Nemesis: Innocence Sold (41 page)

EPILOGUE

Three weeks later

Daniel wondered when Sandra would explode. To be on the safe side, he had tilted the passenger seat back somewhat and closed his eyes to gain some time and think about possible sins. She had unmistakably expressed her opinion about his daily running. But after he had explained to her that he felt good and that it was time he worked on his weakened physical condition, she had calmed down. That couldn’t be it.

Stephan had been very accommodating with regard to Sandra’s working hours, so they had enjoyed the last few days together for the most part. She had already moved into his place, and she was planning to finally clear out her apartment the following weekend. The new job and living together seemed to agree with her; that made her obvious anger more puzzling.

Despite the meeting that lay ahead of them now, the day had begun with such promise: during a meeting with Jake and Mark, his superiors hadn’t criticized him but had respected his actions and even stressed that it had been his decision, made within the framework afforded by his own command authority. None of them had been happy about his injury, but that was a different topic. This risk existed in connection with all of their missions.

A thought occurred to him that he immediately rejected. In a little over two weeks, he would leave with the team on a mission that could easily last two months, but Sandra would hardly know anything about that. Furthermore, she knew his job, and they were sure they would be able to bridge the time with phone calls and e-mails. Even on missions to Afghanistan, he wouldn’t be entirely out of reach, thanks to cutting-edge technology. His brooding ended when Sandra turned down the volume on the stereo. Although he wasn’t a fan of Bruce Springsteen, he sensed he was about to face something worse than Springsteen’s treacly ballads.

“You know Konstantin’s extremely angry with you, right?”

In order to evade the head physician’s anger, he had waited for an opportune moment when he had released himself, but that was more than a week ago. Either this was just the introduction to Sandra’s actual argument, or this was a distraction from her anger.

“He’s not. The bottle of French cognac more than made up for it; besides, he had to admit I was right. I’m absolutely fit again. I’m sure you noticed that last night, right?”

His answer earned him a quiet snort. Sighing, he brought the seat back to a vertical position. “What’s with you? Would you rather be at the office?”

“No way,” she said with horror.

Daniel was seriously concerned. Apparently, she wasn’t as satisfied with her new job as he had thought. They would be driving for a good thirty minutes yet, more than enough time for a few clever interrogation tactics if his frontal attack should remain unsuccessful. “What is it? I’m afraid you’re going to bite my head off, and I don’t even know why.”

Finally, a smile brightened her grim expression. “You can feel fear? Then you’d never have undertaken such an irresponsible, suicidal act.”

He didn’t care for Sandra’s choice of words, but this wasn’t the time for an argument. “Could you please stop diverting? What’s wrong?”

“You mean aside from the fact that I consider this meeting totally stupid?”

Daniel was gradually becoming angry. After all, the meeting between him and Paulsen wasn’t taking place at his request. However, because he was certainly catering to interests of his own in that regard—interests he carefully concealed from Sandra—he strove for a calm tone. “I’ll explain it to you one more time: if the prosecution is prepared to give me the same status as an undercover agent so my name doesn’t become known to the public, then I can spare a few minutes to speak to Paulsen. It would make Natascha’s work quite a bit easier if he’d finally make a statement or, better yet, confess. But we’ve talked about all this already. What’s wrong?” This time he enunciated the question with exaggerated clarity to show her that his patience was exhausted. Sandra only tightened her grip on the steering wheel, remained silent, and accelerated the Mercedes, despite the fact that she had already been speeding.

“All this back and forth about the jurisdiction of the prosecutor’s offices is completely annoying, but I’m glad Hamburg has finally won over Schleswig-Holstein.”

So much for his hope that he would finally get a reasonable statement out of her. “That was expected, given that the better part of the investigative work was carried out by the Hamburg LKA. Also, Paulsen’s company was registered in Hamburg, and the decisive computers were located there as well. I’ve really had enough of you avoiding my questions. What’s wrong?”

