Duty and Honor

21

Belinda hadn’t been bluffing, Jack noted as they stepped through the door. Belinda did have pepper spray, not one of the pocket models, but rather a soda can — size version designed for bears. She stood at the end of the hallway, pointing the nozzle at them with one hand while clutching her cell phone in the other. Lying at her feet was the sudoku book.

“Is that thing real?” Effrem murmured to Jack. “Do they make Mace that big?”

“Yep. And it’s more powerful than regular pepper spray.”

Over the years Jack had been stabbed, slashed, beaten, and doused with OC, or pepper spray. He would take the first three over the fourth any day. Pain was manageable. OC was pure, unmitigated misery so intense it made time stand still. The memory of it churned his stomach.

“Stop right there,” Belinda ordered.

Peter Hahn’s daughter was barely five feet tall, petite, with short dark hair and rectangular-shaped glasses. She wore a pair of gray sweatpants and a red Washington Wizards T-shirt.

“You, with the mop on your head!” she barked. “Close the door and lock it.”

Effrem touched his index finger to his chest. “Me?”

“Yes, you! Do it or I’ll give you a shower!”

Jack believed her. Peter Hahn hadn’t raised a pushover. Jack said to Effrem, “Move very slowly.”

With his free hand held above his head, Effrem shut and locked the door.

“What’s your name?” Belinda demanded.

“I’m Jack. This is Effrem.”

“Do you have guns?”

“No.”

“Show me. Lift your jackets and turn in a circle.” They both did so. She asked, “What happened to my father?”

In the hallway Jack had rehearsed a gentle answer to this question, but Belinda Hahn was tough. And angry. She deserved an unvarnished answer. “He was shot. Once in the stomach, once in the head.”

“Where in the head? I know, so don’t lie. The police told me.”

“The right eye,” Jack replied.

Belinda’s hand on the OC canister wavered slightly, then steadied.

Jack said, “Effrem and I have been following the man who shot your father. His name is Stephan Möller. Does that name mean anything to you?”

Belinda ignored him. “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“Möller was working with a man named Schrader. Schrader tried to kill me, and your father had been helping him.”

“You’re lying! My father would never—”

“I think he helped Schrader as little as he could, and even then he didn’t want to. He had a chance to kill me twice and didn’t do it. Belinda, men like Möller and Schrader don’t worry much about police. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Maybe.”

Interesting answer. “And I think he was trying to protect you. Is that possible?”

“Possible,” she replied.

Effrem asked, “In what way?”

Belinda jerked the OC canister toward him. “Flip that light switch beside you.”

Effrem did so and the overhead hallway light came on.

Canister extended, Belinda took three steps forward, raised her cell phone, and took a picture of Jack and Effrem’s faces. She said, “Now you’re in my cloud. And my Photobucket account. The police will check it, you know, if something happens to me. They have face-scanning technology now, too.”

“We’d be lucky to make it out of the city,” Jack replied. “Belinda, if we meant you harm, we wouldn’t have knocked on your door. You can either trust us or tell us to leave. Either way, you’re in charge.”

After a few moments Belinda lowered the OC canister. “You want coffee?”

Belinda’s apartment was small, with a kitchen/nook, sitting room, and one bedroom. It was tidy, the decor all blond wood and stainless steel. Her tiny balcony was a hanging forest of ferns so thick Jack could barely see the building across the street.

Belinda finished making the coffee and they sat down at the nook table. Beside her Belinda placed her cell phone and her father’s sudoku book. The OC canister she kept in her lap. “Trust but verify,” she told them.

“Wise,” said Effrem.

“Jack, where did you get this book?”

“After your father died I went to his house.”

“You broke into his house.”

“Guilty. I found the sudoku books, your e-mails to him, and your address.”

“You said you thought my dad was trying to protect me. Why?”

Jack recounted his backyard confrontation with Peter. Belinda asked, “Those were his words, ‘I don’t know if I’ve done enough to save her,’ and ‘They’d never made the threat plain’?”

“Verbatim. Who was he talking about?”

“I can’t be sure.”

