Hunter's Rain (6 page)

“Oh the small mercies. Looks like she’s good for you, after all.”

“I can hear something in there, but I’ll ignore it.”

Pappenheim chuckled. “You can run, but you can’t hide.”

“Thank you for the witticism, Pappi.”

“Ah, those big words,” Pappenheim said. “How I love them.”

“Pappi’s in the Rogues Gallery with the Goth,” Müller said to Carey Bloomfield as he put the phone down. “Something there he thinks we should see.”

“The Goth,” she said. “Hedi Meyer. Tall, ethereal. Fragile-looking…as if. Loves to dress in any colour, as long as it’s black; paints her fingernails in a way that would make the Surrealists weep for joy; can disarm tiny electronically-primed bombs attached to people…and has a fancy for you.”

“All correct…except that last part.”

“You wish,” she said.

He gave her a tolerant smile. “Get your coat. After the gallery, we’re going out. The weather does not look as if it wants to stop its end-of-the-world show today.”

“Too early for lunch, and I’ve had coffee and cake with Pappi. So where to?”

“Hunting out another part of the mystery, to which the man who wanted to shoot you today, belongs.”

“I’d like to shoot
him
. Lowlife bastard.”

“Did you bring your cannon?”

“You heard me, Müller. This, is a strictly private trip.”

“Ah well. If you behave, I’ll make certain you’re not unarmed.”

“Gee, mister. Thanks!”

Müller gave her his tolerant look, as she got her coat.

Kaltendorf’s beam had morphed into a benign smile as he entered his office. People he had passed in the corridors, more accustomed to his pre-occupied scowl – which was just one down from the glaring scowl - had shot him darting, uncertain glances, as if doubting their own vision.

The phone began to ring almost before he had entered. He hurried to it, and picked it up.

“Ah, Heinz,” the person at the other end said even before Kaltendorf had identified himself. “Do you have any visitors?”

“I don’t quite follow.”

“Simple enough question, Heinz,”

“We have visitors all the time. Colleagues from other units, prominent officials…”

“Yes, yes. I know. I mean special visitors.”

“We haven’t had any…” Kaltendorf paused.

“Yes?” The voice sounded eager.

“I would not say special as such…”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

“Well…” Kaltendorf began uncertainly, “a friend of ours has turned up…”

“A ‘friend’?”

“She’s…”

“
She?”

“Well yes. That’s why I didn’t think you would mean…”

“You let me judge;” the voice repeated. “So who is she?”

“Miss Bloomfield. American. I’m certain you don’t mean…”

“No, no. Alright, Heinz. Thank you. Sorry to disturb.”

The line went dead.

“How long were you really standing by the door while I was looking at the painting?” Carey Bloomfield asked.

They were on their way to the Rogues Gallery.

Müller shut his eyes briefly as they approached the solid black, armoured steel door of the documents room, with its keypad-operated locking system.

“You, Miss Bloomfield, are dangerous.”

Above the numbers on the keypad, was a tiny green light; a clear indication that the room was occupied. This tell-tale sign could be disabled from within the room itself, if need be. Müller and Pappenheim frequently did so, when they did not want Kaltendorf to know they were in there.

“Believe it,” she said, the tiniest of smiles living briefly at the corners of her mouth.

Müller shook his head slowly, but said nothing as he tapped in the entry code. Titanium bolts slid back with a silky hiss and the door popped open, then swung wide. He stood aside for her to enter, and followed her in as the door began to swing back. He gave it a little push to help it on its way.

Bright lighting and the low hum of the air-conditioning greeted them, as the door hissed itself shut.

Pappenheim and Hedi Meyer were waiting.

The window-less, large room was the most secure area in the entire building, and only three people had unauthorised access: Müller, Pappenheim, and Kaltendorf. Every wall save one, from floor to ceiling, was lined with wide, steel cabinets, each with its own keypad. A tall, wheeled ladder which hung from a solid rail and had a two-ton breaking limit, could be slid to each cabinet in the room. The centrepiece of the room was a wide and solidly-built central table, with a white top that also served as a photographic light box.

At the single wall without a cabinet, was a big desk with a computer on it. Already very powerful, it had been improved far beyond its original specifications by Hedi Meyer - a power junkie when it came to computers - who had seemingly locked herself into a continuing upgrade cycle. She was always tinkering with it. The goth had already made it the most powerful computer in the entire building, beating even those in her own department.

