Forty Hours: A breath-taking thriller Page 16

  “Niklas!” Faris rasped.

  He had failed yet again!

  Suddenly he remembered that his regular phone was sitting on his lap. “You fucking bastard!” he screamed as he picked it back up again. But here, too, he heard nothing except the buzzing of the disconnected line.

  The caller had hung up.

  Faris leaned his head back against the headrest. A noise penetrated through the stuffing that suddenly seemed to be stuck in his ears. A ringing. It took several seconds for him to realize that it was his burner phone. He had to gather every ounce of willpower he had to answer the call.

  “Shit, Faris,” a voice buzzed in his ear. “What the fuck was that?”

  It was Niklas Hesse.

  With a jerk, Faris sat upright. “You’re alive!”

  Hesse coughed. “Yes, damn it! But just barely!”

  For a moment, Faris’s nausea increased, but then it subsided. “How can that be?”

  “There was a bomb in my apartment, holy crap!” Hesse’s voice sounded shrill, and it almost cracked.

  “How did you surv …?”

  “The oak table. It took the brunt of the explosion.”

  Faris closed his eyes in relief. “Thank God!”

  “Hey!” Hesse complained. “I’m touched that you obviously feel close to me, but all my computers are gone, pal!”

  A laugh surged through Faris’s throat. With effort, he held it back. “Don’t flatter yourself! I just didn’t want to lose someone else in a bom …” He faltered as another wave of nausea swept over him. He waited until it passed.

  Paul’s worried eyes were focused on him, but he ignored his partner.

  “I’m glad that you escaped,” he murmured. Over the receiver, from very far off, he heard the sound of police sirens.

  “I need to go,” Hesse said. “The cavalry is here.”

  The phone in Faris’s lap started to chirp. With a weary gesture, Faris ended the one call and accepted the other one.

  “You did that for nothing!” he couldn’t help saying.

  “No,” the voice of the caller confirmed. “You’re right. A shame really, but it doesn’t matter. Now you know that I have the ways and means to bring you to heel.”

  Faris rubbed his burning eyes. “What happens next?”

  “Nothing’s changed. The internet chick. And Faris …”

  “Yes?” Faris felt an unfettered desire to rip the guts out of the stranger.

  “You can take your time now.”

  *

  After they had both processed the shock, Faris resumed their course. Paul called the office, and so that Faris could listen in, he turned it on speaker phone.

  Tromsdorff had already heard the news about the explosion at the old Tempelhof terminal building. “Several units are already there,” he declared. “Apparently, this time we caught a break. The building was cleared out recently. As far we can tell, there are no casualties.”

  Faris filled him in on who the target of the attack had been.

  “Niklas?” Tromsdorff asked sharply. He also knew the reporter well. “You’re friends, aren’t you?”

  “Good friends.” Faris shook his head because he still couldn’t believe what had almost happened. “The attacker wanted to show that he has me on a short chain.”

  He made himself a mental note. As soon as he reached the internet café, he would call Anisah and his parents, and ask them to leave the city. The culprit was obviously well-informed about his connections. If he knew that he was friends with Niklas Hesse, he also knew about his family. And Laura! Faris clenched his jaw. He would feel considerably better if all of them were out of this bastard’s reach.

  “Hmm.” Tromsdorff didn’t say anything for a moment. “Are you doing alright?” he then asked. “I could relieve you of duty …”

  “No, you can’t, or another bomb will go off somewhere else.” Faris gazed at the phone sitting in his lap. “No, I’ll be okay. What should we do next?”

  “The best thing you can do is whatever the psycho demands. We have brought in additional staff to go through the old files, to try to trace the caller’s father. If you finish up at the café and he hasn’t given you any new orders, the two of you should come back here. We’ll see from there.”

  Faris nodded. “Alright.”

  *

  The internet café proved a total flop. It was one of the more serious iterations of that business type. The interior was dominated by lots of chrome and red leather, plus an oversized cardboard cutout of game heroine Lara Croft. A giant train station clock hanging on the wall informed them that the time available to them was shrinking, but besides that, they didn’t learn anything useful.

  Behind the glittering counter, a young woman in slightly Gothic-style clothes was busy making lattes for two female guests. Paul identified himself and asked her if they could take a look at the surveillance footage from the previous evening. She shook her head regretfully.

  “We were closed all day yesterday,” she explained. “Nobody could’ve sent anything from here. We were servicing the computers.” She pointed over her shoulder at the door marked Office. “I’d be glad to fetch my boss to confirm that for you.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Faris murmured. He had already suspected this was the case. If there actually had been some clue to their mysterious caller’s identity here, he wouldn’t have sent them here in the first place. “We’ll send a colleague over to follow up,” he said.

  “Whatever.” The young woman reached for the two lattes that were now ready. She glanced at Faris and Paul one last time, as if she wanted to ask, Was that everything?

  They thanked her and left the café. “What was that?” Paul asked once they were back out on the sidewalk. “Why did he send us over here?”

  Nothing involved with this case made sense. Faris stared at his watch. “He’s playing with us,” he murmured. The digital numbers on his watch face jumped at that moment from 6:56 to 6:57.

