Inhaltsverzeichnis

Wanted Posters

The Call

The Million

The Friends

The Briefing

The Trail

The Beer Drinker

The Photo

The Boss

The Plan

The Closet

The Voice

The Riddle

The Suitcase

The Suspicion

The Threat

The Underground Parking Garage

The Train Ride

The Key in the Lock

The Message

The Emergency Call

The Shot

The End

Another Ending

Ulrich Renz

Bo and the Blackmailers

Translation from German by Vanessa Agnew

Wanted Posters

Bo & Friends

- Name: Boris Blohm, called Bo

- Age: 13

- Distinguishing features: actually none (as he says himself).

- Name: Simon Böttcher

- Alter: 13

- Distinguishing features: dreamy, nature freak, teeny heartthrob, has a small language problem.

- Name: Mariekje Marienhoff, called MM

- Age: 13

- Distinguishing features: sea blue eyes, math genius and computer freak.

- Name: Yorick, called YoYo

- Age: 13

- Distinguishing features: loudmouth, chubby, into fashion and trendy hair.

- Name: Mia Blohm

- Age: just turned 12

- Distinguishing features: Bo’s sister, precocious, likes standing in front of the mirror, talks everyone’s ear off.

Author

- Name: Ulrich Renz, called U

- Alter: middle aged

- Distinguishing features: loves Spaetzle (a sort of Southern German noodles), likes making music, used to be a doctor, now writes books for children and grown-ups. More at www.bo-and-friends.com.

Translator

- Name: Vanessa Agnew, called Vanessa

- Age: a bit younger than the author

- Distinguishing features: has lived in all English speaking continents, is a university professor, studies biology, lives in Berlin with a dog, two frogs, a pixie and a bookworm.

CHAPTER ONE

The Call

What crappy weather. Bo swore softly to himself as he stomped up the steps to the front door like a drowned rat. With dripping wet fingers he put the key into the lock. It was supposed to be summer, but for weeks they’d had nothing but rain.

In the hallway he kicked off his sneakers, hung his soaking wet jacket on the coat hook, and went to his room. He chucked off his wet clothes and rummaged around in the dresser for some dry ones. He chose some white socks, light brown trousers and a dark blue shirt. Actually, identical to the things he’d just had on, he thought to himself. His sister Mia would probably start nagging him again: “With clothes like that it’s no wonder girls aren’t interested in you.” Mia was very interested in boys and usually spent her afternoons at the mall taking clothes on and off.

Bo knew he wasn’t God’s gift to girls. He wasn’t especially tall, and he didn’t look like any of the movie stars on the posters in Mia’s room. But he didn’t care, he thought he was okay just the way he was – except perhaps for his hair. For as long as he could remember, it had been so shaggy and messy that he didn’t need to bother with a comb or a brush. A few times he’d tried hair gel, but that made him look like Dracula. Now he only put a bit of gel in the front so that his hair jutted out from his forehead. “Hairstyle with built-in umbrella,” his father kept teasing him, “use superglue instead, it lasts longer!” Well. Dad should take a look at his own hairdo.

Bo made himself comfortable on the soft rug under his loft bed. Luckily, his two-hour German class had been cancelled! His teacher, Siegwart, was probably still sleeping off one of his nightly drinking binges. Now he could focus on his math homework, and then maybe read his book, a super exciting thriller about a gang of blackmailers. At 1:30 pm his mom would come home from work, and then the nagging would start. “Could you please set the table? Empty the dishwasher? Take out the garbage?” When she started with her “could you please …,” he knew he could write off the next few hours.

He took his new exercise book, which he had bought on the way home, out of his school bag. When he wrote “Boris Blohm, grade 7c” on it, he couldn’t help smiling. “Boris,” how strange that sounded to him ... For as long as he could remember, everybody’d called him “Bo.”

He’d just started with the first math problem, when the door creaked. Bo let out a muffled growl. Couldn’t he have a minute of peace in this house? One of Mia’s classes must have been cancelled as well. Of course she would immediately grab the phone, as always, and then he’d have to listen to her gossiping with her girlfriends, at full volume of course. Clearly, her vocal cords didn’t work any other way. It was usually about those stupid guys from her teeny magazines or some other boys from the parallel class [1]. And about clothes of course, there was nothing else to talk about. Since she turned twelve, she behaved as if she were miles ahead of her brother in terms of life experience.

Bo was just about to get up to slam the door, when he saw his father’s white mop of hair flash past the door. – What? Dad was home from work already? Usually he never came home before four in the afternoon. Bo remembered that morning’s breakfast, when Dad had been in a stinking mood, even worse than he had been lately anyway. He’d made a scene because he thought Bo put too much jam on his bread. No, Bo didn’t want to listen to all that again and decided to stay undercover.

He was just getting to the second math problem when the phone rang. Dad had already answered it after the first ring. It was as if he’d been waiting for the call, thought Bo. Usually, he’d let the phone ring forever – if he answered it at all.

“Hi there ...” The tremor in Dad’s voice made Bo listen harder. A strange feeling came over him. He heard Dad wandering back and forth restlessly in the corridor. Apart from that, there was nothing to be heard for a long time.

“You must be crazy, Peter!” he yelled. It sounded like an explosion. “You are scum! If you knew how much I hate you!”

This was again followed by a long silence.

Then Bo heard him say softly: “Yes, I got the email. But I’m handling everything as fast as I can. Do you think I can just fork out that much money without my family noticing?”

Another long pause.

Then he heard as if from far away: “Okay ... you’ll get the million ... in four weeks.”

CHAPTER TWO

The Million

Bo sat thunderstruck on his rug. Over and over and again, that one sentence kept going through his head: “Okay, you’ll get the million.” – One million? What sort of a million was he talking about? Who was this Peter guy? What did Dad have to do with him? And why should he give him money? How in the world could he get hold of that much money? As the head of the public library he certainly didn’t have a bad salary, and Mom’s part-time job at the health food store brought in a bit of extra cash, but a million? That would be like winning the lottery! They’d just built this eco-house two years ago, and Bo knew they still had the bank loan to pay off every month. At any rate, that was Dad’s favorite argument whenever the cash issue came up and Mia started lobbying for new clothes and, more recently, make-up stuff. “We all need to tighten our belts for a while,” he would say with a cheerful smile. He probably wanted to show how much fun saving could be.

And now he wanted to raise a million and give it to this Peter? There was something weird going on. No, mega weird.

Now it was clear why Dad had been so grouchy lately. He was always in a bad mood and complained about everything. Watching TV and playing games together was a thing of the past. Now after dinner all they ever heard was, “Go to bed!” in a tone that stopped any further discussion. Bo had also noticed how much Mom suffered from his bad moods.

It was as if Dad had become a different person. Actually, he’d always been pretty good natured and easygoing. He could be really funny, even if he sometimes didn’t mean to be. But above all, you could always count on him.

Of course, he also had his quirks (he called them the “golden rules of upbringing”). And, unfortunately, his taste was sometimes pretty weird. Take TV, for example: Soccer was pretty much the only thing you could agree with him on. Otherwise, he mostly watched boring culture documentaries on ARTE. He even thought that James Bond movies were violent and should be banned.

When it came to music, it was pretty much the same story. Anything after the Beatles was “riot music” for him. Dad only listened to music that was guaranteed to put you to sleep: classical music, church music, and, at best, his old hippie songs.

He’d just stopped in the 70s, same with his appearance. He wore his hair almost down to his shoulders – at least the few strands that he still had. For as long as Bo could remember, they had been snow white. “A real old hippie,” Bo’s friend YoYo would always say, hitting the nail on the head. All he needed was a pair of purple overalls and some Jesus sandals, and you could stick him in a museum.

Bo stood up. He paced the room anxiously, and then stood in front of the window. The rain was drizzling quietly and depressingly outside. He shivered. What should he do? Tell his mom everything? – No! The answer immediately ran through his head. His parents had always been straight with one another. Dad had to have a reason for keeping the matter secret from Mom.

Maybe he should talk to Mia? He dismissed the thought as quickly as it came to him. She just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. In no time at all, all of her twenty girlfriends would be offering their opinions about it.

As he stared at the rain, he suddenly realized what had to be done. After all, what were friends for?

CHAPTER THREE

The Friends

“Keep cool. We’ll figure something out!” As if he wanted to prove his point, YoYo quickly took off his glasses and attacked them with the end of his shirt. Once he was satisfied with how clean they were, he put them back on.

Simon just gave a slight nod. He was – in contrast to YoYo – a man of few words. He said what needed to be said, but not a word more.

The rain had finally taken a break. Bo and his friends were sitting on the railings of the supermarket parking lot, where their way home from school together came to an end. They would usually sit there next to the shopping carts for a while before each of them took their last short stretch home alone.

It was not exactly the most comfortable place to meet. Shopping carts rattled, small children whined, cars pulled in and out, and the crashing of empty crates came from the drinks department. But nobody took any notice of them.

Bo told his friends about everything – the call, his father’s stinking mood, the bad atmosphere at home. He was so relieved to get everything off his chest, that he almost gave them a hug.

YoYo and Simon were his best, or more precisely, only friends. Sometimes he wondered to himself how he could be friends with two such different characters. Even at first glance you could hardly imagine a greater contrast: YoYo was much smaller than Simon, but on the other hand a whole lot fatter. His real name was Yorick. Mean kids said his nickname had something to do with his body shape: small and round – like a yoyo. The cause of his corpulence (as he liked to call his tummy) was no mystery. All he ate was fast food. He regarded all other food with suspicion. “There might be something in there,” he would say. When he came to visit Bo, whose mother inevitably served her health food, he always made a face as if he was going to be poisoned. His favorite drink was his famous “slush.” It was a sweet, iced slurpy drink that was drunk out of a cup with a straw. It came in bright red, purple, acid green, and bright yellow. The whole thing came from a machine in YoYo’s room that his mother had bought him. He’d gotten hooked on the stuff on vacation in Majorca, and after that claimed that he couldn’t do any homework without slush.

When it came to food and drink, YoYo was completely self-sufficient. His mother worked in the afternoon and came home late, and even in the morning YoYo rarely got to see her because she was still sleeping. His father was never around. YoYo told everyone he was at sea, but Bo knew from his parents that YoYo’s father had moved to Hamburg with another woman. That was five years ago, and since then he hadn’t reappeared.

“A clear case of blackmail!” YoYo shouted so loudly that a passing old lady with a shopping cart looked at him in complete terror and then scurried off in a hurry.

He continued more quietly: “This Peter guy shouldn’t be too happy too soon. Now he’s going to have to deal with real professionals!” He stroked the bleached tips of his spiky hair. With his hairstyle YoYo had always been “a trendsetter,” as he liked to say. The same was true of course for his clothes. There the trend was apparently heading in the direction of wide jogging trousers, sky blue gym shoes, and t-shirts or sweatshirts with freaky slogans on them. At the moment it was “I could explain it to you, but don’t want to overburden you.” YoYo was a born loudmouth. But that didn’t change the fact that he was a really good friend.

“Yes, YoYo’s right,” Simon piped up with his gentle voice. He bit into an apple and started to chew calmly, looking off somewhere into the distance.

His tanned face showed he was outside a lot. It was framed by long, straw-colored hair that fell forward into his dark eyes. All the girls in class had a crush on Simon, partly because of his appearance, but mainly because of his shy, Robert-Pattinson-like smile. Especially the beautiful Tatyana with her generous and revealing bust adored him truly, but he didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t care about girls, as he had once told Bo.

Simon threw the apple core skillfully into the trash can. “YoYo’s right, the thing looks dangerously like chainmail!”

“Blackmail,” Bo corrected him.

Simon’s language skills were a bit rusty. He and his family had lived in Texas for six years, where his father had worked as a pediatrician. In the three months since their return, he’d made some progress, but he was still headed for an F in languages – which fortunately wouldn’t get him held back [1]. That rule only applied to the current school year, which was why Simon had asked his friends to correct all his mistakes.

Simon smiled. “Yes, blackmail ... but how do we find these lobsters?”

“Mobsters.” Bo had to suppress his laughter.

“The first thing we need to check is this email they were talking about,” YoYo said. He sounded like the police chief in a TV show. “My experience tells me that this will help us out.”

“And does your experience also tell you how we can get at it?” Bo said. “I don’t have a clue what the password is.”

YoYo waved the objection away with a gesture. “Chill, bro.” He waited a few moments for a dramatic pause. “I know someone who might help us.”

“And who would that be?” Bo asked suspiciously.

YoYo cleared his throat loudly, and focused his view on his shoes.

“Spit it out!”

YoYo scratched behind his ear. “MM.”

Bo looked at YoYo searchingly. You never knew with him, but he seemed to be totally serious.

MM’s real name was Mariekje Marienhoff, but since it tied your tongue in a knot, everybody in class only called her “MM.” Some also claimed that MM stood for “Math Mousie,” from the time when she proved to Mr. Freudenthal that he’d made a mistake in the fifth position behind the decimal point when converting a fraction. MM was an absolute overachiever, and not only in math. Bo couldn’t recall that she’d ever gotten any grade other than an A. Apart from that, no one really knew anything about her. She’d joined the class after summer vacation because she’d skipped a grade. To this day, nobody had exchanged a single word with her. Not that she couldn’t speak – when she was asked a question, she would answer as quickly as if shot from a pistol. But if it was up to her, she would never say a word. She would just sit straight up in her seat in the front row, hanging on to the teacher’s golden words. During the break, she stood around alone. Naturally, she played the violin in the school orchestra.

Bo still couldn’t believe it. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, man,” said YoYo. “She could really help us out.”

“How’d you come up with that idea?” asked Bo.

YoYo was again preoccupied with the tips of his shoes. “I once spoke to her –”

“Spoke to her?” Simon really looked confused. “Get out of here.”

YoYo looked uncomfortable. He shifted from one foot to the other, as if he had to go to the bathroom.

“I once had a problem with my tablet, and since her father is a computer geek, I thought –”

Now it was clear what had happened. The idea of spending a few days without games or the internet had driven him crazy, so he eventually called Math Mousie. Her father was a professor at the university. There’d once been an article about him in the newspaper. He was supposedly building the fastest computer in the world.

“Even the people at the computer store were clueless. So I thought I’d give MM a try, thinking maybe she could ask her father.” YoYo’s ears had turned very red. “She just told me, cool as a cucumber: ‘I’ll fix it myself. Hand it over.’ She just glanced inside and replaced a part. I’m telling you, this is a real hackerette.”

“Cool,” said Simon, “we need to use a hacker rat.”

“But ... isn’t she really weird?” asked Bo.

YoYo just shrugged his shoulders. “What does it matter, we need her either way. I’ll check whether she’s up for it. All of us should get together this afternoon at three for the strategic briefing.”

“For what?” Bo asked.

“Well – that’s what the pros call it.” YoYo apparently didn’t think more of an explanation was necessary.

“I’ve got to go,” Simon said. “Nala is waiting for me.”

Simon and his Nala. Since he’d found the three-legged fawn on one of his walks through the woods a few days ago, he’d developed real maternal feelings. He fiddled with milk bottles and warming blankets and did all-nighters just to take care of the wounded animal.

Bo looked at the time. “I’ve also got to go!” – It was high time. When it came to lunch, Mom didn’t stand for any nonsense. “Don’t you want to come for lunch?” he asked YoYo upon leaving.

YoYo made a face as if he had gotten an invitation to the dentist. In a frightened voice, he stammered: “Oh, shut it – I’m on a diet.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The Briefing

Whatever YoYo might have feared – it actually turned out to be much worse.

A magical moment of family life, Bo thought to himself as he sat at the dinner table. Mom had served one of her infamous eco-specialties: a casserole made from mixed wholegrain with celery, together with radish and low-fat curd. She’d cooked nothing but vegetarian food for years. In her view meat made you sick and stupid, and sugar was pure poison. It was a simple rule: The better it tasted, the more toxic it was.

Today, the food was exceedingly healthy, his father’s bad mood served as a perfect side dish. Throughout the whole meal not a single word left his lips. Only now and then he let out a humming noise, which was probably meant to give the impression that he was participating in the conversation. In reality he was miles away.

Mia, in contrast, was jabbering nonstop. She didn’t seem to notice how depressed the mood around her was. She blithely rambled on about her favorite subjects: who had a crush on whom in her class, and which boys she found cute, and what great things her friend Melanie had been wearing, and where they came from and how much they cost. At some point she inevitably returned to the topic of the poster boy in her teeny magazines – what an awesome video of him she’d discovered and what a hard time he was going through, because his girlfriend had kissed someone else. When Bo made an ironic remark, she went totally ape: “You have no idea how much he’s suffering!”

The crowning, but predictable conclusion of the meal was that Mom forced him to clear the table. And that meant, of course, that he had to empty the dishwasher first, and then wipe the table. The whole deal. He protested cautiously: In his opinion Mia could also lend a hand for once, but he knew it was basically useless. “Mia has a lot of homework today,” would be Mom’s reasoning. As if he didn’t have any. The problem was that Mom was on her feminist trip again. By assigning him regular chores she wanted to protect him from the worst fate possible for man: becoming a macho. She’d always been worried because he was only friends with other boys. In her view, the “feminine side” of him was in real danger of wasting away.

But apart from that, Mom was actually okay. Above all, she could laugh at herself. “I know I worry about you too much. But you’re my only son, so I’m entitled to, alright?” she would say to Bo.

Bo had just finished clearing the table, when YoYo and Simon turned up. All three of them quickly disappeared into Bo’s room. In one hand, Simon held a long something or other that looked like an oversized sock made of dark red terry cloth, and in the other he had a basket with two brown ears poking out.

“What did you bring with you?” Bo asked, leaning over the basket. “Is that Nala?”

Two big, black eyes looked at him and a wet snout stuck out over the edge of the basket, sniffing cautiously.

“Yeah. I not want to leave her alone. She chosed me as her mother. If I go away, she’s always so sad!”

“And what are you doing with the bow?” Bo pointed at the giant sock. “Are you planning on hunting this Peter guy down?”

“Nah, I go to the shooting range later.”

Since living in America, Simon had become an avid archer. He trained two or three times a week at the Sports Club Niedernhausen’s shooting range, usually in the afternoons when he could be sure that nobody else from the club was watching him. They stood around with their fat beer-guts and high-tech bows with fancy pulleys and sighting devices, but they still couldn’t shoot as well as he did. He’d brought the rosewood hunting bow from America. Bo had once accompanied him to training. “80 pounds of drawing weight,” he’d told Bo with a cryptic smile. As much as Bo struggled, he couldn’t even stretch the bowstring a few inches. Simon, in contrast, pulled at it as if it were butter, and told him that in America people went bear hunting using this kind of bow. He shot with incredible precision. Each time he hit the bull’s eye with the arrow, he just shook his hair from his forehead, as if such a shot wasn’t worth mentioning.

“And? Is MM going to join us?” Bo turned to YoYo.

“Sure, man. But she’ll be a bit late, she still has something to do.”

“I bet she’s cramming for biology,” Bo said.

The boys made themselves comfortable on the rug under the loft bed. Bo told his friends about the nightmare at lunch, right down to the last detail.

“Yuck,” sighed YoYo. “Low-fat cheese curd would have made me barf.”

Simon’s only comment was: “Bury me.”

Nala had curled up in his arms and looked around attentively with her dark eyes. Now and then she scrambled to her feet and hobbled a few steps on her three legs, only to jump quickly back into his arms.

By 3:30 pm, MM still hadn’t appeared. They’d just decided to call her, when the bedroom door opened. Bo could’ve anticipated this: In front of them stood Mia – all dolled up, with brightly painted red lips and wearing pounds of eye shadow. Apparently, while Bo had been slaving away in the kitchen, she’d spent the time with her make-up arsenal in the bathroom.

“Well, brother sweetie, d’you have visitors?” she asked Bo, without actually looking at him. To Simon, on the other hand, she gave her very sweetest smile, or at least that’s what she thought she was doing. It looked more like someone had stepped on her foot.

Then she turned back to Bo: “By the way, there’s some bimbo who wants to talk to you. Didn’t know that you’d started with the girl thing already, brother sweetie!” Of course she knew exactly how much “brother sweetie” got on his nerves.

Behind Mia a slender girl with black, medium-length hair appeared in the doorway. At first glance Bo almost didn’t recognize her. MM looked somehow different than in school. Maybe it was because in the classroom he only ever saw her from behind. She smiled cautiously. She was probably somewhat intimidated by Mia’s entry – which unfortunately wasn’t anywhere near being over.

“What are you doing that’s so important? If I may ask?” Mia’s question was probably meant to sound casual, but she was clearly bursting with curiosity.

Bo was only too pleased to brush his sister off: “What’s it to you anyway?”

Mia put on a contrived smile and whispered, “Aha! Brother sweetie wants to keep secrets from his sister? Don’t worry, I’ll find out!” And with a thunderous look at Bo and a smoldering glance at Simon, she was gone. Only a thick cloud of perfume remained.

“Oh man ...” YoYo looked at Bo full of compassion.

“Typically Yankee,” muttered Simon faintly. Since he’d come back from America, that was one of his favorite sayings. Not that he hadn’t liked America. On the contrary: The wild and natural countryside had inspired him. He still romanticized his solitary horseback rides on the black stallion “Liberty.” But in his middle school class he’d remained an outsider – and so had his whole family. They just hadn’t really fit into the average Texan’s way of life, where everything revolved around cars and TV shows. For his classmates, life outside school only took place on the TV screen. Simon just couldn’t relate to that and all he could say to it was “typically Yankee.” There were no computers or TVs at all in the Böttcher family’s home. They lived like people did about a hundred years ago. YoYo always called them the “Amish Family” because the girls and the mom would wear long skirts and braids. In the evening they sang together, accompanied by the Dad’s guitar playing. On the weekends they all went hiking together. Bo couldn’t really understand why you’d go hiking voluntarily, especially with half a ton of luggage on your back. But for Simon, there was nothing better. After all, he was a nature freak.

MM had sat down next to Bo. “Your sister’s pretty hardcore,” she said with a slight smile.

“Yea, you could say so,” groaned Bo, rolling his eyes.

