Postcard killers

Chapter 1

Thursday, June 10

Berlin, Germany

The view from the hotel room consisted of a scarred brick wal and three rubbish bins. It was probably stil daylight somewhere up above the al ey, because Jacob Kanon could make out a fat German rat having itself a good time in the bin farthest to the left.

He took a large sip from the mug of Riesling wine.

It was debatable whether the situation inside or outside the room's thin pane of glass was more depressing.

He turned his back on the window and looked down at the postcards spread out across the hotel bed.

There was a pattern here, wasn't there, a twisted logic that he couldn't see.

The kil ers were trying to tel him something. The bastards who were cutting the throats of young couples al over Europe were screaming right in his face.

They were shouting their message, but Jacob couldn't hear what they were saying, couldn't make out their words, couldn't understand what they meant, and until he could work out their language, he wouldn't be able to stop them.

He drank the rest of the wine in his mug and poured some more. Then he sat down on the bed, messing up the order he had just arranged for the postcards.

"Let's look at it this way, then. Let me see who you are!"

Jacob Kanon, a homicide detective from the NYPD's 32nd Precinct, was a long way from home. He was in Berlin because the kil ers had brought him here. He had been fol owing their progress for six months, always two steps 7 behind, maybe even three or four.

Only now had the magnitude of their depravity started to sink in with the police authorities around Europe. Because the kil ers carried out only one or two murders in each country, it had taken time for the pattern to emerge, for everyone except him to see it plainly.

Some of the stupid bastards stil didn't see it, and wouldn't take help from an American, even a fucking smart one who had everything riding on this case.

He picked up the copies of the postcard from Florence.

The first one.