  They had a mere twenty-nine hours left.

  *

  Alexander

  Standing at the base of the cross, he gazed up at his father. How thin he was! The wrinkled skin of his stomach hung in folds over the white linen loincloth. To Alexander, this cloth looked like a diaper. This was the same thing he had thought years ago, when he was a little boy, and he had studied the picture of the crucified Christ in their church. Now, he knew that Christ had been crucified naked, but of course, he never could have been depicted like that. Yet now, as Alexander studied his handiwork, a profane thought crossed his mind. Underneath his loincloth, had Christ been well-endowed?

  He hit himself in the forehead with his fist to drive out this heretical impulse. “Bad, bad!” he whispered. “How could anyone be so sinful?” He then glanced up into the face of the man on the cross. “Forgive me,” he added softly.

  He was sure that God could hear him. Just as before, the angel’s light streamed out from one of the corners of the dungeon, casting sharp shadows everywhere. Alexander felt a sudden urge to step into the light. It had been a long time since the angel had said anything. Alexander really wanted to see if he was still there.

  But the angel had forbidden him to come any closer, and Alexander was afraid that something terrible would happen to him if he disobeyed. So he stayed in his spot beside the cross and pursued his own thoughts.

  The crucified man moved, though he didn’t open his eyes. “Alex?” His voice was only a breath.

  “I’m doing it right,” Alexander whispered to him affectionately. “You’ll be happy with me, Father.” And he pressed the crown of thorns more firmly onto the man’s head.

  The man groaned softly.

  A smile flitted across Alexander’s face as he examined his handiwork. Fresh blood now ran out from beneath the crown, making its way across the white skin toward the floor.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

  The angel’s voice was so unexpected that Alexander flinched in astonishment. He feverishly retre
ated from the cross, then spun around.

  The figure had returned to the garish light.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” the voice repeated.

  Alexander trembled in the face of the fury in the voice. “The picture,” he whimpered. “In the church. This isn’t just like that. He should look just like the picture in the church. I made it better … I … HE said …”

  “IT’S ALRIGHT,” the angel assured him. “YOU MEANT WELL.”

  “I did.” Alexander squeezed his eyes shut. He so badly wanted to see the angel’s face, but the light still blinded him.

  “THE PICTURE IN THE CHURCH,” the voice said. “I WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT THAT, BUT I HAVE A FEW THINGS TO TAKE CARE OF FIRST.”

  Movement inside the light indicated to Alexander that the angel had turned around. One moment later, he sensed that he was once again alone in the dungeon. Alone with the cross and his father.

  The picture in the church. Although the angel was gone again, he still remembered.

  He goes to church with Father; every Sunday and sometimes also during the week. They always sit in the same spot, on the left side of the nave. And one day, it just appeared. The picture. Someone had hung it up so that the people in the pews could see it clearly. Alexander is amazed at all the details.

  For example, the cross is quite short, very different from all the other crucifixion pictures he knows. In those, the crucified Christ hangs far above the heads of the people, but that isn’t the case with the picture here, in their church. In this one, the Lord’s feet aren’t far off the ground. His father explains to him that this was how it truly was. Why would people, even during Christ’s lifetime, have set up such tall crosses? They would have required an excessive amount of wood.

  Alexander nodded understandingly.

  In the painting, the head of the man on the cross is sunk forward. The crown of thorns and the blood fascinate Alexander, but he can’t say why.

  “What kind of rope is that?” he asks. The painter hasn’t just painted the nails that were driven through the Savior’s hands and feet, but also a red rope. It is wrapped around the upper arms of the crucified man …

  Alexander looked up at the crucified man in front of him. The rope was sitting at the right spot.

  Just like in the picture.

  Father is silent all the way home from the service, and Alexander doesn’t risk disrupting his thoughts. Unlike in the past, Mother isn’t waiting for them with dinner. Alexander still misses her, but Father has made it clear to him that his mother was a lost soul and that it isn’t worth mourning her absence.

  As Alexander prepares the meal, Father delves into his books. Besides the Bible, he also reads an array of other books with complicated titles and tiny letters.

  They are no longer fasting. Father has declared that they’d done that long enough. Since then, he has been searching for new ways to wash away their sins.

  On this particular Sunday, he seems to have found one. He carries one of the books over to the table, and while Alexander sets the table, he begins to read. “I adore you, and for myself also, I desire the last drop of water from the sacrificial heart of Jesus! I thank you for this and humbly request that you pour over me this source of eternal life. Cleanse and heal me from all my sins and mortal sins, from my deficiencies and insufficiencies, so that I may become more like you.” He then looks up from his book. “Hold out your hands!” he commands.

  Alexander reluctantly obeys.

  Father picks up the water carafe that is sitting at the center of the table. “We will wash ourselves clean from our sins with the water of life,” he murmurs.

  And he pours the water over his, and Alexander’s, hands.

  *

  Jesus Christ seemed to be watching her.

