Private Berlin (Private 5)

Falk grabbed Mattie’s chin and twisted her head toward him. She saw the flame, orange and red, and shaped like a fine chisel.

It passed her ear, singed her hair, and then stroked her shoulder blade.

The pain was indescribable. Mattie jerked away from it. She screamed, and screamed again.

“Mom!” Niklas was hysterical, up on his knees blubbering. “Mommy!”

“I’ll ask you once more,” Falk said. “Who’s coming? And when?”

Mattie was shaking and on the verge of vomiting from the smell of her own burned flesh, and from the agony she saw painted on her son’s face.

She heard Burkhart’s voice, telling her to fight.

“We called Berlin police before we came in,” she gasped. “They’re coming. No matter what you do to us, they are going to catch you this time, Falk.”

There was a moment of doubt on Falk’s face, but then he grinned. “Oh, I’ll get away. I always do. They’ll probably call Halle Kripo, but they’re twenty-five minutes away at least. Still, I’ll have to move up my time schedule.”

He went to his bag and got out a flathead screwdriver.

Deep in her haze of pain, Mattie still knew what that meant.

“Delay,” Burkhart whispered in her ear. “Delay.”

Falk took a step toward Ilona, who was still on her knees and facing the wall and humming like a child.

“How did you do it the first time?” Mattie gasped. “How did you get your Stasi files and destroy them? How did you get away?”

CHAPTER 128

MY FELLOW BERLINERS, at her question, I pause, wanting to ignore her, to finish my business and then leave this place for good.

But a part of me wants someone, anyone, to know of my genius. It’s irresistible. And besides. When I set to my work, I am quick and efficient like my father taught me.

“It was relatively easy,” I tell her. “By the mid-1980s, I could see clearly that the GDR’s time was coming to an end. I could also see that my special talents would not be understood if that came to pass. So I set about erasing myself almost three years before the wall fell.”

“How?”

“A bribe to the right people. A threat to the right people. I got hold of my files, which I burned. I knew Mielke was already shredding everything to do with me. So then it was just a matter of waiting until things became destabilized enough. Once I heard about the storming of Stasi headquarters in Leipzig, I knew the time was right. I went out into the streets of East Berlin like everyone else. And watched while they knocked the wall down with sledgehammers and cranes. When the crowds surged through in both directions, I went west with fake papers, and soon disappeared to Africa.”

I gesture proudly to my face. “That’s where all this was done. Almost a year of work. No one would ever know I was Matthias Falk.”

I grip the screwdriver and half turn toward Ilona.

“And the masks?” Mattie asks.

I can’t resist. “A childhood interest long dormant. I found a mask there, in Africa,” I reply. “I began collecting them while I was recuperating. A passion turned into a business.”

“How did you fund all this? Where did the money come from?”

I grin. “That was the first thing that I tortured out of the mothers. I got them to tell me where their family money, jewelry, and silverware were hidden. I had more than enough to do what I had to do. So three years after the wall came down, I flew back to Berlin and started my gallery.”

“And Ilse Frei?”

Ilona Frei stops humming.

“Ahhh, Christoph and Ilse,” I say, truly enjoying the moment. “In the FKK, Ilse recognized my voice. I saw it in her face the moment it happened. I had to take care of her.”

“And Chris?”