wasn’t known for hyperbole. Krueger had seemed truly excited about the appearance of Petr Ulster in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, yet several hours had passed without an update of any kind. With the day winding down, Mueller was curious.
From the back seat of his custom-built Mercedes limousine, Mueller flipped a switch that lowered the soundproofed partition in front of him. ‘Have you heard from Krueger?’
His eager assistant responded. ‘No, sir, I haven’t. But I assembled the information you requested on the Ulster Archives. Shall I send it to your laptop?’
Mueller nodded. ‘Then give Krueger a call. I’d love to know what’s going on down there. Garmisch isn’t known for excitement - unless you’re a skier.’
The assistant laughed. ‘Yes, sir. I’ll call at once. Would you like to speak to him?’
‘Only if it’s worth my time.’
‘I’ll let you know.’
Mueller nodded and flipped the switch to raise the partition. It was a third of the way up when he heard the deep voice of his muscular chauffeur, a man named Bosch, who spoke approximately once a week. If he had something to say, it was bound to be important. Mueller stared at his driver in the rear-view mirror. ‘What’s wrong?’
Bosch looked back at him. ‘Something happened in Garmisch.’
Mueller lowered the partition. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I was listening to the news while you were in your meeting. There was a shootout in Garmisch.’
‘A shootout? What kind of shootout?’
Bosch looked at him. ‘A bad one.’
‘How bad?’
‘Multiple gunmen, several deaths.’
‘In Garmisch? Are you sure?’
‘I’m certain. Someone was killed at the ski stadium.’
‘And the others?’
‘In the mountains.’
Mueller rubbed his chin in thought. According to Krueger, choppers had been flying in and out of Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the past week and had been landing in a field near the base of Zugspitze. One of the choppers, registered to the Ulster Archives, had arrived there early that morning, and now this? In Mueller’s mind, it couldn’t be a coincidence - not in a town where the last shootout had occurred in World War Two.
His assistant turned around. He was holding an encrypted satellite phone against his ear. ‘Sir, it went straight to voicemail. Shall I leave a message for Krueger?’
Mueller shook his head. ‘No.’
He quickly hung up. ‘Now what, sir?’
‘Who do we know in Garmisch?’
‘Krueger is our lead man. I wouldn’t trust anyone else.’
‘What about the police? Who’s our local contact?’
The assistant tried to come up with a name but couldn’t due to the complex structure of the German police. Every state in Germany was responsible for operating its own force, which was then divided into a number of regional police authorities. The Bavarian State Police, known as the Bayerische Polizei, had ten such subdivisions. Krueger had many contacts within the Polizeiprasidium Munchen, the force that protected the city of Munich, but Krueger’s organization did so little business in Garmisch-Partenkirchen that his assistant wasn’t even sure which regional authority was in charge of that section of Bavaria.
‘I don’t think we have a contact in Garmisch. Do you have a suggestion?’
‘Call Munich. With so many dead, they might get involved.’
‘What about the SEK, sir?’ It was an abbreviation for the Spezialeinsatzkommando, a special response team that handled unusual cases, such as hostage situations and violent crimes. ‘I know they have a unit assigned to the Alps. Perhaps they’re in charge of the mountains.’
Mueller shrugged. He honestly didn’t know. Most of his deals happened in major cities, not in the rugged terrain near the Austrian border. ‘Call whoever you want! Just find out what happened in Garmisch. And track down Krueger. I want to speak to him at once!’
He punctuated his statement by raising the partition, sealing himself off from the commotion that was sure to follow in the front seat. While his assistant tracked down names and made a series of phone calls to their contacts all over Germany, Mueller could focus on the heart of the matter: Who was Petr Ulster, and what was he doing in Garmisch-Partenkirchen?
Although Mueller was familiar with the Ulster name, he didn’t grasp the scope of the Ulster Archives until he viewed the file that had been sent to his laptop. The comprehensive dossier included videos about its history, newspaper articles on its collections and thousands of pictures of its most famous treasures. Mueller had never cared much about art or artefacts, but that changed when he read the estimated value of the archives was more than a billion dollars. In his opinion, there was no way a man of Ulster’s wealth (or weight) would fly to