Hausner stared at him and said, “I have no idea.” He added, “Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Brodie lowered his pistol to the man’s right knee and pulled the trigger.
Hausner screamed and fell.
Brodie pressed the pistol to the man’s other knee while he writhed on the ground. “I’ve got four more rounds and I’ll make sure none of them kill you. Get it?”
The man was hyperventilating. After a moment he got control of himself and said, “He… ran ahead of me… to the gate…”
“Where is he going?”
The man closed his eyes, but didn’t answer.
Brodie fired another round, this one into Hausner’s left ankle. The man screamed again.
“Where is he going?”
“The… march… Please…”
“Does he have your plague with him?”
The man hesitated, then nodded.
Brodie looked at Hausner writhing on the ground. This bastard deserved a round to the head, but he was worth more alive. Also, Brodie couldn’t spare any more bullets. He pocketed his pistol and took off across the field toward the gate, praying there was still time to stop the unthinkable.
CHAPTER 53
Brodie stuck his pistol in his belt and scaled the gate leading out of the park. He dropped to the sidewalk and ran onto a narrow residential street.
He was in Neukölln now, and Karl-Marx Straße was a few blocks east of him. He could make out the faint sounds of the protest march in the distance.
He ran through the empty street, passing a middle-aged Arab man on the sidewalk. He saw no one else. Everyone was at the march.
Brodie crossed the street and looked down the next block, which was lined with trees and a few streetlamps. In the distance he saw a tall figure in a long coat walking away briskly, passing under the white light of a streetlamp. The figure’s right hand was in his pocket. In his left he held a bag or briefcase at his side. Instinct, training, and experience told him this guy—like Brodie himself—did not belong in this neighborhood.
Brodie could hear the marchers more clearly now, and through the snow he glimpsed the stream of people on the crossroad farther ahead.
A block away to his right, Brodie noticed an idling police car, and on another corner were two police officers in full tactical gear with assault rifles. Berlin PD was out in full force tonight to control the march. They would know that something was happening at Tempelhof, and that it was probably related to threats against this protest march. If Brodie had his CID creds, he’d enlist these guys’ help. But there was no time to convince them of who he was, or who he was looking for. Or why.
Brodie slowed his pace as he passed the police so as not to attract unwanted attention, but he felt their eyes on him.
He cleared the intersection and looked around, but did not see any otherpolice, so he sprinted ahead, trying to keep his eyes on the tall man in the distance. Just as he started running the man reached the march and slipped into the crowd.
Brodie darted around a barricade at the next intersection and kept running.
He reached Karl-Marx Straße, where a sea of people, mostly Middle Eastern–looking, marched slowly down the blocked-off road through the steady snowfall. Some held signs written in German and Arabic; others held up candles or the bright screens of their smartphones. A few carried photos of Hasan al-Kazimi, the murdered Iraqi man. Some were angry, shouting a spirited call-and-response chant in Arabic. Most were silent and somber.
Brodie slowed down and slipped into the stream of people. He scanned the crowd but could not find the man in the long coat.
Then in a break in the crowd, Brodie saw him. The man was unzipping a black nylon bag and making his way to the outer edge of the march.
Brodie pushed his way through the marchers. “Move! Move!”
Some people got out of his way as he pushed forward, but the crowd around Brodie was too dense. He saw now where the man was headed—toward a trash receptacle on the sidewalk about ten yards away from him. The man had dropped the nylon bag and was holding a canister in his hands. Brodie pulled his gun. “Stop!”
Someone caught sight of Brodie’s gun and yelled. People started screaming. The crowd surged. They spilled onto the sidewalks where they could, running between or climbing over the parked cars that lined the street.
Brodie charged forward, shoving people to the side as he fought his way through.
