Kim checked his watch. “All right. I need to head back to Mitte. I hear that you folks got a hotel in the neighborhood?”
Brodie nodded. “The Art Hotel. I think they charge by the hour.”
Taylor added, perhaps defensively, “It overlooks Körnerpark.”
Kim smiled. “Good move.” He said, “If you’re going my way, we can share a cab.”
Check-in at the nearby Art Hotel wasn’t until 2P.M.,so this was a good time to go to Mitte—Berlin’s central district—for a meetup with Mark Jenkins. But Brodie wanted some time with his partner minus David Kim so they could speak freely. He said to Kim, “Maggie and I will grab a bite here before we check in.”
Kim nodded. “Okay. Well, we’re off to a good start.” He flagged a cab sitting at a red light across the street, then turned back to his compatriots. “Listen, since you’re staying around here, do me a favor and circle back to the Al Mahdi Center later, see if that police van is still there.”
Brodie replied, “We can do that.”
“And, obviously, if you get the feeling a raid is about to happen, try to witness it. They tend to do these things in the early morning.”
Brodie had the distinct and very bad feeling that he was being given orders by the FBI. He didn’t respond.
“We’ll keep it in mind,” said Taylor. “And we’ll see you tomorrow at the embassy.”
Kim took his business card out of his jacket and handed it to her. “Call me before then if you see or hear anything you think I should know.” He jogged across the street and hopped in the taxi, and it drove off.
“I should dislike him,” said Brodie. “But I don’t.”
“He reminds me of someone else who I should dislike, but don’t.” She added, “Also, he’s Hezbollah-obsessed. He makes a good case, but it might be the wrong one.”
Brodie nodded. It occurred to him that in all this speculation, there was one big question no one had even tried to answer: If Harry Vance was really here for a romantic rendezvous with a woman—or perhaps, to keep an open mind, a man—then why hadn’t that person contacted the police after learning or hearing about his death? One explanation was that this person was married, as Vance was, so had to keep quiet. Or this person was somehow connected to the murder. Either responsible for it, or fearful of becoming the next corpse. Or maybe Harry’s romantic interest was already dead. In any case, as every amateur sleuth knows, “Cherchez la femme.”
Brodie saw that Taylor was dialing the handwritten number on the back of General Kiernan’s business card. She put the phone to her ear and said, “Hello? Mark Jenkins? It’s Maggie Taylor, CID… Yes, I’m in Berlin… Yes, this is awful.” She looked at Brodie as she listened for a moment. “Oh… All right. I understand. Good. See you soon.”
She hung up and said, “The Alexanderplatz Radisson. He wants to meet in his room.” She added, “He thinks he’s being followed.”
“By who?”
Taylor shrugged. “Didn’t say.”
Brodie had dealt with paranoid associates of murder victims before. When someone’s family member or colleague gets clipped, it tends to rattle people, even if they had nothing to do with the reason for the homicide. But Mark Jenkins wasn’t some paranoid civilian. He was a highly trained CID Special Agent. If he thought he had something to fear, then he probably did. And if he thought he was being followed, then he probably was.
Brodie said to Taylor, “I think we are entering the world of smoke and mirrors.”
Taylor nodded. “Again.”
CHAPTER 10
Brodie and Taylor grabbed some shawarma from a hole-in-the-wall place in the neighborhood. They ate it as they walked to the metro, where they boarded the elevated S-Bahn toward Alexanderplatz for their meetup with Mark Jenkins.
The train was half-empty at this hour and they found an isolated spot toward the end of one of the cars and sat across from each other. The train pulled out of the station and they watched the city slide by out the windows.
Brodie asked, “What do you think of Berlin so far?”
“Nice embassy conference room. Picturesque crime scene. Better shawarma than I can get in Kentucky.”
“Neukölln seems… not sinister by day, maybe a little edgy by night. Maybe Vance was just bar crawling, then realized he caught a tail.”
“Does not compute, Mr. Brodie. He was there to meet someone.”
“Right. That was one reason he was in Berlin. The other is a woman.”
Taylor nodded, thought for a moment. “If he really was coming to Berlin on a regular basis for a romantic fling, why hasn’t his lady come forward?”
