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  Instead, it was the doorman who staggered outside as if drunk, except for the blood running from a wound at his temple. He held a handkerchief against his head, stained red. Blood trickled down his chin and neck.

  ‘Help!’, he croaked.

  Borges had already drawn her service weapon and ran toward him. At the same time Jablonski jumped from the Crown Vic and ran to the aid of the wounded man.

  Borges flashed her identity card.

  ‘FBI, sir. What happened?’

  The doorman stared at them as if they were ghosts. Quite obviously, he was stunned and still in shock. But then he managed to answer with some difficulty.

  ‘Two men came in hall. Before the security camera could turn, they donned masks. I tried to push the alarm button, but one jumped over the table and knocked me over with his revolver. Everything happened so quickly, I …’

  ‘We need assistance and an ambulance. Jablonski mumbled and reached for his mobile. Borges took care of the wounded man.

  ‘Help is coming for you, sir. How long have you been unconscious?’

  ‘I don’t know, maybe only a few minutes.’

  Borges thought quickly. No doubt the two masked man had planned to pay a – not so friendly – visit. She had observed the two men who had entered the building earlier. Two men with briefcases, in dark suits, were hardly suspicious in this part of Manhattan. They could have been bankers or businessmen.

  Who could guess the briefcases held masks and guns?

  She looked at her watch.

  It could be not much more than six minutes since the men had walked into the building. Despite her lack of experience in her new tasks, she realized the time span was long enough for all kinds of mayhem to occur.

  She turned back to the doorman.

  ‘My partner has called for an ambulance that should be here in a short time. Sit down on the step. You’re safe here.’

  The wounded man showed doubts about her words, but he obeyed.

  Behind them, a small crowd of onlookers had already gathered. But at least they kept their distance while their smartphones filmed the incident from all sides. Borges had little time to intervene.

  We must stop these masked men before they can cause more trouble. Berger has an apartment on the eleventh floor, right?’

  ‘Right. But I think we better wait for the SWAT team.’

  Borges ignored his advice and marched into the lobby. There were two lifts. One of them had halted at the fifteenth floor. The lighted numbers of the other showed it was closing on the ground floor.

  ‘You do what you want,’ Jablonski mumbled. He too had drawn his pistol.

  Borges shrugged.

  ‘You can blame me if the boss asks questions.’

  ‘And you know I would never do that.’

  She fluttered her eyelids at him.

  ‘My hero in shining armor.’

  ‘And you not even a platinum blonde!’

  When the lift door opened, the two agents were prepared for every kind of event. But it proved to be empty. All they discovered was a faint smell of expensive aftershave.

  Without a word they entered. The heavily-set agent pressed the button for number 11. Borges’ heart hammered against her chest as the lift rose. She wore her bullet-proof vest and repeated silently the instructions she had learned during her weapons training. This was probably the first time she would have to put all to the test. The first time, because she had never been forced to use her gun.

  Now she asked herself if it might not have been better to follow her partner’s advise and wait for the cavalry. But it was too late already.

  A quiet bell sounded and the door to the eleventh floor slid back.

  The door to the apartment gaped wide open. The agents entered slowly and carefully, guarding each other.

  It seemed as if they were about to enter a slaughterhouse.

  3

  A few minutes earlier, Kea’s world had collapsed.

  The noise was that of bottles of champagne popping their corks. In reality the masked mean fired their silenced weapons at Tom.

  And hit him.

  Her cry of despair filled her throat as the bullets struck the body of her friend, her lover. The larger of the attackers shot twice in rapid succession. One projectile found Tom’s chest, the second his head.

  Blood sprayed Kea’s face. She stood rigid with the sudden horror. She should have thrown herself to the floor or found some form of cover, anything but it was as if she were unable to move, even to think of her own safety.

  Her heart raced, the blood pounded in her head, and she felt suddenly giddy. She might have fallen, but it seemed as if her feet had been nailed to the floor.

