Hitler's Children

HITLER’S CHILDREN

An historical novel of the Red Army Faction

aka the Baader-Meinhof Group

Ralph Young

public domain photo taken by one of his captors

RAF photograph of hostage Hanns-Martin Schleyer

on the twentieth day of his captivity, September 1977

Hitler’s Children

By Ralph Young

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 Ralph Young

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 9781310243264

This ebook is licensed for personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with others, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

For Clare Darlington

editor extraordinaire

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Historical Note

About the Author

Excerpt from Double Exposure

CHAPTER ONE

The street possessed the inherent German virtues so ardently coveted by the nouveau riche. It was sedate and conventional. It proclaimed order and prosperity, Gemütlichkeit and contentment. Those who lived there had all arrived and they were fiercely proud of it. Surgeons, bankers, professors inhabiting houses that while not excessively ostentatious, were fine examples of the rewards that could be reasonably expected if one worked diligently and dutifully in one’s chosen profession. Showiness was frowned upon, but not comfort and order. This was innate to the German character.

Siegfried Buback was finishing his breakfast of a soft-boiled egg, Brötchen, and coffee, while scanning the morning paper.

Don’t forget, his wife reminded him as she bustled about the modern kitchen, we have tickets tonight for the theatre. Please don’t get too sidetracked at work. We mustn’t be late.

Buback sighed. Of course, of course. You know I have no control if the judges keep the court in session.

Well, tell them ahead of time, just in case they think about it.

He raised his eyes from the Karlsruhe Zeitung and shook his head. Ah, that’s what I love about you Margrit, he smiled, after all these years, how naïvely and simply you still look at everything. He rose from the table. Time to go. Heino will be waiting.

He strode across the lush, floral-patterned carpet to the window and peered through the crisply starched crinoline curtains. The limousine was already idling at the curbside. Heino, his chauffeur sat behind the wheel while Frieder, his bodyguard leaned against the fender puffing at a cigarette.

The chauffeur-driven car was one of the fringe benefits of the Chief Federal Prosecutor. The armed security officer was another story—a sad necessity since Buback had been put in charge of the prosecution at the Baader-Meinhof trial. The drawn-out trial was already well into its second year, and one of the four principal defendants, Ulrike Meinhof, had committed suicide in her cell. But despite the setbacks and the constant threat of retaliation, Buback felt immense personal pride in his efforts to lock the three remaining leaders of the Red Army Faction away for the rest of their lives. He smiled contentedly to himself as he looked at the sky. A beautiful April day. Spring was coming. He would not need an overcoat.

He lifted his bulky leather briefcase, gave his wife an absent-minded kiss on the cheek and strode briskly out to the car.

Margrit stood in the doorway for a moment and watched as the purring Mercedes glided away from the curb.

* * *

The blond man glanced at his watch.

Nine-ten precisely.

He was surprised at how calm and confident he felt.

He turned to his companion. Time now. He slid the dark sun visor of the helmet down over his face.

Helga Uecker adjusted her visor, put one arm around his waist and braced the attaché case between her chest and his back.

Christian Mater eased the Suzuki motorcycle into gear, drove to the corner and made a right turn.

The shiny metallic blue Mercedes Benz limousine, two hundred meters ahead, stopped at the corner and turned left.

The motorcycle accelerated. As Mater closed the distance, the limousine slowed for a stop sign, its right directional signal blinking. The Suzuki drifted to a complete stop between the curb and the car.

Frieder, in the rear seat, glanced out the window at the two helmeted people on the motorcycle. The passenger, he noticed, was much smaller than the driver. A boy. Or a woman, perhaps.

The passenger smoothly opened an attaché case and pulled out a Beretta 12 submachine gun.

Frieder jolted upright reaching for his shoulder holster. Hit it! he bellowed to the driver.

But his reflexes were not quick enough.

The Beretta fired.

The window collapsed in a hail of glass as Frieder was flung against the left-hand door by the force of the bullets. Buback, seated, as was his preference, in the front passenger seat, was hit instantly in the side of the face and neck. Blood pulsing from his severed jugular, he fell sideways toward the driver, who simultaneously slumped to his left.

The car lurched spastically forward as the Beretta continued to carve a swath over the three men until the forty-round clip was empty.

Helga dismounted and peered into the bucking car. Satisfied, she vaulted back on the Suzuki as Mater turned the throttle up.

The Mercedes bounced up onto the curb and stalled against a low hedge.

Silence.

* * *

With sirens wailing and lights flashing the three police cars screeched to a halt.

Six officers flung opened the doors, their weapons drawn, and surrounded the Mercedes. Not a word was uttered as they surveyed the mess. Every window was destroyed. Bits of chrome, broken glass and blood everywhere.

And the broken bodies.

The driver’s head had fallen back against the seat rest, his mouth and eyes gaping open. A man lay across the back seat covered in blood and glass.

The officers recognized the man in the passenger seat right away. It was Siegfried Buback. So large and intimidating in life, now so pathetic and unthreatening in death. He lay crumpled against the driver’s right shoulder like a bundle of discarded laundry.

