Published: 11 Nov 2021

“You did that on purpose, you old slacker!”

Across the table, I flipped Kriminalhauptkommissar Machlitzke the bird.

“Sure thing, I broke my bones on purpose.”

“Sure you did! You have not just one but several reasons. First, you wanted to get out of tomorrow, and second, you wanted to be properly cared for and pampered by Derek.”

The second point sounded really good, I actually enjoyed Derek’s pampering, but it was also bought with quite a bit of pain.

“You’re the right one to complain, Jens. First you shanghai my husband and get him to help you renovate your house, then you give him a defective ladder that he falls off from and breaks his collarbone, and now you’re blaming him for it!”

Exactly, Derek was absolutely right. Now that’s what you get for your good nature and helpfulness.

“All right, all right, I was just kidding. I know it was a stupid accident. That’s why I invited you here today.”

Here, that was the small beer garden across the street from my boss’s dwelling. We were sitting comfortably in the afternoon sun, enjoying the nice weather (and, of course, the cool drinks at my superior’s expense).

“It just pisses me off that we’re all on vacation lockdown. It’s my daughter’s birthday tomorrow, and we wanted to go on a nice little trip.”

“Complain to Mr. Knirsch. Or better yet, complain to the robe-bearers at the OVG in Bautzen.”

“Ha, as if that would do any good.”

It was October 2nd, and the judges at Saxony’s Higher Administrative Court had approved the rally registered by neo-nazi Christoph Knirsch for German Unity Day, followed by a demonstration through Leipzig, as they had done so many times before. This happened several times a year, despite regular violent riots, all efforts by the city of Leipzig to stop these marches had always failed because of the judge’s rulings, which were supposedly issued “in the name of the people”. Consequently, my colleagues would again have to take the rap, the citizens of the city would again have to fear for their health as well as their belongings. Once, just once, I wished one of these guys instead of in a robe on the bench in full combat gear in the front row of the riot police, directly between right-wing and left-wing rioters. Well, one can still dream!

“By the way, I couldn’t complain to Knirsch at all right now, because he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yes, Derek. I have a good acquaintance at the Staatsschutz, and they lost track of him yesterday.”

Interesting. Was he planning something even bigger, that he wanted to evade surveillance?

“Don’t worry, Jens. He’ll be back in time for the rally tomorrow.”

How right my life partner was with this prediction, we should find out the next day personally …

“Do you need help?”

With difficulty I closed my top jeans button. Such a collarbone fracture was really an unpleasant matter, and the backpack bandage did the rest to restrict my freedom of movement.

“I’m fine, thanks!”

I flushed the toilet and carefully washed my hands. How lucky I was to have Derek. Without him and his constant willingness to help me with all the little and big daily tasks, I would really be screwed right now. Sighing, I dried my hands and left the bathroom. Sitting in the armchair in the corridor of his parents’ apartment, my boyfriend smiled at me.

“Could you…”

Immediately he jumped up.

“Sure, no problem.”

The next moment he was attending to my belt, which I couldn’t for the life of me get to fasten on my own.

“If you hadn’t dragged that stupid thing along today, you could have done without the belt. I don’t know why you brought it anyway. After all, you’re on sick leave.”

The “stupid thing” was my little Glock 26, my private pistol for situations where my regular duty gun was too big and unhandy.

“Sorry, Der, but considering what’s going on in Leipzig today, I didn’t want to leave the house without the stupid thing. Especially with us living at such a neuralgic point.”

The high-rise building in which we occupied an apartment on one of the top floors was located right next to the main train station, where experience had shown that a lot of the action would take place. We had gone first thing in the morning to the apartment of Derek’s parents, who were on vacation and had asked us to take care of the flowers. Now, however, everything was done, and we would be on our way home again.

“Besides, when you’re a policeman, you’re always on duty, so to speak.”

“You’re right, but promise me one thing: if anything happens on the way, don’t play a hero. Remember, you’re not really fit for duty right now, despite the gun. You’d only be allowed to use it in a dire emergency anyway.”

“I promise, Der. I don’t feel any particular urge to jump into the middle of the fray anyway.”

Relieved, my friend smiled at me, and after locking up his parents’ apartment, we headed to his car and drove off toward home. Tension was palpable everywhere on the streets, whether it was from passersby who all seemed rushed somehow and wanted to get to their destinations as quickly as possible, or from the ubiquitous police units from every possible German state. Derek also looked around glumly.

“What this is all costing again. And who gets to pay for it? The taxpayer. They should at least charge the nazi pack for the police action. Or the leftist rioters. Or best of all, both.”

It would be nice. But in our state of freedom, one could only dream of that. We drove on in silence, but had to stop abruptly when we suddenly came face to face with a police roadblock as we turned into the street leading to our house. One of the officers stepped up to our car and Derek rolled down the window.

“Sorry, you can’t go through here. The road is closed due to a police operation.”

As the officer said this (in a Bavarian accent), he peered intently inside the car. I let my driver do the talking.

“We live back there in that house, we just want to get home.”

The policeman glanced over his shoulder briefly, then back at us a little doubtfully.

“In the high-rise?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any identification with you?”

“Hold on.”

Derek rummaged briefly in his jacket pocket, then handed his ID card through the window. The officer studied it briefly, looked at the street signs, then nodded and handed the ID back.

“All right. But I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to park the car there. Things could get pretty heated around here today.”

Fortunately, my friend was able to allay any fears.

“We have an underground parking space, no stranger can get in there.”

“Well, in that case. You can drive on.”

The officer cleared the street, Derek gave a quick thank you, and drove off. As we got closer to our destination, my friend frowned.

“Looks like there’s been quite a bit going on here already.”

He was right. Two or three big trash containers now were only charred piles of plastic, wastebaskets had been knocked over, and posters had been torn down. People hurried along the sidewalks, apparently blind to the mess all around. Well, they probably just wanted to get to safety quickly.

“Crap, and now that.”

In the middle of the alley leading to our underground garage entrance, two large yellow trash containers lay overturned on the road. Sighing, Derek stopped the car and we got out to clear the obstructions.

“Just make sure you don’t hurt yourself even more.”

I shrugged, though I immediately regretted it because of the pain that shot through me at that movement.

“You can’t get those big things out of the way all by yourself.”

And it didn’t look like even one of the maybe 10 passersby within 50 meters of us wanted to help, all of them hurrying on towards their respective destinations without paying any attention to us. The two of us managed to push the first container to the side at least so far that cars could pass by. Fortunately, the container was apparently not full to the brim – which sadly could not be said about the second one.

“Shit this thing is heavy!”

“You pull on your side, Der, I’ll lean against it and try to push a little.”

That’s exactly what we did, and sure enough, the container moved! Satisfied, I braced my feet on the ground and kept pushing, but suddenly realized I was the only one struggling. Astonished, I stopped and turned to Derek. He was as white as a sheet, and the next moment he turned to the side and puked into the gutter. Within a second I was with him.

“Gee, Der, what’s wrong?”

His whole body shook in my arms as the next wave of his stomach contents poured out onto the street as well. I could do nothing but hold him as tight as I could for now. After a minute or two he calmed down a bit and wiped his mouth with a tissue. I looked at him questioningly.

“What’s the matter with you all of a sudden? Did breakfast not agree with you?”

Derek shook his head and silently pointed behind me where the dumpster was still lying around in the middle of the street. I turned around, not wanting to believe my eyes. It took a lot of control to stop my breakfast to join my boyfriend’s! The lid of the container had opened a little during our attempts to move it, and out looked – a foot! Clearly a human foot. And it was neatly severed above the ankle, bones and such clearly visible.

“Holy shit!”

My friend started coughing and I got scared that he was about to throw up again. However, he caught himself right away.

“You can say that again. I didn’t know people belonged in the yellow garbage can – they don’t even come with a green dot.”

I looked him in the face, but he just shrugged his shoulders. Gallows humor. Maybe the best way to deal with this find.

“So what do we do now?”

Wordlessly, I turned in the direction we had just come from, stuck two fingers in my mouth, and let out a shrill whistle. When I saw two officers from the roadblock turn to me, I waved at them to come over. Again, this was a rash action, as the pain in my collarbone made clear to me. While two policemen now walked leisurely over to us, I turned back to my boyfriend.

“You’d best get in the car, okay? I don’t want you collapsing on me here, this could get pretty messy.”

Derek looked at me for a moment, then nodded and took my advice, walking to the car and placing his cute bottom in the passenger seat. In the meantime, the officers had also arrived at our position. One of them was the one who had tried to stop us from going on a few minutes earlier.

“What’s up? Do you need help with the container?”

“You can say that again. I want you to get some more officers over here and cordon off this area. If you have barrier tape with you, get it over here.”

The officer, a Kommissar by the look of his shoulder straps, looked at me as if I were Santa Claus and had demanded that he hitch up the reindeer.

“Ahem. Why would I do that? And who are you, anyway?”

I fished around in my jacket pocket and finally found what I was looking for. While holding my badge in front of him, I enlightened him.

“Kriminaloberkommissar Altmann, Leipzig CID. Homicide.”

Slowly I got used to the new rank that I gained after the kiddie porn killer case. The uniformed man’s eyes widened, but that was still nothing compared to his facial expression when I showed him the chopped-off foot peeking out of the container.

“Jo mei, does gibts doch garned!”

Yes, one could probably express it in such a way. The sight had even been enough to make the Bavarian colleague, who had so far tried to speak a reasonably intelligible German, fall back into his native dialect.

“Max, run and get three or four people here. And tell them to bring the tape.”

The second officer dashed off to the street corner where the rest of his task force was. The Bavarian Leader turned back to me.

“I’ll call for reinforcements via the operations center, I don’t have that many people with me to close the streets and cordon off here at the same time.”

“Okay. The important thing is that you keep the passersby away from me here. As soon as they realize something’s going on, they’ll gather here like blowflies on a fresh cow patty. And don’t say anything specific about this over the radio – otherwise we’ll have the press on our backs as well. Tell dispatch I’ll get back to them on the wire and explain everything.”

“All right. By the way, my name is Vogel, Munich Riot Police.”

I shook hands with my colleague, then reached for my cell phone. Who to call first? I decided on my direct superior. Shortly thereafter, he answered.

“Hello Sascha. Are you calling to tell me how sorry you feel for me? And how nice it is to sit comfortably at home?”

I couldn’t suppress a slight grin, but immediately became serious again.

“It would be nice, sitting comfortably at home. Watch out, I’ve got a hurt foot here.”

“What? But not also from your ladder fall, too late to claim that!”

Now I really had to laugh.

“No, not from the ladder fall. And the hurt foot isn’t mine either.”

“Then whose is it? Derek’s?”

“Thankfully, it isn’t. And I can’t tell you whose foot it is, because I haven’t discovered the rest of the body that goes with it yet.”

Now I had the full attention of Machlitzke, the fearless leader of the homicide department.

“Say that again.”

“Okay, short version. Derek and I were trying to push aside an overturned dumpster that was lying in front of our underground parking garage entrance. In the process of doing that, the thing split open a bit, and now there’s a foot sticking out of it. Chopped off or amputated or whatever, just above the ankle. Whether the rest of the body is also in the container, I can’t say, I think first of all the forensics should get to it.”

There was silence for a few seconds, then my boss cleared his throat.

“So that’s what you mean by sick leave. Even then, you’re still bringing us work.”

“Hey, you were the one complaining about having to do special duty because of the nazi rally. I just wanted to pull you out of it. Now at least you can get back to your real work.”

I heard Machlitzke laugh through the phone.

“That’s right. Have you notified anyone else yet? Are there any forces on the scene?”

“A group of riot cops from Munich, who just closed off a street here. The leader of them is calling in reinforcements over the radio to be able to seal off the area properly. Other than that, I haven’t informed anyone yet.”

“Okay, that’s the way it’s going to stay. I’ll take care of dispatch and everything else. Where is your exact location?”

I gave him the coordinates.

“All right. I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes at the latest. See you soon.”

With that, the conversation was over, and I turned back to the street scene. In the meantime, the Bavarians had brought in one of their vans and were in the process of cordoning off a large area with barrier tape. Their boss approached me again.

“Lion’s been informed, they’re sending some of your own guys.”

“Very good, thank you. I’ve called my own boss, he’s taking care of everything else and he’ll show up here soon too. Until then, it’s wait and see.”

Vogel looked down at the container with interest.

“Should we maybe check to see if there are more body parts in there?”

I shook my head.

“I’d rather not, maybe Forensics can find something. I don’t want to touch or move the container before they had a look at it.”

“I see. But I’m afraid if there were any tracks, they’ll hardly be there now. A bunch of left hools passed through here earlier, they rolled the thing halfway down the street. At least ten people were busy with it, they grabbed it everywhere. It’s a wonder they didn’t set the dumpster on fire, like those three over there.”

That were very nice prospects, the forensics would have lots of fun. But maybe there were some traces inside the container – the rioters probably hadn’t been there. Otherwise, they would certainly have discovered the unsavory cargo, and even such guys probably would not have been entirely indifferent about something like that. I was about to shrug my shoulders, but remembered the last painful experience with it in time and refrained.

“Still, better not to take any chances.”

“Right again. What about your companion, anyway? Was that him?”

Questioningly, the Bavarian pointed to what had been Derek’s breakfast about two hours ago.

“Yes, it threw him off a bit. I’ve ordered him into the car so he can get some rest. I should go and see how he’s doing while we wait for the cavalry.”

“I guess he isn’t a colleague of ours?”

“No, that’s my boyfriend. He’s a computer geek, and the only dead things he usually deals with are dead computers from his customers.”

The riot police officer from faraway Munich laughed softly.

“Then his reaction is understandable, you rarely see anything like that as a normal citizen.”

“More like not at all.”

“Or that.”

I wandered over to the passenger side of our car and peered inside. Derek still looked a little pale around the nose, but overall he seemed to be doing a little better.

“Der, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am. It was just the shock. Sorry if I puked-up a crime scene. It was all a bit too much at once.”

I could understand that.

“Hey, don’t worry, no one’s blaming you. Least of all me. When I saw my first corpse, I didn’t make it to the bathroom either.”

“Really?”

“Really. And even today, something like that still makes me nauseous, only my reaction isn’t quite as violent. By the way, you didn’t throw up all over a crime scene. The foot and whatever else might be in the container was just moved here, otherwise everything would be full of blood.”

But not a single drop of blood was visible, not even on the container itself. No, everything spoke for the fact that only dead meat had been disposed of here.

“And at least you didn’t puke directly on the foot, that would probably have upset the coroner a little bit.”

“Idiot!”

I had managed what I had planned, Derek laughed quietly to himself. I guess I didn’t have to worry too much about his state of mind anymore.

“How about it, you want to pull the car in and go up to the apartment? I’ll have to stay here for a while.”

My friend shook his head vigorously.

“No, I’ll stay here with you. First, you might need my help with something, and second, I don’t really want to be alone right now.”

I nodded.

“Okay. But you better stay in the car, or at least by the car.”

“Will do, I’ll try not to get in your way. Is Jens coming here?”

“Yeah, I called him. He’s probably happy to get out of rally duty.”

Derek laughed cheekily at me.

“There’s your first crime suspect.”

I had no idea what Derek meant by that, and it probably showed.

“Jens, of course! By that foot showing up, he doesn’t have to do rally duty anymore. The way he was upset about it, I’d say he has a real motive in this murder case.”

Even though that might not have been entirely appropriate in the presence of a dead body (or at least parts of a dead body), I couldn’t help but guffaw. My little guy sure had some great ideas!

“Haha, okay, I’ll tell him of your suspicions. Let’s see what the mighty KHK has to say in his defense.”

“Well, I would consider my suspicions so conclusive that he should actually arrest himself.”

Still grinning at the idea of my superior handcuffing himself, I went back to the dumpster. By now, everything had been cordoned off, and the inevitable gawpers had arrived as well. Suddenly, many of them were no longer in such a hurry to get to their destination; a live crime thriller was much more exciting.

A few minutes later, two patrol cars, the forensics team, the coroner and the head of the homicide squad, i.e. my boss, arrived at short intervals. While the patrol officers took over securing the scene, Jens came to me with the coroner.

“Moin Sascha.”

“Hello Jens, Doc. Have a nice Sunday.”

The two laughed, and Doc shook his head.

“My ass. I actually wanted to go to the garden, was even already at the front door, and suddenly the call from your boss came in.”

This boss smiled innocently at the thwarted gardener.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you! I’m glad for a little distraction.”

Ah yes. Was Derek right after all? Reproachfully, I turned to Jens.

“I really wouldn’t have thought that of you. The best thing you can do is hand over your service weapon and your ID right now. Come on, let’s get it over with.”

Completely flabbergasted, Kriminalhauptkommissar Machlitzke stood in front of me.

“Uh … what’s going on?”

“You really have to ask? You’re my first suspect! Give me your handcuffs, I don’t have mine with me. I didn’t expect that I would need them today.”

“Suspect? Me? Are you nuts?”

“Sure you are a suspect, a prime suspect even. You taught me yourself that we should always look for a good motive first. And who here has a good motive for murder? Who if not the head of the homicide department, who can’t wait to be taken off special rally duty? A murder case is just what he needs!”

Jens looked at me with wide eyes for about three seconds, then burst out laughing, and Doc joined in shortly afterwards.

“Now really, that’s a brilliant deduction! You really seem to have learned quite a bit from me.”

As much as I would have liked to, I couldn’t let that praise hang on me.

“Derek came up with it, it wasn’t my own doing.”

“Derek? I see. Maybe I should talk him into joining us. We can always use a bright kid like him. Where is he, anyway?”

I pointed to our car.

“Over there. He found the foot, and he took it quite hard.”

With a concerned look on his face, Jens looked toward the car.

“How is he?”

“Better now, but the initial shock was pretty severe.”

“I can imagine. So, how do we do this now?”

Questioningly, Machlitzke looked at the medical examiner.

“Well, whoever’s foot it is, he won’t get any more pleasure out of it, even if he should still be alive. Replantation is definitely impossible in this condition.”

I would have been very surprised by anything else – reattaching a foot from a garbage can? Very unlikely.

“Sascha, have you looked inside to see if there are any other body parts stuck in the dumpster?”

I shook my head.

