Forty Hours: A breath-taking thriller Page 6

  It was very quiet in the room for several seconds. Faris then replied: “I was supposed to come back to work about three weeks ago, but I …” he paused.

  “Screwed things up.” Paul ended the sentence for him.

  Faris snorted grimly at this construction of things. His thoughts turned to a Saturday evening, three and half weeks ago. After nine months of struggling with his rehab regimen and dragging himself out of the hole that the explosion had blasted him into, he had gone out for the first time that evening. At a bar near the zoo, he had crossed paths with a skinhead idiot wearing jump boots, who had planted himself in front of Faris and defiantly called him a “dirty Arab bomber”. In light of the museum attack and especially of his own self-recriminations, this accusation tripped a switch inside Faris. The next thing he remembered, he was kneeling on top of the guy and punching away at him.

  It had taken three other bar patrons to drag him off, and he was very fortunate that they reacted so quickly. Otherwise, he probably would have beaten the skinhead to death instead of just pounding him to a pulp. Of course, they immediately suspended him from the SURV squad, and now all he could do was hope that the hearing he would soon be attending would go in his favor. Maybe – and this was the hope that was keeping him from going off the deep end – they would show some sympathy for his meltdown due to his trauma and let him work again.

  He was about to say something when the door opened, and an energetic woman with dyed red hair rushed into the room.

  “Faris? Are you alright?” Her voice sounded excited and very concerned. She came to a stop in front of him, her large eyes resembling those of a startled owl. “I heard what happened.”

  Faris forced himself to nod. “Thanks, Gitta. I’m okay.”

  “Thank God!”

  Gitta Müller was the SURV administrative assistant, a secretary with special responsibilities and – as she liked to call herself in flights of irony – the unit “mother”. As she gazed at him, Faris had to smile, and he was suddenly painfully aware of how much he had missed her over the past ten months. Gitta always wore voluminous garments in shades of lilac, orange and red, which she complemented with a huge array of necklaces, bracelets and rings. As she leaned down to plant a kiss on his cheek, she clattered and clanked like a junk collector. She smelled like a mixture of patchouli and orange, and Faris was reminded of the incense sticks his sister Anisah had enjoyed burning as a teenager.

  Gitta scrutinized Faris from top to bottom, as her hands fluttered through the air. “Lightning does strike twice sometimes,” she mumbled. She looked as if she could hardly believe what had happened.

  He slowly shook his head. “It wasn’t a coincidence, Gitta,” he corrected her, thinking about the unknown caller.

  Gitta’s darting eyes froze for a moment, fixed upon him. “I know.” Reaching out, she patted Faris’s cheek.

  “I’m alright, Gitta,” Faris assured her once more.

  She nodded. “Of course!” She then recalled something. “Oh! I just wanted to let you know that the briefing is over. Tromsdorff is rounding up the entire team. Shannon will be here any minute. Ben, too. Andersen also called to say that you should start without him.”

  Gitta stopped to think, and as always happened whenever she did this intensely, she froze completely. She finally blinked herself back into action. “I’m so relieved that nothing happened to you, Faris.” And with those words, she hurried off to her tiny office, which was located at the front of the War Room, sandwiched between the sloping roof and the elevator shaft. With its glass walls, it resembled a terrarium for exotic animals.

  The door fell shut behind her, and despite the panes of glass, it felt to Faris as if Gitta had taken all the color in the room away with her.

  Chapter 7

  There was no time left for reflection since, right after Gitta’s exit, the door swung open again, and Superintendent Robert Tromsdorff strode in. He was the head investigator on the SURV team and the original founder of the squad. Tromsdorff had successfully brought together some of the most skilled state police investigators, along with psychologists and scientists, to create a powerful team. Their strength was in the area of operational case analysis, which people commonly referred to as “profiling”. Originally, SURV had been authorized due to increasingly violent activity within the Muslim milieu. However, it had quickly become clear that there were more than enough other radical religious groups out there to keep them busy. They had handled cases involving fundamentalist Christians, as well as murder investigations in Orthodox Jewish and sectarian communities.

