He lost sight of the man for a moment, and then in another break in the crowd he saw him. The man was facing him now. He held a pistol in his hand pointed at Brodie, who saw the muzzle flash, followed by the sound of the discharge.
A searing pain shot up Brodie’s right thigh. He squeezed off two rounds in the direction of the man, who returned fire. There was screaming all around him. Brodie looked down and saw his blood on his leg and on the snow and brown slush. He took a step forward, then found himself lying in the snow.
Brodie looked up and saw the man lying on his right side toward the edge of the street. Next to him was the canister, which Brodie saw was an innocuous-looking, commercial-sized coffee can.
Brodie tried to stand but couldn’t. He shut out the pain and forced himself forward, crawling and dragging himself along the snowy road toward the man, his pistol still in hand. He called out, “Charles Granger!”
Granger was alive, and looked at him. He was in his sixties, with pale skin and wispy white hair. He had a long, prominent nose, bushy gray eyebrows, and deep-set gray eyes. He wore a long black coat and a white dress shirt stained with blood on the right side of his chest. The man’s pistol lay a few feet in front of him, and the canister was a few feet to his left. Brodie saw that a small device was attached to the coffee canister—explosives and a detonator. It was a mini bio-bomb, filled with genetically modified pathogens that would kill every non-Caucasian in Neukölln—maybe all of Berlin. Men, women, and children. And once that happened, there would be a stampede of Arabs, Turks, East Asians, and others out of Germany, and maybe out of Europe. And maybe that was just the beginning…
Brodie stopped crawling about ten feet from the man and aimed his gun.
A small smile cut across Granger’s lips. Brodie now spotted an old Nokia cell phone in the snow about four feet from Granger, which Brodie knew from his time in Iraq was used as a remote trigger device for bombs. Four feet was not an easy reach in Granger’s current state but not impossible, and they both knew it.
Brodie said, “I got you… you son of a bitch.”
Charles Granger managed a weak laugh. Then he began to cough up frothy blood, indicating a punctured lung. He looked up at the black sky and the falling snow. After a moment he said, “I got you too, Mr. Brodie.”
Suddenly Brodie heard shouting in German. He saw that a few Berlin Police officers had taken up defensive positions behind the parked cars, and they were aiming their rifles at Brodie over the hoods of the cars.
“Waffe weg und Händ hoch! Oder du wirst erschossen!”
Granger looked at Brodie again. “They’re going to shoot you if you don’t put the gun down.”
That was good to know. But if Brodie dropped his gun, Granger would go for the bomb trigger. These cops probably had no idea who Scott Brodiewas, or who Charles Granger was. But only one of them had a gun pointed at the other.
Well, whether Berlin PD knew it or not, Scott Brodie was still a cop, so he said to Granger, “You’re under arrest, asshole. Put your hands on top of your head and keep them there.”
Granger stared at Brodie. “You’re young… too young… to understand any of this.”
“I understand enough. I understand you are a traitor to your country and a murderer.”
Granger coughed again, and a ribbon of blood ran from his lips into the snow. He said, “I… am a dreamer. But my dream died. And… I found a new dream. You…” Granger took a long breath and wheezed. “You… fight for nothing. For absolutely… nothing. This world is already dead. You… just don’t realize it…”
“Waffe runter!” A few more police had taken position behind the cars, and two officers were now advancing on the road toward Brodie, pistols drawn.
Brodie felt the rage building inside him. “Don’t patronize me, you prick. You killed Harry. You killed Anna.”
Granger said, “Collateral damage. The real target was these… these… vermin. Scum. Why don’t you understand?”
“You’re… a sick piece of shit.”
Brodie was feeling light-headed and his heart was pounding in his ears. He was losing a lot of blood, and realized that his femoral artery had probably been hit, which meant he’d bleed out in a few more minutes. He also realized that Granger must have noticed this, and was talking to run down the clock on Scott Brodie’s life. And then Granger would complete his last mission.
Brodie kept his finger on the trigger of his pistol. This was it. He had to do it. Before he couldn’t…
“Scott Brodie! Drop your weapon!”
He recognized that voice. It was Captain Omar Soliman of the Berlin Police Department. The voice sounded like it was coming from his left. Brodie did not take his eyes off Granger, but sensed movement in his peripheral vision. Soliman was standing in the road, about fifteen feet away.
Soliman said, “Drop it, now! We need to get both of you immediate medical assistance.”
Granger stared at Brodie, and now his eyes were full of fury. He said, “Go ahead… listen to the Arab.”
Granger’s arm slid slowly across the snow, toward the cell phone. “I just… need to make a phone call.”
Brodie said, “Captain… that’s…”
Soliman pointed his pistol at Brodie. “Drop the weapon, Mr. Brodie. I will not ask again.”
