Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(139)

“Jeez,” said Pia without taking her eyes off the street. “I didn’t know you even knew such words.”

“I have kids,” said Bodenstein, slowing down to a crawl. “Do you see the car anywhere?”

“There are hundreds of cars parked around here,” she complained. She had rolled down her window and was peering out into the darkness. Farther up ahead they saw patrol cars with blue lights flashing. Passersby had stopped to stare despite the pouring rain.

“There!” Pia shouted, and Bodenstein jumped. “There they are! Coming out of that parking space!”

She was right. Seconds later the black Mercedes was in front of them, racing south on Baseler Strasse so fast that it was all Bodenstein could do to keep up. They zoomed across Baseler Platz toward the Friedensbrücke, and Bodenstein started praying silently. Pia kept reporting their position over the radio. At seventy-five miles an hour the Mercedes raced down Kennedyallee followed by a column of patrol cars. The police up ahead didn’t try to stop them.

They crossed the bridge and Pia said, “They’re heading for the airport after all” as they passed the Niederr?der racetrack. She had barely gotten those words out when Terlinden whipped his car all the way to the left across three lanes and jumped the curb to skid along the streetcar tracks. Pia could hardly talk fast enough to keep up as Terlinden changed direction. The patrol cars in front were already on the airport approach road and couldn’t turn around, but Bodenstein and Pia stayed behind the Mercedes as it turned onto the Isenburger cutoff in a breakneck maneuver. On the straightaway Terlinden stomped on the gas, and Bodenstein was sweating blood as he was forced to do the same. All of a sudden brake lights lit up in front of him, and the heavy Mercedes fishtailed and wound up in the oncoming lane. Bodenstein braked so hard that his car skidded too. Had Lauterbach shot her hostage at full speed?

“The back tire blew!” yelled Pia, who had grasped the situation at once. “Now they’re not going anywhere.”

After the frantic, crazy chase Terlinden hit his blinker and turned left onto Oberschweinstiege. He chugged along doing twenty-five through the woods, crossed the railroad tracks and pulled into the parking lot a couple of hundred yards farther on. Bodenstein stopped too, and Pia jumped out of the car and motioned to her colleagues in the patrol cars to surround the Mercedes. Then she got back inside. Bodenstein instructed everybody via radio to stay in their cars. Daniela Lauterbach was still armed. He didn’t want to run any unnecessary risk and place his colleagues’ lives in danger, especially since a SWAT team would arrive shortly. But then the driver’s side door of the Mercedes opened. Bodenstein held his breath. Terlinden got out. He staggered slightly, held on to the open car door and looked around. Then he raised his hands in the air. He stood there motionless in the beam of the headlights.

“What’s happening?” the radio squawked.

“He stopped the car and got out,” said Bodenstein. “We’re going over there.”

He nodded to Pia, and they got out and approached Terlinden. Pia had her weapon aimed at the Mercedes, ready to fire at the slightest movement.

“Don’t shoot,” said Claudius Terlinden, dropping his arms. Pia’s nerves were tensed to the breaking point as she tore open the rear door of the Mercedes and aimed inside. Then she lowered her gun, feeling only boundless disappointment. The back seat was empty.

* * *



“All of a sudden she was standing there in my office with a pistol aimed at me.” Claudius Terlinden was speaking haltingly. Slumped and pale, he sat at the narrow table in one of the police vans. He was obviously in shock.

“Go on,” Bodenstein urged him. Terlinden wanted to rub his hand over his face, but then he remembered that he was wearing handcuffs. Despite his allergy to nickel, thought Pia cynically, watching him without sympathy.

“She … she forced me to open the safe,” Terlinden went on in a shaky voice. “I can’t remember exactly what happened. Down in the lobby Tobias showed up all at once. With the girl. He—”

“With what girl?” Pia interrupted.

“With that … that … I can’t remember her name.”

“Amelie?”

“Right. Yes, I guess that’s her name.”

“Good. Keep talking.”

“Daniela shot Tobias without hesitating. Then she forced me to get into the car.”

“What about Amelie?”

“I don’t know.” Terlinden shrugged. “I don’t know anything anymore. I just had to drive and keep driving. She told me which way to go.”

“And she got out at the train station,” said Bodenstein.

“Yes. She yelled ‘Now turn right!’ and then ‘Now left!’ I did exactly as she said.”

“I can understand that.” Bodenstein nodded, then leaned over. His voice turned sharp. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t get out at the train station too. Why lead us on a dangerous chase through the city? Do you have any idea how easily you could have caused an accident?”

Pia chewed her lip and kept her eyes on Terlinden. Just as Bodenstein turned to her, Claudius Terlinden made a mistake. He did something that nobody in shock would do: He glanced at his watch.

“You’re lying through your teeth!” Pia shouted at him. “It was all a prearranged plot. You were just playing for time. Where is Lauterbach?”