Cosima hadn’t budged. She was still standing behind the easy chair and now watched Oliver open the suitcase and pack it with the contents of his wardrobe.
“This is your house,” she said after a while. “You don’t have to move out.”
“But I’m going to.” He didn’t look at her. “It was our house. I don’t want to live here anymore. I can use the apartment in the old carriage house at the estate, it’s been empty for a while. That’s the best solution. Then when you’re traveling, my parents or Quentin and Marie-Louise can take care of Sophia.”
“Well, that was fast,” Cosima said sharply. “So you’ve already written off the whole marriage.”
Oliver sighed.
“No, it wasn’t me,” he said. “It was you. I merely accepted your decision, the way I’ve always done. And now I’m trying to figure out the new situation. You’ve chosen another man, and I can’t do anything about that. But I intend to keep on living in spite of it.”
For a second he considered telling Cosima about spending the night with Nicola. He remembered some pointed remarks that Cosima had made about Nicola, since she knew he was working with his ex. But that would have been a cheap shot and beneath him.
“Alexander and I work together,” Cosima said. “I haven’t ‘chosen’ him, as you put it.”
Oliver continued stacking his shirts in the suitcases.
“But maybe he’s a better fit for you than I ever was.” He looked up. “Why, Cosima? Have there been so few adventures in your life?”
“No, that’s not it.” She shrugged. “There isn’t any reasonable explanation. And no excuse for it either. Alex simply crossed my path at the wrong time. I was so pissed off at you on Mallorca.”
“So you just jumped into bed with him. Because you were pissed off at me.” Oliver shook his head and closed one of the suitcases. He straightened up. “Well, that’s just great.”
“Oliver, please don’t throw everything away.” Cosima pleaded. “I made a mistake, I know. And I’m truly sorry. But there are so many things that still bind us.”
“And even more that divide us,” he replied. “I will never be able to trust you again, Cosima. And I cannot and will not live without trust.”
Bodenstein left her standing there and went into the bathroom across the hall. He closed the door behind him, undressed, and got in the shower. Under the hot water his cramped muscles relaxed and the tension eased a bit. His thoughts drifted to the previous night and then to the many nights to come in his life. Never again would he lie awake tormenting himself with worry about what Cosima was doing on the other side of the globe, whether things were going well, whether she was in danger, had had an accident, or was even in bed with another guy. It surprised him that this new scenario did not make him feel melancholy, only deeply relieved. He could no longer live according to Cosima’s rules of the game. In fact, he decided at this very moment never to live according to any rules but his own.
* * *
He hoped that they hadn’t arrived too late, but they had been waiting for less than fifteen minutes in the car when the black Mercedes drove up and stopped briefly in front of the spike-topped gate of the Terlinden plant. As if by magic the gate slid to one side. The brake lights of the Mercedes went out as it moved forward.
“Okay, go!” said Tobias. They jumped out of the car, ran like mad, and just made it through the gate before it closed. The gatehouse was empty. At night only the cameras watched the grounds. There hadn’t been any security service for quite a while, as Tobias had learned from his friend Michael, who worked at the Terlinden plant. Had worked, he corrected himself. Now Michael was in the slammer, just like J?rg and Felix and Nadia.
A light snowfall had started. Silently they followed the tire tracks that Terlinden’s Mercedes had left. Tobias slowed down a bit. Amelie’s hand felt ice cold in his. During the days of her imprisonment she had lost a lot of weight, and was really too weak to take part in an escapade like this. But she had insisted on coming with him. Without speaking they walked past the big workshops. When they turned the corner they saw the lights go on in the top floor of the administration building. Near the front entrance stood the black Mercedes in the orange glow of the portal’s lights. Tobias and Amelie dashed across the unlit parking lot and reached the entrance of the building.
“The door isn’t locked,” Amelie whispered.
“I’d rather you wait here,” said Tobias and looked at her. Her eyes seemed gigantic in her sharp, pale face, but she shook her head firmly.
“No way. I’m coming with you.”
“All right then.” He took a deep breath and then gave her a big hug. “Thanks, Amelie. Thanks for everything.”
“Stop screwing around,” she answered gruffly. “Let’s go in.”
A smile flitted across his face and he nodded. They crossed the big lobby, went past the elevator, and entered the stairwell, which was also unlocked. Claudius Terlinden didn’t seem to be afraid of break-ins. By the time they reached the fifth floor Amelie was out of breath and had to lean on the banister for a moment. The heavy glass door clacked when Tobias opened it. He paused briefly and listened in the dark hallways, which were only dimly lit by tiny lamps near the floor. Hand in hand they crept along the hallway. Tobias could feel his heart hammering with tension. He stopped when he heard the voice of Claudius Terlinden coming from the half-open door of a room at the end of the hall.
“… hurry. If it starts snowing any harder the plane might not even start.”