“Sorry I’m late,” MM said. “I’ve been walking the neighbors’ dogs, I do it every day. Six pedigree lapdogs wearing little bows. Completely screwed up. But super well paid, fifty euros a month.”

Bo was completely mesmerized by her eyes. They were as clear as sea water, somewhere between light blue and turquoise green. Maybe it was just the contrast with her black hair, but he’d certainly never seen such bright eyes.

YoYo, on the other hand, seemed to be more interested in the financial side of her explanation. “Wow! Fifty euros? I’d recommend Facebook shares,” he said eagerly.

YoYo with his shares! Only he could get into such a geeky hobby. At home he constantly had the current stock prices running on the screen. At school he had “his finger on the pulse of the market,” as he put it – the pulse of the market was the cell phone under his desk.

MM smiled. “I don’t need shares. I spend all my money on computer parts.”

Bo knew from YoYo that MM had built her own computer, which she called “Little Blue”. It was supposed to be so fast that it could take on many mainframes. She’d installed superfast processors that weren’t on the market yet that her father had given her.

MM hadn’t yet noticed that Nala was standing behind her and sniffing her hair. As the fawn began to nibble on her ear, she turned around, startled. “What sort of creature are you?”

Simon had to tell the whole story over again. “She got her leg in the mower. She was half dead when I found her. Her mom had already gaved up on her –”

“Given up on her.” YoYo cleared his throat impatiently. “Let’s go!” He had his phone in his hand and started typing. “A couple of keywords for the record,” he said with an air of importance, and ran his hand through his hair. In a solemn tone he announced: “Now that we’re all present, I hereby declare the first strategic briefing of our task force open.”

Bo looked hard at YoYo. He seemed to really mean it with his officious tone. He looked like a general inspecting his troops.

“Let’s start with the most important thing,” YoYo continued. “Our means of communication.” He rummaged around in his backpack. What emerged were three brand-new smartphones, all exactly the same model as the one he’d owned for two weeks.

“What are you planning on doing with all those cell phones? Isn’t one enough for you?” Bo asked.

“No, they’re for you. We need to be at the cutting edge of communication technology. And for that, we need decent cell phones with conference call capability, voice recorder, internet and everything, right?”

Bo didn’t quite agree. “What do you think my mom’s going to say when I show up with one of these?” She’d probably say nothing at all – because she’d be speechless. Mom was convinced that you get cancer from cell phone radiation. The whole family had a strict ban on cell phones, Dad included.

“You don’t need to show her, do you?” YoYo pointed out. “You just keep it on vibrate. And when it goes off, you’ll just have to go to the bathroom or somewhere else where you can talk.”

Bo imagined himself sitting at the dinner table with the phone cheerfully vibrating in his pocket. He didn’t really think they needed to run around with fancy cell phones, but the idea of actually having one was pretty tempting. “Okay, hand it over, it’ll be fine,” he said to YoYo.

“But we don’t have that much catch,” Simon objected.

“Cash, you mean ...”

“No worries,” YoYo said. “I’ve sold a couple of DaimlerChrysler shares. They’re worth 64.76 at the moment, not a bad time to cash ’em in.”

He turned to MM: “Have you got any idea how we can get at the file?”

“Yes, I have a plan,” she replied with a smile. She turned to Bo: “When can you borrow the laptop?”

“The best is in the morning, when Dad’s at the library and Mom’s in the health food store. And Mia at school.”

“The only problem is that we’re also in school then,” Simon said.

“Problems are there to be solved.” With a sweeping gesture YoYo fumbled around with his glasses once more. “And I already know how.”

“Well?”

“We’ll get the squits.”

“What?”

“We’ll all get sick. Tomorrow after the second lesson.”

CHAPTER FIVE

The Trail

“There you go!” Bo put the laptop on YoYo’s desk, opened the screen, and pressed the power button. The machine began to hum softly. Four pairs of eyes stared at the display.

Given that an hour ago they’d all been suffering from severe abdominal cramps, Bo and his friends looked quite cheery. As agreed, they had all been afflicted with a severe stomach flu during German class. YoYo had put his hand up, his face grayish-green and eyes drooping (“A little trick,” he said afterward, “that only needs a bit of chalk”). Old Siegwart almost called the emergency doctor. Simon muttered something like “terrible shitty,” by which he probably meant his bad diarrhea. To Bo’s surprise, Siegwart swallowed the story that his mother’s low-fat curd had upset their stomachs. The poor man looked as if he needed a toilet bowl himself. Apparently he got trashed again the night before.

The low-fat-curd action caused quite a stir in class – especially since MM was in on it. “They’re probably getting math tutoring from her,” Bo heard someone say. As he was leaving, he saw Tatyana make face that spoke volumes, it said something like: “Simon always blanks me out, and now this geek girl is one of his gang.”

Bo had then raced home, packed his father’s laptop and taken it to YoYo’s, where the others were already waiting impatiently for him. It took a while for YoYo to shovel clear a space for the device. His room had exceeded its capacity again. There was equipment lying around everywhere: TV, video, DVD player, stereo, X-Box, PlayStation, computer. Not to mention the slush machine. Lying around in between were stacks of comic books, old pizza boxes, plastic cups, clothes and all kinds of computer games.

YoYo was sitting with half his bum on the edge of his desk, leaning over the laptop.

“It actually wants a password,” he muttered. His voice sounded slightly offended.

“What now?” asked Bo apprehensively.

“Don’t wet your pants.” With an amused smile, MM took the laptop and got to work on the keyboard. While the keys clicked and rattled, she said: “Your father doesn’t seem to have a clue about computers.”

“Too right!” Bo had to laugh. Dad and technology ... a real catastrophe. Just seeing him with a screwdriver in his hand generally meant the whole house needed to be evacuated. Mom kept the drill under lock and key, because he’d once bored into a gas pipe with it. Then there was the infamous TV incident. He’d once tried to connect a video recorder, and the whole thing had blown up. Even making phone calls was a problem for him. Since they got a cordless phone, you’d again and again see him pressing the remote control against his ear.

He’d owned the laptop for about two months now. He’d been more or less forced to purchase it when the entire library was digitized. Basically, he still mourned the death of his old typewriter.

While MM worked on the keys, there was a breathless silence.

It didn’t take long before a redemptive “okay” spilled from MM’s mouth “I’m in!” After a few more clicks she said: “The word “Peter” appears in two files. The first is an email from Bo’s father to Peter – here, look at this!”

I don’t need to tell you what I think of you. You know what all this means for me – and my family. Of course, you’ve got me cornered. But I can only hope that you have a spark of honor left in you and that you’ll have second thoughts. Peter, if you have money worries, we can sit down together and find a solution.

Bo had barely finished reading when MM pulled up the next email. “From Peter to your father. This must be the email they were talking about in the phone call.”

It’s no good. You’re just wasting your time with all that compassion crap. I need the money in four weeks at the latest. And that’s the end of it. I’ll let you know, exactly when and how you should give it to me. But one thing’s clear: I’m not going to put up with any more of your stalling. You know that you can’t get old Chevys for free anymore. And one more reminder: Keep the cops out of it. If I find out that you’re not playing by the rules, I’ll blow the whistle. Peter.

For a long time no one said a word. Bo clenched his fists in rage.

“What a creep,” MM said with a trembling voice.

At first YoYo said nothing. He walked up and down the room, lost in thought. “What’s all that supposed to mean?” he muttered. Then suddenly he sat down again. “Let’s gather all the facts. It’s what the pros call brainstorming.” He looked around, very enthusiastic about his own suggestion. “Well, what do we know?”

“We know that we know nothing,” Bo retorted, somewhat annoyed by YoYo’s cockiness.

MM seemed to take the “brainstorming” more seriously. “What we know for sure is that Bo’s father is being blackmailed –”

“By a guy called Peter,” YoYo continued.

“Who wants a million from him,” added Simon.

“By the first of September,” Bo now joined in.

“And this guy’s on a first name basis with your father,” YoYo said. “So he must know him pretty well. A friend of his, maybe.”

“If you call someone who wants to take a million off you a friend,” MM interjected dryly.

“Well, an ex-friend –”

“One who’s into ’old Chevys’, whatever that means,” Bo said.

YoYo looked at him aghast: “You’ve never heard of Chevys? It means Chevrolets!”

“Chevrolets?” MM asked.

YoYo now seemed to completely lose his composure. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what a Chevrolet is?”

“No, actually, I don’t,” she retorted. “Am I supposed to be embarrassed now?”

YoYo tried to keep calm and spelled it out for her: that Chevrolet was an American make of car, and that for classic car fans, old Chevys were much in demand. “It really sounds like he collects the things.”

There was a long pause, during which YoYo impatiently tapped on the slush machine.

“The whole thing is kind of strange,” he began. “Normally blackmailers try to make absolutely sure that no one finds out who they are. They really try to hide all evidence. But this Peter guy has no problem with the fact that your father knows who he is.”

“And he doesn’t even seem to be afraid of Bo’s father going to the police,” MM said.

“And he must have a reason for that. And a pretty valid one,” YoYo said.

“That’s where the real mystery lies,” Bo said uneasily. He had a strange feeling in his stomach. Something was fishy about the whole thing. Why didn’t Dad just report this Peter to the cops? Maybe he was afraid of the police himself?

“If your father doesn’t pay, Peter wants to ‘blow the whistle,’” he heard MM say.

“Hmmm ... but what’s he going to blow the whistle about?” Simon asked.

“I don’t know,” YoYo said. “Peter must have something on your father. He seems to know some secret ... something that’s not supposed to come out, not for any price, not even a million.”

As hard as they tried, they just didn’t get any further. Every question just led to more questions.

They sat around silently, each lost in thought.

“What’s his email address?” YoYo asked in the silence.

“572391250@hotmail.com,” MM read.

“Hmm. Not exactly enlightening, either.”

Bo swallowed. They now had a lead, but it didn’t get them anywhere. They didn’t even know the blackmailer’s surname. What use was tracking his letter if they weren’t able to get any closer?

Everyone stared aimlessly into the distance, while the rain outside the window quietly dripped down.

Suddenly YoYo jumped up: “I know how we’ll get him!”

CHAPTER SIX

The Beer Drinker

First, YoYo carefully cleaned his glasses.

“Come on, spit it out!” Bo said impatiently.

But before YoYo gave in to his audience, he first had to clear his throat and hold his glasses searchingly against the light, before putting them back on with an exaggerated gesture.

“So ... I think we should simply write to Peter. And arrange to meet him.“

Was YoYo making fun of them?

YoYo left Bo no time to think it over. “We know Peter’s email address. And we know something else: He’s interested in old Chevys. And that’s something we can get him with. We could write to him under a pseudonym – that’s what the pros call an alias – some kind of aristocratic name would be best, that always goes down well, and we’ll pretend to be collectors wanting to make him a fantastic offer. We could invite him to a personal meeting in some restaurant. Except, of course, there’d be no blue-blooded classic car freak waiting for him, just an empty table.”

YoYo stopped and looked into the distance like a speaker waiting for the crowd’s applause. Instead, there was just an awkward silence.

“And what are we supposed to do then? Do you want us to jump him?” MM asked.

“Of course not. First we observe him from a neighboring table. And then, when he gets up to leave, we follow him.”

“You mean, we shadow him?” said MM.

“Exactly – observe is the term used by professionals, by the way.” YoYo really couldn’t pass up an opportunity to show off.

“And if he doesn’t want to come?” MM threw in.

“He will come,” answered YoYo. “He’s so into these things that he doesn’t even stop at blackmail. We just have to make it really tempting. We could offer him an extremely rare model, let’s say a 1950 or something.”

“Don’t tell me you know about classic cars?” Bo asked. With YoYo, it was always difficult to tell hot air from reality.

YoYo shrugged. “No, not at all. But I do know a classic car freak, and I can ask him a few questions.”

Maybe YoYo’s idea wasn’t so bad after all, Bo thought. In any case, it was worth a try. He looked at MM. Judging by the glint in her eyes, she was also warming up to the idea.

YoYo seemed to enjoy his triumph. He was casually sitting on the arm of the sofa, stroking his hedgehog hair. He wore the serene expression of a genius that had been proven right after years of nobody listening to him.

For the next two days they had their hands full with the preparation for the meeting. YoYo got the information from his expert about the greatest and most desirable Chevy models.

Next, a new email address had to be registered and a convincing pseudonym thought up. They chose the name “Baron Alfredo of Hohenburg-Drachenfels in the County of Holstein.” It had to sound awe-inspiring.

Then, it was necessary to find a suitable meeting place. They chose the Italian restaurant Adamo on the town square. It was fancy enough for aristocrats to go to, but not so pricey that they’d stand out as children. After school they paid the place a short visit to choose right tables. MM reserved one of them for the baron by phone, and YoYo reserved the other one for himself and his friends.

And then the email had to be formulated, which took them the whole evening. Old Siegwart hadn’t prepared them for composing letters to blackmailers. In the end, however, they had formulated an – as YoYo put it – “absolutely irresistible” offer. They were particularly proud of the final formulation: “It will, my very dear sir, redound to my highest honor to personally meet you on Friday. Yours sincerely, Baron Alfredo von Hohenburg-Drachenfels in the County of Holstein.”

By 3:32 pm the next day, Peter’s reply to their invitation had arrived. He could barely believe that he had finally found an offer on a ’53 Bel Air convertible after having spent years trying to get hold of that very model, blah, blah, blah. He was obviously so interested in the offer he didn’t even seem to wonder how the baron, of all people, had come across him.

On “Observation Day” the weather was beautiful for the first time in ages. The sun was beaming down as if it had been collecting energy during the many days of rain. When Bo arrived punctually at the fountain in the town square at 4:30 pm, his friends were already assembled there. He almost didn’t recognize them, because just like him they had all donned big sunglasses on their noses. Obviously, they’d taken YoYo’s instructions to “use a bit of camouflage” very seriously. They looked like a mafia convention in a gangster B-movie. Even Simon, with his metallic mirrored glasses and cap on backwards, looked like a villain.

“If we show up at Adamo like that, he’ll dial 110 [2] to call the cops,” MM chuckled. “Maybe we should lose the sunglasses.”

“Okay, get rid of the gear. And then let’s do it!” YoYo said, taking command. “Do you have your phone on, Bo?”

“Yeah, sure. You can tell me what the pizza tastes like. I could do with one right now, for lunch we had some kind of weed with barley groats again.”

“Bury me,” Simon muttered.

“Deadly, you mean,” said Bo.

“We’ll think of you, Bo!” MM smiled at him encouragingly. She looked really great in her bright blue dress and straw hat, Bo thought.

After his friends had disappeared into the restaurant, Bo sat down on the edge of the fountain. He had an excellent view of the front door from there. Half a minute later, YoYo was already on the phone. “All clear?”

“All clear!”

“Same here. The waiter is already coming to take the order. I’ll be back soon. See ya!”

“See ya!”

Now Bo could listen to his friends ordering coke and pizza. After that, it got quieter and quieter at their table. From time to time YoYo gave an update about the latest state of affairs, which was always the same: nothing going on at the table of the “target person,” as he had christened Peter.

Bo began to get worried. Had Peter smelled a rat?

“Hi, brother sweetie!”

Bo winced. The voice was right behind him. He could have done without this surprise. He turned around and tried to look normal – but he failed, just as he failed to discreetly hide his cell phone.

Mia looked like a vulture descending on its prey. “First of all, you can explain to me where you got this phone.”

“Simmer down! I borrowed it from YoYo!”

“And who are you talking to?” She was brimming with curiosity.

“Um ... with ... uh ...” His mind was totally blank.

While he was thinking frantically, a triumphant smile appeared on his sister’s face. “Aha, now I see! You’re flirting with your new sweetheart!”

Bo was about to flip out, but he managed to control himself, and not a moment too soon. After all, he didn’t have any better excuse. “We’ve only been talking about homework. If you call that flirting ...”

“Brother sweetie, you can’t fool me. When it comes to love, I know the ropes.” Mia let out a deep sigh. A moment later her face took on a completely ecstatic expression. “You know, I already had the feeling that sparks were flying between you and that Mariekje girl. How sweet! I’m insanely happy for you!”

Bo felt that resistance was not appropriate right now. He smiled wanly and pointed to the phone.

Mia seemed to have understood. “Then I don’t want to disturb you two any longer,” she said, strutting off with a huge grin on her face. Bo could hear her battle cry: “I must tell Melanie at once!”

Once she was out of earshot, Bo put the phone back to his ear with a sigh of relief. Just in time, it seemed.

“Why didn’t you answer?” he heard YoYo say. “Peter’s here!”

Oh dear, he’d completely slipped through his fingers.

YoYo continued in a whisper: “He just ordered a beer. I’m going to describe him to you: Not very tall, wearing a brown leather jacket. Looks kind of unhealthy, has a red booze-face, greasy hair, semi-bald head, thin gold chain. A kind of sleazy type. As soon as I can take photo of him without anyone noticing, I’ll send you a picture.”

With that, the big wait went on for Bo. Minutes seemed like hours. At some point the promised photo arrived. It was a little blurry, but this much was clear: The guy really wasn’t very attractive, and “sleazy” was exactly the right word for him. For a moment it seemed to Bo that he’d seen Peter’s face before. But he pushed the thought aside, it simply couldn’t be.

After an eternity, YoYo was back on the phone again. “He’s paying now, he’ll be outside in just a second!”

A minute later, Peter appeared in the doorway. Anger was written all over his face. Apparently, he’d fallen out with the baron. Even his gait was marked by rage. Almost at a run, he crossed the square toward the city center. Bo followed him at a safe distance on his mountain bike, the cell phone to his ear.

“He is turning into Kreuzgasse,” he announced to his friends.

“Stay on his heels, we’ll be with you in a second! Just have to finish paying!” said YoYo.

Peter seemed to be in a hurry. He turned onto Seydlitz Street, and then, without looking left or right, went past the cinema in the direction of the DIY store. He headed purposefully for the parking lot, and was veering toward a red sports convertible. Bo positioned himself so that the car had to pass right in front of him to leave the parking lot.

He heard the engine revving. It seemed just as angry as the driver. The car pulled out of the parking space at full tilt and sped toward the exit. Bo’s eyes were glued to the license plate. Breathlessly, he relayed the letters and numbers to YoYo. When the car had almost reached him, Bo’s gaze focused on the driver – and in a split second he knew: Yes! He did know this man from somewhere!

With tires screeching, the car turned onto the main road and zoomed off toward Claudius Ring. Bo wondered briefly whether he should follow him, but the car had already disappeared.

“Nice heels!” He heard Simon say.

“Wheels,” Bo corrected automatically.

Simon, MM and YoYo pulled up on their bikes in front of him.

“You took more photos, right?” He asked at once.

“Of course, man!” YoYo handed him his phone theatrically. “This one’s the best.” He zoomed in until Peter’s head filled the entire screen. Bo looked at him in silence. He’d seen this man before, that much was sure.

A little later, while running up the stairs at home, he suddenly realized where: in his parents’ photo album.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Photo

Bo could vaguely remember the photo: two men side by side, one of them was Dad, the other Peter. If he remembered correctly, they were on a boat. But he could be wrong. Anyway, the shot was pretty old – Dad still had thick, brown hair.

Bo had to find out right away. Luckily, Mom was busy preparing dinner in the kitchen. Dad could neither be seen nor heard. He was holed up in his study. There was also no sign of Mia. Bo crept up to the bookshelf in the living room and pulled the three family albums off the shelf. He quickly slipped into his room with them, and climbed onto the loft bed. He didn’t even take the time to remove his shoes, and immediately started flipping through the albums.

It wasn’t long, before he came across the photo: two young men, casually leaning against the railings of a sailing ship, both dressed in 70’s or 80’s fashion; Dad in jeans and a denim jacket, Peter in brown, widely flared corduroy trousers and a wide collared, wine red shirt. He didn’t have a beer gut yet, and wasn’t balding either, but even back then his hair was greasy. In the photo, the two of them looked like friends on a pleasant trip.

Bo continued to flip through the pages hastily. He discovered more and more photos where his father could be seen with Peter, even one featuring Mom with them. So she had to know him, too ...

“Bo, can you come and set the table, please!” his mom shouted from the kitchen.

Even though he knew it wouldn’t be any use, he shouted back: “It’s Mia’s turn today!”

He got exactly the response he had expected: “She has so much homework today!”

Bo resigned himself to his fate and climbed off the bed. Before walking into the kitchen, he unobtrusively slipped the albums back into place.

Dinner was, once again, very special. Bo was enviously thinking of YoYo, who at that moment was probably sitting alone in front of his burgers and fries, flipping through a comic book and watching TV. While he was struggling with kohlrabi casserole and buttermilk, and, to top it all, having to endure the barrage of glances that Mia shot at him. It seemed like at any moment she would come out with the newsflash that he was as good as married.

Dad’s thoughts were obviously far away. He was sitting there, totally withdrawn, his face looking old and furrowed. Bo could literally feel the burden that was weighing on him. He would’ve liked to have sat down beside him, put his arm around his shoulders, and said “don’t worry about that Peter. We’ll be able to deal with him!”

“We’ll be able to deal with him!” – That was exactly what Dad had once said to him. Back then, about the situation with Kevin.

Bo had just turned eleven, and Kevin had been a year above him. He and his gang used to wear these jackets marked “Gangsta.” One day on his way home, they were standing in front of Bo, coolly holding cigarettes in their mouths and switchblades in their hands. “Gimme ten euros and we’ll leave you alone!” Bo was so frightened he pulled out the money. The same thing kept on happening, until he had no money left in his piggy-bank. Then he started taking money out of his father’s wallet, until one day he got caught. Instead of punishing him, Dad looked at him with a serious face. “I know that you’d never steal from me if you weren’t really in a pickle. Tell me what’s going on.” Although Bo was scared witless, he ended up telling the truth. “We’ll be able to deal with him!” Dad comforted him. To this day, Bo didn’t know exactly what his father ended up doing. At any rate, Kevin had left him alone after that.

After the dinner had reached its climax with unsweetened stewed rhubarb, Bo plucked up his courage. “Dad, can’t we have a look at the family photos?”

“What photos do you mean?” was the sullen reply.

“The old photo albums.”

“Hmm. How did you come up with that idea?”

