Die Kronzeugin - Mord in den Bergen (2013)

After Evelyn Frank testified against her ex-husband, who was involved in criminal activities, and his Russian partners, the BKA gives her a new identity, and from then on she is known as Eva Bernhardt. The police duo Ines Meder and Holger Nolting accompany her to her new home in Saalheim, a fictional town in the Bavarian mountains. While Holger Nolting dislikes Evelyn Frank, the former brothel madam, who was also called “The Ice Queen” for her cold-bloodedness and ruthlessness, the two women grow closer. Ines actually wants to use the situation to find out whether Evelyn knows anything about the whereabouts of the 15 million euros missing from the criminal syndicate, but “the Ice Queen” cleverly turns the tables and gains more and more control over Ines. Although only Ines, Holger, and their boss Grossmann know the crown witness’s new location, two strange men soon show up there, apparently looking for Evelyn. It soon emerges that one of them is named Tom Brandauer and is a chief inspector with the Berlin State Criminal Police Office. But he is currently on vacation and has absolutely nothing to do with the witness protection program. Suspicion quickly arises that he might be an informant paid by the criminal syndicate, on the trail of the missing 15 million. Concerned, Evelyn Frank asks, “If he knows where I am, who else knows?” Shortly afterward, when Ines and Evelyn feel threatened by a man in the dark, the policewoman shoots him. It turns out that the injured man is Tom Brandauer. When Grossmann hears about the incident, he is furious with Ines. Her colleague Holger explains that Brandauer led the investigation into the criminal syndicate and came undercover to protect Evelyn Frank, whom he was able to locate using a tracking device hidden in her handbag. Brandauer’s most important man was Rouven, an undercover investigator who belonged to Mr. Frank’s criminal network for over a year and went underground when the others were arrested. Brandauer believes Rouven is now working for the Russians and wants to get the money that Evelyn Frank allegedly made disappear. When Ines sees Rouven’s photo, she realizes that he was the man she had seen in front of Evelyn’s house just minutes earlier, as she was leaving. She and Holger rush to Evelyn, who is lying in her apartment with a bleeding head wound and tells them that the man had just threatened to kill her unless she revealed where the missing money was. After Holger briefly leaves the apartment, Ines decides to take Evelyn to safety alone, suspecting that either Holger or Grossmann is cooperating with the criminals. But the story takes a surprising turn: Evelyn Frank herself was the “leak,” and she had planned everything down to the last detail. Once alone with Ines, she puts a sleeping pill in her coffee and then escapes with Rouven, the great love of her life, and the 15 million. She used witness protection to disappear, because “no one can cover their tracks as well as the state.”