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These reports, which would have left her incredibly frustrated earlier in the week, now almost put her in a state of euphoria, as she considers the absence of evidence to be evidence in itself—supporting her new lead.
Finally, Michael pokes his head in the office door.
“Ah, very good. Let’s get going,” says Yasira.
Michael looks irritated.
“Messerschmidt,” says Yasira. “I know where hereallylives.”
“Well then.”
They’re just about to leave when Jenny stops them.
“Bear has posted a new video,” she says. “You have to watch this.”
“Not good?” asks Michael.
“I don’t know,” says Jenny. “It’s definitely not something I would have expected. It might prove that Yasira was right. But no, it’s probably not good.”
She sends Yasira a link. Michael comes to her side of the desk and Yasira plays the video. There’s another advertisement for Müller Milk.
“German men and women!” says the now famous founder of Active Homeland-Protection. “Surely you have followed what happened yesterday, what monstrous lies the BKA is spreading to cover up the crimes that are being committed against the German people day after day by asylum seekers.”
Yasira shudders. The fact that the BKA is named directly is new. Where is this going?
Bear ends his artificial pause and stares directly into the camera as he continues. “But I say to you: all is not lost! Even among the police we have our people! Brave souls defying the tyranny of thought. One of these patriots was clever enough to record a backroom conversation.”
Yasira never thought a video could have such an effect on her, but she feels dizzy. What has been recorded?
Bear comes very close to the camera.
“In the following video you can see Yasira Saad, the lead investigator in the Lena Palmer case.”
What did she say? What is Bear going to use against her? Is it a sentence from her conversation with Gebhardt? It’s easy to take words out of context and make them sound completely different to how they were meant.
“Yasira Saad...” Bear emphasizes her name as if it were an insult. “That name says everything about her will and her capability to catch Lena’s murderers. And while Fake News Al-Yasira has no evidence to back up her baseless claims that the Lena video is fake, I can prove to you that Saad is lying, thanks to the courageous efforts of a fellow police officer.”
Who betrayed me? Yasira asks herself. Which of her colleagues is working with these fucking right-wing extremists? She’s not naive. She knows that the Ministry of the Interior and the police union had good reason to refuse to conduct a study on racism within the police force after the National Socialist Underground murders. Those who seek will find. But someone from her own team? The boss? Karsten? Timo? Even Michael? No, she simply cannot imagine that. But who was secretly filming? Then she sees herself in Bear’s video and is stunned.
The recording seems to have been made with a hidden camera, presumably in a bag on a table. Yasira is wearing a black sweater. It’s the same one she wore at the press conference yesterday. But you can’t see much of it. The main thing you see is Yasira’s face and she says: “We have to defuse the situation before we lose control of the public. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s best if we just claim the video to be fake. We won’t have to prove it. It’s enough if we raise doubts.”
Yasira feels sick. Her stomach clenches. Michael and Jenny look at her. Yasira just shakes her head in horror.
“I never... I never... I never said that,” she stammers.
But it looks so damn real. It looks so goddamn real.
AN ENDLESS NIGHTMARE
It’s a nightmare. The whole case is an endless nightmare. Once again, Yasira is sitting in her boss’s office. She sits in her boss’s office far too often.
“I never said that!” she justifies herself. “The video is another fake! It’s actually proof that I’m right.”
“I believe you,” says Steven Gebhardt.
But Yasira isn’t quite sure if that’s true. “I never said that!” she repeats.
The chief says nothing for a moment. Looking everywhere but into her eyes.