“We’re covering pop trends and the hippies and the whole peace movement generation of the 80’s in art class ... And Mrs. Bertz told us to have a look at some photos – what people were wearing at that time, the fashion, hairstyles, cars, and so on. I was wondering if you could explain it to me a little bit.”

Mom lit up at once. “Oh yes, Reinhard, let’s look at the old photos again. We haven’t done that for so long!”

With great satisfaction Bo noted that his gamble had worked. After all, he’d been mulling it over for long enough.

Although Dad didn’t exactly look as if he wanted to deal with the ancient past at that moment, he had to give in to Mom’s enthusiasm. He silently fetched the albums.

They all made themselves comfortable on the sofa. It wasn’t long before the photo of Peter came up.

“Who’s this guy?” Bo asked, his heart pounding.

“Oh, Peter –”

For a split second Bo thought he noticed a tremor in Dad’s voice, but it was soon gone again. “Peter was my classmate at university.” He paused. “University, from the Latin ‘universitas’ – the whole, the total.”

Dad had this tick that he always had to explain word origins. You had to hand it to him: Given that his classmate was about to ruin him, his acting was still pretty good. “We used to be rather good friends,” he added.

“And now?” Bo had to make an effort not to show his excitement.

“Aww ... we’ve lost touch. That’s the way it is when you enter professional life,” Dad said with the utmost casualness.

“Where does he work?” Bo tried to make his question sound just as casual.

“I have no idea what he’s doing now.” He looked at Bo with a frown. “Anyway, why are you so interested in him?”

“Because I want to know why he wants to get a million from you,” Bo would have liked to answer. Instead, he stammered: “Oh ... uh ... because he’s got that typical hippie look, with his sideburns and stuff. I thought Mrs. Bertz would definitely want to know what happened with someone like that. You know: ‘The way they were – what they’ve become.’ ”

Dad said nothing, but judging by his one raised eyebrow, he found Bo’s response pretty strange.

Fortunately, Mom now jumped in. “Reinhard, I’d almost forgotten that you used to be such good friends. Remember, before America? Back then you were together all the time. I got downright jealous.”

Mia was completely electrified. “What, you’ve been to America?” she asked in her screechy voice. “I didn’t even know that!” There was, of course, always a scandal if there was something she didn’t know about.

“Oh, it was a long time ago,” said Mom. “Some ... let me see ... twenty years or so ago, right, Reinhard?”

“Yes, twenty years, that sounds about right,” replied Dad.

“Do you have any photos?” Mia wanted to know.

“Of course we do,” Mom said, “but they’re in another album –”

“I definitely want to see them!” Mia interrupted with excitement.

Mom got up and came back with a small blue album. She opened the first page. “Here, New York, the Statue of Liberty.”

“OMG ... that’s where you’ve been!” Mia was absolutely ecstatic.

“And here: Boston.”

In the photo, Mom and Dad posed in front of a statue of a stern-looking gentleman.

“Wow, you were so young back then! And not too bad looking, either!”

Bo rolled his eyes.

“And look how thin you were! A real model’s figure. Looks great!” Mia, with her eternal weight problems, was totally beside herself.

Bo, on the other hand, thought that Mom didn’t look great at all. She seemed to consist only of skin and bone. “Didn’t you get enough eco-fodder?” he asked, trying a wink.

Mom didn’t answer. Bo watched his parents looking at each other. There was something in their eyes that Bo didn’t understand.

Nobody uttered a word. Finally, Mom broke the silence and said softly: “I was sick, back then. For a while I wasn’t well ... back then.”

Now it all came back to Bo. Mom had once told him that she’d had a serious illness sometime before he was born. A type of blood cancer, if he remembered correctly.

“I think I told you once. It was a malignant disease, and at the time the only treatment available for it was in America.”

“And did it help? Are you healthy now forever or can it come back?” asked Mia with concern. Apparently she’d never heard about Mom’s disease.

“No, I’m cured forever, Mia.” She turned to Dad: “It could also have ended differently.” Her eyes were full of tenderness. “You know, I think of your Aunt Mina so often, somehow she’s the guardian angel of my life.”

“Why?” Mia wanted to know.

“She left Dad a large inheritance. Without the money from Aunt Mina, we would never have been able to afford the trip and the treatment.”

“Okay, but now off to bed!” Dad interrupted abruptly.

Bo had no objection. He’d found out what he’d wanted to, and he was really exhausted.

As he lay in bed, Bo just couldn’t get to sleep. Over and over again, Peter’s face popped into his mind. Hard to believe that he’d really once been a close friend of Dad’s. Something serious must have happened ...

Once more, this oppressive feeling crept over him. He couldn’t shake it off, no matter how hard he tried. It weighed on his mind more than ever: Something wasn’t right with his father. Why on earth didn’t he go to the police? Where was he going to get the million that he had to give to Peter? Why didn’t he even confide in Mom? Did he have something going on with a lover? Nonsense, that wasn’t worth a million. It had to be something far worse. Did Dad have a crime on his conscience? The thought struck him like a blow. Maybe Dad was completely different from what he’d always thought?

Suddenly anger rose up in him. Dad was involved in crooked stuff, and as if that wasn’t enough, he was making the whole family suffer because of it. Mom had tears in her eyes so often lately. If she knew what kind of a man she was married to! He would have liked to go straight to Mom and tell her everything.

But his anger subsided quickly. He shook his head. Dad, a criminal? No! It simply wasn’t possible. Bo turned around, and pulled the blanket over his ears. But nagging doubt swelled within him again.

He lay awake for a long, long time.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Boss

The next morning Bo woke up absolutely drained. He’d had some kind of wild dream, but couldn’t remember it properly. He only knew that it had involved a red car and the World Trade Centre, and his father as a gangster in sunglasses. He finished his breakfast half-heartedly. Nothing good was to be expected of Saturdays. He had to do family chores, as his mother called them – he called it slave duty: Shopping, taking out the recycling, cleaning up his room, weeding the garden or mowing the lawn. All of that just to stop him from becoming a macho.

Bo was about to pull himself together to go shopping when his cell phone started vibrating in his pocket. A glance at the screen showed that it was MM calling.

“Hello Bo!” The tone of her voice alone told Bo that something had happened. “We need to have a conference call immediately! It is urgent!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Later – come on, hurry!”

He fiddled with the keypad. How did you switch on the conference call, again? He was too panicked to remember.

After some tinkering, he finally figured it out. Once Simon and YoYo were on the line, MM blurted out: “I saw Peter!”

“Where?” YoYo asked abruptly.

“Just around the corner from my home! I’m walking down Eschenburger Street with my pooches when suddenly this red speedster comes toward me. And what does it do? It parks right there, exactly where I’m standing. I’m as if struck by lightning. I turn around quickly so that he can’t recognize my face, and cross the street inconspicuously. I just see Peter disappearing into the entrance of this yellow villa.”

“What number?” YoYo asked.

“Ten.”

“Maybe he lives there?” Bo suggested.

“Definitely not, otherwise I’d have noticed his car before. I go past there every day!”

“Is he still in there?” YoYo asked.

“Looks like it. In any case, his car is still there. You have to come and take over immediately; I need to take the dogs back!”

“This is our chance!” YoYo shouted enthusiastically. “I’ve already prepared a special ops plan for such cases!”

Bo rolled his eyes. YoYo and his special ops plans ...

“So listen!” YoYo was unstoppable. In his mind Bo envisioned him taking off his glasses at this point. After the obligatory throat clearing he let rip: “Time of operation: immediately. Location: the yellow villa in Eschenburger Street. Operational clothing: unobtrusive.” After a short pause, he added: “No sunglasses. Aim of operation: a stakeout of the property plus the target person. Documentation of all abnormalities by appropriate photographic measures. Constant lines of communication by cell phone. We’ll meet at the corner of Eschenburger and Gutenberg Street. Whoever arrives first, takes over from MM. After the operation we meet at MM’s place!”

Bo immediately rushed out of the house – straight into his sister.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” she asked with a suspicious frown.

“Err, I’ve just got to go out for a moment.” He tried to look as if it were the most normal thing in the world that he was running out of the house at a full sprint on a Saturday morning, while he hadn’t even done the shopping yet.

“Uh-huh. So where are you going?”

“Um –” Whenever it came to good excuses, he would totally blank out. But as he was still stammering, a meaningful smile appeared on Mia’s face. “Aha, I see!”

She squealed excitedly, so that the whole neighborhood could catch on: “I’m so, so happy for you that you’re in L-O-V-E. I can just see how happy you are, it’s written all over your face!”

“Yeah –” Nothing else came to his mind. The main thing was that he was now rid of his sister. With a sigh of relief, he jumped on his bike.

When he arrived at the agreed meeting place, Simon was already waiting there.

“MM is back already from putting her dogs down,” he said as Bo arrived.

“You mean she’s dropping the dogs off?”

“Yes, dropping them down.”

“Yeah ...” There wasn’t any time for lessons.

Simon pointed to a tall tree in the small park opposite the yellow villa.” From up there you have the best view.”

He was probably right. But how to get up there? The lowest branch was at least ten feet off the ground.

“I’m going up there,” Simon said nonchalantly.

“And how, may I ask?” inquired Bo.

“Just leave it me,” Simon said with a smile, before running off toward the tree.

A few minutes later, his voice could be heard on the phone. “Great view from up here. As far as I’m concerned, he can come out now. Where is YoYo?”

“Probably still working on the special ops plan,” Bo said.

“Ha ha!” Suddenly YoYo could be heard. “I’m on my way. I just had to get something.”

“At McDonald’s?” Bo asked.

“Very funny,” he replied, slightly offended.

At that very moment, Bo saw him emerge. Obviously, he’d taken great pains with his “unobtrusive clothing.” With his black jacket and the red bandanna on his head he looked like a Hells Angel. Only the body proportions were undoubtedly YoYo. He was calmly strolling along the pavement.

As he passed the yellow villa’s front gate, it seemed to Bo as if YoYo were going to stop. Was he about to ring the bell? YoYo was capable of anything. But no, he continued at a steady pace. He had just bent down briefly, probably to pick something up.

“Here we go!” Simon announced. “Three guys coming out of the door, one of them is Peter!”

From his position Bo couldn’t recognize anyone because of the high hedges.

“They’re standing around in front of the door talking to each other. I’ll take photos.”

In the meantime, YoYo had reached Bo. He looked really bizarre. “Where on earth is Simon?”

Bo pointed to the tree.

“Ah, perfect!” YoYo looked highly satisfied.

Simon was on the line again. “The three of them are now down at the gate arguing. At any rate, one of them looks like he’s really angry on Peter.”

“Angry at Peter?”

“Take photos, I want to see that!” YoYo said.

“Sure, man,” said Simon. “They seem to be going quiet again. They should be coming out right now!”

At that very moment, Bo and YoYo saw the men stepping out onto the street. Peter walked to his car, while the other two still stood together for a moment and then headed toward a silver-gray Mercedes.

As soon as the cars had disappeared, Simon ran toward his friends, brandishing his cell phone. “Candy camera, –”

“Candid camera.”

“– want to see them?”

“Let’s go to MM’s house instead and look at the photos there,” Bo said. “She’s probably waiting for us.”

“Okay, go on ahead, I’ll join you in a moment. I just have to get something,” YoYo said with an air of importance.

Bo and Simon watched him walking back along Eschenburger Street to the entrance of the yellow villa.

Shortly after, they were all sitting together at Mariekje’s. Her room was at least three times larger than Bo’s. In front of the high windows, large sheets of plywood were standing on trestles, upon which there was a mess of computer parts, monitors, circuit boards, cables, and tools.

YoYo had taken out his smartphone to keep record. “The smallest detail is important.”

“Do I even have to tell you when exactly I farted?” Bo asked.

YoYo didn’t let himself get wound up. “That’s the way the pros do it.”

“Quick, let’s have a look at the pictures first!” Simon could hardly wait.

MM had already downloaded the first image from Simon’s cell phone onto one of her computers: three men coming out of a door. One of them was unmistakably Peter. The other was a slender, distinguished-looking gentleman with gray temples and an equally gray, neat moustache. He wore an elegant, dark blue suit and a burgundy tie. Compared to him, the third guy looked like the offspring of the Incredible Hulk, he was large and wide, with a shaved head and sunglasses on his squishy nose.

“Looks like a gorilla,” commented Bo.

“Pretty mafia-like,” said Simon.

MM busied herself at the keyboard. “10 Eschenburger Street,” she said, glancing at the screen. “In the address database there’s an entry for a certain Dr. Joachim Ohlow, and a company called ‘Happy Home Real Estate Ltd’. Nobody else.”

“Hmmm. Peter was probably only there to buy a house,” Bo said. “He’s looking forward to his million, and he has to invest it somehow. If the vintage car thing doesn’t work out.”

“No,” Simon replied. “They must’ve known each other for a long time. Peter wasn’t treated like a customer, more like a tubby.

“Buddy,” Bo helped him out. “But the guys might just know each other from the sports club or something. We have no proof at all that the other two are involved in any way.”

“But maybe they are …”

All faces turned to YoYo. He had put on his poker face smile to make things especially suspenseful. Without saying a word, he rummaged awkwardly in his jacket pockets, first in one, then the other, then in the inside pocket. Finally, he pulled out his cell phone. “I didn’t want us to lose the gentlemen’s golden words. For that purpose, I temporarily placed this little device at the gate, with the voice recorder turned on. Simple but effective,” he said with a slight bow.

So that was what YoYo had been fiddling with at the gate, Bo was thinking.

YoYo plugged one of Mariekje’s computer speakers into the device, turned it on, and sat back gleefully.

First, there was only noise to be heard, then a very faint, unintelligible murmur, as if from a distance. Then a deep, rough voice was clearly audible: “How many times do I have to tell you that you shouldn’t park your car here in front of the house! Does every idiot have to know that we are doing a job together? As if there weren’t enough parking spaces around here! If you had some low-profile Buick, that would be one thing, but this set of wheels can be seen a mile away!”

“That must be the Gorilla,” Simon said quietly.

“Okay, Mickey, it’s all right, there was just no other place to park.”

“Peter,” MM whispered.

His voice was kind of worn out. By comparison the next voice to be heard sounded downright pleasant, though its tone was cutting: “Then listen to this one last time. I don’t want to see this car in front of my house ever again! Get it into your head, I’m the boss here!”

CHAPTER NINE

The Plan

By the time Bo cycled home at about 3:30 pm, he’d already prepared himself for trouble – with good reason, as it soon turned out. He was still on the stairs when his mother caught him. Bo could read the seriousness of his offence from the expression on her face: He’d neglected the sacred Saturday duties. This was a serious case of desertion. The cross-examination began immediately.

“Where have you been, Bo?” she asked, pointedly composed. Bo knew that it was just the calm before the storm.

“Um ... with MM,” he stammered. All that came to his mind was simply the truth.

“And who is this MM?” Mom asked. The anxiousness in her face betrayed that she imagined a drug dealer, or worse.

“Aww, just someone from my class, Mariekje Marienhoff.” His mother’s look clearly suggested that she wouldn’t let herself be fooled by such a flimsy excuse. Her son seeing a girl – if he started spinning her tales like this there really had to be something behind it. So it was drugs ...

“And your friends, don’t tell me they’ve been with this MM, too?”

Aha, apparently Mom had called Simon and YoYo’s homes and found out that they’d left their nests, too.

“Yes, they were also there,” Bo admitted.

Bo sensed that his mother was now bracing herself to face the truth. She took a deep breath: “And what did you do there?”

“Well, just –” He was about to say “homework,” when he realized that it would not be the most brilliant excuse.

“Don’t tell me homework now!” his mother cut in.

“No, we were ...” – taking drugs, he was suddenly tempted to say, and couldn’t help but smile. “Um ... we ... um ... didn’t do anything special.” Damn, excuses were really not his forte.

“And that’s why you abandoned your family chores, so you could, allegedly, “not do anything special” with this Mariekje Marienhoff!” Mom was gaining momentum.

At that moment he realized that Mia was in the doorway, her mouth twisted into a wide grin. Her face looked like a paint box; she’d probably been practicing putting on make-up with Melanie.

“Mom, now don’t go and get upset. So what if he finally has a girlfriend? And this Mariekje really is cute. Isn’t she, brother sweetie?” She looked very pleased with her performance.

Bo didn’t quite know whether to slap or hug his sister. Mom, at any rate, was incapacitated for the time being. She stood there, stunned, and couldn’t utter a word.

“Oh Bo,” she said when she’d recovered. It was obvious that a weight had been taken off her shoulders. More than that, she actually looked happy. “I’m so happy for you!”

Everyone seemed to be happy for him.

The alleged girlfriend cast a milder light on his transgressions. “Well, you can just mow the lawn next weekend with your girlfriend,” Mom said and winked at him.

He could deal with the girlfriend allegations, Bo thought to himself when he got to his room. The operation at the restaurant had completely paid off. They now knew that Peter was in cahoots with the two guys from the yellow villa, and that the gray-haired man was obviously the ringleader. Maybe MM would find out more about the two of them. She had promised to “make a few inquiries” over the weekend.

On Monday, the usual meeting during the morning break had to take place without Simon. He was busy at home with Nala. His four-year-old sister Judith had fed her chocolate, and Nala had gotten such terrible diarrhea from it that she was just lying around listlessly, and even refusing milk from the bottle. Simon had to give her water with a spoon.

Bo, YoYo, and MM were sitting on the battered concrete ping-pong table under the chestnut tree at the edge of the school playground. They were being closely eyeballed by their classmates. It was causing quite a sensation that MM was now hanging out with them.

As usual, YoYo opened the meeting by pulling out his smartphone to take minutes. He turned to MM: “Well, what have you figured out?”

“A little something,” she answered with a cautious smile. If MM said “a little something”, it had to be a whole lot.

“Go for it!” YoYo said impatiently and stroked his hair. He’d recently dyed a pink blaze into the middle of it.

“Well, first of all, I took a look at the doorbell. The sign actually reads ‘Dr. Ohlow’ and the ‘Happy Home Company.’ The business seems to be a normal real estate agency, and its owner is our man with the tie. He lives in the apartment on the first floor. The company is above, on the second floor. The Gorilla is actually called Michael Sokolow and he lives in the Bergwiesen neighborhood.”

“How did you figure that out?” Bo asked in amazement.

“Well ... I asked the ladies whose mutts I always walk. They like nothing better than bending my ear. And it turns out that one of their cleaning ladies also cleans for our Dr. Ohlow. She’s a real pain in the butt. She keeps patting my cheek saying that I ‘look so nice and fresh.’ And then she always gives me a card with ‘Jesus loves you’ on it.”

“Jeez!” YoYo exclaimed.

“Yea, and when I asked about our tie guy, her eyes lit up: ‘Such a nice man, the doctor, at least he still has manners!’ She seems to be crazy about him.”

The school bell cut her short. The three of them looked at each other questioningly. With Siegwart, a minute here or there didn’t matter much. Could they stand to be late to class?

MM put an end to their wordless discussion by continuing to speak: “I haven’t even told you the most important thing: He has a computer.”

YoYo pretended to yawn and asked in a demonstratively bored manner: “Okay, so he has a computer. It would be more interesting if he didn’t have one – because then he’d be the only real estate freak without a computer.”

“Sure, the company is full of computers, but he also has one in his apartment,” MM said. “And I happen to know where it is.”

Although she kept a straight face, it suddenly dawned on Bo what she was getting at. Reluctantly, he shook his head. “You don’t mean that we –”

“Bingo, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“– should break in there, just to get to his computer?”

“Have you considered how far we’d be, if we hadn’t got a hold of your father’s computer?” she snorted.

“MM is right,” YoYo spoke up. “If someone is hiding any secrets, then they’re going to be on the computer – according to my experience.” He was on fire. “We’ll pull it off like absolute pros …” He turned to MM. “How do we get into the house?”

“Let me worry about that,” she said with a mischievous smile on her lips. It was slowly changing Bo’s image of the shy, well-behaved MM. The goody-goody overachiever, who first talked them into truancy and then into a break-in.

CHAPTER TEN

The Closet

Two days later, on Wednesday, “Operation House Tour,” as YoYo referred to it, was ready to commence. The four friends had gathered at their favorite place in front of the supermarket.

“Here’s the plan of action!” YoYo made his grand entrance once more. The others were sitting on the railing and not listening. They’d been discussing things to death.

An old granny with a light blue handbag was shuffling along with her shopping cart. She had to steer clear of the giant sock that Simon, who’d come directly from his archery club, was leaning against the railing. The grandma darted a sullen look at the boys. Her thoughts were written on her face: The youth of today ... Instead of doing homework or helping their parents like we used to, they hang around uselessly. “No, dear lady,” Bo would have liked to answer, “we are a notable exception. We’re only planning our next burglary.”

But to be truthful, Bo didn’t feel like joking. He wasn’t comfortable with the whole thing. They were going to break into someone’s house, and that meant that they were going to be breaking the law, no matter how you looked at it. The word “criminal” shot through his head, and with it his father’s voice: “Criminal, from the Latin ‘crimen,’ crime.” On the other hand, how were they supposed to make any progress without the computer? There wasn’t much time left. As it said in Peter’s email, Dad needed to hand over the money within four weeks. More than half of those four weeks had passed already.

“Okay, let’s roll!” YoYo seemed to be done. The four friends jumped off the railing.

“One more thing,” YoYo said as they sat on their bikes. “In the event that we have to make a run for it and get split up, the rendezvous is at Bo’s.”

Their itinerary led them down Kopernikus Street. They had decided to take a detour to avoid going past MM’s house. Officially, she was still at orchestra practice.

They parked their bikes at the Gutenberg Street intersection. From here, they continued on foot – Simon toward his tree, where he’d keep watch again, and the others toward the yellow villa.

MM had found a gap in the hedge through which they could enter the garden. The greatest difficulty was to manoeuver YoYo through it. Stepping softly, they walked around the house and reached the conservatory.

“MM, are you sure nobody is here?” Bo asked in a whisper.

She smiled at him. “Don’t be afraid. Every Wednesday at 5:00 pm they play tennis together. Just to be on the safe side, I also called the sports club, and they really do have a Dr. Ohlow listed in the timetable.”