The man in the back, it seemed, was still alive.

Barely.

A pistol clutched impotently in his limp hand.

As two of the policemen gingerly pulled him out of the car he groaned and began mumbling. There was blood on his lips and a gurgling sound emanated from his throat.

"Eine, . . . Frau. . . . Eine, . . . Frau. . . ." he muttered before slipping into unconsciousness.

* * *

Inspector Rainer Lombach always seemed to be in a hurry. Especially since his appointment as director of the Anti-Terrorist Task Force of the German Federal Police.

There were continual demands on his time. Never-ending questions fired at him from subordinates that only he could answer, files and reports that needed his approval, his initials. Too much input, he was fond of saying. It was becoming imperative, he felt, that he relearn a more casual pace. To slow down and take things a little easier. Lately he had become concerned about his edginess and embarrassing displays of anger. He could remember a time, not more than fifteen years earlier (or was it twenty?) when he was much more relaxed, before he had allowed the everyday pressures to take control of his life.

Inspector Lombach was tall and although he had always been regarded as a thin man he had filled-out a good deal in the last decade so that now, though not exactly overweight, he felt increasingly compelled to watch his caloric intake. His hair was rapidly turning gray, but at the age of fifty-three, he still looked younger than many of his junior colleagues.

He exuded authority, but an authority that was tempered by his innate charm. He was self-assured and generally well liked, though often he vacillated and agonized before making important decisions and in consequence stepped on quite a few toes. His staff either loved him or hated him. There was no middle ground.

He had just arrived in his office in the Polizei Präsidium when the telephone rang.

Lombach, he said in a deep voice, lifting the receiver and setting down his mug of black coffee.

Inspector, the voice was urgent, emotional. Inspector, this is Lieutenant Speyer in Karlsruhe. Commissioner Gengler’s aide. Prosecutor Buback has just been assassinated.

"What?! Verdammte Scheiße!"

He was in his car on the way to Stammheim when he and his chauffeur were machine-gunned. His bodyguard is still alive, but probably not for long.

Road blocks?

Already set up. All entrances and exits on the Autobahn. As well as in each town within fifty kilometers.

And the border?

All border points were immediately alerted, even before we arrived on the scene. But we don’t know what we’re up against. One of the residents on the street where the shooting took place said she heard a motorcycle speeding away from the vicinity after the gunshots. And the guard said something about a woman. But that’s all we know. Either the assassin on the motorcycle was a woman, or perhaps there were two people on the motorcycle one of whom was a woman. By now they could be in a car, or on a train or plane. Depends on what kind of backup, if any, they had.

It sounds, Lombach said, his mind whirling, well-planned. Obviously whoever did it knew Buback’s routine. Lombach reflected for a moment. It’s the RAF. Buback’s been threatened often enough during the trial. He was clenching his teeth. Why the hell, he barked angrily into the receiver, wasn’t there more security for him?

Um, well, we thought since most RAF members were in custody or at least under surveillance . . .

Lieutenant! Lombach interrupted, his irritation mounting, do you really think we have any idea how many RAF members or sympathizers or hangers-on there are? Every university in West Germany has political groups of varying degrees of radicalism. Some are legitimate critics of society. Some are doing it because it’s fashionable. Others are criminals looking for a convenient rationalization for their crimes. Who knows who might have decided to join the Baader-Meinhof gang and accept this job? He sighed and checked the time. I’ll fly down as soon as possible. My secretary will contact the Commissioner’s office once we’re airborne with the arrival time.

He hung up.

Jesus Christ! There’ll be a furor over this. Yes, Buback had been threatened. But everyone believed that the Baader-Meinhof group had been broken after its leaders had been arrested and incarcerated in Stammheim.

He scratched his scalp nervously as he picked up the phone and called his assistant, Captain Günther Paeseler. Assemble the investigative unit, he ordered without preamble when Paeseler picked up. We’re flying to Karlsruhe.

Lombach leaned back in the chair, his stomach in a knot. There was an unpleasant acidic taste in his mouth. Perhaps he was developing an ulcer. He noticed he was scratching his scalp again. Fucking habit, he muttered jerking forward letting the front legs of the chair crash to the floor. He reached for the pack of Stuyvesants on the cluttered surface of the desk. He lit a cigarette and called the Chancellor’s office.

* * *

Near Hagenbach, a small hamlet twenty kilometers outside Karlsruhe, Mater drove the motorcycle off the road.

The blue Alfa Romeo with French license plates was parked out of sight of the highway behind a grove of pines.

They dropped their helmets and leather jackets on the ground and let the Suzuki topple over on them.

As Mater turned the key in the ignition of the Alfa Romeo, Helga Uecker shook out her long hair.

What a success! she said, her face glowing with exhilaration. I’m almost trembling!

He steered out onto Bundesstraße 9 and headed south. We have no time for self congratulations, he said coldly, at least not until we’ve crossed the border.

Yes, Christian, I know, she pouted, her hazel eyes still shining, but I’m happy. And I won’t let you spoil my mood.

She snapped a fresh ammunition clip into the Beretta and slid the weapon under the seat.