“No, I wanted to wait and see what forensics had to say first.”

“Good call.”

KHK Machlitzke turned to the forensics team.

“Take a look at that thing from the outside and see if you can find any useful traces on it.”

The two addressed set to work, but with rather little enthusiasm. After a few minutes, one of them straightened up and turned to our small group.

“Have a lot of people been messing with this thing?”

My boss looked at me and I answered the unasked question.

“According to our colleagues from the riot team, a whole group of hools rolled the dumpster quite a distance down the road and then knocked it over.”

“In that case, there’s really no point in doing a big search for traces out here. I can only say one thing: there are no obvious traces of blood on the outside of the container.”

“Then we can look inside now without messing up anything?”

“Yes. But if possible please only touch the outside, maybe we’ll have more luck inside and find something after all.”

“All right. Sascha, can you help out a little?”

I was not enthusiastic about this, but this was my boss after all.

“Okay.”

“Wait a minute, let me get that. You seem to be in some kind of pain, right?”

Ah, Doc had caught on.

“Yeah, broken collarbone a couple of days ago.”

“Ouch. Jens, you should watch out for that kid a little bit, that’s not something to joke about. Until that heals, he needs to avoid physical exertion as much as possible. In fact, he should be on sick leave!”

Machlitzke laughed.

“He is, but work seems to be falling on his feet. But don’t worry, I’ll do my best not to overtax him. So, are we going to do it now? I’d like to know now if there are any more individual parts in there.”

Doc and Jens went to the two sides of the dumpster and carefully pushed the lid up. It wasn’t that easy, because the lid was a bit crooked and the two of them couldn’t get a proper grip on it, as the forensic experts had instructed. But then the lid cracked and a gap of about 40 centimeters opened up. Cautiously, I crouched down and peered inside. Seconds later, I struggled not to deposit my own breakfast next to Derek’s after all.

“Can I take it from the look on your face that the foot didn’t end up in the garbage can all alone?”

“You bet! This thing looks like a human spare parts warehouse!”

By now, the two lid openers had tilted it so that it stayed in place and wouldn’t close up again. They then got down on their knees to my left and right and peered into the container.

“Holy shit.”

“You can say that again, Jens. I’ve seen some stuff during my years on the job, but I’ve never seen anything like that. Someone really enjoyed sawing.”

In the container – scattered among cans, tins and other yellow dot trash – lay human remains. I saw hands, leg parts, arm stumps, it was just disgusting. How my boss managed to still think about our job remained a mystery to me.

“Doc, what do you think. Is this one person or are there several?”

The coroner looked inquiringly into the container once again.

“Well, purely in terms of quantity, I’d say we’re only dealing with the remains of one person. I don’t see a third hand or a third foot at the moment.”

Instead, I saw something else.

“Is that the head back there?”

Doc bent over even further and almost disappeared into the container with his own head.

“Yeah, looks like it. Somebody got a stick or something like that for me?”

My boss looked around for a moment, then waved one of the riot cops over.

“Hand me your baton, please.”

The poor guy probably guessed what my boss was going to do with his equipment, but he didn’t dare to argue and handed over the baton. Machlitzke immediately passed it to the coroner.

“Here, does this work?”

“Yes, very good.”

Doc poked around a little in the container, at the spot where I thought I had made out a shock of hair. Seconds later, he flinched.

“Oops!”

Indeed. Oops. Suddenly, a severed head rolled out into the street in front of us! That was it, I jumped up, sprinted to the gutter and threw up. Interestingly, my boss did the same! I guess he wasn’t quite that hardened either. After we had puked ourselves out and wiped our faces with a few tissues, we went back to the coroner. The latter had taken the sight better – well, he was always snipping away at dead bodies anyway.

“Are you all right?”

“We have to be. Man, Sascha, just be glad that only the foot and not the head came towards your Derek.”

I really was, surely it would have given my sweetheart nightmares. Hell, it was quite possible that I would get nightmares from it! Nevertheless, I now mustered all my remaining professionalism and took another look at the detached head. It was a truly horrible sight, the face was completely distorted, obviously our victim had not had a gentle death. My boss seemed to have the same thought just then.

“Doesn’t look like there was just one of your colleagues dumping his trash, Doc.”

“True. The cuts aren’t professional; someone just wanted to thoroughly dismember the body.”

It was funny: I was disgusted by the sight, yet it also fascinated me. And then it shot through my brain like a lightning bolt!

“Guys, I know who that is! Or rather, who that was.”

Now I had the full attention of my two companions.

“You do?”

“Yes, boss.”

I probably wouldn’t have recognized the dead man if his picture hadn’t been in the press again and again in the last few days. But as it was, it took just a little bit of imagination to match the distorted face to the grinning visage in the newspaper.

“Come on, don’t keep us in suspense any longer!”

“Jens, I think you can call your acquaintance from the Staatsschutz. They don’t need to look for Knirsch anymore.”

KHK Machlitzke’s jaw dropped, then he squatted down and took another good look at the head.

“Damn, you might be right!”

Doc, too, eyed the dead man’s features urgently.

“True. The more I look, the more I get the feeling that our young friend here has hit the jackpot.”

My superior rose again.

“If that’s true, then we’re in deep shit.”

I nodded; indeed we were. But had he even realized the full extent of our problems?

“It’s not just us, boss. The whole city will be in deep shit.”

Questioningly, Machlitze looked at me, and I explained my thought processes to him.

“Think about it. This is the neo-nazi leader whose hordes want to march through Leipzig today. At the same time, we have a few thousand violent antifas in the city. And in this situation, the young Adolf is being finished off here in Leipzig. Can you imagine what will happen if this comes out in the next few hours while they are all still gathered here in Leipzig? When the brown mob catches on that their head bastard has followed his great idol into hell?”

“Oh damn. I hadn’t thought that far ahead! They’ll immediately assume that the leftists have killed him, and we’ll have the most beautiful battlefield in the middle of the City.”

I nodded – that was exactly what I was aiming for. Immediately, my boss switched to disaster containment mode.

“We need a bigger perimeter and better visual protection. Who’s wearing the hat from the riot guys?”

“Kommissar Vogel, he’s over there on the street corner with the rest of his guys.”

Machlitzke waved one of the patrol officers over.

“Get me Kommissar Vogel, the riot squad group leader.”

The uniformed colleague dashed off, and Jens was already on to the next point of his plan. This time he turned to the forensic technicians.

“Park your van in front of the dumpster so that it provides a visual screen.”

Eagerly, one of the forensic technicians nodded, and shortly thereafter the vehicle covered a large part of where the body was found. In the meantime, our Bavarian colleague had also arrived, and I took over introductions.

“Boss, this is Kommissar Vogel of the Munich riot police. Kommissar Vogel, my boss, KHK Machlitzke, head of the Leipzig homicide department.”

The two shook hands, then Vogel asked what he could do for my boss.

“How many people do you have with you?”

“Besides me, ten men on two cars. The remaining two squads from my group are on duty elsewhere. By the way, Lynx Two just inquired when we’ll be free again.”

“Don’t expect that any time soon. Come with me, I want to show you something.”

Machlitzke walked Vogel over to the screened container and pointed to the head. The Bavarian gagged a little, but kept the contents of his stomach with him. Well, maybe he had a digestive system hardened by white sausages.

“Do you recognize the face?”

Vogel looked closer, but then shook his head.

“Couldn’t tell. Should I recognize it?”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t recognize the guy either, but luckily my junior sleuth was on hand. Do you know who that is? In the dumpster are the mortal remains of Christoph Knirsch.”

The Bavarian colleague frowned.

“Christoph Knirsch?”

Suddenly, something clicked.

“Wait a minute! The Christoph Knirsch? The rally organizer?”

“That’s the one.”

“Oh my God! Do you know what that means?”

“Yes, that our situation has just changed from nasty to shitty. And by that I mean my situation, yours, that of all our colleagues here, and that of the entire city of Leipzig.”

Vogel nodded meaningfully.

“I’m afraid so, too.”

“And that’s exactly why I’m going to take you and your group out of the normal operational plan now. You will make yourself useful here, for example, extend the cordon.”

The riot police officer immediately understood what my boss was getting at.

“Shield as best as we can so that this doesn’t get out for the time being?”

“Right. That also means you have to instruct your people accordingly. No blabbing to passersby or even worse the press.”

“Understood. Do you want me to sign off at the operations center?”

Machlitzke nodded over to me.

“Sascha will take care of that. So: keep your voice down, and nothing goes over the radio.”

“All right.”

“Good, now pull in the rest of your people. Oh yeah, what’s your call sign?”

“Mars 10-61.”

“Thanks.”

Vogel steamed off to the rest of his troops, and my boss turned directly to me.

“Did you catch what I discussed with him?”

“Yes. I’m informing Lynx Two that we’re going to hijack the group.”

“Right, and the two cars from the district right along with them.”

“Okay, I’ll let Lion know, too.”

“Oh yeah, Doc?”

“What’s up?”

“Can we have the body collected? And if so, where to put it?”

The coroner thought for a moment.

“Best to bring it straight to me. Your technicians can come over with me.”

“You’re right, the best thing would be for me to have the whole load delivered to you, including the container. Then you can jump on it together with the forensics.”

“Agreed.”

“Sascha? Please also take care of the pick up.”

“All right.”

“Then let’s go. And as I said to Vogel: no plain text over the radio! Who knows who’s listening in today.”

I nodded and walked over to my supervisor’s car, where I reached for the radio’s microphone. Hmm. Who to call first? The on-duty police commander or the riot police dispatcher? Okay, the former was probably the better choice. I pressed the selective call, and shortly thereafter I got an answer.

“Caller Lion!”

“7-23.”

“7-23 for the Lion.”

“Please check the directory and call me back on my cell phone.”

“Received, one second.”

I put the radio mike back and waited for my cell phone to jingle. I didn’t have to wait long.

“Altmann.”

“You wanted me to call back.”

“Right. Are you aware of the discovery of a human foot on Winter Garden Street?”

“Yes, and I’m waiting for details.”

I was sure he was.

“Here’s the situation: in the dumpster from which the foot came tumbling out, there were also the other remains of a human body. In pieces.”

Even over the phone, I could hear the man on the other end gulping.

“That was … not a pretty sight, I guess.”

“It sure wasn’t. According to the evidence, the place where it was found is not the scene of the crime. Since the container was dragged through the streets by a horde of rioters, we can’t say anything more about it yet.”

“I can’t believe that something like this had to happen on a day like today!”

“It gets even better. The identity of the dead man should be clear. It is Christoph Knirsch.”

“WHAT???? Say that again!”

The good man was probably about to crawl through the phone.

“The dead man is Christoph Knirsch. And yes, I mean our Christoph Knirsch.”

The voice of my interlocutor became very quiet.

“How sure is that?”

“I would say 99 percent.”

I myself was actually one hundred percent sure, but you’ve seen horses puking in front of the pharmacy. Besides, 99 percent somehow sounded more legit than 100 percent.

“Damn it!”

There was really nothing more to say about that.

“Who knows all about it?”

The head of operations had probably also understood immediately what was now one of the most important things about the further procedure.

“KHK Machlitzke, Kommissar Vogel from Mars 10-61, the forensic experts and the coroner. Possibly also some of the officers who are taking care of the cordon. I don’t know how much they’ve picked up yet.”

“Roger that. I hereby impose a total news blackout, none of this must get out!”

“That’s what my boss already said, hence the request to call me on my cell phone.”

“Good thinking. How does your boss want to proceed now?”

“First of all, he wants to take Mars 10-61 out of the operational plan and put it under our command – that way we don’t have to bring in and brief other forces. The same goes for Lion 21-03 and 21-04 from the district, we still need them here anyway.”

“Does that mean the forces and resources are sufficient?”

“For now, yes. We would also need a transporter, preferably one with a small crane. My boss would like to transport the body, including the dumpster, to the coroner.”

“Hm, that’s best done via the F, I’ll initiate that immediately after our conversation. Do you need anything else?”

“Not at the moment, it’s quiet here right now, rally-wise as well. But it would be good if you would inform us in time if anything moves in our direction.”

It would be really very inconvenient if any hordes of any kind suddenly started marching here.

“All right. I’ll inform Lynx Two that he’s losing Mars 10-61, also the Staatsschutz and the Polizeipraesident as well.”

“Understood.”

“Of course the radio is still off-limits. Can you continue to be reached on your cell phone?”

“Better via my boss’s, I’m actually on sick leave.”

“Oh? And why are you on site then?”

“Because I live just around the corner and I sort of stumbled across the body on my way home.”

“Now that’s what I call zeal for duty. Okay, I know what I need for now, and I’ll take care of everything we agreed on. Over and out.”

With that, the conversation was over, and I went back to Jens, who was in the process of commanding the patrol officers from the district into silence. In the meantime, the riot police had widened the perimeter, so that we could talk more or less undisturbed and, above all, unheard. When the uniformed colleagues got back to work, I approached my superior.

“Lion has been informed and is initiating everything. The body will be picked up by the F, Lynx Two, Staatsschutz and the Polizeipraesident will be informed. For further contact, I’ve referred to your cell phone for now.”

“Thank you, Sascha, good work. And now you’d better take care of your Derek again.”

I looked at Jens questioningly.

“You don’t need me anymore?”

“Right now there’s not much we can do anyway except wait and see.”

I shrugged.

“Okay. If anything comes up, you know where to find me.”

“All right. You better cure yourself, though.”

We shook hands, then I walked over to Derek’s car, where my friend was still sitting in the passenger seat.

“I’m back, honey.”

Derek’s face was still a little pale, but he was at least smiling at me.

“Anything new?”

I pondered for a moment, should I tell him? The whole thing was arguably unsavory, plus there was actually a news blackout. On the other hand, Derek was my boyfriend, and actually, it had been him who had discovered the foot and started the whole thing. I made my decision.

“Move over, and I’ll tell you all about it. Or should I drive?”

Vehemently, Derek shook his head.

“No way, I’m driving.”

With a few contortions, he managed to slide over the center tunnel into the driver’s seat, allowing me to sink into the passenger seat. When I was finally sitting pain-free, my friend looked at me expectantly.

“Now fire away!”

I had to smile at his enthusiasm, my little crime fan always wanted to know everything about my work!

“Okay, okay! So first of all: the foot was not alone in the dumpster, there were many more individual parts, probably a complete body. Complete in the sense of everything there, not in the sense of everything in its proper place.”

A small tremor shook through my friend.

“That’s disgusting.”

“It sure is. But it got even more disgusting when Doc was poking around in the container and suddenly the head came rolling out.”

Derek slapped his left hand over his mouth, his eyes wide.

“Ewww!”

I grinned at him.

“True, ewww pretty much sums it up. But that’s not all.”

“What, more gross stuff?”

“Maybe not gross, but definitely interesting and not harmless at all.”

“Not harmless at all? Come on, tell me!”

He was getting really fidgety with curiosity.

“We know who the individual parts belong to. Or rather, who was disassembled into individual parts.”

Completely spellbound, Derek hung on my lips.

“Christoph Knirsch.”

“What, not Nazi Knirsch?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

My friend suddenly became very quiet.

“If this gets out…“

I nodded meaningfully.

“That’s our biggest worry. We are under total gag orders, and if anyone blabs something out, I’d advise them to emigrate to Greenland before they fall into Jens’ hands.”

Now Derek chuckled softly to himself.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“Thanks, honey. So what do you say, can we head home?”

“You don’t have to work?”

“Jens has given me a temporary time-out.”

Derek seemed pleased about that.

“Well, let’s go home then. I wouldn’t really be happy if you were messing around, with your injury.”

He reached for the ignition key, but just then there was a knock on the window of my passenger door, and I looked up into the face of my boss. I lowered the window, and Jens stuck his head inside the vehicle.

“Hi Derek.”

“Moin Jens. I hope you’re not planning to put my Sascha on duty after all.”

Machlitzke laughed.

“I’ll try to avoid it. But anyway, I’ve got a big favour to ask of you.”

We looked at him with interest.

“You guys live right up there, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Guys, we may need a place to talk later, undisturbed and, most importantly, unnoticed. By ’we’ I mean, among others, the Polizeipraesident, who is on his way here, and probably also the colleagues from the Staatsschutz. If we invade the headquarters like a mob, the press will quickly get wind that something is going on here.”

“Don’t tell me you want to use our apartment as an operations center?”

Machlitzke looked at us with puppy eyes, which looked kinda weird for someone of his age.

“At least as a place for a little meeting, would that be okay?”

Cheekily, Derek looked over at me.

“Okay, I think that can be arranged. But let’s give it a few more minutes so Sascha can clean up his dirty underwear.”

I jabbed my left elbow into his upper arm, stupidly that hurt me more than it hurt him. My boss, however, seemed very pleased with the development.

“Thanks a lot, guys. We’ll ring your bell then.”

“All right, see you later.”

Machlitzke pulled his head out of our car, Derek started the engine, and shortly thereafter we finally pulled into our underground parking garage. A few minutes later we entered our apartment, and I immediately realized the role my friend had planned for me.

“You sit down now and rest for a while. Are you in any pain?”

“Only when I move, when I laugh, when I yawn …”

Indignantly, Derek looked at me.

“Don’t joke about that, Sascha! The doctor said you should take it easy with physical exertion.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do that. But I better not get any complaints about my physical restraint tonight.”

“You knucklehead. And now, SIT DOWN! I’ll tidy up a bit quickly before the celebrities invade here.”

“Don’t make such a fuzz, if they’re going to invade us like this, they’ll just have to live with the fact that everything isn’t polished to the max.”

Derek sighed.

“You’re right. But at least I’ll put out a couple bottles of water.”

“Whatever you say.”

I lowered myself into a chair and, after a little shifting around, even found a position where I could sit completely pain-free. Derek brought over a couple of water bottles and glasses, then settled down as well.

It took about three quarters of an hour until the doorbell rang. My boyfriend jumped up and disappeared from the living room, shortly after I heard different voices approaching from the corridor. With some effort, I rose from my chair to greet our guests. The first to step into the room was my boss.

“Hello Jens. Have you found out anything yet?”

Machlitzke shook his head.

“No, we’re not any smarter than we were earlier. I hope you don’t mind us dropping in on you like this?”

“No, no problem. Find a chair.”

