NOW 2

Chapter Two

The former capital of Germany was in effect a state within the state. Partitioned between a British, a Commonwealth, a Polish and formerly also a French sector it was not officially part of the Federal Republic of Germany, the only part of the country at least officially still under the occupation statutes. Because of this members of the Bundeswehr were not allowed in while wearing the uniform, and should the Federal Republic of Germany ever feel the need to institute National Service, registered citizens of Berlin would be exempt. As it was the representatives that the city state of Berlin sent to the Bundestag in Frankfurt only had observer status, so it cancelled itself out. What military there was belonged to the Allied Berlin brigade, a mostly representative formation of units that was used by all the Governments involved to rotate units through so that they could get some experience in overseas deployment. Representing the Commonwealth of Australia was at the time the Royal Queensland Regiment. The Lance Corporal belonging to it wore the uniform with pride and was glad that it had been the turn of his Regiment for the current 12 month deployment to Berlin. His Father had been part of the 'Great Race' when units from eight Allied Nations had raced each other to be the first to hoist their Country's flag on top of the Reichstag.

He had a photograph of the occasion to hand like most allied soldiers that entered the city and was now standing in front of the building in Question. It had been heavily damaged in the Battle of Berlin, but the Germans had been refitting it, with the exception of the dome that had been blown by British Engineers in 1947 and that had yet to be replaced. Other than that it was as good as new and served part as conference centre, history museum and tourist trap. He had taken the tour already and today he was exploring the parts openly accessible on his own.

The museum was on the two lowest floors, with each of the corners having rotating exhibitions about one thing or other in German history, and right now it was the Battle of Berlin. The life-size representation of the photograph everyone knew was there and he passed the model of the final assault on the building carried out by the.... a bang outside distracted him, but it turned out that a man had merely accidentally pushed over a sign. Shaking his head, the Lance Corporal turned back to the model and inspected it closely. Judging by the reports he had read, it was fairly accurate. He never noticed the trench-coated figure following him as he made his way through the remainder of the museum.

As the Lance Corporal stepped outside, he stopped at a nearby news stand and bought the 'Berlin Chronicle', the British/Commonwealth Forces newspaper for the city and walked down Charlottenburger Chaussee[1] past the Allied Victory memorial and into the Tiergarten. This time of the year it was empty of all but the most hardened, so the Corporal's favourite bench was empty and he sat down to read the newspaper, his stalker remaining in a distance just large enough to remain unnoticed. After five minutes, the man began to feel the cold and wished that his prey were moving again, wondering how an Australian could develop such a tolerance for cold weather. When the Corporal rose and walked on, in the general direction of the Polish sector the man followed and decided that in the streets of the sector his plan would be too difficult to carry out.

He rushed the man from behind, and the Australian Lance Corporal never knew that something was wrong until the knife penetrated his heart.

Three hours and a near Heart Attack by an old lady later a group made up of Australian and British Military Police and Civilian German City Police was standing around the Body. The British had only been called because it was technically in their sector even though the Germans had taken over jurisdiction with the signature of the Sovereignty Treaty of Amsterdam that had officially ended the occupation period in 1959. The German in charge was looking over the shoulder of the Medical Examiner who was inspecting the body.

“What can you tell me, Hans?” he said in a thick Berlin accent that was like Gaelic for the British MP from Glasgow who had majored in German.

For the benefit of the Allied soldiers present, Hans spoke English when he replied: “He's dead less than two-three hours at most. For one Rigor mortis hasn't set in yet, though that might be partially due to the cold, and secondly the body temperature indicates this. Killed by a knife to the heart, knife likely wiped in the hair of the victim and, oddly enough, his shoelaces cut off. ”

The Policeman turned to the Allied Officers.

“It seems that it was the same man.”

“Well,” the senior British MP said, “I can't say that I am surprised, Hauptkommissar. When we found that body outside the gates at Gatow six months ago most of us had a bad feeling.”

Murmurs of agreement and the nodding of heads all around confirmed to everyone watching that these men knew it all. The Hauptkommissar was well aware that he was dealing with professionals who had been doing this sort of thing at least as long as he had. He went on: “Mind you, Captain, at the very least we know that he has a broad spectrum of victims, and while that doesn't help us right now we can be sure that it isn't one of the usual suspects.”

“Very true, Hauptkommisar. That won't keep the General from asking questions again.”

“Nor the Mayor.” the German said as both men were very familiar with pushy superiors.

“What do we know for certain then?” asked the senior Australian present.

“Not much I'm afraid. You can have our file of course, but here's the gist of it, because you said yourself you were only recently transferred here. Six months ago, at the gates outside RAF Gatow we, or rather the RMP found the body of a supply sergeant of the British Army. At first we thought he had been done in by his associates as we knew him to be bent. Two days later a man almost ran over a dead body lying in the Kochstraße. Then nothing for almost two weeks, and then we found two bodies on the same day, one not to far from here, on the other side of the Chausee and one near Tempelhof Airport. It was then that we realized it was all the same guy...Since then six more bodies have surfaced, all the same way, all British and Commonwealth personnel. All we found out that the murderer is about 1.67 metres tall[2], male and likely to have blonde hair.”