Like sentinels flanking the road, lines of poplars flashed past, a few cumulus clouds dotted the crystal blue sky. No showers today. Spring, hovering in the wings, tantalized the landscape.

Helga was humming as she brushed her auburn hair. Sometimes Mater did not know what to make of her. These bourgeois revolutionaries, he thought. Of course, he too, he was not ashamed to admit, was as bourgeois as they come. His father was a noted television producer, his mother the daughter of an Evangelisch minister. But, as he often liked to say, who knew better than the bourgeoisie the falsehood of the consumer society’s promise? He and others of his class fully comprehended the hollowness of Germany’s postwar economic miracle. The middle class enjoyed benefits that were firmly grounded in the suffering of the working classes, the Gastarbeiter, the people of the Third World. And all the economic benefits, all those possessions, did nothing to raise consciousness. Material goods only temporarily satisfied the artificial needs created by advertising moguls. But the educated bourgeoisie, like him, could articulate, as well as act out, opposition to the lie. Too bad most left-wing intellectuals, mired in polemics, only voiced their opposition. More were needed who were willing to act. But Helga? Somehow, he felt, she thought this was a joyride. She was not afraid of action, certainly, but for what reasons?

So what. No matter what motivated her, he couldn’t complain about her proficiency and eagerness. Hell, even he might not have been able to pull the trigger as unruffled as she had. Not that he would have lost his nerve or had second thoughts. But still he knew no matter how coldly he was capable of acting he would have had thoughts and dreams afterward. The dreams. They started that time when he planted the bomb in the luggage locker at Frankfurt Airport. The fact that one of the victims was a schoolgirl continued to haunt him even though he knew that in essence it was Bonn, not he, who was the real oppressor. The real murderer.

Well, he was growing. Sometime he would learn how to turn off the thinking processes completely. He knew what the risks were, physical as well as psychological, when he had first enlisted in the Red Army Faction. And ultimately he was capable of doing whatever was asked of him.

He eased his foot on the accelerator as they passed through the center of the border town of Neulauterburg. Only a few minutes and they would be safely back in France. The alarm would have gone out from Karlsruhe by now. But the police would be looking for a Suzuki motorcycle with two men—not a couple in an Alfa Romeo.

Helga looked at him, her eyes happy. She would make it even easier to get through the checkpoint. She was definitely an asset. Women always were.

Ahead, the bridge and the green-and-white booth came into view.

It was a minor checkpoint. Insignificant. Only two guards. No gate. Usually they just smiled and waved you through. He had never been stopped in all the times he had driven across here in the past month.

Today, of course, was different.

The guard posted on the right side of the road, opposite the booth, cradled in his arms the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun that was standard issue for the Grenzschutzpolizei—the Border Defense Police.

So.

They had been alerted.

The guard in front of the booth motioned them to stop.

Helga had unfastened the top two buttons of her blouse. It was obvious that she wore nothing underneath.

"Morgen," the guard said leaning in the window. The guard with the MP5 eased over to the passenger side and looked down at Helga. Her smile was warm and inviting. He could not take his eyes off her breasts.

"Gut’ Morgen," Christian said.

Your papers, please, the first guard said magisterially.

Mater handed him their passports.

"Schönes Tag," Helga said to the other guard.

He nodded.

It’s going to be warm, she said.

His eyes remained glued on her cleavage.

The first guard was about to hand back the passports when he noticed something odd.

Just a minute, please, he said.

He gestured over the roof of the car to his colleague, who reluctantly tore his eyes away from Fräulein cleavage for a second, that he was going to the phone. The two rivets attaching Mater’s picture to the first page of the passport were off. They didn’t quite match the rusty indentations made on the inside of the passport’s cover. The passport itself seemed perfectly valid, but the photo had been changed. The guard stepped into the booth and reached for the telephone.

As he picked up the telephone Christian Mater bent slightly forward and felt under the seat. The palms of his hands, he noticed as he gripped the butt of the pistol, felt remarkably cold. Or was it the gun?

The guard at Helga’s side, noticing Mater’s movement, raised the MP5.

"Halt! he commanded. He stepped backward. Get out of the car! Both of you!" He pulled back the firing lever of the submachine gun.

Helga smiled at him. What’s the matter? she asked as if nothing could possibly be wrong on such a fine spring day. She pulled the door handle with her right hand while reaching under the seat with her left.

In a single flowing motion she swung the door wide and bounded out of the car firing the Beretta.

In spite of the force of the bullets striking him, the reeling guard instantly reacted. He pulled the trigger.

Bullets tore into her and she dropped her arms. Staggering forward two steps, she almost lost her grip on the gun. She tried raising and aiming it again, but her finger only jerked spasmodically as three shots fired harmlessly into the ground.

The guard fell to one knee, blood spreading across his left shoulder and down his arm. He looked at the woman and saw that her breasts, which he had so enjoyed only moments before, were a mass of ripped fabric and flesh. She fell forward heavily, the smile still frozen on her lips. She was dead, he realized as he died.

