Forty Hours: A breath-taking thriller Read online

  The lives of hundreds of Berliners were at stake here. Over sixty thousand people were expected to attend the communion service tomorrow. Sixty thousand! What a nightmare! How could he care about his job, in the face of that? Conversely, if he managed to put a stop to this bastard’s game, it would be a price he would pay – not happily, but in good conscience.

  “Get started,” he commanded curtly.

  Hesse rubbed his chin and mouth, then sat down. “Alright. Let’s see what we can do.”

  With that, he rolled his chair over to the old oak table, which ran the length of the room and was covered in papers, electronic devices, and all kinds of technical gadget. The only thing Faris could identify with relative certainty was a mixing console. He knew that Hesse needed it to work up the audio files for his magazine.

  A gaudily colored flame symbol adorned the monitor that the reporter now turned to.

  Hotnewzz.tv, Faris read. It was the logo from Hesse’s website.

  Hesse clicked it away and saved some kind of file to a data stick, which he then inserted into Faris’s laptop. He typed something into Faris’s machine but hesitated before hitting the enter key.

  “Uh, are you really sure you want me to do this?”

  Faris considered this. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “I need to transfer a program to your computer. If your colleagues analyze it later, they’ll find this program and know that you …” He shrugged, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging in the air.

  “Could they trace it back to you?” Faris asked.

  Hesse grinned. “No.”

  This illegal activity wouldn’t come back and haunt the reporter. Faris took a deep breath. “Do it.”

  “You won’t give me up, if they grill you?”

  “Of course not!”

  “I’d tell them that you threatened to beat me up if I didn’t do it.” The journalist grinned again.

  “Just get on with it.”

  Hesse pressed the enter key, and a loading bar appeared, growing longer as the copying process advanced. After a few seconds, the installation was over. Hesse immediately activated the installed program.

  “So,” he commented with satisfaction as he leaned backward. “This will take some time.”

  “How long?” Faris inquired.

  “It depends how good your guy is.”

  “Okay.” Faris glanced around. “Until the results come in, could I use your internet access to …” he broke off when something chimed. Hesse had received an email.

  The reporter turned toward his own computer and leaned forward. “Oh,” he said. “A message from your family.”

  Faris stared at him in bewilderment, before looking up at the monitor – where he saw that Hesse had received a notification from the State Police press department. The subject line read: Important Press Release from the Berlin Police Department.

  Hesse opened the message. “Does anybody recognize this man?” he read aloud. He then clicked on the attached photo, tilted his head, and scrutinized it.

  It was the video still that Paul had mentioned before; a snapshot of the crucified man. And obviously, Ben had worked on it before it was sent out to the press. He had chosen a detail that didn’t include any part of the cross. With the help of Photoshop, he had erased the blood running down the man’s face and the crown of thorns. Only by looking closely could you tell that anything had ever been there.

  But Hesse was looking closely. “Looks strange,” he remarked. “What did they remove from his forehead and cheeks?”

  Faris took a couple of deep breaths before supplying a concise summary of the crucifixion, the cardiac monitor, and the fact that a major bomb would go off in Berlin as soon as the victim’s heart stopped beating.

  Hesse’s eyes grew larger with each passing sentence. “What a story!” he exclaimed.

  At that moment, Faris felt very dizzy. He had to grab onto the edge of the table to keep from collapsing. For a second, the room grew dark around him.

  “What is it?” he heard Hesse ask. He blinked and realized that the reporter was staring at him concernedly. “Are you feeling okay?”

  He shook his head, which instantly began to ache dully. “Just a little headache.” He let himself sink onto the desk chair that the reporter had offered him earlier.

  “Did you get yourself checked out for concussion?” Hesse leaned over to the side and rummaged around in a piece of furniture that looked like an old nightstand. He fished out a blue-and-white carton that he tossed onto Faris’s lap. It held painkillers. Faris took two of them and washed them down with the rest of his tea.

  As he did this, Hesse started to type on his keyboard again. He clicked through several menus before writing a short caption.

  “Do you know this man ?” Faris read. Hesse had shared the press release on his own website, which was what dozens of other online editors were probably doing right now, as well. In an hour and a half at most, the photo would be on the covers of all the newspapers.

  The question was how the caller would react to this. He hadn’t been in contact again, but the chances were good that he would call back when he saw the photo. And then he would learn that Faris had been excluded from working on the case. Faris swallowed. It was only a matter of time until the next bomb went off in the city. Of that, he was certain.

  He suddenly felt unbelievably tired. Pulling out his phone, Faris dialed Paul’s number.

  “Sievers,” the familiar voice of his partner declared on the other end.

  “Paul, it’s me.”

  “Faris. Where are you?”

  “At Hesse’s. He’s just given me his Wi-Fi password, so I can access DigA A now. Has Tromsdorff worked that out yet?”

  “Reluctantly,” Paul said honestly. “He’s taking a huge risk, you know.” He didn’t wait for a response, but immediately gave Faris the password. If he wondered why Faris had gone over to the reporter’s place and wasn’t at home, he gave no indication of that.

  “Any news?” Faris asked. “I mean, other than the fact that the photo of the victim has now been released.”

