Vidrik sauntered over while rolling up his shirt sleeves. He stood in front of Inselheim, who was glazed with sweat and shaking with fear. Pilz returned from the shelves and handed over the blowtorch. Inselheim noticed what was happening and began trembling furiously.
“God, please, no!” he screamed. “I—” Vidrik turned on the blowtorch. Inselheim began speaking frantically and rapidly. “I told you everything! I was late with a payment, and I spoke with Khartoum on the phone. Your men came by a few days later and picked up the money. That was it! I swear! I don’t know who killed him!”
Vidrik remained silent. The only sounds were the blowtorch and Inselheim’s whimpering.
“You’re hiding something,” said Vidrik.
“I’m not,” cried Inselheim, pouting and shaking his head from side to side.
“You are. We’ve been tracking you. You’re up to something. Tell me what it is.”
“I’m not,” repeated Inselheim with a sob.
Vidrik took an impatient breath.
“You know, Michael,” he said over the sound of the blowtorch. “I’m not the one in control. You are. In my mind, I want to take this blowtorch and work my way up from your knee to your balls. But you have the power to stop me. You’re the boss here. Not me.”
Inselheim began whimpering and shaking his head more vigorously as Vidrik brought the flame closer to his leg.
“No!” he screamed.
The flame began searing into his leg while he screamed hysterically.
“Don’t you want to stop me!?” yelled Vidrik over Inselheim’s yells of distress. “Are you not the boss? Are you not the powerful Michael Inselheim?”
“Ahh!” he screamed. “Stop!! Stop!!”
Vidrik moved the blowtorch away, leaving behind a badly charred area on the inside of Inselheim’s thigh. His own knees were shaking with excitement. He took his time to steady his breathing.
“Did I hear correctly? Are you the boss?”
“Yes, yes, I'm the boss,” cried Inselheim. “I’ll tell you everything. Please!”
“Excellent,” said Vidrik, keeping the blowtorch turned on. “What is it you need to tell me?”
After an extended, sometimes incomprehensible flurry, Vidrik gathered that Inselheim had never met a young, Estonian boy. He was disappointed at first, and had almost gone back to work with the blowtorch, when the rest of Inselheim’s confession came pouring out.
“Do you think he’s making it up?” Pilz asked Vidrik, giving Inselheim a sceptical glance as they stood huddled together. “It sounds pretty crazy. A laser that destroys nukes?”
“He’s telling the truth,” replied Vidrik, squinting and looking at the floor. Vidrik was a seasoned interrogator and he knew the fine line between truth and hysteria. When he had finalised the next steps in his mind, he looked at Pilz and handed him the blowtorch.
“Take him downstairs and lock him up. I’ll call Francois. We need to get a hold of those blueprints Inselheim was talking about.”
Kalakia was at his desk, re-reading the stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, and was currently at “XIII. Remember that all is but opinion and conceit” when his phone rang.
“What is it?”
“We found something,” said Francois. “Vidrik got it out of him.”
“Tell me.”
“What we have so far is a confession and the blueprints from his office, but it seems Inselheim has been working on a project called Neutralaser. It’s a device which can disintegrate a nuclear warhead. His company ran a successful test in secret in the Kazakh desert.”
“What? He destroyed a warhead with a laser?” said Kalakia, leaning forward.
“As far as we know. Yes.”
Kalakia paused to weigh up this new information.
“Where is the device now, and who knows about it?”
“We don’t know yet, but we’ll get it out of him.”
“Where is Inselheim?”
“He’s being held at the interrogation facility.”
“Good. Send a car to pick me up.”
“Ok.”
Kalakia began busying his mind as soon as he closed the connection. His instincts had proven correct. That sneaky imp. Inselheim was working on something big. Kalakia never imagined that it was anti-nuclear defence. The implications for such a technology were enormous. Still, he was not getting ahead of himself. They had to verify the blueprints, and that the device did exist. All things considered, however, if The League did get a hold of such a device, then they would be able to avoid a geopolitical disaster while tipping the balance of world power even further in their favour. Any nation with anti-nuclear capabilities could hold other countries to ransom. So it was best that The League had caught Inselheim out. Kalakia readied himself for a long night.
Vidrik had both hands on the wheel of his Porsche 911 as they pulled out of the Inselheim Group’s data facility in Adlershof. With Pilz in the passenger seat they rolled past the four white vans belonging to League Intel, who had quickly shown up to secure the equipment. They reached a long stretch of open road and Vidrik punched the accelerator as they travelled back toward Mitte.
“I need a beer after all that,” said Pilz, stretching his neck. “Can we drop by the store?”
Vidrik nodded and continued driving until they reached Neukölln. He double parked along the side of the road in front of a convenience store.
“Want anything?”
Vidrik shook his head. When Pilz jogged into the store, Vidrik began people watching. He found nothing exciting to look at, just hipsters and tourists. He gave it five years maximum. Berlin was going to hell.
Vidrik’s phone lit up beside him with a new message. He grasped it and swiped the screen:
“Pilz is no longer needed,” read the text.
He tilted his head slowly while staring at the words. No surprises there, he thought. The two of them had stumbled across something big, and a big-mouth nobody like Pilz was too much of a security risk.
A moment later Pilz came back from the store with his beer already open and got into the passenger seat.
“I changed my mind. Get me a Club-Matè,” said Vidrik, figuring he would need the caffeine hit if he were going to kill Pilz that evening.
“Ok,” said Pilz with a sigh and a reluctant
