Jack and Effrem got out, walked across the yard, then down a breezeway and through a heavy wooden door on the left. They found themselves standing in a foyer with butter-yellow walls, black-and-white-checkerboard tile floors, and an elevator whose doors were crisscrossed with duct tape bearing a cardboard sign that read AUßER BETRIEB. The air stank of rotten fruit.
“It’s called Merkel Punch,” Effrem told him. “It caught on during the 2008–2009 recession. Cheaper than store-bought liquor, easy to make in fun-sized portions. Why they named it after the chancellor I don’t know.”
Jack followed Effrem through a set of double doors to a stairwell, then climbed to the second floor. Once on the landing, Jack could hear the rhythmic thump of what he guessed was German rap music. Effrem led him down the hallway to Schrader’s apartment door. The music was louder now, coming from the apartment across the hall.
“How does this work?” Effrem asked. “I’ve never actually broken into anything.”
Jack knelt before the door and studied the door’s lock for a few seconds. It was a standard pin tumbler. He’d come armed with a few options, a pick set made out of a modified pair of tweezers and a paper clip, or a bump key. Jack decided to try the latter. From his pocket he pulled a pair of rubber washers, which he forced down the key’s shaft and onto its shoulder.
Jack inserted the key into the lock, depressing the washers as far as they would go, withdrew it a quarter-inch, then repeated the process but faster. After ten seconds the lock let go. Jack pushed open the door and stepped through, followed by Effrem. Jack wiped the knob with his shirttail.
The interior was dark save for a thin strip of sunlight coming through the blackout curtains. Jack turned on his cell phone’s camera flash and panned it across the ten-by-fourteen-foot room. Schrader’s living space was spartan, with a cot and sleeping bag against one wall, a milk crate containing a neatly folded stack of clothes, a writing desk beneath the window, a kitchenette, and a bathroom that consisted of a sink and a toilet.
The place reminded Jack of enlisted bachelor quarters on a military base. Schrader was on the road a lot, Jack guessed, and didn’t make enough money to afford a better place. Wouldn’t an employee of Jürgen Rostock’s be paid better? Maybe Schrader had been freelance, his mission to kill Jack an audition of sorts?
Jack walked to the curtains, closed them fully, then told Effrem to flip the light switch. An overhead fluorescent bulb flickered to life.
Jack said, “I take it the place Schrader stayed in Zurich was a step up?”
“Night and day,” replied Effrem. “Champagne versus Merkel Punch. Okay, so do we toss the place?” He said this with a trace of glee in his voice.
Jack pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket, passed them to Effrem, then put on his own pair. “Let’s start with drawers. You take the kitchen. Look for mail, notebooks, scraps of paper… anything with writing on it. Try to leave everything as you found it. Watch out for booby traps.”
“Pardon me?”
“Kidding.”
While Effrem started in the kitchen, Jack searched the cot, then sorted through the clothes in the milk crate before checking the desk drawers. All were empty. This place was less an apartment and more a bivouac.
“Got something,” Effrem called. He was on his hands and knees, half his torso inside the under-sink cabinet. “Looks like a planner or something. It’s jammed between the drainpipe and the basin.”
“Check for trip wires, then pull it out,” Jack said.
“Funny.”
Head still in the cabinet, Effrem reached back and handed Jack the black leatherette notebook. On its cover in fake gold leaf letters was “2016.” Jack paged through it. Many of the pages showed curt handwritten notations. He flipped ahead to the previous two weeks and his eye caught an entry: “U.S./VA.”
United States, Virginia.
He checked the current day and found nothing, then paged ahead. An entry on the following day read “S.M./Friedenstr. 8/2100.”
Effrem, having climbed out of the cabinet, was standing at Jack’s shoulder. He said, “‘Friedenstr.’ could be Friedenstrasse, the first number a building number. As for the other number—”
“Military time,” Jack replied.
S.M.
Stephan Möller?
Effrem had Jack head in the general direction of their hotel, then directed him south onto Highway 9, parallel to the Isar River, into the Schwabing district. They were in an upscale part of Munich now, near the Englischer Garten, a 910-acre swath of lush forest, nature trails, pavilions, and outdoor eateries that abutted the river’s west bank. Jack had spent his fair share of time here too, mostly on morning runs. The Englischer Garten was Munich’s version of New York’s Central Park, but much larger. An oasis in an already green city. Having seen the kind of houses that dominated this area of Schwabing, Jack doubted there was a sub-million-dollar house within a quarter-mile of the Englischer Garten’s border.
“Your guy lives here?” Jack asked.
“What were you expecting?” replied Effrem.
Jack realized his vision of private hackers was stereotypicaclass="underline" pasty-faced introverts in dark basements surrounded by a crescent of glowing computer monitors. “Not this, I guess.”
“Mitch has done well for himself. He’s a transplant, an expat American. Used to work in IT at a Fortune 500. He retired a few years ago.”
“And he does what now?” asked Jack. “Helps budding journalists?”
“Budding journalists with famous mothers,” Effrem replied. “Actually, Mitch was the one and only contact she gave me when I graduated.”
That said a lot, Jack decided, given how many sources Marie Likkel had probably accrued over her career.
“You trust him?” asked Jack.
“She did. He never let her down.”
Mitch’s house wasn’t adjacent to the Englischer Garten but butted up against Schwabinger Bach, the creek that forms the park’s western edge.
Jack pulled down the long tree-lined driveway until it opened into a clearing of brown and tan paving stones. The house itself was a whitewashed two-story box with an all-glass vaulted gambrel roof. A large Japanese maple shaded the front yard. Jack parked beside the walkway, got out, and followed Effrem to the front door, a chunk of wood bracketed by vertical glass slits. Effrem pushed the buzzer.
The door swung open, revealing a man in his late forties in black gym shorts and a light blue polo shirt. His face was very tan. “In, in,” he said, then turned and walked away.
Effrem asked, “Did we wake you?”
“No, my bladder did. I heard your voice mail and decided to ignore it. No offense, Effrem’s friend, whoever you are. I was up late playing cyber tag with some idiot in Belarus.”
“None taken,” said Jack.
The interior of Mitch’s house was what Jack had expected: white walls, white furniture, light wood floors, and a second floor looking down on the main level. They followed Mitch into a kitchen full of white appliances. Jack’s eyes began to ache.
“Anyone care for a virgin mimosa?” Mitch asked.
“Isn’t that just orange juice?” Effrem said.
“Ding, ding. Momma Likkel didn’t raise no dummy. Seriously, though, help yourself. Coffee, orange juice, bagels, whatever strikes you. So, do you have a name?” he asked Jack.
“Yes.”
When it was clear Jack was going to add nothing further, Mitch nodded thoughtfully. “Works for me. What can I do for you guys?”
Effrem said, “A few e-mail headers and a dicey-looking hyperlink.”
“Roger. Send it to me: mlakattack@hushmail.com.”