  “You’ve already seen that.” Paul sighed. “Andersen’s ordered additional units to the Olympic Stadium. They’re supposed to help the officers already stationed there to search for explosives. Requests for additional canine units have been sent out to the neighboring states.”

  “Has the caller been back in touch?”

  “Not yet, we …”

  The rest of Paul’s sentence got lost in a shout from Hesse: “Woohoo!” Faris glanced hastily over at the reporter who was staring intently at his screen.

  “Sorry about that,” Faris said to Paul. “I didn’t get your last sentence.”

  “I was just saying that we aren’t sure yet if we should be happy or worried about that,” Paul repeated.

  “Shit!” Hesse growled at the same time.

  “Wait a second, something’s going on here.” Faris stood up and walked over to the reporter. The first responses to the article that the reporter had just posted were now dribbling in. As so often, Faris was amazed at the speed with which things happened online. And how little sense they often made. As he skimmed the first lines, he saw that most of the comments were unusable.

  Ugly guy! wrote one user.

  Another responded with: You think so? He doesn’t look like a criminal.

  Nor is he, Faris thought. As he read through the remaining pointless comments, more and more of them appeared at the bottom of the list.

  “Have you got anything?” he heard Paul ask.

  Faris told him no. “The first responses to the photo of the victim are coming in. They’re all trash.”

  Paul sighed. “We expected that! I’m sure the guys in the phone center have received a lot of nothing too, since the release of the photo. I think I’ll head over there to see if they’ve gotten anything useful.”

  “How long do you think your program will need to get results?” Faris asked Hesse.

/>   The journalist shrugged. “One hour. Two, three. No idea. Like I said, it depends on how good your guy is.” While Faris talked with Paul, Hesse had made a first few attempts at sensationalist headlines.

  “Bomber keeps Berlin in suspense,” Faris read. “An attack motivated by faith.”

  Motivated by faith … Faris thought about his SURV colleagues, who were probably brooding over the analysis of the video right now.

  He pointed at one of the computers. “May I use this?”

  “Sure. The browser’s already up and running, have at it.” The reporter didn’t look up from what he was doing.

  Faris sat down and used the code that Paul had given him to log into the DigA A database. He knew the reference number for the Klersch Museum case by heart. He typed it into the pertinent search box. And just like that, he had access to all the reports, photos, and audio files that the investigators had compiled so far.

  However, instead of tearing into them immediately, he hesitated.

  Something in him protested at the idea of once again combing through all the details he had tried so hard to forget. He stared distractedly at the milk glass panes and let his thoughts drift.

  Occasionally, when a case stumped him, he used this technique very deliberately, and occasionally something floated to the surface. A detail, a tiny fragment, that was out of place. A snatch of conversation that constituted a clue. Or just a hunch.

  A hunch …

  Faris suddenly had a feeling that the answer to all of their questions wasn’t in the old files, but in the words the caller had uttered to him on the phone.

  He closed the museum file and opened today’s new file instead. He didn’t have the reference number for this case memorized, but the DigA A system was organized in such a way that the most heavily accessed files were listed on the right-hand side of the screen. And, since all the police officers in the city of Berlin were currently hunting for the bomber, this file stood at the top of the list.

  It had already grown quite large. Faris located the recordings from the phone bank that was in charge of fielding the clues coming in from the general public. He also found the statements from the eyewitnesses of the subway explosion, as well as the first reports from the officers who had begun to interview the relatives of the museum bombing victims. Shannon Starck, his SURV colleague, had already made two entries in which she debated whether the two largest Christian fundamentalist groups in Berlin, God’s Word Mission and Christ Freaks, could in any way be connected with the attacks.

  Faris quickly skimmed Shannon’s texts and the interviews. He then clicked on the audio file that had been generated from his own interrogation. When talking to the other officers, he had tried to quote as accurately as possible the two conversations with the bomber. He now started the recording. His voice sounded odd, and he listened to it as he would to that of a stranger.

  At the spot where he heard himself murmur “And then he told me that I should go to the Bismarckstraße Station”, he stopped the file. “Do you have something I could write with?” he asked Hesse.

  “The second drawer from the bottom.” Hesse pointed at the nightstand from which he had pulled the painkillers earlier.

  Faris opened the drawer and pulled out a legal pad and one of several orange ballpoint pens, all of which bore the logo for hotnewzz.tv. He then began to reconstruct, word for word, his conversations with the bomber a second time.

  The first thing he wrote on the tablet was as-samu alaikum. He added a question mark and wrote: the bomber from the Klersch Museum?

  You remember, the caller had said. And: You should’ve learned something by now. Just like the Arabic phrase, this pointed to some kind of connection between the caller and the museum bomber. The SURV team had already dismissed the likelihood that this was one and the same person, but there still had to be some link between the two men. Faris suspected that somehow the motive behind this serial bombing attack was rooted in the old museum case.

  The question was simply, how?

  In large letters, he wrote on the sheet of paper: How does this all fit, ending this note with three question marks.

  Thoughtfully, Faris gazed at Hesse’s back.

