Private Berlin (Private 5)

“We don’t know for sure,” Brecht said.

“Any way for us to find out what kind of betting volume was on the Hertha Berlin games?” Morgan asked.

Tiny Heine thought about that. “I dunno. You got any contacts in Vegas?”

Morgan brightened. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

CHAPTER 48

AT HALF PAST noon, Agnes Krüger was already late for a luncheon date at Restaurant Quarré with Ingrid Dahl, an old friend. The billionaire’s wife wanted to talk to someone she could trust, someone outside her immediate family, and Ingrid Dahl, who was both discrete and wise, fit her needs perfectly.

She had a driver at her beck and call, but that day she felt the strong need to make a visible show of independence. She’d drive herself. She took the elevator to the garage and found her black Porsche Cayenne among the myriad of other cars her husband stored there.

Agnes Krüger hit the button that raised the garage gate and then pulled out, heading south toward Fasanenplatz, which was empty due to the heavy rain that was falling again.

She pulled up to the intersection of Fasanen and Schaperstrasse. Before she could take a left onto Schaper, a figure in a black rain jacket with the hood up ran to her and knocked sharply on the window.

The billionaire’s wife startled and then rolled down the window angrily.

“What do you want?” she demanded. “I already told…”

Agnes Krüger was suddenly staring at the empty bottom of a plastic Coke bottle that had been taped to the barrel of a pistol.

“No, please—” she began.

The shot hit her above the right eye at point-blank range, spraying her life across the passenger seat and window.

Her foot came off the brake.

The Porsche rolled across the street and crashed into a parked Fiat.

Alarms began to wail as the killer walked off into the storm.

CHAPTER 49

IN THE AMPHITHEATER inside Private Berlin, Dr. Gabriel loaded a copy of the German Federal Archives surveillance tape featuring Dr. Groening.

Mattie snapped shut her cell phone. “Surprise, no Professor Groening at Heidelberg. Not even close.”

“I didn’t expect there would be,” Gabriel replied.

Katharina Doruk shut her own phone. “That was Brecht. They went back to the nightclub and were told that Pavel hasn’t been seen since yesterday.”

“So Hermann Krüger’s and Pavel’s whereabouts are now both unknown?”

“Apparently,” Katharina said.

The surveillance tapes appeared on the screen. Gabriel enlarged them.

In the reading room, the professor did a remarkable job of keeping his hat tucked down over his eyes, but they saw how he managed to steal six files from the archives of Waisenhaus 44.

“He’s very clever, whoever he is, and his hands are as fast as a close-up magician’s,” said Gabriel.

Mattie nodded. “Zoom in on that briefcase.”

Dr. Gabriel did. “Looks like old crocodile skin.”

Mattie was positive there would be a better look at Dr. Groening at the front gate. But both entering and exiting, his body shook and quivered so much it was hard to get an image of him that wasn’t blurred. And even then, it was at a steep downward angle, from the upper-right corner of the guard’s shack.