“I… don’t know.” She added, “The German authorities know all this. Yet they say that these men were terrorists.”
“It’s the easy answer, which isn’t always the right one.”
She nodded, then thought a moment and asked, “What have you been doing all night?”
“I told you.”
Taylor didn’t press, and they kept walking.
She clearly could sense there was something he wasn’t telling her. Or maybe she smelled Anna’s perfume. Whatever. It was none of her business.
They saw Körnerpark up ahead, and Brodie headed toward the eastern entrance and Taylor followed. She said, “That cross screws up the narrative.”
“Only if you want it to. All three men had secret lives. And in Yosef Rahman’s case, a secret faith. The police will say they kept their radicalization to themselves. That’s the narrative. It will be good enough for the press and the public, and probably good enough for a team of investigators who want this case to be over.”
They reached the entrance to Körnerpark. Brodie and Taylor ducked under the chain and walked across the park toward the Art Hotel.
Taylor said, “The supposed link between the Vance homicide and the explosion on Richardstraße is not even public yet. Once it is, and the faces of those three Arab men are beamed all over the world…”
Right. Case closed. The dead guys had the murder weapon in their apartment and the victim’s eye in their freezer, and a communication referencing a revenge plot that would make Harry Vance and Mark Jenkins logical targets. It all fit.
And yet…
Why were the men following Mark Jenkins being so obvious about it? To intimidate him? No. That had never made any sense. They wanted Jenkins to know they were following him so that he would report it, because that would fit the larger narrative. And that bomb was never meant for his car. It had gone off exactly where it was supposed to.
Obviously, the narrative was being manipulated, and the clues had been planted. But why? And by whom?
He stopped walking.
Taylor looked at him. “What?”
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the small manila envelope that he had taken from Vance’s jacket hanging in Anna Albrecht’s wardrobe. He removed the microscope slide and held it up toward the light of a distant streetlamp, silhouetting the hazy purple splotches suspended in liquid. He said, “Black Harvest.”
She didn’t reply, but nodded slowly.
Harry had been researching Storkow and its unconventional-weapons program. Maybe he’d somehow gotten his hands on some of their research product.Holy shit.
He noticed that Taylor was pulling up a number on her phone. “Who are you calling?”
“Dombroski.” She looked him in the eyes. “We’re not leaving, Scott.”
He looked closely at his partner. She had that trademark manic look about her. Maggie Taylor was dedicated to her work like no one he’d ever seen. Yet she was also loyal to the institution of the Army and the chain of command, which was why her first reaction to this eureka moment was to call their commanding officer. But what happened when dedication to duty and deference to rank collided? They were about to find out.
Taylor hit the dial button and put the phone on speaker.
The colonel picked up. “Ms. Taylor. You’re up early. Or late.”
“Hello, sir. I’m with Scott. You’re on speaker.”
“What’s up?”
Taylor said, “We have some new—”
Brodie interrupted and said, “Ms. Taylor and I would like to take some leave time here. Two weeks.”
“Really?”
“Yes, sir. A road trip to Bavaria.”
