Timebomb (Paul Richter)

by James Barrington

  ‘Can you be sure he was unconscious when they used the knife?’ Clark asked.

  ‘The Ghoul’s pretty certain, yes. There were no signs of defensive wounds on his hands, and no apparent movement of his head or neck while the cut was made. So he was either out like a light, or several people must have held him very still while the killer did his work, and there’s none of the bruising on his arms that you’d expect if that had been done.’

  ‘OK,’ Clark said, ‘you’ve convinced me. But who did it, and why?’

  ‘As I said before, I’m buggered if I know.’ Mason glanced up at the clock. ‘Get your jacket,’ he said. ‘We’ll go and take another look at the crime scene at Sheer-ness.’

  ‘We only went there yesterday,’ Clark reminded him.

  ‘I know, but maybe we missed something. Unless you’ve got a better idea?’

  ‘Nope,’ Clark said, checking the car keys were in his pocket.

  Stuttgart, Germany

  ‘Have you any idea at all who these people are?’ Richter asked, standing in front of a pin-board that displayed a couple of dozen photographs of the men occupying the empty shop premises beside the bank.

  Their pictures weren’t particularly clear, having been taken from some distance away and in generally poor light. In only a couple of cases were the subjects facing towards the camera: in most they were caught in profile, and Richter knew that identifying them from such poor images would be very difficult.

  Wolff shook his head. ‘Not so far.’ He tapped one photograph. ‘We thought we’d identified this one, but it turns out the man we mistook him for is currently in an Austrian prison serving ten years for bank robbery. As for the others, we’ve no idea. We need better pictures, but the trouble is that, whenever they leave the building, they’re usually wearing hats pulled low over their faces, and with collars turned up. They’re clearly making a determined effort not to be recognized.’

  ‘That could be good news,’ Richter mused, ‘because if they’re that careful it might mean their mug-shots are on a database somewhere. Have you tried following any of them?’

  ‘Yes, but as soon as they’re out of the immediate area they always start running very competent anti-surveillance routines. We’ve decided it’s safer to let them go than to risk any of our own people being spotted. At this stage we obviously don’t want to show our hand because as far as we can tell they still don’t realize we’re watching them.’

  ‘Apart from the brief exchange you recorded about some kind of an attack on London, have you picked up anything else useful?’

  ‘We’ve got a few problems in that area,’ Wolff admitted. ‘The target premises are never empty, so we can’t even use the deserted shop next door without it becoming obvious. That would be our preferred location for inserting spike microphones through the wall. The party wall shared with the bank is a considerable problem. It’s actually a double wall, one section forming the end wall of the row of shops, and the other the structure of the bank itself. There’s a lining of welded steel plates, two centimetres thick, embedded in the bank’s wall, plus a network of vibration sensors. The sensors aren’t a problem – obviously we can switch them off – but the plates are another story, because there’s no way we can drill through them silently. We’ve attached microphones to the wall itself, and they did, oddly enough, record sounds of hammering that might be interpreted as tunnelling activities, but certainly not on the bank wall, so we discounted it. For picking up conversations, the mikes are almost useless.’

  ‘I can see that. Two brick walls and a steel plate would certainly provide pretty good sound insulation. I suppose you can’t get up on the roof and drop something down between the adjoining walls?’

  ‘No. We thought of that, but there isn’t a gap: the shop wall was built actually contiguous with the wall of the bank. And there are no cellars or sewers or any other route we can use to approach the target premises and then attach listening devices.’

  ‘So all you have are the parabolic mikes, and obviously they’re only of any use when the targets are outside the building.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Wolff agreed. ‘Most of what they’ve said to each other is either meaningless or unimportant – one man telling another he’s going out for half a hour, that kind of thing – but we have picked up a few names.’

  ‘Yes?’ Richter looked interested, but Wolff shook his head.

