Chapter 7: Patients

Bren: Doctors are sadists who like to play God and watch lesser people scream.
-- Juno (2007 Movie)

Friday, July 22 2011 (cont.)
Munich, Germany

"Hello, my name is Daniel Lanz; I need a room for two weeks with two separate beds for my sister and me. Do you have one available?" Daniel asked the woman standing behind the hotel reception.

"Welcome Mr. Lanz. Do you require a smoking or non-smoking room?"

"Non-smoking please." He replied.

"Yes, we have one available for you. It's on the third floor. The price is 175 Euro per night including breakfast. Would that be suitable?" the woman asked.

"That's all right."

Daniel produced a credit card and an identity card with the name Daniel Lanz and showed them to the receptionist. Satisfied she gave him the key card to room 326 which she registered for him and his sister Rebecca Lanz.

Arriving at their room, Daniel put his bag on the bed, prompting Rebecca to do the same. They had brought all her belongings with her, which was even less than what Daniel had brought with him.

"Well, I need a shower. I would suggest you take one too, once I'm done. After that we'll go shopping. I need a bunch of clothes, and if you want to play my sister you will need some too."

"I don't..." she started to reply.

"Don't worry, I'll pay. I gave you the job; it's my responsibility to give you the tools to do it."

"Well, it's your money."

While Daniel stood under the shower, he was surprised to feel the cold air rush in as the naked Rebecca opened the door to the shower stall and joined him. He had wondered if she would use the chance to run away, but this development was unexpected.

"Err, you could have waited for me to finish, you know" he stammered.

"But it's much more fun this way" she told him while she started to wash him.

And that's all they did, washing each other. To them it was more sensual than sexual, even though Daniel sprung a boner faster than he could think. Rebecca would have been disappointed otherwise.

Freiberg, Germany

The police officer Max sent to the Schulze Twins did not know the truth, as Max wanted to ensure it would seem to be a normal questioning with no sign to the brothers that something could be amiss.

It was Mathias who opened the door to see the uniformed man stand there.

"How can I help you?"

"Good day, my name is Jürgen Zwick; I'm from the Freiberg police. Could I please talk to Patrick and Mathias Schulze?"

"Yes, I'm Mathias. I'm sorry, but could I please see some identification? Our parents are currently away, you see." Mathias replied.

"Of course, here you are."

Mathias studied the card the officer showed him. He didn't know how it was supposed to look, so he had no clue if it was real. But it was just a way to buy him some time to think, anyway.

"Thank you. Would you please come in while I fetch my brother?"

"Thank you."

Mathias led him to the living room, asking him to sit on the sofa. Then he went to Patrick's room, telling him about the visitor.

"Tell him I'm on the toilet and will be there shortly. I need some time to get rid of any evidence pointing to Sabrina." Patrick told his brother.

"All right, I'll play the nice host in the meantime."

"Great."

It was five minutes later when Patrick went to the living room. In the meantime Mathias had tried to find out what the visit was about, but the police officer didn't want to give the bad news twice.

"I'm sorry, I've got diarrhea today. Err, sorry, you didn't want to hear that. What's up?" Patrick asked.

"Your school told us you are the best friends of Sabrina Vogel," Jürgen Zwick started. "I'm sorry to tell you she has been found dead in Munich."

Watching the brothers, he noticed their faces getting pale. It took them a few minutes to process the news and ask the obvious question.

"How?" It was Patrick again.

"She died on a drug overdose. Did you know she was on drugs?"

"No, she isn't on drugs. We would have noticed that." Mathias answered. His tone showed that he was convinced his words were the truth. It was often the case, the police officer knew. People thought they knew their friends, but they really didn't.

"The school told us she was supposed to be in Italy. Do you know what she was doing in Munich?" He had noticed they hadn't reacted to the news she was in Munich, but he assumed that was due to the shock.

"No. She was happy to go to Italy, wanting to hone her language skills. She would have called if something had gone wrong. Are you sure it's her?" Patrick asked.

"Yes, I'm sorry but she has been positively identified."

"Can we see her?" Mathias asked.

"She's still in Munich, but the body will be transported here tomorrow. I'm sure you can see her then, once her parents give their okay."

"Were you able to reach her parents?" Patrick asked.

"No, not yet. We were told they are traveling, but nobody seems to know where. Do you know how we could find them?"

"No, sorry. They are sometimes gone for months at a time."

The questioning went on for almost an hour, but neither the police officer nor the Twins learned anything new from it.

Neustadt, Germany

Johanna had gone directly to school from the hospital in the morning. After school let out, she went home and quickly rushed through her homework. She thought that both Jennifer and her father would need her this weekend, so she wanted to get her other work out of the way.

While at home, she read the news on the internet. The lead story on their local newspaper's website was, of course, the explosion. The police had given a press conference about the current status of the investigation. They were now sure the trigger for the explosion was a defect in the gas pipeline within the house.

Something knocked at the back of her head. She was sure there was something wrong with that picture, but she wasn't sure at this point what it was. She would have to talk to her brother about it in the evening.

When Jo arrived at the hospital, she saw Gerhard again sitting next to his daughter's bed.

"Hello Mr. Maier, how is she?"

"She's stable at the moment. They want to wake her up in about two hours if there are no complications."

They weren't able to talk any more, as a doctor came in and asked them to leave the room so he could examine Jennifer.

"Where's Doctor Weiß?" Gerhard asked.

"He's currently dealing with an emergency, so I'm stepping in for him. He will be here before we wake Jennifer up, however."

With that, Gerhard was satisfied and left the room together with Jo.