Tobias and Amelie exchanged a glance. Terlinden seemed to be on the phone. Apparently they had arrived in the nick of time, because it sounded as though he wanted to take off in a plane for parts unknown. They went closer. Suddenly they heard a second voice. Amelie gave a start when she heard it and grabbed Tobias’s hand.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Dr. Daniela Lauterbach. “Why are you just standing around like this?”
The door opened all the way and bright light flooded into the hallway. Tobias managed to open the door of an office behind him just in time. He shoved Amelie into the dark and stood next to her, his heart pounding.
“Shit, what’s she doing here?” Amelie whispered in bewilderment. “She tried to kill me and Thies! And Terlinden knows that!”
Tobias nodded nervously. He was trying to figure out how he could stop the two. He had to prevent them from getting on that plane and disappearing forever. If he were alone he would have simply confronted them. But there was no way he was going to put Amelie in any danger. His eyes fell on the desk in the room.
“Hide under there,” he said softly. Amelie tried to protest, but Tobias insisted. He waited until she had crept under the desk, then he lifted the receiver of the telephone and pressed it to his ear. In the faint glow from the exterior lighting he could hardly see a thing. He pressed a button and hoped that it would get him an outside line. And it did. With shaking fingers he dialed the police.
* * *
Terlinden was standing in front of the open safe, absentmindedly massaging his sore neck with one hand and staring into space. He hadn’t really recovered from the accident at the hospital. He still felt like his heart was going to stop for a couple of beats. Could it be the result of having his supply of oxygen cut off for a few moments? Hartmut Sartorius had attacked him like a madman, choking him with unexpected power until he saw flashes of light before his eyes. For a few seconds he was sure that his last hour had come. He had never been physically attacked before, and the idea of being “scared to death” had been an empty cliché until today. But now he knew how it felt to look death in the eye. He couldn’t remember how he managed to escape from the viselike grip of that maniac, but suddenly Sartorius was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. It was horrible, absolutely horrible! Claudius Terlinden realized that he was still in shock.
His gaze fell on Daniela, who was kneeling under his desk and screwing the computer housing back together with an expression of concentration. The hard drive, which she had replaced with another one, was already in one of the suitcases. Daniela had insisted on doing this, although he thought it was unnecessary. He hadn’t saved anything on his computer that would interest the police. Everything was turning out differently than he had planned. In hindsight Claudius Terlinden had to acknowledge that the cover-up of Lars’s involvement in the murder of Laura Wagner had been a grave mistake. He hadn’t sufficiently considered what the consequences might be if he took the boy out of the line of fire. This single decision, which he’d thought so insignificant, had made dozens of others necessary. The web of lies had become so tangled and confused that it had resulted in regrettable but unavoidable collateral damage. If those stupid farmers had only listened to him instead of taking matters in their own hands, nothing would have happened. Then the tiny rip in the fabric that occurred after the return of Tobias Sartorius rapidly turned into a huge hole, a yawning black abyss. Terlinden’s whole life, his rules, the daily rituals that gave him security—all of it was swept along by this maelstrom of infernal events.
“What’s wrong with you? Why are you just standing there?”
Daniela’s voice tore him out of his musings. With a groan she got to her feet and looked him up and down with a contemptuous expression on her face. Claudius Terlinden noticed that he was still holding his throat, and he turned away. She must have realized long ago that everything might fall apart one day. Her escape plan was perfect and had been worked out to the tiniest detail. But it left him cold. New Zealand? What would he do there? This was the center of his life, here in this village, in this building, in this room. He didn’t want to leave Germany, even if the worst-case scenario meant he’d spend a couple of years in jail. The thought of sitting in some foreign country with a false identity made him uncomfortable, even afraid. Here he was somebody, people knew him and respected him, and he was sure that everything would eventually calm down. In New Zealand he would be a nothing, a nameless refugee, forever and ever.
He looked around the big room. Was he really seeing all this today for the last time? Never again to walk into his house, visit the graves of his parents and grandparents in the cemetery, look out at the familiar panorama of the Taunus? The prospect was unbearable and actually brought tears to his eyes. He had fought so hard to take the life work of his forefathers to even greater heights. Could he really leave it all behind and walk away?
“Come on, Claudius, let’s get out of here!” Daniela’s voice had a piercing sound. “It’s snowing even harder outside. We have to go.”
He shoved the documents that he wanted to leave into the safe. His hand happened to touch the box in which he kept the pistol.
I don’t want to leave, he thought. I’d rather kill myself.
He froze. Where had that thought come from? He had never understood how anyone could be so cowardly as to see suicide as the only way out. But everything was different now that death had grinned in his face.
“Is there anyone besides us in the building?” Daniela asked.
“No,” Terlinden croaked and took the box with the gun out of the safe.
“Then why is the outside line busy?” She bent over the telephone in the middle of his desk. “Extension twenty-three.”
“That’s bookkeeping. There’s nobody there.”
“Did you lock the door behind us when we came in the building?”
“No.” He snapped out of his paralysis, opened the box, and looked at the Beretta.
* * *