Nucflash

3

That evening, after a long day going over the data from the BKA’s Komissar computer, Murdock and Inge Schmidt left the BKA complex, walking out to her sporty red Renault Alpine parked in the employees’ south lot, then drove through the security gate and onto the main highway, heading toward Wiesbaden. Komissar had provided a treasure trove of data on Major Pak of North Korean Special Operations, and on the various RAF and Provo figures involved in an as yet unrevealed revival of Euro-terror, and Murdock had already arranged for a secure fax line to transmit the information back to Washington.

He and Inge had gotten to know each other a lot better during the course of the afternoon, their earlier flirtation somehow evolving into a rapidly deepening friendship. Murdock found Inge to be extremely bright and quick, with dozens of the oddest facts imaginable instantly accessible in the course of their conversation. Though she never mentioned it, a conversation with Hopke had revealed that Inge Schmidt and Komissar had been partly responsible for the chain of data that had led to the capture of the notorious Carlos the Jackal a year before.

Murdock could easily understand why Hopke had jokingly referred to her as the BKA computer, though that statement could certainly not have been a reflection on her personality.

Murdock genuinely liked her.

It was not a completely comfortable feeling. Murdock had been engaged to be married once, but Susan had died in a car accident while on her way to attend his graduation from Annapolis. He’d tried to steer clear of romantic entanglements ever since, especially after he’d gone against his family’s wishes and become a Navy SEAL. Some of the SEALs in his platoon were married — Mac and Magic, Kos and Scotty.

Splitting his life between a woman and the Navy wasn’t for him, though. Not anymore.

But he couldn’t deny the attraction he felt for this woman, an attraction that she seemed to echo for him. Damn it all! Where was this thing going?

“So how does the GSG9 relate to the BKA?” he wanted to know. Traffic was heavy, but Inge steered the powerful little Renault with a sure hand, guiding them safely around the slower clumpings of traffic. Soon they reached the cloverleaf winding toward the east-west Autobahn leading to Frankfurt.

“Well, the German Federal Republic was caught totally unprepared by the terrorism that began appearing in the sixties and seventies,” she said. “In particular, well, there was Munich, you know. The GFR authorities did not come out of that situation looking so good.”

Murdock nodded understanding. The 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany, were best remembered now for the bloody attack by seven members of the Palestinian Black September terrorist group. Two Israeli athletes had been killed by the gunmen, and nine more taken hostage. Then, at Furstenfeldbruk Airport, an ambush by Bavarian State Police police sharpshooters had gone horribly, tragically wrong. All nine hostages, along with five terrorists and one policeman, had died in the bloody, botched rescue attempt.

“Munich was the reason the Grenzschutzgruppe was created in the first place,” Inge continued. “The after-action analysis indicated that the primary reasons the police failed during the attack were poor training, poor communications, and poor marksmanship. They missed their targets during the first round of firing, which gave one of the terrorists the opportunity to throw a hand grenade into the helicopter where the hostages were being held.

“GSG9 was raised out of the Federal Border Guard unit. Unlike your SEALs, the SAS, and every other elite counterterror unit with which I am familiar, it is a civilian force, actually a branch of our state police, though its people do undergo extremely thorough military training.”

“I’ve heard they’re very good.”

She smiled sweetly. “They are much more than good, Lieutenant. Tomorrow, back at the office, I will show you a trophy from the 1985 St. Augustine competition. An international and inter-service military competition, including marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat, and room clearing. The South Bavarian GSG took first place that year. The American Delta Force placed second, while your Navy SEALs took third.”

“Maybe we should demand a rematch.”

She tossed her head, laughing. “That might be fun. Anyway, since 1984,” she went on, “the GSG9 has consisted of four combat units, each of thirty-six men. Units One and Four concentrate on surveillance duties and various operations for the BKA. They also, however, directly support the Lander units in each of our federal states.”

“Wherever they’re needed, huh?”

“Exactly. In addition, Unit Two has been tasked with protection of Germany’s oil platforms in the North Sea and in the Baltic. Unit Three specializes in free-fall parachuting and, um, special entry. We call them for the assault when all other means of dealing with a particular threat have failed. I suppose you could say that the BKA coordinates GSG activities and operations, providing them with intelligence and, in some cases, with specific missions. We have to be extremely careful, however, because of our past history.”

“The Nazis?”

“Ja. Exactly so. That is why the GSG9 was drawn from our civil police. If a military unit were so trained and so organized, there would be immediate charges that we were trying to revive the military elitism of the SS. It has led to some incredible stupidities. Not long ago, the GSG9 was brought in to help organize a sweep against terrorist targets throughout Germany, something they were uniquely qualified to take part in. At the last moment, however, the GSG was excluded from the actual operation. One of our honored members of parliament insisted that GSG9 operatives would be useless on such a mission because, his words, ‘all they can do is shoot.’ The sweep, needless to say, was not particularly successful.”

