Tom Clancy - Command Authority

It was just past one a.m. on a Friday morning, and cell member Ulrike Reubens was on the couch in the common room, kept awake by coffee and nicotine and a new VHS cassette player connected to the television. She was engrossed in a bootleg tape of Meryl Streep and Cher in Silkwood , and as she sat there in the dark watching the grainy video she thumbed the fire mode selector switch up and down on her gun, a small manifestation of her fury at the American government for their criminal use of nuclear power and their lack of concern for the welfare of the proletariat, as portrayed in the movie.

In the two large bedrooms down the hall off the common room, several more men and women slept. Four of them were members of the RAF—a fifth member, Marta Scheuring, had left town suddenly a few days earlier.

Although the symbol of the RAF was a black H&K MP5 submachine gun displayed over a red star, in truth none of the inhabitants of this apartment actually owned an MP5. Instead, they all had older fifties-era machine pistols or revolvers, which were nowhere as state-of-the-art as the MP5 but were, at least, within easy reach where they slept. Four others in the apartment, three women and a man, were bedding down with lovers in the cell, and although all of these hangers-on knew they were in the presence of urban guerrillas, they had no concerns for their personal safety, because this cell of the RAF had been living here a long time with no trouble at all from the police.

Ulrike Reubens finished watching the credits of Silkwood , then she climbed off the couch and over to the VCR and hit the rewind button so she could watch it again. While she waited for the movie to restart, she walked into the kitchen to pour herself another cup of coffee, because she was certain she was going to be in for a long, boring night.

CIA analyst Jack Ryan stood in a makeshift command center set up in a dormant concert hall on Ostender Strasse, six blocks away from the RAF safe house. Although he was here with Nick Eastling and his team of MI6 counterintelligence men, and although there were easily fifty German police officers and detectives around him, as well as some characters he was certain were West German intelligence officials, he felt much as he had felt in Switzerland: alone and forgotten by those around him.

Eastling stood with his men on the other side of the big room. The German authorities conferred with the Brits, but other than some initial greetings and introductions, Ryan was mostly ignored by the Germans. He sat to the side on the edge of the stage and waited for something to happen.

It had been a long day. They’d flown out of Zurich at eight a.m., arriving in Frankfurt, Germany, just ninety minutes later, and there they’d caught a shuttle to Bonn, the West German capital. At the British embassy, Ryan had been given a small office with a secure line with which he could contact Langley, while Eastling and his men went into nearly a full day of meetings with officials from the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, West Germany’s domestic security services, and the Bundesgrenzschutz, the West German federal border guard, which served as the national police force.

By four p.m. the diplomatic part of the operation was complete, and it had been a success. The British had successfully talked the Germans into raiding the RAF safe house in Berlin. It would be a German mission, all the way, but once the takedown of the property was complete, Eastling and his fellow British intelligence officers would be allowed to exploit any intelligence recovered.

While in Bonn, Jack made a secure call to Jim Greer, and the two of them decided to ask Judge Arthur Moore to contact the director of the BfV to formally request the CIA be allowed to tag along as a witness and adviser. Jack had relayed his doubts about the intelligence to Greer, but at this point there was little Jack, or the CIA, for that matter, could do but go along for the ride.

Ryan knew using Langley to go directly to the West Germans would piss Eastling off, but he did not care. Nick Eastling had tried to push Ryan out of the investigation in Switzerland. Ryan was determined Eastling was not going to do the same here in Germany.

By seven p.m. the six SIS men and Ryan were on a Learjet to Berlin, and by ten p.m. they sat in on a planning meeting with the German authorities.

At midnight they were taken to the theater just blocks away from where German police were quietly and carefully beginning a cover cordon operation around the suspected terrorists.

Now Jack sipped awful coffee from a service set up by the German police assisting with the operation. It immediately made his stomach burn; he’d not eaten all day.

As he sat there on the edge of the stage he heard several big vehicles pull up outside. There was a bustle in the lobby soon after, and then the door to the lobby opened.

Jack looked up and saw that the shooters had arrived.

The uniformed police here at the command center treated the tactical team with deference, and the Germans wearing suits—Ryan suspected they were all either BfV intelligence officers or BGS detectives—livened up quite a bit as the hour of the raid drew closer.

The shooters were members of Grenzschutzgruppe 9, Border Guard Group 9, West Germany’s most elite unit of paramilitary operators. Ryan counted two dozen, all in black and carrying heavy cases, which they placed around the large main stage of the theater.

GSG 9 was a relatively new organization, formed after the tragedy of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, when it became abundantly clear to West Germany that the country did not possess the tactics, equipment, or caliber of personnel necessary to combat the recent phenomenon of international terrorism. When an eight-man cell of Black September terrorists kidnapped members of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, the German police allowed them to fly on two Huey helicopters to nearby Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, where they would then—according to their demands, anyway—board a 727 that would fly them to Cairo.

At the airport, with hours to prepare, members of the German police set up to ambush the terrorists as they moved with their hostages from the helicopters to the jet.

And in this task, the Germans proved themselves to be almost comically incompetent. Five policemen were designated as snipers, though none had sniper training, and they were given rifles without scopes and placed around the airport without radios, with instructions to wait for a signal to fire.

Another six police officers were armed and placed inside the 727 with orders to shoot it out with the terrorists, but just as the two helicopters landed, these six cops decided they didn’t particularly care for their orders, so they ran away without notifying their command.

The helicopters landed, and the Black September terrorists realized quickly the airplane on the tarmac was cold and dark, and the Germans weren’t planning on flying anybody anywhere, so they knew they had walked into a trap. Quickly the eight terrorists shot out the few lights the Germans had pointing at them, and the snipers who were not really snipers found themselves firing blindly in the vicinity of the hostages.

It took hours for the battle to end, and when it did, one policeman and nine hostages lay dead along with most of the terrorists.

After this debacle, the German government ordered the creation of a designated federal anti-terrorist unit, and, within just a few years, GSG 9 became one of the preeminent tier-one units in the world.

Now, more than a decade later, Ryan could not help feeling some worry about tonight’s raid, although the reputation of the tactical team around him was certainly comforting, as was their impressive firepower.