Collision of Evil (30 page)

“Oh, God, please don’t let it be the Sarin,” Chalmers mumbled.

Waldbaer heard the imploration with quiet horror. He approached the retching woman and placed his hands on her leather-jacketed shoulders. “Were you near that equipment?” He took care to keep his voice calm.

The policewoman noisily sucked in a gulp of air and shook her head sideways. “Freezer,” she said weakly, before unleashing another thick torrent into the tall grass.

“I don’t understand,” Waldbaer pleaded.

The woman regained her breath and seemed less convulsed, if pallid. “The freezer downstairs, in the back room. I was checking for chemicals. There’s a corpse in there. Hacked up. He’s decapitated, and the body has been cut into pieces like a pig at the butcher’s. Damn it, I wasn’t expecting something like that.”

Gently, Waldbaer eased her upright and patted her back. “It’s okay, stay here, get some fresh air. Better yet, go over to the van, there are bottles of mineral water in the back. We’ll take it from here. Good work, finding what you did.”

“Jesus,” Chalmers exclaimed, his features also taking on a pasty cast. “Boys, this part is out of my league. If you don’t mind, I’ll watch after the young lady here.”

Moments later Waldbaer and Hirter found themselves staring into the fishlike, lifeless eyes of a severed head. The eyes, like the rest of the body parts, were dusted with ice crystal. The body had been chopped into sections and the bottom of the freezer was a frozen black mass of coagulated blood. In addition to Waldbaer and Hirter, several policemen gathered around, taking in the grotesque sight.

“Get someone here with a camera,” Waldbaer ordered with a tremor of anger in his voice. “Call the crime scene boys and have them get the coroner.”

“I think I know who he is,” a tall, gaunt policeman muttered from just behind Waldbaer.

“You know who this man is? Well, let’s not keep it a secret.”

“I used to do the night patrol at the train station. He slept on the benches in the lobby some nights. I rousted him a few times. He used
to drink cheap schnapps by the liter, like a lot of those guys. I brought him into the station once or twice for making a nuisance of himself, the usual homeless alcoholic stuff. I think I know his name.” The policeman removed his peaked service cap and stared at the ceiling for a moment, his brow furrowed. “Yeah. Niedermeyer. I never heard his first name, the other drunks called him Niedi. That’s him, I’m certain of it.”

“Bravo,” Waldbaer replied. “At least we won’t have to waste time trying to identify him.”

Hirter shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t get it. Why was he killed like this? What connection would a garden-variety drunk have to a terrorism case?”

Waldbaer put his hand on Hirter’s shoulder. “That’s easy. He had no connection to al-Assad and company at all, none. I can see what happened. Niedermeyer is homeless and wanders around finding a roof to put over his head every night. Sometimes it’s the train station, but the police kick him out of there. He has other places where he gets some schnapps-induced sleep. Under a bridge one night, in some garage the next. And sometimes in an abandoned warehouse. He just picked the wrong night to nest here. He stumbled onto our chemical hobbyists or they stumbled onto him. They couldn’t take a chance that he’d report them. He was done in here in the warehouse. What to do with the corpse? These guys don’t have time to go wandering around with a body. The most logical thing to do is put him in this freezer. Problem: the freezer isn’t large enough to take a corpse whole. Solution: chop it up and make it fit. That’s how it happened, Herr Hirter.”

“I’m impressed,” Hirter said. “I guess that’s why you’re a Kommissar. Bad luck for this poor bastard.”

“And bad luck for us. This makes at least two murders, and the terrorists still evade us. And now they have a chemical weapon. Bad luck for us again.”

Waldbaer turned away from the corpse, having had enough of the scene, and what always struck him as the tawdry inelegance of murder. Hirter followed, feeling sullied and diminished by the sight
of the dead man and desiring fresh air. They arrived at the main door and walked outside. The blonde policewoman was leaning against a van and gulping mineral water from a plastic bottle.

“You know, Kommissar, it’s not all been bad luck. We were lucky in a positive way to find the equipment intact. Lucky to have had Chalmers on site to tell us what it means. The Turks were lucky in grabbing Ibrahim and getting him to talk. We shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves.”

“Only as hard as we need to be, Herr Hirter.” Waldbaer glanced at his wristwatch. “We need more luck now, at least if Chalmers is right about the chemical shelf life. We don’t know where al-Assad and his gang are located. If they’re in a large city as I think they are, it could take time to root them out. Remember what Napoleon said, Hirter. ‘Ask me for anything but time.’ That’s my worry—we don’t have time on our side.”

To this, Hirter could offer no consoling reply.

The sounds of traffic drifted up from the urban street and seeped into the confined space of the hotel room. The noise was constantly present, sometimes more and sometimes less, but never absent. The hotel room itself had seen better days, but even in better days would have been regarded as pedestrian. The same could be said of the entire Rote Adler Hotel, from the musty dining room with its chipped white plates to the dim lobby lined with smudged paneling and plastic plants. Mohammed al-Assad and his associates inhabited rooms in the establishment because it provided anonymity. The hotel owner was a balding Egyptian in his seventies, and the staff consisted of Turks whose lack of energy was compensated by their complete disinterest in the comings and goings of guests. The hotel was precisely what al-Assad had been looking for as the launch site for the mission.

They were gathered in al-Assad’s room on the fourth floor. They had checked in separately over the course of a day to avoid providing a profile as a group. Al-Assad passed around plastic bottles of iced tea that he had purchased down the street, across from the Munich main train station. Al-Assad sat on the narrow metal frame bed, Sayyid was slouched across from him in the room’s sole chair, an orange and chrome creation that screamed 1970s. The others leaned against the faded green wallpaper without complaint. The circumstances were, after all, no worse than in the warehouse they had so recently evacuated.

