Brodie turned the phone off and tossed it on the bedside table. He sat down on the bed.
That was not so hard. He’d had all the reasons he needed to do that before this Berlin assignment, and getting pulled from the case just as things were getting interesting was the last straw.
As for Chief Warrant Officer Taylor, if he’d resigned in front of her, she might have been tempted to do the same. But she had a bright career ahead of her, and he didn’t want to be responsible for screwing it up.
He thought about Anna Albrecht, and whether he was doing this because of her. Was he really that stupid? He had to ponder that.
Promise.
Promise not to give up. Promise not to forget. Promise not to pretend the crimes of the past never happened.
That was Anna’s demand, born out of decades of denied justice. But it was Berlin’s demand as well, echoed in monuments and memorials and museums across this city that prosecuted its tragic past.
This happened. And this. And this. These are the names of the perpetrators. These are the names of the victims.
But Odin’s story had not been told by anyone outside of an obscure Stasi report, and the names of his victims were lost to history.
As for poor Harry Vance, his name was not forgotten. It was screamed in every headline across the world. But he was about to be denied justice as well, by an investigation that either had gone wrong, or was being steered wrong. The three suspects, the Syrians, were themselves possible victims ofsomething much larger and more sinister than anyone on this investigation could yet imagine. Something that was still formless, swirling in the dark, blotting out the truth.
I did this. I’m still here.
Odin’s message, carved into Harry Vance’s face. Right there for anyone willing to see it. But no one wanted to see.
And when the real perpetrators were unnamed, and the victims were unavenged, it was not enough to merely remember. That doesn’t ask enough of you.
You must find the perpetrators. You must name them.
And you must make them pay.
PART III
CHAPTER 35
Scott Brodie sat on the bench ringing the central fountain of Alexanderplatz and watched a middle-aged street sweeper use his broom to dislodge debris from between the cable car tracks. The guy appeared indifferent as to whether the trash ended up in his dustpan or was blown across the square by the freezing gusts. The man’s job was not to clean; it was to sweep. The wind was his accomplice.
Brodie had not turned on his phone since hanging up on Dombroski, after which he’d had a quick shower and change, then checked out of the Art Hotel, and left his bags with the indifferent Turkish teenager at the front desk.
He checked his watch: 7:26A.M.Taylor would be looking for him. Calling him. Concerned but not yet frantic. She wouldn’t board the plane without knowing where he was.
The city was waking up. Lights blinked on in a supermarket across the square, and a few commuters began to emerge from the nearby U-Bahn station.
According to the metro timeline provided by the Berlin Police, Harry Vance had exited this particular metro station at 11:20A.M.last Wednesday. On its own, that information wasn’t very useful, as Alexanderplatz was centrally located, and Vance could have been going anywhere.
But he didn’t go anywhere, he went somewhere. Two blocks from where Brodie was sitting was the headquarters of the Stasi Records Agency, which housed millions of files produced by the security service during its forty-year existence. Had Harry gone there? He wouldn’t have been much of a detective if he hadn’t.
This thought barely rose to the level of a lead—it was a hunch. But Brodie was a little desperate, and since he was now unemployed, with no oaths to keep, no constitution to defend, and no boss to bullshit, he could do what he wanted. And former warrant officer Scott Brodie, with the new rank of PFC—Private Fucking Civilian—wanted justice, and he wanted it soon, before anyone tried to arrest him, stop him, or kill him.
The Records Agency opened at 8A.M., which meant Brodie had time for one unpleasant phone call. He turned his phone on, ignored all the pinging voice mails and text messages, and dialed Taylor.
She picked up immediately. “Scott, where the hell are you?”
“You need to get to the airport.”
“Answer me.”
“I’m watching the sunrise.”
“Where? I’ll have the cab swing by.”
