Private Berlin (Private 5)

My father’s heroes, Dietrich thought bitterly. So close and yet so far.

He looked back at his father’s mourners. They were looking at him expectantly and he realized the stout one had stopped speaking.

The high commissar said nothing. He took two steps forward, picked up a clod of wet black earth, thought to hurl it, but then dropped it on the urn. He stepped back, aware of the mud on his hand and not caring.

One by one, the pallbearers tossed dirt into the grave and then shook Dietrich’s hand, blackening it further.

The last mourner, the stout man, said, “You have the condolences of the inner committee, Hauptkommissar. Your father was a valued member.”

With a dull, flat expression, Dietrich nodded. “Thank you, Willy.”

Willy hesitated, and then hardened. “I suppose you must feel relieved then, now that he’s gone.”

Dietrich had to fight to quell the nausea roiling in his stomach as he said, “Actually, I feel cursed by him, by all of you. I won’t be free of that until I know that every last one of you is dead, and all your secrets are buried with you.”

CHAPTER 72

IT IS JUST past 10 a.m. when I turn the Mercedes into a parking structure on the northwest corner of the grounds of the IAA Motor Show, the largest car exhibition in the world. Gleaming exotic rides litter the parking lot, and I’m instantly a happy man. I love cars. They’re one of the best disguises there is.

In the right car, my friends, you can be anyone, don’t you think?

I park and study a photo of Artur Jaeger downloaded from the Internet, thinking about the helpful secretary who told me where I might find the engineer.

I look in the mirror, checking the makeup job that makes me appear bald and much older. I zip up a blue windbreaker, and then put on a red one with an Aston Martin logo over it.

I tug on a matching ball cap.

I pause, forcing myself to breathe deep and slow.

I know what a terrible risk I’m taking.

It’s unlike me. I prefer to have the odds in my favor. But I have no choice.

So I get the pistol and the suppressor from under my seat and slide the weapon into a holster I wear beneath the windbreaker.

I open the door and make a show of pain as I get out. I’ve got a bad hip, or arthritis, or at least I do today.

I gimp toward the galleria entrance, telling myself that if I am as cold and deadly as my father taught me to be, I just might leave Frankfurt an even more invisible man.

CHAPTER 73

THE TAXI FROM the airport dropped Mattie and Burkhart in front of the unequal twin towers called Kastor and Pollux that fro

nt the city entrance to the Frankfurt Messe trade fair. They paid for admission at the Festhalle entrance and entered a sprawling campus of gigantic halls linked by moving walkways and escalators.

It was the second to last day of the show, but the place was still packed. Using a map, they navigated toward the BMW stand in hall number one and began looking for Artur Jaeger using a photo Dr. Gabriel had sent to their cell phones.

Mattie spotted him up on a stage beside a beautiful woman in an evening gown. He held a microphone and was describing the intricacies of the sleek concept sports car that was turning on a revolving platform behind him.

Mattie worked through the crowd toward the front. It was loud inside the massive hall, a general din that competed with Jaeger’s spiel, so she did not hear what caused the engineer to suddenly jerk, drop the mic, and collapse backward.

But when Jaeger hit the stage floor, she saw the fine plume of blood that burst from his lips.

“Shooter!” Burkhart roared. “Everyone down!”

Chaos bloomed into pandemonium as people around the BMW exhibit began screaming, diving for the floor, or tripping toward the exits.

Mattie drew her gun, her mind computing the rough angle from which Jaeger had to have been shot. She looked along that line of sight and spotted among those trying to flee an older man in a red windbreaker limping quickly away.