Hell. Nothing in his training had prepared him for this. Not for the prospect of being murdered by his own men. And for what? A bunch of useless foreigners. For stinking Arabs and Africans. He shook his head. Risk his life for them? Not him. Not now. Not ever.
The lieutenant reset his pistol’s safety catch and sighed. “Very well. I’ll call the command post and report our inability to go forward… under the present circumstances.” He looked angrily into his sergeant’s expressionless eyes. “Satisfied?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then redeploy the men for a perimeter defense.” Guyon holstered his weapon. “If we can’t put an end to this madness, we can at least make sure it doesn’t spread any further!”
Pasant saluted and strode back to the waiting security troops. They broke ranks, spreading out across the square in response to his shouted commands.
Guyon watched them for a moment, swore to himself again, and lifted the walkie-talkie to his cheek. He hesitated, reluctant to make a report that would undoubtedly end his police career. The force didn’t need officers who couldn’t control their own men. His thumb hovered over the transmit button and then stopped. There were other voices already crowding the circuit.
“I say again, Bravo Two, you are ordered to advance! Get moving!”
“Unable to comply, Echo Foxtrot. My men won’t budge. I request reinforcements.”
Another voice crackled over the radio. “Echo Foxtrot, this is Bravo Four. We can’t go any further south. The fires in this sector are out of control. I’m establishing a police line and firebreak at the church here…”
Guyon kept listening in growing shock as more and more of his counterparts called in with similar stories. His platoon wasn’t the only unit on the edge of mutiny. Others inside the CRS were just as willing to let the riot run its wild, bloody course.
Satellites and powerful ground transmitters spread the BBC’s evening broadcast around the world.
“Good evening. Here is the news.
“In Paris, French police and fire crews continued their rescue efforts in the aftermath of last night’s disastrous rioting. Officials at the Ministry of the Interior put the death toll at more than two hundred, with hundreds more injured and in hospital. Doctors at area hospitals report that almost all the dead and wounded appear to be Algerian or other North African immigrants.
“Thousands more have been left homeless by fires that have leveled fifteen square blocks of the city. For the moment, they are being housed in nearby schools and vacant warehouses. Unconfirmed but authoritative speculation suggests they may soon be moved to what are being labeled ‘refugee holding camps’ outside Paris.
“In related developments, a statement issued by the presidential palace blames, quote, ‘hooligan and criminal elements’ for what it terms ‘this regrettable incident.’ One high-ranking official went further, arguing that the violence pointed out once again the importance of ridding France of what he called ‘troublesome alien enclaves.’ Meanwhile, French government sources continued to deny persistent reports that police units refused orders to end the rioting. The delays observed by onlookers are said to have been caused by unspecified tactical considerations.”
The BBC’s newsreader paused, shifting from the broadcast’s lead story to the next. “In other European developments, a neo-Nazi rally in the eastern German city of Dresden drew an estimated seven thousand participants. Several policemen monitoring the demonstration were severely beaten when they tried to stop swastika banners from being unfurled…”
The first signs of trouble were electronic.
Video screens showing arriving and departing flights began flickering and then went blank. Passengers hurrying through the airport’s gleaming, ultramodern terminal buildings gathered in small dismayed groups around the darkened monitors. Most were sure it was only another minor power failure or cutback — a product of the continuing agitation for higher wages by the nation’s technical workers’ unions.
They were wrong.
A sharp chime echoed over the airport’s public address system. “Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. We regret to inform you that all incoming and outgoing flights have been canceled. This unfortunate action is made necessary by a twenty-four-hour strike just announced by the national air traffic controllers’ union. All inbound flights are being diverted to either their point of origin or the closest open airfield…”
Within an hour, passenger air travel, a hallmark of the modern age, had come to a complete stop all across France.
Ten thousand leather-clad skinheads and brownshirt fanatics packed Berlin’s wide central avenue, spilling over its shade-tree-lined sidewalks. Black, red, and white swastika banners bobbed above the crowd, and their coarse, guttural voices blended into a rhythmic, almost hypnotic, marching song — the “Horst Wessel.”
Under the disapproving eyes of several hundred heavily armed riot police, some of Germany’s unemployed and under-educated were turning to an old master for new inspiration.
Three hundred meters up the avenue, a small, dark-haired man stood watching the neo-Nazi march come closer. His own pale blue eyes were half-closed in concentration. It was difficult to judge precise distances this far away.
But Joachim Speh, action leader for the Red Army Faction’s Berlin commando, was a master of timing. One hand slipped into his coat pocket, delicately caressing a tiny radio transmitter. Soon, he thought coldly, very soon.
The marching column crossed the Charlotten Strasse, passing close by a rusting, dented Trabant parked on the side of the road. The flat tire and broken jack propped up against the Trabant’s rear end showed its owner’s reason for abandoning his unfashionable vehicle.
Some of the leading skinheads took time out from their singing to hammer their fists along the parked car’s hood and roof, shouting and hollering in glee. The uniformed policemen paralleling the march stirred uneasily, reluctant to let such obvious vandalism go unchecked.
Now. Speh activated the transmitter hidden in his coat pocket.
The bomb he’d planted under the Trabant’s gasoline tank detonated — exploding outward in an expanding ball of orange-red flame, smoke, and razor-sharp steel fragments. Those closest to the car were either blown to pieces or incinerated by flaming gasoline. Outside the fireball, dozens of other marchers and policemen were shredded by white-hot shrapnel or smashed to the pavement by the shock wave.
When the last echoes of the explosion faded away, the street and sidewalk looked like a slaughterhouse. Bodies and parts of bodies dotted the Unter den Linden’s scorched pavement. Those who’d been wounded writhed in agony, screaming for help. Some were still on fire.
Moving calmly, Joachim Speh turned his back on the carnage and walked away. He had other punishment missions to plan.
Nearly four hundred miles from Germany’s strife-torn capital, five grimly determined men faced a battery of television news cameras and microphones.
Behind them cold sunlight glinted off a vast modernistic structure of red concrete, bronze-colored glass, and gleaming steel. During earlier, more optimistic times, the Palace of Europe had contained chambers for the European Parliament — one of the first, tentative steps toward a politically united continent. Now the huge building stood empty, almost completely deserted. Cynics pointed to it as the visible symbol of a faded and foolish dream.