He looked at the bottom of the envelope, where he saw written3:00next to another Arabic word. “I’m going to guess this says Sunday.”
Taylor nodded. “Vance and Hamdani were to meet at threeA.M.Sunday morning at Ember Berlin to discuss something about Storkow.”
“And then Hamdani didn’t show. Or he told Vance to meet him in the park instead. A setup.”
Taylor shook her head. “Rafeeq Nasir told us that Hamdani never opened his shoe store on Saturday. And that no one could get in touch with Hamdani all day. And you and I agree that it looks like Hamdani was snatched from here. In which case, the person Vance was in contact with in the early morning hours of Sunday was not Hamdani. Harry was set up in Körnerpark, but not by the guy he was supposed to meet. There was a third party.”
“The Syrians who detonated themselves this morning.”
Taylor didn’t respond.
“Taylor?”
She looked at him. “Could you have asked for a more perfect crime scene? Murder weapon, physical evidence from the victim’s body, a thumb drive full of photos that telegraph the killers’ next victim?”
“I like crime scenes where the perps didn’t splatter themselves all over the walls. Easier to question.”
“That’s right,” said Taylor. “Dead men tell no tales.”
“What are you implying? A false flag?”
“I don’t know,” said Taylor. “But… something is off here.”
She took the envelope from Brodie and snapped a photo of it with her cell phone, then put it back on the desk where she’d found it. She said, “I think we’ve found what we can, and we don’t want to have a run-in with the chief inspector.”
They left the apartment and walked down the stairs and out onto the street. Brodie scanned the road. A few cars and a van waited at a red light at the nearest intersection. An old maroon Mercedes idled in front of a nearby café. After a moment a tall white-haired man in a black topcoatexited the café carrying a briefcase. He got in the car, which remained at the curb.
Taylor asked, “What are you doing?”
“Trying to be more aware than yesterday, when Rafeeq Nasir’s errand boy apparently tailed us for hours.”
Taylor gestured to her satchel. “We need to see if any of the material we received from the Fifth MP and the German investigators, or the report from Anna, will help us fit some more of this together.”
“Maggie, I’m not sitting around reading right now. Any minute my phone is going to ring, and it’s going to be the colonel telling us it’s game over.”
“Then turn off your phone.”
“I don’t think it works like that.”
“We need to look over these reports, Scott.”
“All right… so long as I can do it with a drink in my hand.”
She looked around. “We need to get out of this neighborhood.”
Brodie thought about the Hotel Adlon, back in Mitte near the embassy. Given their conduct so far on this case, it was kind of in keeping with the theme to go to the only spot in all of Berlin where Brodie had been banned from ever returning. He said to Taylor, “I know just the place.”
CHAPTER 28
Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor walked into the lobby of the Hotel Adlon on Unter den Linden and entered the bar. They were greeted by a hostess who led them to two upholstered chairs flanking a low coffee table in an isolated corner of the large lounge. It was a handsome space, with a white marble floor, exotic plants and flowers scattered around, and a soaring atrium featuring an intricate stained-glass dome. The lounge was moderately crowded with some well-dressed business types as well as a few slovenly tourists.
Taylor picked up the menu and said, “We should get some small bites.”
“Order the caviar. It’s on the American taxpayer.”
Taylor ignored that, and when the waiter came by, she ordered a few hors d’oeuvres and a white wine.
Brodie ordered a beer, then looked over at the Elephant Fountain. It was the centerpiece of the lounge, featuring polished black stone elephants spouting water from their trunks, which might have been what had given Adam Kogan his bright idea all those years ago. Brodie had an image of his drunk friend pissing into the circular pool below the elephants, holding on to a tusk for support. He now recalled that Kogan had slipped off the edge of the fountain and back into an armchair, his own trunk still hanging out.