“You’re a smarty-pants,” Bo commented quietly.

“Nice of you to notice,” she replied dryly.

“I noticed that ages ago,” said Simon’s voice through Bo’s phone, which, like the others, he’d attached to his belt.

Simon! He had totally forgotten about him. “Well, how do things look from up there? Is the coast clear?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, Simon, we’ll have a look at this shack from the inside,” Bo said with a pointed cheerfulness, although he still felt pretty queasy. But how they were going to get in there, was a mystery to him.

MM, however, seemed to see no difficulties with locked doors. Without hesitation she stepped up to the conservatory. Bo was amazed when she suddenly took out a key and unlocked the door.

“What the ...? Where did you get the key from?” he asked incredulously.

“It has something to do with the devout cleaning lady,” she replied with a faint smile.

Through the conservatory they came to a large room with high stucco ceilings and an ornate tiled fireplace. The room was stylishly, and, as Bo could see at first glance, expensively furnished. The walls bore fancy oil paintings.

MM went straight for the double wing door. It was almost as if she were familiar with the place. The doorway led to a wide hallway and then to a large, bright room facing the street.

“That’s just what I thought, the study,” whispered MM. “The house has exactly the same layout as ours. The whole neighborhood was designed by the same architect.”

Everything was extremely classy in this room, too. In the middle of it there was a hypermodern computer with a designer screen on a heavy oak table. MM was at it immediately. Her fingers flitted over the keyboard. “Could take a moment to crack the password,” she muttered to herself.

While MM was fiddling with the computer, Bo and YoYo explored the apartment. Right next to the study was the kitchen. It looked as if it had never been used. It shone and sparkled with chrome and marble. “It probably gets polished by the devout cleaning lady every day,” YoYo whispered. Next to the front door was the staircase that led to the second floor.

“Let’s go up there, a little look can’t hurt,” YoYo suggested. They climbed the stairs. Upstairs, all the doors were open, so the boys could inspect the premises in peace.

When they entered the room facing the street, they suddenly flinched. “I can see you!” Simon’s voice blared from the phone. Through the window they could see the tree where Simon was hiding, but there was no trace of him. Then the giant sock started waving.

“Everything okay on your end?” he asked.

“Yes,” Bo said when he’d recovered from his fright. “We’re going back down now.”

Down in the study, MM was completely absorbed in her work on the computer.

“Takes a while ... two minutes ...” she murmured as her fingers worked the buttons.

In the meantime Bo and YoYo looked around the room. Bo, however, didn’t have an eye for the paintings and valuables. Restlessly, he paced back and forth on the creaking parquet floor. MM’s “two minutes” had already become at least ten or more. One of the two tennis players would only have to sprain his ankle, he thought.

“Done!” came MM’s voice from the study next door.

“Simon, is it all clear?” Bo asked into his cell phone while he hurried to MM. But he got no answer. He looked at the display. Damn, the connection was down! Things like that could always happen in these old houses with their thick walls. Suddenly, his heart began to pound. What if Simon had been trying to warn them the whole time?

He couldn’t finish the thought. He heard a noise from the front door that made him stop dead: A key turning in the lock. Horrified, he span around to his friends. There was sheer terror on their faces.

Muffled voices came from the hallway. He recognized them immediately.

Suddenly everything happened very quickly. MM grabbed his hand and, along with YoYo, pulled him through the double doors into the kitchen. She headed for a small door in the hallway, and opened it quietly.

A moment later Bo perched in the pitch-blackness of a small closet, squeezed between MM and YoYo. “There used to be a small elevator here,” MM whispered. Now the room seemed to be used as a broom closet, judging by the equipment that Bo felt poking in his back.

He began to sweat. To the left he was getting crushed by YoYo’s belly, on the other side MM’s warm body was pressed against him. He could hear everything that was going on outside with amazing clarity. The two men’s voices came from the hallway at first. Shortly after, they were in the study next door. Then Bo heard steps in front of the closet door. One of the two seemed to be busy in the kitchen.

“Want a cognac, Tito?” they heard Mickey’s rough voice say.

“How many times do I have to tell you that you’re not supposed to call me Tito! Are you crazy?” hissed the doctor.

“So-rrr-yy,” came softly from Mickey.

Judging from the sound of footsteps, the boss was in the study.

Suddenly they heard his cry: “Mickey!”

Mickey’s heavy footsteps were pounding across the floor.

“There’s something peculiar.” The boss’s voice was dangerously low. “Someone’s been on the computer.” Bo thought he could hear the muffled clatter of the keyboard “Last access 6:27 pm ... two minutes ago ... you know what that means?”

“Yea,” replied Mickey. “Someone’s been snooping around here.”

“And is still hanging around,” said the boss. There was something in his voice that made Bo’s blood freeze.

“Well, he’s going to regret it,” said Mickey. His footsteps creaked across the floor like a steamroller. Even though he couldn’t see him, Bo could clearly picture his colossal body. He couldn’t know that there was one detail that he missed: Mickey had a gun in his hand.

“I’ll check upstairs! You stay down here! Lock the doors! This guy won’t escape!” Mickey’s feet stomped up the stairs.

Over. The game was over. Bo couldn’t think anything else. “Crap,” he heard MM whisper.

Only now he felt a slight squeeze in his hand. MM’s hand had been in his the whole time.

Not a sound came from YoYo.

Mickey came clattering back down the stairs. “No one up there! He must be hiding down here!”

Bo thought that the pounding in his heart could probably be heard in the farthest corners of the house.

From outside, the sound of hectic steps reached their hiding place. Doors were flung open and shut again, first in the study, then in the kitchen. The sounds were coming closer and closer. Bo didn’t dare breathe. The steps were now right in front of the closet. Bo felt MM’s hand clenching his.

Suddenly there was a deafening noise, a clatter and rumble that came from the upper floor – followed by a silence in which you could have heard a pin drop.

“That’s him! Upstairs, now!” the boss’s muffled cry could be heard in the closet. There was immediately pounding up the stairs.

At the same moment the children threw open the door. “Come over here, to the window!” MM hissed.

How they made it through the window, Bo never knew. Later, he only remembered that he’d landed in a rose bush and that the thorns had torn his shirt and trousers. And that they had run for dear life.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Voice

“That was close,” MM gasped when they arrived at Bo’s house. She slumped down next to Bo on the stone steps outside his front door.

“Damn close,” was all he could say. He was trembling all over. Now that everything was over, the shock ran through his body. His arms were covered in blood from the rough landing in the roses.

Two minutes later, YoYo arrived on his bike, panting. He just threw it down in the driveway and stumbled toward his friends on the steps. He gasped for air like a fish out of water. His hair looked like it needed some work, too. Over and over again he shook his crimson face in disbelief. Between two breaths, he squeezed out something that sounded like a cry for help: “Need some slush.” Then he didn’t say anything for a while.

“I still can’t believe it,” MM said, shaking her head. “What happened there? It was as if a bomb went off up there.”

“Maybe a screen exploded?” YoYo gasped.

At that moment a bike came around the corner.

“Simon!” they all cried in unison.

He parked his bike and strolled slowly toward his friends. In his hand he held his bow, the sock was wrapped loosely around his waist. It was how Bo had always imagined Robin Hood.

Suddenly, it dawned on him. “Did you –”

“Shoot out the window?” added MM.

Simon only gave them a wide grin.

“Come, let’s go up to my room,” Bo said to his friends. “There’s nobody there to disturb us.”

Shortly after that, the four of them, hot and disheveled as they were, were sitting under Bo’s loft bed. “Now tell us!” YoYo said, turning to Simon.

“The cell phone connection,” he started, “the connection went off. I tried to call you, but it was just not possible. Still no connection. And then suddenly there’s this Mercedes, he come down the road ... Still no connection, downstairs the guys are walking in the house. A minute later, the Gorilla he goes in the room upstairs, it’s clear he looks for you. Then I get the idea –”

The three of them were hanging on his every word.

“– to take an arrow and shit it –”

“Shoot it –”

“Yeah, shit it into this giant window –”

“Shoot –”

“– to cause distraction. I thought it can’t hurt.”

“No, it really didn’t hurt.” Even now Bo still shuddered at the thought of the steps in front of the dark closet.

“But now you have to tell!” said Simon.

YoYo had recovered enough to take over the reporting in person, and gave Simon all the details. When he’d finished, Simon asked: “And what was in the computer in there?”

“Nothing,” said MM evenly.

“What? ” cried YoYo indignantly. “What were you doing all that time on the computer?”

The hint of a smile appeared on Mariekje’s mouth. “I installed a Trojan.”

“A what?” the three boys asked in unison.

“A Trojan Horse.” She smiled at them happily. “Obviously you haven’t been paying attention in class again. So let your resident nerd explain it to you.”

“What exactly do you mean by nerd?” YoYo muttered.

“Oh come on. I know what you always say about me,” she said.

The three boys concentrated hard on the rug. Nobody said a thing.

“So, a Trojan Horse,” MM continued. “You know the story of Troy? The ancient Greeks besieged Troy for years without any luck, so they put together this huge wooden horse. Then they left it outside the city and went away. And the stupid Trojans thought it was a gift from their enemies and lead it triumphantly into the city. And then at night, when everyone was asleep, exhausted and drunk from the victory celebration, the Athenians came crawling out of the giant horse’s belly and wiped out the Trojans.”

“And what does that have to do with the computer?” YoYo wanted to know.

“Clever question! You’re nerdy, too?”

Once again, Bo was surprised how cutting the brave MM could be.

“So, a Trojan is a small program that spies around on the hard disk. When I connect with it over the internet, I can check everything that’s on the computer.“

“Brilliant!” YoYo exclaimed.

“Holy horse,” said Simon.

“But won’t they find out that there’s a thingy on their computer?” Bo asked.

“No, this gizmo can hide perfectly. They’d have to be super-hackers to find it.”

YoYo could hardly keep still. “Then let’s check it out right away!” Patience was not one of his strengths.

“That can only be done from my computer at home,” MM said.

“Then let’s get going right away!” cried YoYo.

MM shook her head. “No. You know what my mother is like. She always thinks she has to protect her daughter. And especially from boys.”

“You could tell her that you brought us with you from orchestra practice,” suggested YoYo.

She looked at her bruised and battered friends one after the other. “Right. Especially since you look as if you were just playing in the orchestra.” She stood up. “I’m afraid you just have to let me work on this one by myself,” she said as she left.

“An entirely different question,” Bo said after MM was gone. “What actually happens if those guys call the police?”

YoYo wiped away the problem with a casual gesture. “Do you really think they want anything to do with the police?”

But Bo didn’t let up. “Well, they now know that someone’s on their case.”

“But not who. They don’t have the slightest clue about the four of us.”

“Five of us!”

The voice came from the loft bed directly above them. And Bo knew right away to whom it belonged.

YoYo let out a muffled “Shhhh...” From Simon the usual sigh could be heard: “Bury me.”

The boys looked at each other with open mouths. Above them the bedding rustled and the slats squeaked as Mia slowly emerged from her hiding place. With a wry grin she came slowly down the ladder.

“Well, brother sweetie?” She came toward Bo and planted herself in front of him, her hands casually on her hips. “You remember I told you that I’d figure out what you’re up to. It’s not nice of you to keep secrets from your sister.”

Bo would have liked to throttle her. “Get lost!” he hissed at her.

Mia didn’t seem very impressed. “Now hold your horses, brother sweetie ... If I were you I’d behave, otherwise Mom and Dad will know that you’ve been snooping around in other people’s houses in one minute flat.” She put on a sugary smile. “Or, you could be smart and let me join in.” She was now pacing up and down the room. “If you think you can treat me like a stupid idiot, you’re totally wrong! Do you think I didn’t notice that something was up? And that it has to do with Dad? Do you think I didn’t get it that he’s been totally out of control lately? And do you think that doesn’t bother me?” She went to the door. “The choice is yours. I’ll be back in five minutes, then you can tell me what you’ve decided.”

She slammed the door shut with a loud bang.

“Boy, that’s just great!” YoYo began after a while.

“We’re done for,” said Bo.

“Bury me,” Simon groaned.

Their perplex silence was broken by the shrill call tone of YoYo’s cell phone.

“MM,” YoYo said after a quick glance at the display. All three of them immediately had their cell phones pressed to their ears.

“It works! The horse is delivering,” MM blurted out. She appeared to be in exactly the opposite state of mind from the boys. “I’ve already been snooping around a bit. It’s almost all business matters, real estate stuff and so on. Lots of photos of houses. The guys seem to specialize in upmarket properties, romantic countryside residences, that sort of thing. For example: There’s a cute lock keeper’s house next to a lovely canal, completely renovated of course, going for two million –”

“A what? A clock house?” Simon interrupted her.

“No, a lock house!”

“That’s where the guy who was in charge of opening and closing the lock gates so that the boats can go up and down the canal used to live,” MM replied. “But besides the photos, there are still a few files that look suspicious to me.”

“Why?” YoYo asked.

“Because they’re encrypted. And whoever encrypts things, has something to hide. Doesn’t he?”

“But can you crack the files?” said YoYo.

“Don’t you worry about that. Just let me try for a bit. And without anyone bothering me, okay? If I don’t show up at school tomorrow, it’s because I’m sick, chickenpox or something. I’ll call you as soon as I have found something out.”

“Um … listen,” Bo made an attempt to tell her about the Mia affair.

“Well, what’s going on?” she asked.

“An absolute disaster ...” In a few words Bo told her what had happened.

“And what’s the problem?” she asked.

The boys looked at each other in irritation.

“Everyone knows that Mia’s a total blabbermouth,” said Bo indignantly.

“Aha, everyone,” MM replied. “Just like everyone knows I’m a nerd that you’d better steer clear of. Give her a chance, all she wants is to help. Besides,” – Bo thought he detected an amused tone in her voice – “a bit of women’s power can’t hurt.”

Although Bo thought that women’s power was pretty much the last thing they needed, what choice did they have? From now on there would be five of them.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Riddle

Two long days passed while they waited. Bo felt like a caged tiger. He couldn’t do anything other than hope that MM would succeed in decrypting the files. He would have loved to watch her at work. Then at least he would have been busy.

On Wednesday evening, MM had called around to inform the friends that the decryption might still take a while. “The key they use is pretty damn good.” She patiently explained the problem to her friends: “A key is just a kind of code word that you use to put the jumbled letters into the correct order again. The computer tries to find the correct key by trying out one code word after the other. The better the key, the longer the code word, and the longer it takes Little Blue to crack it.”

On Thursday, MM didn’t show up at school. As agreed, the boys started the rumor that she was suffering from chickenpox.

For the already impatient YoYo, waiting was particularly tough. On Thursday night he almost went as far as cleaning up his room just to kill time. “I would have actually done it,” he told Bo sullenly on the phone, “if at that moment my mother hadn’t said to me‚ ‘Go and tidy up your room!’ “

Simon, on the other hand, had other worries. He was busy around the clock with Nala again. The faun had been recovering nicely from Judith’s chocolate when his other little sister, Leonie, had fed it mints – “in order to fix poor Nala again.” She had bought the “medicine” at the pharmacy with her allowance money. And now Nala had diarrhea as well as stomach cramps. She lay trembling in her basket and was too weak to get up. Simon was a nervous wreck.

The only one in a good mood was Mia. The successful coup seemed to fire her up even more. Bo had to let her in on every detail of the blackmail story. She especially loved to hear the tale of Simon’s rescuing shot; she couldn’t get enough of it.

She took on the job that YoYo had assigned her with enthusiasm – monitoring Dad’s study in order to find any hints about Day X (as YoYo referred to the handover day) or any other clues.

She was, however, a little disappointed by the fact that the love story between her big brother and MM had turned out to be nothing more than hot air. “But there’s still a little something going on between you,” she insisted nevertheless. “You can’t fool me!”

The long-awaited call came the next day. In the middle of German class, Bo’s phone started vibrating. His neighbor, Simon, seemed to have the same problem, judging from his helpless expression. While Bo was wondering how they could discreetly disappear, YoYo had already put his hand up. He told the baffled Siegwart that he, Simon, and Bo had an appointment with Ms. Schmidt-Weber, the school psychologist, who was treating them for mid-morning sleeping disorder. Before poor Siegwart could clap his mouth shut again, they were already out of the door and had their phones to their ears. “Fire away!”

“I’ve got the key,” MM said matter-of-factly. She made it sound as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

That only sparked more enthusiasm from the boys. “Wow! Cool! You’re a genius!” They chattered wildly amongst themselves.

“You mean you’ve cracked the encrypted files?” YoYo asked.

“Not all of them yet. But at least two. There’s still one left.”

“You’ll manage that, too,” YoYo said generously. “Now come on, tell us the details!”

“I’d better show you everything here at the computer. I’m telling you, it’s awesome.”

“Okay, we’ll see you at your house right away!” said YoYo hastily.

“No,” she replied. “My mother could come home at any moment. Let’s meet at your place. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

Shortly after, the boys were sitting with slushies and pizza in YoYo’s room, waiting for MM. They’d just finished their feast when the doorbell rang.

“That’s what I call perfect timing,” YoYo said, opening the door. There stood – Mia.

Without a word, she stomped past YoYo into the room. She was so angry that she didn’t even have a smile for Simon. “If you think you can just exclude me, you’re wrong!” she let rip. “It’s bad enough that you think you don’t need to give me a cell phone, but to just leave me out! If this happens one more time –”

“You had class, how could we have let you know?” Bo interrupted her.

“Enough with your lame excuses,” she shot back. “You seem to think I’m too stupid to notice that your bikes had disappeared!” She wouldn’t calm down – until Simon intervened and talked to her with his soft voice: “Next time I get you out of class.” Suddenly her features relaxed. Her eyes began to shine. Bo could imagine what film was now playing in her head: Simon as Tarzan, who carries her out in his arms, in plain view of her girlfriends ...

At that moment MM came through the door. It was obvious that she hadn’t slept much. Without even looking for a seat, she took off her backpack and took out a USB stick. Right away she headed for YoYo’s computer and plugged in the stick. “Now hang on –”

The boys huddled around the monitor.

“From the Boss to Mickey,” MM commented and pressed a few keys.

Here’s an update on the Blohm affair. Handover in the 33rd calendar week on the Roggenkamp grounds, in front of barrack number three. Notify Blohm of the exact point of time as shortly beforehand as possible, using absolutely secure methods. Peter will warn Blohm again about getting the police involved.

YoYo let out a whistle through his teeth. “Wow, so the house tour really was worthwhile.” He tapped on his smartphone’s calendar.

“33rd calendar week,” he muttered. “We are now in the 31st week. Week 33 begins on September first ... In exactly nine days!”

“Do you know these Roggenkamp grounds?” Mia asked.

“Absolutely!” Bo said with a glance at Simon. “It’s behind the station, it used to be the American army base. There are still a few dilapidated barracks around. The rest is just piles of rubble and brambles.”

“And a few bunkers, and the old hellopad,” Simon said.

“Helipad,” Bo corrected. “We used to play there sometimes. But then Mom stopped us. She said that there might still be some old grenades lying around.”

“And how d’you get in there?” YoYo asked.

“The main entrance is right on the main road that leads to the highway. It’s an old rusty gate with barbed wire on it. But you can actually get on the site from anywhere, half the surrounding wall has collapsed.”

“And d’you know where this barrack number three is?” YoYo asked.

“Not far from the entrance. It’s still in good shape. In front of it there’s a large area of wasteland covered with a whole lot of debris.”

“And that’s where the handover’s supposed to take place ... interesting,” YoYo murmured.

“But the most interesting is still to come,” said MM, working at the keyboard. “Another letter from the boss man to Mickey.”

The attached file contains all the information concerning the handover. I’ve used extra encryption for security. The key is in the lock.

They all looked at each other helplessly.

“Do you understand that?” MM asked.

There was silence all around.

“It almost sounds like a riddle, right? The key is in the lock –” Bo repeated.

“Have you already tried to decrypt the file?” YoYo asked, turning to MM.

“What do you think? It was no use. It actually seems like you need an extra key.”

“And that’s in the lock,” Bo added.

“If you ask me, that sounds like gibberish,” Mia said with excitement.

“Typically Yankee,” was Simon’s comment.

YoYo was still completely lost in his thoughts. “An extra well encrypted message is an extra important message. We have to get to it, no matter what! A genius like you should be able to do it.”

“Very funny,” MM said. With an earnestness that surprised Bo, she added: “I don’t like that wunderkind crap.” With that she grabbed her backpack and was gone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Suitcase

The weekend that followed was a real test of Bo’s patience. MM had locked herself away in order to crack the mysterious file. And this much was clear: She would only reappear when the secret was revealed.

Simon was, as always during the weekend, somewhere off in the countryside lugging backpacks around with his family. This time he also had Nala with him. She was already on the mend, but he couldn’t leave her alone yet. He carried her in a sling in front of his belly like a baby.

Luckily for Bo, at least YoYo was around. They had arranged to meet on Saturday afternoon – even if his parents didn’t like to see him going over to YoYo’s. Mom was convinced that he had a bad influence on Bo. It was YoYo’s diet that bothered her most of all. And the computer games. Bo always had to promise his mother that they didn’t play any “violent games.” He understood the concept of violence somewhat more loosely than his mother; otherwise YoYo’s games wouldn’t have offered any choices at all.

However, when Bo finally arrived at YoYo’s after his usual Saturday slavery, he found that YoYo didn’t want to play. In fact, he didn’t want to do anything. YoYo was so grouchy that Bo thought he might as well just go home.

“What’s the matter with you today?” Bo asked.

“Oh, nothing ... it’s just this heat ...”

It really was boiling hot at YoYo’s. All day the sun had blazed through the windows, heating up the small room like a sauna. Bo went to the window and opened it wide. The curtains billowed in the soothing breeze. In the meantime, YoYo turned on the slushy machine and came back with two giant cups. Without a word they sat down on the sofa. – Yes, on the sofa! To Bo’s utmost surprise it was completely tidy. The mess on the table had also disappeared. What on earth was the matter with YoYo?

They silently sucked on their straws. It didn’t really cool them down. On the contrary: After a few sips Bo’s mouth felt like it was on fire. And his stomach started feeling queasy.

