Private Berlin (Private 5)

But this time, the old saw is true. All things must pass. I know it as sure as I know myself despite the masks I’m forced to wear.

I’m musing this way in the driver’s seat of the ML500 because I’ve just driven by the entrance to the slaughterhouse at an insistent speed, as if eager to be somewhere else.

There are more vehicles there than yesterday, twice as many, police cars and forensics wagons, and unmarked sedans, and the whole place roped off with yellow crime scene tape.

But instead of feeling on the edge of panic as I did the day before, I go cold, almost reptilian inside. Pulling past the apartment buildings west of the slaughterhouse, I swiftly come to a difficult decision.

A long time ago, very early in my life as a matter of fact, I learned that survival means acting in the moment with the best information you’ve got. With that many people inside, they were bound to find the secrets of the slaughterhouse eventually. It’s just logical.

So I pull over several hundred yards away at the top of a slight rise where I have more or less a direct line of sight to the roof of the abattoir.

For a moment, I feel stricken by nostalgia. The slaughterhouse has been part of my life for so long, I’m conflicted about what I must do.

But there’s no way around it, is there?

I open a paper bag on the passenger-side floor, and come up with an old, bulky Soviet-era military two-way radio with a whip antenna. I find the battery and snap it into the housing.

I turn on the power switch. For a moment, the little bulb by the switch is dark and I feel concerned.

But then it glows green.

The air tastes bittersweet as I adjust the radio to a channel with a frequency I set almost twenty-five years ago.

My fingers find the transmit button. My throat clicks with pleasure.

Well then, my friends, I guess it’s about time we raised a little hell in Berlin, hmmm?

CHAPTER 28

“MATTIE!” BURKHART ROARED. “Get out!”

Down in the basement of the slaughterhouse, Mattie snapped out of the haze of shock. She reached up, grabbed at the green wax paper, and tore off the area with writing on it.

She took one last look at Chris’s body, and started going as fast as she could to the shaft, all the while fighting the urge to stop, lie down, and sob her heart out.

When she reached the bottom of the shaft, she looked up and saw Burkhart looking down at her with great concern. “Clip in,” he ordered.

Mattie stuffed the green paper in the pocket of the coverall, attached the line to her harness, and yelled, “I’m on.”

She rose instantly. She guided herself into the narrow tube and closed her eyes at the tightness of the passage until Burkhart snagged her by the back of the harness, lifted her, and set her firmly on the slaughterhouse floor.

Mattie trembled as if she’d just been blasted by cold air. “Did you see?”

She addressed the question to High Commissar Dietrich, who appeared stunned. “How many bodies are in there?”

“Twenty? Thirty? Like I said, it’s a boneyard.”

“I don’t care what it is, we are getting out of here, now,” Burkhart said. He looked at Dietrich. “The place looks booby-trapped. Get your people out now, and call in a federal bomb squad.”

Dietrich hesitated, clearly upended by the scope of what lay before him.

Burkhart got more insistent. “Hauptkommissar, I worked for GSG 9 in an old life, and I’m telling you to get your people out until the experts can get in there.”

Dietrich’s face contorted and then paled. He looked over at Inspector Weigel and the rest of his team watching him.

“Out!” the high commissar finally barked. “Everyone. Take only the essentials. Now!”

The ten people inside the slaughterhouse went into gear, grabbing computers, cameras, and the evidence samples they’d already gathered. In under a minute they were all hustling through the barn and out the front doors.