My supervisor stepped aside so the other visitors could follow into the room. My God! That was the lord mayor! The Polizeipraesident followed him, and then came another man I hadn’t met before. Derek was the last to return to the living room.

“Good afternoon. I hope we’re really not disturbing you?”

I swallowed for a moment, then grabbed the outstretched hand of our Dr. Brueggemann.

“No, you’re not disturbing us, Mr. Lord Mayor. I am Oberkommissar Altmann.”

Dr. Brueggemann smiled, shook my hand, then found a chair and sat down. Next I greeted the Polizeipraesident, then our fourth visitor.

“Hello, I’m KHK Fischer from the Staatsschutz.”

Thus everyone was acquainted with each other, and shortly thereafter everyone had also found a seat. Derek went to the door of the room.

“I’ll leave you to your meeting now…”

This was very considerate of him, but the mayor waved it off.

“No, you stay right here. This is your apartment and we won’t evict you. Surely I can trust you to keep whatever you hear here to yourself?”

“Of course.”

“Very well, then please take a seat as well.”

The Staatsschutz guy didn’t really seem to like that, but since the Polizeipraesident didn’t voice any objections either, he kept his mouth shut.

“So. Mr. Machlitzke, first of all, can you briefly summarize for us what the situation is?”

“Yes, Mr. Mayor. About an hour and a half ago, KOK Altmann and Mr. Prosch pushed aside a dumpster knocked over by rioters on their way home.”

“Just a moment, please. Mr. Altmann, you’re not on duty?”

My boss relieved me of the answer.

“Sascha broke his collarbone a few days ago and is on sick leave.”

“Oh. All right. Go ahead.”

“Where was I? Oh, yeah. During that action, the container popped open a bit, and a chopped-off human foot fell out. Sascha then had some officers from the riot squad who happened to be in the vicinity cordon off the site where it was found and informed me. I then went to the scene with the forensics team and the coroner. After forensics cleared the container temporarily, we opened it further and found more body parts.”

“Body parts? You mean the body was dismembered?”

“Yes. The hands and feet were separate, the arms and legs were further dismembered, and the head was also separated from the torso.”

Now it was our mayor who gulped, and I worried about our carpet for a moment. Fortunately, Dr. Brueggemann was able to keep his puke reflex under control.

“On top of that, Sascha then also preliminarily identified the body. It is Christoph Knirsch.”

“You say preliminarily identified? So it is not yet certain whether it is really Knirsch or someone else?”

This was when Fischer intervened for the first time.

“I have seen the head, Dr. Brüggemann, and I am absolutely certain that it is Knirsch. Nevertheless, there will be no definitive confirmation until after a closer examination.”

“Hmm. I see. So we’re working under the assumption that we’re dealing with a very dead Nazi leader.”

Jens took the scepter again.

“Right. And that’s why we’ve declared it all classified. If this got out…”

Worried, our city’s leader nodded.

“I see what you mean. How do you want to proceed now? Hide everything until both the right-wingers and the left-wingers are out of Leipzig later today?”

“Yes, that’s what we thought would be the safest solution for Leipzig. At the same time, we’ll quietly start the investigation.”

“Good, I agree with that. Tell me, Mr. Fischer, I actually thought that the Staatsschutz was shadowing Knirsch all along? Then how could he have been murdered and disposed of in a garbage can without anyone from your club noticing anything?”

Contrite, the person addressed looked to the ground.

“He showed up in our jurisdiction the day before yesterday, unfortunately we lost track of him the same evening. Our colleagues from the Verfassungsschutz were also cut off. Since then, we knew nothing more about his whereabouts – until the call came from colleague Machlitzke a little while ago.”

“I find that disappointing, but that can’t be changed now. Speaking of the Verfassungsschutz: why is no one here from them? Haven’t they been informed yet?”

“Yes, I have done that myself, but they are cooking their own soup.”

“Great, and at the expense of my city! All right, I’m relying on all of you! Keep the whole affair under wraps as long as you can, if at all possible until at least tomorrow morning. I’m heading back to the official counter-event now, lest my absence be noticed. You will please keep me informed of any new developments!”

Having been assured of this, the lord mayor said goodbye to us and left shortly thereafter. It was quiet for a moment, then Polizeipraesident Jasche broke the silence.

“How do we proceed now? I don’t think I need to emphasize that both Homicide and Staatsschutz are getting all the support they need.”

My boss nodded with satisfaction, then turned to KHK Fischer.

“Where did you lose Knirsch?”

The man addressed sighed before he started to answer.

“At 131 Probstei Street. He went into the house there and hasn’t shown up since. At first we thought he was spending the night there, but when a colleague of ours took a look in the yard at night, the car Knirsch had come in was suddenly gone.”

Huh?

“How could the car have disappeared unnoticed?”

Fischer sighed again.

“Three days before, another house was demolished behind the house at Probstei Street 131, we didn’t know anything about that. And across this vacant lot Knirsch must have disappeared along with the car.”

Damn!

“Do we at least know what Knirsch was doing there?”

“There is a small print shop of the New Germany Party in the house, and the print shop owner – who happens to be the local chairman of the NGP – also lives there. That’s why we didn’t think anything of it when Knirsch went there.”

“Has there been a BOLO out on his car yet?”

“No, only our own people and the Verfassungsschutz guys are keeping their eyes open so far, but I’ll get to that in a minute.”

The state protector reached for his cell phone and called headquarters.

“KHK Fischer here. I urgently need a BOLO on a VW Passat, color silver, license plate Munich dash Gustav Heinrich 374. If found, no action, just keep an eye on it and report back directly to me or KHK Machlitzke from Homicide.”

Fischer listened briefly into his cell phone, then ended the call.

“The BOLO will go out over the radio immediately.”

“Okay. Any other suggestions?”

“Maybe we should have a look around the house there. Actually, we should have enough in hand to get a search warrant, right?”

Thoughtfully, the Polizeipraesident looked at me, then nodded.

“Yes, that shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, right now I don’t really care if we have one or not. There’s clear and present danger. Tell me, Mr. Altmann, how do you feel?”

Ohoh. I had a nasty feeling I knew exactly what was coming now. And looking at Derek’s facial expression, he felt the same way.

“Well, I’m in pain with every major movement.”

“So bad that you’re not able to take a look around Probstei Street? Like I said, just looking around and asking questions, you’re not supposed to be doing any physical feats.”

Shit, there was no way to get out of that, I couldn’t very well turn that down. At least if my future career meant anything to me.

“Okay, I think I can do that.”

“Very well. I want to involve as few additional people as possible.”

Now my boss also interfered.

“Sascha, take good care of yourself. And you take at least one car from the Bavarian riot squad with you.”

Jasche nodded in agreement.

“Right. Self-protection is essential. Are Vogel and his people standing by?”

“Yes, they’ve finished securing the site and are waiting for the next assignment.”

“Good, then I would suggest that the two of you,” he pointed to Fischer and my boss, “that the two of you contact the forensics department. Clarify what there already is in terms of leads, etc. And start thinking about the possible perpetrators. But do all this secretly, quietly, at least today. I myself will get to work on the Verfassungsschutz, I don’t like it when they poach in my backyard without me knowing what’s going on.”

With these words, the Polizeipraesident rose and turned to Derek.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Prosch, for allowing us to have our powpow here with you. In a few minutes, peace will return to you.”

My friend shrugged his shoulders.

“You’re welcome. And if an undisturbed place is needed again, our door is open.”

Jasche nodded gratefully.

“I’ll keep that in mind. So now, have a good day. Gentlemen, get to work!”

And off he went, Derek walking him to the apartment door. Our last two guests had also risen.

“All right, Sascha. You take some of Vogel’s group, and we’ll hold the rest of them in reserve.”

Astonished, I looked at Jens.

“The rest of his group? Did you get the other squads as well?”

“Yes, we now have the entire second group of the platoon. I don’t plan on taking any chances with this dicey situation.”

Hm, a whole group of riot police, that were after all some 30 men with half a dozen vehicles. Someone really seemed to take the situation seriously. Justifiably so.

“Okay. Where do I find these guys?”

“They’ll be waiting for you at the front door. Do you need a driver?”

I was about to answer in the affirmative when Derek came back into the room and butted in.

“Yes, Jens, he needs a driver! He can’t move without pain, and then you push him into a mission like this! For crying out loud, Sascha should be in bed resting, not carting around town chasing perverted killers!”

Oh dear, my little one had really talked himself into a rage. The Polizeipraesident would definitely not get a Christmas card from him.

“Well, Sascha could have said no, Jasche asked him if he felt up to it.”

“Well of course! He had a great choice, either risk his health even further or get on the bad side of his top boss. As if he could have refused!”

Derek was really getting into it, and my poor boss was getting smaller.

“Maybe … maybe this really wasn’t a good idea. I can put someone else on it…”

My friend shook his head vigorously.

“No, it’s too late for that now, I actually expected you to object in time. No, Sascha will do the job. And I’ll drive him!”

That was meant sweetly, but….

“Der, you can’t do that. I have to take the service car, and you’re not allowed to drive that. Besides, I don’t want to put you in danger.”

“Of course I can! If it’s okay for you to go on a murder hunt while unfit for duty, then it’s okay for me to drive you. And if you don’t want to put me in danger, make sure we don’t get in danger in the first place. I’m driving! Basta!”

Derek had spoken. My God, I had never seen him like that before. Normally he was rather reserved and quiet, but now he had shown that he could definitely be loud, decisive and hard. Jens seemed to be impressed by this as well.

“All right. But boys, for heaven’s sake, watch out for yourselves! If anything happens to you guys, especially you Derek, I won’t even get a job as a night watchman anymore.”

Haha, nice image, the big-powered head mufti of Homicide Department as a sleeping night watchman. But well, we didn’t want to do that to him after all. We would take care of ourselves.

“Don’t worry, Jens. We have the colleagues in blue with us. Nothing will happen to us.”

“Hopefully.”

My boss turned to the Staatsschutz guy.

“Shall we go? There’s a lot to do.”

Fischer nodded a quick goodbye to us, then followed Machlitzke out of the room and then the apartment. My supervisor knew his way around, so it hadn’t been necessary to show him the exit. For a moment Derek and I looked at each other, then my boyfriend took a deep breath.

“Let’s do this, Sascha. I’m anything but thrilled, but we should get going.”

He was right about that – and I guess I had a lot to make up to him. On the way out of the apartment, he grabbed the keys to my service car.

“You go out the front door and collect the Bavarians, I’ll get the car from the underground garage. I’ll meet you at the exit.”

Still switched roles. Actually, I was supposed to be in charge, but somehow that didn’t seem to have quite made its way to Derek yet. I wisely refrained from shrugging my shoulders and followed his instruction.

Almost directly in front of the front door was a blue-silver VW van with blue lights on top, surrounded by four officers in full riot gear. Kommissar Vogel was nowhere to be seen; he was probably still in command of the rest of his group. I walked up to the waiting guys.

“Hello gentlemen. I believe you are waiting for me.”

The blues looked at me, and one of them replied.

“If you are Oberkommissar Altmann then we are.”

“I am.”

I extended my hand to him.

“Pleased to meet you, Hauptmeister Lorke. These are my colleagues Blaumeier, Polkert and Schoebbelkurt.”

I also greeted the other three.

“Kommissar Vogel has ordered us to be at your disposal.”

“That’s what I heard, too. Have you been briefed on what happened this morning?”

“Not in detail, Sir. All we know is that a dismembered body was found. And probably the body of some celebrity, which is why there’s so much silence in the woods.”

I sighed. Although the number of confidants should be kept as low as possible, nevertheless, in my eyes it was necessary for a good cooperation that the four colleagues of my “protection squad” were in the loop.

“Okay, I will brief you in more detail in a moment. But first, please take off all the combat gear, hopefully we won’t need it. I’d rather not have you running around where we’re going like there’s World War III to be won.”

The Bavarian colleagues laughed and got rid of their protective vests, helmets and whatever else belonged to the combat gear. Nodding in agreement, I said.

“Much better already. Let’s get in, I’ll ride with you for a bit, to the underground parking garage exit up ahead. On the way there, I’ll tell you about the operation.”

We got into the van, and a moment later the colleagues were hanging on my lips.

“It’s true, there was the dismembered body of a … well … Celebrity found. What I’m about to tell you is subject to the strictest secrecy – anyone who blurts any of this out will spend the rest of their tour of duty cleaning cookware in the shabbiest correctional facility in Germany. Get it?”

I earned murmurs of agreement.

“Okay, we found the body of Christoph Knirsch. Of Nazi-Knirsch, if you’re more familiar with that.”

“Holy shit!”

“You’ve got it, Mr. Lorke. Knirsch had been missing for two days, the Staatsschutz lost track of him the day before yesterday – and this morning he reappeared in a dumpster. In pieces and logically very dead. If this comes out in the next few hours, then something more will get broken in Leipzig than just a few car windows. So a total news blackout has been imposed, and we’re investigating as quietly as possible.”

The riot police officers nodded, they had probably understood the seriousness of the situation as well.

“Good, we are now going to the place where our colleagues lost Knirsch. It is a house where a high party official of the NGP runs a print shop and also lives. We’ll have a look around there, maybe we’ll find out something.”

Meanwhile, we had arrived at the underground parking garage exit, and Derek was also already standing there with the BMW ready to leave.

“I’ll change cars now, and you drive behind us. What’s your radio call sign?”

“Mars 10-611.”

“Good, mine is Lion 7-23, so I think it’s clear that not a word regarding the whole drama is going over the radio in open text.”

“Roger that.”

“Great, let’s do it.”

I got out of the van and joined Derek in the BMW.

“We’re good to go, honey. Probstei Street, you know how to get there?”

“Yes. As long as we don’t run into any roadblocks, anyway.”

“Then let’s go. My colleagues will follow us.”

We started moving, and by glancing in the right side mirror, I realized that the van was following us. The drive through the city was uneventful, except for the ubiquitous police vehicles. There was a tremendous tension in the air that seemed to be just waiting to be released in a huge bang. Let’s hope we weren’t in the middle of it if it came to that.

A few minutes later we stopped in front of the building in which Knirsch had disappeared two days earlier.

“Der, you stay in the car, okay?”

My boyfriend was not enthusiastic about this, but he seemed to be okay with it, at least for the moment.

“Take care of yourself.”

“I will. And I’ve got the fellows in blue with me.”

I got out, and while walking to the van parked just behind us, I noticed a dark blue Mercedes with tinted windows about 100 meters down the road. Clearly more tinted than what was actually allowed, even through the windshield you couldn’t see inside. Very strange.

Meanwhile, the riot police had also gotten out, and I turned to Hauptmeister Lorke.

“This is the house. I’m going in there now, and I want you to accompany me with one of your people. The other two will stay with the vehicles and keep an eye on the perimeter.”

Lorke nodded and turned to Blaumeier.

“Andreas, you come with me, Heiko and Franz stay here.”

I thought of something else and turned to the two who would stay with the cars.

“There’s a blue Mercedes down the street, please keep an eye on it. It looks a little suspicious to me.”

The two nodded, and I made my way into the house with Lorke and Blaumeier. It was a large gateway. There were only four names on the doorbell: Print Shop Blanke, F. Blanke, Pietzsch and Jost. Where should I ring the bell? Although, maybe I didn’t have to. I pushed down the handle and lo and behold, the right-hand gate opened.

“There we go, let’s move in.”

Kindly, Lorke pushed the heavy gate further open, otherwise I would probably have gotten into trouble again. It was bright in the driveway, as the courtyard opened up after just a few meters. On the left, a door led into the print shop; on the right, it seemed to go into the stairwell to the living area of the house. In front of the actual print shops door was a closed steel bar door – there was probably no one working there right now. No light could be seen through the glass panes of the door either. I decided to take a look around the courtyard first and then decide whether I should ring the bell for the regional chairman of the NGP. Though he was most likely not at home but somewhere at the rally.

We left the passage and entered the courtyard. It was immediately clear to me how Knirsch and his car could have disappeared. Behind the paved area stretched the remains of a house that had apparently turned into a pile of rubble a short time ago – and there was also enough room to make your way to the parallel street by car. The question was, however, in what condition Knirsch had left the location, and in how many individual pieces.

I looked around further and discovered something strange. While one large, double-winged door to the print shop was locked with a chain and a padlock, another door stood ajar. It was a steel door with three or four steps leading down to it. A basement entrance? Cautiously, I approached the door.

What was that? Red splashes on the cobblestones! Should I really have found the place where Knirsch was chopped into pieces? On the other hand, there was a sign on the steel door that said “Paint Storage”. I guess I’d best call in the forensic experts. Just as I was about to turn to Hauptmeister Lorke, the door burst open right in front of me, and the next moment I was literally run over by two guys who came shooting out of the door. I bounced against the metal railing on the steps and saw stars.

“Stop, stop, police!”

At least my two companions seemed to be on their toes, however, as I scrambled to my feet, I realized that my two “attackers” did anything but comply with the request. Quite the opposite, they took to their heels and dashed toward the gap created by the house demolition.

“After them, get them!”

Lorke and Blaumeier followed my instruction while I slowly sorted my bones again. Son of a bitch. I’d rather not tell Derek about that, or I’d be listening for hours to how he’d been afraid of just something like that happening. Of the fact that I would put myself in danger despite my already existing injury. Well, at least I wouldn’t run after them.

Three minutes later I had slowly regained my breath, and shortly thereafter my two uniformed companions came back into the courtyard. Unfortunately, they had only been half successful, bringing with them only one of the chased guys.

“I’m sorry, we didn’t get the other one.”

I nodded.

“Better one than none.”

Curiously, I took a closer look at their catch. It was a young man, more like a boy, maybe 16 years old. He didn’t fit at all into the environment of the Nazi print shop, much more I could imagine him in the opposing block! Ripped clothes, colorful hair, antifa and anarchy symbols everywhere. He was also pretty much fidgeting in the hands of Lorke and Blaumeier.

“Fucking cops! Let go of me! I didn’t do anything!”

“We’ll see about that. Why did you run away if you did nothing?”

The snot spat at my feet. What a friendly little fellow. What had he been doing here? And there was something very strange – or had I been mistaken in my surprise? I turned to my uniformed companions.