As the shots erupted the first guard dropped the telephone and sprinted out of the booth, unbuttoning the flap on his holster.

Mater coolly slid the Walther P.38 out from under the seat and took aim out the window. The guard was only two meters away when Mater fired two quick bullets into his throat.

Before the body hit the ground Mater was out of the car. He vaulted over the dead guard and into the booth. It took him less than a second to find what he wanted. The passports were lying on the counter next to the telephone. He snatched them and dashed out.

He went around to the far side of the car. Helga and the other guard were both dead. Without a second’s hesitation he picked up the guard’s Heckler & Koch and emptied the magazine into Helga’s face. Identifying the body would take time. Meticulously, he wiped his prints off the submachine gun and repositioned it in the guard’s hands before jumping back behind the wheel.

He floored the accelerator.

The seesawing Alfa Romeo careened away from the checkpoint and onto the bridge, leaving behind the smell of burnt rubber. A moment later the startled officials on the French side jumped for cover as the car rocketed past.

"Scheiße! Scheiße! Scheiße!" Mater swore loudly, startling himself with the sound of his own voice.

The tires squealed as he turned south onto the Mothern road.

Two kilometers along he swerved sharply onto an unpaved road leading into a wooded area. Pine trees flashed by on both sides. In a clearing to the left was a VW camper.

A man with dark curly hair, long sideburns and a thin mustache opened the door as Mater jumped out of the Alfa Romeo and ran toward him.

Hello Carlos, Mater said as he jumped into the camper.

* * *

A contingent of Karlsruhe police, led by Commissioner Thomas Gengler, met the Bonn task force at the airport. As they drove to the scene of the assassination, the Commissioner informed Lombach that Buback’s bodyguard had slipped into a coma and was not expected to regain consciousness.

What have you learned about the assailant, or assailants? Lombach asked.

What? Gengler replied, cupping his hand to his ear.

Christ, Lombach thought, the Karlsruhe Commissioner was deaf. He repeated his query, loudly.

"Ah, ja, gut, Gengler said. As long as you speak up I can hear you well enough. So, all we’ve pieced together so far is that a woman was involved, and that a motorcycle was used. Ballistics will be able to tell us soon how many weapons were employed. It was apparently some sort of compact submachine gun."

When they arrived, the Mercedes limousine was still in the position in which it had come to rest. The bodies, however, had already been removed.

Lombach glanced up the street at the residences and the crowd of curiosity-seekers that had gathered outside the police barricades.

Wordlessly, he circled the Mercedes.

Near the Stop sign was a patch of rubber, presumably left behind by the motorcycle. Policemen were examining and photographing it to determine what they could about the size and make of the motorcycle.

There are quite a few casings lying about, one of the officers showed him, from a Beretta 5.56 mm. So far we’ve found thirteen. Perhaps there was only one weapon.

Lombach looked at the damaged Mercedes. Yes. He nodded. A single Beretta is capable of causing this much destruction.

Inspector Lombach! Gengler frantically motioned from the cruiser. There’s been an incident, he said getting into the car and handing the telephone receiver back to the driver, at the French border in Neulauterburg. Probably the assassins.

Lithely, Lombach scrambled in next to him and they rushed off, the men from Bonn in the car behind. As they sped to the airport, the Karlsruhe Commissioner resonantly filled him in with the details of the report he had just received.

Within thirty minutes the helicopters settled on the edge of the wheat field next to the guard booth at Neulauterburg. Over twenty border guards were milling about shouting ineffectually at one another and to whomever. They were positive that someone had to take the blame for this catastrophe, but they were completely uncertain as to whom. So they ran about officiously striving to deflect all potential finger pointing.

French customs officials were there too, gesticulating, arguing, and recapitulating eyewitness accounts to their German colleagues.

Lombach impassively surveyed the scene of the carnage. The second such scene in less than an hour.

The guard’s body, the MP5 still clutched in his hands. The woman’s body, a mass of pulpy flesh where her chest and face had been.

It struck Lombach that she had been quite stunning. Like a fashion model or an actress.

The telephone receiver in the guard booth still dangled from its cord. The bloody fool guards, he thought. Why the hell didn’t they force the suspects to get out of their vehicle before making the phone call? An amateurish mistake. But, he slumped his shoulders, these guards were merely country people. The world of terrorism had never touched their lives before. It wouldn’t touch them again.

He spoke briefly with the French and got the description of the blue Alfa Romeo.

First, he turned to Gengler, who stared blankly at him. First, he repeated in a louder voice, we need emergency authorization from the Alsace Police to pursue the trail into France. Hopefully this can be granted without delay.

Gengler ordered one of his officers to make the call.

Second, Lombach continued, leaning toward the Commissioner’s ear while motioning to the woman’s body, she must be positively identified. And fast. I don’t care how badly she’s disfigured. Fingerprints. And there must be some teeth left in her head for a dental I.D. Who was she? Who were her relatives? Who were her friends? What was her job? Who did she sleep with? Every trivial detail of her life. Also, the Beretta in her hand is probably the weapon used on Buback. See if the casings found in Karlsruhe match.