  ‘They’re not much help.’ He pointed to a sheet of paper fixed on another pin-board. ‘So far, we have “Helmut”, “Dieter”, “Max”, “Konrad” and “Kleber”. The first three are probably first names, and the last one most likely a surname, but “Konrad” could be either. We’ve run all possible combinations of these names through our databases here in Germany, and also through those of the police, security services and counter-terrorism forces of every other Western European nation. We’ve had hundreds of hits, as you might expect, because none of those names are that uncommon. But what we didn’t get were any identifications with a proven link with any terrorist organization.’

  ‘And, of course, they could easily be using aliases as well,’ Richter said. ‘Giving cell members randomly chosen names is a fairly common technique employed by terror groups.’

  At that moment, one of the officers manning the computer workstations called out something, and the BGS commander walked over to join him. The two men conversed briefly in German, then Wolff translated for Richter.

  ‘Things might be coming to a head,’ he said. ‘That was a report from the surveillance team. Two of the targets were standing outside the building a few minutes ago, and the parabolic mikes managed to catch bits of their conversation. One began, “When will—” and then a truck drove past and they lost the rest of his question. The other replied, “Tonight. About ten thirty.” The first one said, “Good. Then we can get out of—” but the rest of that sentence was lost as well.

  ‘That might suggest that whatever they’re planning will take place this evening, or maybe they’re expecting fresh orders from their controller. Or maybe even their boss is arriving. It could be almost anything, really, but if they’re expecting to leave the building soon, that’s obviously a significant development.’

  ‘What will you do now?’ Richter asked.

  ‘We’ll plan for the worst and assume they’re intending to plant an IED somewhere here in Stuttgart. We’ll ring the entire area, and if any of them leave the building carrying bags or driving vehicles, we’ll take them down.’

  Sheerness, Isle of Sheppey, Kent

  Dick Clark drove the Vauxhall into the Tesco car park and picked a vacant slot on the opposite side of it, near the sea wall.

  He and Paul Mason walked along the narrow path and stopped beside the grassy area at one end of The Moat. It was the spot where forensic evidence was now telling them that Barney, aka Edward Holmes, had met his violent end. The patch of grass was still discoloured, but the birds and the insects had almost finished their clean-up operation.

  ‘So why are we here?’ Clark asked, as the two men climbed up onto the flat concrete walkway that topped the sea wall.

  ‘If you want the truth,’ Mason replied, ‘it’s because right now I don’t have any better ideas. What bugs me about this is the motive. Why did somebody decide to slit that old man’s throat? I don’t believe it was kids. I reckon it was a deliberate act of murder, not just some fooling around that went too far.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I wonder if he saw something here that he shouldn’t have done.’

  Clark looked out at the choppy grey waters of the Thames Estuary. Out on the horizon he could see the southern coast of Essex, mainly flat and low-lying, a section of it – chalk cliffs, he guessed – gleaming white in the hazy sunlight. Closer to Sheppey, a couple of cargo ships butted their way west, heading for the Port of London, or maybe to the docks near the Queen Elizabeth Bridge.

  ‘This is a pretty fucking desolate bit of coastline,’ Clark remarked. ‘What the hell could he have seen he
re, especially at one or two in the morning?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to come back here, just in case anything else struck me.’

  ‘And has it? Struck you, I mean?’

  Mason grinned and shook his head. ‘No, not really. About the only thing that makes any sense is smuggling, and that’s pretty bloody unlikely.’

  ‘You got that right. The days when gangs of bad guys used small boats to land contraband fags in these parts have long gone. Now they ship the stuff here in containers, and it’s more likely to be heroin or coke than anything else. So I don’t think smuggling’s the answer.’

  ‘So what, then?’ Mason raised his hand to shield his eyes and scanned the entire panorama in front of them, from the rooftops of Sheerness, sheltering behind the protective barrier of the sea wall, to the chimneys, towers and cranes of the industrial site that lay due west of their position.