“Tell me, did you get a closer look at the other one? I could have sworn he was walking around in a bomber jacket and combat boots, and he was also bald.”

Lorke shrugged, but Blaumeier nodded eagerly.

“Now that you mention it! I had wondered too, something didn’t add up about the two of them. He was really walking around like one of those young nazis.”

Very weird. They hadn’t made the impression that they were chasing each other either, more like they belonged together and were running away from a common crime scene. The fact that the boy kept looking rather nervously in the direction of the basement door reinforced this impression. Something was rotten in the state of Denmark.

“Okay, take him to your car, and then we’ll take a closer look around here.”

Lorke nodded, the two took their prisoner in the middle and were about to make their way through the gateway to the street when a loud bang followed by a tremendous hiss shook the air. The next moment, a burst of flames came out of the basement door! Fortunately, none of us were in the endangered area.

“Damn it! What the hell is going on?”

Blaumeier spoke out what probably at least us three cops were thinking.

“Stay here!”

The youth, now urgently suspected of arson, wanted to take advantage of our brief confusion to run away again, but the two riot police officers thwarted his renewed attempt to escape. In the next moment, our other three companions came rushing through the gateway into the courtyard.

“Sascha, what’s going on here? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, Derek, everything’s fine. With me, anyway.”

It was probably time to bring order back to the situation.

“Derek, call the fire department. Use your cell phone, not the radio.”

My boyfriend gave me a brief, doubtful look, but then seemed convinced that I really was okay. As I turned to face my Bavarian colleagues, I could see Derek reaching for his cell phone out of the corner of my eye.

“Everybody out of here, on the street. Two of you get this guy in the van. Tie him up somehow so he doesn’t escape us after all. The rest of you clear the house. There’s a paint storage burning down there, and even the fire department won’t be able to get it under control that easily. When you’re done with this house, evacuate the neighboring houses as well. In the meantime, I’ll call for reinforcements. Now move!”

Quickly our small group crossed the gateway and arrived on the street just in time to see the dark Mercedes drive off from the side of the road and leave the scene at high speed. Very suspicious, but I had no one to follow the car.

After the arrested boy was stowed in the van of the riot police, they swarmed out to inform the residents and get them out of their houses.

“Sascha, the fire department is on its way,” my boyfriend told me.

“Thanks, Derek. Move the car to the side a bit, please, so they’ll have enough room to work.”

He nodded, and I grabbed my own cell phone. Ten seconds later, my boss’s voice sounded from the device.

“What’s up, Sascha?”

“A fire just broke out at the print shop on Probstei Street. Two guys ran out shortly before, I assume it was arson. The fire department has already been informed, but we need reinforcements here for security and so on.”

“Arson? At the NGP chairman’s print shop?”

“Exactly.”

“Damn!”

My sentiments exactly.

“Were you able to find out anything beforehand?”

“No, sorry. We had just gotten there.”

“Did you at least catch those two guys?”

“We got one. But it’s pretty weird, the one we caught looks like a junior hardcore punk or something like that – whereas the one who got away looked more like a typical nazi skin. It doesn’t match up.”

“Hmm. Have you questioned the punk yet?”

“I haven’t gotten around to it yet, the fire comes first. Besides, he doesn’t seem very cooperative.”

“Okay, do your best. I’ll send you backup from the district. If you get a chance, question the guy you have in custody. If he doesn’t say anything, send him to me in the first available car.”

“Roger that, boss.”

“Good, and keep your eyes open there, maybe you’ll notice something that will help us in the Knirsch case.”

Without another word, Machlitzke ended the conversation and I put the cell phone away. The fire department’s sirens could be heard from far away, while the residents of the burning house slowly began to gather in the street. Fortunately, there was probably no connection from the paint storage to the rest of the house, so for now the stairwell was passable without danger. Derek, in the meantime, had driven our car down the street a bit, and one of the riot cops had thought along and done the same with their van. I walked over and got in the back, where I sat down across from the colorful-haired boy. I stared at him for a while, which he answered with a pinched expression.

“What’s your name?”

“Fuck you, pig!”

Very friendly. I sighed.

“I’m KOK Altmann, CID.”

My counterpart stared strained at his feet.

“Homicide department.”

This seemed to come through; startled, the boy’s head jerked upward. Eyes wide, he looked at me. Maybe he was more amenable now.

“So again. What’s your name?”

I only reaped silence.

“What were you doing in there?”

Again, my counterpart made no sound.

“You do realize you’re totally screwed, right? We more or less caught you in the act of arson. In an inhabited house, endangering the residents, that makes it aggravated arson, which in turn means a prison sentence even in juvenile court. You should start trying to make as good an impression as possible to save yourself a month or two. A tender little guy like you doesn’t have an easy life in jail. Not even in juvie.”

The boy had really turned out to be quite petite, almost frail, and even his efforts to give a strong, hardened impression didn’t do much to change that.

“But if you don’t talk to me, then I can’t help you. If I have you taken away from here, it will all be too late.”

The boy seemed to consider what I was saying, but no word passed his lips. I sighed and rose from my seat. Apparently there really was nothing to be done here.

“Dirk.”

In mid-motion, I paused.

“Excuse me?”

“My name is Dirk.”

Whew, at the last moment. I lowered myself back onto the cushions.

“Dirk. What next?”

“Blinker. Dirk Blinker.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Who were you with earlier? Who did you run off with?”

The boy seemed to consider for a moment whether he should really reveal that, but then he seemed to come to the conclusion that nothing mattered now anyway.

“My brother Maik.”

I stumbled, these were some very strange family relationships. A punk and a wannabe Adolf? But just as I wanted to question him further, the sliding door next to us was yanked open.

“Sascha, come with me quickly!”

Somewhat annoyed, I looked at Derek.

“Do you really need me? I’m busy right now.”

“Trust me, you have to come with me.”

Bummer. I turned to the boy.

“I’ll be right back.”

In slight pain, I scrambled out of the van and followed Derek. I hadn’t quite forgiven him for the intrusion yet.

“I really hope what you’re about to show me is worth the disruption.”

“It is, Sascha. I wouldn’t have interrupted you otherwise.”

Well, I hoped so. By now, the fire department had also arrived and was already putting out the fire, plus it was now swarming with police officers working to cordon off the scene of the fire. But where did Derek want to lead me? We got further and further away from the burning house, then even turned into a side street.

“How far is it? And what do you want to show me?”

“After I drove the car away, an old man approached me, I guess he thought I was a cop too. Before I could enlighten him about it, he had already pulled me along with him. Here we are.”

We were standing at a bridge over the canal, and here the old man Derek had spoken of was also waiting for us.

“Mr. Munz? This is Oberkommissar Altmann of the CID.”

We shook hands, then I asked him what he actually wanted to show us.

“Come with me on the bridge, you can see it best from there.”

Derek and I followed him. About halfway across the bridge he stopped and looked down over the railing into the water. We did the same. At first I didn’t recognize anything, the water was pretty murky, but then….

“Oh shit. Derek? Do you see what I see?”

“I don’t know what you see, but I see a car.”

That’s exactly what I saw, too. A bright car roof shimmered through beneath the green surface of the water. I turned to the clue-giver.

“When did you spot that, Mr. Munz?”

“Earlier today, when I was walking Wastl.”

“Have you informed anyone about it yet?”

“No, I was just about to do that when I noticed the police action on Probstei Street, so I went straight to your colleague.”

I refrained from explaining to him that my boyfriend was not a policeman, that was now really unimportant.

“What do you mean, Der? A Passat?”

“Could be, the car looks big enough.”

Sadly, there really wasn’t much more to see, and of course certainly nothing of the license plate. However, the probability of dealing with the nazi car that had been put on the wanted list was relatively high. Sighing, I reached for my cell phone again, and after just two rings, my boss answered.

“Yes, Sascha, what is it? I hope nothing else blew up.”

“It’s more like it got flooded.”

“Flooded? You’re talking in riddles.”

“Do you know the canal bridge on Geisslein Street?”

“Hm, Geisslein Street. Isn’t that just around the corner from where you are right now?”

“Right. A dog walker just approached Derek and he spotted a car in the water here. Looks like a big silver sedan, can’t see much more because of the murky broth, unfortunately.”

I heard my boss take a deep breath.

“Ohhhkay… Do you think that’s the Passat from Knirsch?”

“It’s the right size, anyway, and the color probably matches, too.”

“Great. I’ll send you the police divers and tell the fire department to bring up a crane. What about the fire, by the way?”

“I can’t see that from here, but when Derek directed me here, they were busy putting it out.”

Machlitzke sighed.

“This is turning more and more into a disaster, Sascha. I’m glad you’re on the scene yourself. Do you need any more people?”

“Would be good I think, everyone else is busy at the print shop, I don’t have anyone here at the bridge.”

“All right, I’ll try to find you another car or two somewhere.”

“We will need them, Jens. Wouldn’t surprise me if the press hits here soon, too. The explosion and fire are guaranteed to attract them, and then if a car gets pulled out of the water, cameras will be everywhere.”

“True. Please remember, the most important thing is not to blurt out any details or names. Remind your colleagues again, too.”

“Will do. I’ll be in touch if there’s any news.”

“Okay. I’ll initiate everything. See you later.”

My boss hung up, and I put my phone away as well. The Dachshund owner and Derek looked at me expectantly.

“Derek, will you please go back and look for Hauptmeister Lorke from the Bavarians? He should come here with a colleague, I don’t want to stand around here all alone until reinforcements and the fire department show up.”

“I’ll do it, I’ll be right back.”

With these words, my boyfriend stomped off, leaving me alone with the car finder.

“Mr. Munz, it’s good that you go through the world with your eyes wide open. Thank you for telling us about the car.”

“My pleasure.”

“Did you notice anything else? Can you possibly tell me how long the car has been in the water?”

“Well, the afternoon before last, around six, it wasn’t there yet.”

“Are you quite sure about that?”

“But of course! I was out with Wastl, and a group of canoeists came paddling up. I stood at the railing and watched them for a while. If the car had already been in the water, I’m sure I would have noticed it right away.”

Well, that at least was something. The day before yesterday, the Staatsschutz had lost sight of Knirsch.

“Thank you, Mr. Munz, that really helps me.”

“I’m always happy to help. Do you still need me now?”

I thought about it for a moment.

“No, not really. I’ll just make a quick note of your address in case there are any questions.”

My counterpart pulled his wallet out of his jacket and took something out.

“Here, my business card, you don’t need to write that much. It’s all on there.”

Gratefully, I accepted the piece of cardboard and stowed it in my shirt pocket.

“Thank you, Mr. Munz.”

“I’ll be on my way then, my dog is home alone, and he doesn’t like that at all. If I stay out much longer, he’ll tear up the whole place.”

Naughty woof. The worried dog owner headed home, but I didn’t stay alone for long, because just two minutes later Derek showed up again, with Hauptmeister Lorke and colleague Schoebbelkurt in tow.

“What’s of interest here?”

Wordlessly, I pointed to the surface of the water.

“Ouch. That nice car. Do you think that has anything to do with our case?”

“Possibly, even probably. The one whose name we’re not supposed to say out loud drives a silver Passat. Or rather, he was driving it.”

Lorke looked over the bridge railing into the water again.

“Hm, could be right. It’s just hard to tell for sure.”

“The police divers are on their way, and the fire department is sending a crane.”

“Nice shit. Are we still getting backup? It’s starting to get a little thin around here with all the barriers around the fire.”

“I hope so, my boss is going to try to get some more people for us. But you know yourself what it’s like in town right now.”

Lorke grinned.

“Yes, even the severely wounded have to step up.”

“Indeed. What’s the fire situation like, anyway?”

“The fire department is having quite a fight with all the paint stuff, but they’ve been able to contain it somewhat. The rest of the house and the neighboring houses seem to be safe.”

Very nice. In the next few minutes, two patrol cars arrived at our location, followed shortly by the van with the police divers. After a brief instruction, the latter set to work, while the patrolmen made sure that the onlookers who were gradually trickling in were held back a bit.

In the meantime, I looked around and tried to figure out how the car had gotten into the water. The bridge railing was intact, but a bollard was missing at the entrance to the riverbank path, which was supposed to ensure that at most bicycles could use this path.

“Looks like the car rolled down here, Sascha.”

Derek had hit the nail on the head, the bank greenery was also pretty down, the small bushes partially snapped off. Looking closer, the tire tracks also caught our eye.

“That’s right, Derek. The only question that remains is whether it was pushed or drove under its own power.”

Not to mention the question of why.

A few minutes later, the first report came from the divers.

“Colleague, the car is empty. At least the part we can see from the outside.”

I nodded.

“Did you guys get a license plate?”

“Yeah, hold on, I wrote it down. Here. Munich dash Gustav Heinrich 374. Does that mean anything to you?”

It certainly told me something. Another of Mr. Knirsch’s “individual parts” had reappeared.

“Yes, thank you. I hope the crane shows up soon.”

No sooner had I uttered that the big red car turned into the street and came to a stop on the bridge shortly thereafter. Just at that moment, my cell phone rang.

“Altmann.”

“Sascha, is there any news about the car yet?”

“Yes, boss, the divers have just given me the license plate number. It’s the car we’re looking for.”

“Junk. Anything else?”

“No, not yet. It seems empty so far, at least in the passenger compartment; we can’t open the trunk until the F pulls the car out of the water.”

“Don’t scare me, Junior. Even if you find another body in the trunk, you’ll have to wait a few more years for your next promotion.”

I laughed.

“Oh, a little well-paid overtime would do it for me for now.”

“We’ll see. Call me if you find something interesting.”

“Will do. Is there anything on your end I should know?”

“Everybody’s rotating like maniacs around here. A guy from the Verfassungsschutz showed up and made himself important, Jasche folded him up like a cardboard box, he’s still busy stammering apologies.”

“Did he have any information?”

“Not really. There were no serious threats against Knirsch from the autonomous and left-wing extremist corner, just the general stuff along the lines that they wanted to prevent the rally. If necessary with violence. The slouch hats from the Verfassungsschutz did not consider Knirsch to be particularly endangered and are completely at a loss at the moment. Just like us. The Staatsschutz also has nothing. Everyone is groping in the dark – but in the meantime, the browns are probably noticing that they’ve somehow lost their head honcho.”

“Are they getting restless?”

“Yes, and it’s going to get a lot worse very quickly. In an hour, he’s supposed to be making a big speech.”

“Great. Okay, I won’t keep you from work any longer, the fire department is setting up their crane right now. I’ll let you know if I have anything for you.”

“Alright, talk to you soon.”

Jens hung up, and I turned back to what was happening on site. The divers were just getting back into the water and spent the next few minutes attaching the crane ropes to the sunken car. Derek, Lorke and I watched them do this in silence. Then the crane operator began to slowly pull the car out of the canal and then set it down on the road. Large amounts of water poured out of every possible crack and turned into a powerful gush as one of the firemen opened the driver’s door. I approached.

“Empty.”

“Yes, the divers had already announced that. Can we get to the trunk?”

It was one of the rather rare notchback Passats, so the trunk was not accessible from the interior.

“Let’s see. The release is electric, no idea if it still works after the full bath.”

It didn’t, of course, pressing the appropriate button had no result.

“Shall we break it open, or do you want to bring in the owner along with the key? It should still work with that.”

“That wouldn’t do much good, the owner is quite indisposed at the moment.”

“Ah okay. Well, at least he’s not dead in the driver’s seat. That’s good news for a start.”

I stifled a correction and instead ordered the trunk to be opened by force. Another firefighter showed up and brought a crowbar, which he used to pry open the trunk of the VW after applying it several times. The next moment, he jumped back, startled.

“Shit! You’ve got to see this!”

With a few steps I was beside him and looked into the freshly opened luggage compartment myself. In it the water was still almost up to the top – and from this improvised bathtub a corpse was looking at me with wide-open eyes.

“Damn, another one.”

Derek had stepped unnoticed next to me and was now shaking himself in disgust. Well, at least he seemed to be taking his second corpse better than the first, which of course could have been because this one was at least still in one piece. Still, the man was no less dead than Knirsch. I called one of the divers over.

“Can you see if you can find some papers on him somewhere? You still have your gloves on.”

“Sure, I will.”

It didn’t seem to be his first floater, at least he didn’t look particularly shocked.

“But please don’t move him, forensics will probably want to take some pictures.”

“Fine, I’ll just look in the pockets I can easily get to.”

He didn’t have to look for long; he already found what he was looking for in the inside pocket of the jacket. A wallet! The diver opened it and pulled out an ID card from among soggy bills and other paperwork.

“Here you go. The guy’s name is Blanke.”

Just great. I grabbed the shrink-wrapped document and looked at it myself. Sure enough. Fritz Blanke. Damn. Time for the next call to my boss.

“Yes, Sascha?”

“Sorry, Jens. There’s actually a dead body in the trunk.”

“Crap! Say, how much work do you actually want to drag me into today? Oh, forget it. Do you have any idea who that is? It can’t be Knirsch, after all.”

“I know who it is, but I’m afraid you won’t like it. According to the ID, it’s Fritz Blanke.”

“The NGP chairman? The print shop owner?”

“That’s the one.”

“This is starting to remind me of the child porn case from a few months ago. Is there someone on the loose here, maybe, who’s pushing the right-wingers one by one to the afterlife?”

It almost looked like it, and even in this case my sympathy was kept within very narrow bounds. However, the potential consequences for our city were highly dangerous.

“I don’t know, but so far there are only two.”

“Bad enough. The browns are getting more and more restless. They miss Knirsch, and Blanke would be one of their next contacts. If the latter’s absence is also noticed, I don’t know what will happen next.”

“Are you going to send the doc over to me, or should I have the body taken to him?”

“I’ll send you the Cold Hand, they’ll take care of that one. You get the car loaded up, too, and send it to Forensics. Maybe they can figure something out.”

“Okay, will do.”

“What about that punk you guys caught, by the way?”

“Shit… I forgot all about him when I saw the car. He’s still in the van of the Bavarians.”

“If you’re no longer needed there, come in and bring him with you. We’ll squeeze him out here at headquarters.”

“All right. As soon as everything is picked up here, I’ll take a quick look at the print shop, then I’ll come in.”

“That’s what we’ll do. See you later.”