“I hate doing the right thing when it’s actually wrong. But someone has to do it. And after all, that’s exactly what I accused Mark of back then, and now I’m no better than that.”

Daniel didn’t know what to do with this declaration. Before he could express his displeasure, Sandra gave in. “I found out yesterday morning that no charges are going to be filed against a number of Paulsen’s clients. Allegedly, there’s insufficient evidence, but purely coincidentally this is only the case where well-known people are implicated.”

This was completely new to Daniel. “Just a second. I thought the proof of payments Dirk and Jake had dug out would be enough.”

“Well, we all thought that, but apparently not. And I fear Paulsen might go to a nice hospital for a few months instead of being put in prison.”

Since they were on their way to a renowned private clinic near Kiel, in which Paulsen was being treated following an alleged nervous breakdown, Sandra’s fear was certainly justified. But Natascha was still sure that an expert would confirm Paulsen’s legal culpability, and he would be transferred to the regular penal system. Daniel preferred to trust in the prosecutor’s assessment, although he had already thought through various outcomes, such as an acquittal or an extremely light sentence. Such a result would lead to a serious conflict between himself and the German justice system; he had therefore decided to wait and see how everything played out. As long as no sentence had been passed, all such speculations were a complete waste of time, but Sandra had apparently not confined herself to waiting.

“Please excuse me for making you suffer because of my mood. All right, I’ll let you in on it before you hear a completely wrong version from Stephan. Anna Pohl had cleared her article with Sven and Stephan, but when we heard that some guys were looking to get out of it, we created a supplement to the article. Next to the article, there’s now a set of photographs of all the clients, along with their names and professions. All of this appears under the heading
Police Investigating Extent to Which Business Relationships with Paulsen Exceed Normal Limits
. The search for the right formulation made us sweat quite a bit, but in the end everything was legally watertight. Anna was good enough to send Tannhäuser a preview of the article. The whole thing ended with a cross-examination by Stephan about whether I’d spoken to Anna.”

“And?”

“I denied it.”

Astonished, Daniel raised an eyebrow. “Do you think it’s a good idea to lie to Stephan? How would Anna have gotten the names, if not from you?”

She glared at him. “I didn’t lie. He said he preferred not to ask if I’d exchanged e-mails with Anna or not.”

“And because of that you have a guilty conscience?”

“Yes.”

“I bet Stephan’s satisfied with the result; otherwise he’d have insisted. And this use of weasel words is of course typical of Stephan, Sven, and Dirk. Welcome to the club. If he had been angry, he would certainly have displayed signs of that.”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely, and I’m also sure he knows you’re struggling with this.”

“Bastard.”

Daniel was satisfied that her mood had improved dramatically, and the rest of the drive was considerably more pleasant. When Sandra had left the country road and was turning into the entrance to the clinic grounds, she furrowed her brow at the sight of the mansion-like building, which stood next to a lake. “Very idyllic. I’m sure he feels right at home here.”

Daniel looked at the stone wall. “Take a close look. The security measures are pretty serious. Motion sensors, halogen spotlights—and there’s well-hidden NATO razor wire in that row of bushes.”

Only after their identification and vehicle had been carefully examined were they allowed to drive along the gravel road. On their way to the main building, Daniel drew Sandra’s attention to further security measures. There was a well-hidden security checkpoint behind the main portal.

A gray-haired man dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt received them inside the clinic. “It’s nice you were able to accommodate us. Wegener, Klaus Wegener, the head of this facility. Let’s have a brief talk before you speak with Mr. Paulsen.”

The office furnishings were sober and would have fit in better in a newly constructed building, but the chairs in the conference room were more comfortable than they looked. Sandra had mentioned already, in connection with greeting Wegener, that Daniel was a doctor, and subsequently a fairly open discussion took place, though Daniel considered it a complete waste of time, since he was opposed to portraying Paulsen as mentally ill. With a forced smile, Daniel said, “Mental illnesses are not my area of specialization. Basically my knowledge of the area is limited to what I learned at school. I wouldn’t be able to distinguish a real nervous breakdown from a fake one.”