Lombach lit a cigarette. Such a beautiful day, he thought. One of those exquisitely gentle spring days that make one so extraordinarily happy to be alive. The air redolent with the promise of the new season. The songs of the birds and the rustling of the breeze in the grass. He looked over at the bodies. Flies were buzzing around them. He thought of Buback lying dead in the morgue. Strangely, though, he felt no compassion for Buback. The man had been so full of himself, so bureaucratic, so arrogant, so sanctimonious. It seemed to be a prevalent occupational disease with judges and prosecutors. Their inviolable sense of self-righteousness led them to presume their natural, God-given superiority to the rest of humanity. Insufferable Arschlöcher, all of them.

Again his eyes were drawn back to the woman’s body. It was strange. Somehow he felt more empathy for her than for Buback. In spite of whatever she had done, she had been a mere pawn. She had not been in control of her own fate.

Unlike Buback.

It was a splendid spring day, and she could no longer enjoy it. He wondered if she had felt the gentle warm promise of rebirth before she died.

While the bodies were being bagged and taken away a French police cruiser crossed the bridge and instructed them to follow. They had found something.

Gengler and Lombach followed the French, taking the left fork toward Mothern. They turned off onto a gravel road and into a small wooded area. Gendarmes were inspecting an abandoned car. A blue Alfa Romeo.

An officer approached as they stepped from the car.

"Capitaine Robidoux," he saluted, introducing himself.

They returned his salute. This is Inspector Lombach, from Bonn, Gengler said, he is in charge of the Chancellor’s Special Anti-Terrorist Task Force. I am Commissioner Gengler of the Karlsruhe Police Department.

It seems, Captain Robidoux said in a sibilant blend of French and German, that the perpetrator was met here by some person or persons unknown.

They walked around the Alfa Romeo. There were three bullet holes in the right side.

Robidoux pointed out a set of tire tracks in the soft earth. A large vehicle, as you can see. A van perhaps.

Lombach knelt down and felt the tracks.

"Scheiße," he muttered under his breath.

He glanced up at Gengler.

I know, the Commissioner said, it’s so damn frustrating. I feel just as helpless as you do.

Lombach shook his head. No, he said straightening up. We’re not helpless. He mouthed his words carefully, biting off each syllable. They had outside help. A motorcycle, an Alfa Romeo, now another vehicle. There’re many people involved and we’ll find one of them. Eventually. And then, I assure you, we’ll get the son-of-a-bitch to talk.

CHAPTER TWO

In the twenties and thirties Chez Rimbaud had been a bohemian hotspot. An exuberant, lively establishment that brought together at all hours the artists and writers, poets and discontents, prostitutes and maquereaux that inhabited neighboring Montparnasse. But now the bistro had been converted into a sedate Michelin three-star restaurant. The menu had improved considerably, but the clientele, if somewhat more prosperous and subdued, was, at best, uninspired. Upper-middle-class Parisians mingling with the occasional tourist seeking out the old haunts of Picasso, Hemingway, Dali, Brassai, Gertrude Stein, Henry Miller, George Orwell and the numerous other creative individuals who had put Montparnasse on the map.

Carlos Martinez Torres, sat in the remotest corner, leaning back in the shadows against the wall, a glass of Bordeaux within reach on the white linen tablecloth. His eyes ever alert and watchful behind the tinted glass of his aviator frames. He trusted no one. He was a survivor.

But far more than a survivor. He was a man who molded, shaped and influenced people and events. So many of the Palestinians whose cause he championed and with whom he had worked were prepared to lay down their lives gladly to achieve their ends. It was their ticket to an infinitely better world then the one into which they had been born. They had suffered in a way that he, an educated member of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie, had never experienced. And never hoped to experience. Their resulting fanaticism had seldom been equaled in history. He respected and understood them. And he used them quite skillfully. But to Carlos, although there were causes worth killing for, nothing was worth dying for.

For much of the decade Carlos had been the mastermind behind the most notorious terrorist raids in Europe. He had orchestrated the takeovers of the German Embassy in Stockholm and the French Embassy in The Hague, as well as several hijackings and machine gun and grenade attacks on airports. In December 1975 he had personally led the successful assault on the OPEC conference in Vienna. He was the liaison between European urban guerrillas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian, the most intransigently violent of all the Palestinian organizations. There were vague rumors that he took orders from Colonel Muammar Kaddafi, Fidel Castro, and the PFLP’s leader of guerrilla operations Dr. Wadi Haddad.

There were as many descriptions of Carlos as there were newspaper accounts of his infamous activities. He was variably described as short and tall. Plump with curly hair and thin with straight hair. Aristocratic and plebeian. Bearded with dark Hispanic features and clean-shaven with a light Castilian complexion. In truth he was nearly six feet tall and, while not exactly fat, somewhat heavy. His black hair was wavy, his complexion olive, his mustache wispy and his sideburns thick. His dark brown eyes often seemed soft and yielding. But few people ever mistook his doe-eyed expression for a sign of weakness. Many of his Palestinian friends, to his everlasting irritation, insisted he looked more like a middle-class Jew than a middle-class South American. They nicknamed him The Jew, but never used the appellation in his presence.

