Maxi and his team, erring on the side of caution, transported the man to Berlin’s Forensic Medicine Institute in a “cage”—the vehicle used for high-risk detainees.

The young detective couldn’t help muttering in his mind: What was the point of driving for hours just to reach Berlin? The same procedure could have been carried out at the nearest regional forensic institute. But damned protocols were designed to complicate life, not ease it.

Maxi lined up with the refugee to await their turn for medical assessment. All suspects brought from different parts of the country—especially terror-related detainees—were examined here. At his partner’s reminder, he first escorted the man to the unit where fingerprints and DNA samples were taken.

Their turn finally came. When they entered, Professor Berisha—the one responsible for psychiatric evaluations—was packing up, halfway dressed to leave.
He told his assistant, “You take the patient’s anamnesis. Go through the standard questions.”

The assistant began filling out the psychiatric assessment form, repeating the same questions Maxi had asked earlier. When he reached question five—citizenship number—the refugee repeated the same sequence:
“3 2 3 6 7 1 8 8 1 3.”

The professor stopped, his movements slowing.
Maxi watched the man, but kept one eye on Berisha, reading every shift in the doctor’s posture.

It was as if he could hear the professor thinking: What kind of ID number is that? One digit short.

The assistant proceeded to question six.

The moment the refugee answered, “13 21 18 16 8 25,” Berisha froze—like a car braking hard. Maxi blinked at how sharply he turned his head toward the patient.

Just then, a staff member walked in and handed Maxi the fingerprint results.

While taking the document, Maxi noticed the professor eyeing it with an intensity that surprised him.

Berisha was not done surprising him.

“Who is this man, then? A terrorist?” he asked.
Maxi looked at the professor, nodded, and said,
“He wasn’t lying about being German. He is a citizen. But slightly different from what he said: Leheb is his first name, and Gümüşshol is his surname,” he added, watching the professor’s eyes, which studied the migrant as if trying to decode every word he had uttered.

Maxi seized the moment.
“Why do you think he keeps giving such strange answers to our questions?”

The professor smiled faintly.
“You’re mistaken. To him, nothing is strange. His answers are perfectly normal.”

Maxi thought to himself that he had already assumed each answer meant something from the man’s own life, but why pretend to be insane? His silent stare at the professor carried the message that he expected a fuller explanation. Yet Berisha wasn’t offering one. His face looked like that of someone trying to exhume an old memory—forcing his mind to identify a familiar ghost behind unfamiliar features.

Noticing the officer’s watchful eyes, the professor finally spoke:
“I have some hypotheses about what happened to him, but it’s too early to say anything definite. The best I can do is comment after we look at his brain MRI.”

Before leaving, Berisha leaned toward his assistant and whispered something. Maxi couldn’t hear the words, but assumed they were about the migrant. The assistant continued asking the same procedural questions and filled out Leheb’s anamnesis form.

Maxi, partly out of small talk and partly out of curiosity, asked:
“Who designs this procedure and these questions?”

“Well, since Professor Berisha is the highest authority in this institution, he does. And the questions aren’t unusual—they’re meant to establish the patient’s identity and environment.”

The answer didn’t surprise Maxi, except for confirming the professor’s position.
“This procedure must have been in use for years,” he said.

“Yes, I’ve only been here five years, but considering the professor has been here at least fifteen…”

“What I really don’t understand is this: you and I ask the same set of questions because of procedure. You could use the form I already filled out. Does that mean your institution doesn’t trust the police? Especially since, as you said, none of these questions are medical or psychological.”

“You’re right—so do I. But as I said, the procedure was designed by Professor Berisha. I can’t say more than that.”

Maxi thought they were done and stood to leave with Leheb when the assistant said:
“The MRI room is on the ground floor.”

Maxi pointed at his watch.
“It’s past working hours. I’ve never seen a medical institution stay open beyond shift—for anything other than emergency care or urgent investigation.”

The assistant smiled.
“Yes, I’ve never seen it happen here either. But the professor requested it. And he’ll be performing the MRI himself,” he added, gesturing toward the door, urging them to hurry.

Downstairs, the professor greeted Maxi and took Leheb into the scanner room, telling the detective to wait outside. Maxi objected immediately.

“Professor, don’t take this the wrong way, but his fingerprint report states he’s connected to a terrorist group, and has been caught several times spreading propaganda. He could flee, or try to pass along a message from the organization. I cannot leave him alone. Neither I, nor you, nor anyone else can be outside the camera’s view when he’s present. He’s not just a migrant anymore—he’s a potential covert operative. Especially after the recent bombings in Berlin…”

Maxi was doing his job. On his first day at NMSU — a post he assumed would involve nothing but routine work — he had already driven for hours because of a man who might or might not be mentally ill. And now, as if that weren’t enough, the man had turned out to have ties to terrorism, forcing Maxi to play babysitter until officers from the anti-terror division arrived. In his mind, all this crap existed because of one man: the procedure-obsessed professor.

The professor scratched his head and smiled. “Oh? All right then, let’s go to the control room together. You can watch the patient — I mean, the suspect — through the glass screen as well.”