  ‘Buggered if I know. I mean, there’s really nothing here. What about in the town itself? Could he have witnessed a robbery, or something?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Mason said. ‘About the only building you can see from here is the Tesco superstore, and if that had been hit, obviously we’d have known about it. And robbers don’t normally kill witnesses, not even these days. No, I think the answer lies out there somewhere’ – he waved his arm to indicate the estuary – ‘but I’ve no clue what it could be.’

  Clark glanced at him and shrugged. ‘We should be getting back,’ he suggested.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Mason said, turning away. ‘We’ll grab a bite to eat somewhere here, then drive back.’

  Stuttgart, Germany

  Karl Wolff gave Richter directions to a cheap all-day restaurant fairly close to the police station, suggesting he grab a late lunch there rather than risk the police canteen. He located the establishment easily enough, and was pleased to see that it provided pictures of the meals it served, so all he had to do was point to what he wanted – which was a lot easier than trying to wrap his tongue around some of the names listed on the menu. When the plate arrived, the reality of it bore only the most tenuous resemblance to the full-colour rendition on the menu, but the food was hot and quite tasty. He finished his meal with a coffee, then headed back to the police station.

  Immediately he entered the briefing room he was aware of a change in the atmosphere. There were more people present, and their mood seemed somehow elevated. As soon as Wolff saw him, he beckoned Richter forward.

  ‘There’s been another development,’ he explained, pointing to a fresh picture pinned to the board.

  Richter examined it closely. The photograph, taken almost full-face, showed a thin-featured man with a straggly moustache and beard.

  ‘That’s not a bad image,’ Richter said. ‘Have you got an ID on him?’

  Wolff nodded. ‘We think so,’ he said, ‘and if we’re right, he’s bad news. Have you ever heard of “Stamm-heim”?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no. Is it a town somewhere?’

  ‘Not exactly. It’s the name of a district here in Stuttgart, and also of the prison where some of the Baader-Meinhof Group were held in the seventies. You’ve heard of the gang?’

  ‘Yes,’ Richter replied, ‘though I don’t know very much about them. The ringleader was Andreas Baader, and I think they were anarchists rather than terrorists, and that’s about all I do know. But Baader-Meinhof is now ancient history, surely?’

  ‘You’re right, it is, but there remain unpleasant echoes even today. Stammheim is a prison, but it’s also rather more than that.’

  Wolff glanced round the room to check that nobody needed his input for the moment and then led the way to a seating area over to one side.

  ‘Let me explain something,’ he began, as they sat down. ‘The members of the Baader-Meinhof Group thought of themselves as freedom fighters battling against the rampant capitalism and imperialist tendencies of West Germany. But you’re right. Most people probably did think of them as anarchists. The gang was formed in the late 1960s and carved a bloody swathe through German society, killing a total of thirty-four people and causing enormous damage to commercial property in a series of arson and bomb attacks. The group eventually became known as the Red Army Faction.

  ‘In June 1972, Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, Holger Meins and Jan-Carl Raspe were arrested and charged with murder, attempted murder and forming a terrorist organization. Meins died after a hunger strike on 9 November 1974 and the others were sent to trial, but this didn’t start until May 1975. One year later, Meinhof was found dead in her cell. She’d apparently hanged herself using a rope made from towels.

  ‘The three remaining defendants were found guilty in April 1977 and all sentenced to life imprisonment. But the Red Army Faction wasn’t prepared to leave it there. On the 30th of July that year, a man named Jürgen Ponto, the head of the Dresdner Bank, was shot and killed in a kidnap attempt that went badly wrong. In September, they tried again and successfully abducted Hanns Martin Schleyer in a violent kidnap that left his driver and three police officers dead. Schleyer was a former SS officer and the president of the German Employers’ Association. His kidnapping threw the German government into crisis, especially when a demand was received from the gang to release eleven prisoners, including the three Red Army Faction members held in Stammheim. That period became known as the German Autumn.