Murdock could hear the pride Inge felt for the GSG9 in her words and in her scorn for the German bureaucracy. He had the feeling that she identified strongly with the Grenzschutzgruppe, even though she was actually employed by the BKA. A Grenzschutzgruppe groupie? Murdock grinned at the thought. “Well, I don’t know about German Parliament,” he said. “But I can tell you that the GSG9 has a damned fine reputation throughout the rest of the world… ”

His voice trailed off. Casually, he reached up and adjusted the Renault’s rearview mirror.

“Something wrong?” Inge asked, glancing across at him.

“Do you normally have a BKA tail?”

“A what?” She started to laugh, and then the impact of what Murdock had just said sank home. “A tail?”

“Someone from the office who follows you home. For security purposes.”

“Certainly not! Are we being followed?”

“A gray Mercedes has been trying to keep up with you ever since we turned out of the BKA parking lot. He’s still there… about three cars back.”

Inge dimpled. “Perhaps it’s Lieutenant Hopke. He is — how is it you say? He has the hots for me.”

“I don’t blame him one bit… but I don’t think that’s Herr Hopke. Not unless he can afford a luxury car like that on a police lieutenant’s salary.”

“That is true. Werner drives a Hyundai.”

“Hmm. It’s probably nothing.” But he was worried. Inge’s driving had been aggressive enough that Murdock would not have expected another driver to be able to keep up with her. Germany had a “recommended” speed of 130 kilometers per hour on the Autobahn, but if Inge’s driving was anything to go by, there was no law against exceeding it.

“I have a turnoff coming up soon,” she told him. She grinned, and her eyes were sparkling. Son of a bitch, he thought. She was actually enjoying this! “Perhaps we can find out there whether or not they are following us.”

“Good idea.” He glanced back again. The other car was still there, third in line behind them. “Do it.”

The maneuver was so sudden that it caught Murdock by surprise, even though he’d been expecting it. Inge slowed the Renault slightly. Then, without warning, without turn signals, she swerved sharply right across two lanes of traffic and into an exit ramp. As she braked with a squeal of overstressed tires into the off-ramp’s curve, Murdock heard horns blaring behind them… and then the gray Mercedes, trapped by the other cars around it, flashed past the exit and on down the Autobahn.

“Nicely done,” he said. “I’m impressed.”

“GSG9 training includes a special driving course.”

Murdock’s eyebrows raised. “I thought you worked for the BKA, Inge. You talk more like you’re GSG9.”

Her face colored slightly. “I suppose that’s because I always wanted to be GSG9. I started off with Bavarian Lander. I took the test for GSG9, and some of the early training, but failed the physical later on. Not enough upper body strength, they said.”

“They have female agents?”

“Not in the combat units,” she admitted. “But in some of the others. Reconnaissance and surveillance, for instance.” She wrinkled her nose. “And secretarial work, of course. But that was never what I wanted for myself. I had always wanted to be in a combat unit, since I first heard of the GSG9 when I was a girl. That must have been… oh, in the late seventies, sometime.” She laughed. “Am I giving away my age?”

“I won’t bother to add up the years,” Murdock said.

“My! So gallant for an American! Anyway, I easily passed the test for BKA special agent, and when an opening came up for a liaison officer with the GSG, well, my interest in the group was well known. I am only one of quite a few agents, of course, who serve as go-betweens with the GSG9.” She sighed. “I would still rather be in GSG Operations.” She glanced at Murdock out of the corner of her eye, and frowned. “You’re laughing at me.”

“Not at all.”

“Do you believe women should not be in combat?”

Murdock considered for a moment how best to answer. “I’ll be honest with you, Inge, and say I really don’t know. I’ve never for a moment doubted that a woman has every bit as much right to defend her home, her family, her country, or her ideas as a man. But integrating women fully into combat units carries a terrible price. I’m not sure we can afford it.”

She frowned. “What price?”

“Training… and testing criteria. You said you couldn’t pass the GSG9 physical. Okay, the fact is, most women have less upper body strength than most men. Most women have greater overall endurance than most men, on a long march, say, but they can’t lift as much, having more trouble chinning-up into a second-story window, and they’d be at a real disadvantage in hand-to-hand combat with a male opponent.”

“Not if the woman knows karate.”

Murdock laughed. “What are you, black belt?”

“Brown belt, second degree.”

“Good for you. Still, that doesn’t have much to do with the real world.”

“But if a woman has trained until she is strong enough to do what is expected of her, then she should be allowed to do anything she wants, don’t you think?”

