Manfred Shultz had not thought twice before shooting two bullets into the chest area of the criminal. Once they had detained the rest of the gang, who gave up readily after the shooting, he moved over to the body, which was outstretched at the top of the entrance to the subway lines. Travellers in the area had screamed and backed away from the entrance to one of the many food outlets in the station.
Shultz removed the mask; it was a young girl of Albanian descent, no more than thirteen years old. He just stood there, motionless, staring as the blood seeped around his boots.
German beer is good; too good. But it could not take away the pain Shultz felt. The guilt over the child, along with the guilt over arguing with his wife before she went missing, consumed him. He knew three things; he did not kill her, and she would have never killed herself and murdered their unborn child, and thirdly, the beer was not helping, so he had stopped his drinking.
Manfred Shultz was six feet of muscle, with an athletic build, fair hair, blue eyes, and Germanic features. Post 9/11 he had run away at sixteen and joined the Foreign Legion. He was annoyed that the German Army could not participate in any retaliation, and he wanted revenge. His older brother had been in the South Tower when it collapsed. Manfred had trained and fought with the Legion over Algeria and other countries they were not supposed to be in. He returned in 2005 and joined the elite squad of police.
Time was cruel; a lot had happened in a year. He had passed the police entrance and subsequent German Special Forces training. He had gunned down a child, married his childhood sweetheart, and lost his wife and unborn baby. Now the first week back on duty here he was, in the same train station he had shot the young girl. Had the shooting given him post-traumatic stress syndrome, or had it been the loss of his wife? Manfred knew he had reached the bottom of the barrel and did not have the energy for the fight back up. Manfred stepped off the platform as the 8:28 am to Nuremberg was leaving the station, wanting the pain to stop. Large hands grappled at his shoulders and dragged him back from the rail lines. Manfred turned to see the sympathetic look from the station master; Sebastian had not claimed another victim.
Chapter Ten
Cutler landed at Seattle Airport tired and irritable. He was met at immigration control by Conan Dreyfuss, a Secret Service agent based in the city of Seattle. Brad Hemmingway, Cutler’s head of department, had arranged the assistance for Cutler, knowing his prodigy would need as much help as possible when he arrived.
Dreifuss brought Cutler up to date on the location of the Oceanic Discoverer, the ship Elisa had disappeared from. The ship was due in Vancouver within the next four hours. Dreyfuss relayed to Cutler that his parents had insisted on staying in Juneau while the sea search continued.
He did not have to tell Cutler that thirty minutes after entering the water she would have been dead from the intense cold of the water. Instead, he just raised his palms upwards in a gesture of futility.
Dreyfuss stayed with him until Cutler boarded the 11:30 am flight to Vancouver, a flight of less than one hour in duration.
He had organized a Canadian police officer to pick Cutler up from Vancouver International Airport and drive him to the seaport where the ship would be docking in the next hour. The officer tried to engage Cutler in banal conversation; he gave up trying when it became apparent that his charge was not in the best of moods for trivia.
Cutler watched the ship dock from beneath the overhang of the roof of the embarkation hall. The Victoria rain put a watery curtain on the scene, with high visibility coats hanging onto ropes and securing the boat the quay.
Accompanied by the Canadian police officer, Cutler was able to bypass the security checks and they walked through the baggage reclaim area, which was a big, empty space with a roof and gray aluminum panels for walls. There was a hive of activity as dockside porters offloaded the never-ending stream of small, medium, large, extra-large, massive, blue, brown, and polka-dotted bags. The bags had been placed in lanes in readiness for the guests to depart.
Immediately Cutler’s spirits dropped, as he had not realized this was the disembarkation port, the final destination where everyone left the ship. He thought the last port would be Seattle, the port from where all the guests had embarked.
Cutler bypassed the long, high escalator and took the stairs up to the main terminus. He needed security passes to gain permission to enter the vessel from the immigration officers on duty. The police officer remained in the terminus, relieved that he was able to get a hot cup of tea.
Cutler was escorted the short distance across the enclosed gantry, which rose at a slight angle to emerge on the ship’s fourth deck. He was escorted to the captain’s quarters. Cutler had to wait for half an hour before the captain came down and invited him into his office adjoining his quarters.
The captain was a stocky man, his perfectly crisp white shirt straining at the seams. Captain Jjordsen was of Viking descent and followed a long tradition of Nordic captains. He sported