  ‘Schleyer’s kidnapping was the first step, if you like. The second was about a month later when a Lufthansa flight out of Palma was hijacked by four Arabs. The plane landed in Rome, and the hijackers issued exactly the same demands as Schleyer’s kidnappers, plus demanding the release of a couple of Palestinians from jail in Turkey and a fifteen-million-dollar ransom. The government refused to play ball, and so the aircraft took off again, landing at Larnaca, then at Dubai and finally Aden. There the plane’s captain was “tried” by the hijackers for failing to cooperate fully and was executed. From there, now flown solely by the co-pilot, the aircraft landed at Mogadishu in Somalia.’

  ‘That I do know about,’ Richter said. ‘You sent in GSG 9, didn’t you?’

  ‘Exactly Grenzschutzgruppe 9 stormed the plane just after midnight on the 18th of October. The action took just seven minutes. Three of the hijackers were shot dead, and the fourth badly wounded, but none of the passengers on the aircraft was seriously hurt. German radio stations broadcast details of the successful rescue later that night. In the morning Baader and Ensslin were found dead in their cells, and Raspe died in hospital later. On the same day, Hanns Martin Schleyer was shot dead by his kidnappers.

  ‘Now,’ Wolff continued, ‘the official verdict was that the three prisoners died as a result of a suicide pact after the Red Army Faction’s attempt to intimidate the government had failed. But there were obvious questions that people began asking. It’s not that well known outside Germany how the three of them died. Ensslin, like Meinhof, hanged herself, and that’s at least believable. But Baader had somehow managed to shoot himself in the back of the head with a pistol, and Raspe had also suffered a serious gunshot wound to the head, from which he died shortly afterwards.’

  ‘They had guns in the prison?’ Richter asked, disbelief in his voice.

  Wolff nodded. ‘Yes, and that served to start the inevitable conspiracy theory. Stammheim was the highest-security jail in the whole of Germany, precisely because of the identity of its prisoners, so how did they manage to obtain those weapons? Also, how did Andreas Baader manage to shoot himself in the back of the head? In almost every suicide by pistol that I’ve ever heard of, the weapon is fired either through the temple or the mouth. And there were no identifiable fingerprints on either of the pistols. The result was that virtually nobody, then or now, believes that those three almost simultaneous deaths were suicides. Instead, most people seem to believe they were extrajudicial executions performed by the German government.’

  ‘I don’t know any more about this than you’ve just told me,’ Richter observed, ‘but frankly t
hat does seem a more likely scenario.’

  ‘Predictably enough, the government inquiry decided that suicide was the most likely explanation and even suggested that the prisoners’ defence lawyers had smuggled the weapons into the jail. But they couldn’t prove it, and nobody was ever charged over the three deaths. The government’s case was seriously weakened by a fourth prisoner, Irmgard Möller, who was another Red Army Faction terrorist. She apparently managed to stab herself four times in the chest near the heart but still survived. She was released from prison in 1994 and has since consistently maintained that she and the other three inmates were the victims of extrajudicial killing.

  ‘Whatever the truth of the matter, the word “Stammheim” came to symbolize the abuse of power by the federal government.’ Wolff paused. ‘You might begin to wonder why I’m sitting here giving you this lecture on German history.’

  ‘You obviously have a good reason,’ Richter replied.

  ‘I have,’ Wolff nodded. ‘Over the last few years, that word has acquired yet another meaning. There have been a number of small but very destructive terrorist attacks throughout Europe that we’ve linked to a shadowy group that seems to be calling itself “Stammheim”. We’ve learnt very little about it so far, apart from the probable identity of one of the leaders, a man called Hans Morschel.’

  Wolff pointed at the new photograph on the pinboard. ‘That’s his picture there,’ he said. ‘And just over an hour ago he walked into the target premises.’

  Canterbury, Kent

  Mason and Clark got back to the station to find a new interview report waiting for them in the incident room. The two constables assigned to check on all the takeaway food shops in Sheerness had discovered where Barney purchased his last meal and, more importantly when.

  DS Clark picked it up and read through it quickly then walked across to inspect the town map of Sheerness. His fingers traced streets, and in a few seconds found what he was looking for.