“Ah, ah. No need for that. I’m only here to talk.”
Karl-Marx-Strasse was a main street lined with Arabic restaurants, shisha lounges and waves of people wandering by. It was the worst possible spot for a shootout. The man hesitated but kept his hand in place.
“What do you want?” He had a typical enforcer’s voice, husky and loud.
“You work for Kalakia, right?”
The men did not react.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Tell him that the man who killed Khartoum wants to meet. A place of his choosing. I’ll come alone, unarmed. If he doesn’t like what I have to say, he can kill me then and there.”
Frederich took out a folded piece of paper with his phone number and held it out. The men maintained their suspicious stance. Frederich took his hand away from his gun as a gesture of peace and gave a wry smile. The man with the ponytail motioned with his head to his associate, who bent forward and accepted the paper. Frederich then turned around and walked away as soon as it left his hand. He followed the road until a taxi approached. He hailed it and got in, leaving the two men and his Renault behind, along with any chance of being traced or followed.
9
The text arrived twenty minutes later as the taxi pulled up at Frederich’s apartment: “Tomorrow. 14:00. Linkstrasse 24. Level 6.”
Frederich put his phone away and went upstairs. He found Ida seated upright on the sofa with her legs crossed and the computer perched on her lap. She had showered and was wearing the pants and t-shirt from KaDeWe with a towel wrapped around her wet hair. On the coffee table was a notepad covered in handwritten notes. Some colour had returned to her face, and the swelling on her chin had begun to settle.
Frederich paused and took notice. For the first time, he had a sense that he was staring at the real Ida. In the beginning, she had appeared stiff and lifeless. Her movements had been sluggish, and she was dissociated and gloomy. Her face and eyes were frozen from the shock. Then there was a shift when she emerged from the bedroom. She smiled occasionally and grew more assertive. She spoke up more, but with caution. Now Frederich looked over and saw something breathtaking. It was like night and day. She appeared graceful, collected and determined.
Ida put the computer down on the sofa and looked at Frederich expectantly as he approached and sat beside her.
“Looking good,” he said with a smirk while signalling at her clothes with his eyes, to which she bent her head and raised her eyebrows.
“Well?” she asked.
“The meeting is tomorrow at two, at an office in Mitte.”
“A meeting? Already?”
“I had some luck.”
“Ok. Is it going to be safe for you to go?”
“It has to be. It’s in the middle of the city. Nothing bad is going to happen there.”
Ida nodded thoughtfully.
“Did you eat?” asked Frederich.
“Yes, I made pasta. I left you some on the stove.”
“Thanks,” he replied without moving. He turned his attention to the notepad on the coffee table. “What did you find out?”
“About Kalakia? A lot. And nothing. He’s a phantom. His name is mentioned everywhere, and there are all sorts of profiles about him. His so-called lawyer was interviewed and described him as being tall and black. Someone claiming to be a Chinese businessman said that he and Kalakia did a construction project together in Hong Kong and that Kalakia’s father was English and his mother was Chinese.”
“Wow,” Frederich said with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, picking up her pen. “He’s tall and white in one article,” she continued, pointing to a spot on the notepad. “He’s a politician, a media executive, a Russian oligarch. He’s also muscly with a beard according to someone who claims to have worked directly with The League doing enforcement. I guess Kalakia hides behind this kind of misinformation. It’s the same with The League. There are all kinds of conspiracy theories, and even if the truth was published somewhere, it’s lost in all of this fake material. I really think that The League pays a team of people to spread as many false things on the internet as possible. Not that they need help. Everyone has an opinion. There are blog posts, news articles and all these comments on the discussion boards. People love gossiping almost as much as trolling. The craziest was an article claiming that Kalakia is actually Laurent Philippe, the movie star. I really hope it’s not Laurent Philippe. He’s one of my favourite actors. There’s also a lot of talk about how the Illuminati became The League. That’s what Jochen Weisman wrote, except he never connected The League directly to the Illuminati. Everyone knows The League exists, or at least that something exists. The Worldwide Horror more than proves this. The only problem is that nobody has a way to separate the truth from the lies. The mainstream media has been pushing this ‘global mafia’ storyline for years. I would say the only people who know the truth are those being blackmailed or threatened. It’s clever. The League is everywhere, but nobody can define it. They’re hiding in plain sight. I would be impressed if they weren’t psychopathic monsters.”
Frederich was beginning to wonder how deep The League went. Was he overestimating it or was he in over his head?
“So please be careful when you meet them.”
Frederich nodded and gave a weak smile.
“Did you hear again from your family?” he asked.
“Yes. I called my mother. I also wrote my friends in New York. They keep asking when I’m coming back. Everyone is ok.”
“Good,” he said. “Anyway, I doubt Kalakia will do anything until he knows the facts. Right now all he has is a passport and a dead soldier.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said.
“It’ll be fine,” he replied, reassuring her with his eyes.
His words seemed to have an effect. Her face softened. Naturally, he
