“Whitaker, what the hell’s going on out there? Is Taylor with you? We got a notice this morning that he tried to kill Lieutenant Graf and currently has an arrest warrant out for him, too.”
“I’m here,” Taylor said.
“You two need to start explaining.”
“Graf’s dirty,” Whitaker said. “We’re positive he was the one who killed Freida Wissler and are pretty sure he, or whoever he’s working for, had Fredrick Wissler killed, too.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Not enough. We have a video of him walking into Freida’s building about seven minutes before I came back and found her body. He left that out of the video he showed you.”
“That’s not enough. He could say he was visiting someone else.”
“I know. We’re working on getting proof,” Whitaker replied.
“The fact that he said she was the only person seen entering into the building within the time of death and never mentioned he was there in that window says a lot,” Taylor said.
“I agree. The German government filed a formal request for any information on the two of you two hours ago. They also included something about you shooting up a university.”
“We didn’t shoot up anything. We just... needed a diversion,” Whitaker said, looking at Taylor.
“I’ll slow everything down on our end as much as I can, but you two be careful. If you hurt someone, it doesn’t matter if Graf’s dirty, the Germans will want your scalps.”
“We know,” Whitaker said.
“I hope so. They’ll forget petty stuff to sweep him under the rug, but only if you have enough to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that he’s dirty. Do you know who he’s working for? Can you get at him that way?”
“We have some ideas,” Whitaker said, “but it’s all conjecture and wild ass guesses. If it’s who we think it is, though, they’re going to be a lot harder to get to than Graf. We have a plan to get him, which should be enough. We just need some time.”
“I’ll do what I can. I’ll also see if I can get an official request for you to be turned over to us if you're apprehended.”
“They’ll never go for it,” Whitaker said.
“Probably not, but it’s worth a shot.”
Taylor looked over at Whitaker and said, “We could use some support, though. We’ve basically just got the clothes on our backs. If we’re going to make this work, we could use transport.”
Joe was quiet for a long time, long enough that Taylor thought he might have asked for too much.
“I’m friends with the Berlin station chief. They’re used to doing some fairly shady shit. I can probably get them to part with some stuff, no questions asked. If we were to leave a car for you, where would we put it?”
Whitaker gave him an area a few miles from where they currently were.
“Call me back in an hour, and I’ll let you know if I can swing it,” Solomon said and hung up.
“He could have someone put a tracker on the car,” Taylor pointed out as Whitaker shut the power off on the phone.
“He could. Knowing Joe, he might do so, even if he doesn’t plan on handing the information over to the Germans.”
“What, to keep tabs on us?”
“Yeah. He’s a big believer in ‘just in case’ information, even on his friends.”
“A dangerous habit for a man in politics.”
“A necessary one. Joes’ a good cop, but he’s not beyond working leverage to get what he wants. Don’t worry, I know how to check a car for a tracker.”
“I hope so. So now we wait.”
“Yep, now we wait. We can’t do anything until I call my friend back in two hours. Even then, there’s no guarantee she’ll have the information we need, yet. She has to be careful. If her employer knew what she's doing, she’d be out of a job.”
“What to do in the meantime,” Taylor said, looking suggestively at Whitaker.
“I think I have some ideas,” she said, leaning into him.
♦♦♦
Whitaker’s friend came through, when they called her two hours later, in the form of several spreadsheets showing activity to the Graf’s burner phone along with the activity of the numbers that phone had called, all uploaded to a secure cloud drive. It actually turned out better than they could have hoped. The phone that Graf was using was activated the day before Fredrick’s death, which was suggestive in, and of, itself. It had only made two calls until the day Frieda died when Graf started ramping up his usage. Once Taylor had returned with him, Graf’s usage exploded. Taylor could almost track everything they’d done just by looking at the calls that number had made.
There was a call while he was checking out Whitaker’s original hotel room after they found the invoice for the storage locker and another a few hours after they’d been jumped at the locker, probably to see if the third gunman had survived unhurt. There were calls a few hours before the shootout with Grace Sharp and another minute after it ended. There were also a flurry of calls after Whitaker rescued Taylor from Graf’s apartment.
It was all very suggestive, but still circumstantial, and not anywhere near enough to bring down a police lieutenant. Two numbers got used often. One Taylor recognized as the Wissler family trust offices. That wasn’t a surprise either, since they were the only people that made sense as the people really behind Fredrick and Frieda’s deaths. Graf had clearly only been a functionary, and there wasn’t any reason for him to want the couple dead. They were also untouchable, for all intents and purposes.
Caldwell had only managed to get him a low-level meeting, and she was almost a shoo-in to be the next President of the United States. They had connections
