Private Berlin (25 page)

STUNNED AND CORED through with fear for Niklas, Mattie whispered, “Falk?”

Burkhart snatched the phone from her and turned on the speaker just in time to hear Falk say, “An old name.”

Panic-stricken now, Mattie pleaded, “Let him go. Please, he’s just a boy.”

“Yes, he is,” Falk said icily. “So listen carefully if you ever want to see him alive again. I want you to get Ilona Frei,
and I want you to bring her to me. You and Ilona. No one else. If you do bring someone else, anyone else, I will cut your
son’s throat, ear to ear, just the way I used to bleed out hogs for my father.

“Do you understand?”

Mattie glanced at Burkhart, who had gone cold and hard at the wheel, slowing, looking for a place to stop. Ilona Frei softly
whimpered in the backseat. Burkhart looked at Ilona, pressed his finger to his lips, and nodded to Mattie.

“All right,” Mattie said shakily. “Where do you want me to bring her?”

“Where any mother might have looked for a lost child in the last days of the East German Republic,” Falk snarled. “You have
ninety minutes to get here or your boy dies.”

“That’s not enough—”

“It’s what you’ve got,” Falk said and hung up.

RACING SOUTH AS the storm threatened, Mattie stared into the darkness, doing everything in her power not to collapse.

In the backseat, Ilona Frei was turning hysterical. “You’re not going to let him have me, are you? You wouldn’t trade me for
your son, would you?”

For a second Mattie was so stunned at the question that she did not know what to say, but then she shook her head. “No. No,
of course not.”

“Call the police,” Ilona pleaded.

“That could get Niklas killed,” Burkhart said.

“Then call your friends at Private!”

With Falk’s warning about bringing anyone else along still ringing in her ears, she looked to Burkhart and said: “You’re the
hostage rescuer. What do we do?”

“Is there specialized gear in the trunk?”

“Yes, it’s Private’s car.”

“Give me the particulars.”

Mattie struggled to think. “Two bulletproof vests. One 9 mm Heckler and Koch automatic assault rifle. Two twenty-shot magazines
in 9 mm.”

“Night vision?” he asked.

“A scope.”

“No goggles.”

“Just the scope.”

“Radios? Cameras?”

“Two earbuds with Bluetooth mics, and two fiber-optic units.”

“Can they feed wireless to a website?”

“Private Berlin’s.”

“So I could access a feed from my phone?”

“If coverage is good.”

“Describe the layout of the orphanage.”

Between Mattie and Ilona they gave it to him. The front entry. The offices on the immediate right. The kitchen. The dining
hall. The staircase. The rooms upstairs. The rotting floors. The caved-in roof.

“Is there a rear entrance?” Burkhart asked.

Ilona said there were three: one at the kitchen, and two others at either end of the building that led to back staircases
to the upper floors.

They passed Halle and headed east. With every mile, Mattie felt more and more on the verge of a nervous breakdown. First her
mother. Then Chris. And now Niklas? Though she considered herself spiritual, Mattie was not by nature religious.

Still, as they got closer and closer to the ruins of Waisenhaus 44, she found herself praying to God to save her son. He was
only a boy. Nine years old. Her little boy. Her most precious gift.

BURKHART’S FIRST PLAN called for Ilona Frei to remain behind in the car and call Private and Berlin Kripo while he and Mattie made a rescue attempt.

“But he’ll kill Niklas if I’m not there,” Ilona said.

“I’ll tell him I couldn’t find you,” Mattie replied. “He only gave us ninety minutes. You’ll stay in the car. Let Burkhart
and me handle it.”

Ilona chewed on her knuckle in the backseat. Then she shook her head.

“No. I won’t do that. I’ve spent my life running from him. It’s driven me insane on more than one occasion. If I’m going to
have any hope of a life, I have to face him, tell him what I think of him, what he did to me, and the others. And then, honestly,
I’d like to see him die.”

“New plan then,” Burkhart said as he slowed to a stop about a mile from the orphanage. “We get suited up, and then five hundred
yards shy of the place, you let me out. You two park on the road, go up the drive and in the front. I’ll follow through the
woods and circle round the back.”

They got out and took the tactical gear from the trunk. Mattie and Ilona Frei put on the bulletproof vests under their jackets.

“You’ll be unprotected, Burkhart,” Mattie said.

“But unseen,” Burkhart replied, pulling out the H&K rifle and night-vision scope. “This guy doesn’t know what one invisible
man can do to another.”

Mattie clipped the tiny fiber-optic camera through the buttonhole on her lapel. She did the same with Ilona.

“Bury the bud,” Burkhart said. “The mic, too.”

Mattie pushed the bud deep into her ear and slipped the mic under her wristwatch before climbing in the driver’s seat with
Ilona as front passenger and Burkhart in the rear.

“We should call Private,” Mattie said.

Burkhart dialed Jack Morgan’s number and explained what was happening. Morgan was furious that they had not contacted him
or Kripo earlier.