  Ira Jenssen frequently felt like this whenever she sat in the front pew at her church and desperately tried to pray. Although the crucified man’s head hung forward, Ira always felt as though he was looking straight through her. Sometimes, she wondered if that might have been the painter’s intention in the first place. Regardless, he had accurately captured the horrifying details of the crucifixion: the gaunt body, the outspread arms, the protruding ribs, and the painfully curling hands through which the nails had been driven. The crown of thorns. Ira’s gaze wandered along the long, blade-like thorns that were piercing the skin of the man on the cross. She started to feel nauseous at the sight of the blood that was pouring from his face and down his neck.

  This was a new feeling.

  She gritted her teeth and tried to swallow down the tightness in her throat. To distract herself, she concentrated on the red rope and the heated debate that had arisen among the members of the congregation when the picture had first been hung up, years ago.

  “It’s perverse, in fact,” she murmured to herself. She was glad that at this moment she was the only person in the church. This way, she could sit here undisturbed, could attempt once more to say a prayer from the bottom of her heart. And above all, she could indulge in rebellious thoughts without being afraid that she might lose her job because of them.

  She let a cynical smile spread across her face. What would her parishioners say if they knew that their revered pastor struggled with doubt, day after day? More than that! That she had lost her faith. Old Mrs. Feldbusch on the church council would shoot off a complaint letter to her supervisor’s office in no time, demanding a new minister.

  With a sigh, Ira lowered her gaze to her hands. She hadn’t folded them. The only times she still managed that was when she was standing in front of the congregation and leading a service; it was important for her to keep up appearances then. But now, all alone in the church, this childish gesture struck her as absurd and pointless.

  “Well, God,” she murmured. “Now what?”

  She didn’t receive an answer. But then, she didn’t expect one. She lifted her head and stared at the painting. He had abandoned his only son to such cruel torment. What difference did it make if He didn’t show her the right path to take? He had taken away her Thomas …

  Thomas!

  Her heart tightened painfully.

  “The Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you.” The verse from Deuteronomy came to her lips with astonishing ease. She suppressed a bitter laugh.

  A clicking sound revealed that someone had opened the door at the back of the church. As the footsteps grew louder, she realized that her secretary was approaching.

  Ira heard a soft cough behind her.

  She closed her eyes.

  Veronika Herzog believed that her boss was praying whenever she retreated alone into the church. Not even once did her secretary, the person with whom Ira had spent by far the most time since losing Thomas, suspect that she had lost her faith a long time ago.

  “Ira?” Veronika’s voice was uncertain. “I’m so sorry to interrupt you, but it’s important …”

  However, Ira remained motionless in her seat for a moment longer. Her eyelids felt as if they weighed a ton. She had to force herself to open them again, and as she turned around to face her secretary, her eyes were burning.

  “Good Lord!” Veronika exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to …”

  Ira forced herself to smile and blinked away the gritty feeling. “It’s alright! I was done anyway.”

  Done! She felt dark humor behind this statement. This was the perfect way of expressing her mood.

  “If you want my opinion, Ira,” Veronika began, “you desperately need something to distract you from Thomas. Preferably a new relation …”

  “What is it, Veronika?” Ira interrupted her sharply. She didn’t feel the slightest desire to discuss with her secretary, of all people, the longing she felt for the man whom she had believed, until recently, was the love of her life.

  “Of course.” Veronika swallowed. “I … I think it would be best if you came and saw it for yourself.”

  Ira followed Veronika outside. The church, designed in the shape of a Greek cross
, stood on the edge of a city square that was adorned with a patch of lawn and a handful of flowers. The shadow of the soaring spire fell across Ira as she and her secretary turned the corner down a side street and headed toward the parsonage.

  She let Veronika lead the way into the house, down the perpetually musty-smelling hallway, and into the church office. It stank of glue and plaster, since the Sunday School group had been here this morning for a craft project. The long table, which had been specifically set up along the long wall, was covered with papier maché and finger paint.

  “Take a look at this!” Veronika pointed at her computer screen.

  Ira tore her gaze away from one of the little blue paper monsters, which looked like a cross between an elephant and the little clownfish from Finding Nemo. Veronika had opened a website with the URL hotnewzz.tv. The garish flame logo shouted at Ira, demanding her attention.

  “I was about to head home, but I wanted to check my email one last time before leaving,” Veronika explained. “That was when I discovered this.”

  Do you know this man? asked the headline in large letters.

  Ira looked more closely at the picture that was featured underneath it. For some reason, the man looked familiar to her.

  “The police are requesting assistance in identifying this victim of a violent crime,” she read in the caption. “Please send any clues to the identity of the man to the editor or contact the authorities at the following telephone numbers.” After these sentences, several ten-digit Berlin numbers were listed.

  “Don’t you recognize him?” Veronika exclaimed.

  Ira blinked, then it came to her. “Of course!” An icy shiver ran down her body. The man was a member of her congregation. He regularly attended her services, but since he wasn’t involved in the congregation’s life beyond that, Ira hadn’t recognized him immediately. This was also why she couldn’t instantly come up with his name.

  “That’s Werner Ellwanger,” Veronika said. “Every Sunday, he sits on the left-hand side, in the pew right in front of the crucifixion painting.”