Sitting across the table was Christian Mater. He was only an inch shorter than Carlos, but with penetrating narrow-set pale gray eyes and a sharply defined nose and chin. He was slender, but muscular. His blond hair was cut short over a high forehead. He was as opposite to Carlos in appearance as a man could be.

The garçon wheeled the charcuterie trolley over to their table so they could choose from the abundant selection of pâtés, saucisson, and fromage.

As the cart was rolled away Mater dove into the garlic sausage and grunted with epicurean pleasure.

This is excellent, he said reaching for the wine. To our great success! He raised the glass.

Carlos squinted and sipped his wine.

"Success is not the right word, Señor, he said, setting down the glass. He switched to German, which, unlike his French and English, was flawed. We have only just begun. Perhaps we can drink your toast a few months from now."

Then we should drink to the trigger-happy Helga, Mater swallowed and wiped his mouth. Reckless as she was. At least she died fighting, even if her motives were foggy.

Then to Helga, said Carlos reluctantly. But there is no time to waste on tears.

Their order arrived and they fell silent while the waiter arranged the plates on the table.

Mater asked for another helping of charcuterie. He was famished.

With a sigh the waiter obliged with feigned obsequiousness, muttering under his breath something about the grossness of the German appetite. As bad as the Americans with their piggish all-you-can-eat attitude.

Carlos nibbled at his niçoise amused as the waiter, with a ceremonious display, pompously heaped an enormous portion of pâté on Mater’s plate.

The first stage, Carlos said when the waiter left, was the easiest one. Surprise will no longer be so advantageous a factor. Bonn will increase security on obvious targets as well as spend more man-hours on tracking us. They will expect us to strike again. But they do not know how or who or when.

Mater attacked his steak au poivre with gusto. He had always had a weakness for French food. It was amazing, Carlos thought, how Mater could eat so quickly, yet so decorously.

Helga’s death is unfortunate, Carlos said, they will trace her identity and detain for questioning everyone she ever knew.

No need to worry. I had no public contact with her. No one knows we ever met, so no one can link us.

I hope you are right.

Of course. I’m a very careful person.

I do not doubt that, but in order to survive in our profession you have to be more than a ‘careful person.’ You have to think of everything, be aware of everything, cover everything. And even then, expect the unexpected, and be ready to cover that as well. We have no friends. We generate no respect. Only fear. But fear is our ally.

Mater grunted through a mouthful of pommes frites.

When you contact Bode in Marburg, Carlos continued, you have to be absolutely certain that he is not under surveillance or has in any way been compromised. If so, then you will, naturally, comply with standard routine and terminate him.

"Naturally. Mater hated it when Carlos treated him like a rank amateur. As much as he deeply respected and looked up to his mentor, it was always a struggle to swallow Carlos’s condescension. But don’t you think you’re being a bit paranoid?"

Carlos’s eyes went expressionless. He sipped some wine and leaned back thoughtfully, controlling his displeasure. His black leather jacket fell open slightly from the weight of the small caliber pistol tucked into the inside left pocket. He shifted his weight and let the jacket swing back. Mater, it was true, was his most successful pupil. He had mastered every technique Carlos could teach. The tactics of terror were thoroughly ingrained in him and he had developed into his most trusted killer. But Mater’s pride was dangerous. Some day, Carlos feared, narcissism could cost him his life.

"Perhaps you are not so ingenious after all, Herr Mater, he enunciated each syllable. Paranoia works with us. Paranoia is our friend. Of course I am paranoid. That is why I have not been caught. And that is also why I shall remain free. Let others go to their deaths praising Allah or Christ or whoever the fuck they think is bestowing sainthood on them!"

Chastened, Mater let Carlos’s words sink in.

I apologize, he said in a subdued voice, if I sounded insulting. I did not mean to be.

Carlos accepted the apology with a restrained nod and a dismissing flick of the hand.

So, Mater said, Ponto’s next?

Yes. Carlos placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward, resting his chin on his cupped left hand. But he is not to be assassinated. He is to be abducted.

Carlos paused to take a sip of wine.

It is time to use our talents, he went on idly stroking the stem of the glass between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, to secure the release of some of your colleagues from prison. We cannot afford any more suicides. It was reported that Ulrike Meinhof hanged herself in despair. Perhaps she was helped by her guards, perhaps not. But we must get Baader, Raspe, and Enslin out while they can still be effective. Beyond the sensational symbolic impact of their release, they can be invaluable instructors at the training camps, before infiltrating back into Germany.

He paused to eat a few more mouthfuls of salad. If he ate as much as Mater, he thought, he would be obese. He glanced enviously at Mater’s slender figure. How could he eat so much and get away with it?

Jürgen Bode already has orchestrated, under my direction, of course, he smiled, many of the details of the operation. He will introduce you to two others who have prepared several safe houses for your use. They will be able to assist you in any way you see fit. All you have to do is personally observe Ponto’s routine and work out the exact sequence of the operation.