  As he reached the center of the room, Tromsdorff came to a stop and stared at Faris. “Great Scott!” he exclaimed. He was an athletic, well-conditioned man who was in the habit of combining sports coats with t-shirts, which made him look a little like Sonny Crockett from the old TV series, Miami Vice. However, he was anything but a daredevil, but was rather one of the most competent and level-headed Department 1 team leaders. Faris owed him a lot, since Tromsdorff had promoted him and convinced him to dedicate his skills to SURV – a decision that Faris had never regretted.

  Without even a glance at Paul or Marc, Tromsdorff strode over to Faris. He silently took in Faris’s split lip and forehead laceration. After doing that, he looked straight into his eyes. “How are you doing?”

  “So far, so good,” Faris replied.

  “Did they check you out for a concussion?”

  “Yes,” Faris lied, feeling Paul’s disapproving eyes on him.

  At that moment, two other people walked into the room. One of them was a woman, who looked strong, compact and extremely athletic. She wore her blonde hair cut super short, and her face was sprinkled with freckles. Her long legs were clad in tight jeans, over which she wore two well-coordinated sleeveless tops, and her arms were as muscular as a man’s. This was Shannon Starck.

  “Doing alright, Faris?” Shannon had an American accent, since until recently she had lived in the US, where she had studied organizational sociology and psychology. She had written her dissertation about radical evangelical sects. Tromsdorff had met her at a conference in Seattle, and when he learned that she had dual German–US citizenship, thanks to her German father, he had convinced her to pursue her career at the German State Police. On their team, she was the specialist for Christian fundamentalism.

  Faris smiled at her. “Yeah. Thanks for asking, Shannon.”

  “Shit,” she exclaimed. “When they told us that you were there when the bomb went off on the subway, I thought they were kidding.” She strode over to her desk, which was covered with all sorts of odds and ends. Picking up a tennis ball, she began to squeeze it in one hand as she nonchalantly leaned back in her chair and watched as the second newcomer greeted Faris.

  Ben Schneider was a slightly overweight, completely colorless man. Everything about him seemed washed out, from his sand-colored pants to his faded sweatshirt to his strangely yellowish hair. There was a single exception to this rule: his eyes. They were an amazing shade of sparkling blue. Lapis lazuli blue, Faris thought, just as he did every time he encountered Ben.

  “You’re a real hero, you know that?” Ben’s tone was reverential and ironic at the same time. He functioned as the go-between who linked the FCI specialists with SURV personnel, and Faris knew no one who was as hard to figure out as this forensic technician. None of the profiling tricks Faris had learned over the years ever worked on Ben.

  Ben didn’t give Faris the opportunity to respond. Instead, he immediately plugged the laptop he was carrying into a projector. Faris wasn’t surprised by this, since the technician was well-known for adopting unusual behaviors when he was working on a case. Faris often thought that this was linked to his sphynx-like character.

  “So, here are the facts.” Tromsdorff leaned against the so-called case table; a long, plain, metal table that ran down the center of the room. Two whiteboards were mounted in the corner, and this area served as their ops base. This was where they discussed – and
solved – most of their cases.

  “As you all know already, this morning, at the Bismarckstraße Subway Station, a bomb went off. According to what we know right now, at least twenty-seven people, including several children, lost their lives down there. The state security division is looking into the possibility that this was a terrorist attack, but we have reason to believe that we might have a religiously motivated attack on our hands. If so, the case falls within our jurisdiction.” He looked at Faris. “For those of you who are wondering why Faris is here and not at the hospital where he belongs, in my opinion … Faris, it would be best for you to explain.”

  Faris gazed at his colleagues’ tense faces. Taking a deep breath, he decided to stand up to give his explanation. He pushed himself upright, ignored the light dizziness that washed over him, and started to speak.