“Why doesn’t she give us a call?” YoYo said out of the blue. His voice sounded angry. “She could at least have called once, even if she doesn’t let us join in. But we’re probably not good enough for her. She always acts like she’s the only one with any brains and everyone else is stupid.”

Apparently it was about MM. What was up with YoYo?

“And how she keeps letting everyone know how gifted she is! We’re probably supposed to kiss her feet,” moaned YoYo.

That was too much for Bo. “That’s total crap – and you know it yourself. You’re being completely unfair. She’s helping us how ever she can, and you’re insulting her for it!”

For a while they both said nothing.

“You’re right,” YoYo said softly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Today is just not my day somehow.” He stared thoughtfully at the ground.

When he couldn’t stand the silence any longer, Bo asked: “Well, what about the shares?” Maybe a new topic would cheer YoYo up.

“Bad,” YoYo grumbled.

“I thought you always win,” Bo said jokingly.

“That’s just how it seems,” YoYo replied tiredly. “Of course I win sometimes, but just as often I lose, too. I don’t know myself why I do this whole share thing.” He took a long drink from his slushy cup. “Maybe because everybody thinks it’s so great that I’m speculating on the stock market, like adults do. They think I’m doing very important business.” His voice kept getting quieter. “Who would pay any attention to me otherwise?”

After a while, he added: “Do you think I don’t get what’s going on? Mia’s after Simon, and MM ... well, you can tell she thinks you’re pretty hot. But me? I’m just the pal who jokes around. Fat, but funny.” He paused. “I think I do all that gambling on the stock market just to have the feeling that I’m actually earning the money that my father gives me.”

“Your father gives you money?” Bo asked.

“No, he sends it to me. He never shows up. There’s always a big check that comes for my birthday and at Christmas. He’s some bigwig in a company in Hamburg and has buckets of money.” YoYo smiled bitterly. “He left five years ago. The fact that he’s gone isn’t that bad. Before, it was worse, the two of them were arguing all the time. But he hasn’t ever come to see me, even though he promised me over and over again that he would –” He swallowed. “I always just get money from him. He promised to visit me again for my birthday the week after next. That’s why I started cleaning up ... But he just called to tell me that it won’t work out after all.” Bo saw that his friend was fighting back tears. “And then, for sure, the day after tomorrow there’ll be a check in the mail again ...” He couldn’t go on.

After a long pause he continued huskily. “You know, that’s why this thing with your father is so important to me. He’s so cool, and you can tell how important he is to you and how important you are to him and everything. I want it to stay that way forever and not evaporate into thin air like it did for me.”

Bo was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling of friendship with YoYo. He would have liked to hug him. “I’m so glad you’re my friend, dude,” he said timidly.

For a long time neither of them said anything.

Then Bo broke the silence. “My father –” He didn’t finish the sentence.

“What about your father?” asked YoYo.

“My father ... I don’t know ... I wanted to ask you something.”

“What?”

“Do you think my father –” Bo struggled to get the words out. “– is a criminal?”

“A what?” YoYo looked at Bo with disbelief.

“I mean that he’s involved in a crime or something.”

“How did you get that idea?”

Bo told YoYo about the suspicion that had been plaguing him for so long – that his father might be completely different from the way he knew him. “What else would prevent him from going to the police? He must have something to hide!”

YoYo looked at Bo attentively. “Now listen carefully. You’ve known your father for thirteen years. And you’ve always trusted him. And he’s never left you in the lurch, right?”

Bo nodded.

“Do you remember the thing with Kevin?”

Bo looked down. “Sure.”

“And you really think he could have done something bad? Do you really believe that?”

Bo looked at YoYo. He said nothing, but he felt an infinite sense of relief.

“Come, let’s play,” both of them said almost simultaneously.

They’d just got started with Chin Chen Reloaded when the doorbell rang.

“Crap!” YoYo exclaimed. “We’re going to get in trouble. It’s probably Mia feeling excluded again.”

Bo reassured him. “I have duly informed the proper authorities.”

But it was, indeed, Mia. Despite his clear conscience Bo held his breath.

“Simon’s not here?” she asked before saying anything else.

“No, he’s still out camping with Ariane,” YoYo replied innocently.

You could see Mia was in a state of shock. “With Ariane,” she breathed. It sounded as if she wanted to renounce the world for ever. “Ariane ... I see ...” She helplessly looked at her brother with tear-filled eyes.

He couldn’t watch it. “YoYo is just kidding! Simon is away with his family. And Ariane is his hamster.”

You could literally see the weight being lifted from her shoulders. She took a deep breath and then walked with clenched fists toward the laughing YoYo. “You stupid idiot! How could you do that to me?”

When she’d calmed down, Bo asked: “Now tell me why you’re here. Or do you just want to see Simon?”

She turned bright red. “No, there is something new. The case of money has turned up.”

“What case of money?” Bo asked.

“What case? The one that Dad is supposed to hand the money over in, obviously. I just found it in the white closet in his room.”

Bo hadn’t expected Mia to take her job so seriously. She really had guts, you had to hand it to her.

“What does it look like?” YoYo asked tersely.

“Like a photographer’s case made of aluminum.”

“With a combination lock?”

“No, just a normal lock. He’s hidden the key in the desk drawer.”

“Did you have a look inside?”

“Sure!” She was as proud as Punch. “It’s jam-packed with bundles of money, nothing but 500 euro bills.”

“And what else? Did you really search the whole room? Anything about the handover date?”

“No, nothing. Only a scrap of paper from a life insurance company saying that the money had now been transferred, 250,000. And then a couple of letters from banks concerning some loans.”

“He’s tapped all their savings,” YoYo muttered. “So it’s getting serious. And we still don’t know when exactly the whole thing’s going down. There are only eight days left until week 33 ...” He took a long sip from his cup.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Suspicion

On Monday morning they all met in front of the supermarket. MM was also there, although she had difficulty parting from Little Blue. The enigmatic file still hadn’t been decrypted.

YoYo had convened the strategic briefing on Sunday evening by broadcasting a general call. He wanted to lay out a plan. Not just any plan, of course, but a super-duper plan. A YoYo-plan in fact.

Now he stood in front of them in the usual pose of a field commander and kept everyone in suspense as per usual.

“Come on, get on with it, I want to get back to Little Blue,” MM grumbled. She looked tired.

YoYo didn’t deign to look at her, but finished cleaning his glasses as if he had all time in the world. After clearing his throat, he commenced. “Since the receptacle with the money –”

“Just say case,” MM interrupted, rolling her eyes.

“– has appeared, it is time to get prepared for the handover – even if we don’t know the exact date.” He cleared his throat once again. “Our plan is now as follows.” He took a dramatic little pause. “We buy an identical case. – Simon, can you take care of that? Maybe together with –”

“Me!” Mia interrupted him. She beamed at Simon. He looked mortified.

“And then we’re hosting a craft night,” YoYo finished.

“A what?” Simon asked.

“A craft night at my home. As of yesterday, there’s a small color copier standing there, and we can use it to make our own money. Here’s how it works: First, Mia has to get a bunch of real banknotes. Then we lay them next to each other and copy them onto big pieces of paper, first the front, then the back, and then cut them apart with the guillotine, bundle them up, and store them in our case.”

Now it dawned on Bo what YoYo was getting at. “Aha ... And this case, we then swap it for the real one, right? So Dad takes the copied money to the handover.”

“At least one of you has got the idea! But I haven’t told you the most important thing yet.” YoYo lowered his voice, because some people were passing by with their shopping carts. “Underneath all the money we put a letter to the blackmailers. I already made a small draft. Something like this …” He cleared his throat thoroughly. “Dear Peter, Dear Doctor Ohlow, Dear Mickey: By now you’ll have noticed that the notes are counterfeit. To get straight to the point: Mr. Blohm doesn’t have anything to do with this. You simply have the bad luck that some decent people have interfered in your dirty business – our names are of no concern. You’ll see from the accompanying documentation that we have an unbroken chain of evidence that incriminates you.”

YoYo interrupted himself and looked around. “I mean all the emails, photos, and decrypted files. We’ll include copies of everything in order to show them that they’re trapped.”

Then he turned back to his letter. “Should you continue harassing Mr. Blohm in the future, these pieces of evidence will be handed over to the police immediately. Signed: Baron Alfredo of Hohenburg-Drachenfels in the County of Holstein.”

“Well, how do you like that?” YoYo was beaming from ear to ear. “I would like to see Peter’s face when he reads the letter,” he said, rubbing his hands.

“And when, at the end, the Baron’s name appears!” MM joined in, laughing. “He’ll probably start believing in ghosts.”

“And on the envelope we write ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’? How do you like that?” Bo cried in excitement.

Their mood was getting more and more uproarious. Everyone talked and laughed at the same time.

Suddenly Mia jumped off the railing and stared at Simon with wide eyes. The laughter died abruptly.

“Hey, Simon! The arrow!” she said breathlessly.

“Which arrow?” Simon replied.

“The arrow that you shot in there!”

“What about it?” Bo asked. Why did his sister always have to act up like this?

“That’s how they can track us down!”

“Who will track us down?” Bo asked angrily.

“Who do you think?” Mia snapped back. “The blackmail gang of course! Simon’s arrow must still be lying around somewhere, or do you think it just vanished into thin air?”

“So? What exactly is the problem then?” Bo asked.

Without answering her brother, she turned to Simon. “You use really special arrows, right?”

“Yes, the 3710 Aluminum-Carbon, which are good for my hunting bow,” Simon replied calmly.

“And there aren’t that many archers that use exactly those arrows, right?” Mia continued.

Simon shook his head in amusement.

“Okay, fine,” Bo said. “Even if they find out that the arrow came from Simon, they still don’t have a clue that this has anything to do with the blackmail. And anyway, how are they supposed to know that Simon has anything to do with us?”

“All they need to do is to find out which school Simon attends. And which class you are in, they’ve probably known that for a long time anyway. And then they only need to put two and two together. They’re not stupid, are they?”

“You’re crazy!” Bo cut in. “Do you think they’d pee themselves just because of an arrow?”

But on the way home he was suddenly not so sure. Deep down the feeling stirred that Mia might actually be right. In spite of himself he switched to a higher gear, and he suddenly found himself turning around.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Threat

Just two hours later it was clear that Mia’s fear had been justified.

Bo was doing his homework when the doorbell rang – Simon. In one hand he had the giant sock, and in the other he was carrying Nala in a small bag. His face showed no trace of the cute smile with which he usually greeted his friends.

“The gang is behind us,” he said as he hurried up the stairs.

“Shhh!” Bo had to remind him.

“The gang is after us?” Bo asked once they were in his room.

“Yes.” Simon started to talk. At training he had been approached by one of the “Couch Rambos,”as he called the club members who had automatic bows. “Well, did Mr. Schönhuber get in touch with you yet?” Simon didn’t understand a word. Then the Couch Rambo told him that last Thursday a “pretty tall, broad-shouldered man” had appeared during training with an arrow in hand. “I found this,” he had said, “and I thought it’d be best to bring it over to the archery club, maybe someone from here lost it.” Then he wanted to know if all sportsmen in the club used this kind of arrow, whereupon the Couch Rambo’s colleague had clarified that only one of them used a hunting bow – Simon. “Oh, but that’s great,” this Mr. Schönhuber had said. “I’ve inherited a fantastic hunting bow that I don’t need. I’d like it to be in good hands. For free, of course.” He’d then asked for Simon’s name and address, and they gave it to him.

“Damn!” exclaimed Bo. “They really are after us.” He was about to reach for the phone to alert YoYo and MM, when the device went off by itself. It was MM.

“They’re on our trail,” she said breathlessly.

Shortly afterward, they all gathered under Bo’s loft bed. Nala, who had gotten out of her bag, made rollicking jumps across the room. But no one took any notice of her.

Simon briefly repeated his report.

Then it was MM’s turn. “I’ve intercepted and decoded three emails.” She took some papers out of her backpack. “The first letter is from the Gorilla to the Boss.”

The arrow belongs to a 13-year-old named Simon Böttcher. His address is 43 Beethoven Street, parents Herbert Böttcher, pediatrician, and Kirsten Böttcher, midwife. He attends Kopernikus School and is in class 7c. Approximately 5 foot 3, long, blond hair, brown eyes.

So there was no doubt. The “tall, broad-shouldered man” at the archery club had been the Gorilla, Bo thought. And if he knew what Simon looked like, he must have followed him already –

“He must have tailed you, Simon,” YoYo said, as if he had read Bo’s thoughts. “Did you notice anything suspicious?”

“No, I don’t even know what kind of wheel he drive,” Simon replied.

MM had the next page in her hand. “The response from the Boss!”

The question is: Why did he shoot an arrow into the house? We need to know if it has anything to do with the Blohm thing. Either way, give that Simon a thorough going-over as soon as you get hold of him. He will come clean if he knows anything. And if not, a few bruises never killed anyone. Let me know right away if anything new comes up.

MM turned the page. “Well, now here’s the response from the Gorilla.”

Okay, I’ll give him a proper talking to tomorrow, while he’s on his way home from school.

“Siiiiimon!” came a shrill cry from Mia. “Don’t let them hurt you!” She had tears in her eyes. Then she pulled herself together and said firmly: “I’ll protect you.” As if to show how serious she was, she took Nala, who had made herself comfortable on her lap, and put her in a headlock so tightly that her eyes nearly popped out.

YoYo, on the other hand, seemed to be a bit more relaxed about the whole thing. “Take a chill pill!” he told them. Unfazed, he munched on one of the chicken wings that he’d put on the rug. “After all, we know what their plans are – and these guys suspect nothing. So keep calm and carry on. The action is still a great chance to learn a bit more about Mr. Mickey! At the very least we’ll be able to get a few good photos.” He stroked his hair appreciatively and then continued: “Well, they now know about Simon. And you, Bo. And you, Mia – at least that’s what we can assume. But they don’t know that Simon has anything to do with you. And they don’t know anything about MM and me.”

“That means tomorrow after school we definitely shouldn’t be seen together,” Bo interrupted. “The best thing would be to mingle with the crowd.”

YoYo turned to Simon. “You, for example, could hang out with Tatyana. She was staring at you so longingly during the whole of English class today.”

“Tatyana? Who’s that?” Mia asked suspiciously.

“Um, I mean Tatyana –”

“And this bimbo has been staring longingly at Simon?!” Mia hissed.

“Um, no, of course not ... I mean, she looked at me like that ... um ... she probably likes my new hairstyle ...” YoYo said, winking at Simon.

Then he took off his glasses and started wiping them. That made it clear to everyone that a serious announcement about the mission was about to be made.

“Should we stand up?” Bo asked in the reverent silence.

The others laughed, but YoYo didn’t notice the subtle irony and replied seriously: “No, it’s okay, just stay as you are.” Then he finally got started. “Operation Tailing of the Tailer. Location: in front of Kopernikus School. Operating time: after sixth lesson. Clothing: as always, normal.” He couldn’t help but start grinning at this point. “Objective: observation and documentation of Mickey. Operational tactics: I keep a lookout. Constant contact of all forces by cell phone. Important: behavior as inconspicuous as possible. Avoid excessive eye contact with the target.”

“What? ” interrupted Mia.

“You are not supposed to stare at Mickey, that’s all,” YoYo replied sullenly. “Simon then makes his way home. Once the Gorilla follows him, the rest of us track him unobtrusively on our bikes, but individually. Simon then shakes him off as quickly as possible.”

“I just go into the mall and then I leave by the back door,” Simon said.

“Great idea,” YoYo said patronizingly.

“And what’s MM supposed to do? Doesn’t she have chickenpox and have to avoid school?” Mia asked.

“I’ll keep watch at the entrance to the mall, okay?” said MM.

At that moment there was a knock on the door. Bo would have expected anything other than his mother. And he certainly wouldn’t have expected her to make a lunge for MM and earnestly take her hand. But when Bo saw the smile on his mother’s face, it dawned on him what was coming.

“So you’re Bo’s new girlfriend!” she called out happily. “I’m so glad to meet you!” She couldn’t stop shaking her hand. Bo got a confused look from MM. He only had one wish in life: To be far, far away from there.

“Oh Mom,” he heard Mia say, and even her shrieking voice was like balm for his soul at that moment. She got up and whispered something in his mother’s ear that abruptly turned the smile into a pained grin. “Sorry,” she said in the direction of MM, whose face suggested that she hadn’t the faintest idea what Bo’s mother was apologizing for.

Later, when the friends had left, Bo turned to his sister. “What did you tell Mom so that she would leave MM alone?”

“Well, brother sweetie ... A spell.”

“Just spit it out!”

“I just told her that she had the wrong person – your real girlfriend is in the hospital with a broken arm at the moment. Am I right?”

His sister was a little shrill, Bo thought. But when it came to her imagination, he would have liked to take a leaf from her book.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Underground Parking Garage

The next day, even before lunch, it was boiling hot. But – of course – not hot enough for them to cancel school. It was rumored that the only time it was considered too hot for school was when the air conditioning broke down in the principal’s office. In the last class of the day it was so hot that Bo thought his brain would evaporate.

YoYo didn’t even show up for the last class. He wanted to “see how the land lies,” as he said. When the bell finally rang, Bo and Simon immediately had the phones at their ears.

“Well, what’s going on over there?” asked Bo.

“He’s here,” they heard YoYo say. “He’s standing right opposite the school entrance with an all-terrain motorcycle, a kick-ass BMW.”

Before they reached the schoolyard, the two friends parted with a silent nod and mingled with their classmates. For a split second Bo caught a glimpse of the man next to the motorcycle. He didn’t dare to look at him directly, but from the corner of his eye he could see that he was dressed in black from head to toe: black boots, black leather gear, even the helmet dangling from the handlebar was black. It remained a mystery to Bo how he could stand it in this heat.

As arranged, Simon was deep in conversation with Tatyana. She was hanging on his every word with a rapturous fixed smile. Lucky, thought Bo, that Mia didn’t have to watch this. She would have probably snapped completely. This morning, Mia had woken up with a bad cold, and Mom didn’t let her go to school, even though Mia begged and pleaded. Mia seemed convinced that Simon would be lost without her.

Tatyana’s luck didn’t last. Simon escaped from her with an uneasy smile and walked toward the schoolyard entrance.

Bo saw him turn onto Tal Street behind the gate. A moment later, Mickey’s motorcycle was revving. Everything went according to plan. In the morning Simon had parked his bike at the rear entrance of the mall. From there he would cycle home taking back roads.

“Well guys, is everything alright?” Bo heard MM’s voice from the phone on his belt. “I’m standing at the entrance to the mall.”

“Simon is on his way to you. And Mickey is right behind him.” Bo mounted his bicycle and started on his way. YoYo followed him a short distance behind.

Then Simon checked in. “Is he behind me?”

“Yes, he’s about fifty yards away,” replied Bo. “But don’t look back, whatever you do.”

“Sure.”

Five minutes later, the convoy had arrived at the mall.

“I go in now,” said Simon. And Bo saw him disappear through the large revolving door, past MM, who was standing inconspicuously by a shop window.

“I wonder how Mickey will react now,” they could hear YoYo say.

Mickey looked around uncertainly. He abruptly brought his bike to a standstill, turned the engine off and dismounted. He pushed the motorcycle onto the sidewalk and left it standing by the window, right next to MM. With heavy steps he headed for the revolving door. In his black gear he looked like the Dark Lord of the Sith from Star Wars.

He had just gone in when Simon called on the cell phone: “I just pay a quick visit to the zoo to buy some food for Nala.”

Bo was speechless. A criminal who wanted to beat him to a pulp was chasing him, but the only thing on Simon’s mind was an animal.

“Simon, he’s close behind you, he just entered the mall!” Bo shouted into his cell phone.

But he got no answer. Without hesitation, he jumped off his bike and ran to the entrance. In passing he informed MM what was going on, and then he pushed through the revolving door. Luckily, Mickey stuck out a mile. He stood in the middle of the crowd like a massive boulder and was looking around in all directions.

Bo ducked behind a clothes rack of women’s underwear. When Mickey turned his back on him, he scurried to the stairs and ran up them two at a time. The pet store was on the sixth floor.

Once upstairs, he saw Simon from a distance. He had a little rat in his hand and was talking to it. “This is Lilly,” he told Bo when he reached him. It was obviously one of the poor caged animals that he regularly visited after school. “They have nobody else to cheer them up,” he always said.

Bo snapped at him: “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

Simon shrugged his shoulders apologetically and pointed to the animals in the cages. “They still so small. The radiation no good for them.”

“Don’t tell me you’re also suddenly paranoid about radiation? I’m going to go crazy.” Bo hissed. But now wasn’t the time for discussion. “Mickey is out there to get you!”

“Oh crap!” Simon exclaimed. “Where is he?”

“Below, on the main floor. And if we’re unlucky, he’ll show up here any minute.”

“We better run,” Simon said.

“But not together!”

“Okay, I take stairs, you take elevator.”

“Okay.”

“But watch out down there!” said Bo. “And turn your phone on!”

The elevator was empty. On his way down, Bo thought about what might be going on downstairs. First he had to get to the exit without being seen. Together with YoYo and MM they only needed to keep Mickey’s motorcycle in view from a safe distance. Eventually he would have to give up the search for Simon. In his mind Bo imagined the angry face Mickey would make. He couldn’t help but smile.

At that moment, the elevator jerked and stopped. The display above the door showed the third floor. The door slid open. And then suddenly he saw, directly in front of him, the face that he’d just pictured: big and beefy, sunglasses on the boxer’s nose, shaved head. The black shape filled the entire door. Before Bo could think clearly, the door had already closed behind him. Bo pressed into the furthermost corner and looked down at the floor. He hardly dared to breathe.

The elevator began to move. Bo felt Mickey’s gaze resting on him. Instinctively he ducked his head. From the corner of his eye he saw that the Gorilla was digging around in his jacket pocket and pulling something out. Bo couldn’t help it, he had to look. His eyes fell on a crumpled photo. In a split second he realized that the boy was none other than himself. He looked again fixedly at the floor and held his breath. The Gorilla cleared his throat. Slowly he put the image back. After that, there was only the hum of the elevator to be heard. Bo felt sick with excitement and fear.

