Even if they had listened to Taylor, these weren’t the people that could do anything. He needed to talk to a prosecutor, or better yet, Whitaker needed to get in touch with Joe Solomon. What they really needed was someone high enough to countermand anything Graf ordered.
The longer the van drove, the more Taylor doubted their chances for any of that to happen. Ten minutes passed, and the van kept driving. Taylor didn’t know German procedures, but he assumed they would have taken them to the closest precinct for booking.
Twenty minutes passed, and Taylor started to think he hadn’t given Graf enough credit. They were reaching the outskirts of the city, well away from any of the station's Graf would conceivably take them too. Even if German procedures were different, there wasn’t any conceivable reason they would have taken the pair to a minor station outside of town.
Taylor had assumed the tactical team was whatever group was on call when the banker had her secretary call it in. Taylor was pretty sure now that wasn’t what had happened. The secretary hadn’t called the police. She’d called Graf.
Graf must have had a team of guys he could trust standing by, waiting for Taylor and Whitaker to pop up on the radar again. He would have known they were digging around for evidence of what happened. The fact that they’d shown up at his banker's offices proved him right. Graf was a smart man and would have had to have been prepared. Even if they hadn’t gotten anything from the banker, he couldn’t have afforded to let them start talking. The suggestion Graf was dirty would have been enough to get some of his fellow officers thinking twice, enough so they might notice the next time he was asked to do something.
This was doubly true with Whitaker, who wasn’t just some random suspect. She reported directly to the director of the FBI or had before she’d taken a leave of absence. Her accusation would at least be listened to if it got to one of Graf’s bosses.
When the van pulled to a stop, and the back doors were pulled open, Taylor’s concerns were confirmed. They weren’t at a police station. From all appearances, this was an abandoned, or at least closed construction site.
They were pushed out of the van and then down to their knees a few steps from the van. Taylor tried to turn his head to see what was around them, only to be almost knocked down when one of the men smacked him in the side of the head.
Taylor had stopped thinking of the armed men as cops. It was possible they were all dirty too and working for Graf, but that seemed like a stretch. There would be too much risk in paying off that many actual police officers. More likely, this was some of Graf’s hired muscle dressed like a tactical team.
Graf walked into view as Taylor pulled himself back upright.
“You two have been very busy,” he said, stopping a few steps in front of them. “We know that Fredrick had a notebook he was always writing in. A notebook that was missing from his apartment and wasn’t with the other documents you hid. Where is it?”
They both stared back at him, neither responding.
“I know that the old woman had it, we’ve confirmed that. The only person she would have given it to is you,” he said, stepping up in front of Whitaker. “Tell me where it is.”
Whittaker just stared up at him, hatred covering her face.
Graf stepped back and gave a nod to one of the guards, who hoisted Whitaker up. A second guard stepped forward and smashed the butt of his rifle into Whitaker's stomach, causing her to double over in pain.
Taylor started to force himself up, only to freeze when the muzzle of the guard's gun behind him pressed into the back of his head. Taylor knew there was nothing he could do, considering he was unarmed and handcuffed, and there were about ten guys with guns standing around, but he hadn’t been able to stop the involuntary response to seeing Whitaker hurt.
“This can only get worse for you if you don’t tell me what I need to know.”
“Go to hell,” Whitaker said.
Another nod from Graf sent on of the soldier's fists smashing into the side of Whitaker’s face. She collapsed to the ground, lying on her side in the dirt. The guard behind her pulled her back up into the kneeling position.
“We can keep this up for some time.”
“Good, I like it rough,” she said, spitting blood out into the dirt and sand.
Graf sighed and pulled the weapon out of the holster on his hip. Lifting the gun to point at Taylor’s head but not turning to look at his target, Graf said, “I will ask you this one last time, and then I will shoot your friend. You came to save him last time, so I think you might make the smart decision and do it again, yes?”
Whitaker looked side-eyed at Taylor and then deflated, her head hanging. “It’s at a place called Larger Ort Schivelbeiner near the Arnimplatz.”
“See, that wasn’t hard,” Graf said before looking up at his watch and then at one of the guards. “Give me fifteen minutes to get there and confirm it’s there. If you don’t hear from me by then, kill them. Make it look like they were trying to escape. It will be easier to explain that way.”
Taylor
