“Maybe we’ve made a bit of progress in getting Martin out, but we’re not even close to stopping Kaminsky,” I was having a go at my RS colleagues again. “We haven’t even got a proper plan yet! Oh, sorry, no. We have a plan: get Martin out and that will somehow magically be enough to stop Kaminsky. Super. Brilliant. Fanfuckingtastic.”
“The two are related, as you are well aware.” Maybe I was giving them a hard time, but Laura could give as good as she got. “And as you also know, we thought we had a few weeks to deal with the situation.”
“So, Kaminsky moved the goalposts. And now it looks like he’s after us. Didn’t you see me march in here wearing a copper’s uniform? Didn’t you hear me tell you I’d just escaped from police custody? We have to act. Like now—so what are we waiting for?”
“Karo’s right,” said Erika. “We need to adjust our plans. They’re coming for us, we have to act now, before they arrest us all. We need something concrete against Kaminsky, something that will discredit him, show how he’s been manipulating the situation to make sure his bill is passed.”
Klaus and Laura were giving each other meaningful looks, it was like they blamed me for the situation we were in.
“I don’t think they’ll try to arrest us here, at least not yet, but no-one should leave this office alone. We always go around in pairs. Anyone not in this office should check in every hour. That way if one of us is arrested we’ll know and can try to do something about it.” Erika had taken over, she had a plan. “Laura, can you contact Antje and see about getting Karo’s arrest warrant revoked? And check whether warrants have been issued for the rest of us. Then you and Klaus can carry on working on Martin’s release, or at least get us a visit. Karo and I will dig a bit deeper, work on these possible connections between Kaminsky, Becker and Giesler.”
“What about the skinhead? He practically admitted he shot Hanna,” I was still proud that I’d found Huber.
“If we had more time we could work on that angle, but we don’t have much to go on,” Klaus joined in the conversation. “Kaminsky is our priority now, and there’s no obvious link between Kaminsky and Huber. I think we need to let Steffen Huber go for the moment, he’s a small cog and he’s holed up in West Berlin where we can’t reach him anyway. We’ll pass his name to the prosecutor once we’ve dealt with Kaminsky.”
Now we were starting to get somewhere—still too much talking, but at least we were making some solid plans. But it all came to a grinding halt when Grit poked her head round the door.
“Just had a call from Ministerin Willehardt’s secretary, it’s bad news. I passed on Klaus’s query about where Martin was standing at the rally, and whether he was close enough to have used a Makarov on Kaminsky and the others. Apparently the Ministerin asked the police for clarification and it took them over a day to get back to her. Now they’re saying there was a mistake in the autopsy report, that she was killed by a …” Grit checked her notes, “a soft nose 7.62×54 mm. They’ve found the casing of a bullet of that type with Martin’s prints on it.”
“Dragunov rifle,” Klaus whispered.
“There’s more: Martin’s escaped, just heard it on the radio. He’s on the run.”
***
“Come on, it’s not all bad news! They’re obviously fabricating evidence against him, I mean, it’s so bleeding obvious, first it was a pistol, now it’s a rifle. They can’t even get their own story straight. And now Martin’s escaped—that’s ace! First I get away from the cops and now Martin has too—go Martin!” This was exciting, this was the best news all week!
Except the others weren’t excited. They looked pretty flabbergasted. Everyone’s eyes and mouths were so wide open that they all looked like goldfish. Except Erika, who was holding her hand in front of her mouth, and goldfish don’t have hands.
“Karo,” said Laura after a moment. She used that patronising tone of voice that made me boil, “This is very bad news. This is going to make it easier for them—the focus now is going to be on Martin, they’ve got evidence against him, but if he’s gone underground then he can’t help us to prove he’s been framed.”
“Is this a bad time?” A quiet voice came from behind Grit.
Schimmel edged around the door, one hand clamped to the frame, the other fidgeting with the zip of his hoodie.