Effrem replied, “But you have a hunch.”

Belinda took a sip of coffee, then absently spun her cell phone on the table, staring at it for a few seconds before answering Effrem’s question. “Jürgen Rostock. He’s my boss.”

Jack knew the name. Jürgen Rostock was the CEO of Rostock Security Group. RSG specialized in personal and site protection — essentially, bodyguards to the rich and famous, and physical security for vulnerable business facilities. Across Europe RSG was so well regarded that it no longer sought clients; clients sought RSG, and Rostock took on only the most important VIPs.

As Hugo Allemand was in France, Jürgen Rostock was a celebrity in Germany, a dairy farmer who’d risen through the ranks of the Heer to Generalleutnant, and eventually to inspector general of the Bundeswehr. After retiring in 2004, Rostock had served under two chancellors as minister of defense, then left public service and started RSG. Twice since then Rostock had been urged to run for president of Germany, and twice he had declined. He was a fixture on the European social scene, contributing to a plethora of charities, as well as sitting on the board of half a dozen foundations whose mandates ranged from providing potable water for rural African villages to exposing child labor abuses in Indonesia.

Apparently Effrem knew the name as well. “Jack, one of Rostock’s postings was commander of Division Schnelle Kräfte — the Rapid Forces Division. Kommando Spezialkräfte falls under its command.”

Eric Schrader was former KSK, Jack reminded himself.

As he was with clients, Jürgen Rostock was highly selective with his employees. The vast majority of his recruits were plucked from the ranks of GSG 9, the Federal Police’s counterterrorism unit, Bundeswehr Special Forces, military intelligence, and the BND, the country’s Federal Intelligence Service.

Jack had no trouble imagining Stephan Möller as having come from those ranks.

Belinda said, “My father was KSM. Special Forces Marine, S2, intelligence. He and Rostock were friends. About a month after I graduated from U of V, I moved here.”

“Has Rostock ever threatened you? Can you think of any reason why your father would think that?”

“No, Jürgen’s never threatened me.” Belinda sighed, shrugged. “My father was a smart man. Grounded. If he thought that, he would have had his reasons.”

Effrem asked, “What exactly do you do at RSG?”

“I’m one of Jürgen’s personal assistants. He has two, one for here in Munich, and another that travels with him. We alternate every three months. Right now I’m here.”

“Has he said anything about your father’s death?”

“He left me a nice voice mail yesterday and sent some flowers. He sounded sincere. Sad. Since I got the news I haven’t been back to work. I don’t know what to do. Mom’s buried in Alexandria, but part of me wants him back here with me.”

Jack called up his cell phone’s photo album and handed it to her. “That first picture is of Stephan Möller, the second is of Eric Schrader.”

“I don’t recognize Möller, but this other one, Schrader… I think so. I think I saw him in Jürgen’s office a few weeks ago. Is this the one that tried to kill you?”

Jack nodded. “I’m trying to find out why.”

Belinda looked at Effrem. “And why are you here? What’s your story?”

“I’m a journalist. I’m working on a story that involves Schrader.”

“I don’t want to end up in the newspapers,” Belinda said.

“You won’t,” Jack replied. “Have you noticed anyone following you? Anything out of place here? Does anything in your life feel… off?”

“You mean aside from my dad being murdered? No, nothing.”

“Scroll to the next picture,” Jack said. She did so, and Jack said, “That’s an e-mail he got from you a few weeks ago.”

Belinda was already shaking her head. “I didn’t send this. I mean, it’s from my Gmail, but I didn’t send it. He mentioned something about a link that didn’t work, but I didn’t think anything of it.”

“How do you use your Gmail?”

“In browser, mainly at work and at home.”

“Does anyone have your password at work?” asked Effrem.

“If they do, they didn’t get it from me. What is that, by the way, that link?”

“Malware of some kind,” Jack replied. “We’re looking into it.”

Belinda laid Jack’s phone on the table and pushed it away as though it were a rotting egg. “This is too much. Why can’t we just call the police? You can tell them about Möller and Schrader and this e-mail and they’ll—”

“Eventually we might, but we need to do some more digging first.”