  The bullet from the second man had found its target a split-second later. He only pulled the trigger once.

  The projectile struck Tom’s hip.

  The impact was hard enough to send him tumbling to the floor. His eyes were wide open and his mouth gaped as if fighting for air that would never come.

  It was over.

  She failed to understand the reason for the unexpected, unprovoked violence. Was it just a senseless, murderous attempt at a robbery? But why had there been no warning before the two had used their guns?

  She struggled to find an answer as the masked duo turned on her.

  But before they could point their weapons against her, the grid of the ventilation shaft crashed from the wall and clattered to the floor.

  An instant later, the figure of a woman slid from the opening. Slim, lithe and dressed in simple denim overalls.

  Hardly likely to be a cleaner.

  That thought flashed through Kea’s mind as the woman drew a throwing knife that flashed through the air. It found the throat of the taller of the gunmen and almost severed it from ear to ear. The gun dropped from his hand as he reached with a rasping sound of air for his neck Blood squirted from between his fingers.

  ‘Jimmy …’ The second gunman whispered in disbelief. He received no answer. A second knife found his chest and sent him stumbling to the ground before he could raise his own gun again. The hilt of the weapon trembled as he fell over his companion and the blood under the two assassins collected around their lifeless bodies.

  The strange woman stepped over the dead men and knelt beside Tom, touched his neck with the tips of her fingers. Only now did Kea realize she wore thin, black leather gloves.

  She was dark-haired and good-looking, although frightening, as she lifted her eyes to stare at Kea. There was a smell of grease and cheap perfume about her, a penetrating mixture, Kea realized with wonder, noticing such details in her present predicament. It seemed her mind could not deal with what had happened in a few seconds.

  Tom was dead!

  The strange woman’s voice confirmed Kea’s fear.

  ‘Damn! Those dumbfucks have finished Tom --- where in hell is Adrian?’

  The question was directed at Kea. The unknown woman spoke a slightly accented English. Although she understood her perfectly well, Kea had no answer, not even the faintest idea what was going on. All the same, she could not hold back the tears that suddenly welled up. The first reaction to the butchery she had been part of.

  The woman gripped her wrist.

  ‘Stop crying, damn it! You’ll have plenty of reasons to start the waterworks when I’ve finished with you. Come on, we’ve got to get away from here. I bet the FBI had Tom in their sights already. The Feds can turn up any minute.’

  Kea had no idea what all these words meant.

  But she was too afraid to voice any objections.

  The stranger pulled her away from the grizzly scene. She opened the door to the emergency stairway. It’s air was stale and the neon lights flickered.

  Kea had to concentrate on the steep concrete steps. It seemed as if she could not follow any sensible thought. Her mind repeated the same mantra over and over again.

  ‘Tom is dead! Tom is dead! Tom is dead!’

  And this knife-wielding, half wild wo
man knew his name. That was bad enough.

  She could hardly breathe. It was the stress of the situation, her total ignorance of what was going on. She fought for air.

  The woman halted and turned toward her.

  ‘Are you trying to fool me?’

  ‘N … no, I …’

  Kea opened her still weeping eyes wide, her chest heaving. It was as if she could not fill her lungs with air.

  ‘We’ll have that fixed in a sec, honey,’ the stranger announced.

  A fist exploded against Kea’s stomach and almost doubled her over. But its real pain suppressed the fear of asphyxiation. Kea coughed hard, but least she could breathe again.

  ‘You can thank me later,’ her strange companion said and forced Kea down the last few steps. They reached a metal door that led to the back of the building. The yard was untidy and smelled of litter and rat droppings. Her unknown rescuer led her to an ancient, battered Chevrolet and opened the boot. Suddenly she held a small pistol in one hand.

  ‘Get in!’

  Kea’s heart stopped for a beat. After Tom had died, she had not wanted to live any longer at first. But now she clung to life.

