All Ding had to do was lead them into battle.
There was a secondary school a block from the bank. The minibus and truck pulled up to it, and Team-2 walked into the gymnasium area, which was secured by ten or so uniformed cops. The men changed into their gear in a locker room, and walked back into the gym, to find Roebling with an additional garment for them to wear. These were pullovers, black like their assault gear. POLIZEI was printed on them, front and back, in gold lettering rather than the usual bright yellow. A Swiss affectation? Chavez thought, without the smile that should have gone with the observation.
"Thanks," Chavez told him. It was a useful subterfuge. With that done, the men and their gear reboarded the minibus for the remainder of their drive. This put them around the corner from the bank, invisible both to the terrorists and the TV news cameras. The long-riflemen, Johnston and Weber, were walked to preselected perches, one overlooking the rear of the bank building, the other diagonally facing the front. Both men settled in, unfolded the bipod legs on their gunstocks, and started surveying the target building.
Their rifles were as individual as the shooters. Weber had a Walther WA2000, chambered for the.300 Winchester Magnum cartridge. Johnston's was custom made, chambered for the slightly smaller but faster 7-mm Remington Magnum. In both cases, the sharpshooters first of all determined the range to target and dialed it into their telescopic sights, then lay down on the foam mattresses they'd brought. Their immediate mission was to observe, gather information, and report.
Dr. Bellow felt very strange in his black uniform, complete with body armor and POLIZEI pullover, but it would help prevent his identification by a medical colleague who caught this event on TV. Noonan, similarly dressed, set up his computer-an Apple PowerBook - and started looking over the building blueprints so that he could input them into his system. The local cops had been efficient as hell. Over a period of thirty minutes, he had a complete electronic map of the target building. Everything but the vault combination, he thought with a smile. Then he erected a whip antenna and transmitted the imagery to the other three computers the team had brought along.
Chavez, Price, and Bellow walked to the senior Swiss policeman on the scene. Greetings were exchanged, hands shaken. Price set up his computer and put in a CD-ROM disk with photos of every known and photographed terrorist in the world.
The man who'd dragged the body out was one Hans Richter, a German national from Bonn who banked here for his Swiss-based trading business.
"Did you see their faces?" Price asked.
"Yes." A shaky nod. Herr Richter'd had a very bad day to this point. Price selected known German terrorists and started flashing photos.
"Ja, ja, that one. He is the leader."
"You are quite sure?"
"Yes, I am."
"Ernst Model, formerly of Baader-Meinhof, disappeared in 1989, whereabouts unknown." Price scrolled down. "Four suspected operations to date. Three were bloody failures. Nearly captured in Hamburg, 1987, killed two policemen to make his escape. Communist-trained, last suspected to be in Lebanon, that sighting report is thin-very thin it would seem. Kidnapping was his specialty. Okay." Price scrolled down some more.
"That one… possibly."
"Erwin Guttenach, also Baader-Meinhof, last spotted 1992 in Cologne. Robbed a bank, background also kidnapping and murder oh, yes, he's the chappie who kidnapped and killed a board member of BMW in 1986. Kept the ransom… four million Dmarks. Greedy bugger," Price added.
Bellow looked over his shoulder, thinking as fast as he could. "What did he say to you on the phone?"
"We have a tape," the cop replied.
"Excellent! But I require a translator."
"Doe, a profile on Ernst Model, quick as you can." Chavez turned. "Noonan, can we get some coverage on the bank?"
"No problem," the tech man replied.
"Roebling?" Chavez said next.
"Yes, Major?"
"Will the TV crews cooperate? We have to assume the subjects inside have a TV with them."
"They will cooperate," the senior Swiss cop replied with confidence. "Okay, people, let's move," Chavez ordered. Noonan went off to his bag of tricks. Bellow headed around the corner with Herr Richter and another Swiss cop to handle the translation. That left Chavez and Price alone.
"Eddie, am I missing anything?"
"No, Major," Sergeant Major Price replied.
"Okay, number one, my name is Ding. Number two, you have more experience in this than I do. If you have something to say, I want to hear it right now, got it? We ain't in no fuckin' wardroom here. I need your brains, Eddie."
"Very well, sir-Ding." Price managed a smile. His commander was working out rather nicely. "So far, so good. We have the subjects contained, good perimeter. We need plans of the building and information on what's happening inside - Noonan's job, and he seems a competent chappie. And we need an idea of what the opposition is thinking-Dr. Bellow's job, and he is excellent. What's the plan if the opposition just starts shooting out of hand?"
"Tell Louis, two flash-bangs at the front door, toss four more inside, and we blow in like a tornado."
"Our body armor-"
"Won't stop a seven-six-two Russian. I know," Chavez agreed. "Nobody ever said it was safe, Eddie. When we know a little more, we can figure a real assault plan." Chavez clapped him on the shoulder. "Move, Eddie."
"Yes, sir." Price moved off to join the rest of the team.
Popov hadn't known that the Swiss police had such a well trained counterterrorist squad. As he watched, the commander was crouching close to the front of the bank building, and another, his second-in-command, probably, was heading around the corner to the rest of the team. They were speaking with the escaped hostage someone had walked him out of sight. Yes, these Swiss police were well trained and well-equipped. H amp;K weapons, it appeared. The usual for this sort of thing. For his own part, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich Popov stood in the crowd of onlookers. His first impression of Model and his little team of three others had been correct. The German's IQ was little more than room temperature he'd even wanted a discussion of Marxism-Leninism with his visitor! The fool. Not even a young fool. Model was into his forties now and couldn't use youthful exuberance as an excuse for his ideological fixation. But not entirely impractical. Ernst had wanted to see the money, $600,000 in D-marks. Popov smiled, remembering where it had been stashed. It was unlikely that Ernst would ever see it again. Killing the hostage so early-foolish, but not unexpected. He was the sort who'd want to show his resolve and ideological purity, as though anyone cared about that today! Popov grunted to himself and lit a cigar, leaning back against yet another bank building to relax and observe the exercise, his hat pulled down and collar turned up, ostensibly to protect himself from the gathering evening chill, but also to obscure his face. One couldn't be too careful-a fact lost on Ernst Model and his three Kameraden.
Dr. Bellow finished his review of the taped phone conversations and the known facts about Ernst Johannes Model. The man was a sociopath with a distinct tendency for violence. Suspected in seven murders personally committed and a few more in the company of others. Guttenach, a less bright individual of the same ilk, and two others, unknown. Richter, the escapee, had told them, unsurprisingly, that Model had killed the first victim himself, shooting him in the back of his head from close range and ordering Richter to drag him out. So, both the shooting and the demonstration of its reality to the police had been ill-considered… it all fit the same worrisome profile. Bellow keyed his radio.