“We’re trying to save my son’s life, Jack,” Mattie insisted.

“We’re heading to the airport,” Morgan said. “We’re renting a helicopter.”

“No,” Burkhart said. “Not unless you can land a mile away. He’s smart. He’ll know we’ve called in backup if he hears a chopper.”

“I’ll call Dietrich,” Morgan replied and hung up.

Mattie put the car in gear and drove. A few silent moments later, rain began to spatter the windows. Lightning flashed in
the distance, but it was enough to reveal the blades of the huge wind turbines spinning in the breeze.

“It’s right up ahead on the left,” she said. “Five hundred yards.”

“Ready?” Burkhart asked as she slowed to a stop.

“No.”

“Ilona?”

“Yes.” But her response was wrought with doubt and fear.

Mattie twisted in her seat when Burkhart opened the rear door.

“Please tell me Niklas’s going to be okay.”

Burkhart put his giant hand on hers as the rain began to pour. “He’s going to be, Mattie. You just have to have faith.”

FRIENDS, FELLOW BERLINERS, I am standing by a big pine tree in the light rain just inside the woods northeast of the rear entrance to the orphanage.
I am wet but more than pleased when I hear the crunch of tires as a car pulls off onto the shoulder out on the main road south
of Waisenhaus 44.

A moment later I hear a car door open, but no dome light goes on inside. A second door opens. Still no light.

It makes me feel that my suspicions were justified. I slip around the back of the pine tree and press myself tightly to it,
chilled to the bone, watching that rear entrance, figuring that this will be how the counterterrorism expert Burkhart will
try to outflank me while Ilona Frei and Mattie Engel go through the front door.

They’ll be scared shitless, I think, and my heart races.

A mother. A son. A ghost from my past. Their combined fear.

Once Burkhart is dealt with it will be like old times, I decide. One last celebration before I move on.

I stay frozen to the tree, waiting after they’ve gone. One minute. Two minutes. At three minutes, I’m starting to think I’ve
overthought things and that I should be moving quickly into the orphanage before they can find Nick.

But at three minutes thirty seconds, I become aware of a change in the darkness in front of me. And then I see it, the subtle
dim green glow of some sort of night-vision device.

I cling tighter to the tree, my pistol in my right hand, aimed toward the glow. But then I lose it. Gone.

I peer and peer and see nothing. I’m running out of time.

A twig snaps. I slide around the tree, moving the gun toward the sound.

I hear a low voice: “Go in slow. Let him talk to you first.”

At thirty yards: a rectangular glow, much brighter.

He’s looking at his cell phone.

Horrible time to be texting, I think, and shoot twice.

I hear both rounds hit flesh and bone, a gasp, a cough, and then a satisfying crash that’s soon drowned by the rain pelting
the woods.

“BURKHART?” MATTIE MURMURED into her mic as they approached the ruins of Waisenhaus 44. She’d heard him gasp and cough. Now all she could make out was
static and rain transmitting through the bud.

“What is it?” Ilona whispered. “What’s wrong?”

For a second Mattie didn’t know what to do. That gasp. That cough.

And then it just didn’t matter. Niklas was somewhere inside the ruins of the orphanage. She was going to bring him out of
there alive.

Alive, she said to herself over and over as she got out her gun, and they climbed up onto the porch of the place. Mattie led
Ilona through the busted front door past the entrance to what had been Hariat Ledwig’s office.

When they reached the bottom of the staircase, Mattie called out, “Falk!”

But they heard nothing but the rain and wind. They checked the dining room and the kitchen. Nothing.

They returned to the staircase, and again Mattie cried, “Falk!”

“Drop the gun,” Falk said from the shadows. “Toss it behind you.”

Mattie hesitated.

“Drop it if you ever want to see your son again.”

Mattie tossed the pistol back behind her. It clattered away.

“Flashlight too,” Falk said.

She complied, and then she saw her shadow and Ilona’s on the risers of the old staircase as Falk shined her light on them.

“Climb,” he said, then made that clicking noise in his throat.

Ilona panicked at the sound and tried to make a run for it. But Falk grabbed her by the hair and yanked her off her feet.
She began to shriek.

“Scream all you want,” Falk snarled. “There’s no one who can hear you. We’re miles from nowhere and we have unfinished business.”
He glared at Mattie. “Get upstairs. Your boy’s waiting for you.”

Mattie climbed up into the darkness with Ilona moaning behind her. They reached the landing, and Falk directed them down the
hall into a room, which faced the rear of the orphanage, looking out over farmland and woods.

His flashlight cut the room, and Mattie thought she saw rope hanging from the exposed beam, before the light focused on the
floor.

Falk told them to kneel. When they had, he instructed them to take off their bulletproof vests and clasp their hands behind
their heads. He was behind Mattie the entire time, and she never got a good look at his face. He put zip-tie restraints on
their wrists and ankles, and then came around the front of them.