“You know, Inge, I think my only real problem with the integration of women into combat is that in too many cases, the training requirements of the various services or units have been knocked down either so that women can qualify to fill a quota, or because requirements demanding great strength, especially great upper body strength, are perceived as somehow unfair. Combat is never fair, life is not fair… and the qualifications for the people who have to depend on one another to survive combat shouldn’t be fair either. If a man can do a job better, more efficiently, with less risk to himself and the other members of his team, then a man should be in that slot, and to hell with political correctness or feminist rights.”

Inge was silent for a long time. “You are a very direct man,” she said at last. “You don’t try to put an attractive coating on what you believe.”

“You asked me what I thought… ”

“I like honesty in a man,” she said. “Even when it is misguided. Here we are… ”

Inge lived in an apartment complex in the town of Rüsselsheim, midway between Wiesbaden and Frankfurt-am-Main, and only about ten kilometers from Frankfurt’s Rhein-Main International Airport. The two of them went up to her apartment together. Murdock waited in her living room with a Dortmunder beer while Inge vanished into the bedroom to change, and he had time to learn from her bookshelves and record cabinet that she was interested in history — especially military history — martial arts, horses, cats, detective novels, and soft rock. Periodically, the sky would roar as a big jet flew overhead on its way to or from the airport nearby, and he wondered how she was able to sleep.

When Inge emerged from the bedroom a few moments later, the businesswoman’s professional look was gone. The low-cut, high-slit evening dress she was wearing now, in a dark maroon set off by earrings and a single strand of pearls, was breathtaking on her figure. Her golden hair was down now, swirling delightfully across her bare shoulders.

“So,” she said as Murdock rose to his feet. “About that seafood…”

“SEALs generally catch their own seafood,” he told her. “Now if you’d said steak…”

“I know just the place. And not too far from here either.” It was still light outside as they emerged from the apartment building and started walking arm-in-arm across the parking lot to the place near the street where Inge had parked the car. The sun had set, but the sky was still fully light… light enough for Murdock to spot the gray Mercedes parked on the far side of the street and recognize it, with near certainty, as the car that had been following them on the Autobahn. He didn’t say anything to Inge, but he did let go of her arm and fall back a half step behind her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him, slowing.

“Keep walking,” he said, glancing about. The Mercedes was empty. There was a lot of thick shrubbery in front of the apartment where attackers could wait unseen. There was also a panel truck parked next to Inge’s car that hadn’t been there before.

Murdock wasn’t carrying a weapon. German gun laws were strict, and arranging for a foreigner to get a permit required so much red tape that he’d decided not to bother even trying. He was regretting that decision now.

Ahead, the back door to the panel truck banged open, and two men in utility workers’ coveralls climbed out, glanced around the parking lot, then started walking directly toward Murdock and Inge. He couldn’t tell if they were armed, though one was carrying something that looked like a toolbox. In fact, they could be — probably were — just what they appeared to be. You’re getting paranoid, Blake, he told himself fiercely.

And yet there was that empty gray Mercedes parked on the street. Was it really the same car? Had it been following them earlier?

The safest move might be to simply turn around and go back to the apartment, a stronghold with a single entrance, easily defended. That might be a little difficult to explain to Inge — she would assume that he was interested in something other than a steak dinner — but Murdock was by nature a cautious man, his career in the Navy SEALs notwithstanding. And she’d seen the Mercedes too, back on the Autobahn.

But when Murdock glanced back over his shoulder, he saw two more figures, a man and a woman this time, stepping through the apartment building’s front door and onto the walkway outside. The man was wearing sports clothes and a light jacket and was not obviously armed; the woman wore a T-shirt and jeans and carried a bulky, white canvas bag on an over-the-shoulder strap. Murdock and Inge had just been cut off from their retreat.

“Inge,” he said softly. “I think we may have some trouble.”

He felt her tense, saw her eyes flick back, then ahead, assessing the situation. “The people behind us are neighbors of mine,” she said. “They live right down the hall from me.”

And you’re a paranoid son of a bitch, Murdock thought, but he was fully alert now, the adrenaline pumping through his system in the heady rush of imminent combat.

Even if he wasn’t yet positive that they were about to be attacked, it was still possible to apply two of the most important rules of combat when ambushed: Don’t stand still and do the unexpected. Reaching down suddenly, he grabbed Inge’s hand and turned her sharply aside. “Come on!”

“Blake!”

But she started to run with him. Then she stumbled, and Murdock cursed. She was wearing black high heels that hobbled her as effectively as a ball and chain.

The unexpected move alone, however, had been enough. Ahead, the two utility workers broke into a run. “Inge! Kommen Sie zurück!” the woman behind them called out. Turning, Murdock saw the woman pulling something small and black from the depths of her canvas bag… a handgun. And the man beside her had a pistol tucked into his waistband, its grip visible beneath the flapping hem of his jacket as he too started running.

The ambush had just been sprung.