"You were right, McGrave. It's tonight. Richter has walked into a trap and he doesn't even know it. We got lucky."
"And I'm missing it," McGrave says.
"We'll send you a postcard."
On a rooftop in Mitte, a cop wearing a headphone mike aims a camera at the auction house across the street. It's the kind of camera that picks up heat signatures.
Torsten's voice comes through the cop's earpiece. "Are they inside?"
The cop looks at the tiny screen on the camera and sees an X-ray-like image of the auction house and the distinct red silhouettes of four men climbing up through the floor.
"They're in," the cop says.
Heinrich is on his hands and knees in the van, scrubbing the floor with a rag and cleanser. Torsten is at the console, leaning into the mike.
"All units, hold your positions. No one moves until I say so."
Maria and McGrave aren't moving, either. Their car is stuck in traffic, right beside a billboard advertising the Fabergй egg exhibit.
Which is in Mitte.
Where all the action is happening.
Without him.
It's salt in the wound.
Actually, it's more like ground glass, battery acid, and gasoline in the wound.
McGrave drums his fingers on the armrest.
Maria looks at him. "Would you please stop that?"
"I was lost here. I've never been to Berlin and I don't speak German. But I outflanked Richter anyway."
"You had a little help," she says.
"You're right, I did. You picked up rumors about someone looking for tunnelers and alarm pros. You found unique dirt particles that led us to a specific
neighborhood. And I stumbled on an auction of Egyptian toilets, just like the ones Richter was trying to steal in LA."
"Toilets?" Erich says, a note of disappointment in his voice. "You're chasing a guy who steals toilets? What kind of supercriminal is that?"
"It all fell together so easily," McGrave says.
Maria shrugs. "Sometimes it does."
"It never does," he says.
"It does when you work with a skilled team, in a precise and thoughtful manner, rather than charging into the streets on your own. You hate that you needed help."
"That's not it."
"And now you're furious because Richter is going to be arrested in the middle of his robbery and you'll be somewhere over the Atlantic when it happens."
"I'm not going to be there," he says. He looks out the window again at the billboard.
"That's right," Maria says, as if reprimanding a child. "I hope you've learned a lesson from this."
"You see that egg?" He gestures to the billboard. "Where is that exhibit?"
"It's in a private museum created to show off the art collection of Matthias Balz, the international real estate tycoon," she says. "It's in a renovated air-raid bunker built by the Nazis to evacuate travelers from Friedrichstrasse train station."
"Where's that in relation to the robbery that's going down?"
"A few blocks away," she says.
McGrave sits up straight in his seat. "And we aren't there."
"Stop whining, McGrave," she says. "It's childish."
"What I'm saying is that we aren't there." McGrave points to the billboard. "That's where Richter really is, stealing the Fabergй eggs and God knows what else. We were set up."
"Oh really?" she says. "Then who is robbing the auction house right now?"
"Whoever they are, they have been set up by Richter, too. It's all a distraction from the real robbery."
Maria shakes her head. "You're reaching. You're just desperate to stay off that plane."
"Maybe I am. But what if I'm right? You have nothing to lose by checking it out," he says. "If I am wrong, I promise I will take the next flight."
"You're like a child who doesn't want to go to bed."
"You have to help him, Mom," Erich says.
"Why should I?" Maria says. "Thanks to him, you're expelled and the judge is going to say I'm responsible for it. I could lose you."
"You'll never lose me."
Maria looks in her rearview mirror at her son. He looks right back at her.
"He helped me, Mom, even if you don't think so," Erich says. "You may not owe him anything, but I do."
Maria knows she's going to regret this, but…
"Don't ever tell your dad about this."