Having been raised on a steady diet of Sherlock Holmes novels the Canadian MP replied: “Better than nothing I suppose. Still, blondes aren't exactly rare in this country.”

“Well, we know all the murders were committed in and around Berlin, so that's something at least.”

Little enough though it was, and all the men present doubted it was enough.

~*~---~*~

He felt as if he was back at the Pictures in Quebec City watching a war-time Biggles film when he saw the the dogfight below him, even though Wing Commander Bigglesworth had recently graduated to Jet Aircraft. I/JG 71 was, along with their Canadian instructor flying over the assigned training area. German military aircraft weren't allowed into Polish Airspace so usage of the Allied Air Combat School east of Warsaw was out. Instead the Germans had designated a huge part of the sparsely populated areas around the base as a training area where all but the most low-level flight could be trained. After two days of going up and observing the combat tactics he saw quickly that while the Germans were trying hard and were obviously very professional pilots a visit to one of the Imperial Air Combat Schools couldn't be avoided, especially if the Germans really wanted to make good on their promises to pull their weight within the Alliance.

Right now however he watched as they used tactics that were good but not outstanding and more than one a pilot still made a beginner's error. For obvious reasons the Luftwaffe was mentally stuck with the tactics of the late war period and the advent of Airborne RDF, guided missiles and super-sonic jets had basically outpaced the knowledgebase of the Luftwaffe. True, they were good in close combat, and Charette wouldn't have expected any less with Marseille in command, but they were lacking in the sort of medium and long-range combat that had become the norm in the last ten years. True, the Swift wasn't the best possible aircraft for that even though the Mk. VII the Germans had bought was RDF equipped, it was neither a Lightning or an Arrow and would most likely not serve with the Luftwaffe for too long, being an stop gap for at least a couple of years.

JG 71 Swift

Even so, the tactics the Germans used were by far too concentrated on closing the range. After the initial salvo of Red Flash tactics was to get into medium to short range and fire missiles, but the German pilots tended to forgo that and close to gun range. This had the potential to be very bad if the enemy followed the British or American playbook as they would try to gun missile engagements and use missiles at comparatively great distances. The biggest problem though was the lag of big-unit training. Western and central Europe was far too densely populated to do any kind of exercise of the scale that was needed, mainly because civilian air traffic over Germany had virtually exploded when the Allies had relinquished Air Sovereignty in 1953; for example the great Moscow-Warsaw-London route went right over central Germany, and the indeed very complicated politics behind the formation of the new Armed Forces made it nigh-on impossible to get any level of legislature to sign off on a no-fly zone. Plans to establish a low-flying school at Goose Bay in Canada had so far fallen flat, mainly because the Canadian Government was still not fully convinced of Germany's democratic credentials and also because a a quarter of Canada's independent deterrent was stationed there.

After landing Charette retreated into the Office he had been allocated and began to formulate his daily report. The last week had been like this, a series of exercises laid on for his benefit so that he saw what needed to be done. Having been an instructor at the Canadian Fighter School and at RAF Boscombe Down (through the Empire Air Training scheme) this had become apparent after the first day, but one needed to present more than circumstantial evidence if one was to convince one's superiors, two sets in his case. This was the sixth such report he was writing, so it did not take him more than twenty minutes to get it to paper on the typewriter on his desk. He signed it, placed it in an envelope and locked it in the Office Safe before stepping outside and walking across the street towards the Officers Mess and entered.

Upon stepping inside he was almost instantly signalled over to where Colonel Marseille and his second in command were sitting. Since the three of them were scheduled to fly tomorrow no Beer was handed out, but the men weren't in the mood for drinking anyway.

“Well Squadron Leader, how are my men doing?”

Knowing that this particular Officer valued honesty because it could mean the difference between life and death for his men it was expected that Charette was giving an honest opinion.

“To sum it up, you use outdated tactics and fail to make the most of the means at your disposal.”

He cared enough about his work to explain.

“Basically your pilots often close and seek a gun engagement when they could instead use their remaining missiles. I believe that it's possible that they see the missiles as a backup for the guns when these days it's the other way around, Sir.”

When no reply was forthcoming Charette felled compelled to continue for some reason. “Mind you, that's hardly surprising given how it worked out with the last Luftwaffe.”

To describe what followed as an awkward silence would be an understatement. Luckily for Charette only the other men at the table had heard what he had said and he could see how they tried to reign in their emotions as the three men stared each other down.

Marseille was clearly enraged, but equally obviously tried not to show it.

“Well, we have to train some more then, especially with the Minister for Defence coming to visit tomorrow.”

While he still felt that he had nothing to be ashamed of, Charette still decided that it was the best to conduct an orderly retreat and so he left the mess behind.

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Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes?

Up next: We go abroad!

[1]Quite obviously there was no 17^th June rising in 1953.

[2] About 5' 6''.