It took forever until the elevator slowed down. Bo was feeling a little better again. As soon as he was out of here, nothing could happen anymore. In the crowd he was going to shake Mickey off somehow. When the elevator door opened, Bo took a quick step toward the door. But the Gorilla with his massive body blocked his way. He filled the door like a wardrobe. Bo was seized by panic. Where the hell were all the people who were always pushing into the elevator? While he was still wondering if he should scream, the door closed again.

Wordlessly, Mickey pressed the bottom button. The elevator began to move. What did he want down there? Bo felt hot and cold shivers running up and down his spine. Still the black silhouette didn’t say a word. But as the elevator slowed down, Bo suddenly felt a paw on his neck. It was as if he were clamped in a vice. When the door opened, he was simply pushed out.

The stench of exhaust fumes took Bo’s breath. They had ended up in the underground car park! Mickey pushed him into the long passage between the rows of cars. What did he want from him? The sentence, “A few bruises never killed anyone ...” flashed through Bo’s mind.

Mickey’s heavy footsteps echoed from the walls. Apart from that, there was dead silence. The gigantic hand clutched Bo’s neck mercilessly. He was in such pain that he couldn’t form any rational thought except “stop!” At the farthest end of the hall Bo recognized a row of concrete pillars in the gloom. He felt that this was the end of their journey. Pure fear gripped him. His mouth was so dry that his tongue felt like a lump. Even if he could scream – no one would hear him here.

Suddenly Bo seemed to hear someone call from afar.

“Mickey!”

The Gorilla’s clutch was getting even firmer.

“Mickey! Mickey!” The voice came closer.

Mickey turned around, and Bo with him. He saw a young lady on a bicycle approaching them directly. She was wearing sunglasses and a light blue summer dress. Only when she got closer did he recognize her – MM! As soon as she stood in front of them with her bicycle, she started talking insistently and loudly to Mickey, without so much as a glance at Bo.

“Hey Mickey! I’ve been searching for you everywhere! What are you doing here? Leaving your bike just standing around out there.”

Mickey’s grip loosened slightly.

“You have to come up immediately, they’re meddling with it!”

“Meddling with what?” he asked in his raspy voice.

“What do you think? With your bike!” she said excitedly.

Mickey looked at her suspiciously. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Don’t you remember me? We know each other from the tennis club,” she said with a seductive smile.

Bo could only marvel at her coolness.

“Ah ... okay ...” You could see Mickey’s confusion. But MM didn’t give him time to sort his thoughts. “There are three guys, I think they are trying to pick the lock ...” She pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call the police! What’s the license plate again?”

The reference to the police seemed to light a fire under Mickey. He gave Bo a look that probably meant something like “Just wait little feller, I’ll deal with you later!” and then he ran toward the staircase.

“Let’s get out of here!” MM hissed at him as soon as he was out of earshot. She took his hand and pulled him to a green door labelled “emergency exit.”

Bo would have liked to help with the bike, but his legs could hardly support him. With trembling knees he climbed up the stairs behind MM. When he finally reached the top, breathing fresh air and feeling the sun on his face, he felt as if he had escaped from a nightmare. All of a sudden, his worries dropped away and a feeling of infinite lightness spread through him.

MM turned to him, took off her sunglasses and beamed at him with her ocean-colored eyes. She looked like summer itself. And the longer she looked at him, the clearer and deeper was the sea in her eyes. So deep that Bo forgot everything around him. Without thinking, he put his arms around her and hugged her tightly.

They only parted when some pedestrians approached, took each other by the hand and grinned.

“We’d better disappear,” said Bo.

“Don’t worry,” replied MM, “I’ve attached the bike with my bike lock. It will take a while until the Gorilla is ready for action again.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Train Ride

The day after that the heat was even worse. The air was so humid it was like a steam bath. At night, dark storm clouds built up in the sky, but didn’t break.

And somewhere in the haze, Mickey was waiting.

The kids now went to school separately, and every day took a different route. “That’s how all the bigwigs do it when they’re frightened of being attacked. The most important thing is not to be predictable,” YoYo said, like a pro as always.

But there was no trace of Mickey. The only sign of life was an email in which he told the boss about his misadventures following Simon.

I’m pretty sure that this Simon and the young Blohm are in cahoots. It can’t be a coincidence that Blohm crossed my path just when the blond one escaped. But I don’t know what the deal is with this girl. She claimed that she knows me from the tennis club. And afterward my bike was locked up, so I had to get a saw before I could go anywhere. And you know what happened while I was sitting there sawing? – Along come the police and say I’m trying to steal the bike. It was a close shave, they nearly carted me off.

They were happiest about the Boss’s curt response:

You’re an idiot.

Apart from that, they had little to smile about. They were too nervous. The big day was inexorably approaching. Everything was ready: The fake suitcase was well hidden under Bo’s desk, prepared and waiting for its deployment. They had also thoroughly inspected the Roggenkamp layout again.

But they still didn’t know exactly when the handover should take place. Did Dad know already? Perhaps he’d already been notified, and they just hadn’t noticed? In the intercepted blackmail letter it said: Handover in the 33rd calendar week on the Roggenkamp grounds, in front of barrack number three. Notify Blohm of the exact point of time as shortly beforehand as possible, using absolutely secure methods.

Mia made every conceivable effort to find any hidden clues. She extended her illness especially, in order to be able to continue ransacking her father’s study undisturbed. But the money case was still slumbering in the white closet, and there was not the slightest trace of any news, although they turned every page, and even the smallest scrap of paper was fished out of the trash. The only thing that seemed suspicious to her was a yellow adhesive note in her dad’s notebook, on which he had scribbled the name “Alexander Afschahr.” Nothing more. Even his computer, which now also stood under constant surveillance by one of MM’s Trojans, divulged nothing unusual.

The friends were most worried, however, that MM was getting nowhere with the enigmatic file. Day and night she’d been racking her brains about the meaning of the mysterious phrase they had found in the boss’s email: “The key is in the lock.” On Thursday she gave up in frustration. “It makes no sense to keep trying. I just don’t know what more to do. Key ... lock ... I can’t hear it anymore,” she said wearily.

To top it all off, the Blohm family’s trip to Grandma Gertrude was scheduled for this weekend. The very idea of sitting in the train for five hours in this weather gave Bo a headache. What made matters worse was that, of all people, his little cousin Anouk was going to join them. Anouk was three or four years old, and a real pain in the butt. It was a mystery to him why Mom was always so eager to take care of her.

Contrary to his expectations, the trip was not that bad. And Grandma Gertrude was the same as always: As per usual, she could hardly believe how big the kids had grown. “Little Mimi, I still remember as if it were yesterday when you were as small as little Anoukie, and now you’re a proper lady already,” she said at least ten times – but that didn’t stop her from getting the doll’s house down from the loft for her, just like she did every year. For Bo, as always, there was the toy railway that Grandpa had gotten him for his fifth birthday.

As always at Grandma’s, they got a good deal when it came to food. She always went all out with meat, sugar, and cream. “Just eat, my boy, you’ve still got to grow.” Bo didn’t need to be told twice, and Mia even less. Only Mom restrained herself nobly.

Dad looked totally worn out, and Grandma complained to Mom that she wasn’t feeding him properly. “A man needs a decent steak once a week, anything else is animal cruelty!” When it came to food, Grandma Gertrude’s worldview was simple.

On Sunday there was, as always, Bo’s favorite dish as a farewell dinner: potato gratin with green beans wrapped in bacon. They were just about to move on to dessert – vanilla ice cream with hot raspberries – when something happened that shouldn’t have. A cheerful beep melody came from Bo’s pocket. Damn! He had forgotten to switch the phone to vibrate.

“What’s that?” Mom asked suspiciously.

“Um ...” Bo fumbled with his pocket and turned off the ring tone. “I don’t know ... oh, the cell phone,” he tried to say casually, as if he had been born with a cell phone in his pocket. “A phone?” Mom looked as if she had seen a ghost. “Where did you get at a cell phone?”

“Well ... um –” Then there was an intermission. He simply didn’t know what to say. Seeking help, he turned to Mia.

“Oh brother sweetie, now don’t act so mysteriously,” she said without batting an eye.

No, not again, ran through Bo’s head, as it dawned on him which story Mia was about to tell. Couldn’t she come up with something else?

He sighed deeply.

“MM has given you her phone so she can get hold of you at any time ... from the hospital.”

That was the keyword. Bo had caught it. “She’s terribly alone this weekend, you see,” he said eagerly, “and she can hardly move with her leg in the cast.”

“I thought she broke her arm?” Mom interrupted with a suspicious look.

Bo was covered with sweat. “Yes, that’s the problem – now they have found that she has a broken leg, too. They overlooked it at first.”

He bit his lip. But Mom seemed to swallow his explanation. She turned to Grandma. “Bo has a girlfriend now,” she said with a very satisfied tone, the way you would say “Bo got an A in math.”

Granny didn’t quite share her enthusiasm. “Oh, really?” she said hesitantly. “Isn’t that a bit early?”

While Mom was enlightening Grandma about the importance of the female element in the development of the male adolescent, Bo unobtrusively withdrew to the bathroom. In his voice mail was a message from YoYo, stating that he was terribly bored and only wanted to quickly say hello.

The trip home exceeded Bo’s worst fears. The train was chock-full. To make matters worse, the air conditioning had broken down – the heat was almost unbearable. Mom had a headache, and Dad was in his bad mood, as always. And, of course, little Anouk was throwing one temper tantrum after another. Once, because her crayon had fallen on the floor, then, because Mom had picked it up. For about an hour she bawled and blared throughout the entire train carriage. When she finally fell asleep from exhaustion in Dad’s arms, you could almost hear the whole carriage sighing in relief.

Bo pulled his book out of his bag. He had just opened it when the sound of a voice came from the speaker: “Attention, please … Mr. Alexander Afschahr is asked to contact the service compartment in carriage number ten. There is a message for you. I repeat: Mr. Alexander Afschahr, please come to the service compartment in carriage number ten. There is a message for you.”

Alexander Afschahr. He felt Mia’s elbow drilling into his ribs. But even without this ungentle reminder it was immediately clear to Bo: Here it was, the “absolutely secure method” in which the message was to be sent! The thoughts flashed back and forth in his mind. How did the gang figure out that they were visiting Grandma this weekend? And that they would be sitting in this exact train? Had they been observing Dad when he bought the tickets? Or had Peter somehow been informed by Dad? Or did the gang possibly have access to the train company’s central computer that processed all the reservations?

Bo looked over at his father. If there had been any doubt that this message had something to do with him, it would now finally be dispelled. Dad sat stiffly in his seat and looked around uneasily. You could tell that he would have liked to jump up immediately if he had not had the sleeping Anouk in his arms.

Bo could barely stay in his seat either. He had to get his hands on that message. And he had to do it before his father did.

While he was frantically searching for a possibility, his father made the first move. He cleared his throat and turned to his wife: “Hey, Solvejg, are you hungry? I could do with a sandwich. I’m going to the bistro, okay?”

Bo’s heart skipped a beat. But, fortunately, Mom thwarted Dad’s plans: “But Grandma gave us a whole bag of provisions, including your favorite cake! All the stuff is in the red bag.”

“No, no, let it go.” Dad leaned back and peered out of the window. Bo could literally feel how it rattled him. After a while he apparently came to a decision: “What I need now is a newspaper,” he declared. “They sell them in the train bar.”

However, this plan was also thwarted by Mom. “Now wait a bit, Anouk has just fallen asleep! As you see, she is still pretty restless. Why such a rush?” she said, annoyed. For better or for worse, Dad had to comply.

Bo saw his chance. Quickly he said “I’ll get you the newspaper! Which one do you want? I’ve got to stretch my legs anyway.” It was clear that Dad was anything but enthusiastic.

“Frankfurter Rundschau,” he grumbled.

Bo zipped off. Now he had to be cautious. They had boarded pretty far away from the service compartment, so he almost had to walk through the entire train. While he squeezed between suitcases and passengers, he turned over in his mind how he could get the message without arousing suspicion.

When he arrived at the service compartment, he knew.

He knocked on the sliding glass door. No response.

Bo knocked again, a bit bolder this time. The door actually slid ajar. “What do you want?” the conductor asked impatiently. Obviously he didn’t like to be disturbed during service.

“My father sent me to pick up the message for him.”

“For Mr. Afschahr?” he interrupted him indifferently and gave him a piece of paper. Without waiting for his reply he shut the door again.

Bo skimmed the paper:

For Mr. Alexander Afschahr – Sept. 1st, 8:00 pm

That was all there was to it.

Bo knocked anew. Again, no answer. The second time the unfriendly voice responded: “What is it now?”

“This must be a misunderstanding – on the note here it says that the message is for Mr. Afschahr, but we are called Alber. My dad must have gotten it wrong. Probably because his first name is also Alexander.” The official took the paper back without a word, shrugged, and shut the door.

Bo made his way back. September 1st, 8:00 pm, he repeated to himself in his mind again and again, as if otherwise he’d forget the message. September 1st ... tomorrow! The Day X was tomorrow! The rattle of the railroad tracks was nothing compared to the pounding that Bo felt in his chest.

“Well, have you got the newspaper?” was Dad’s first question when Bo arrived. Oh dear, he was supposed to bring a newspaper! Quick! An excuse, a kingdom for an excuse!

“I bet only the tabloids were left, right?” he heard Mia say. She was simply unbeatable.

“Yes, only the BILD,” Bo said, nodding his head in regret.

Dad didn’t react.

Bo had hardly sat down, when Dad said: “Well, now I really have to go to the bathroom, urgently! The little one is sound asleep. Can you take her for a sec, Bo?”

And pronto he had the sweaty child in his arms, whilst he was already soaking with sweat.

When Dad had left, he whispered in Mia’s ear: “It’s getting serious. Tomorrow night at eight.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Key in the Lock

Late in the evening of that long day, Bo was still lying awake in his bed. Although midnight was approaching, it was impossible to think of sleep. Over and over again he had to think of the next day. Day X. The day of decision. They had prepared for it for so long, talked about it so much – and now it was here. It suddenly seemed inconceivable to him that, at this time tomorrow, everything would already be over. For the hundredth time he went through the schedule: In the morning, when Mom and Dad were at work, Mia would exchange the suitcases. The prepared suitcase contained two thousand carefully copied 500 euro bills that were tied up in bundles of twenty-five bills.

In the afternoon Dad would come home shortly after four, as always. The handover was to take place at 8:00 pm. Not a soul would be on the grounds at that time.

Bo imagined how Dad would go to the barracks with the suitcase. Peter only had to take possession of it, walk the few steps to the gate, get into his red sportster, and he was gone. The highway was just five minutes away.

When would the gang notice that they’d been tricked? If only he could be a fly on the wall when Peter or one of the other two opened the case. And not to mention when they read the letter ... Bo could not help but smile.

But more than anything else, he was looking forward to the moment when Dad would come back home. From the Roggenkamp grounds it would take maybe half an hour for him to get home after the handover. Bo and his friends had agreed that they would all meet at his place shortly after eight. How would they stage the surprise? Should they just put the suitcase with the real million on his desk? No, there were a few explanations that they had to give him. And they had to be careful so that Mom wouldn’t catch wind of it. Their best bet was to ask Dad to come into his room, hand over the case, and explain everything to him. Bo tried to imagine the scene – but he didn’t succeed. Once again, he felt that strange feeling creeping up in him, which had accompanied him for the past few days. As much as he tried, he just could not get rid of it.

“The key is in the lock,” he heard himself say. It sounded like a warning. Without hesitation he turned on the light and picked up the phone.

MM answered immediately. “Bo, is that you?” Her voice sounded tired.

“Yes, I wanted to hear how you’re doing,” said Bo. It sounded more cheerful than he was feeling. “I just can’t fall asleep.”

“Same with me,” she replied softly.

“There is something that keeps going around in my head,” Bo said.

“The thing with the key and the lock, I know. Same with me,” she replied, much to Bo’s surprise. “We shouldn’t have given up so quickly. I’ve got such a stupid feeling: There must be something in there that we’ll need tomorrow.”

Before Bo could even think, he heard himself say, “I’m coming over. We have to try it again. Maybe we’ll figure it out together.”

He was dressed in no time. He left his room by the “emergency exit” – through the window on the garage roof, and from there he jumped down into the garden. He didn’t want to make any noise in the bicycle shed, so he went by foot.

Outside, not a soul was to be seen nor heard. The street lights only lit the pavements weakly. From a distance, the sound of the highway could be heard, but apart from that, Bo didn’t hear anything but his own footsteps.

As he arrived at Mariekje’s house, he could see from afar two of the high windows on the first floor illuminated by the pale light of the monitor. The front door was ajar, as agreed. He took off his shoes and sneaked up the stairs, and then carefully opened the door to her room.

Tired and with disheveled hair, MM was sitting in front of Little Blue.

“Have you been tearing your hair out?” Bo said and softly shut the door behind him.

“Yeah, it really makes you wanna tear your hair out, doesn’t it?” she replied with a half-smile. “In the end, we are not dumber than these guys, yet we can’t solve this riddle. Here, look –” She picked up a piece of paper on which she had written something. “First I tried the 128 bit encryption, which they have used in the other files. No result. Then the 256 bit encryption. Little Blue has spent at least 36 hours calculating, trying 10 to the power of 75 options. That’s a one followed by 75 zeros. A normal computer would have needed three weeks. And what was the outcome? Nothing! And after I optimized the DMA-chaining and the code cache – just the same.”

All Bo understood was that he was pretty out of place here.

“Sorry,” he interrupted, “maybe I should go home. I thought I could help you a bit, but maybe it’s better if I let you work in peace.”

She looked at him seriously. “No, Bo, please stay here. I’m sorry that I talked to you in geek-speak. I know that you can’t help me on the computer. But Little Blue doesn’t get us any further now, anyway. I’ve already tried everything. It’s in our heads we have to solve the mystery.” She slumped on her bed. Bo sat down on the folding chair at the desk.

“Lock and key ... this must be some wordplay, some code that only the two of them understand.”

“What’s the part of the mail again, where the riddle appears?” Bo asked.

“For safety reasons I have used extra encryption. The key is in the lock, ” she quoted from memory. “I’m sick and tired of that sentence!”

“Well, where should a key be, other than in the lock?” Bo closed his eyes to better concentrate. “By key they mean the program that we can use to decrypt the message,” he said.

“Sure, but what’s this supposed to mean, it is in the lock?”

Bo didn’t answer. He was tired, but in his mind the chatter just didn’t stop. Key ... lock ... key ... lock ... key ... Lock? – LOCK!

Suddenly he was wide awake. Clear as day, the solution was before his eyes. They didn’t mean a lock for locking or unlocking, but a canal lock!

“I’ve got it!”

“What have you got?” came slowly from MM’s bed. She had actually dozed off already.

“I’ve got it! The lock!”

“But we are looking for the key,” she said, yawning.

“Yes, that’s just it, it is in the lock!”

MM looked at him pityingly. “It’s really late, Bo, and neither of us is quite up to it.”

“Now listen to me,” he tried again. “They don’t mean a lock, but …” – long pause – “a lock –”

“Bo –”

“– to let boats go down a canal!!!”

It was as if MM had stuck her finger into a power outlet. She was now sitting bolt upright in bed. “That’s it!” she yelled so loudly that Bo had to remind her with a “Shhh!!!” that it would be better if her parents stayed asleep.

She jumped up and ran to Little Blue. “The sluices! Now I get it!”

“Me too,” said Bo. They had looked through all the photos of the real estate agency that the boss had on his computer. They were showing the houses and properties that the company had on offer. And one of them had struck them from the very beginning – because it was so cute: an ancient lock-keeper’s house beside a lovely canal, with boats waiting to travel through the sluice gates. But what the key was supposed to do with this lock-keeper’s house, he had no idea.

“The key is hidden in the picture,” MM enlightened him, “more specifically, in the image file – its name is “lock.jpg.” As a matter of fact, such a photo consists of many individual dots, which are so small that they can’t be seen individually. And a few of these dots have been changed. If Little Blue tracks them, we have got the key.”

Bo didn’t really understand the explanation, but he didn’t have to.

“All we have to do is, well, feed Little Blue with the image file and wait until it spits out the hidden key. It can then decipher the mysterious message!”

MM was already fumbling around with the computer. Her fingers glided over the keys at breakneck speed. “Ok, now it’s got its task,” she said and leaned back.

“How long will it take?” Bo asked cautiously.

“Hard to say. But if we’re lucky, we’ll make it by tomorrow night.”

Little Blue was bathing both of them in its pale light.

Bo’s eye fell on a piece of paper on MM’s desk. It was littered with Asian characters. “Are you learning Chinese?”

“No, Japanese.”

“Why?”

“Oh, no particular reason ... it’s just fun for me, to learn a language like this. Japanese is beautiful.”

Japanese? Just for the fun of it? Bo had read somewhere that Japanese was one of the most difficult languages in the world. “And how do you learn it? Have you got a tutor?”

“No, I’m studying at the University of Hamburg. A correspondence course. They send me the material and then I study on my own.”

“What? You’re studying at the university?” asked Bo in disbelief, “I thought it requires a high school diploma?”

“Yes, it does actually. But I have –” She hesitated, “– a special permission for gifted children.”

Bo was amazed by the matter-of-fact tone with which she uttered the word “gifted.” He couldn’t hear a trace of arrogance at all. “And how do you get this special permission?”

“You have to take a test, an intelligence test.”

“And then the test determines whether you are gifted or not?”

“Yes, you are highly gifted if you have more than 135 points.”

“And how many do you have?”

“I don’t know, my parents just told me that I have more than 135, but not how many.”

“So you simply are a wunderkind,” Bo said with a playful grin. He hastened to add: “You know that I don’t mean it in a bad way.”

“I know ... and that’s what I like about you.” She looked directly into his eyes. Bo felt a pleasant feeling in his stomach, which he could hardly stand. He cleared his throat. “School starts in five hours –”

“That almost sounds as if you can hardly wait for it,” MM said with a smile.

“No, not exactly,” he said with a grin. After a long pause, he asked, “Do you like going to school?”

MM just said nothing. Then she looked at him.