  She had no wish to end her last seconds in this dirty back yard without knowing why she would have to die, without answers. She climbed into the boot of the Chevrolet.

  The stranger slammed the boot lid over her.

  ‘Welcome in the bloody US of A!’

  4

  Borges and Jablonski needed less than three minutes to check the apartment. The muscular agent pointed his chin toward the half-open door to the emergency stairs.

  ‘Looks like the killers left that way. Do you think the German girl has played an active part in this massacre?’

  Borges shook her head. She walked carefully – to avoid the blood – between the bodies of the two masked men and the dead Tom Berger, inspecting the floor.

  ‘We only have a window of a few minutes, Chuck. Call the office! We need a check of all the traffic cameras in the area of twenty blocks. We don’t know if the killer is making his getaway in his car. That’s my starting point. I assume he has taken Kea Kuhn hostage, and he can’t very well tuck her under his arm. If Lady Luck is kind to us, we might get a lead if his driving is erratic.’

  Jablonski nodded and called in to relay what information he could give. Federal Plaza confirmed within minutes: ‘They’ll do what they can.’

  ‘O.K. Let’s try to get to the bottom of this.’ Borges mumbled. ‘For a start, I don’t quite believe the suspect is male, I have the idea, the two masked men were killed by a woman.’

  Jablonski raised a critical eyebrow. ‘What makes you think that?’

  Borges squatted down beside one of the bodies.

  ‘I think it went like this: The great love from Germany enters. Before they can christen the bed, two gangsters arrive and kill Berger without a long discussion. Next, they have his bit of entertainment in sight. But then a new player enters the scene. The female killer.’

  With a dramatic gesture Borges pointed to the ventilation shaft and the plastic grid on the floor.

  ‘That would mean the woman had to be in real good shape.’ Her male colleague suggested.

  ‘And without your broad shoulders, Chuck. --- Whatever, she finished off the culprits with throwing knives. A very unusual method, by the way. It may be worth our while to have the database searched for such known suspects. In any case, she takes, either by force or persuasion, the German woman with her and flees via the emergency exit.’

  ‘But why do you think it was a woman who killed the two heavies, Lenita? A fairly slender man could have used the air shaft.’

  Borges nodded. ‘True, but look at the shoe imprints a little closer. Both women walked over the spilled blood and left signs on the carpet’.

  Jablonski bent down.

  ‘These imprints could still belong to a slender man.’ He said stubbornly. ‘You’re right with one pair of shoes. They definitely belong to a lady. But the others look as if they are a pair of light trainers. So they could well have been those of a man.’

  ‘Let’s not argue between us. The experts should soon enough shed light on the darkness.’ Borges avoided a lengthy argument. ‘Let’s try to find out, with whom we are dealing here.’

  She donned a pair of Latex gloves and removed the masks from the two dead men’s heads.

  Borges frowned.

  ‘Their faces tell me nothing.’

  ‘But they do to me.’ Jablonski said triumphantly. ‘They are Mike Callahan and Louie Murray. Two hard men of the Irish mob. They’re both in Old Barns’ pay.’

  Borges whistled softly.

  ‘Ah, I think I get the drift! The old gangster has a problem, ever since his grandson disappeared without trace. But why did he want Berger killed, instead of trying to find out where the boy might be held, by lighting a fire under Tom Berger’s feet? Unless young Adrian has already been killed in Europe.’

  5

  Kea felt as if the boot of the car was a mobile coffin.

  The Chevrolet swung from side to side, stopped at times – presumably at a traffic light – or swayed in a tight bend. All Kea could hear over the engine noise was the sound of traffic or blasting of radios or distant police sirens. Her prison smelled of petrol.

  She felt around her. The spare wheel was readily identified by its shape and smell of rubber, And there was a small petrol can. Suddenly she saw a way to end her ordeal – and her life.

  Her handbag held a lighter, although she did not even smoke. It belonged to her friend Jasmin, who had left it in a restaurant when she had been called away and had since forgotten about it.

