Private Berlin (Private 5)

“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.

CHAPTER 7