Lee Goldberg - McGrave

"You can't make him go, Mom," Erich says.

"Watch me," she says.

"But I broke Axel's arm, not McGrave. Send me to America," Erich says. "Disney World, for instance."

Her cell phone rings. She answers it and begins carrying on a conversation in German. McGrave's name is mentioned. He looks over his shoulder at Erich.

"What's she saying?" McGrave asks.

"She's says you can't participate in the operation. Something urgent came up."

"What could be more urgent than catching Richter?"

Erich listens to his mother talk, then: "She says you have food poisoning. You can't stop vomiting."

Maria ends the call and wedges her phone into the ashtray. McGrave looks at her.

"It's happening, isn't it?" he says.

"You were right, McGrave. It's tonight. Richter has walked into a trap and he doesn't even know it. We got lucky."

"And I'm missing it," McGrave says.

"We'll send you a postcard."

On a rooftop in Mitte, a cop wearing a headphone mike aims a camera at the auction house across the street. It's the kind of camera that picks up heat signatures.

Torsten's voice comes through the cop's earpiece. "Are they inside?"

The cop looks at the tiny screen on the camera and sees an X-ray-like image of the auction house and the distinct red silhouettes of four men climbing up through the floor.

"They're in," the cop says.

Heinrich is on his hands and knees in the van, scrubbing the floor with a rag and cleanser. Torsten is at the console, leaning into the mike.

"All units, hold your positions. No one moves until I say so."

Maria and McGrave aren't moving, either. Their car is stuck in traffic, right beside a billboard advertising the Fabergй egg exhibit.

Which is in Mitte.

Where all the action is happening.

Without him.

It's salt in the wound.

Actually, it's more like ground glass, battery acid, and gasoline in the wound.

McGrave drums his fingers on the armrest.

Maria looks at him. "Would you please stop that?"

"I was lost here. I've never been to Berlin and I don't speak German. But I outflanked Richter anyway."

"You had a little help," she says.

"You're right, I did. You picked up rumors about someone looking for tunnelers and alarm pros. You found unique dirt particles that led us to a specific

neighborhood. And I stumbled on an auction of Egyptian toilets, just like the ones Richter was trying to steal in LA."

"Toilets?" Erich says, a note of disappointment in his voice. "You're chasing a guy who steals toilets? What kind of supercriminal is that?"

"It all fell together so easily," McGrave says.

Maria shrugs. "Sometimes it does."

"It never does," he says.

"It does when you work with a skilled team, in a precise and thoughtful manner, rather than charging into the streets on your own. You hate that you needed help."

"That's not it."

"And now you're furious because Richter is going to be arrested in the middle of his robbery and you'll be somewhere over the Atlantic when it happens."

"I'm not going to be there," he says. He looks out the window again at the billboard.

"That's right," Maria says, as if reprimanding a child. "I hope you've learned a lesson from this."

"You see that egg?" He gestures to the billboard. "Where is that exhibit?"

"It's in a private museum created to show off the art collection of Matthias Balz, the international real estate tycoon," she says. "It's in a renovated air-raid bunker built by the Nazis to evacuate travelers from Friedrichstrasse train station."

"Where's that in relation to the robbery that's going down?"

"A few blocks away," she says.

McGrave sits up straight in his seat. "And we aren't there."

"Stop whining, McGrave," she says. "It's childish."

"What I'm saying is that we aren't there." McGrave points to the billboard. "That's where Richter really is, stealing the Fabergй eggs and God knows what else. We were set up."

"Oh really?" she says. "Then who is robbing the auction house right now?"

"Whoever they are, they have been set up by Richter, too. It's all a distraction from the real robbery."

Maria shakes her head. "You're reaching. You're just desperate to stay off that plane."

"Maybe I am. But what if I'm right? You have nothing to lose by checking it out," he says. "If I am wrong, I promise I will take the next flight."

"You're like a child who doesn't want to go to bed."

"You have to help him, Mom," Erich says.

"Why should I?" Maria says. "Thanks to him, you're expelled and the judge is going to say I'm responsible for it. I could lose you."

"You'll never lose me."

Maria looks in her rearview mirror at her son. He looks right back at her.

"He helped me, Mom, even if you don't think so," Erich says. "You may not owe him anything, but I do."

Maria knows she's going to regret this, but…

"Don't ever tell your dad about this."

She makes a sharp U-turn over the grassy median and veers across the path of oncoming traffic, causing a dozen cars to come to a screeching, rubber-ripping stop to avoid collisions.

And then she floors it, weaving around the cars ahead and speeding towards the center of Berlin.

Erich lets out a cheer.

Maria has just become the coolest mother ever.

The Fabergй Egg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (and because it's compiled, fact-checked, and updated strictly by anybody with an Internet connection, it is the most detailed and reliable source of all human knowledge)

A Fabergй egg is any one of the thousands of jeweled eggs made by the House of Fabergй from 1885 to 1917. The most famous eggs were the larger ones made for Alexander III and Nicholas II of Russia; these are often referred to as the "Imperial" Fabergй eggs. Of the fifty made, forty-two have survived. All of the eggs are made of precious metals or hard stones decorated with enamel and gems. The Fabergй eggs have become the ultimate symbol of luxury and are considered masterpieces.

Stefan leads the elite assault team that is standing around in an empty storefront in their heavy assault gear with their assault weapons, all anxiously waiting for the go-ahead to assault.

Torsten's voice suddenly crackles in Stefan's earpiece.

"The robbers are leaving the auction house. Take position around the construction site and be ready to apprehend them as they emerge from the pit."

Stefan takes out his badge and drapes it on a chain around his neck, McGrave-style, so it hangs over his Kevlar vest.

He looks cool and he knows it. If only there was someone around to take a picture.

Stefan alerts his team with a few tactical hand signals, which he's been practicing with his girlfriend for months while shopping at the enormous and crowded KaDeWe, and they move out the door with professional resolve and military precision.

####

The five-story air-raid bunker that houses the Balz Collection is a monstrous symmetrical block of exposed reinforced concrete, its six-foot-thick walls and narrow window slits still showing the pockmarks and chips left by bullets and artillery fire during World War II.

It was later used by the GDR as a massive storage bin for imported Cuban fruits and vegetables set aside for the consumption of the government elite. After the Berlin Wall fell, the fortress-like bunker became an enormous, and extremely hard-core, techno-fetish club, which is how Matthias Balz discovered it (and a lasting appreciation for the erotic possibilities of neoprene).

It wasn't until the early 2000s, after the club had died, that Balz bought the empty bunker and renovated it at a cost of millions to expose his fabulous art collection, by appointment only, to select members of the public.

But he isn't the only one who has bought up neglected architectural relics of the Third Reich and dumped enormous amounts of money into them for renovation. The entire city block is under construction. Huge cranes loom all around the bunker and the neighboring buildings. Those elevated blue water pipes are everywhere.