“No. Do you think that I like to be by myself when the others are with their friends?” She hesitated a moment, then she said softly: “I’ve always been an outsider. As long as I can remember, I’ve been somehow considered not normal. It started when I was five, when at the dinner table at home I was reading off the medicine from the prescription the doctor had written for my grandma.”

“What? A doctor’s handwriting?” Bo asked incredulously.

“Yes.”

“And your parents didn’t know that you could read?”

“No, I taught myself from books, by reading along. And I learned cursive in my grandfather’s studio. His notebooks were always lying around, because he was writing his memoirs at that time.”

“And math?”

“I was already able to do it reasonably well, at least with numbers up to a thousand. And so I’ve belonged to the outsiders from first grade on. You can imagine that I was bored as hell. I completely tuned out when I was in school. Then they sent me back to kindergarten because I was considered not yet ready for school. And back there I was the outsider again. At the second attempt at school, I already had the label “highly gifted” from the beginning, and the teachers treated me accordingly. I got extra tasks and stuff. And I was the outsider once again.”

She smiled wearily.

“And then I skipped two grades, as you know. And in the new class I immediately was “the overachiever,” and no one wanted to have anything to do with me. For a while I got bad grades intentionally, just so I wouldn’t always be so alone.” She stared somewhere into the distance. “But it didn’t help. It’s as if I had a smell on me. When I came into your class, I was the nerd from day one again. All sorts of rumors started circulating – that I did nothing else but study and stuff, or that I sucked up to the teachers.” She looked at Bo. “If you’re honest, you thought I was like that, too.”

She stared vacantly at the screen. “My dad is the only one who understands how I feel, but he’s almost never at home. He’s also highly gifted, and has suffered the same as me. You can forget about my mom. For her, I am just the prodigy, and she’s proud of me. But she has no idea about how I feel.”

For a while she was silent. Then she said softly: “I just want to belong somewhere for once. Simply to be accepted, play along, take part. And not always be labelled as something.” Bo saw that she had tears in her eyes. “In your group of friends I’ve at least been promoted from the ‘nerd’ to the ‘child prodigy.’ Prodigy – genius – mastermind – I can’t hear it anymore.” Then it burst out of her: “Maybe I’m just a normal person!” She rested her face in her hands and began to sob quietly.

Bo would have liked to stroke her hair to comfort her. But he didn’t dare.

“To me, you’re a normal person. But, nevertheless, special.” Then he added: “And I am exceedingly normal. And that’s not always pleasant, either. Boringly normal …”

MM raised her head and looked at him, sniffing. Suddenly they both had to grin.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Message

Bo had no idea where he was when he first woke up. He could feel every single one of his bones. When he had finally emerged from his half-sleep, it was immediately clear to him why: He was sitting on a hard folding chair at a desk. And apparently he had spent the night here. He rubbed his eyes. His first glance fell on a black tousle-head next to him at the desk. MM slept peacefully, head on her arms, as Little Blue hummed along softly.

Little Blue ... the lock ... the message – Bo jumped up. But on the screen, everything was as before. Apparently Little Blue was still at work processing its task. He looked at his watch: 7:05 am. Normally he would be sitting at the breakfast table right now. But what was “normally” supposed to mean? Today was not a normal day. Today was Day X.

Bo stood up and looked at the sleeping MM. Her face was relaxed, her mouth slightly open. He could hear her breathing faintly. There was the hint of a smile on her lips, as if she were dreaming of something beautiful.

He patted her hair gently and whispered in her ear: “Mariekje ...” But apparently she didn’t want to be woken. She just turned her head and went back to sleep on the other ear.

But Bo didn’t give up. She’d better wake up before her mother appeared. Again he gently stroked her hair.

Suddenly, his hand froze. Someone was standing in the doorway. Bo knew immediately who it was. MM’s mother had her mouth wide open, but without producing a sound. It was like in a movie where the soundtrack was missing.

Then, suddenly, the sound came: “MARIEKJE!!!” The shriek could have woken the dead up.

MM started up from her sleep and stared first at her mother, and then at Bo with eyes wide open.

“Mhhhhhh ...” At first there didn’t come any other sound.

“Can you explain to me what is going on here?”

“Mhhhhh ...”

With a gruff head shake, MM’s mother turned to Bo: “Who are you?”

“Um ... Mariekje’s classmate.” He didn’t dare raise his eyes.

“Uh-ha, a classmate. And since when have you been in this room, if I may ask?”

“Since ... um ... this morning,” Bo blurted out.

“And what are you doing here?” she barked.

What could he say? “Um ... homework ... I’m helping Mariekje with homework … in math,” he stuttered, and risked a quick glance at MM’s mother. Her expression made him wish there were a delete key for silly excuses. “I mean, Mariekje is helping me,” he hastened to say.

“And doing so while asleep!” MM’s mother growled. Gloomily, she turned back to her daughter: “Mariekje, I will see you in my room in exactly two minutes.” She was already halfway out of the door, when she turned back “And your so-called classmate will leave immediately!” The door shut with a bang.

Bo was the first to find his tongue. “Oh dear ... we are up the creek.”

“You can say that again,” MM replied.

The two of them looked at each other sadly. But the longer they did so, the more their faces brightened. Then they both burst out laughing.

“It was just great,” MM gasped, “you helping me with my math homework – the most ingenious reply since the invention of excuses.”

When they had calmed down, MM said: “I’m afraid you have to beat it, classmate. And I have to go over for the cross-examination. Let’s see what excuses I come up with. We’ll call each other as soon as possible, okay?” She gave him a complicit smile.

Bo got going. The queasy feeling in his stomach didn’t only come from the fact that he had not had breakfast yet – now he had to explain to his parents why their son hadn’t shown up at the breakfast table, nor been home at all. As he went hurrying through the crowded streets, he tried to convince himself that his parents maybe hadn’t noticed his absence yet.

His optimism, however, quickly faded when he turned onto his street. From afar he saw his mother standing in the doorway.

It looked like trouble. Serious trouble.

“Where in the world have you been?” she asked between sobs. “I thought you’d been kidnapped!” While she continued sobbing quietly, Bo was frantically trying to think of an excuse. But he was already used to it: nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was just nothing he could come up with. For a moment, his thoughts wandered to MM who was now probably being grilled just like him.

“Is your sweetheart already luring you away?” he heard Mia’s voice. She had appeared behind Mom and winked at him unobtrusively.

Mom let out a big sigh of relief. “Oh, you were with your girlfriend!” Then she looked at him questioningly: “Do they let in visitors so early?”

Then it dawned on him again – indeed, his girlfriend was in hospital!

“Yes ... I was surprised, too,” he stammered.

Now Mia joined in. “Just don’t turn it into a federal crime, Mom. It almost sounds as if you had never been in love yourself.”

While Mia gave Mom a thorough lesson on love, Bo noticed Dad standing in the hallway. He was appalled by how bad he looked.

Bo was seized with unspeakable pity. If only he could tell him that everything would turn out well! That he had nothing to worry about, and that the criminals would soon leave him in peace forever!

“Everything will be fine,” he suddenly heard himself whisper. Dad must have heard it, because he looked at him in surprise for a moment. Bo avoided his gaze and pretended as if nothing had happened.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he heard his father say. “We have been quite worried.” He took his coat from the hook. “I have to go. At the door he took Mom into his arms. Bo felt how much despair lay in their embrace.

Bo packed his school stuff and took off as fast as possible. Of course, school was the last thing on his mind, but he didn’t want to burden his mother with that, too. Once he was out of sight, he called YoYo and Simon to inform them about the progress of the mysterious file.

It rang for quite a while before YoYo answered. He’d come from the middle of English class. Bo had trouble explaining the thing with the lock to his friend.

“When can you decrypt the message by?” YoYo asked impatiently.

“I don’t know ... any time now ... but it could also take until tonight.”

Bo heard YoYo swallow. “Call me as soon as something happens. I’ll let Simon know!”

Bo had just hung up when the phone vibrated. It had to be MM.

“Hey, are you still alive?” he asked.

“Yes. And you?”

“Well, I’m okay. But now tell me, what about Little Blue?”

“Still busy processing.” After a short pause she said: “Will you come to see me?”

“But your mother –”

“Is out of the house. No need to worry.”

Soon thereafter, they both sat together in front of Little Blue, who was working away, quietly buzzing, unimpressed by the impatience with which the two stared at it.

“Well, what did you come up with to tell your mother?” Bo asked, without taking his eyes off the screen.

“It wasn’t that easy. I had to turn you into a future Nobel Prize winner. I had no choice.”

“What an honor.”

“I told her that you are one of these highly gifted overachievers, and that we’re developing a computer program together, the likes of which mankind has never seen before. You know, Mom’s really into all that nonsense.”

He heard her sigh.

“You are, of course, enrolled at the university as well.”

“Oh, yes, and in what subject?”

“Computer science – and there you are on the trail of something superhot. As I said, Nobel Prize, at least.“

“And she bought that crap?”

“She was totally impressed. However, she still doesn’t want to see you here in my room after 6:00 pm. She said you might try getting up to something with me.

After a pause, during which they both stared at the screen very intently, she asked: “And you, what did you say?”

“Not much. Actually, nothing. Mia bailed me out again,” he replied evasively.

Little Blue worked and worked. And the longer it worked, the more monosyllabic the conversation got. At 2:00 pm Bo called home to say that he couldn’t come for dinner. He was at YoYo’s preparing a presentation on the tropical rain forest for geography.

“Don’t you want to bring him here?” his mother asked. “There is kohlrabi stew with millet.” She said this with that upbeat lilt in her voice that she always had when it came to her food.

“No, that’s okay,” he said, grinning to MM.

At 3:00 pm they got a call from YoYo. “Well, how are things?”

“Still nothing.”

At 4:00 pm they hadn’t said a word for a long time. They just sat there and stared at the screen. And the clock was ticking forward relentlessly. Only four hours until handover time.

Suddenly MM let out a cry.

Bo winced. He must have dozed off a bit.

“It’s got it!”

Bo’s eyes widened. On the screen, the desired window had appeared:

“Operation successfully completed.”

“Well, we have the key,” MM said excitedly. In feverish haste her fingers raced across the keyboard. “And with that we can get the file cracked in no time!”

“Now come on, you moron,” she hissed at Little Blue, and drummed with her fingers on the desk. It didn’t even take a minute and the text appeared.

Even years later, when Bo thought back to this moment, his throat tightened.

Okay, Mickey, you stay hidden until Blohm has handed over the money case to Peter. And then you finish them both off with the nine-millimeter pistol. Don’t forget the silencer. Then take the fastest route to the airport with the suitcase. At the service area in Hammerstedt, throw the gun in the third trash can on the right, I’ll pick it up tonight.

Bo couldn’t even scream. Beseechingly, he looked at MM. She was still staring at the screen, pressing her hands to her mouth.

All the messages they had intercepted suddenly appeared in his mind. Now the scales fell from his eyes: Peter was just a puppet to the Boss. And now that he had achieved his goal, he was an unwelcome witness that had to be eliminated – just like Dad. When the two were dead, no one would ever know who had pulled the strings in the background.

Bo had to pull himself together to keep from crying. Now it was no longer about a million, it was about Dad’s life!

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Emergency Call

At that moment the doorbell rang. MM shook her head as if to shake something off, and went to open the door.

She came back with YoYo, Simon, and Mia. Without saying a word, she pointed to the monitor.

YoYo was the first one to find his composure. “We have to warn your father immediately!” He looked at the clock. “Just before five, he should still be at home, I’ll try to reach him!” He already had the phone in his hand. While he dialed, he gave orders. “You go ahead, Bo, we’ll follow in a second! And you, MM, check again whether a new mail has appeared from the Boss perhaps, better safe than sorry!”

Bo was already at the stairs. While racing down them he heard YoYo shout: “Tell him everything! He must not leave the house!”

With one jump he was on his bike. He pedaled furiously.

As he turned around the corner to his house, he immediately saw that he was too late. The car was gone. A terrible suspicion arose in him. He ran up the front steps, unlocked the door, and stormed into Dad’s study. The closet door was open. The place where the case had stood was empty.

Where in the world could Dad be? Was he already on his way to the handover? Like a madman, Bo ran back and forth across the room. Perhaps Dad had hidden the suitcase somewhere else? Maybe he’d just gone away briefly to get something, a newspaper, or rolls for dinner perhaps? Bo felt tears rolling down his cheeks.

Luckily, YoYo, MM, and Mia appeared at that very moment; otherwise he might have gone completely crazy. Simon wasn’t there, but Bo had other things to do than to worry about that.

“He’s already gone to the handover!” MM blurted out. “There’s a new message! They pushed the handover forward by two hours, so Mickey can take an earlier flight. Peter must have called your father at work!” With a choked voice she added: “Oh Bo, I’m so stupid! I just forgot to monitor their messages while we were busy with the lock thing.”

“So now he’s on his way to the barracks,” YoYo said slowly. He looked at the clock. “5:14 pm. 45 minutes to go until the handover.” The tremor in his voice was unmistakable.

Bo ripped his phone out of his pocket. “We have to call the police! Now! “He hammered in the emergency number, 110. It rang three times, which felt like an eternity to Bo. Finally, a woman’s voice answered. “Police operator. What’s your emergency?”

“Come at once to the barracks ... the Roggenkamp grounds,” Bo blurted out. “There is a money handover taking place in front of barrack number three. The blackmailer is armed and wants to kill the other two –”

He was interrupted by the operator. “What’s your name?” She sounded strict, but not unfriendly.

“Bo … Bo Blohm.”

“Bo, dear, now listen to me carefully.” She talked as if she wanted to explain something to a little child. “This is the police emergency line.”

“I know!” Bo said impatiently, “but –”

“Every day we get nearly a thousand calls from people who are in trouble and need our help. Just imagine if all of them played this kind of joke! So please, don’t do it again.” She still had the gentle voice of a kindergarten teacher. “Don’t forget that sometimes it’s a matter of life and death.”

She had hung up.

The children looked at each other in disbelief.

“We have to try again ... quick!” MM said immediately.

“Let me do that,” YoYo said, and picked up the phone. “You have to give them accurate information!” Bo swallowed his anger at YoYo’s arrogance.

“Police operator. What’s your emergency?” This time it was a man’s voice that boomed through the phone speaker.

“My friend just called, but your colleague thought it was a joke –”

“What?”

“At 6:00 pm, on the grounds of the Roggenkamp barracks, a suitcase containing one million euros is going to be handed over to some blackmailers. The owner of the money is Mr. Reinhard Blohm, my friend’s father. He is the victim of a criminal organization, whose regional and transregional activities we have uncovered ...”

Now he had gone back to using his bureaucrat’s language, Bo registered with concern. He tried to give YoYo a sign, but he didn’t respond.

“We have learned that Mr. Blohm is going to be murdered during the money transfer. The culprit is called Mickey, he is about 45 years old, 6 foot 3, heavily built, and wearing sunglasses. Beware! The perpetrator is armed!”

He didn’t get any further.

“That’s enough!” Bo heard the policeman shouting. “I’m warning you, this is the police emergency line. If you absolutely have to play tricks, then do it somewhere else. The next time you’ll be sued – section 145 of the Criminal Code, abuse of emergency calls and interference with accident prevention and emergency helplines. Then you can explain to your parents what you get up to when they are not at home!” – And with that he hung up.

Tears shot into Bo’s eyes. Dad was in mortal danger, and the police didn’t even consider it worth listening to them properly! His eyes desperately searched YoYo’s watch: 5:25 pm. They just had 35 minutes.

At that moment he heard Mia’s voice beside him. “Give it to me!” She already had YoYo’s cell phone in her hand. As Bo saw her face, he knew she would do it. She was pale with rage, her eyes sparkling aggressively.

When the operator came back on the line she took a deep breath first. And then things got going ...

Bo didn’t grasp exactly all of what she said. He only realized that it was incredibly fast and incredibly loud. At one point he heard “breach of official duty,” then the phrase, “you’ll blame yourself for the rest of your life!” Like an avenging angel she screamed and threatened and ranted. This guy has no chance, Bo thought to himself.

Suddenly, Mia’s voice was dangerously low. “Now you listen to me very carefully.” In a nutshell, she told the whole story.

“And what are these two alleged criminals called?” the officer said. From his voice one could tell that he was still suspicious. But at least he listened.

“Dr. Joachim Ohlow and Mickey –” She looked to MM for help.

“Sokolow,” she whispered.

“Sokolow!” Mia barked into the phone.

Bo heard the faint clatter of a keyboard. Apparently, the operator was entering the name into his computer. It took an eternity. Couldn’t he hurry up a bit?

“No, nothing ... never delinquent,” he heard him mutter.

Signs of the next explosion started to appear on Mia’s face. But what good was that? Bo thought. It still wouldn’t change the fact that the policeman took their story for a fairy tale. He swallowed, but the lump in his throat just got even bigger.

Suddenly something strange happened. Bo couldn’t explain it to himself, but all of a sudden he saw himself back in the dark closet in the boss’s villa, sandwiched between MM and YoYo. “Want a cognac, Tito?” he heard Mickey’s rough voice.

Without thinking, he pulled the phone from Mia’s hand and said, no – shouted into it: “Ohlow is just a code name, he’s really called Tito!!!”

Suddenly there was complete silence on the other end of the line. Then, almost threateningly, he heard: “What did you say? TITO?”

“Yes, Tito!”

It was as if he had spoken a magic spell. At the other end of the line, a storm was unleashed, a confusion of voices rang out, in which again and again the name “Tito” could be heard. Frantic instructions were given, commands whirred through the air. He understood the words “red alert,” “twenty-five police cars,” “bulletproof vests,” and “air support.”

In an excited voice, the operator was back again. “You know the layout?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you now?”

“16 Lessing Street.”

“Stand in front of your door. We’ll be right with you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Shot

Bo glanced at the clock. Exactly 5:30 pm. Only thirty minutes left. Did they still have a chance at all?

He and his friends stood silently at the doorstep. In the distance, sirens were heard, faintly at first, then louder and louder. Shortly after, five or six police cars with sirens blaring came racing around the corner and stopped with screeching tires in front of the house. The passenger door of the first car flew open. A police officer in dark blue uniform jumped out.

“SWAT,” YoYo said in a decidedly cool manner while the policeman came toward them at a run.

The officer didn’t waste any time on greetings. “We have requested a helicopter, it’ll be here in three minutes!” He gestured with his head toward the street. Several police officers were already busy blocking the street with yellow tape. The neighbors stood together in little groups, talking excitedly. The flashing blue lights bathed the scene in an eerie glow.

“One of you has to join us in the helicopter. The others go in the patrol car right now,” the officer said curtly.

“You should fly,” YoYo told Bo, “you know the area best.”

Bo nodded uneasily. He turned to Mia: “Please stay here. You have to explain to Mom what’s going on. She might come home at any moment!”

“Okay.” It was apparent how hard it was for her to be left behind.

Once YoYo and MM got in, the patrol car drove off at full throttle. Two other cars followed them with sirens blaring.

As soon as the sound of the police cars had died away, there was a roaring to be heard, which quickly got louder. The air was filled with a shudder that Bo could feel all over his body. Above the roof of the house a helicopter appeared, flying over Bo’s head with a deafening noise. For a moment it stood almost still in the air above the street, and then slowly hovered down.

Before the helicopter had landed, the officer pulled Bo along with him. Crouching, they ran through the storm that came from the rotor blades. When Bo reached the open hatch of the helicopter, a hand reached out to pull him into the hold.

Bo had a helmet slipped over his head and was buckled into the seat next to the pilot by an officer who briefly introduced himself as “SWAT Team Commander Hoffmann.” The helmet was a real relief. It blocked the unbearable roar of the engine. Through the built-in speaker Bo could follow the conversation of the police.

“AV 573 to dispatch center,” came the pilot’s voice. “Have the boy aboard! We’re heading out. Course west, altitude 450 feet. Over.”

The helicopter went up and then banked sharply. Bo felt as if the road was tilting away from beneath him. He saw the police cars with their flashing blue lights and the people standing around the barrier. For a brief moment he caught sight of Mia as she ran toward Mom. Then the two of them also disappeared.

Suddenly he wondered about where Simon might be, but he was interrupted by the voice of the commander from inside the helmet: “We’ll be at the barracks in three and a half minutes!” The officer was sitting sideways behind the pilot, a map on his knees. “Bo, now I need as much information as possible from you. Where exactly will the handover take place?”

“On the grounds in front of barrack three.”

The officer leaned over the map and gave instructions to the pilot.

“How many offenders are we to expect?”

“Two.” Bo hastily reported what was in the encrypted email. He had to give an accurate description of Mickey, Peter, and his father. “We don’t want to shoot the wrong guy,” the commander said with a grin that Bo found somehow inappropriate. Then he immersed himself in his map again.

Bo let his gaze wander over the city under his feet. On the main road, he spotted a whole convoy of police cars with flashing lights crawling southwards between stationary cars.

“Our colleagues from Mobile Operations Command,” he heard the commander say. “They won’t make it by six o’clock. I’m afraid we’ll have to do the job without them.” After a pause he added: “This Tito guy is a really big fish. We’ve been after him for years, but he’s escaped again and again. He’s the boss of an international mafia gang. Robbery, extortion, human trafficking, they stop at nothing.” He dealt with the map again. Suddenly, he turned to Bo with a jerk: “Do you happen to know where he is?”

Bo told him about the yellow villa. At the mention of “10 Gutenberg Street,” the commander grabbed a small microphone from the dashboard as quick as a flash.

“Mission Control AV 573 to headquarters: Tito may be staying at 10 Gutenberg Street! Over.”

“Okay,” croaked a voice on the radio, “we’ll use the SWAT East forces. The southern part of the city will be cordoned off. Strike in about ten minutes. Over.”

Bo saw the railway station’s tower emerge in the distance. They couldn’t be far from the barracks.

“On target in one minute forty seconds,” reported the pilot. “We’re changing course to 164 degrees. Over.” The chopper made a slight curve, which Bo felt in his stomach. They now flew directly toward the sun, which was already low over the horizon. The whole plain was bathed in hazy orange light.