  From his apartment, the subway was only just reachable in such a short time frame. This meant that the culprit wasn’t merely well-informed about the events from the Klersch Museum attack. He also seemed to know where Faris lived.

  How does the culprit know me? Faris wrote on the pad. And underneath it: Motive?

  Paul and the others had hypothesized that the caller had a score to settle with Faris.

  MOTIVE Faris wrote once more in capital letters, before adding score to settle beneath it. He then started to gather together the ideas as they came to him.

  Klersch bomber.

  Relatives of the bombing victims.

  He struck out the first line, drew a wavy line under the second. With the pen, he tapped one of his teeth. None of the interview reports contained information that went beyond utter dismay and general ignorance among the museum victims’ relatives.

  In frustration, Faris stared at the words score to settle, and at that moment, an idea came to him.

  Besides the bomber himself and the families of the victims, there was one other person who had been connected with the attack at the museum, albeit only indirectly.

  Faris looked up. “Golzer,” he murmured.

  Hesse spun around in surprise. “The skinhead you beat up? What about him?”

  “He could have a motive for all this here!” Faris tossed his pen down on the tablet.

  “You really think that because you gave him a thrashing and he now feels like a wimp, he’s decided to blow up half of Berlin?” Hesse’s skepticism was clearly written across his face.

  “I lost my temper because he called me a bomber.” Faris shrugged. “I know it sounds a little far-fetched.”

  “It does.” Hesse peered curiously at Faris’s laptop screen.

  Faris stood up. A few years ago, the Brandenburg police had investigated the Hells Angels. During that case, they had learned that the motorcycle gang was tightening its links to the neo-Nazi scene. They had also been successful, at around the same time, in preventing several bomb attacks by rocker gangs in Potsdam. Suspecting Golzer of the attack in the subway was, of course, far-fetched, but Faris could no longer tolerate being in this cramped office. A jittery disquiet had settled over him, making it impossible for him to sit still.

  “How long do you think this will take?” He gestured at the laptop to indicate what he meant.

  Hesse shrugged. “I was just thinking that it’ll probably take a while yet.”

  “Okay.” Faris pulled his shoulders back. “I’m going to pay Golzer a visit.”

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket and grabbed one of Hesse’s business cards, which were sitting on the desk. He rapidly keyed Hesse’s cell number into his own phone and dialed. As soon as Hesse’s phone started playing the theme music from The Untouchables, he hung up. “And now you have my new number. Call me as soon as you have something, okay?”

  “Uh-huh.” Hesse was only half-aware of what Faris was saying. He seemed to be wrapped up in something, and Faris decided to use this to his own advantage.

  “May I borrow your motorcycle?”

  With one hand, Hesse waved toward the nightstand. “The key is somewhere on the top.” He leaned back over his laptop and pressed the enter key twice.

  Faris left the journalist to his technical antics. He picked up the key and left the airport terminal the same way he had entered it earlier with Hesse. The oppressive, apocalyptic feeling that he had experienced when crossing through the huge check-in area returned, but he pushed it away. A quick glance at the clock told him that he still had thirty-three hours.

  This time, he didn’t bother putting on the helmet.

  Chapter 13

  Jenny and Pia arranged to meet Dennis in front of the youth hostel at four o’clock. When the two girls had finished th
eir lunch, Pia wanted to go shopping, and since Jenny didn’t know what else to do on her own until their meeting, she decided to go up to their room and read a little. She had brought along the newest thriller from her favorite author.

  However, she never made it to the room because she ran into Dennis on the staircase.

  “Hey,” she mumbled. He was standing two steps above her, so she had to look up at him. “It almost looks like you were waiting for me!” She was a little proud that she had managed to come up with that remark.

  He grinned. “Maybe I was.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. Was he serious about that? She scanned his face for any signs that he was teasing, but she didn’t find any. His gaze was open and friendly.

  “What are you doing right now?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I was just going to read a little.”

  “Read?” He uttered that word as if it were something astonishingly indecent.

  Jenny felt her face start to grow warm again. “Why not?”

  He descended one step, and Jenny instinctively moved down a step as well.

  “I won’t do anything to you,” he promised, moving back up to his original position. “I was just thinking that there was still a little time until our city tour. Would you maybe like to go out for some ice cream with me?”

  Jenny’s heart once again skipped a beat. The thought that this can’t possibly be true! shot through her head, and she resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder. Where was the hidden camera? Someone had to be playing a cruel trick on her!

  “You’re kinda nervous, aren’t you?” Dennis asked in a slightly mocking tone.

  She shook her head. “Not really.” She bit her tongue because that came out much more gruffly than she had intended it to. “I’d love some ice cream,” she added hastily.

  Dennis grinned. “Then, let’s go! I know a nice ice cream shop not too far from here.” He started to reach for her hand, but thought better of it and didn’t. He simply walked down the stairs close beside her.

  A couple of girls, whose highly teased, pitch black hair indicated that they belonged to the rock festival group, stared at Jenny in disbelief. And this was the moment that Jenny realized that she was actually about to go out for ice cream with this cool guy. A big grin threatened to spread across her face. She quickly squeezed her lips together. There was no way she was going to run the risk of looking like the cat that had swallowed the canary!