Maxi recognized the forced grin for what it was: an attempt to mask annoyance. His partner had already left; he was on his own. And now this wasn’t just a migrant issue — it was terrorism. He called his colleague and reported everything he had learned about the migrant, Leheb, and his background. A few minutes later, the department chief called him:

“Mark and Süleyman will handle the file on Leheb Gümüşshol. Until they arrive, he stays under your supervision. Put him in the detention cell on the first floor of Forensics. I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s not my call. The ministry wants it.”

Maxi felt like he was going to explode, but he couldn’t say anything. They had just transferred him out of the anti-terror division as a warning, and the last thing he needed was a reputation as a troublemaker. Besides, he had begun to develop a personal resentment toward two names: “Mark and Süleyman.”

Just days earlier, he had handed a case over to them. What he couldn’t understand was how the ministry had learned so quickly — within barely an hour of him discovering the migrant’s ties — and immediately decided to put the case in the hands of the Demon Hunters. Ever since he had been removed from the Aros investigation a week earlier, it felt as though senior officials had nothing better to do than monitor him and whatever file he touched.

The MRI scan was finished. Maxi could not understand why the professor insisted on performing it himself, why he insisted on examining the images after hours, refusing to leave the building. With unanswered questions piling up in his head, Maxi took Leheb, locked him in the detention cell, and sat down at the desk outside the door.

There was nothing left to do now except wait for Mark and Süleyman.

Berlin’s other side carried a different kind of storm. Mark and Süleyman were deep in analysis, trying to connect the recent chain of events. Even without hard evidence, they suspected a link between the blast outside the church—designed to spread fear—and the devastation at the police precinct that left hundreds dead.

A few days earlier, they had been surprised to learn that the file on Aros—the emotionless, fearless inmate—had been assigned to them. Terrorism was not their field. Their mandate lay elsewhere: dismantling cults, mystical networks, myth-soaked organizations, and high-level fraudsters who weaponized belief.

Of course, sometimes it was impossible to tell whether an act was terrorism or theatrical self-promotion. But even a mediocre security analyst knew that a group intent on creating chaos wouldn’t burn holy books to provoke a crisis, then settle for tossing a sound bomb into a church courtyard.

The “Demon Hunters” skimmed through the Aros file. Dull emotions were the least strange thing about him. Disappearances. Unrecorded border crossings. Surgery. Dr. William…

This case was going to consume time, patience, and probably sanity. Then the phone rang—another case dumped on their desk. They knew nothing about this one. The Deputy Police Chief had only said:

“There’s a detainee in the Medical Examiner’s holding cell—strange behavior. Maybe genuinely insane, maybe a cryptic terrorist. You two will figure it out. A cop named Maxi will be waiting for you.”

 Mark and Süleyman arrived at the Institute of Forensic Medicine. Maxi, exhausted from days of chaos, had only one wish: brief the so-called Demon Hunters and walk away.

He laid it all out: How Leheb was found. How they identified him by fingerprint.
The bizarre answers, the possibility of neurological impairment, or madness.

And finally:

“Most importantly, the national security database shows he has past ties to an Islamic terrorist organization.”

He barely finished before Süleyman cut in, eyebrows furrowed, voice sharp:

“Hold it right there. You don’t say ‘terror’ and ‘Islam’ in the same breath.
You say radical right-wing group if you need a label.”

Maxi could tell from Süleyman’s dark complexion and thick mustache that he was either Turkish or Arab. And like every believer, he understood why Süleyman was offended by having his faith mentioned in the same breath as terrorism. In fact, the use of religious labels in terrorist group names was a priceless gift to extremists. If Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or Buddhism appeared in an organization’s title, the Counter-Terror Unit became, unintentionally, a unit that fueled radicalization rather than stopped it.

Maxi laid a hand on Süleyman’s shoulder.
“You’re right, my friend. I meant no harm, but I shouldn’t have put the word Islamic next to terrorism.”

He had handed the case over to them. Just as he was about to leave, a thought surfaced.
“Did any country respond to our inquiry about illegal ship activity in the Mediterranean from the Aros file?”

“What ship? What Mediterranean? There’s nothing like that in the file. And no such request was made,” Mark said, rotating his hand as he questioned him.
“How do you even know about that file?”

Maxi wanted the conversation over. Exhaustion pushed him toward the shortest escape route.
“Forget it, man. Long story.”

The Demon Hunters assumed Maxi’s clipped answers were simply fatigue. Maxi turned to Süleyman.
“That guy—Leheb—he’s not ordinary. If we look at the bigger picture, I’d say someone is trying to set up a scenario where Muslims take the blame.”

He exhaled heavily.
“If my suspicion is right, we might prevent a catastrophe. If I’m wrong, then nothing happens. At worst, we file another report—like the previous intelligence assessments—stating that the Muslim community is clean.”

Süleyman nodded to his partner.
“Alright. I know someone for this. I’ll explain how to proceed.”

As Süleyman walked away, Mark called out after him.
“Don’t forget to give him the emergency device.”