  “As you all know, I saw what happened at the subway station. That was due to a phone call I received this morning.” Pulling the phone out of his pocket, he held it up and explained once more how the caller had ordered him to go to the Bismarckstraße station. As he spoke, Gitta emerged from her glass box to listen and Ben wrapped up his setup efforts. His laptop now sat open on the case table, and the projector was running, beaming an empty white rectangle onto the wall.

  Faris handed his phone to him. The IT specialist connected it to his computer as Faris described the video that the unknown caller had sent him.

  With a remote, Ben lowered a screen from the ceiling. He then bent over his keyboard and tapped in a command. The desktop interface appeared on the screen, followed by a black window. Without taking his eyes away from it, Faris reached for his chair and sat back down. The familiar sounds of the video began; the heavy breathing and the stifled moaning. The blurry colors came into view, and finally, the image sharpened.

  Faris, who knew the video all too well by now, concentrated on his colleagues’ faces as they watched it for the first time. Tromsdorff flinched as the hammer rushed downward. The color drained from Marc’s face. Gitta’s eyes grew huge, and her bracelets clinked as she covered her mouth with her hands. Shannon very attentively followed every movement on the screen, and it was obvious that she was already formulating her initial thoughts about what she was seeing.

  The video continued to play. The muffled groans of the crucified man, the fury of the hammer blows, the rattling of the chain, and the anguished scream of the victim as the cross was set upright – all of this echoed through the horrified silence of the individuals gathered around the table.

  The video finally ended. For a heartbeat, they sat there as if turned to stone.

  “Well.” Faris spoke into the oppressive silence, shattering the others’ torpor.

  “Okay,” Tromsdorff groaned. “This is definitely an SURV matter. Can we assume that no special effects were used?”

  Ben pursed his lips. He played the video forwards and backwards several times. “I’ll have to analyze it more closely, but at first glance, I have to admit that it looks damned real.”

  Tromsdorff nodded, as if his own opinion had just been confirmed. His lanky body resembled an electrified spring. He had pushed up his jacket sleeves, and Faris could see the tendons in his arms.

  “But what does this video have to do with the explosion?” Gitta asked.

  “The explosion on the subway was just the opening act,” Faris explained. “The caller claimed that the man he nailed to the cross is wired to another bomb. The moment the heart of the man on the cross stops beating, the bomb will go off.”

  “Oh God!” Gitta exclaimed. She leaned against the doorframe, looking as white as a sheet.

  Tromsdorff cast her a concerned glance. “Do we have any clues that could lead us to the second bomb?”

  Faris shook his head. “I’m not sure. Eventually, we’ll get something from what he said, but I haven’t reconstructed that in detail yet. He quoted the church conference motto.”

  “Speaking the Word of God Boldly,” Gitta interjected.

  Ben and Paul nodded. Marc dropped into a visitor’s chair, looking distracted. Faris had only just met him, but he assumed that the young analyst was already working on his own theories. Tromsdorff wouldn’t have brought him onto the team if he didn’t work that way.

  “Right. And the caller told me where the quote came from,” Faris continued. “Somewhere in the Bible, but I can’t recall the exact verse. When the bomb went off, he quoted another part of the passage, and I can remember that just fine. And after they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken.” The force of the Bible verse broke over Faris like the blast wave had done earlier. Balling his hands, he pressed his fists against his temples. He then pulled himself back together. He could recall every single word that had been said to him except for the Bible verse, every breath the man had drawn on the other end of the line, every sound in the background. Later, he would add all these details to the case file, but everyone here in the room was seasoned enough at profiling to know that often the first unconscious impressions held the secret to solving a case. This was why Faris repeated what had been said to him, word for word: “Somewhere out there, Faris, in your lovely Berlin, a man is hanging on a cross. Your task is to find him. As long as his heart keeps beating, all’s well. However, if it stops before you locate him, then … Well, as the Bible verse says, the place where they were meeting was shaken. I think you know what I mean.”

