Chapter 14

German police patrolled the square with vicious-looking dogs. Fry approved. Drucker and Zayne had left the museum three hours ago and were escorted to their hotel. It was nearly six o’clock. The museum was closed and the staff had been led out through a rear entrance. A policeman was leading a bomb-sniffing dog up to all surfaces of the building that could be reached from the street. The dog had found nothing.

At last the inspector emerged from the building indicating there were no employees left inside. Still there was no sign of a threat. Major Dern stood with Agents Fry and Holtz near the fountain in front of the museum discussing whether the target was still under threat. The other two attacks had occurred within ten minutes after the facility closed while there were still at least a few people in the area to witness the explosion. The square had cleared as the sun set and people were mostly inside their homes, restaurants, or hotels. Dern wanted to call off the surveillance, but agreed to leave two officers on patrol for the night.

Fry turned away from the conversation toward the square after they had agreed, and told Gretchen he would go to his room to sleep and to wake him if there was any development. He wanted a meal, a shower, and a bed. Gretchen agreed to meet him in the morning. They started toward the hotel but were brought up short by a dog’s bark and angry voices shouting. Fry looked up to see Madeline Zayne walking across the square in her blue wool coat with red hair flying. She angled slightly toward the museum ignoring police orders to stop. The bomb-sniffing dog that Fry had seen near the building was straining at his leash and setting up a ruckus that the other dogs on the team were quick to pick up on.

“Doctor Zayne! Stop!” Fry yelled at the woman. On hearing his voice, she changed course and headed directly toward Fry and the museum. Something was very wrong. That’s not Zayne, Fry thought as the officer released the dog. She was a few yards away when the dog brought her down. The dog’s master was moving in with an automatic weapon drawn, shouting orders at the woman. Fry could see a device in her hand and sprinted toward her, yelling at the officer to back off. He could see the woman’s face as she turned and smiled at him past the dog. Without stopping, Fry bowled the dog over off the terrorist and rolled to the feet of the officer as the explosion rocked the Platz and knocked the officer off his feet onto Fry. Shards of paving stones pelted the two of them. Forty feet away, Gretchen was being lifted to her feet by the Major as officers rushed to the scene.

Unrecognizable body fragments followed the rubble to the ground and Fry could see in his mind the grim determination of the woman as she smiled at him and raised the trigger for the explosives she was wearing. He knew her and in the aftermath of the explosion he could see the red wig askew and her blonde hair showing beneath it. He knew exactly where he had seen her. He was struggling for his phone as the officer on top of him struggled to comfort his whimpering dog next to them. Sirens began to blare and an ambulance arrived in moments. The police officer and dog had taken more of the blast’s impact than Fry, but were both alive. The woman was dead—all for the sake of a small hole in the pavement.

“Danke. Danke,” repeated the officer as he cradled the wounded animal in his arms. He looked at Fry through a sheet of blood that ran from a cut above his eye and repeated again, “Danke.”

This was serious. In America, the bombs had been planted and set off from a distance. Fry had allowed himself to believe this group would not send suicide carriers to deliver a bomb for such small stakes; but that a suicide bomber would be the same person who had orchestrated the other explosions was unfathomable. He was on his cell phone by the time Gretchen reached him.

“Hu,” Fry barked into the phone. “What’s the status on locating the woman in the security footage of the Kane Memorial Library?”

“We have a name,” Hu responded, “but it doesn’t check out. The student ID she used to check books out was stolen.”