“Hi, Peter, were you at the Odeonsplatz last night? I heard it over the radio; it must have been a close call!”
“You’re not kidding. We were lucky to get out of there with our lives.”
“Have you any idea what happened in there?”
“We were called out after a 112 call reported a body lying in the street. By the time we got there, Jarvis was on his way out, together with his wife and a small arsenal of weapons. She was carrying an automatic rifle, and he was carrying two pistols and a hand grenade. I saw at least one body before pulling them out of there. God knows how many more there were.”
“And the explosion. Was it gas?”
“Might have been, some people reported smelling gas, but the explosion was almost too big and too accurate for that. My guess is a demolition. Honestly, Günther, you should have seen that place come down. There was hardly a brick in the road after the dust settled.”
“That doesn’t make any sense—why would anyone destroy a property like that?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, my friend. Fortunately, that is your job.” He smiled. “Look, I have to get back over there. If you want I will call you later?”
“Yes, please. Take care Peter!”
Peter waved and set off at a jog in the direction of a black SWAT van in the street.
Günther turned slowly, digesting what he had just heard, and went over to the reception desk to enquire about the Jarvis’s whereabouts.
“Where have we put the Jarvis Family, Martha?” The young police officer looked up from behind a filing cabinet, a wad of reports in her hand.
“Neither have been officially charged, but the list of charges is growing by the minute. Mrs Jarvis is to be taken to hospital within the hour. She has a very nasty leg wound and some other abrasions to her body. Mr Jarvis is presently in a holding cell.”
Michael stood in the small cell, trapped with his nemesis. Neither man was able to gain the upper hand. Hofmann continued bombarding him with incessant recommendations.
We have to get out of here. They will come for us. We are not safe here!
Look, there is no we! No us! Just leave me alone.
The next guard that comes in, take him out. In fact, call him, call him now, whilst you still have the nerve!
I am not going to ‘take out’ anyone. These people are trying to help us.
They can’t help us, don’t you understand? Meyer-Hofmann has people working in this building, and they will come for us. We have information that could ruin their plans. They will not take the chance that we will not talk.
Michael stopped pacing the room and slumped down on the hard steel bed, head in his hands.
Shut up. Shut up. Just shut up!
You have to listen to me!
No, just let me think!
Lisa was in an ambulance, on her way to the hospital. A paramedic had redressed her leg wound and rubbed some cream into the other bumps and abrasions on her body. But she was most worried about her teeth. Running her tongue over their chipped and broken surfaces, the sharp points and rough edges cut and scratched. She tried sucking air through them, but it made her wince with pain. Despite that, she was unable to stop herself from constantly pushing and prodding her tongue back and forth over their shattered remnants.
Oh my God, what must I look like?
She tried a broken smile at the lady police officer who sat in the ambulance opposite her, before covering her mouth in shame.
“Do they hurt? Your teeth? There is also a dentist in the hospital; you should see him.”
“Yes, I think I will. Thank you.”
The officer smiled at her.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I wouldn’t know where to start! I have to talk to my husband first.”
“I am afraid they won’t let you do that. Your statements will be taken separately. I was talking about your wounds. Do you want to tell me how they happened?”
“I was tortured. I was tortured by a man called Von Klitzing. And he enjoyed it.”
The woman took a small pad and pen from her jacket pocket.
“He stripped me and strapped me into a chair. That’s where these marks came from.” Lisa held her wrists out in front of the officer before lifting her trouser legs to reveal her bruised ankles.
“Then he hosed me down with freezing cold water. I thought I would drown. The force of the water was so strong, and he blasted it full into my face. I couldn’t breathe, my mouth and nose were full.”
The tears were welling up in her eyes as she spoke, and she cuddled herself for warmth, remembering the cold water.
“Then, when I wouldn’t tell him what he wanted to know, he stabbed me in the leg.”
“And the teeth?”
“Electric shocks. I thought I was on fire! My whole body was racked with pain. Everything, I can’t explain it—it was awful!”
A lonely tear dropped between her legs onto the blue plastic material of the gurney she was perched on. She watched it fall in slow motion, impacting with the bed then ricocheting off in all directions, and with it, her feeling of self. She felt lost.
“He might as well have killed me.”
She spoke the words quietly, as if whispering to a child, as the ambulance came to a stop.
Sergeant Richard Weger met Heinz at a side door to the station.
“I can’t get involved! That is not what I signed up for!”
Weger was a small man, and not a typical policeman. He wore his green police issue trousers at half mast, his waist so small that his trousers rarely had the correct leg measurement. The shirt was also too large for him, the uniform sweater making it crease up into the V-neck, giving the impression he was wearing a blouse. A pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose were threatening to jump at any moment.
“What are you going to do?” Weger said, pushing the disobedient glasses up his nose with his forefinger.
Heinz looked him up and down once, with no sign of emotion, lifted the silenced Walter PPK in his right hand, and shot Richard between the eyes before setting off towards the cells.
Michael stood when he heard someone at the door, the old lock mechanism dragging the large bolt out of the thick cell walls, the cell door opening outwards into the hall beyond. When the door finally opened, he was only a metre away from the two men who stood before him, a guard he knew and another man in plain clothes, who immediately offered his hand.
“Mr Jarvis, my name is Günther Müller.”
Kill him!
Michael reached out towards the hand as a picture flashed through his mind. A martial arts throw, where the victim is taken in a handshake before being put on his back and killed with a blow to the neck.
Michael took the hand and shook it.
No! You idiot!
“Mr Müller, I have to get out of here. I believe Meyer-Hofmann will send someone to kill me.”
“You are quite safe here, Mr Jarvis, believe me.” Günther’s words were followed by a dull thud, and the guard behind him fell into the cell, a dark red patch growing on the side of his head. Both Günther and Michael threw themselves at opposite sides of the confined space. Günther struggled to release his own Walter PPK service revolver from its hip holster, whilst Michael tried to make the target as small as possible.
The bullet hit him in the left side of his chest, accelerating him into the wall. Günther, now on his back, raised his gun and emptied the clip into the man mountain that was standing in the doorway. No single shot had a deadly effect, but the sum of the parts battered the soldier into his grave. Going down on his knees, Heinz’s facial expression never changed, even as the life left him, and he fell face-first onto the cell floor.