Effrem asked, “Does the name René Allemand mean anything to you?”

“No. I can’t believe this!” Belinda ran her fingers through her hair and squeezed her eyes shut. “There’s no way that Jürgen ordered my dad killed. That’s what you’re suggesting, aren’t you?”

“I’m saying there’s a connection. What it is we don’t know.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“We will. Give us some time.”

Belinda frowned at them. “Why are you here, anyway? What do you want from me?”

“That’s up to you,” Jack replied, then asked, “If you choose not to help us, we’ll go away and leave you alone. Right now, though, we’ve hit you with a lot of stuff. Can you take some time off work?”

“Jürgen told me to take as much as I wanted.”

“Good. Do you have someplace else you can stay?” When Belinda nodded and opened her mouth to answer, Jack cut her off. “Don’t tell us where. I’m going to give you a prepaid phone. Keep it close by. You have a lot to think about. Call if you want to talk.”

Outside, the sun had come up and a couple of the street’s restaurants had opened. People sat under umbrellas and awnings having coffee and breakfast.

Jack and Effrem headed back toward their car.

Effrem said, “What’re the chances she’s already on the phone with Rostock?”

“She’s too smart for that,” Jack replied. “I hope.”

In the end, Belinda Hahn had three choices: confront Rostock, call the police, or decide to trust and help the two strangers who showed up on her doorstep with a story that had turned her world upside down.

Following Effrem’s directions, Jack turned the Citroën back onto Bodenseestrasse and headed west, then picked up Highway 99 and turned north.

Effrem dialed his cell phone, then said, “Mitch, I know you’re there. We’ll be there within the hour, so make some coffee.” Effrem disconnected and said to Jack, “My IT guy. He’s not an early riser.”

“IT guy or hacker?”

“Either/or. He’s not a black hat, if that’s what you’re asking. Perhaps dark gray, but not black.”

According to Effrem, Eric Schrader’s apartment was in the Hasenbergl district, a more run-down area of the city and home to a large immigrant population. “I wouldn’t call it crime-ridden,” he told Jack. “But it does have something of a reputation. It’s not exactly the sylvan getaway we had in Neuaubing.”

As the highway began looping east again, Effrem had Jack get off and turn south on Dachauer Strasse. Almost immediately the terrain took on a more industrial feel, with fewer trees and more concrete, side streets lined with 1960s-era row houses, and gray, blocky apartment buildings with graffiti-festooned walls.

“You came here alone?” Jack asked.

“Came here?” Effrem replied. “I staked out his place overnight. I’m tougher than I look, Jack.”

“Apparently so. Maybe tough enough to handle Dagmar.”

“Sylvia,” Effrem corrected. “Up here, turn right, then left at the next corner.”

Jack made the turns, and Effrem tapped on his window. “Here.”

Out the window, across a vacant lot turned dumping ground, sat a two-story cinder-block building fronted by a set of broad concrete steps that led to a breezeway entrance. A trio of teenage boys sat on the steps, smoking and laughing.

“Schrader’s place is on the second floor, third window in,” Effrem said. “The one with the blackout curtain.”

Jack saw it. Effrem was using the term “window” generously. Like those of his neighbors, Schrader’s apartment window was more a horizontal slit covered by bars.

“Apartment or prison?” Jack asked.

Effrem laughed. “Not far off. It used to be a halfway house for recovering heroin addicts. Besides, if you had a dump for a backyard, would you want a generous view of it? What are we hoping to find in there, anyway?”

“No idea. I’ll take anything.”

He meant it. He could feel frustration itching in his brain, growing each time he added another entry to his “Who Wants Me Dead?” list. If Belinda was right and it had been Eric Schrader she’d seen at RSG’s headquarters, they had a connection to Jürgen Rostock, but a tenuous one at best. Jack felt as though he’d put in a lot of legwork but had barely gotten anywhere.

“Is there a more secluded entrance?” Jack asked.