Placing his knife and fork perfectly parallel on the immaculate plate, Christian Mater leaned back from the table. It’ll be done, he said.

* * *

Lombach slammed down the receiver.

"Verdammte Scheiße! he swore through clenched teeth. Verdammte Scheiße!"

Yet another false lead.

There were scores of suspected members and supporters of the Red Army Faction, but all of them had been under surveillance since Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof had been incarcerated. Most were eliminated from suspicion because the police were shadowing them at the time Buback was shot. What better alibi? Nevertheless over sixty so far had been brought in and questioned and their friends and acquaintances were being investigated. Eventually, Lombach kept trying to convince himself, there would be a breakthrough. But in the meantime a sense of frustration and impotence was getting to him.

At least the woman had been identified.

Helga Uecker. Well educated. Middle class. A story that had an increasingly familiar ring to it the more he learned about the bizarre phenomenon of the German terrorist movement. Her father was a respected lawyer in Wurzburg who was so shocked when he learned what his daughter had done that he was still under heavy sedation. The poor man, Lombach thought, his life will never be the same again. A conservative guardian of justice whose world had been turned upside down. Her mother . . . Well, her mother was doing just fine. But she was not a particularly introspective type. She did not have to be. Her family had done very well during the Third Reich and she grew up in the years before the war with everything she desired. Although the war and its aftermath was a leveling influence on her family, she never did abandon the notion that she was an aristocrat. She did, however, accept the role of housewife and mother with good grace—albeit reluctantly—in order to provide a perfect home environment for the family. Two sons and Helga, the youngest. Well, whatever Helga did, Frau Uecker believed in her heart, it was not because of her mother’s influence. No, it had nothing whatsoever to do with her.

Lombach lit another cigarette and loosened his tie while he reflected on Helga Uecker’s background. She had studied literature at Marburg and, although she had not been associated with any political organization there, it was a reasonable assumption that the student movement had influenced her. She had dropped out for two years, but had re-enrolled as a sociology major. Lombach’s men were still in the process of tracking down and interviewing students from her years at Marburg trying to learn more about her. So far nothing in the reports had made him take notice.

And no names that cropped up among her acquaintances had appeared on the printouts from Computer Central in Wiesbaden of known members and sympathizers of the RAF or any of its many splinter groups. It was a long process, and something in him, some instinct, told him that a connection would be made. Until then there was nothing to do but doggedly check the lists and interview everyone who might have known her even casually. Every rumor, every reminiscence, every scrap of information had to be checked out, written up and analyzed.

The dull throb at the base of his skull told him that another headache was coming on. This job had already cost him dearly. He found himself continually anxious. He smoked too much, drank too much, picked at his scalp too much, worried too much, paced too much, slept too little. Ten months before his wife Andrea had left him because, she claimed, she could no longer live with the fear that he would be killed in the line of duty. As chief of the Anti-Terrorist Force he was a prime target. Perhaps, he often thought, if they had been able to have children the stress his job put on the marriage might not have been so critical. But that was not to be. She had been threatening to leave him for over two years, and he suspected that her fear for his safety had, in the end, become an expedient excuse for doing so. She just did not want to be married to him anymore. She wanted out. But that was all right with him. He loved his job in spite of everything. It was his identity. It was all he knew how to do. All he wanted to do. The challenge of matching wits with criminals, murderers and terrorists stimulated him, made him feel more alive. And it always was a challenge. Most of his adversaries were not unintelligent, and some of them, warped and twisted though he believed they were, elicited a feeling of respect from him.

Unconsciously he kneaded the back of his neck with his left hand and tilted his head back. Slowly rotating his head, he squeezed the tense neck muscles with his fingers.

After a minute he reached for the telephone and rang Paeseler on the interoffice line.

Günther, he said when the Captain answered, I’ve been thinking, perhaps we’ve got to take a different approach. We’ve concentrated on checking Uecker’s friends and acquaintances against the list of RAF sympathizers. Let’s do it the other way. Find out which sympathizers live in Marburg or were ever connected to the university. Were any of them ever associated with anyone who knew Uecker?

CHAPTER THREE

May

Like Heidelberg, Freiburg and Tübingen, Marburg was one of the oldest, most venerated universities in Germany. For hundreds of years the elite, the nobles, the aristocracy had sent their children to one of these four centers of learning. The Herr Professor became their mentor and guardian and he commanded absolute respect and obedience. What he said was LAW. His authority was never questioned.

Until 1968.

The Paris student uprising and the peace movement in America had a far-reaching impact on the German university. Starting in Berlin, German students began not only to question the authority of the professor, but also began working vigorously for the overthrow of the entire university system. With demonstrations, strikes, and disruptions student dissidents demanded a voice and they got it. Even a few new universities were founded, in Berlin, Bremen and elsewhere, which were modeled on socialist principles. In Marburg students now were allowed to vote on administrative decisions within the university.

But as with many crusades limited success led to discord amongst the crusaders themselves. Every campus was rife with dissenting groups. The German Communist League fought with the Communist Party of Germany. Trotskyite fought with Stalinist. Stalinist with Maoist. Each splinter group invented their own heroes, their own panaceas, and their own theories of truth. They hated each other as much as the system they fought against. Some said they hated each other more.