  As Faris was talking, Ben turned to face a different computer and typed something on its keyboard. He had obviously been looking up the Bible passage, because he spoke up as soon as Faris was done. “The Acts of the Apostles.” Everyone looked at him. “Chapter four, verse thirty-one. After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”

  “The place where they were meeting,” Shannon repeated quietly. “He’s given us a clue about where the bomb is located.”

  Gitta sighed. “That could be anywhere in Berlin. The church conference is in full swing.” She was right. More than five thousand separate events were planned, all across the city. Over a quarter of a million visitors were expected to attend.

  Tromsdorff cleared his throat. “We’ll get to that shortly.” He then turned to face Faris. “Do you have any idea why the caller chose to call you, of all people?”

  “I’m not sure. But he claimed to be the Klersch Museum bomber.” Faris quickly filled his colleagues in on the Arabic quote and its meaning.

  “As-samu alaikum.” Tromsdorff nodded. “I remember that.”

  “Peace be with you?” Marc scratched his head. “Why does that …?”

  “As-samu alaikum doesn’t mean peace be with you,” Faris interrupted. “Peace be with you translates as as-salamu alaikum. On the other hand, as-samu alaikum has one syllable less, did you hear that? It is an insult. Loosely translated, it means death be with you.”

  “Oh.” Marc looked shocked. With a self-effacing gesture, he brushed the hair from his forehead. “I didn’t know that.” That fact was obviously embarrassing to him. Like so many times before, Faris was amazed at this kind of self-consciousness, which struck him as typically German.

  “You couldn’t have known,” he said. “Like I said, these were the final words the museum bomber said to me.”

  “Hmmm.” Tromsdorff rested his chin on his hand. “And if I recall rightly, we never gave that information to the media.”

  During this discussion, Gitta had returned to her glass box. For the past year, the State Police had been using a new computer system, called DigA A, which could save and organize case reports, including the sound recording and crime scene photos that were gathered over the course of an investigation. This was why Gitta could sit comfortably at her desk and call up all the materials related to the museum case – which was what she was doing right now.

  Returning to the group with her laptop, she declared: “At first glance, here is what I know.” She started reading her screen. “There were se
venty-five fatalities. And the forensics team was able to positively identify some of the body parts as coming from the bomber.” She studied Faris. “There’s no way your caller could have been the man from the museum, Faris.”

  Faris rubbed his eyes. He had already suspected this was the case. “And yet, that’s who he’s pretending to be. Why?”

  “Maybe it’s just a trick,” Paul theorized aloud. “A trick to get you to immediately go to the subway station.”

  Faris shrugged. “It’s possible. Or the guy is somehow connected with the museum case.”

  “How?” Marc asked.

  Helpless silence spread throughout the War Room. They wouldn’t get anywhere like this!

  “Can you get anything off of Faris’s cell phone?” Tromsdorff asked, turning to Ben. “Find some kind of clue about the caller, that is?”

  Ben reached reluctantly for the battered device sitting on the table. “The call came from an unlisted number. In order to get the relevant data from the service provider, we need a court order. The same goes for the sender of the email with the video attachment. We will need to contact the email provider and hope that the guy was stupid enough to register the account with his actual name and address.”

  “You can’t believe he did, though.” Faris shook his head decisively. “The man hacked into the Bismarckstraße camera system. He isn’t stupid!”

  “The subway cameras …” Tromsdorff rubbed his chin. “The security officers are already working on that. Perhaps we’ll get lucky, and our culprit was noticed by someone on the subway staff.”

  Ben gazed thoughtfully at Faris’s phone, as if the dusty device could reveal more to him. “You don’t have to be on site to tap into the camera feed for the subway. Hackers do that kind of thing every day from their couches.” He walked over to the two whiteboards and picked up one of the fat dry erase markers before making the first note on their board:

  culprit = hacker?

  “That could be one explanation as to how he knew the Arabic phrase,” Ben continued. “He could’ve hacked into the DigA A.”