Page 33 of Views
She looks out the window. Outside in the dark, the city lights rush by. It’s late. The evening rush hour is already over. That’s a plus. The train car is pleasantly empty. But the people sitting around... Does it just seem that way to Yasira, or are there more and more worn-out people on public transport? It wasn’t like this before, or did she simply not notice it twenty years ago? The big change in perspective probably came with the birth of her daughter. Suddenly she only saw the world in two categories. Harmless or potentially dangerous for the child. You turn your whole life upside down. And what for? So that sixteen years later you have someone in your home who responds to questions with a shrug of the shoulders at most and is otherwise glued to their cell phone. Generation climate gluer my ass. Most of the teenagers she knows are glued to their phones. And they get their political information from YouTube and TikTok. Well, hooray. What could possibly go wrong?
A sound pulls Yasira out of her thoughts. Something cooing next to her. She looks around. There is a pigeon in the aisle. How about that. A pigeon on the city train. Where might it be heading? Maybe to Alexanderplatz? To meet friends? The pigeon looks at Yasira as if it has every right in the world to be on this train. And who knows? Maybe it even has a ticket.
“Hey, you! You’re that bitch!”
A guy slurring his words distracts Yasira’s attention from the pigeon. An unpleasant guy. Already drunk at the end of the day.
“You’re that bitch from the police! I saw your picture. You look just like her!”
The guy staggers toward Yasira. Only now does she realize he was talking to her. She quickly gets to her feet. If things were to turn physical—which, with guys like him, is always on the table—sitting down would be just about the worst possible position to start from.
The man is already threateningly close to Yasira when he asks: “How would you like it if what the bastards did to Lara happened to you, huh?”
“The girl’s name is Lena,” Yasira simply replies.
“Covering for your Black brothers, eh?” the guy slurs. “You’re a disgrace to the police, you whore.”
He’s almost a head taller than Yasira. Probably also weighs almost twice as much as she does. Contrary to what modern action movies would have you believe, that’s actually a problem. Even for a woman with combat training. The guys usually have a significant mass advantage that should not be underestimated. But the asshole is drunk. Slowed reactions. So Yasira slips under the arm the guy is using to hold on to the upper handrail, stands behind him now, takes his other arm and twists it behind his back.
He screams in surprise as she bends his fingers backward. Yasira kicks him in the back of the knee from behind, forcing him to his knees and thus reversing the size advantage.
“Listen, asshole,” she whispers into his ear, “I’m an officer of the Federal Criminal Police, asshole. That means I’m a cop, do you understand, asshole? It means I can call you asshole as much as I want, asshole. But if you, asshole, call me a bitch or a whore, that’s insulting a public servant. So what did you just call me, asshole?”
“Nothing...” the man stammers. “I didn’t say anything.”
“I see.”
The other passengers just stare. A young man applauds. Thanks for nothing. If he had intervened, that would have helped Yasira more. The train pulls into the next station. Yasira lets go of the guy and gets off, even though it’s not her station. Actually, the guy should have gotten off. But what if he had refused? Besides, Yasira needs some fresh air. The train starts up again. The asshole stayed inside. Yasira waits for the next train. Of course, this one is canceled. So she stands in the cold for twenty minutes. A shitty end to a shitty day.
But then Yasira comes home to find her daughter in the living room, sitting on the couch and watchingFriends. Without saying anything, Yasira slips under the covers next to her. Zara hands her mother her cup of peppermint tea, which is still half full. Yasira drinks the tea gratefully. She thinks about whether she should tell Zara about the attack on the train, but then decides against it. She doesn’t want to scare her. Instead, she leans her head against her daughter’s shoulder and falls asleep in the middle of the second episode. She has restless dreams. Even in her sleep, she is not spared from new videos that cause the situation to escalate further and further.
THE HAT MAN
At some point during the night, Yasira must have moved to her bed. At least that’s where she wakes up. Even before she throws off the covers, she decides to drive to work today. Yesterday’s incident has soured her on taking the train. She waits until Zara has left the house, grabs the keys to the Golf and drives to the Treptowers.
Once again, it’s Jenny who discovers the video first. She comes into Michael and Yasira’s office. “New video,” she says, “I sent you the link via email.”
Yasira waits until Michael has circled the desk, then she presses play.
This time it’s the hat man tied up with zip ties and kneeling in a garage. The video is less well lit than the last one. Yasira immediately suspects that it comes from a different source. The garage has not been emptied, but the background is blurred in darkness. All you can really make out of the hat man is his baseball cap.
A masked member of Active Homeland-Protection is pacing back and forth in front of his victim. The man’s affiliation with the Active Homeland-Protection is discernable by the logo on his pseudo-uniform. Unlike the first killer, he doesn’t have an MP, just a pistol.
“In the name of the Active Homeland-Protection and the German people,” the man says choppily, “I sentence this illegal immigrant, rapist, and murderer of Lena Palmer to death. I will carry out the sentence immediately. Join the Active Homeland-Protection!”
Despite the digital distortion, you can clearly hear a Hessian singsong in the voice. It would be hilarious if the video didn’t end so damn deadly again.
“If this isn’t our Red Fox,” says Michael, expressing what everyone is thinking.
“Report it, flag it, ban it,” says Yasira. “At least in the legal part of the web, we have to stop it spreading.”
Jenny nods. “I’ll get right on it.”
The internet, as you can tell from the first comments, is already heating up again.
Yasira has Red Fox put on a nationwide search. Then she goes to Karsten’s office and discusses the video with him.
“What kind of weapon is that?”
