Adam Forster followed the signs and found the library. There was only one person at the desk; a small blond with hair to her shoulders. She looked up as he approached.
“Adam Forster!” she said.
Adam looked surprised. “Amy Callaghan?”
“Yes!” She smiled. “I picked you in one. Nick’s description was very good.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, I can only imagine. Anyway, thanks for digging for me, and what did you find on our young projectionist?” Adam leaned over the counter as Amy opened the file and placed it between them.
He looked up at her and then back at the file and picked up the one sheet of paper within it. “Hardly worth creating a file was it?”
Amy laughed. “We like our procedures. He’s a college kid with no priors.”
“I see.” Adam looked at the color image of Lukas Goetz printed on the page. “Nice German-looking lad isn’t he?” He read the information out loud. “Aged nineteen, history student, no priors, parents have nothing more than a speeding fine. Right then, thanks Amy.”
“Anytime.” She smiled.
He walked away and turned back at the door to find her watching him.
“How did Nick describe me?”
Amy cocked her head on the side, choosing her words. “Tall, ponytail and … ”
“And?” Adam prompted.
“Never mind.”
Mitch gathered his team in his office. John joined them.
“We’ve got a few problems,” Mitch began, “so let’s chart this and see how it comes together.”
“Want me to be the whiteboard scribe?” Nick rose.
“No one can read your writing, Nick, you should have been a doctor,” Ellen said. “I’ll do it.”
Nick sighed and sat back down. Mitch paced as Ellen waited at the board.
“Okay, so we’ve got Benjamin Hoefer who seems to be the real deal connected to Eli Hoefer who may not be.”
Ellen wrote the names on the whiteboard with an arrow between them.
“I’ve just found out that Benjamin’s left the country and gone to Germany.”
His team reacted and Mitch continued pacing.
“It looks like the man behind him in the CCTV footage is travelling with him but I’m waiting on identification of him.”
Ellen drew a face with a question mark next to Benjamin Hoefer and connected them with an arrow.
Mitch stopped to look at a file on his desk and then continued. “We saw on the CCTV footage that Ulric Adler was at Benjamin Hoefer’s first book launch at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. He’s the socialist independent candidate, but we’re not allowed to investigate that line.” Mitch glanced to John. “So we don’t know if he was threatening Benjamin or is a fan of his work, or there on some other business.”
Ellen wrote Ulric Adler’s initials and drew the connection with another question mark.
“We have The New Aryan Order … unconnected to Benjamin supposedly, except by the fact that they are a local neo-Nazi group and he has an anti-Nazi book out now. From that organization, Dirk and Thorsten Schmid knew of Benjamin, have read his book and have too much money invested in their organization to not be of concern to us. They may also be related to Julian Schmid who visited Eli Hoefer and claimed to be his great-nephew.”
Ellen wrote up the names, separating them on each side of the board.
“If I could just connect them,” Mitch thought out loud. “We know Benjamin was being threatened by someone … but wouldn’t tell us. Maybe it was Adler, maybe the young projectionist. What’s his name Adam?”
Adam opened the file to look at the one-page with the photo.
“Lukas Goetz, college student, nineteen years old, no priors,” Adam said.
He waited until Ellen added the projectionist’s name to Benjamin Hoefer’s side of the board.
Nick grabbed the file just as Adam was closing it.
“Hold on, we know this kid.” He slid the page over to Ellen. “Wasn’t he at the welcoming party the other night with all the newbies at The New Aryan Order?”
Ellen walked to the table and looked at the photo. “He was. I even spoke to him for a minute or two.”
Mitch’s eyes lit up. “I love it when it comes together.”
He watched as Ellen entered Lukas Goetz’s name on The New Aryan Order side and linked the two sides of the board with an arrow.
“So they organized young Lukas to scare the hell out of Benjamin Hoefer, but why?” Mitch rocked back on the heels of his shoes, hands in pockets as he studied the board. “And we have Betty Lang.” Mitch looked to Adam.
“Yes,” Adam picked up the thread. “Betty who dated Eli for a decade and remembers his nephew, Julian Schmid, arriving from Germany out of the blue. Eli Hoefer also slipped up and said he had a brother, then denied it, then claimed he was a stepbrother.”
Ellen marked up both the brother and stepbrother next to Eli’s name on the board. She drew in another circle and marked it Julian Schmid, nephew to Eli, cousin to Benjamin.
“And Thorsten Schmid denied any knowledge of Julian Schmid when Mitch and I asked the question at our interview,” Adam added.
Mitch stood back and studied the board. “Did I miss anything?”
They turned at a knock at the door. Marcus, the team’s Caribbean I.T. expert from the labs stood there with a file in his hands.
“Thought you might like to know who was travelling with Benjamin.” Marcus handed the file to John, who handed it to Mitch. “The facial recognition software has found your man and I’ve confirmed he left the country on the same flight as Benjamin,” he said.
Mitch took the file. He read the name and looked up at Marcus. “No doubt?”
“No doubt at all.”
“Thanks, Marcus.” He turned back to his team. “Julian Schmid has taken a trip to Germany with Benjamin Hoefer, his supposed cousin.” Mitch walked to the nearest free chair, sank into it and studied the board.
“I hear Berlin is nice this time of year, a bit colder than here.” John turned to him.
“Yeah, I’ll take my translator.” He nodded towards Adam. “Nick, Ellie, you need to continue as Mr. and Mrs. Bauer but report in to John and me each time. You’re in very dangerous territory now.”