“We’re rather busy at the moment-” started Laura, but Erika interrupted.
“Is it important, Schimmel?” she asked him, but from his face it was obvious that it was important.
“It’s OK, I’ve got this, you carry on.” I took Schimmel into my office, sat him down and listened to what he had to say.
“I looked at that stuff in the envelope, your research on Becker. I didn’t want to look, but it felt stupid ignoring it. Is Becker,” Schimmel swallowed, his eyes met mine for a second, then he looked down at his feet. “Is Becker really involved in framing Martin?”
“We’re pretty sure he is.” I was looking towards the door, wanting to get back to the others, but Schimmel needed to talk.
“Karo, you’ve been telling me for months that I need to move on, and I’ve just been a total pain in the arse, haven’t I?”
“And you kept telling me to back off, but I didn’t. Sorry.”
Schimmel gave me a smile for that, then his head dropped down again. He was trying to work up the courage to say something difficult.
“You’re right Karo, I need to move on. There’s other stuff I need to be doing, and Becker’s already fucked up my life once, I’m not going to let him do it again.” Schimmel’s face moved up until his eyes met mine. “If we get Martin out, if we stop Kaminsky, if we save the Round Tables and all of that—then Becker’s lost hasn’t he?”
“Haven’t you heard? Martin’s on the run, he broke out last night. Now it’s all or nothing. We need to clear Martin’s name and stop Kaminsky from destroying the Round Tables.”
Schimmel did the same goldfish impression as the others. “I want to do my bit, I need to do my bit. Tell me what to do.”
“Can you ring some Round Tables and Workers’ Councils, see whether they’re doing anything about Kaminsky’s bill? If they’re not, put them in touch with the nearest Round Table that is. We’ve got to mobilise them all, even if they just have a big meeting or something, it’s got to be better than letting Kaminsky stomp all over them.”
“I can do that.” Schimmel actually sounded excited. “What about Martin?”
“I don’t know. We’ve only just found out about it. Listen, make a start and I’ll be back in a bit.”
“What do I tell them—shall I say I’m from RS?”
I hesitated—I should have asked the others, but fuck it, we didn’t have time for stupid questions like that. “Tell them you’re ringing from RS.”
***
I went back to Erika’s office. She was adding names and arrows to a big piece of paper on the wall.
“What’s going on?” I asked her.
“We’re making a list of people Martin might contact. He’s going to need help, so the chances are he’ll get in touch with someone.”
“Be serious! We’ve already done all this names and arrows and lines shit, and it didn’t help. Let’s just do something. I mean, if Martin’s going to get hold of us then he will, a list of names on your wall isn’t going to change that, is it?”
“What do you have in mind?” Klaus asked.
“I think we need to be a bit more radical.”
“Ye-es.” Erika said. I could see they were all getting a bit jumpy now, preparing themselves in case I came up with something too radical.
“OK, the only workable theory we’ve got is the one linking Becker and Giesler with Neumann and Steinlein. But we can’t chase up the Becker-Giesler-Huber bit of the equation without Martin’s help. So if we can’t talk to Martin then we should go back to where it all started.”
“What do you mean?” Klaus was leaning forward now, elbows on the table.
“Look, the way I see it, Steinlein and Neumann are cops. They probably produce nearly as much paperwork as we do, and an operation like this with Steinlein working in the field and Neumann behind his desk, I’m guessing they’ve sent about a hundred memos to each other.”
“Well that’s for the public prosecutor-” said Laura but I ignored her.
“Here’s the plan: we break into Neumann’s office.”
I sat down, wondering how they’d react. To their credit they didn’t just say no, they sat there and looked at each other and had a think.
“I know you’re going to say no.” I couldn’t bear the silence any longer. “If anyone’s got another plan then I’m all ears, but at least think about-”
“OK,” said Laura.
“OK? Did you just say OK?”
“I said OK. Let’s hear more about this plan of yours, but you’d better make sure it’s a good one.”