It then took another half hour before I could make my way to the Police Headquarter. There were no superficial traces to be found in the print shop; the fire and extinguishing water had done a good job. The situation was quite different in Fritz Blanke’s apartment. There were clear signs of a struggle, and there was a huge amount of blood in the bathroom. So much, in fact, that this was probably the place where Knirsch had been dismembered into manageable pieces. Gross. I was glad that Derek had stayed with the car.

After briefing forensics all over the place, I went back out to the street and called my entourage together.

“We’re done here, and we’re going in to the headquarters. The rest of the work here will be done by our colleagues from the district and the forensics.”

Hauptmeister Lorke looked at me.

“What about the prisoner? He’s getting a little restless and wants to know what’s going to happen to him.”

“We’ll take him with us, I’ll let him know quickly.”

I went to the Bavarians’ van, opened the door and looked at our nabbed junior punk.

“Okay, Dirk, a few new things have come up. We’re going to the Police Headquarter now, we’ll have a talk with you there.”

“Shit, do you have to?”

“Sure, did you think we’d have a quick chat and then you could go home again? Sorry, this is a wee bit too big for that.”

“You promised me you’d put in a good word for me if I talked to you here.”

“I still plan to do that if you play along well. You know what, I’m going to ride with you here, so you can fill me in on a few things on the way to the Headquarter. Then I’ll have something to tell my boss when we get there – which would certainly be good for you.”

My counterpart sighed and nodded.

“Okay, I’ll just tell my boyfriend that he’ll be on his own on the way in.”

I got out and walked over to Derek.

“Der, I’ll ride with the Bavarians. That punk we caught wants to chat, so I want to use the ride time for something useful right now.”

“Okay. I’ll take the lead again and you follow me with the Bavarians?”

“Right. Want one of them to ride with you?”

Derek thought for a moment.

“Might be better in case we run into any roadblocks.”

“All right, I’ll send one of them your way, and we’ll get going as soon as we’re all in the cars.”

I wandered back to the silver-blue van and turned to the group leader of the Bavarian colleagues.

“Mr. Lorke, I’m riding on the bus, I’d like to interview our passenger a little bit on the way. Would you please get in with my friend? Just in case we run into police barriers on the way.”

“Sure thing, no problem.”

“Thanks.”

We spread out among the cars, and shortly thereafter our mini-caravan rolled off. I turned to our prisoner.

“Okay, Dirk, now tell me. What went on back there in the print shop? And what’s the deal with your nazi brother?”

The punk looked at me piercingly and after a short pause answered with a counter question.

“Are you gay?”

That threw me off a bit.

“Uh … I don’t see what that has to do with our topic. But yes, I am. So what?”

I must have come across as a bit belligerent, at least the teenager flinched.

“That’s all right! Wasn’t meant as an attack! I am gay, too, after all, just wanted to know.”

“Now if you think that’s going to win you any points with me, you’ve got another thing coming. But now go ahead, talk.”

Dirk took a deep breath, then actually started talking.

“It’s a long story. My brother and I, we never got along very well. And when he slid into the right-wing corner and I became a punk, and a gay one at that, things started crashing hard.”

Hm, when they were coming out of the paint storage it didn’t look as if they were in the middle of a fight amongst each other.

“Go on!”

“I’m already at it! For one or two years, Maik was completely enthralled by the nazi idiots, he idolized Blanke, and this other one, this Knirsch, he downright idolized him. Leader cult or something like that. He was really glued to them. He played the errand boy for them, stuck up posters, tore down other posters, all that sort of things. And he even beat me up, called me a faggot leftist tick and so on.”

“But earlier you wanted to protect him. You didn’t want to tell me it was him who was out with you.”

“We made up again.”

“Oh, just like that? Something must have happened, with opposites like that.”

Blinker thought for a moment.

“Yes, something happened. Something that completely shook Maik’s faith in the brown idiots. He saw something at Blanke’s that he shouldn’t have seen.”

“And what was that?”

“Drugs.”

“Blanke takes drugs?”

“No, much worse. He’s dealing with drugs! And not just Blanke, Knirsch is in on it, too. Besides, Maik heard them talking about how stupid their followers were. Useful idiots who distract from their real business.”

Wow, that was really explosive information!

“What kind of drugs are we talking about?”

“Crystal meth.”

“Where are they getting this stuff from? Eastern Europe?”

“No, that’s the best. They make it themselves.”

“Where?”

“In the paint storage basement at Blanke’s print shop. There’s a separate area there.”

That sounded logical. The paint smells probably perfectly masked the otherwise telltale stench.

“Okay. So your brother figured that out. I’m guessing Blanke and Knirsch didn’t realize that?”

“No, otherwise they might have even killed him. But for Maik it was a total shock. He had always been convinced that the right stood for law and order and wanted to build a corresponding society. Suddenly, however, all his illusions were shattered. His heroes had turned out to be ordinary criminals.”

What a surprise.

“And he told you.”

“Yes. We were thinking about what we could do, and that’s when we came up with the idea of setting the drug lab on fire. After all, all the brown trash is otherwise occupied today, Knirsch and Blanke are probably strutting ahead in full dress.”

They certainly didn’t, but I didn’t want to reveal that to my counterpart just yet.

“Why didn’t you go to the cops with what you knew?”

“To the cops? Are you crazy? I’m not going to the cops!”

“Well, even with your dislike of the police, that would still have been the most intelligent solution. What were your plans afterwards? Did you think, ’Okay, we’ll blow up the lab and everything will be fine afterwards? Knirsch and Blank realize the sinfulness of what they’ve done and swear off the illegal stuff.’? What did you have in mind?”

Dirk stared at his feet.

“We hadn’t thought about that yet. We wanted to shut down the lab first.”

And maybe eliminate the lab rats themselves in the process? But no, that’s not how my counterpart seemed to me, besides, he seemed to be rock-solidly assuming that Knirsch and Blanke were strutting around the nazi demo highly alive at the moment. Dirk and his big brother, whom I didn’t know yet, seemed to me more like youthful hotheads, not ice-cold killers. And for what had happened to the two head nazis, it definitely needed the latter.

In the meantime, we had arrived at the Headquarter. My involuntary passenger was temporarily placed in a holding cell after I had promised him once again to put in a good word for him. I parked the Bavarian colleagues in the canteen, then marched with Derek to the homicide office. Eva and my boss were already waiting for us there. The latter looked at me hopefully.

“I hope you bring good news, Sascha.”

I shook my head in the negative.

“News I have, but whether it’s good or even helpful? I rather think they’ll make the whole thing more complicated.”

“Great, just what we need. Fire away.”

So I relayed what I had learned at the print shop and from my nabbed junior punk. Revealing the drug deals made Jens’ jaw drop.

“NGP is a cover for a drug trafficking ring?”

“I don’t know, boss. Could also be that Blanke and Knirsch are just exploiting the party and the print shop. As a welcome distraction from their real business. Maybe the rest of the nazi gang is like Dirk’s big brother – they have no idea about the drugs.”

“Also possible. And maybe others in the club besides this Maik found something out about it. They then might have decided to clean up their own house, so to speak.”

“I had thought of that, too, but I can’t really believe it.”

Questioningly, my boss looked at me.

“Why not?”

“Think about it. Think about what was done to Knirsch. I don’t think that’s the work of a casual hit man, not even if he was really in a rage. No, I think that was professional work. It wasn’t a shaken party comrade who just got rid of a superior party member whose behavior he was disappointed in.”

“Hmm, that’s right. I think I’ll call the narcotics department, maybe they can help us.”

Machlitzke did just that, and fortunately there was indeed someone on duty there. A few minutes later, KHK Wickert appeared in our office.

“Hello, guys. What’s up, Jens? You made it pretty urgent – I thought the rallies were the most important thing in the whole Headquarter today.”

If only he knew…

“Sit down, Steffen. And yes, it’s all connected somehow. But first things first. Everything you’re about to hear now is subject to the highest level of secrecy. If you divulge any of it, Jasche himself will put you on the next plane to Helgoland, where you can spend the rest of your working life catching pickpockets in duty-free stores. Got it?”

“Geez Jens, you know me! I’m not a blabbermouth!”

My boss didn’t answer but just looked questioningly at Wickert. After a few seconds, he realized what was expected of him.

“Got it, Hauptkommissar.”

Machlitzke nodded contentedly, then began to fill our colleague in on the day’s events so far. As he did so, Wickert’s face grew longer and longer, and slowly he began to understand why Jens had been so strict with him. When the story reached the car trunk, which had become a coffin, he could no longer hold back.

“Damn, Blanke too? How is this supposed to go on? Wouldn’t they have to make some speeches at the nazi rally soon?”

“Indeed, and pretty much right now in these minutes. But let the colleagues take care of that, we have to try to find out how the two of them left the stage so suddenly – and who helped them do it.”

Wickert nodded meaningfully, then asked the question I had been waiting for.

“Okay, but how can I help you with this? What does this have to do with narcotics?”

My boss looked at me.

“Tell him, Sascha.”

So I unrolled the saga of the drug-brewing Brown Shirts, which ensured that Wickert almost burst from his amazement. Jens noticed this as well.

“May I infer from your surprise that your folks knew nothing of this matter until now?”

Energetically, the narcotics hunter shook his head.

“No, we didn’t have a clue! However…”

“However what?”

“A few months ago, rumors began to circulate on the scene that there was a new player among the dealers. And a pretty big newcomer at that. That caused quite a stir among the established gangs, but neither they nor we have yet figured out who it might be.”

“Surprise! Someone seems to have figured it out – and they seem to have come up with a solution to the problem. A pretty definitive solution.”

My boss agreed.

“At the moment, that seems to me to be the most logical explanation for the sudden passing of Knirsch and Blanke.”

“Do you think that maybe this punk and his brother are responsible? Or perhaps the brown party friends?”

“No and no, I thought about it for a moment too, but then my junior detective made it clear to me very quickly that this would be extremely unlikely. No, I think it’s more likely that some of your customers intervened. They’re not exactly known for being happy about competition, are they?”

“Certainly not, they very carefully make sure that everyone sticks to the claims they’ve staked out.”

“So a big new player wouldn’t be met with much popularity?”

“Ha, ever since the now known-to-us newcomers entered the market, it’s been bubbling over. There was even talk of a bounty for whoever uncovers the identity of the new players at one point.”

This was really highly interesting news, and it would steer our investigation into an entirely different area – one that would be much more likely to lead to solving the murders than the original idea that political motives were their cause.

“Did any group stand out in the search for the newcomers?”

Wickert considered for a moment, then nodded slowly.

“Now that you ask me… The most angry are probably the Albanians, because they had just asserted themselves as the very big top dogs. Everyone else is kowtowing to them and trying not to get in their way. And their boss, Arsim Milicaj, oh my. He allegedly has a few skeletons in his closet. He used to be big in Hannover, then he took up residence here in Leipzig a few years ago and took command with brutal force.”

“Nobody’s been able to prove anything against him yet?”

“What are you thinking. It’s pretty much impossible to get in with them. And their law of silence works even better than in the Italian Mafia. Which isn’t much of a surprise – I think their brutality toward dropouts and chatterboxes exceeds that of the Italians, too.”

“That being said, you think they would take such a bloodthirsty action?”

“Absolutely. I can well imagine that Milicaj wanted to make an example. When someone invades his business areas, he reacts tough as nails. He doesn’t negotiate, he acts.”

My boss leaned back in his swivel chair and sighed.

“Assuming that it really was the Albanians: did they have to stage this today of all days! A few days later would have been good enough for me.”

That really would have been better for us and for Leipzig.

“Okay, I think we’ll take that as a working hypothesis. How do we proceed?”

Before the general brainstorming could even begin, the office door suddenly opened and Polizeipraesident Jasche scurried in.

“Hello, gentlemen. Oh, and the lady, of course. Is there any news? And what is the colleague from the narcotics squad doing here? Didn’t we agree to keep the circle of insiders as small as possible?”

Another ten minutes of valuable time passed, during which our top boss was told about the latest findings.

“Drugs? The nazis were dealers? Great, I wonder what’s next?”

“Mr. Jasche, perhaps we should be grateful that these are probably not political murders. That could have a positive effect on the situation in the city today.”

“Yes, in a way, but still, how can this go on today? I can’t very well go to the nazi rally, stand on the stage and say ’Your two head honchos are dead, killed, they’re not going to make any more speeches. Oh, and by the way, the leftists didn’t do it. So go home now like good boys.’ And to the leftist rioters I say ’Guys, stay peaceful and go home, someone has done your job already.’?”

At this idea not only I had to chuckle quietly, even the police chief himself briefly flitted a smile across his face, which, however, very quickly gave way again to a worried expression.

“Seriously, something has to be done. I promised the mayor that in …” Jasche looked at his watch “… in twenty minutes I would issue an announcement and also at least speak to the brown idiots. Somebody has to tell them what happened. Or at least that there won’t be any more big talk from their idols today.”

Jens shrugged his shoulders.

“I guess you’ll have to tell them the truth. Well, at least part of it. Knirsch and Blanke are dead, you can leave out the glorious details. The police are investigating at full speed and everything looks like it was not an act of the political opponent. However, I wouldn’t bring up the subject of drugs and Albanians either.”

“Yes, that’s probably right, I shouldn’t mention that, otherwise they’ll go straight to Eisenbahn Street in a closed marching block and start burning down stores and apartments of immigrants.”

“Promise them that we’ll do everything we can to solve the murders quickly – but that we just need peace and order in the city for that. They would help us and the memory of Knirsch and Blanke best if they left peacefully and orderly.”

The police chief sighed.

“I guess that’s all I can do. At the moment, the nazis are standing around like a flock of sheep without a shepherd or a sheepdog, and that can’t last forever. Okay. I’ll take care of it. With a little … what do I say, with a lot of luck, I can get them to break up their rally and go home. And then maybe the left-wing hools will call it a day, too.”

Questioningly, I looked over at him.

“Have there been any serious clashes yet?”

“A few small skirmishes, autonomists against our people. Stone throwers and such. I hate the open track beds of some of the streetcar lines, they’re like ammunition depots! All right, I’ll get out of here and try to calm things down. Please continue your investigation, and keep it nice and quiet and secret. I’ll announce the deaths of Knirsch and Blanke soon, but we’ll keep all the details to ourselves for the time being. See you later!”

With these words, the Polizeipraesident scurried out the door of our office, and KHK Machlitzke returned to the crucial question.

“So what do we do next?”

Wickert looked over at me.

“Maybe we should talk to your arrested punk again. He might have some information that could help us.”

I nodded.

“Yeah, we should definitely find out how to get to his big brother, too. He’s the one most likely to know things that could help us.”

“Good, then we’ll do that. Steffen, are you coming along?”

“Of course, I won’t miss it. Maybe I’ll learn some more things that can clear up some questions in my department.”

I, however, had thought of another important question.

“Tell me, do you think that the Verfassungsschutz or Staatsschutz knew anything about the drug deals?”

My boss, who was about to rise from his chair, plopped back into it.

“Damn, that’s a good question! If they knew about it and kept it from us after Knirsch’s body turned up, God help them!”

“Is there any way we can find out? By the way, there was a car of the slouch hats in front of the print shop. But after it went up in flames, they made a quick turnaround.”

“Okay, change of plans. We’ll stop by Fischer’s office on the way to the holding cell, maybe he’s in the building, and then we’ll squeeze it out of him.”

We finally set off, and in front of Fischer’s office, Machlitzke instructed us.

“Let me do the talking, I want to see if I can take him by surprise.”

If he was present at all. Jens knocked, pushed down the door handle and energetically pushed open the office door. Sure enough, there was Fischer sitting at the conference table with two men I didn’t know.

“Hello Jens, what are you doing rushing in here like this? Did you find out anything?”

My boss, however, didn’t answer Fischer’s question at all but immediately shot his own into the room.

“Did you know about Knirsch and Blanke’s drug kitchen in the NGP print shop? Honest answer, Bert!”

So that’s what Jens had meant by catching them off guard, and it seemed to work. Fischer, at any rate, seemed downright shocked – which in and of itself was a kind of answer.

“Drug kitchen? With the nazis in the print shop? What are you talking about?”

“Actually, in the paint storage at the print shop. They were brewing crystal meth there. Are you really trying to tell me that the Staatsschutz didn’t know about it?”

Fischer raised both hands defensively.

“Honestly, Jens, this is the very first time I’ve heard that! Are you really sure about it?”

“It certainly looks like it, we have the testimony of someone who stumbled across these deals, and it also fits in with some of the incidents that have come to the attention of the narcotics squad in recent months.”

“Jens, you have to believe me, we had no idea about that here.”

My boss nodded briefly.

“Do you think that maybe the Verfassungsschutz knows more?”

At that moment, one of the two strangers in Fischer’s office took the floor.

“I can assure you that this is also totally new for us. By the way, Boelke my name. From the Verfassungsschutz.”

“Oh, has your outfit decided to cooperate.”

“It wasn’t my decision not to cooperate with the local police – and I’ve since made sure that this changes. The officer in charge until recently was replaced by me after a complaint from your Polizeipraesident.”

Then Jasche’s tantrum had probably borne fruit, which could only do us all good.

“Okay, good to know that. I assume everyone is aware of the arson at the NGP printing shop and the discovery of Blanke’s body?”

Everyone present nodded, whereupon my boss filled Fischer and the Verfassungsschutz guys in on the new findings regarding drug trafficking. The more he told, the clearer it became from their facial expressions that this was indeed all news to them. This was also confirmed by Boelke’s verbal reactions after Jens was done with his narration.

“Damn, then we’ve been investigating in completely the wrong direction for the last few hours.”

“Well, you weren’t the only ones. The drug info came as a complete surprise to us, too. Fortunately, my junior Sherlock not only nabbed one of the arsonists, but also built up some sort of trust with him, so he’s become somewhat talkative.”

This I took as permission to butt in a bit.

“Who did the blue Mercedes in front of the print shop actually belong to? Staatsschutz or Verfassungsschutz?”

Fischer looked at me questioningly.

“What kind of blue Mercedes?”

“There was a dark blue Mercedes with heavily tinted windows in the street in front of the print shop. E-class. It then took off when the fire broke out.”

KHK Fischer shook his head.

“We don’t have anything like that with us. Heinrich?”

But Boelke also answered in the negative.