“My brothers, we are safe. As I said, we are under divine protection. This hotel will be the last earthly roof over our heads before we
meet in paradise, as a company of
shahid
. Only a few days more and our target will be ready, and we will be ready for our target. Fill the remaining hours with prayer. We will soon launch our attack against the
kaffir
. Although the infidels have captured Ibrahim and forced us to move more quickly than we might have liked, this has not compromised our plan.” Al-Assad looked from face to face as he spoke, careful to make eye contact. “The most difficult phase was the production of the chemical. That production has been successful, thanks to you.”

Al-Assad reached beneath the bed and pulled out a scuffed black suitcase. With a fluid motion, he unzipped it and removed a polished metal canister from underneath some folded shirts. He held the gleaming vessel securely in both hands. “This is our sword, brothers. This is our destiny, the reason we were born. There is one container for each of you; take them back to your rooms and hide them among your clothes in the dresser.” He ran a hand down the smooth surface of the container. “These are one-liter vessels. They are fitted with a dispersing device. Be careful with these things, friends, they are sensitive. I need say no more.”

Each man took a canister, cradling and examining it before setting the heavy cylinders softly on the worn gray carpeting covering the floor. There was a momentary silence punctuated only by the sounds from the street below.

“Mohammed, can you speak to us once again of paradise, of what awaits,” Sayyid requested.

Al-Assad smiled with a flash of teeth and folded his hands on his knees. “Of course, Sayyid. I will begin by telling you that a sanctified place is even now being readied for us, to celebrate our arrival. Be sure of this—black-eyed virgins prepare to greet us, and their unblemished beauty is unsurpassed on this earth.”

The weary faces in front of al-Assad smiled broadly, certain in the probity of what they were ready to do, and of the rewards that awaited them.

Waldbaer recognized the crisp-as-paper voice immediately and held the telephone receiver close to his ear. “Frau Bergdorfer, what an unexpected pleasure. How can I be of assistance?”

The distant voice spoke with enunciated precision. “I expect you might be more interested in how I can help you, Herr Kommissar. I’ve been thinking about what you said, about trying to solve a recent murder. And as you noted, my husband is gone and is beyond harm. His past remains his past, that can’t be changed. But perhaps a piece of the past can be of utility in the present. I don’t mean to be cryptic, Kommissar, but if you are interested in driving to Freilassing I can provide you with something from long ago that might interest you.”

“I’m on my way, Frau Bergdorfer; I’ll be there within ninety minutes.
Auf wiederhören.
” True to his word, the detective hung up the desk phone, pulled himself from his leather chair, and, car keys in hand, prepared to journey into the past.

They stood again in the garden, wet now from a passing shower. Waldbaer had decided to travel to Freilassing alone, in the event that it made it easier for the old woman to impart whatever she had to tell. Waldbaer had a nagging sense that the widow had not quite revealed all that she knew about her husband’s wartime activities. He hoped that was about to change.

The old woman smiled sadly and shook his hand, which the detective interpreted as not a bad augur. “Kommissar, I told you the truth when you were here last. I told you what I know of my husband’s
conversations about the war. But I failed to provide you with something not spoken but written.”

With difficulty, Waldbaer retained his calm demeanor and said nothing, permitting her to continue.

“My husband left a
Tagesbuch
, a diary. There are entries from wartime. I decided to read through it after you left the last time, to see if there was anything about his last mission to Bavaria. There is nothing written during the war later than January nineteen forty-five, I’m afraid.”

Waldbaer felt deflated, and could not conceal the rush of disappointment.

“Still, I did find some entries from nineteen forty-four that should interest you, Kommissar. You must be the judge, but I think some of the nineteen forty-four entries written in Dyernfurth-am-Oder might have a connection to the events of the following year. Much of it is too technical for me to follow, but perhaps it makes sense to you.”

Frau Bergdorfer slipped a papery hand into the folds of her apron and removed two small books. The top book was bound in cracked brown leather. The word Tagesbuch was embossed on the surface, and underneath it the letters HK; initials for Horst Kaltenberg. The second book had a green fabric cover and was of more recent vintage.

The woman ran her hand slowly over the volumes and passed them into Waldbaer’s palm. “I would like these returned when you’ve finished, Kommissar. You understand the sentiments of an old woman, I expect.”

“Of course, Frau Bergdorfer, they’ll be returned to you shortly. We’ll copy them and get the originals back to you. This is your property, and I’m aware that you are providing it voluntarily. I thank you for that.”

The woman nodded and folded her arms about her lean frame. “You might also find some of my husband’s later entries interesting. From after the war, I mean. Those are in the second book. Horst didn’t keep the diary regularly. But there are some entries from the nineteen eighties that you might profitably read, from his time as a chemical salesman.”

Sympathetic but shrewd, Waldbaer assessed. As if reading his unspoken thoughts, the woman added in a clipped voice, “I am old enough to have learned, Herr Kommissar, not to pass judgment too quickly. To this day, I judge my late husband only on how he behaved to
me
. Why should it be otherwise? It would seem that he engaged in things that I do not understand, that I might have never done myself, but for all that I have not passed judgment. That much you will permit me, I hope.”

Waldbaer took her hand in both of his in an old Teutonic gesture of respect that he had learned as a child. “Frau Bergdorfer, in my profession I’m forced to judge people all the time. It is, in a way, at the core of what a detective does for a living. Let me tell you this. Whatever judgment I might pass on your deceased husband, I judge
you
to be a person of honor. You have helped this investigation, and I expect it has cost you more than a little sorrow. I appreciate your helpfulness.”

He left her there in the garden, surrounded by the fragile, fading flowers of autumn and by a meadow of memories from very long ago.