His words got through, but instead of taking offense, Wegener remained polite. “In this case it was very simple. When he was admitted, the patient was in an apathetic state; his pulse and respiration had been greatly reduced, and his blood pressure was extremely low. It ought to be extremely difficult to fake that. He currently displays hardly any interest in his environment; he has essentially ‘shut down.’ Any imprisonment would be irresponsible given his condition.”

Daniel pointed to a file folder with Paulsen’s name. “You’re familiar with the better part of the investigation file. For that reason, it should be clear to you that I have limited sympathy for him.” When Wegener showed signs of objecting, Daniel raised a hand. “I understand that for you he’s a patient. I’m here for one reason only: to help the public prosecutor’s office put him in prison.”

“As a physician, however, you should take into account that—”

Daniel had had enough. He wasn’t prepared to spend more time discussing the matter. Resolutely, he stood. “Don’t give me that. I found the corpse of one of the children who died because of Paulsen and was present when another child was freed. Do you know how many other children suffered because of him? According to dependable estimates from the authorities, up to two hundred. There’s no excuse for that. I’m not interested in how messed up his childhood was or in whether the neurotransmitters in his brain react too slowly.”

Wegener calmly returned Daniel’s look. “I understand you take the matter personally because you nearly died as a result of your injury.”

With both hands on the desk, Daniel bent forward. “Wrong. It has nothing to do with that. He was on the other side of the law; I don’t blame him for that, though I do blame him for endangering my partner and colleagues. I want him to be convicted of the whole package and for him not to spend the next few months in a nice, comfortable environment.” Daniel rapped his knuckles on the file folder. “If you’ve taken a good look at that, you know how cleverly the entire business model was organized. To be honest, it was purely a coincidence that we . . .” Daniel grinned at Sandra. “That
my partner
got on Paulsen’s trail. Anyone who seriously wants to tell me Paulsen didn’t know what he was doing every step of the way is going to hit a granite wall.”

There was a lengthy silence; then Wegener nodded. “All right. I respect your point of view and must admit that despite your history with Paulsen, you seem surprisingly calm. I’m curious to see how Paulsen will react to your conversation. Would you both like to talk to him?”

Before Sandra could answer, Daniel shook his head. “No. I’ll take care of it alone.”

Sandra didn’t react to this enthusiastically, but she refrained from arguing.

“All right. I’ll make the preparations.”

After Wegener had made a brief phone call, Daniel took the opportunity to get the answer to a question that had been occupying him since his conversation with the prosecutor. “Who actually took the initiative with regard to arranging this? Was that you, or was it Paulsen?”

Wegener obviously didn’t like the question. “It was Paulsen, actually. That was his only statement to me and my colleagues. His exact words were as follows: ‘The only man I would talk with will not be interested in meeting. But there are a number of things to clear up.’ When he was asked who he meant, he named you. However, he doesn’t know you’re here; he generally expects another attempt at a conversation.”

Daniel thought of Natascha’s reaction when he had told her of the possibility of a meeting. At first, the prosecutor had insisted on a protective escort for Daniel in connection with any visit to Paulsen, but he had been able to talk her out of that relatively quickly. If he thought about the criminal’s actions up to this point, however, Natascha’s fears were justified, and probably the prosecutor would have had Daniel arrested if she had the slightest idea of what he was planning—if Paulsen played along in the truest sense of the words.

The corridor could have been inside an expensive hotel. Only the electronically controlled locks on the doors and the characteristic smell of disinfectant betrayed the true nature of the institution. When Wegener showed him the door of the conference room and explained that he and Sandra would watch the conversation from the next room by means of a one-way mirror, it was time for Daniel to make his last preparations. He checked the small recorder Sandra had gotten him and grinned at her. “No matter what happens, the same rule applies as always: trust me. I know exactly what I’m doing.” In order not to give Sandra the opportunity to ask any questions, he quickly turned to Wegener. “Will you make a video recording of this conversation?”