Once he was sure he was alone, the doctor removed the white coat, leaving him standing there in a cheap suit. Pulling out a cell phone from the suit pocket, he made a short call.

"This is Johansen. I'm in and will wake her up now."

"Acknowledged. Make sure she doesn't remember it afterwards."

"Of course, Sergeant. Lieutenant Müller made his orders pretty clear. I'll call once I'm done here."

"Good."

Putting the cell phone back into his pocket, he pulled out a syringe. After injecting the contents into Jennifer's veins, he had to wait thirty seconds before she started to wake up.

Waking up was like walking through a maze for Jennifer. Everything was in a thick fog which went away very slowly. She was lying on her back. Why? She always slept on her side. Taking inventory, she noticed that her right arm didn't seem to react to her commands, but her left arm seemed to work fine. Slowly she opened her eyes, but they needed a long time to focus.

A man was standing next to her, a man she didn't know. Looking around, she saw a room she didn't know either. What the hell? It looked like a hospital room, but the man didn't look like a doctor to her. She tried to ask him what had happened, but noticed her voice didn't work.

"Wait. Your mouth is too dry to talk. You need to drink in very small sips."

Opening her mouth she slowly drank water from the glass he held to her lips. With every sip she felt a little better.

"Where am I?" she asked after pulling back from the glass.

"You are in the hospital. Don't you remember? The doctor just told you."

"No, I don't. Who are you? And where is my father?" she inquired.

"I'm Detective Lars Johansen with the police. Your father is waiting outside. I need to ask you a few questions; he will come back once we are done."

If Jennifer hadn't been so out of it, she would have realized that there was something very wrong with this picture. But in the state she was in, she believed what the Detective told her.

Munich, Germany

By the time Daniel and Rebecca were done clothes shopping, they were carrying seven bags and one box containing a new pair of shoes – the other pair she was already wearing. For the first few pieces Rebecca had tried to protest that they were not needed or were too expensive, but then she had given up. Well, at least Daniel had had his fun, she thought.

Still, it was quite a shock for her when she saw the end sum at the checkout counter of the clothing store.

"That should be enough for now," Daniel said. "Next stop is the hair stylist."

By that time Rebecca had given up on questioning his motives and meekly followed him there.

"Two days ago there was an explosion in the house of the Keller family. Daniel and his parents died in that explosion. Can you tell me what you were doing there?"

Lars wanted to get a reaction out of her and decided the brutal approach would be the best way. It was successful, as he saw that tears started to appear in her eyes.

"He's dead?" she quietly asked.

"Daniel? Yes. I'm sorry, was he your boyfriend?"

"No. But he saved my life."

And with that, Jennifer started to tell the whole story. It took her almost ten minutes, and Lars started to worry that her father would lose his patience and come in to check on her. Finally she was finished.

"That story is pretty difficult to believe, you know" he told her.

"But it's the truth."

"So, Daniel asked you not to tell anyone what happened. Why did you tell me?" the false Detective asked.

"He's dead anyway, so why should I not?"

"You said he told you it would put you in danger."

"Of course, he was scared I would tell on him otherwise. He didn't know me very well. But now he's dead, so he can't get into any trouble for saving me. There's no reason why I shouldn't tell the world that he was a hero."

"I'm sorry, but there you are wrong" he told her.

"Why?" she wanted to know.

"Come on, do you really think I'm the police? You are a minor; I couldn't question you without your father being here."

He saw her pale, but went on before she could think and do something stupid like cry for help or press the nurse call button.

"No, I'm not a police officer; I'm working for the same group that the man that tried to rape you worked for. I've been ordered to question you to find out if you know anything, and if so make sure you can't tell anybody else. Wait, hear me out" he said as he saw her start to speak. "I have no intention of hurting you. I actually was a friend of Daniel's back from before he left that same group. He asked me to make sure you were all right in case something happened to him."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"To make sure you don't walk around telling people what happened with Daniel or about my visit here. I've been ordered to administer a drug that makes you forget about my visit. That means if anyone asks you about me, you need to have no idea what they are talking about – you were asleep after all. If you start telling people what happened, you will be killed and I can't help you. What's worse is that I will be killed too, as I will be telling my boss you don't remember anything, and if they find out differently they will shoot me for failing.

"All in all, it would be a very bad idea to tell anyone. Do you understand?"

"Well, to be honest no. But I will accept it."

"I'm sure you told Daniel the same, and you didn't do what you promised him you would do. I need you to understand this is a serious thing, which should be obvious due to the fact I am here."

"Yes, I understand that. I won't tell anyone, I promise."

"Good. Now I need to send you back to sleep, but you will be woken soon by the doctor. Don't forget that you have slept the whole time and noticed nothing wrong."

With that, Lars pulled out another syringe and injected it into her veins. Once she was back to dreamland, he put the doctor's coat back on and left the room. He found Gerhard standing right next to the door.

"Everything is all right; I don't see a problem with waking her up. Doctor Weiß will be with you shortly."

"Thank you" Gerhard replied.

After leaving the hospital, Lars pulled out a different cell phone. Pressing speed dial, he was connected to the same woman he had received his orders from.

"This is Joker. You were right, she told me everything. But I believe I was able to convince her of the dangers. I need to get back to headquarters now for the debriefing. I hope they will believe me."

"They have no reason not to. Thank you for your help" the female voice said.

With that the call ended, he removed the battery from the cell phone and got rid of both parts.

Unit Seven HQ, Germany

"Lieutenant Müller?" the Sergeant asked.

"Yes?"

"I just heard from our agent in the hospital. It seems the girl knows nothing. He's returning here for the full debriefing."