“Doesn’t ring a bell either. Do you have a license number for it?”

Very strange, I could have sworn that the car smelled like intelligence. I couldn’t help with a license plate number though, I had my mind on other things. But maybe Derek could help?

“Der, what does your photographic memory say?”

“Dumbass, I don’t have a photographic memory.”

“But a very good one. Did you by accident memorize the license plate number?”

“No. Not by accident but on purpose. I even wrote it down.”

Maybe my boyfriend should join our club after all. He pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and put it on the desk.

“Here, this should be it.”

Fischer first grabbed the piece of paper and then the computer keyboard.

“Leipzig dash Berta Caesar 5995, there we have it. Comes up as a dark blue E-Class. Registered to a company, Kerqeli Im- and Export. This in turn runs on a Ramiz Kerqeli.”

Our narcotics officer immediately jumped at this name.

“Handsome Ramiz?”

“I have a feeling that name means something to you, Steffen.”

“Well, sure it does. Ramiz Kerqeli, called Handsome Ramiz. The right-hand man of Arsim Milicaj. Kind of a mix of straw man, bodyguard, and problem solver.”

“Let me guess, you’ve never been able to prove anything against him either.”

“Unfortunately, although time and again clues pointed to him. Suddenly one witness disappears, or another can’t remember anything from one day to the next. Well, and of course he himself won’t testify against his boss.”

Of course. In any case, the indications that the deaths of Knirsch and Blanke were connected with their drug deals became stronger. My boss also drew this conclusion.

“With this, it should be pretty clear that the Albanians got rid of the two brownheads, and that the reason is to be found in drug dealing.”

All present nodded, and among the gentlemen of the political faction there seemed to be relief that these were apparently not political murders. Whereby their ignorance regarding the drug deals did not cast a particularly good light on their investigative and surveillance skills either.

“Okay, then we’ll go to our junior arsonist now. Maybe Sascha can tease out some more information from him. At the very least, I’d love to talk to his brother.”

We left the office of the Staatsschutz squad, leaving Fischer and the other wannabe secret agents there. Once in the holding area, I stopped my boss.

“Listen, Jens, maybe I should talk to him alone first. He already trusts me a little. You can listen from outside.”

“Hm, maybe that’s not such a stupid idea. Do you have a plan yet?”

“I want to get close to his brother. Maybe if I scare him good, he’ll tell me where we can find him.”

“How are you going to scare him?”

“By telling him the truth. That Knirsch and Blanke were killed by Albanian drug dealers, and that they’re now out hunting for his brother, too. And that we are the only ones who can protect him.”

Machlitzke nodded with satisfaction.

“You’re getting better all the time, Junior. That’s a really good strategy. So come on, let’s get started.”

I had the punk taken to an interrogation room. From behind a large one-way window to the next room my boss, KHK Wickert, and Derek would be watching the questioning.

“Hello Dirk, sit down.”

Without fussing, the colorful-haired punk took a seat across from me.

“Did you manage to negotiate something for me with your boss?”

“Don’t worry, it’ll work out. And the more you help me out now, the better it will turn out for you.”

“Okay…”

I decided to drop the bomb right at the beginning.

“Knirsch and Blanke are dead.”

“What?!?”

“Murdered.”

“You’re nuts!”

“No, I’m not nuts. This morning we found Knirsch’s body in a dumpster – and then Blanke’s earlier in a submerged car while the fire department was busy putting out the fire you set.”

“You can’t pin that on us! Okay, we set the fire, but we didn’t kill anyone!”

I was silent for a minute, which I’m sure seemed much longer to my counterpart, anyway he was fidgeting more and more nervously in his chair.

“You’ll have to believe me, we’re not killers! Honest.”

Slowly, I nodded.

“I believe you.”

Relieved, Dirk sank back in his chair.

“The question remains, though, who killed those two if it wasn’t you?”

“Their nazi buddies, I’m sure.”

“Most likely not. Did you happen to notice a blue Mercedes on the street outside the print shop?”

The punk thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes, a big sleigh with very dark windows.”

“That’s the one I mean. The car belongs to a guy named Ramiz Kerqeli.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“I would have been surprised if it did. Kerqeli is the right-hand man of Arsim Milicaj. Arsim Milicaj, in turn, is the local head honcho of what can probably best be described as the Albanian Mafia.”

“Albanian Mafia?”

“Yes. And he happens to be the one who controls most of the crystal meth trade in Leipzig. Ring any bells?”

“You think this Albanian Mafia got rid of Knirsch and Blanke? Squabbles in the drug-dealing milieu?”

I nodded.

“That’s what we’re assuming at the moment – and that’s why we need you to help us get to your brother as soon as possible.”

My counterpart’s face contorted into a dismissive expression.

“I’m not delivering my brother to the knife.”

“Interesting choice of words. Would you like to know what condition we found Knirsch in?”

Dirk shrugged.

“The whole body was in pieces.”

“And?”

“Now think about it. Knirsch is dead, Blanke is dead. Still, the Albanians’ car was in front of the print shop. Who else could they be looking for?”

My counterpart winced.

“You mean they’re after my brother now?”

“Would make sense, wouldn’t it? I’m sure they know he was playing sidekick to Knirsch and Blanke, so maybe they’re assuming he was involved in the drug deals, too.”

“Shit!”

I gave him a moment to collect his thoughts, then pressed in on him again.

“You should help us find your brother. Then we can protect him, and maybe he can help us to bring in the Albanians.”

I could feel the thoughts rotating in Dirk’s head, then finally he nodded slowly.

“Can I call Maik?”

I quickly made a decision that I hoped Jens wouldn’t reprimand me for.

“Okay. Do you have the number in your head?”

“No, but stored in my cell phone. You took that from me, though.”

Just five seconds later, the door to the interrogation room opened and my boss handed in the cell phone our prisoner had requested.

“Here, make the call. I’m Sascha’s boss, by the way.”

Dirk accepted the cell phone, tapped it a bit, then held it to his ear. And waited. And waited. To no avail.

“He’s not answering! Oh shit, I hope the Albanians haven’t got him already!”

I must have really scared him. Probably well justified. Jens took the phone from him again.

“I’ll have it located, but it will take a moment. Son, you should use the time to think about where we might find your brother. Maybe he’s just in hiding, and the Albanians don’t have him. Yet.”

One could only hope so for his sake, otherwise he might have long since joined Knirsch and Blanke at the eternal hunting grounds.

While Machlitzke disappeared, Dirk mused to himself.

“I don’t think he’s gone home to us. Our parents aren’t on good terms with him right now.”

I nodded encouragingly at him.

“Go on. Do you know of any place he might be hiding?”

“No. Yes, I do!”

“Now what, yes or no?”

“The garage!”

“What kind of garage?”

“Our grandparents have a garage, more like a small workshop, but they practically don’t use it anymore. Sometimes I spend the night there, and Maik knows that. If he’s waiting for me, he’s definitely there.”

“Where is that?”

“On Graefe Street.”

“Graefe Street … that’s in Eutritzsch, right?”

“Yes. Number 53.”

“Okay, thanks, we’ll go there and check it out.”

“Can I come with you? If Maik sees the cops he’ll run again. I could convince him not to.”

I thought about it for a moment, then nodded.

“Sounds reasonable to me. Let’s go see my boss.”

We rose and went through the door into the next room, where Jens was still on the phone.

“Yes, this is urgent, damn it! And no, I can’t get a judge in here in a hurry! It’s a matter of life and death! Give me the data, and I’ll get the paperwork to you later!”

He listened to the receiver for a moment, then nodded with satisfaction.

“Got it. Thanks a lot!”

Machlitzke ended the call, stowed his cell phone, and looked at Dirk and me.

“Your brother’s cell phone is logged into a cell in Eutritzsch.”

“Let me guess, somewhere on Graefe Street?”

“Darn, you must have been faster than me again. Yeah, right there. Why?”

“The grandparents of the two have an old garage-slash-workshop at number 53, Dirk thinks that his brother might be waiting for him there.”

“Good, then we’ll go there right away. Dirk, you’d best come with us, we might need you to get your brother to cooperate.”

Cheekily, I grinned at my superior.

“Yes, I had already discussed that with Dirk as well.”

Jens threw his arms in the air in surrender.

“Over-motivated young whippersnapper. So come on, let’s get going. Dirk, you’ll not try running away from us again, right?”

The teenager shook his head.

“No, I promise. I’m worried about my brother!”

And that after the latter had beaten him up for being gay. Well, hopefully that would help us now.

We loaded Dirk into my car, which was again driven by Derek. Jens settled down on the back seat next to him, and the Bavarian colleagues, who had reappeared in the meantime, followed us in their van.

Since Derek had the pleasure of whizzing through the streets with blue lights flashing and siren blaring for the first time in his life, our trip took only a few minutes – helped by the rather empty streets. Apparently, the rallies and eventual riots were going on elsewhere.

“Here we are. Graefe Street. Where exactly do we have to go, Dirk?”

“Maybe another 500 meters, then it’s on the left.”

I turned off the siren so as not to forewarn or scare the punk’s older brother. This one was getting more jittery.

“There, up ahead, the driveway with the big tree to the left, that’s it.”

I looked around carefully, no blue Mercedes with tinted windows to be seen. A good sign? Or maybe we were just too late? We parked the cars, Jens pushed the little punk out of the car, and the rest of us got out too, my collarbone once again painfully reminding me of my injured state. Cautiously we approached the workshop building. It must have been a hundred years old and didn’t fit in very well with the surrounding area, in which a few noble villas had spread out.

It was quiet. Very quiet. Maybe deadly quiet. In the next moment, our uniformed companions reached for their service weapons – and I became nervous, too, since I had also noticed the garage door that had obviously been broken open. My boss took over.

“Sascha, you stay out here with Derek and Dirk, I’ll go in with the colleagues.”

I merely nodded, took out my Glock and pushed my two companions behind a wall protrusion. The punk didn’t really agree with that, I guess he finally wanted to know how his brother was doing, but Derek was fortunately able to hold him back.

A few minutes later Jens reappeared in the open and waved us over.

“We’re too late, the bird has flown out. Or was flown out, looks like there has been a fight in there.”

Ouch, that was not good news, and now even my boyfriend could not stop the fire-laying junior punk from charging into the open workshop building.

“Maik!”

“I told you, there’s nobody here. Either your brother took off, or someone took him.”

More likely the latter, at least judging by the state of the workshop. Tools, chairs and other pieces of furniture were lying around wildly, the only reassuring thing was the fact that there were no traces of blood anywhere to be seen.

“Shit, they got my brother! Damn!”

“Try calling him again.”

Jens handed Dirk his cell phone, which he had brought from the Headquarter. Dirk pressed a few buttons and then held the device to his ear. Three seconds later, the melody of the German National Anthem sounded from a corner of the garage. Bummer.

My boss followed the sounds, pushed a few objects aside, bent down and came back up with another cell phone in his hand. He held it up in front of our prisoner.

“Is this your brother’s phone?”

The young man turned white as a sheet of paper and now almost looked like a goth, not a punk.

“Fuck yeah, that’s Maik’s!”

That was probably the last proof that something unpleasant had happened to the same.

“Steffen, how well do you know your way around the Albanians? Do you have any idea where they might take someone to undisturbed … well, you know.”

The narcotics officer thought for a while, but before he could tell us the result of his musing, Blaumeier suddenly came rushing up.

“A patrol car spotted the blue Mercedes and is now in pursuit!”

Machlitzke immediately jumped on it.

“Where, and hopefully inconspicuously!”

“Delitzscher Straße, outwards of town – and unfortunately not inconspicuously. They tried to stop him, so the driver accelerated and is on the run now.”

“Damn it! A car chase is all we need right now.”

“Should we get involved, boss?”

“Yeah, I guess we should. We’ll take your car, I’ll drive. The guys in blue will stay here and secure the garage.”

“I want to come along!”

Jens probably didn’t have the nerve to argue much more with Dirk, he just nodded and was already dashing to my BMW. Dirk followed him closely, I also started to move, and Derek apparently didn’t want to miss it either. Two minutes later, the heavy car pulled off the side of the road with squealing tires.

“Sascha, take over the radio. I need the location announcements.”

I turned on the radio and spoke into the microphone.

“7-23 with request. Which lion is in pursuit of the blue Mercedes?”

“29-04.”

“Position!”

“Just turned into Max-Liebermann-Street heading west.”

“We’re joining the chase, keep passing position.”

“Roger that. Now Max-Liebermann intersection Franz-Mehring.”

Jens jerked the wheel hard, which both startled a couple of old ladies on the side of the road and sent a new wave of pain shooting through my body.

“Ow damn!”

“Sorry, couldn’t help it.”

Great. Hopefully this didn’t continue.

“Turned left onto Landsberger Street heading back into town.”

“23-01. We’re coming across Georg-Schumann, should we try a roadblock?”

I looked at Jens, who shook his head, so I spoke into the mic.

“Too busy, plus there’s probably an innocent witness in the car.”

If that one was still alive enough to care.

“Coppiplatz, on Lindenthaler towards the city.”

“Sascha, tell them to try to push him out of town at Georg-Schumann.”

I nodded.

“7-23 to the cars involved. Try to close off the Lindenthaler Georg-Schumann intersection so he has to turn right.”

There wasn’t much time for that, but maybe it would work out. In the meantime, we had also reached the intersection of Max-Liebermann and Landsberger Strasse, but my boss did not turn.

“We’ll try to stop him at the viaduct. And if that doesn’t work, then in Schkeuditz. The colleagues from there can help us.”

“23-01, we pushed him into Georg-Schumann, direction out of town. 29-04 is hanging on and we’re getting behind it now, too.”

“Lion to the deployed units blue Mercedes. The colleagues from Schkeuditz come to meet you and suggest stopping the car just before Luetzschena on Stahmelner Allee. They close off the main road and push him to Stahmelner Allee and from there to the commercial area Am Wassergraben. That’s a dead end.”

I briefly recalled the map, then replied.

“7-23 roger. We’re coming from the other direction into Stahmelner Allee. Also, please tell our colleagues that there’s probably an innocent man in the car with them.”

Well, reasonably innocent, anyway.

“Roger that.”

“29-04, location now Slevogt Street, continuing further out of town.”

Jens gave full throttle and we chased along the new B6, which we left shortly after with squealing tires and turned into Stahmelner Allee. After a rapid drive through the roundabout that followed a little later, we reached the turnoff into the dead-end street Am Wassergraben, where a car from the Schkeuditz police department was already blocking the road as best it could. Two other cars were parked just before the main road, now called Hallesche Street, so that they could close it at the last moment without giving the fugitives too much warning.

“Pittler Street. They should be coming up on you any minute!”

Another patrol car appeared behind us, giving us the opportunity to turn into the cul-de-sac ourselves. At the end of it, we’d be waiting for the fugitives.

“Derek, you stay in the car with the punk! Keep your heads down. Sascha, I’ll take the MP5, it probably wouldn’t be good for your collarbone.”

At least my boss was thinking about my injury now. Better late than never. We reached the parking lot of an electrical company at the end of the dead-end street and quickly got out of the car. Jens grabbed the submachine gun and went to position behind the car, while I shooed two curious electricians back into their company. Not a moment too late, we heard screeching tires over the sirens, and shortly thereafter the ominous blue Mercedes came racing toward us.

Its driver must have suddenly realized what kind of situation he had steered the car into. The noble carriage started to lurch, then its right tires hit the curb and it was catapulted from there to the other side of the road – where, however, was already another vehicle, namely a van of the electrical company. The Mercedes crashed into it, spun twice around its own axis and then finally came to a halt with its hood open, smoking, and abundantly dented just in front of my service car. Jens and I rushed forward with guns at the ready.

“Police, don’t make a wrong move! Keep your hands visible!”

The passenger probably didn’t feel like it, he suddenly brought up his right hand with a pistol and wanted to target it on my boss. The submachine gun in Jens’s hands barked briefly, and that was the end of the resistance issue. The driver now also saw that it was better to surrender to his fate. Whereby a larger quantity of blood ran over his forehead anyway, he was apparently already more or less incapacitated by the accident. At that moment, someone from the back seat spoke up.

“Don’t shoot, please! I have nothing to do with them, they kidnapped me!”

Cautiously, I stepped closer and peered into the car. There I recognized a badly frightened combat-booted man who reminded me very much of my little punk’s arsonist accomplice. Still holding the pistol ready to fire, I opened the door behind the driver with my left hand.

“Maik Blinker?”

The person addressed nodded vigorously.

“Yes, that’s me! You saved me, they were going to kill me!”

That’s what you get for getting involved with the wrong friends.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then come out slowly, no hasty moves, understand?”

“Got it!”

Slowly and carefully, the punk’s brother worked his way out of the wrecked vehicle while our uniformed colleagues, who had now also arrived, took care of the two Albanians in the front seats. Well, rather the one still alive, the other needed no more major attention.

“Maik! Are you okay?”

I had not even properly received the would-be nazi when his punk brother also rushed up to him.

“I’m okay, Dirk. Everything okay with you, too?”

“Yes, but as you can see, the cops got me.”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have run away and left you alone.”

Mind you, then he would have been spared the whole kidnapping thing too. I briefly considered putting handcuffs on Maik, but Dirk was also walking around without them, and I didn’t have the feeling that the two of them would try to get away again, so I left them to their brotherly reunion for the time being.

Meanwhile, Derek had also gotten out and came over to me.

“That was cool, Sascha!”

“What?”

“Well, the car chase! A real life crime show, and me in the middle of it!”

I laughed softly.

“But we’d better keep that to ourselves, normally no civilian should be put in danger like that.”

“Was I in danger then?”

“In car chases, you never know what’s going to happen the next minute or around the next corner. But it all turned out all right. For us, anyway.”

“Yes. Did Jens shoot the one guy?”

“I think so, he suddenly had a gun in his hand and was going to use it on him.”

“What an idiot, it was obvious what would come of it.”

I shrugged.

“Ouch.”

Immediately Derek looked at me with concern.

“Are you in a lot of pain?”

“I’m okay, but the adrenaline is starting to go down and I’m really starting to notice it again.”

“It was a stupid idea to involve you in the investigation in that state.”

I almost shrugged my shoulders again, but thought better of it at the last moment.

“It wasn’t my idea.”