Bo’s thoughts were with his father. Where was he at this moment? Perhaps he was sitting in one of the cars down there? Or was he already at the site? Bo imagined him walking with his slightly bent gait and suitcase in hand toward barrack number three, oblivious to the danger he was in. Bo’s heart was pounding. How could they have been so stupid? They had played a game, but hadn’t understood that the rules were made by someone else.

The barracks appeared in the distance. Bo could immediately recognize the red sports car in front of the gate. And next to it – Dad’s car! He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

“Are you definitely sure that the handover is going to take place in front of barrack three?” the commander asked.

Bo nodded. He couldn’t say anything. His throat felt constricted.

They were rapidly losing altitude. “We are on landing approach. Over!” he heard the pilot say.

“Keep a safety margin of two hundred yards, risk of high-caliber fire!” the commander’s voice said. “To crew AV 573. Weapons released for use. Prepare to strike!”

Bo looked around. In the back of the helicopter were four officers in blue camouflage uniforms, over which they wore black, bulletproof vests. Each of them had a short, black machine gun in his hands. Through the open visors of their helmets, Bo could see the tension in their faces.

Below, barrack three appeared behind a row of tall trees.

He immediately recognized his father’s snow white hair. He stood frozen in front of the semi-ruined building, suitcase in hand. Peter stood just a few steps away from him.

“Two persons on grid square 21 B,” Bo heard the commander say.

Where was Mickey?

Bo hadn’t yet finished the thought when a dark figure came rushing around the corner of the barrack. Mickey!

The helicopter sank slowly. While it hovered just above the ground, the hatch was thrown open behind Bo.

“Jump height achieved,” the team leader shouted, “jump, now!”

One after another the policemen jumped out of the hatch and ran in crouched positions toward the barracks.

They would be too late. Bo knew it the moment he looked at his father again.

Mickey was running toward Dad. Ten yards from him he stopped, reached into the inside pocket of his leather gear, and pulled out a black handgun. Almost as if in slow motion, he raised his arm and took aim at Dad.

“No, no, no!!!!!” Bo didn’t even notice that he was the only one screaming.

What then happened, made Bo doubt his sanity: Suddenly, Mickey’s gun flew through the air in a high arc, as if punched out of his hand by an invisible fist. It landed on the ground far from Mickey and bounced a few feet. For a moment Mickey stood there motionlessly. Then he jumped after the weapon. But before he could reach it, three police officers had thrown themselves on him, pressed his face to the ground, and yanked his hands behind his back.

“Mission accomplished!”

The commander’s voice made Bo wince. Did he dream it all? In his helmet, voices roared chaotically. Only then did he realize that the helicopter had long since landed.

“Bo, don’t you want to see your father?” The commander shook him gently, relieved him of his helmet and helped him get out.

Bo ran to the barracks. The scene there was like something out of the movies: Mickey lay there on the ground, his hands cuffed behind his back. Not far from him was Peter in the same position. Both were surrounded by officers who had their weapons at the ready. Some distance away stood his father, the suitcase still in his hand. Like someone waiting on a station platform who hasn’t been picked up, thought Bo.

“Dad!” Bo raced off and threw himself into his father’s arms.

When they finally let go of each other, Bo noticed someone he had not at all expected here: Simon was leaning casually against the wall of the barrack, grinning broadly.

“Simon!” cried Bo.

Simon set himself leisurely into motion and strolled toward Bo.

Bo only realized what had really just happened when he saw the bow in Simon’s hands.

“Did you shoot the gun out of Mickey’s hand!?”

He didn’t get any further. The howling of sirens filled the air. The convoy of police cars must have reached the site. At a full sprint, a throng of policemen in camouflage uniforms came tearing up. Behind them there were two panting characters who obviously couldn’t keep up too well.

“MM! YoYo! Here!” Bo shouted.

When the friends finally gathered around, nobody could say anything. Wordlessly, they formed a circle and put their arms around one another’s shoulders.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The End

It was past midnight before Bo and his father finally got home. All of them – even Bo’s friends – had gone to the police station to give their statements. When they were finally finished, Bo and his father were personally chauffeured home in a big Mercedes by SWAT Team Commander Hoffmann, while Simon, YoYo, and MM had to make do with a Volkswagen minivan.

During the trip, the commander couldn’t stop talking about the “successful manhunt” they had accomplished today.

The police had actually arrested Tito on Gutenberg Street. “After the house was surrounded, he surrendered without resistance,” Hoffmann said with obvious pride.

Then he got into full swing. “Without that arrow, things would have looked damn bad for you,” he said with a cheerful smile at Bo’s father. “He already had his finger on the trigger, and our guys were not within firing range. The 220 assault rifles are built for close combat, at a distance of more than fifty yards they are no good for anything.” He was beaming like a Cheshire cat.

Bo suddenly realized how strange it was that Dad was not the least bit infected by Hoffmann’s good mood. He just nodded his head absently every now and then, and apart from that he didn’t produce a sound. He seemed completely unconcerned. What in the world was he thinking? Wasn’t he overjoyed? Or was he still in shock?

Dad’s silence didn’t seem to cause any headaches for Commander Hoffmann. He continued chatting merrily. “Actually, I’m not allowed to tell you this, but after interrogating Peter, the case is in fact quite straightforward. Apparently, he met this Mickey guy somewhere in a pub, and while intoxicated, he told him about his plan to blackmail you. What gave him that crazy idea isn’t entirely clear yet. We’ll ask for your testimony on that, too, in the next few days.”

“Sure,” muttered Dad.

“Mickey and his boss then came up with the not so inelegant idea of ripping off Peter. They played along, as if they wanted to carry out the whole thing together with him, but right from the beginning their plan was to eventually pocket the money and then eliminate you and Peter as unwelcome witnesses.” Again, he had a cheerful grin on the lips, as if he were telling a really funny story.

When they arrived home, they were received by Bo’s mother and Mia, who were already waiting at the front door. Once Bo and his father had taken a seat, Bo started to tell the whole story.

“Stop,” he was interrupted by Mom. “Before you go on – first of all let’s have a toast!” She clumsily wrestled with a bottle of champagne she had gotten from the fridge. Finally, the cork flew to the ceiling. “To your rescue!” She toasted Dad with a huge smile. “And to the rescuers!” She then turned to Bo and Mia, who also each held half a glass in their hands.

“Since when have you been doing drugs?” Bo asked with mock indignation.

“I’ll start now,” she retorted, “and I’ll do it right!” She winked at him, put the glass to her mouth and drank it in one gulp.

Dad put on a forced smile and sipped from his glass. He hadn’t said a word since he had gotten home. Bo just could not figure him out. He had practically won a million today – not to mention the fact that he had escaped certain death. Actually, there were enough reasons to rejoice. But no, Dad just sat there, smiling kindly when somebody looked at him. Otherwise he was somewhere far away.

Admittedly, he didn’t really have a chance to say a lot. After Bo’s report on the helicopter flight, Mia had taken over the conversation and was now relentlessly sharing her view on things.

While she was gushing like a waterfall, Bo repeatedly noticed the glances that Mom gave Dad. Apparently she was also disconcerted by his behavior.

“Why don’t you let Dad talk for once,” she said to Mia.

“What, me?” replied Dad. “Aww, I like it so much to hear the children telling ...”

And again Mia went back to chattering.

She’d just begun the story of how they broke into Tito’s house – the fact that she hadn’t taken part in it herself and only knew the story second-hand didn’t bother her in the least – when the doorbell rang.

Bo looked at his mother’s and his sister’s questioning faces, and then over to his father. The expression on his face surprised him: He looked as if a torturous load had just been lifted from his shoulders.

Mia had already opened the door. From the hallway came men’s voices. Bo had a bad feeling in his stomach.

Mia came back. “Dad, they want to talk to you!”

Without hesitation, he stood up and walked with a firm step toward the policemen, who were now standing in the kitchen door.

“Mr. Blohm, in the name of the law, I hereby arrest you –” one of them said.

Bo’s ears took in the words, but they didn’t penetrate into his brain. What had the policeman said? No. It had to be a mistake!

“– for armed robbery.”

He heard Dad’s voice as if from a distance. “Just give me half an hour, please.”

The officer nodded his head. “We’ll wait outside.” In leaving, he added. “The house is surrounded.”

“I won’t try to escape,” Dad said softly.

He came back to the table and sat down. For a minute, there was absolute silence. All eyes were on him. The patrol cars’ blue lights flickered through the window.

At last he began to speak. “I owe you an explanation. Especially you, Solvejg.” He looked directly at Mom.

“I robbed a bank twenty years ago. Together with Peter, who was my best friend back then. We got two million – D-Mark at that time – and split the money. Later our friendship went to pieces. Peter couldn’t cope with all the money. He started to gamble and drink, and has spent all his money on expensive hobbies.”

Dad spoke in a quiet voice. “And then Peter turned up a few weeks ago and wanted to get a million from me – otherwise he would blow the whistle on everything. He didn’t care that he would then end up in jail, too. He had nothing to lose anyway.” He took Mom’s hand. “I just couldn’t tell you, for all these years,” he said in a low and broken voice. “I was afraid you’d never forgive me.”

Mom began to sob. After some time she asked cautiously, without looking at him: “What did you do with all the money?”

“It was the money for your treatment in America.”

Mom closed her eyes. Tears ran down her cheeks. “But ... didn’t you receive an inheritance from your aunt Mina?”

“My aunt was as poor as the rest of the family.”

For a long time Mom said nothing. Then she asked softly: “You really robbed a bank?”

“Yes.” He took a deep breath. “But no one got injured.”

Mia interrupted with a shriek: “Really, like with stocking over your head and a gun?”

A smile flashed over his face.

“Yes, stocking over my head indeed – but no gun, and I didn’t think Peter had one either. We had agreed not to use violence under any circumstances. I had a converted bicycle pump ... and the cashier must have somehow realized that. Maybe I held the thing the wrong way round. Anyway, she didn’t look too impressed, until Peter came storming in and started firing shots around. Actually, he was only supposed to keep watch. I only realized that it was a real gun when the ceiling light came down. Peter probably assumed right from the beginning that I’d screw up ...”

Bo looked over at Mom. He was not sure whether she was crying or laughing.

“Children, let us have a moment alone now,” Dad said.

They went into Bo’s room, each of them occupied with their thoughts. Bo was grateful to Mia that she didn’t say anything.

After a while, Mom called them. When Bo came into the kitchen, his composure had gone. He fell into Dad’s arms. “I did everything wrong. I’m so sorry!” He burst into tears. “You’re going to have to go to prison because of me!”

“No, Bo, you saved my life. And for that I’ll be eternally grateful to you, regardless of what happens now.” He hugged him tightly.

It wasn’t long, before the bell rang again. The policeman’s voice was polite but firm: “Mr. Blohm, please come with us now!” Dad went silently into the hallway, put on his coat, and went to the door with the officers. He turned around and waved.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Another Ending

This is how the story could have ended. And that’s how things really would have turned out, if the doorbell at the Blohms’ hadn’t rung at 10:30 am the next morning, while Bo was still in bed and struggling in vain with the decision to get up. His head felt like it was wrapped in cotton.

He reached the door at the same time as Mia and Mom. Mia looked pale and tear-stained. Mom had deep rings under her eyes. She probably hadn’t closed them all night.

Mom opened the door. Bo couldn’t believe his eyes: In front of them stood none other than – Dad! With a broad grin on his face, he climbed the steps to the door.

“Dad, what’s happened, I thought you were in jail?” Mia shrieked. The volume could’ve roused the dead.

“No, now I’m here,” he replied. “And I don’t have to go there ever again!” He took Mom into his arms.

“Is that true?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes, as sure as my name’s Reinhard!”

Only now she seemed to believe it. “Come in!” She took Dad’s hand and pulled him through the hall into the living room. There, she pushed him into the chair by the fireplace. “Tell!”

“Alright,” he said, and leaned back. But instead of telling, he just shook his head. “I still can’t believe it.”

“Now come on and tell us!” Mia ordered.

“All right. So I arrive at the police station. First, the report has to be taken.” He lowered his voice. “Report, from the Latin ‘reportare,’ to bring home, to chronicle ... There’s an officer who in fact really can’t be bothered, but is putting on an air of incredible importance, and has me telling how, when, what ... In the corner there’s some poor guy typing – I thought I was losing it – on a typewriter!” As if Dad himself hadn’t been sitting in front of just such a Stone Age machine half a year ago, thinking it was the pinnacle of technical progress.

“So I dutifully tell the whole bank robbery story.” He took a long sip from the coffee mug that Mom had placed in front of him. “When the policeman finished and walked out, the typist says: ‘Don’t you even realize what day it is today?’ I look at him and ask: ‘I do, why? September 2nd.’ I thought he was a bit nutty. ‘And what did you say about when you committed this crime?’ he asked me. I told him that it was exactly twenty years ago, on September 1st. ‘Well there you go,’ he said. ‘Don’t you realize that all crimes have statutes of limitations? That means crimes have to be prosecuted within a certain time frame. Except, of course, for murder and manslaughter. For armed robbery, it’s twenty years. But no one here but me is doing the math properly. The twenty years passed exactly yesterday, so they actually shouldn’t have arrested you in the first place. Just wait a second, I’ll handle this for you.’ And off he went. I could see him through the glass going to a desk where the top dog of the whole district was probably sitting, some senior police inspector chief. I saw them gesturing and pointing to me again and again and staring at the report together –”

“Report, from the Latin ‘reportare’,” both children sang out simultaneously.

“Yes.” Dad cleared his throat. “Where were we?”

“The top dog,” Bo said.

“Indeed. So shortly after, the officer who interrogated me comes in and says: “You can go home.”

Dad leaned back. Again he shook his head. “What a stroke of luck I’ve had!”

He looked at them one by one. “These last weeks have just been awful.”

“Not only for you,” Mom interrupted him with a sharpness that stunned Bo. “I know you’ve done all this for me, but still –” She swallowed. “You just don’t realize how much all of us have suffered. For weeks you walked around without speaking a word! Like you had suddenly become a different person! Did you ever think about what it means to me that you didn’t let me in on your secret? Do you know what it feels like when not even your own husband can open his heart to you?” She started sobbing. “And instead puts his own children into danger ... and their friends, too?”

“You know I didn’t want that. If I’d had any inkling, I would have stopped immediately. Immediately.”

Bo saw his eyes filling with tears. “When I think about what could have happened ... I don’t know how I could have gone on living.” He glanced at Bo, and then went to Mom

Both had tears running down their cheeks. Mom put her hand on Dad’s. For a long time no one said a word.

Bo looked furtively over to Mia. She seemed to harbor the same thought as him. “I’ll go to my room –”

“Stop, don’t run away,” Dad said. He wiped the tears from his eyes. “Enough crying for today. Finally, it’s you who are the main characters.” He stood up and came toward Bo. “And I haven’t even thanked you properly!” He took Bo into his arms and hugged him for a long time. Then it was Mia’s turn. Choked with emotion, she couldn’t produce a single word, for a change.

“I’ll thank your friends later. How about throwing a party for everyone this afternoon?”

“Why not right now?” Bo asked.

“Because your friends are probably in school, aren’t they?”

“Yes, a double period with Siegwart ... No problem, I can just call them and tell them to leave.”

Dad’s face revealed that he hadn’t quite understood. Mia hastened to say: “Yes, this afternoon, great idea!”

Needless to say, the party was unlike any party Bo had ever seen before. Of course also needless to say, in all the talk and chatter that filled the Blohms’ house, there was one voice that could be heard particularly often and loudly ...

However, it still remains to report that sometime during the evening, one question reverberated all through the house: “By the way, where is Bo?” And a moment later: “And MM?”

Where were the two?

In the parking lot outside the supermarket. Somehow, they had ended up there when they wanted to escape the hubbub of the party. Patchy fog hung over the empty asphalt surface.

The two leaned side by side on the railing, giggling and snorting. Bo’s father had once again given a performance that was fit for the theater. Since he couldn’t find the key to the money case, he had been assisted by a hammer – which had first landed on his thumb, and then in Mom’s raspberry cake.

In the silence after the laughter Bo said: “This is exactly the spot where I told YoYo and Simon about the million for the first time. An eternity ago.” He jumped off the rail and smiled at MM. “By the way, at that time I thought it was totally abnormal that YoYo wanted you to join us.”

“Uh-ha, abnormal,” she said with a playful smile. “And ... do you regret it?”

“What a question. Without you we’d never have done it.”

“But also not without you and the others. Do you remember your brainstorm with the key in the lock? And Mia talking the guy on the phone up against the wall? And then Simon’s shot?”

Suddenly he realized in what danger they’d put themselves, and on what a thin thread his father’s life had hung. It was pure coincidence that he was still alive.

“Your dad must have had a guardian angel,” he heard MM say. He had just thought exactly the same thing.

He felt her arm around him. And then suddenly it happened to him. He started to cry uncontrollably.

MM stroked his hair. “It’s all over now,” she whispered in his ear.

What luck, he thought again and again. The more often the thought came back, the less it had to do with his father. He only saw MM in front of him.

“What luck that I’ve found you,” he blurted out. He raised his eyes and looked directly into hers. It was as if he was caught by a wave; a wave that carried him inexorably toward her, closer and closer, so close that he just couldn’t help kissing her.

The End

Discover the other cases of Bo & Friends ...

"The Hunt for Giant Blue"

Giant Blue, the world’s fastest computer that MM’s Dad built, has been stolen!

The police have no leads. Bo and his friends YoYo, Simon and MM will have to investigate on their own. When they finally come up with something, it is, of all people, one of their own that puts them all in mortal danger ...

Ulrich Renz: The Hunt for Giant Blue

Sefa publishers, 2015

ISBN 978-3-945090-42-8 (Ebook, EPUB)

978-3-945090-39-8 (Paperback)

"On the Trail of the Kidnappers

"If he isn’t back by 8:00 pm, we’ll call the police."

Bo’s school trip is heading for a bad end. One of his classmates has disappeared without a trace! The police start searching with the K9 squad and helicopters – in vain. A tire mark in the woods brings Bo and his friends YoYo, Simon and MM on the right track. But the adventure soon turns into a nightmare. Their missing classmate is not the only victim that an unscrupulous gang has it in for …

Ulrich Renz: On the Trail of the Kidnappers

Sefa publishers, 2015

ISBN 978-3-945090-43-5 (Ebook, EPUB)

978-3-945090-40-4 (Paperback)

The adventures of Bo and his friends continue ...

www.bo-und-friends.com

- Discover the books of the series

- Come to know Bo, his "little" sister Mia, and his friends YoYo, MM and Simon

- Meet the author and the translators

- Sneak into the bilingual edition in German and English.

- And, if you want, you can download the complete first book, "Bo and the Blackmailers", as an ebook or an audiobook. Free!

Looking forward to your visit!

"Bo and the Blackmailers" is the first book in the children’s detective series "Bo & Friends", www.bo-and-friends.com

Other books in the series:

„The Hunt for Giant Blue“

„On the Trail of the Kidnappers“

The original edition was published in German in 2005 under the title "Auf der Spur der Erpresser" by Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. The current edition is a revised version.

© 2015 by Sefa Verlag, Lübeck, Germany, www.sefa-verlag.de

Translation: Vanessa Agnew, Berlin, Germany

Copy editing: Pete Savill, Lübeck, Germany and Charles Nesler, Chicago, USA

Illustrations: Mirjam Bödeker, Lübeck, Germany

Cover: Ponke Grabo, Berlin, Germany, www.ponkegrabo.de

Font Bo & Company (cover logo): "Refurbished", © Billy Argel, www.billyargel.blogspot.de, courtesy of the artist.

ISBN: 978-3-945090-41-1 (EPUB)

[back]

Going to school in Germany is somewhat different from going to school in most English-speaking countries. German students are, for instance, right from the start assigned to one fix group of about 20 to 30 students. This group is called a “class,” and the students of that class take ALL courses together, from math to music. German students don't have much of a choice of the courses they take, until they are 16 years old.

When going up from grade to grade, the students of a given class are always together until age 16. (Well, if you are as gifted as MM, you can be allowed to skip a grade. On the other hand, if you have a bad streak and your marks don’t reach the minimum level, you are “held back,” that is, you are not promoted to the next grade after summer holidays and thus are refered into a younger class. In German this is called “sitzenbleiben”, which means “to stay seated”. A funny word for an unpleasant thing, isn't it?)

Except for very small schools at the countryside, schools consist of more than one “class” per age group. Most schools have three or four of them. In Bo’s grade 7, for instance, there are four different classes, named 7a, 7b, etc. – these are the so called “parallel classes.” Basically there is only a small difference in the courses they take, but often they do have different teachers. The teacher who is specially in charge of a given class is called the “class teacher.”

A lot of schools in Germany are not full time. For most students school is finished at around 1:00 pm, they then go home for lunch or have lunch in the school cafeteria. In the afternoons they may take some elective courses, or work at home on the assignments of the next day.

[back]

Going to school in Germany is somewhat different from going to school in most English-speaking countries. German students are, for instance, right from the start assigned to one fix group of about 20 to 30 students. This group is called a “class,” and the students of that class take ALL courses together, from math to music. German students don't have much of a choice of the courses they take, until they are 16 years old.

When going up from grade to grade, the students of a given class are always together until age 16. (Well, if you are as gifted as MM, you can be allowed to skip a grade. On the other hand, if you have a bad streak and your marks don’t reach the minimum level, you are “held back,” that is, you are not promoted to the next grade after summer holidays and thus are refered into a younger class. In German this is called “sitzenbleiben”, which means “to stay seated”. A funny word for an unpleasant thing, isn't it?)

Except for very small schools at the countryside, schools consist of more than one “class” per age group. Most schools have three or four of them. In Bo’s grade 7, for instance, there are four different classes, named 7a, 7b, etc. – these are the so called “parallel classes.” Basically there is only a small difference in the courses they take, but often they do have different teachers. The teacher who is specially in charge of a given class is called the “class teacher.”

A lot of schools in Germany are not full time. For most students school is finished at around 1:00 pm, they then go home for lunch or have lunch in the school cafeteria. In the afternoons they may take some elective courses, or work at home on the assignments of the next day.

[back]

Hopefully you'll never need it – but just in case you do: In Germany you have to dial the number 110 in case of emergency.