“Ok,” she said with a firm voice. “What are we going to do about this?”
7
“They have your passport. They know what you look like. You can’t leave the apartment,” said Frederich while grabbing a handful of mixed nuts out of the bowl and tossing them into his mouth.
They were leaning back on opposite ends of the sofa, facing each other with their legs up. It was 1 am.
“I don’t care, I’ll go crazy if I have to stay inside any longer,” said Ida.
Frederich shook his head.
“You can’t leave,” he said with a mouthful.
“Ugh, then what do I do, stay here for the rest of my life?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“We make contact.”
“What? With who? The police?”
Frederich shook his head.
“With the League.”
Ida went quiet, then squinted her eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
“I can negotiate.”
“You want to go to them?” she said. “That’s crazy. We should go to the police.”
“What do you think The League will do if they find out we went to the police? Even if I get off for Khartoum, do you think we’ll be safe? They’ll come after us, and nobody can stop them.”
“If you go to them, they’ll kill you.”
“No, they won’t. They don’t know who I am. As long as you stay here, they can’t reach you, which means they’ll listen to what I have to say.”
“That’s too risky. I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering.”
“Why would you do that?” she asked.
It was the moment for Frederich to come clean about his desire to join The League. If he could find a way to stir their interest, they could strike a deal: her safety for his services. It would be win-win. He had spent a long time rehearsing in his mind his conversation with Ida. He found no real way to explain why him joining such a violent organisation made sense. Each imagined scenario ended with Ida in a state of outrage and disgust. Telling her about his upbringing with Kraas was one thing. This ran deeper, into a place nobody in their right mind would go. The only person to catch a glimpse of it was Kraas, and Frederich remembered how that had worked out.
“Do you have any other ideas?” he asked.
“Yes. I do. We can run away.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I can do this.”
“Frederich, no, I don’t want you to be alone with them.”
“There’s no other way.”
Ida picked a nut from the bowl and tossed it at Frederich.
“I should have shot you today, you know that?” she said.
“You left the safety on,” he replied, smirking.
Ida frowned and gazed earnestly at Frederich.
“Why do you want to do this? You’ve risked your life once already for me.”
“Honestly, I just want to get away from you for a few hours. You’re high maintenance. Throwing tantrums, giving speeches on love and gardening. I figure chasing some bad guys would give me a break from the drama.”
Ida’s eyes widened and her face lit up.
“You liked what I said about the gardening?”
Damn. She reads between the lines.
“It was ok,” he said with a shrug.
Ida continued smiling and looking at Frederich. Then she took a long, deep breath and her expression turned business-like.
“Fine,” she said. “So how do we find them? I don’t think they have an office which you can visit, or a toll-free number you can call.”
“I’m not sure yet,” said Frederich. “Can you remember anything about your time with Khartoum? Any people you met, or places you went?”
“No, we spent most of our time at his place or in public. I met some of his friends, but I don’t know who they are.”
“Did you see anything in his apartment?”
“Uh uh,” said Ida, shaking her head.
The room fell silent.
“Wait,” said Ida, sitting up again. “Elias mentioned the name Inselheim and leaving his house with a money bag. He’s not going to make that pick up anymore, but that doesn’t mean nobody else will.”
Frederich smiled and began nodding. Genius. He saw where her mind was going.
“I have an idea,” she said.
8
It was 9:11 pm when Frederich watched the billionaire entrepreneur Michael Inselheim drive his BMW 7 Series onto his estate in Dahlem.
Frederich and Ida had researched late into the morning, immediately coming across the native Bavarian who now lived in the outer suburbs of Berlin. Inselheim was a perfect target for The League. He headed the wildly successful Inselheim Group and had a family history of prestige and wealth, which began two generations before when his grandfather Heinz founded Inselheim Construction in the late 1940s, thriving on the rebuilding of post-war Germany. His father Thomas took the reins when Heinz Inselheim retired in the early 70s and was able to maintain the status quo until business wunderkind Michael was brought into the company in the late 80s. The father and son duo skilfully steered the business toward its reincarnation as Germany’s major weapons manufacturer. Michael used his uncanny vision and charm to lure in the best talent and his father’s political contacts to secure government support. With a green light from the top, The Inselheim Group innovated at a rapid pace, and by the late 2000s supplied military arms and equipment, guided missiles and helicopters to governments on three continents. It had defied the global hegemony and consolidated itself as an integral component of the German economy, employing over 70,000 people in the country alone.
Armed with this information, Frederich took the U2 train to Stadtmitte the next day to visit the car rental agency while Ida searched for whatever she could find on The League. That same afternoon Frederich drove his newly rented grey Renault