Marburg University, despite the prevalence and popularity of the archaic right-wing dueling fraternities, was one of the most radical of all the universities. And many Marburg students prided themselves in the changes they had wrought.

The modern glass and steel architecture of the newer university buildings on the east bank of the Lahn notwithstanding, the town itself was a beautiful medieval relic. The old cathedral spire of the Elisabeth Kirche cutting sharply into the sky, narrow cobblestone streets, ancient lopsided half-timbered buildings, a castle, and the graceful Lahn River flowing through the center of Marburg gave the town a distinct romantic atmosphere. But more than the varied architecture and the new ideas, it was the Lahn itself that was the chief reminder to all of the passage of time.

Jürgen Bode, an austere hook-nosed man with thick light brown hair cut in a crew cut, lived in a small third-floor apartment in the old center of town on Steinweg. It was a drafty room without central heating. But he had done a remarkable job of cleaning the beams under the roof, replastering the slanting walls and stripping the paint off the woodwork around the windows to make it homey. He loved the flat—especially the view of the Elisabeth Kirche steeple even though he had not the slightest regard for any religion.

Bode had been involved with radical politics from the beginning of his studies at Marburg, but it was only after a summer vacation in the United States that he realized what he really wanted to do. He had visited Berkeley and was thrilled to be in the hotbed of American political dissent. He went with a contingent of students to a demonstration in Golden Gate Park across the bay in San Francisco. But he was immensely disappointed when he saw that speeches and political discussion were secondary to ice cream cones, Frisbees, kites, guitars and sexual encounters. The realization for him that American radicals were more interested in throwing a spontaneous festival than in overthrowing the political and economic power structure convinced him that he would only work for the latter when he returned to Germany. At home, his opposition to all attempts by German radicals to create a festive atmosphere at demonstrations inevitably led him deeper into the intransigent position of absolute commitment to the violent and immediate overthrow of the state.

Being rather shy and introverted he kept a low profile and only discussed and planned the revolution with the few other loners he trusted. Even so, he did loudly and publicly criticize those radicals who advocated non-violence.

When the buzzer sounded he knew right away that it was the man Carlos had told him about. He went downstairs and peered through the frosted glass at the murky image.

He unlocked the door. Without a word Bode nodded at the man in the expensive, stylishly cut leather jacket and new blue jeans. The jeans, Bode noticed as he led him up the three flights to his apartment, had a neat crease down the front of each leg. His own six-year-old pair, frayed and holey, suddenly seemed excessively tattered and faded.

Christian Mater, the stranger introduced himself after Bode had locked the apartment door behind them. He had a Hessen accent, like his own. Oddly, Bode felt slightly annoyed.

Jürgen Bode, he replied. They shook hands. I’ve been waiting for you. Did you have any trouble returning to Germany?

None at all. I drove a motorcycle across the fields near Furweiler. No need to wake up the border patrol.

Good. Do you want a coffee or anything? I was just about to make a pot of tea.

Tea would be fine.

Bode went to the alcove that served as his kitchen while Mater looked around at the posters on the wall—all of which announced various political demonstrations of some sort with the exception of the only one he actually liked. It was a David Levine caricature of a frightened, enormous-headed, rodent-eared Franz Kafka. There was a damp chill in the room even though it was warm outside. Nevertheless, the Spartan flat had an agreeable comfortable feeling to it. He was surprised, however, that a man of Bode’s political convictions had so few books, but then perhaps it was because he was so thoroughly entrenched in his beliefs that it had become superfluous to read about them. The two books lying on a lamp table beside the bed he recognized immediately. Carlos Marighella’s Mini-Manual of Guerrilla Warfare and Ulrike Meinhof’s, Urban Guerrillas and Class Conflict. He picked up the Mini-Manual and thumbed through it. There was a hand-written quotation from Marighella penciled in on the flyleaf. The urban guerrilla’s only reason for existence is to shoot.

Bode had been observing Mater inspecting his flat from the kitchen alcove as he prepared the tea.

You’re surprised I don’t have many books, aren’t you? he said, putting the teapot on the rickety pine table.

Mater raised an eyebrow. Hmmm.

Everyone always comments on it. Not that many people have been here. But I do read a lot. It’s just smarter and more economical to do so in the library. Not only to save money on books, but the library is well heated. Keeps the heating bill down.

Mater nodded. I see, he said, knowing though that the substantial sums of cash Carlos had been sending Bode for over a year made this penuriousness unnecessary. Force of habit.

Bode reached under the bed and came out with a manila folder. I’ve got all the information you need here, he said, handing it over.

Mater took the folder and began flipping through it.

Yes. Good. This will save a lot of time, he said. I can see why Carlos has us working together. You have the same regard for efficiency, he tapped the loose pages with a knuckle, as I do.

Mater sipped his tea while continuing to scan Bode’s notes. The first pages were Xeroxed architectural plans of each floor of Ponto’s residence. Subsequent pages detailed the daily schedules of each member of the household.

"How long did it take