“Use your imagination.”
“I’m trying. And all I can see are cattle cars and smokestacks.”
“No one’s talking about that.”
“You’re the one who used the worderase, Estermann. Not me.”
“Do you know how many Muslim immigrants there are in Europe? In one generation, two at the most, Germany will be an Islamic country. France and the Netherlands, too. Can you imagine what life will be like for the Jews then?”
“Why don’t you leave us out of it and explain to me how you’re going to get rid of twenty-five million Muslims.”
“By encouraging them to leave.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Deportations will be necessary.”
“All of them?”
“Every last one.”
“What’s your role in this? Are you Adolf Eichmann or Heinrich Himmler?”
“I’m the chief of operations. I funnel the Order’s money to our chosen political parties and run our intelligence and security service.”
“I assume you have a cyber unit.”
“A good one. Between the Order and the Russians, little of what your average Western European reads online these days is true.”
“Are you working with them?”
“The Russians?” Estermann shook his head. “But more often than not, our interests align.”
“The chancellor of Austria is quite fond of the Kremlin.”
“Jörg Kaufmann? He’s our rock star. Even the American president adores him, and he doesn’t like anyone.”
“What about Giuseppe Saviano?”
“Thanks to the Order, he came from nowhere to win the last election.”
“Cécile Leclerc?”
“A real warrior. She told me that she intends to build a bridge between Marseilles and North Africa. Needless to say, the traffic will flow only one way.”
“That leaves Axel Brünner.”
“The bombings have given him a real boost in the polls.”
“You wouldn’t know anything about them, would you?”
“My old friends at BfV are convinced the cell is based in Hamburg. It’s a real mess, Hamburg. Lots of radical mosques. Brünner will clean it up once he’s in power.”
Gabriel smiled. “Thanks to you, the only way Brünner will ever see the inside of the Federal Chancellery is if he gets a job as a janitor.”
Estermann was silent.
“You were on the verge of getting everything you wanted. And yet you put it all at risk by murdering an old man with a bad heart. Why kill him? Why not simply wait for him to die?”
