing thrill!

Even after all these years that rush never gets old.

I stand there for several moments in the aftermath of a great death, calm, drained, sated, and yet hyperaware of everything
around me: the rain, the clouds, the forest, and the whistling of ducks out there in the fog.

With his body in my hands, with the sense of his life force still vibrating in me, it’s like I’m here and not, hovering on
the edge of the afterlife, you know?

At last I roll him over on his belly and draw out the screwdriver. I get out a tube of superglue and use it to seal the entry
wound at the back of his neck. No more blood. It’s done in seconds.

I chuckle as I drag my young genius friend toward my van, thinking how strange it is that there are people out there in the
world, people far deeper and more philosophical than me, who spend their lives wondering if a tree falling in woods like this
makes a crashing sound if there’s no one around to hear it.

What a stupid goddamn thing to spend your life thinking about.

Don’t they know they would be better off pondering whether a man like me can exist when he’s never been truly seen?

HAUPTKOMMISSAR HANS DIETRICH was a living legend inside Berlin Kripo, an investigator with low-key, unorthodox tactics that nevertheless resulted in the
highest solve rate of any detective in the department’s eight divisions.

The high commissar was a tall crane of a man, early fifties, quiet, moody, and extremely private, rarely fraternizing with
other cops. He was even said to resent the fact that he had to work with a second detective on homicide cases.

Mattie had heard about Dietrich during her many years with Berlin Kripo, of course, but she’d never had the chance to work
with him directly.

Still, an hour after their initial call to Kripo she was more than relieved when she saw him walking toward her beneath a
black umbrella in a gray suit, his somber face revealing nothing.

If anyone could find out what had happened to Chris, it was this man.

Mattie and Burkhart moved around the uniformed officer now guarding the front of the slaughterhouse and went to meet Dietrich.
They showed him their Private badges and identified themselves.

“I know who you are, Frau Engel,” Dietrich said, his eyes flickering toward the abattoir. “Your reputation precedes you.”

Mattie felt Burkhart looking at her, puzzled. Her cheeks started to burn.

A blue Kripo bus appeared, splashing toward the slaughterhouse.

Mattie knew what that meant. Every time a body is found in Berlin, Kripo sends out one of these specially equipped buses.
They contain all the equipment and supplies needed to fully document a murder scene.

Seeing the bus, Mattie became angry. “With all due respect, High Commissar, we don’t know that this is a homicide yet. Someone
could have taken Chris, discovered the chip, then cut it out of him so we couldn’t find him.”

Dietrich blinked, took his attention off the slaughterhouse, and replied in a chilly tone, “That’s what
I
am here to find—”

“High Commissar!” came a woman’s shrill voice.

Dietrich grimaced and looked over his shoulder at the stout little woman in her midtwenties marching earnestly up the driveway
toward them. He sighed heavily. “Inspector Sandra Weigel. My trainee.”

Inspector Weigel beamed at Mattie and Burkhart as they introduced themselves before turning to Dietrich. “What shall I do,
High Commissar?” Weigel asked.

“Stay out of my way and listen,” Dietrich growled at her. Then he looked back at Mattie and Burkhart. “Now, take me inside,
show me where you found the chip, and tell me everything I need to know.”

AS THEY DONNED blue surgical booties and latex gloves under an awning that had been set up outside the slaughterhouse, Mattie and Burkhart
brought Dietrich up to speed on Chris Schneider’s cases and activities during the prior two weeks, finishing with the decision
to activate the GPS chip and its discovery in the main hall of the slaughterhouse two hours before.

Inspector Weigel took copious notes. Dietrich took none. He just stood there, listening intently, expressionless. He asked
only one question. “No footprints?”

Burkhart shook his head. “None, but the dust in there is rippled. Like someone used one of those blowers that gardeners use
to erase all tracks.”

Mattie frowned. Burkhart had not mentioned that before.

Dietrich gave Burkhart a glance of reappraisal, and then went inside the slaughterhouse. The hallway was lit now with klieg
lights. The high commissar walked toward the main slaughterhouse slowly, methodically, his eyes going everywhere, saying nothing.

Mattie said, “The room where we found the chip—it’s big. Private could bring in its forensics team to help. We have state
and federal certification.”

Dietrich shook his head and continued on with his inspection as if the idea were completely out of the question.

A team of criminalists was setting up lights and gathering samples at the east end of the main slaughterhouse where the chip
had been found.

Dietrich examined the dead rat and then looked up at Burkhart. “Remind me not to anger you, Herr Burkhart.”

Burkhart shrugged. “Just a lot of practice.”

“You have the chip?” Dietrich asked.

Mattie dug in her pants pocket and came up with a plastic evidence sleeve with the chip and the flesh inside.

Dietrich took it from her and studied it closely.

“High Commissar?” one of the evidence specialists called. He was crouched over a bolt protruding from the floor beneath the
rusty overhead track. “I’ve got something here.”

Dietrich stiffened and hesitated before looking at Mattie and Burkhart. “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to leave now.”

“What?” Mattie said. “Why?”

“This is a crime scene. I can’t have any more contamination.”

“Contamination?” Mattie said. “We did everything by the book in here. We backed out the second we found the chip, and we waited
for Kripo.”

“So you did,” Dietrich replied calmly. “It does not change things. You’ll have to leave. You should know, Frau Engel. It’s
department policy.”

Mattie shook her head, unable to contain her anger. “High Commissar, until six weeks ago, Chris was my fiancé. I have every
right to be here.”

Dietrich softened but still shook his head. “I’m sorry for you,” he replied quietly. “But you have no right to be here. So
leave, or I’ll have you taken out.”

Mattie was gathering herself to protest one more time when she felt Burkhart’s massive hand on her shoulder. “We should go
now, Mattie. Give Kripo some space. We’ve got other things to take care of.”

Mattie’s shoulders sagged and she felt like crying, but she nodded.

“Good,” Dietrich said. “And if you’ll be so kind as to come to my office tomorrow morning at nine I will tell you what we’ve
found.”

“We will too,” Burkhart offered. “Private wants to help.”

“I’d prefer you don’t launch a shadow investigation,” Dietrich said.

Mattie hardened. “As long as Chris is missing, we’ll keep searching.”

Dietrich shrugged. “Fair enough. Negotiated cooperation then.”

“Deal,” Burkhart said and led Mattie away.

The high commissar followed them to the south entry to the slaughterhouse, and watched them walk down the driveway in the
pelting rain.

Inspector Weigel came up beside him. “Excuse me, sir, but I thought you told me before they came that we wouldn’t be cooperating
with Private in any way.”

Dietrich did not look at his young trainee. “What’s that old saying, Weigel? Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer?”

“Private’s investigators are enemies?” Weigel asked.

“There’s a man missing, their man, Weigel,” Dietrich said. “We certainly can’t treat them as friends.”