“That’s all right, I know it wasn’t. But I hope things are coming to an end now.”

I hoped so too, I had enough excitement for one day.

Meanwhile, my boss had stowed away the submachine gun again and was trying to get something out of the surviving Albanian.

“Are you Ramiz Kerqeli?”

“Fuck you!”

So in terms of expression, punks and Albanian drug dealers didn’t differ much. Jens shrugged his shoulders.

“Then don’t, we’ll get it out one way or the other.”

He grabbed his cell phone and took a picture of the still bloodied face of the uncooperative driver, then he left him to the now arrived paramedics and turned to me.

“I’ll send the picture to Steffen, he can tell us if this is the Handsome Ramiz.”

“You’d better take a picture of the passenger, too. Maybe that’s Ramiz. Besides, Wickert could also recognize any non-Ramiz.”

“Good idea.”

“Who could I recognize?”

Damn! Did he have to scare us like that? My boss must have nearly wet his pants, too.

“Jeez Wickert! Did you have to do that? Where did you come from anyway?”

“From the garage, of course, or did you think I’d wait there and rot away while you guys have all the fun? I grabbed a squad car and rushed after you guys.”

Jens grumbled to himself for a moment, then nodded.

“Well, at least I can save myself the trouble of sending you pictures. Look at those two Albanians. One is done, in the passenger seat, the other is probably squatting in the ambulance now.”

The narc officer dodged off, and I turned to my boss.

“What do we do with the two fire-setting brothers?”

“I think we send them back to headquarters in separate cars and cells. Maybe they can tell us more about the Albanians there, at least the big brother should have a lot to tell.”

“Okay, so what do we do?”

Before Jens could answer, Steffen joined us again.

“The corpse is or was the Handsome Ramiz. I don’t know the other one, he must be fairly new. Maybe a fresh import from Albania.”

“He can’t be that fresh, he already knew enough German to be able to say ’Fuck you’ fluently.”

KHK Wickert laughed out loud.

“I guess that’s part of their first German lesson.”

“Which brings us back to my question to Jens: What do we do next?”

“Steffen, did you hear anything in the ambulance? Are they taking him to the hospital?”

“Yes, they will be leaving soon. He’s going to the St. Georg, to the emergency room. The head wound needs stitches.”

“Okay, I suggest you ride with him in the ambulance. Derek, could you please drive Sascha back to the Headquarter and drop me off at the St. Georg on the way?”

My friend nodded, slightly annoyed.

“Will do, but Sascha should really be getting off work now. Look at his pain-distorted face.”

Pain-distorted face? Did I really have that? Although I had to admit that the pain, which had previously only occurred sporadically, had turned into a permanent condition.

Apologetically, my boss looked at my better half.

“I’m really sorry, Derek. I still need him to question the older brother. But I don’t think there will be any physical exertion anymore.”

“I should hope not, Sascha more than earned his pay today – although he didn’t have to.”

“Sorry…”

Derek sighed, then nodded.

“So come on, let’s go.”

“Just a minute, I want to look at the Mercedes again and take a look in the trunk.”

I grinned.

“Hoping for another body?”

“Junior, don’t push it too far. I’m in enough trouble with your boyfriend already, I don’t want to make myself unpopular with the Doc too by filling his morgue this weekend.”

“True again. And unlike Derek, Doc has plenty of pointy objects at hand to express his discontent.”

“Haha. Come on, you guys go ahead and get in, I’ll be ready in a minute too.”

While Machlitzke made his way to the crashed Mercedes, Derek got behind the wheel of my staff car, and I slowly and carefully settled into the passenger seat – only to rise, cursing, right back up.

“What is it, honey?”

“I forgot about the Blinker brothers, I still have to take care of their pick up. Be right back.”

I loaded them into two patrol cars and instructed my uniformed colleagues to deliver them to the Headquarter and distribute them to two holding cells. When this was done and I strolled back to my car, my boss also joined me.

“Well, find anything interesting?”

“Not a body, anyway, but this is even better.”

Triumphantly, he held a shrink-wrapped packet in front of my nose.

“Crystal?”

“I think so. It’s not like they’re going to be carting sea salt around.”

While this conversation was going on, we got into my car, Derek started the engine, and we made our way back to town, rather sedately this time.

“Will the Crystal be enough to get us the Albanians?”

“Well the two from the Mercedes certainly, that’s quite a lot of that stuff. But the question is whether we can make a connection with Milicaj.”

“I think Handsome Ramiz was his right-hand man?”

“Yes, Derek, he was, but Milicaj can still claim he knew nothing about it and is horrified at how his associates betrayed his trust.”

“So we have to get the other guy from the Mercedes to talk.”

“True, Junior, but as Steffen had said earlier, they take the vow of silence very seriously.”

“Okay, so much for the narcotics, but what about the two murders? Can we put them on the Albanians?”

I could literally feel my boss’s satisfied grin at my back.

“I think so, at least the murder of Knirsch. Because there was something else in the trunk – lots of foil. Blood-spattered foil. I guess somebody didn’t want to mess up the trunk with blood.”

That was good news!

“I hope you get something out of the injured driver, too, Jens.”

“I hope so, too. Possibly we have a little leverage in hand with the murders. Serving a few years for drug trafficking and kidnapping is one thing – life in prison without parole for double murder is quite another.”

We were all lost in our own thoughts for the next few minutes, and a little later we dropped my boss off in front of the emergency room at St. Georg Hospital.

“I’ll come to the Headquarter after I talk to the guy. That may take some time. Sascha, maybe you’ll get something out of the disparate brothers in the meantime.”

“I’ll try. See you later.”

Jens slammed the car door and we started moving again.

“Doesn’t look like you’ll be getting off work soon, Sascha.”

I sighed.

“True, I guess. But I’ll bill it all as overtime, you can count on that!”

“They’d have to pay you double and triple for today’s work.”

“Ha, you know how finances are. It’s probably going to come down to getting some time off in the end.”

“Well then hopefully you will really take it this time, I don’t even want to know how much overtime you’ve already forfeited.”

“You’re right, Der. I’ll do my best to do better this time.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

We were silent for the next few minutes until my boyfriend suddenly cursed after a turn.

“Shit, look at this. I don’t think we can get through here.”

It sure looked like it. Maybe 200 meters away, the road was cordoned off by a dense police cordon, and behind it flag-waving brown hordes could be seen.

I took a quick bearing on the situation.

“Okay, drive on a bit, then turn left. Maybe we can get through there.”

“That might work, let’s try it.”

But it remained an attempt, because after the turn we stood opposite the next police chain – only that behind this the opponents of the brown brood had gathered.

“Well, Der, at least that explains why our colleagues won’t let the nazis march on.”

“Yes. The residents here will be thrilled. If this blows up, they’ll be in the front row. I think we should make sure we get out of here before that happens.”

“Good idea. Back up and then try a few blocks away.”

“Will do, I already have an idea where we might get through.”

Sure enough, my better half managed to get around the various marching blocks. Twice more we were stopped by hypernervous police cordons, then we had finally made it back to the Headquarter. We both breathed a sigh of relief.

“So far, so good. Are you going to interrogate the older Blinker brother now?”

“Yes, maybe he can say something more on the subject of drug-brewing neo-nazis.”

“Can I listen again?”

I grinned.

“Sure, you’re kind of an honorary sheriff these days anyway.”

“Haha, yeah, do I get a revolver too?”

“Well if then an automatic, we don’t use revolvers. But you don’t get one of those either.

“Oh too bad.”

Funny, in the morning Derek had still complained about my “stupid thing”. He seemed to find more and more fun in playing detective. Naughty boy.

A few minutes later, the older Blinker sat across from me in the interrogation room.

“Hello Maik. Glad we can get to know each other without you trying to run out on me.”

“Sorry… Was that you I ran over earlier at Blanke’s print shop?”

“Yeah, and it didn’t do you much good.”

“Like I said, sorry.”

Whether he really was, I didn’t dare to judge, but that didn’t particularly matter here now.

“Anyway. Tell me what happened after you escaped from Blanke’s print shop.”

The shaven-headed young and now presumably ex-nazi thought for a moment, probably to decide whether he should cooperate with me, then he decided to talk.

“Well, I knew our incendiary device was about to go off, and suddenly there were policemen in the yard. Dirk and I ran away, but the little guy is not so quick on his feet. At first I wanted to help him and clobber the policeman who had caught him, but then the second one from the costume squad came running, so I made myself sparse. I had parked my motorbike in the parallel street, that’s where I ran.”

Up to about then I already knew the story.

“And what happened next?”

Maik sighed, then continued.

“I was thinking about where to go, and I remembered our grandparents’ garage, on Graefe Street. If Dirk managed to run away or get released, he knew that’s where I’d go.”

“That’s right, that’s what he told us.”

“Little traitor.”

“Be glad he told us. By the way, only after we made him realize how serious and dangerous the situation was for you. Okay, go on.”

“So I went there and locked myself up in the workshop, and then I guess I fell asleep. I woke up to a loud crash, and before I knew it, the two guys from the Mercedes were on top of me. I resisted as best I could, but they were just too strong for me. They dragged me out of the garage and put me in their car, then they drove off. They were talking in a language I didn’t understand at all.”

“Albanian.”

“Those were the Albanians?”

“Oh, you know about them?”

“When I overheard Blanke and Knirsch, they were talking about some Albanians they thought would never find out about them.”

Well, that was a real and in the end quite deadly misconception. One should never underestimate one’s opponents, and especially not such a dangerous opponent as the Albanian drug mafia.

“Suddenly the two of them got nervous, and then I heard the first police siren. Well, there was something going on, the driver was going full throttle, and I was just praying that he wouldn’t have a serious accident. Well, you know the rest.”

I nodded.

“Yes, you were hugely lucky, and more than once. Lucky that your brother opened his mouth. Lucky that a patrol car recognized the Albanian Mercedes that was put out on the wanted list. And lucky that nothing bad happened during the chase.”

Except for the passing of the Handsome Ramiz, but he had only himself to blame for that.

“Yes, I suppose I was. But what’s actually going on, I have no clue what exactly happened.”

“Can’t you figure it out for yourself? The Albanians weren’t thrilled about the competition in the Crystal trade, and when they found out that Knirsch and Blanke were behind it, they decided to act.”

“So I guess Dirk and I did the work for them by torching the drug lab?”

“That was probably just a little bonus, they had already done the main work themselves.”

Questioningly, the arsonist looked at me.

“What main work?”

Ah, his brother probably hadn’t been able to tell him that yet. After all, after the accident, the two of them hadn’t had much time to chat together, and from then on they had been kept apart.

“Knirsch is dead. Probably killed in the apartment of Blanke and neatly disassembled into parts. Whereby, rather not that neatly, that was quite a mess. His body turned up dismembered in a dumpster this morning.”

My youthful counterpart turned pale. I had probably judged him correctly; he was nowhere near hardened enough to commit such an act himself.

“Shit! Is that why you were at Blanke’s print shop?”

He didn’t seem to be such a stupid fellow, why had someone like him slipped into Nazi society?

“Yes, Knirsch was being watched by the Verfassungsschutz, and he got away from the guys at Blanke. After we found his body this morning, I got the order to take a look around. That’s when you two ran into me.”

“And the Albanians were waiting there for Blanke? And because he didn’t come, they followed me, hoping that I would lead them to him?”

I shook my head.

“Close, but no cigar. Party comrade Blanke was also dead as a doornail by then, lying in the trunk of Knirsch’s car, which in turn was lying in the bottom of the canal, just a corner away from the print shop.”

“Wow. Was that the Albanians, too?”

“I would strongly assume so.”

“But what else did they want from me if they had already finished off Knirsch and Blanke?”

“Well, think about it. Your little brother told me that you were something like the personal errand boy of those two.”

Maik’s eyes widened in shock.

“You mean … nah … not really, right? They were going to kill me, too?”

“Does that sound so illogical?”

“But … but I had nothing to do with the whole drug thing! On the contrary!”

“But the Albanians didn’t know that. For them, you were probably the third in the group, and once they start cleaning up, they finish the job.”

“Shit! And I allowed them to catch me. That was a close call.”

“It sure looks like it. And that’s why it’s very important that you tell me everything else you can think of on the whole subject that might help us put an end to this business once and for all.”

My counterpart blanched a little more.

“You mean it’s not over yet?”

I shook my head once again, and once again I was rewarded by a stabbing pain.

“No. The guy in the passenger seat was Ramiz Kerqeli, the right-hand man of the boss of the Albanian gang.”

“And the driver wasn’t that boss, was he?”

“That’s right, Watson. The boss’s name is Asrim Milicaj, and he probably won’t be too happy about Ramiz screwing up the job. Maybe he’ll send someone else to finish it.”

“Crap, I’m still in danger?”

“Quite possibly, so you should help us get Milicaj out of circulation. Which, by the way, would have a positive effect on your own situation in other ways, too. I’ll just say arson.”

Blinker sighed loudly.

“Yeah, I know, that was crap. But Dirk and I didn’t know any other way to stop Knirsch and Blanke. We wanted to get the drug kitchen out of circulation.”

“Like I tried to tell your little brother, you guys should have just come to us and we would have taken care of everything happily. Maybe then even Knirsch and Blanke would still be alive.”

But it wasn’t a great pity for them, and if the whole affair led to being able to put a stop to the Albanians, then that wasn’t so bad either. I could see Maik thinking about it, but then shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, but I really don’t know more. Knirsch and Blanke only mentioned the Albanians briefly, and then when they kidnapped me, they only spoke to each other in their incomprehensible language.”

Somehow I had already feared something like that.

“You have to believe me, if I knew anything, I would tell you. I do have a certain instinct for self-preservation.”

I could probably believe him, at least in that regard. The news of the murder of his former idols and his own kidnapping had pretty much thrown him off track. Maybe he wasn’t ready for a confession of all his sins yet, but he was guaranteed to spill the beans on anything that might help us to keep him alive.

“Okay, I guess I can take that for now.”

“What happens to my brother and me now?”

“Well, you’re not going home anytime soon. Not only are you guys still in danger, there’s also the issue of arson. In an inhabited house, you really must have lost your mind!”

The young baldy looked down and couldn’t make a sound.

“What comes out of this for you is in the hands of the prosecutor and the court. You’re lucky that nobody was hurt – and that you still fall under juvenile jurisdiction. For adults, aggravated arson starts at a year in prison.”

“Shit.”

“Well, you can only blame yourselves. But the fact that you’ve been chatting so nicely now might make the prosecutor and judge merciful, especially if it helps to clear up the whole drug swamp.”

Maik nodded and whispered a soft “Thank you.” into the room.

“Okay, you’re going back to the holding cell for now. I guess you can use some rest and time to think.”

With these words I said goodbye to the older Blinker brother, picked up Derek in the next room and marched with him back to the offices of my department. There Eva was already waiting for news, so I told her what I had found out in the meantime. Then I looked at her questioningly.

“Has the boss reported back yet?”

“No, I guess he’s still stuck at St. Georg.”

“Hm okay, maybe he’ll get the Albanian to talk after all. Is there anything new regarding the rallies?”

“Jasche spoke to the right-wingers, and there was dead silence for a while.”

How fitting.

“Seconds later, there was a mixture of cheering and laughter from the surrounding streets – that’s where the counter-demonstrators had gathered, and they had heard it too.”

I easily could imagine that.

“I was just going to turn on the TV and see if they were showing anything.”

“Good idea.”

A moment later, NTV flickered on the big screen, and sure enough, rallies and murders had made it into a special broadcast. The station showed a live picture, which must have been taken from a point above the nazi demonstration, and the ticker tape mentioned the murders of Knirsch and Blanke. This was accompanied by the announcement that the police were still completely in the dark. We knew that was not the case, but it was reassuring to see that this knowledge had not yet made the rounds.

Meanwhile, the newscaster was blathering about the “tradition” of neo-nazi rallies in Leipzig and the riots that usually accompany them, and was speculating about how the murders would affect today’s events. While I had just been glad that nothing had yet appeared in the media about the background, I now blanched when the commentator suggested that left-wing extremists might have had a hand in it. Derek seemed to have the same thoughts.

“I hope none of those brown douchebags are watching the news.”

I just nodded, and in silence we watched the broadcast for a few minutes – until suddenly the office door was yanked open and a uniformed colleague came rushing in.

“Guys, shooting and a hostage situation at St. Georg!”

Oh damn! Jens and KHK Wickert from the Narcotics Department were there to squeeze out the surviving Albanian!

“What’s going on? Do you know any details yet? What about Machlitzke and Wickert?”

“Wickert was shot, he must have been hit bad. Machlitzke is okay, he took out two attackers. A third escaped and is apparently holed up with a hostage somewhere in the hospital.”

I struggled painfully from my chair to a vertical position.

“I’m going there.”

“Sascha, no! You’ve already put way too much strain on yourself today, and you can’t help there anyways.”

Eva also chimed in.

“Derek is right. Jens is there, and the colleague said he was unharmed. He can take care of everything there, besides, I’m sure that the SWAT team is already involved.”

Sighing, I sank back into my chair, on the one hand annoyed at my lack of health, on the other relieved that I didn’t have to go into action again.

“Okay, okay, you guys are right. But I hate having to sit and wait.”

I wasn’t alone in that though, the others were also anxiously waiting for more news.

“Who do you think was doing the shooting?”

“I would guess Milicaj, Der. Maybe he wanted to finish off his fellow Mafioso before he might get the idea to chat with us in exchange for a lower sentence.”

“Sounds logical, but how did he know so quickly that you had grabbed one of his henchmen and were working on him?”

That was indeed an interesting question.

“I’ll call Jens, I’m sure he can tell us more by now.”

I reached for my cell phone, and shortly thereafter the call went out. It took a while, but then the voice of my boss answered.

“Hello Sascha, I take it you’ve already heard about the chaos here?”

“So far, only that there’s been a shooting and a hostage situation. What exactly happened?”

“Wickert and I were in the middle of questioning the Albanian, or rather we were asking him questions, and he didn’t make a sound. Suddenly the door burst open and three guys stormed into the room. Two of them immediately started shooting and got both Wickert and the Albanian.”

“Bad?”

“The Albanian’s gone, Wickert’s in surgery right now, he got shot in the stomach. The doctors don’t know yet if he’ll pull through.”

