Brodie pushed on the door and stepped into a large, white-walled gallery with track lighting. Along the walls were several paintings, and most of them had been defaced. He drew his gun.
Taylor, behind him, said, “Oh my God…,” and drew her gun.
One painting, of a woman in a hijab looking up as the shadow of a jet fighter passed over her body, had been slashed. Another, of an Arab man holding a rifle in a field of flowers, was also slashed, and an abstract painting of children holding hands was covered with a spray-painted swastika.
They rounded a freestanding wall, where there was more defaced artwork, along with some German words spray-painted across the wall.
Toward the back of the room was a white door, half-open, and Brodie walked toward it. Taylor followed, scanning the spaces around them.Brodie pushed the door open with his foot, entered, and swept the small office.
Anna Albrecht lay on her back on the floor behind her desk. She had a large bullet wound in her chest, her white tank top red with blood, and a pool of blood around her.
Brodie stood there, frozen. He could hear Taylor’s voice, but it sounded distant. He was staring at Anna’s face. Her brown eyes were open. Vacant. The life drained out of them. Stolen out of them.
Taylor was on the phone now, and Brodie slowly became aware of the surroundings. A red swastika was spray-painted on the wall above the desk, along with a German word written in large block letters that didn’t need a translation:
HURE.
He felt Taylor’s hand on his arm.
“Scott…”
He lowered his weapon and turned to her.
“I just called Whitmore. She is alerting Chief Inspector Schröder.”
Brodie nodded but said nothing.
Taylor looked down at Anna’s body. “Those…fucking bastards.”
Brodie shoved his pistol in his pocket and crouched next to Anna’s body. He stared at her blank face, her pale skin, her lips turning purple. “I’m so sorry.” He touched her face, then closed her eyelids and stood.
He turned to Taylor, who had watched him do that, and she looked like she wanted to say something, but didn’t.
They walked out of the office into the main gallery space, and Brodie looked at the graffiti on the far wall:DER WOLF STEHT VOR DER TÜR.
Taylor ran the words through her phone translator, and said aloud, “The wolf is at the door.”
He and Taylor stood in silence, looking at the graffiti and the desecrated artwork made by war refugees who thought they had finally found a safe haven.
And Anna. A German woman who herself was haunted by the terrors of her past, just trying to bring a little light to a dark and war-torn world.
But now the war was no longer in a faraway land. The war was here.
The wolf is at the door.
Brodie felt a rage building inside of him. He needed to find who did this. And they needed to die.
Taylor said in a soft voice, “Scott…”
He turned to her.
She looked into his eyes, like she wanted to ask him something.
So he volunteered: “We spent last night together.”
Taylor looked away. “Okay.”
“It was… spontaneous.”