Effrem directed him around the block, then down a hedge-lined alley to a small parking lot that abutted the apartment’s communal backyard, a cracked slab of concrete with four picnic tables. Sitting between them was a barrel-size flowerpot overflowing with cigarette butts. No one was about.

Jack and Effrem got out, walked across the yard, then down a breezeway and through a heavy wooden door on the left. They found themselves standing in a foyer with butter-yellow walls, black-and-white-checkerboard tile floors, and an elevator whose doors were crisscrossed with duct tape bearing a cardboard sign that read AUßER BETRIEB. The air stank of rotten fruit.

“It’s called Merkel Punch,” Effrem told him. “It caught on during the 2008–2009 recession. Cheaper than store-bought liquor, easy to make in fun-sized portions. Why they named it after the chancellor I don’t know.”

Jack followed Effrem through a set of double doors to a stairwell, then climbed to the second floor. Once on the landing, Jack could hear the rhythmic thump of what he guessed was German rap music. Effrem led him down the hallway to Schrader’s apartment door. The music was louder now, coming from the apartment across the hall.

“How does this work?” Effrem asked. “I’ve never actually broken into anything.”

Jack knelt before the door and studied the door’s lock for a few seconds. It was a standard pin tumbler. He’d come armed with a few options, a pick set made out of a modified pair of tweezers and a paper clip, or a bump key. Jack decided to try the latter. From his pocket he pulled a pair of rubber washers, which he forced down the key’s shaft and onto its shoulder.

Jack inserted the key into the lock, depressing the washers as far as they would go, withdrew it a quarter-inch, then repeated the process but faster. After ten seconds the lock let go. Jack pushed open the door and stepped through, followed by Effrem. Jack wiped the knob with his shirttail.

The interior was dark save for a thin strip of sunlight coming through the blackout curtains. Jack turned on his cell phone’s camera flash and panned it across the ten-by-fourteen-foot room. Schrader’s living space was spartan, with a cot and sleeping bag against one wall, a milk crate containing a neatly folded stack of clothes, a writing desk beneath the window, a kitchenette, and a bathroom that consisted of a sink and a toilet.

The place reminded Jack of enlisted bachelor quarters on a military base. Schrader was on the road a lot, Jack guessed, and didn’t make enough money to afford a better place. Wouldn’t an employee of Jürgen Rostock’s be paid better? Maybe Schrader had been freelance, his mission to kill Jack an audition of sorts?

Jack walked to the curtains, closed them fully, then told Effrem to flip the light switch. An overhead fluorescent bulb flickered to life.

Jack said, “I take it the place Schrader stayed in Zurich was a step up?”

“Night and day,” replied Effrem. “Champagne versus Merkel Punch. Okay, so do we toss the place?” He said this with a trace of glee in his voice.

Jack pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket, passed them to Effrem, then put on his own pair. “Let’s start with drawers. You take the kitchen. Look for mail, notebooks, scraps of paper… anything with writing on it. Try to leave everything as you found it. Watch out for booby traps.”

“Pardon me?”

“Kidding.”

While Effrem started in the kitchen, Jack searched the cot, then sorted through the clothes in the milk crate before checking the desk drawers. All were empty. This place was less an apartment and more a bivouac.

“Got something,” Effrem called. He was on his hands and knees, half his torso inside the under-sink cabinet. “Looks like a planner or something. It’s jammed between the drainpipe and the basin.”

“Check for trip wires, then pull it out,” Jack said.

“Funny.”

Head still in the cabinet, Effrem reached back and handed Jack the black leatherette notebook. On its cover in fake gold leaf letters was “2016.” Jack paged through it. Many of the pages showed curt handwritten notations. He flipped ahead to the previous two weeks and his eye caught an entry: “U.S./VA.”

United States, Virginia.

He checked the current day and found nothing, then paged ahead. An entry on the following day read “S.M./Friedenstr. 8/2100.”

Effrem, having climbed out of the cabinet, was standing at Jack’s shoulder. He said, “‘Friedenstr.’ could be Friedenstrasse, the first number a building number. As for the other number—”

“Military time,” Jack replied.