On either side of the keyboard, were two items that had made Kaltendorf blow some fuses when he had first seen them: a joystick and throttle that seemed to have come out of an F-16 jet fighter, courtesy of the goth herself.

The computer, with its large plasma screen monitor, was connected to a cinema quality, multi-speaker sound system. Hedi Meyer was at the machine, sitting in the high-backed leather chair. Pappenheim stood close by.

Both looked round as Müller and Carey Bloomfield entered.

Hedi Meyer was the first to speak. “Congratulations, Colonel,” she said to Carey Bloomfield. “Nice to see you again.”

She had the ethereal paleness of complexion that Carey Bloomfield had described, a finely-sculpted classic face, and rich dark hair that owed nothing to the hairdresser’s skill with dyes. Her eyes were a vivid blue, and her paleness contrasted sharply with Carey Bloomfield’s glow of health.

“Thank you,” Carey Bloomfield said, giving the goth a quizzical look.

“
Oberkommissar
Pappenheim told me,” the goth explained.

“Not at all. Blue stands for calmness and control. Can’t get too carried away. And besides, it matches my eyes.” She turned back to the computer.

“Ah-ah!” Müller interrupted, holding a finger briefly to his lips. He and Pappenheim glanced at each other with faint and very brief, surreptitious smiles, as he continued, “For some time now, we have been building a database – low-level intelligence - gathered from, believe it or not, old newspapers and magazines. We all brought the sort of things one never throws away, despite meaning to. Hedi Meyer beat us all with some quite incredible stuff she’s had since childhood. Even Klemp, our resident gym addict, had valuable material. It is quite incredible what you can find in a newspaper or magazine, if you know where to look.”

Carey Bloomfield nodded. “I know some people who’ve got whole departments dedicated to trawling through the world’s news, print, and any other kind of media.”

He peered at the name of the paper. “
’La Souris Atrichque’
. The Naked
Mouse?
Is this a joke? A school rag?”

He studied the page on the screen, and stared at the date. “1982,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Grenoble. I was twelve. How did you get to this?”

“I don’t think you want to you know, sir. But read this.” She highlighted a section of the text, and increased the size of the font.

Müller began to read silently, then stopped, shocked. He continued to read, this time audibly.

“’…
and why have we been given the wrong site of the crash? Witnesses we have spoken to, confirm that the German private jet crashed elsewhere. They insist the real crash site is
…
’
“
Müller stopped again. “My God,” he said, almost to himself. He moved away to stand by the light box table, then leaned against it. “My God,” he repeated, staring at nothing, and at no one in particular.

The Goth sat at the computer, unmoving, looking at the screen.

Carey Bloomfield looked at Müller with some anxiety. She caught Pappenheim’s eye. Pappenheim gave a barely perceptible shake of the head, advising her to leave Müller alone for the moment.

“Hmm,” he said. “One can drive almost close to it…about a kilometre’s walk away. Good. So what is this ‘Naked Mouse’? How did you come by it.”

“You were right in one sense, sir. The paper began as a school rag. Two friends used it to poke fun at the school authorities. But they also began to do some serious investigating. They actually got a teacher sacked for creative accounting…with his budget.”

“Bet that made them popular,” Pappenheim.

“It didn’t,” Hedi Meyer confirmed. “They nearly got thrown out, but their academic results were so good, it would have raised even more embarrassing questions.”

“So they took their skills into the outside world, and annoyed the establishment instead,” Müller said.

“Exactly, sir. They go into plenty of trouble, but the paper got so successful, they had a big support base. Lawyers defended them for free.”

“A friend of mine – he’s a bit Left - collects old issues of the Mouse. I asked to borrow some 1982 issues. You’d think I was pulling his teeth with pliers. I almost had to insure my life, but he allowed me to take them on loan. I scanned them in, but couldn’t find anything. So I…mmm…got into a database…”

“It seems that the friends – despite being successful executives of the paper – decided to go back to what they loved doing best: investigating. They discovered discrepancies in the reports about the crash site.”

“Where are they now? Is the paper still running?”

“That’s the strange thing, sir. Less than a year later, the paper went out of business…”

“It
folded?
”

“Yes, sir. But it gets stranger. One of them is dead. I can’t find out exactly how it happened; nor what has happened to the other one. Can’t say whether he’s still alive, or dead too. Nothing I have dug into, has come up with an answer. So far.”