Private Berlin (Private 5)

She and Burkhart had left the explosion scene while journalists and federal agents swarmed the area. They returned to the office where she’d met Katharina, who had told her to go home, but Mattie refused, saying she could not face Niklas yet.

Katharina had decided to keep Chris’s appointment with Krüger’s wife. Mattie could not bear sitting still, so she’d showered and changed in Private Berlin’s locker room, and gone along.

But now she just wanted to go home, hold Niklas, and Socrates, and cry.

“It is hard,” Agnes Krüger said, breaking the silence, and then coughing. “It is hard to learn that you do not satisfy your husband in any way, shape, or form. Do you have names? The mistresses? Their phone numbers, addresses?”

Katharina looked pained. “We do, but—”

“What’re you gonna do, Mother?” a snide male voice said, cutting her off. “Buy them off? Cover up for him again?”

The billionaire’s wife reacted as if she’d been slapped.

Mattie startled and looked over to see a gaunt young man with grungy clothes and a scruffy beard. He was peering into the drawing room from the hallway.

Agnes Krüger’s chin rose as if in defiance. “My son, Rudy.”

“The name’s Rude, Mother.”

“This is not the time.”

“Sounds like it is,” her son said, strolling in and taking a seat. He nodded to Mattie and Katharina. “Go on. I’d like to hear just what old stepdad’s been up to.”

The billionaire’s wife sat even more erect in her chair.

Mattie and Katharina said nothing.

Rudy Krüger snorted. “You know what? I don’t need to know the details. I know all about Hermann. Except for his money, and his business, his art collection and the cars, he only has one other dimension. Stepdad’s a goat, driven by his prick and balls. And those women? They’re just holes. Even mother is a hole, a hole who completed Hermann’s façade of respectability.”

Agnes Krüger’s façade broke into rage. “Enough!” she shouted at him. “Go back to that hell hole you prefer to my house! Get out!”

Her son smiled and stood. “I know what you’re going to do, Mother. You’re going to figure out a way to sweep it under the rug, and you know why?”

Agnes Krüger said nothing. She just glared at Rudy.

“Because of the money,” he told Mattie and Katharina. “With my mother and stepfather it’s always about the money.”

CHAPTER 33

JACK MORGAN AND Daniel Brecht sat at the window table in a café diagonally across the street from Cabaret, debating why Cassiano would claim he met Pavel alone when Pavel said they met with his wife.

“Perhaps a memory lapse,” Brecht allowed. “Or it’s a flaw in a cover story.”

Morgan had been looking out the window. He threw down his napkin and got up fast. “So much for rehearsal and other business. Pavel’s on the move.”

Brecht tossed money on the table and rushed after him into the street.

Out in front of Cabaret, the nightclub owner climbed into a taxicab.

Morgan was already hailing another cab. They jumped in and told the driver to follow the cab ahead.

As they drove, Morgan began to feel the effects of jet lag. His head nodded and his brain buzzed with thoughts, wondering if Pavel had actually had something to do with Chris’s death, wondering how Mattie Engel was taking it all.

Burkhart had said she was acting like a professional.

Morgan’s last thought before he dozed was: But how long can that last?

Several minutes later, Brecht nudged him and he jerked awake.