Gage’s curiosity grew. As the afternoon waned, he dug deeper, amazed at how deftly Rainer Schulz avoided being caught in the middle of such situations. Like the most skilled of politicians, he was truly a man of Teflon.
Finally, on a bit of a whim, Gage phoned Michael Boden’s personal cellphone and left a message. The Hessen Ministerpräsident called back inside of an hour, just before 6 P.M. After brief pleasantries, Gage asked if he could assist in setting up a private meeting with Rainer Schulz.
“Rainer Schulz?” Boden asked, clearly surprised.
“Yes, sir.”
“I assume you want to discuss some sort of business he and Karl Vogel had together?”
“That’s correct. My questions are informal and aimed only at settling the estate. The way Schulz is dodging me, he probably thinks I have bad intentions.”
“Have you found any evidence they did indeed work together?”
“Just word-of-mouth from Ina and Katja.”
Boden paused. “Gage, you do realize he and Karl grew away from one another? Far away.”
“Were they enemies?”
“I wouldn’t go to that extreme—just a falling out.”
“Why?”
“No one knows, at least, not that I’m aware. Just so you know, Frau Claudia didn’t care for Rainer Schulz. Whenever I asked about him, she clammed up.”
“Karl didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“Well, regardless, I think it would be good for me to talk with him,” Gage added. “Can you help?”
“I’d like to think so, but he’s rather reclusive. Let me see what I can do.”
That ended that conversation.
To Gage’s surprise, Boden called back within the hour. “Can you be in Berlin tomorrow afternoon?”
“That soon?”
“He’s giving you fifteen minutes and not a minute more. His words.”
“Yes, I can be there.”
“Good. I’m glad I was able to reach him.”
“What did you tell him?” Gage asked.
“Purely that you’re helping settle the Vogel estate and you’d like to briefly speak with him. That was all.”
“Any advice?”
“Don’t bullshit him,” Boden warned. “Be direct and honest. He’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. He has a gift for reading people and cutting to the essence of motivations.”
“Sir, do you think he and Karl Vogel could have been involved in illegal business?”
The Ministerpräsident was silent for a moment. “Possibly.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I’d guess it would be related to real estate, but that’s purely a guess based on Karl’s expertise. And, Gage, you can’t allow my opinions to ever see the light of day.”
“I understand, sir. Thanks for your help.”
“Just don’t forget what I said.”
“No bullshit.”
“Ja wohl.”
Gage hung up the phone and spent the rest of the evening learning everything he could about the reclusive German who was the subject of so many accusations but zero convictions.
Tomorrow promised to be interesting.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
With the funeral looming tomorrow, Gage made plans to travel to Berlin and back in the same day. Thomas would look after Sheriff, who would again go home with him for the night. Gage wasn’t exactly sure what time he’d be back, although he knew it would be late—the last train arrived in Friedberg well after midnight. While it would make for a lengthy two-way journey, he was pleased that things seemed to be progressing—although he remained open to the possibility that pursuing the Rainer Schulz lead could be nothing more than a wild goose chase. Unfortunately for Gage, his leg and buttocks hurt more today than they had yesterday, which didn’t even seem possible. It felt as if a butcher had taken a meat mallet to the back of his leg, tenderizing it. Still, Gage didn’t intend to let the soft tissue injury slow him—he doggedly forced himself to walk without a limp, nearly cracking his teeth in the process.
He made the longest leg of the trip to Berlin via one of Deutsche Bahn’s famed ICE trains. The bullet train was currently in a turn, banking hydraulically with the curve. The banking system had been designed so the current speed of 246 kilometers per hour didn’t send the cars off the tracks, and hundreds of people hurtling to their deaths. Despite the high-speed turn, Gage was on his feet, as he had been for half the trip. He was walking the length of the train for the sixth time, not caring about the dirty looks from the passengers and Deutsche Bahn employees who were no doubt annoyed with his constant pacing. The movement hurt, but it felt a helluva lot better than sitting still.
Berlin was less than an hour away—Gage had departed Friedberg before sunup. Rainer Schulz’s assistant had requested Gage meet Schulz in a coffee shop near the base of the tourist attraction Fernsehturm—a curiously crowded meeting location for such a wealthy and cloistered man.
By most accounts Gage had read, Schulz was tantalizingly close to the global distinction of being a billionaire. A few so-called financial experts claimed that Schulz might even be worth several billion, but there was no way of knowing, as implications of offshore bank accounts and tax evasion were liberally bandied about. Regardless of the exact amount, it was an amazing feat for a man who’d never owned a single company before his current anonymous enterprise. He’d been extremely young to be named the head of the Treuhandanstalt, which oddly enough translated to “trust agency”—a moniker many Germans would argue was ironic. The agency was set up to systematically privatize thousands of East German businesses that had been government-owned during their communist period. This process took many years, and Schulz’s critics contended that he lined his pockets with bribes, skim, false billings, rounding errors, and a host of other income