  It would be simple. All she had to do was to open the petrol can and soak her clothes in its contents. And then the lighter … whoosh!

  She started to search though her handbag while the whole terrible situation kept circling in her mind.

  She could not understand why Tom had been killed. And who was this woman, who now carried her to some unknown destination and fate? In all likelihood, she owed her life to this fury, but she felt no gratitude. She just wanted to be dead, freed from the awful pain that filled her. She was alone on a foreign continent, far from home. The future she had dreamed about had died in an instant with Tom. What could she do in this alien land with no money, no friends, no hope?

  Apart from the certainty that this mad knife-wielding fury would kill her anyway. Would it not be better to take her own life, however much that prospect frightened her?

  Never once in her life had Kea thought of killing herself. But everything had changed. Tom had been ripped from this world which had no longer anything to offer her.

  The lighter grew warmer in her hand. She wanted to reach for the petrol can but it might be best to test first that the thing still worked. What if she soaked herself in petrol and the lighter failed to work?

  She pushed the button. Nothing happened.

  Had she done something wrong or was she simply too stupid to even work the damned thing.? She tried again. Nothing, not a spark! Then it slipped from her fingers. She groped for it in the dark and recovered it after a frantic search. But still it failed to function. Was it a sign, a warning? She was so involved, she did not notice that the car had stopped.

  The boot lid was raised. When her unknown abductor saw the lighter, she knocked it with one blow from Kea’s hand.

  ‘Are you mad? You won’t get away so easily! Did you think you might escape me as a human torch? Forget it. That’s not in the manual.’

  ‘You shouldn‘t have left the petrol in the boot!’

  Kea had no idea why she burst out with this reproach. Normally she was calm and friendly. But it seemed as everything had changed. Perhaps it was the sight of certain death before her.

  The stranger slapped her hard. Then she grabbed Kea by the back of her neck like a disobedient pet and pulled her from the Chevrolet.

  A glance around told Kea they had stopped inside a once busy factory. The roof l
ights had long been shattered and showed the grey New York sky. Rusted machinery told of long ceased production. Puddles of rainwater had formed on the uneven, broken floor, shimmering with oily lights. Graffiti filled most of the available walls. Her captor pushed her toward a smaller room that might once have been the office of a foreman or manager. She used a length of wire to tie her to a wooden chair, then glanced at Kea from top to bottom.

  ‘Time for a little talk. Do you know who I am?’

  ‘No.’ Kea replied truthfully.

  ‘My name is Lucia. And I have loved Adrian from the first moment he was born. I would do anything for him. Do you understand that?’

  ‘I don’t even know who Adrian is.’

  ‘Wrong answer.’ Lucia reached for Kea’s handbag. ‘You want to end like your lover-boy?’

  ‘Don’t call him that!’ Kea answered with a sob. ‘We were going … he had … why did Tom have to die?’

  Lucia raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Counter question. Why did your Tom travel to the USA?’

  ‘He planned to open a start-up-company.’

  Lucia snorted with derision.

  ‘Of course. A kidnapping start-up.’

  ‘Why do you say that? You didn’t even know Tom.’

  The dark-haired woman bent forward so that their noses almost touched. ‘How do you know that, ha? Do you think I climbed through the air shaft to this luxury apartment by accident? By the way, I am sorry your friend is dead. But only because I can’t squeeze a few answers out of him.’

  Kea’s throat felt a dry as dust. When did she last have a drink? That must have been on the plane. A Coca Cola in anticipation of her new homeland as she had joked. Right now she felt desperately thirsty. The irony of her situation almost made her laugh. Only a few minutes ago she had tried to kill herself to end the desperation that filled her. And now her greatest wish was for a drink, preferably water. It seemed as if her body was playing games with her, especially her tongue.

  ‘C-could I have something to drink, please?’

  Lucia raised eyebrows and grinned wolfishly.