S.M.

Stephan Möller?

Effrem had Jack head in the general direction of their hotel, then directed him south onto Highway 9, parallel to the Isar River, into the Schwabing district. They were in an upscale part of Munich now, near the Englischer Garten, a 910-acre swath of lush forest, nature trails, pavilions, and outdoor eateries that abutted the river’s west bank. Jack had spent his fair share of time here too, mostly on morning runs. The Englischer Garten was Munich’s version of New York’s Central Park, but much larger. An oasis in an already green city. Having seen the kind of houses that dominated this area of Schwabing, Jack doubted there was a sub-million-dollar house within a quarter-mile of the Englischer Garten’s border.

“Your guy lives here?” Jack asked.

“What were you expecting?” replied Effrem.

Jack realized his vision of private hackers was stereotypical: pasty-faced introverts in dark basements surrounded by a crescent of glowing computer monitors. “Not this, I guess.”

“Mitch has done well for himself. He’s a transplant, an expat American. Used to work in IT at a Fortune 500. He retired a few years ago.”

“And he does what now?” asked Jack. “Helps budding journalists?”

“Budding journalists with famous mothers,” Effrem replied. “Actually, Mitch was the one and only contact she gave me when I graduated.”

That said a lot, Jack decided, given how many sources Marie Likkel had probably accrued over her career.

“You trust him?” asked Jack.

“She did. He never let her down.”

Mitch’s house wasn’t adjacent to the Englischer Garten but butted up against Schwabinger Bach, the creek that forms the park’s western edge.

Jack pulled down the long tree-lined driveway until it opened into a clearing of brown and tan paving stones. The house itself was a whitewashed two-story box with an all-glass vaulted gambrel roof. A large Japanese maple shaded the front yard. Jack parked beside the walkway, got out, and followed Effrem to the front door, a chunk of wood bracketed by vertical glass slits. Effrem pushed the buzzer.

The door swung open, revealing a man in his late forties in black gym shorts and a light blue polo shirt. His face was very tan. “In, in,” he said, then turned and walked away.

Effrem asked, “Did we wake you?”

“No, my bladder did. I heard your voice mail and decided to ignore it. No offense, Effrem’s friend, whoever you are. I was up late playing cyber tag with some idiot in Belarus.”

“None taken,” said Jack.

The interior of Mitch’s house was what Jack had expected: white walls, white furniture, light wood floors, and a second floor looking down on the main level. They followed Mitch into a kitchen full of white appliances. Jack’s eyes began to ache.

“Anyone care for a virgin mimosa?” Mitch asked.

“Isn’t that just orange juice?” Effrem said.

“Ding, ding. Momma Likkel didn’t raise no dummy. Seriously, though, help yourself. Coffee, orange juice, bagels, whatever strikes you. So, do you have a name?” he asked Jack.

“Yes.”

When it was clear Jack was going to add nothing further, Mitch nodded thoughtfully. “Works for me. What can I do for you guys?”

Effrem said, “A few e-mail headers and a dicey-looking hyperlink.”

“Roger. Send it to me: mlakattack@hushmail.com.”

Jack got on his cell phone and forwarded Mitch a Dropbox link containing the e-mail headers from Belinda and the suspicious link Jack had lifted from Peter Hahn’s computer. Mitch walked over to a laptop sitting on the counter, checked his e-mail, clicked on Jack’s link. He studied the material, then said, “Okay, well, nothing suspicious about these headers. Let’s have a look at the link. Interesting.”

From there Mitch fell into a stream-of-consciousness conversation with himself that sounded only vaguely like English to Jack:

“Have to hide my IP… Let’s go with a proxy from Ecuador. Boot up the VM, get you sandboxed… Let’s see how good you are. Oh, trace route, how I love you…”

After another two minutes of this Mitch straightened up and said, “So, Effrem’s friend, did you click on this link?”

“No.”

“Smart. I’ve got good news and bad news. Good news is I can do something with this. Bad news is it’s going to take a few hours, maybe the day. I’ll call you.”