“Damn!”

Machlitzke sighed into the phone.

“You can say that again. I got lucky and was somewhat covered, which gave me time to draw my gun and return fire. I got the two shooters, and they’re both still alive. The third guy was able to get away.”

“Did you recognize anyone?”

“I didn’t, but Wickert was still able to say that the running one was Milicaj.”

We were right on the money with our guess.

“And he ran away? Wasn’t there also talk of a hostage situation?”

My boss laughed briefly.

“Yeah, he stormed through the St. Georg, and when he spotted more cops, he went into a nurses’ station and took a female resident hostage.”

“Holy shit. Is the SWAT there yet?”

“Yeah, but they’re not even needed anymore.”

“Why is that?”

“He picked the wrong hostage. The good doctor is a karate black belt when not healing people.”

“Ouch!”

“Indeed. There is a good chance that Mr. Mafiaboss will never be able to personally provide for a next generation.”

That served him right!

“What is happening now, boss?”

“The murder squad, including Milicaj, will first be treated here under the highest security measures and then transferred to prison. Milicaj will not be able to talk his way out of this.”

Yes, he would need a miracle to be able to do that. It was actually surprising that he had dared to come for his henchman personally. But there still remained a question.

“Tell me, do you have any idea how he even knew that you and Wickert had one of his employees in the St. Georg and wanted to interrogate him? How could he react so quickly?”

“Hm, good question. Maybe there was already something in the media?”

Even though Jens couldn’t see it, I shook my head.

“No, we’ve had the TV on here the whole time, there’s been nothing like that yet. I think someone must have informed Milicaj directly.”

“You do realize what you’re saying, right? That would mean that one of us has turned traitor, wouldn’t it?”

This was a highly unpleasant train of thought, but unfortunately it could not be dismissed easily. But how exactly was one to find out? I had an idea.

“Jens, did you possibly take a cell phone from Milicaj?”

“Ha, good idea! I think we found one there. I’ll have a quick look, hang on!”

While I waited with the phone in my hand, I briefly explained to the others what Jens had told me – they had only heard half of the conversation. On the subject of “traitor in our own ranks,” both Eva and Derek turned noticeably paler.

“Are you still there, Sascha?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You might be on the right track. Milicaj got exactly two calls in the last two hours, and one of them about 10 minutes after we stopped Handsome Ramiz and his crony.”

“Is the number displayed?”

“No, it’s suppressed, but I can give you the number of Milicaj’s cell phone. Please try to find out who called it. If necessary, through the guys from the Verfassungsschutz, they probably have their own fast channels for such inquiries.”

“Okay, I’ll do that. Ready to write.”

My boss gave me the Albanian’s cell phone number, and I decided to go straight through Boelke.

“I’m going down to the Staatsschutz, hopefully the guy from the Verfassungsschutz is still with them. Derek, are you coming?”

“Sure, I won’t miss it.”

A short time later we arrived at KHK Fischer’s office. I knocked and we entered, and indeed, luck was with me, the agent from the Verfassungsschutz was still present. Before I could ask my question, however, I was first stormed by both of them.

“Altmann, what happened at St. Georg? We heard something about a shooting?”

I nodded and briefly told them what was known so far. Boelke immediately had the same question on his lips that Derek, Jens and I had already asked.

“Damn, how did the Albanian already know? I mean, how much time was there between the chase and the ambush at the hospital? An hour?”

“Even less, and that brings me to the reason I’m here. We have Milicaj’s cell phone, and he got a call on it shortly after the chase ended. The number was suppressed, but maybe you can find out something from Milicaj’s provider?”

The agent nodded eagerly.

“That’s no problem, give me the number.”

I handed it to Boelke, and he immediately started making calls himself.

“Boelke here. I need a cell phone caller, the called number is 0171-55 555 555, the call was made at 3:27 p.m.”

He listened briefly, then barked into his cell phone.

“Yes, this is urgent, I want the answer right now!”

Again he listened, then it looked like a huge volcanic eruption was about to follow.

“I so don’t care, I need the caller now! This is about multiple murder and assault on colleagues, so don’t give me any shit about privacy rules and administrative regulations!”

Boelke paced up and down the room and made an honest effort to come down a bit.

“Okay, I’m waiting!”

He covered the microphone of his cell phone.

“Unbelievable, this bureaucracy. – Like … what? You have the number of the caller? Yes, very good, give it to me!”

The agent grabbed a piece of paper, Fischer quickly handed him a pen, and Boelke began to write.

“Yes, I did, again to check 0175-66 666 666, right? Good, thanks!”

Boelke ended the call and was about to start speaking, then faltered before he could get a single word out. He stared at the note, considered, looked at the note again, then silently walked to the window and stared out. KHK Fischer was the first to break the silence.

“Heinrich, what’s wrong?”

Slowly, the person addressed turned to us.

“I know that number. I know who called Milicaj.”

Well, that was actually good news – but Boelke had turned ashen in the meantime.

“Don’t keep us in suspense, who was it?”

“Roland. The number belongs to Roland Peukert’s private cell phone.”

The name didn’t mean anything to me, but Bert Fischer reacted immediately.

“Peukert? Your predecessor? The one who was replaced by you just a few hours ago?”

“That’s the one.”

Oh, that was the Verfassungsschutz guy who had been stupid enough to piss off our Polizeipraesident by acting like a supreme bully and obstructing the investigation into the first corpse, the dismembered Mr. Knirsch.

“Damn. Then he must have been playing a false game with us all along. If he’s calling the boss of the Albanian Mafia directly, then surely he already knew this morning that Knirsch was dead and who finished him off.”

“I think so, too.”

My train of thought, however, went a little further.

“Maybe he even made sure that his own people and our Staatsschutz lost track of Knirsch the day before yesterday.”

Fischer grunted in disgust.

“You mean that he was actively involved in the murders of Knirsch and Blanke? I’d rather not even think about that, Sascha.”

“Well, he was very actively involved in the murder at the St. Georg. Where is he now, anyway?”

Boelke thought about it for a moment.

“Well, actually I sent him home when I relieved him, but apparently he stayed here, otherwise he wouldn’t have had the newest info available to pass on to Milicaj.”

“Unless he has another liaison in your squad.”

“Don’t paint the devil on the wall, Bert!”

Boelke reached for the phone and dialed a short number.

“Admittance guard? Boelke, Verfassungsschutz. Can you tell me if my colleague Peukert has left the Headquarters?”

He listened for a moment.

“Yes, go check, I’ll wait.”

About a minute passed.

“His car is still in the underground garage? Thanks. If he wants to drive out, stop him, by force if necessary!”

“Yes, you heard me right! Arrest Peukert if you catch sight of him! Over and out!”

Boelke slammed the phone down and looked at us.

“His car is still here. If he didn’t get out on foot, he must still be somewhere in the object. I suggest we split up and look for him.”

Good idea, but where?

“I’ll go to the main entrance, Bert, you best go to the staff entrance. Mr. Altmann, I don’t know if you can help us, you don’t know Peukert, do you?”

“No, I have no idea what he looks like. But I can stop by the radio control center, he would always have the latest messages available there – and the officers there at the entrance certainly know who he is.”

“Great, that’s what we’ll do. So let’s go, and be careful! If Peukert is in cahoots with the killers, who knows what he’s capable of himself.”

Everybody nodded, then we left the office in different directions. Derek, of course, came with me.

“Sascha, no heroics, okay?”

“I don’t plan to, I promise.”

Silently, we made our way to the radio control center. This was secured with an extra entrance, at the reception sat a uniformed colleague who recognized me.

“Well, what brings the murder hunter to us?”

“Hello, Felix. Actually, I only have one question, and you seem like just the right person to answer it. This is the place where anyone who wants to get into the radio room has to sign in and out, right?”

“Yes, and needs to show a good reason why he should be allowed in in the first place. Why?”

“Very nice. Is there a guy named Peukert from the Verfassungsschutz inside?”

My counterpart tilted his head.

“No, he isn’t. But he was.”

I thought so!

“When did he get out?”

“You missed him by maybe three minutes, he said goodbye and that he was going home now.”

Darn, so close! But maybe we still could get him. The gate guard was supposed to intercept him.

“Thank you, we have to go! Come on, Derek!”

We hurried through the corridors to the next elevator, and as usual it took half an eternity until it showed up to take us down to the underground garage.

“Sascha?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Might be helpful to know what kind of car this guy drives.”

Crap, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“We’ll walk ahead to the exit, the guard there has to know.”

A soft gong sounded, and the elevator door gave way to the underground garage. At first glance, there was no one in sight, nor was there a car moving.

“This way, Derek, the exit is up ahead on the left.”

We marched off, letting our eyes wander over the parked cars. Nothing to see. Suddenly, however, a single gunshot rang out! I ducked, pulling Derek with me into cover behind a patrol car.

“Head down!”

Forgetting my pain accompanying these hasty movements, I fished my pistol out of its holster and carefully raised my head.

“You better watch out, Sascha! I need you!”

“Just take it easy and stay down, Der. I’ll take care of myself.”

At that moment, I heard the footsteps of people running, and then I saw two uniformed officers rushing from the direction of the exit, their service weapons ready to fire in their hands. I should probably make myself known before they drew the wrong conclusions.

“Altmann, Homicide! Did you hear where the shot came from?”

“No, so it wasn’t you?”

“No. Did Peukert from the Verfassungsschutz try to drive out?”

“He didn’t, his colleague had instructed us to stop him, after all. Are you looking for him down here?”

“Yes, he said upstairs in the radio control center that he wanted to go home now. Five minutes ago or so.”

“He didn’t come by our place, and there’s his car, too.”

Ha, I knew they would know the car.

“Which one is it?”

“The red Grand Cherokee back there.”

I looked in the direction indicated. No movement was discernible on said car.

“The gun fire might have come from there. We’ll approach it very slowly from different sides. For your information, Peukert is suspected of having assisted in several murders in the drug milieu and, to make matters worse, in the shooting attack on my boss and KHK Wickert of the Narcotics Department. So be careful! Derek, you stay here!”

Following this strategy, we slowly worked our way to the agent’s car. As I got closer, I thought I glimpsed a figure in the driver’s seat – but not much could be made out because of the semi-darkness in the underground garage. Even more cautiously than before, I covered a few more meters until I took cover behind a car right next to Peukert’s vehicle. I pointed my gun at the driver’s door.

“Peukert, get out of the car very slowly! Without a weapon!”

Apart from the fact that the two uniformed officers had now also reached the jeep and were pointing their guns at it from different directions, nothing happened.

“Go ahead, Peukert. It’s over, you’re not getting out of here.”

Again there was no reaction, and slowly I began to wonder what the shot might have been. I rose, gun ready, and approached the driver’s door of the jeep. The closer I got, the more clearly I saw that I had been right in my assumption. Nevertheless, I did not yet put my Glock away as I now slowly opened the driver’s door. But Peukert would not shoot at me. He would not shoot at anyone. In fact, he wouldn’t do anything at all. Never again.

I relaxed, secured my gun and holstered it.

“It’s okay, no more danger. He shot himself in the head.”

Presumably, he had overheard Milicaj’s failure at the hospital in the radio control center and had come to the razor-sharp conclusion that he would be busted in no time. He probably didn’t want to do that to himself, and he had drawn the final conclusion. Not a bad idea, saving the state lots of work.

“Sascha, are you okay?”

I spun around and saw Derek sprinting towards me.

“Yeah, don’t worry, everything’s fine. But you better stay away from the Jeep, this is at least as unappetizing as the dumpster this morning.”

Whereas, really, there was no reason for me to be standing around right by the bloody body either. I walked over to Derek, and we leaned against a patrol car.

“Shitty day, Sascha.”

I nodded with a sigh.

“You can say that again. I’ve had enough action for today.”

“Well, me too. Can we finally go home now?”

“Soon. I hope so. I’ll turn it all over to the colleagues, there’s probably not much left to investigate. Jens can take care of the rest.”

At first quietly, then louder and louder, my darling began to giggle. I looked at him in amazement.

“Jens will … he will terminate your friendship!”

“Why is that?”

“Well, you served him three dead bodies in one day, and that’s not even counting the Albanians.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Ouch! Damn, that still hurts like hell. Oh well. At least Jens didn’t have to deal with the rioters in the city. He should be grateful to me.”

“Yeah, but at least they wouldn’t have shot at him!”

“True again.”

During this conversation, more and more colleagues had appeared, and Fischer and Boelke had also found their way into the underground garage. The latter cursed when he spotted the dead traitor from his team.

“Damn, I wanted to see him in court!”

“Are you sure about that, Boelke? A trial against a traitor in your agency, that would give the most beautiful public scandal.”

Our heads jerked around. Unnoticed by us, my boss and the Polizeipraesident had appeared on the scene. The latter had given the traitor’s successor something to think about with his words.

“That’s right. Perhaps he has done us a last service by committing suicide.”

I guess one could see it that way.

“Boelke, I suggest you take care of everything that has to do with your agency. Heads are guaranteed to smoke – and perhaps roll – there now. Mr. Machlitzke, you and Mr. Altmann wait for Milicaj to be delivered and then question him.”

Interesting, Jens and I were “Mr. Machlitzke” and “Mr. Altmann” for the Polizeipraesident, he spared this courtesy for the agent from the Verfassungsschutz. However, there was someone else who now spared further politeness.

“You can forget about that, Mr. Jasche! Sascha is off duty as of this moment, he is injured and in pain, and what went on today was definitely not conducive to his recovery!”

The Polizeipraesident looked at Derek, clearly surprised that anyone dared to contradict him. Then he nodded slowly, and a smile appeared on his face.

“You’re right. Mr. Altmann, you have done more than enough today, much more than could have been expected of you or what you should have been tasked with. I thank you for your dedication. Now go home before your boyfriend turns me into yet another homicide case.”

Derek nodded vigorously and grabbed my left hand.

“Say ’goodbye’ to the nice people, Sascha.”

I just managed to stop myself from shrugging my shoulders again, so I merely grinned and let my little one pull me away.

“Goodbye, nice people!”

Amid the general laughter that now followed (which I guess everyone needed after the events of the last few hours), Derek led me to our car, and a few minutes later we rolled out of the headquarter’s underground parking garage and headed home.

Epilogue

Four weeks later, I was able to return to duty. A lot had happened in those four weeks, and on several fronts.

First of all, the rally day had ended more or less peacefully. The neo-nazi rally had disbanded rather quickly and disorganized after the news of the deaths of Knirsch and Blanke; there had been no one who could have jumped into the breach immediately. During the departure of the left-wing extremist counter-demonstrators, a few shop windows had been broken, but all in all, this all went down much more peacefully than expected or feared.

Fortunately, the background information about the murders of the nazi leaders had only slowly become public in the days that followed, so that our city did not suffer any direct consequences.

KHK Wickert from the Narcotics Department was on the road to recovery after a week in which things had not looked good at all for him. Whether he would fully recover and return to duty, however, was still up in the air.

His colleagues celebrated the arrest of Arsim Milicaj. The biggest fish in the local Crystal trade had been taken out of circulation, and there was plenty of other excitement in the scene. And with the end of the nazi Crystal lab of Knirsch and Blanke, the big newcomer was suddenly gone, too. The drug hunters hoped that the market would not recover from this blow so quickly.

Dirk and Maik Blinker would probably be lucky and get off with low suspended sentences despite the serious arson. They had worked closely with the police and prosecutors and earned some leniency. The best part of the whole story for them was probably that the whole family had reconciled.

Verfassungsschutz-Boelke was in top form and somehow managed to keep his colleague Peukert’s involvement in drug trafficking, murder and manslaughter out of the public eye. It was rumored that he would soon stumble up another rank on the career ladder.

For me, it was now a matter of getting through a month and a half of duty. Over the Christmas holidays, Derek and I would finally take a real vacation! Our colleague Lorke from the Bavarian riot police had arranged a great vacation apartment for us in the Alps, below the Zugspitze. I wondered if there was a Bavarian course among the foreign language courses on the Internet?

So please, no more murders in the next two months, okay? And if one can’t be avoided, then at least dispose the body in such a way that someone else stumbles across it, for God’s sake!

Explanatory Notes: Ranks in the German Police (in brackets the ranks of the CID) – as you can see we Germans love to make our words longer by simply putting them together:

Medium level (starts after the 3 to 3.5 years of training):

Polizeimeister PM (Kriminalmeister KM)
Polizeiobermeister POM (Kriminalobermeister KOM)
Polizeihauptmeister PHM (Kriminalhauptmeister KHM)

Higher level:

Polizeikommissar PK (Kriminalkommissar KK)
Polizeioberkommissar POK (Kriminaloberkommissar KOK)
Polizeihauptkommissar PHK (Kriminalhauptkommissar KHK)
Erster Polizeihauptkommissar EPHK (Erster Kriminalhauptkommissar (EKHK)

Highest level:

Polizeirat PR (Kriminalrat KR)
Polizeioberrat POR (Kriminaloberrat KOR)
Polizeidirektor PD (Kriminaldirekt KD)
Leitender Polizeidirektor LPD (Leitender Kriminaldirektor LKD)
Polizeipräsident

Lion: the lion is the heraldic animal of Leipzig, “Lion” is the radio call sign of the local police control center, unit call signs are “Lion” with an added number for precincts or departments and the specific unit (often only the number is used)

Lynx Two: radio call sign of the riot police dispatcher during special situations

Staatsschutz/Polizeilicher Staatsschutz is a special department of the regular police dealing with political, religious or ideological motivated crime

Verfassungsschutz: domestic intelligence service for the protection of the constitution

The F: slang for fire department

Helgoland: Germany’s only high seas island (and duty free area)

Eisenbahn Street: major street in Leipzig, mostly inhabited by immigrants who run lots of different shops there

B6: Bundesstrasse 6, an interregional road

NTV: German tv news channel

OVG Bautzen: Oberverwaltungsgericht, one of the superior courts of the German State of Saxony in the city of Bautzen, dealing with administrative cases, for example the right to run peaceful demonstrations

Yellow garbage container: recycling system in Germany, recyclable waste (like plastic wrappings) is marked with a green dot and belongs in the yellow container. Other dumpster colors are blue for paper, brown for biological waste, black for non-recyclable waste.

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