"It might have spilled."
"It might have or it did?"
Before Heinrich can answer, a report comes in over the radio from one of the observers.
"This is Unit Two. We've got something. The construction site on the northeast corner."
Torsten taps Heinrich on the shoulder. "Show me."
Heinrich hits a button and a feed comes up full screen on one of the monitors.
What they see is an enormous pit that has been excavated and reinforced for what will be an office building's foundation and underground garage.
The construction site is closed.
A van drives up to the locked gate.
A man dressed in black, his back to the camera, gets out of the van with a pair of bolt cutters and snaps the chain securing the gate. He holds the gate open and the van drives in, parking under one of the big, blue elevated water pipes that snakes out from the site, across the street, and down to the Spree.
Four men dressed in black, wearing balaclavas over their heads and carrying large gym bags, get out of the van and make their way down into the enormous pit.
Torsten picks up the mike. "Attention, all units. The robbery is in progress. Hold your positions." He turns to Heinrich. "Where are Vogt and McGrave?"
They are in Maria's Passat on a busy boulevard, headed towards Berlin-Tegel Airport. Maria is driving, resolute in her mission. McGrave sits beside her, pissed off but helpless. Erich is in the backseat, sitting in the middle so he can see them both.
"You can't make him go, Mom," Erich says.
"Watch me," she says.
"But I broke Axel's arm, not McGrave. Send me to America," Erich says. "Disney World, for instance."
Her cell phone rings. She answers it and begins carrying on a conversation in German. McGrave's name is mentioned. He looks over his shoulder at Erich.
"What's she saying?" McGrave asks.
"She's says you can't participate in the operation. Something urgent came up."
"What could be more urgent than catching Richter?"
Erich listens to his mother talk, then: "She says you have food poisoning. You can't stop vomiting."
Maria ends the call and wedges her phone into the ashtray. McGrave looks at her.
"It's happening, isn't it?" he says.
"You were right, McGrave. It's tonight. Richter has walked into a trap and he doesn't even know it. We got lucky."
"And I'm missing it," McGrave says.
"We'll send you a postcard."
On a rooftop in Mitte, a cop wearing a headphone mike aims a camera at the auction house across the street. It's the kind of camera that picks up heat signatures.
Torsten's voice comes through the cop's earpiece. "Are they inside?"
The cop looks at the tiny screen on the camera and sees an X-ray-like image of the auction house and the distinct red silhouettes of four men climbing up through the floor.
"They're in," the cop says.
Heinrich is on his hands and knees in the van, scrubbing the floor with a rag and cleanser. Torsten is at the console, leaning into the mike.
"All units, hold your positions. No one moves until I say so."
Maria and McGrave aren't moving, either. Their car is stuck in traffic, right beside a billboard advertising the Fabergй egg exhibit.
Which is in Mitte.
Where all the action is happening.
Without him.
It's salt in the wound.
Actually, it's more like ground glass, battery acid, and gasoline in the wound.
McGrave drums his fingers on the armrest.
Maria looks at him. "Would you please stop that?"
"I was lost here. I've never been to Berlin and I don't speak German. But I outflanked Richter anyway."
"You had a little help," she says.
"You're right, I did. You picked up rumors about someone looking for tunnelers and alarm pros. You found unique dirt particles that led us to a specific
neighborhood. And I stumbled on an auction of Egyptian toilets, just like the ones Richter was trying to steal in LA."
"Toilets?" Erich says, a note of disappointment in his voice. "You're chasing a guy who steals toilets? What kind of supercriminal is that?"
"It all fell together so easily," McGrave says.
Maria shrugs. "Sometimes it does."
"It never does," he says.
"It does when you work with a skilled team, in a precise and thoughtful manner, rather than charging into the streets on your own. You hate that you needed help."
"That's not it."
"And now you're furious because Richter is going to be arrested in the middle of his robbery and you'll be somewhere over the Atlantic when it happens."
"I'm not going to be there," he says. He looks out the window again at the billboard.
"That's right," Maria says, as if reprimanding a child. "I hope you've learned a lesson from this."
"You see that egg?" He gestures to the billboard. "Where is that exhibit?"
"It's in a private museum created to show off the art collection of Matthias Balz, the international real estate tycoon," she says. "It's in a renovated air-raid bunker built by the Nazis to evacuate travelers from Friedrichstrasse train station."
"Where's that in relation to the robbery that's going down?"
"A few blocks away," she says.
McGrave sits up straight in his seat. "And we aren't there."
"Stop whining, McGrave," she says. "It's childish."
"What I'm saying is that we aren't there." McGrave points to the billboard. "That's where Richter really is, stealing the Fabergй eggs and God knows what else. We were set up."
"Oh really?" she says. "Then who is robbing the auction house right now?"
"Whoever they are, they have been set up by Richter, too. It's all a distraction from the real robbery."
Maria shakes her head. "You're reaching. You're just desperate to stay off that plane."
"Maybe I am. But what if I'm right? You have nothing to lose by checking it out," he says. "If I am wrong, I promise I will take the next flight."
"You're like a child who doesn't want to go to bed."
"You have to help him, Mom," Erich says.
"Why should I?" Maria says. "Thanks to him, you're expelled and the judge is going to say I'm responsible for it. I could lose you."
"You'll never lose me."
Maria looks in her rearview mirror at her son. He looks right back at her.
"He helped me, Mom, even if you don't think so," Erich says. "You may not owe him anything, but I do."
Maria knows she's going to regret this, but…
"Don't ever tell your dad about this."
She makes a sharp U-turn over the grassy median and veers across the path of oncoming traffic, causing a dozen cars to come to a screeching, rubber-ripping stop to avoid collisions.
And then she floors it, weaving around the cars ahead and speeding towards the center of Berlin.
Erich lets out a cheer.
Maria has just become the coolest mother ever.
The Fabergй Egg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (and because it's compiled, fact-checked, and updated strictly by anybody with an Internet connection, it is the most detailed and reliable source of all human knowledge)
A Fabergй egg is any one of the thousands of jeweled eggs made by the House of Fabergй from 1885 to 1917. The most famous eggs were the larger ones made for Alexander III and Nicholas II of Russia; these are often referred to as the "Imperial" Fabergй eggs. Of the fifty made, forty-two have survived. All of the eggs are made of precious metals or hard stones decorated with enamel and gems. The Fabergй eggs have become the ultimate symbol of luxury and are considered masterpieces.
Stefan leads the elite assault team that is standing around in an empty storefront in their heavy assault gear with their assault weapons, all anxiously waiting for the go-ahead to assault.