In the slanted light of the flashlights brightening the room, Mattie thought that Falk’s face and head resembled a wig mannequin’s.
He was bald, had no eyebrows, and his skin was strangely smooth, with ears tightly pinned back. “Don’t think you’re ever getting
out of here, hmmm?” Falk said. “Your friend, Burkhart, the big guy? I put two rounds in his chest. He’s not going anywhere
ever again.”

Mattie’s heart plunged ten stories. Burkhart? Dead? In her mind she saw him making Eggs Burkhart earlier that morning, and
laughing at one of Niklas’s jokes.

She felt crazed with fear. “Where’s my son?” Mattie demanded.

Falk walked to a door in the corner of the room and pulled out Niklas, who was in restraints. Duct tape sealed his mouth.

“Nicky!” Mattie yelled.

Walleyed, Niklas started whining at his mother.

“Let him go!” Ilona Frei yelled. “You’ve got me. You’ve got what you want!”

Falk laughed. “And spoil my fun, Ilona? I think not.”

MY FRIENDS, FELLOW Berliners, I light the gas lantern I brought especially for this occasion.

“You remember the lanterns, don’t you, Ilona?” I ask. “The soft wavering light where we used to play in the slaughterhouse?”

Ilona looks hypnotized, staring at the lantern, her mouth stretching against some horror playing in her schizophrenic mind
before the light inside her seems to click off. She turns her head and stares at the wall, humming a child’s tune.

“You do remember,” I say and click my throat in approval.

Then I haul Mattie Engel to her feet, walk her backward, and tell her to kneel again, hands over her head. I feed a steel
hook around the restraints. It’s attached to a rope that runs through a pulley I’ve attached to the beam.

“Stand up,” I say and start pulling out the slack until her arms are stretched tight.

I come around her and smile.

“There,” I say. “Now that is better, don’t you think? Hmmm?”

“Let my son go,” she says. “Please. He’s innocent.”

“You two are like an old record,” I snap. “If it didn’t work for Ilona’s mother, or Chris’s mother, or any of the others,
what makes you think it will work for you? What makes you so special?”

I cross the room to Niklas and tear the tape from his mouth.

Then I return to Mattie, get out a utility knife, and use its razor-sharp blade to slit off her blouse and bra.

When I’m done I display her proudly to her son, Niklas. Then I press the blade to her breast and leer at the boy. “You love
your mommy, don’t you?”

NIKLAS BEGAN TO cry in pain and fear for Mattie. “Why are you doing this?”

Mattie felt more than humiliated, her own shame magnified by Niklas’s, and she understood why Falk’s methods had garnered
confessions. She looked him up and down, spotted the excitement in Falk’s face, and the bulge in his slacks, and remembered
what Genevieve the sex worker had told her.

Mattie turned livid and shouted, “Don’t show him anything, Niklas. He wants to see your fear. Don’t give it to him. No matter
what happens. Don’t.”

Niklas hesitated, but then clamped his jaw tight and stared back at his mother, nodding with wide and glassy eyes.

My brave, brave little boy, Mattie thought.

Falk’s joy faded. He twisted his lips at Mattie as if she’d spoiled his fun. Then he shrugged. “That’s okay. I enjoy pain,
too.”

He went around behind her and pulled hard on the rope.

The plastic restraints sawed into Mattie’s wrists and her shoulders popped as she was lifted off the floor.

The restraints cut her. She felt like her arms were going to dislocate from their sockets.

Mattie had never known such agony. She bit her lip not to scream, doing everything in her power not to show her pain. But
finally, as if it were coming from another person, she heard an uncontrolled howl of rage burst from her throat.

When Falk came around in front of her, his eyes were lit up like a kid’s at an amusement park.

Mattie refused to look at him. Instead, she focused on Niklas, who was backed up against the wall, shaking and crying but
trying to stop. “Mom.”

Mattie did not reply. Instead she took the rage burning in her and channeled it.

She arched and kicked at Falk. The tips of her shoes just missed his groin but hit him hard in his upper thigh.

He was somewhat shocked before he laughed with delight. “You’re only the second one to ever try that. Didn’t work the first
time, either.”

Kicking at him had only damaged her wrists more. The pain was excruciating. She saw black spots dance before her eyes and
thought she was going to pass out.

But then Falk went around behind her, released the rope, and lowered her until she stood on the floor, hands snugged up toward
the beam.

“Mom, you’re bleeding!” Niklas cried.

Dazed, Mattie looked up. Blood trickled and oozed from her wounds.

When Falk came back around to face her, Mattie gasped, “You did this to the mothers at the slaughterhouse? Hanging them on
meat hooks?”

“Got to have some way to move a carcass around.”

“I’m not a carcass.”

“You will be, soon enough.”

He gestured with the knife toward Niklas and then pressed the tip against her rib cage, just below her breast. “That’s how
they’ll find you, your son, and Ilona. Hanging like carcasses.”