Page 10 of Views
“Mind if I get some hands-on experience?” Karsten asks. “A big haul at the liquor store?”
“Do what you think is best. But the most important thing is the crime scene. Find the crime scene.”
Karsten nods.
“The case is getting a lot of public attention,” Yasira continues. “It goes without saying that none of us are giving the media any comments that haven’t been approved. The boss decides when and what information goes to the press office.” Yasira looks around. “Get as many reinforcements as you need. We have to be fast.”
General nodding.
“I won’t lie to you,” she continues. “This is a downright shitty case. The whole country’s watching us. If we fuck up, it won’t just have consequences for us. But we also have a chance here. We can show that the law can strike fast and hard. That no crime goes unpunished.”
As if...her daughter would probably say. Yasira can read in the faces of her colleagues that they are thinking the same thing.
“Look, here’s the thing,” she says. “If we can crack the case fast, it might keep the tide of outrage from rising too high.”
Perhaps then, Yasira thinks, not all reason will be flushed out of the country. And somehow she has the feeling that they don’t have much time for that.
A far-right populist party. —Trans.
The Red Army Faction was a far-left militant group.—Trans.
Germany’s foreign intelligence service. —Trans.
BEAR
“You drive like a madman,” scolds Yasira, which Michael acknowledges by pressing the gas pedal even further to the floor.
“Music?” he asks.
“Okay by me,” Yasira says, even though she herself only feels like listening to Mozart’sRequiem. “What do you want to hear?”
“A Night at the Opera.”
Yasira opens the glove compartment and searches through the pile of CDs for the requested Queen album.
“You know there’s this new thing,” she says. “It’s called music-streaming.”
“I’ve bought this album three times,” says Michael. “As a record, as a cassette, and as a CD. I’m definitely not going to stream it.”
Yasira pushes the CD into the slot of the car radio.
“I bought the record back in East German days,” Michael continues. “West German import. Damn expensive.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
“I was the only one in the whole place with those records. I was a star. Then the Wall came down and my assets plummeted. Suddenly the music was available everywhere.”
“Tragic.”
Michael skips to the eleventh track, but immediately presses pause.
“Will you sing along?” he asks.
Yasira groans. “Do I have to?”
“I know it’s terribly inappropriate, considering the mission we’re on, but if we only sing when it’s appropriate, then we wouldn’t be singing at all.”
Yasira nods. “All right.”
