Gunther replied, "I'll set everything up for Friday at noon. This is probably the best time because the servicemen will be in a hurry to get away for the weekend and there will be a lot of traffic entering the base and leaving it. This will also give me time to persuade the driver to take a long weekend with a gorgeous woman…"
Hilde motioned for Gunther to come closer, and whispered, "Gunther, you deserve a special reward from the best-looking member of the Rote Armee Fraktion."
Their love-making was passionate. They clung to each other in desperation, fully realizing that the murder of the corporal was enough to send them to a life sentence in West Germany. Both had taken an oath to follow the example of their leader, Andreas Baader, and commit suicide if they were taken to prison. Hilde viewed that as the ultimate sacrifice — not knowing that before the flowers bloomed in Spring she, too, would be dead. Hilde never kept count of the number of men she had slept with, but she knew that they could fill an auditorium, if not a football stadium. When she was 12 years old she was sexually abused by her step-father, or so she regarded her successful attempt to seduce him away from her mother's bed. After that, she gave herself freely to any boy or man that fancied her — and many were attracted to her good looks and seductive attitude. In fact, she was a nymphomaniac, although she became familiar with the term only after being Andreas's girl for a week or two. She enjoyed having absolute power over men and used them for her own satisfaction. Gunther didn't care — he was in love with this special woman, who treated him like a puppy.
The operation went smoothly, without a single hitch. The garbage truck driver was delighted to have the opportunity to spend a long weekend with the gorgeous blonde. Hilde didn't want him to drink too much before taking him to bed to perform the mating ritual but was glad when he fell asleep soon afterwards. He, too, got a taste of paradise before going straight to hell, with Hilde's help on both counts. When he was deep in his satiated sleep, Hilde placed a soft pillow over his face and held it there until he stopped thrashing.
Gunther drove the garbage truck and with his two comrades collected a pile of trash before driving up to the bunker and used it to cover the old Volkswagen engine that he had picked up from a garage that dealt in spare parts. As expected, on Friday most of the servicemen were getting ready for the weekend and were too busy minding their own business. The portable winch was easy to operate, and the three men removed the heavy artillery shell from its wooden box, wrapped the tarpaulin around it, and transported it to the truck. While two men covered it with stinking trash, Gunther placed the old engine in the now empty wooden box and replaced it on the rack. He locked up the bunker and got into the truck. No one stopped them from leaving the base.
Hilde was very pleased with the new acquisition and directed Gunther and the men to the closed garage that was under her apartment. Gunther expertly manipulated the portable winch, removed the device that was still wrapped with the tarpaulin and placed it in an unmarked wooden box that Hilde had prepared. The box was then hoisted back onto the garbage truck, and Gunther drove it with Hilde at his side giving him directions.
She directed him to a farm that was owned by one of the supporters of the Red Army Faction, just west of the village of Rohrbach. She told Gunther that she needed to arrange the safe storage of the box and its contents. She then turned her attention to the owner of the farm. Albert was an unkempt man in his mid-forties, who had not seen a barber or had a shave, since his wife had left him, taking their three-year old daughter with her, five years earlier. She said that she didn't like his extreme politics, but really was tired of him, and his obsessive jealousy. She didn't acknowledge, even to herself, that his jealousy was well founded — she didn't like staying on the farm and doing the chores he expected of her — she preferred to spend her free time with young women at the shady village bar. When he reprimanded her for neglecting her duties and their daughter, she just shrugged and complained that he was treating her like a slave and threatened to leave him. One day, when he beat her for no good reason, she waited for him to go to the cowshed, and took off with the little girl. She travelled to Berlin, which was still a divided city, and soon found a woman with whom she cohabited.
Albert was too old to take an active part in the terror acts of the Baader-Meinhof Red Army Faction but was glad to provide financial and logistical support. In fact, his farm served as a meeting point for the gang, and at times as a refuge, far away from the police force. Hilde became quite friendly with the poor man, and occasionally gave him a glimpse of paradise (or so he felt). She liked two things about him: he worshipped the ground she stood on and willingly did whatever she asked of him.
When she told him, she wanted to safely store a box with a very precious item, he asked no questions. He led her to the cowshed, removed a few wooden planks from the floorboard and dug a large hole. The three of them placed the box in the hole and Albert replaced the floorboards. Gunther was disappointed when she sent him off but was content with her promise to make it up to him over the weekend. After Gunther left, Albert covered the floorboards with mud, leaving no visible evidence that something was buried under the floor.
Two weeks later, Hilde led her small group back to the US Army barracks. The plan was to kidnap the base commander and demand the release of all the remaining members of the Red Army Faction who were in West German prisons in exchange for the general. However, as they approached the fence on the periphery of the base, their presence was noticed by one of the infrared cameras that were recently installed. The duty officer, an ex-marine, Captain Kilgore, was the head of base security. The captain had seen action in Vietnam and was frustrated by being assigned to an army camp in West Germany, where nothing ever seemed to happen. He laid a perfect ambush for the approaching terrorists. His instruction to his troops was clear, "Shoot first and ask questions later."
The barrage from the single machine gun and three M-16 automatic rifles was lethal. Hilde, Gunther and their two comrades were killed on the spot. The captain, who had seen the way body-counts were carried out in Vietnam, reported that at least a dozen terrorists were killed — tripling the actual number. When the bodies were identified as belonging to members of the Baader-Meinhof gang, he was rewarded with a promotion and given the choice to name his next posting. However, there was one caveat — it must be far from Germany, in case the remaining gang members tried to avenge the death of their comrades — so he preferred to be shipped to Hawaii.
Albert, the farm owner, heard about the demise of his lover and committed suicide. His estranged wife and infant daughter, who were his sole heirs, had no interest in returning to live on the farm. The farm was sold in an auction, and the new owner regarded it as an investment in real-estate that would perhaps pay-off in the future, and in the meantime, could be written off as a tax-deductible expense. The herd of cows was sold to a sausage factory, and the buildings slowly deteriorated.
After an extensive investigation, a secret court martial trial was held at the Pentagon. The defendants were General Montgomery, former commander of the US Army base near Coburg, Germany, and Captain Kilgore, who was the former head of base security. The charges included major negligence in securing the nuclear weapons that were stored on the base, as well as several minor infractions of rules and regulations, that were mainly drawn to intimidate the defendants.
After the fall of the communist regime of the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik), formerly known as East Germany, in 1990, many of the US military bases that were near the border with West Germany, were closed. The stocks of tactical nuclear weapons which were no longer considered as a necessary deterrent against an invasion by Warsaw Pact ground forces, were ordered to be sent back to the United States. Each item was closely examined before shipping, and it was soon discovered that a box that should have contained one of the 280 mm artillery fired atomic projectiles (AFAP) was stuffed with nothing other than an old Volkswagen engine. This fact, of course, was kept under tight wraps, because there is nothing that can worry the public more than a story about a missing nuke.