“Sure. So, the Stasi had their own paramilitary arm and they had a massive cache of weapons stored in their facilities. They had been working with the East German Army on a secret plan they called ‘Day X,’ which was essentially an armed invasion and takeover of West Berlin by the Stasi paramilitary, possibly coinciding with an East German Army invasion of West Germany.”
“That’s delusional. That would trigger a NATO military response. Not to mention a possible nuclear exchange.”
Taylor said, “I’m getting the impression there were some real diehards in the Stasi leadership—and especially the HVA—who by the late eighties were getting desperate, and maybe believing too much of their own propaganda about the strength of the East German nation. Once Gorbachev took over the Soviet Union in ’85, he signaled that the Soviet Union would not intervene if these Eastern Bloc countries faced an uprising, so the old guard in East Berlin started making plans independent of Moscow. And there’s another aspect of this, a kind of preamble to Day X called Operation Black Harvest. East Germany’s biowarfare division was working on genetically engineered bacterial, viral, and fungal agents that could infect livestock and cereal crops. The idea was to spread these agricultural bioweapons across Western Europe and disrupt their food supply. Kind of knock them on their backs before an invasion.”
Maggie Taylor could always be counted on to sober him up. He asked, “Where did you find all this?”
“Day X was written about a lot in the mid-nineties as people were unearthing old Stasi archives. Operation Black Harvest is less certain. I found a single mention in a German foreign policy journal from 1992 that contained an interview with a former Stasi HVA agent. This interview generated a few news articles, but there was no corroboration. The former Stasi agent could have been making it all up. Or voicing something that was merely aspirational and never close to operational. But if itistrue, it draws a connection between the Stasi foreign intelligence service and the East German Army’s unconventional-weapons program which was run at least partly out of the facility at Storkow.”
Brodie considered all that. According to the Stasi report on Odin, Manfred Albrecht had shared intelligence with Odin that was extremely sensitive and had something to do with joint operations between the East German Army and the Stasi. And Odin—a Stasi asset—had visited Storkow, an East German military facility focused on unconventional warfare, a year or so earlier over a concern about something. This could be what tied it all together. Or maybe not. Regardless, this wasn’t their case anymore.
He said to Taylor, “Good research. Put all this in a memo that we will print out and deliver to the legat’s office tomorrow on our way to the airport.”
Taylor didn’t respond for a moment. Then she said, “Odin’s still out there, Scott. I feel it.”
What Ms. Taylor was actually feeling was the pull of a case that she wasn’t done with. And while Brodie didn’t want to discourage his sometimes too literal partner from leaning on gut instinct, they had to put this investigation behind them. “Our friends in the FBI are assholes, but they are competent assholes. If there is something to all this, we have to trust they’ll look into it. And we have our two CID replacements coming in who didn’t get assigned to the famous Fifth MP for being idiots.”
“Scott Brodie, the institutionalist.”
“The realist.”
“You’re lying to yourself.”
“What do you want from me, Maggie? You want me to run an illegal investigation with zero resources that will probably land us in prison? If you want to kick this door in, you need to do it yourself. I’m following orders for a change.”
Silence for a moment. Then Taylor said in a slow, measured tone, “I don’t want you to do anything except acknowledge the possibility that a traitor to the United States might still be out there, might have had a hand in the murder of our colleague, and might get away with it.”
Brodie thought back to the drawing of the one-eyed god Odin. Was the mutilation of Harry’s body a sadistic message from an American traitor who still walked free? Maybe. Or were Brodie and Taylor overthinking a case that was already solved? Brodie said, “Odin’s probably dead.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“Or he’s an old man who will be dead soon.”
“Better that he die in jail.” She added, “On the plane ride here, you told me you were ready to burn it all down.”
“This is not what I meant. And you know that.” He added, “Don’t be so egotistical that you think only you can follow up on this.”
“Youhave the ego problem. I’m the conscientious one. And I’m not so sure that anyone will follow up.”
“We’ll follow up on that in Quantico. Also, don’t forget that we’re here to redeem ourselves and our careers.”
“We’ve already missed that boat, Scott. And probably sank it.”
“Right. Anything else?”
There was a long pause. Then Taylor said, “No. See you in the morning,” and hung up.
Brodie shoved his phone in his pocket and walked in the rain toward a main road to find a cab.
Maggie Taylor was becoming a renegade. Maybe she was spending too much time with Scott Brodie.
Someone who understands what’s missing.
That’s how she had characterized him last night at the club. But what was missing in this case? And in a broader sense, what was missing in both of their lives since the Mercer case in Venezuela? A sense of purpose? Of justice?
No, that was all BS. The fact was they were both unreformed adrenaline junkies, and Maggie Taylor was currently in need of a hit.
Brodie’s mind came back to Taylor’s newest discoveries. Day X. Operation Black Harvest. Two more stray pieces in this chaotic jigsaw.
