Jörg. H. Trauboth - Three Brothers

She drops into the crimson red winged chair, pulls her shoes off, puts her feet up on the matching footrest, and closes her eyes.

Paul is in the kitchen a few feet away. He doesn’t ask, he just lets her be.

When she opens her eyes, she immediately notices the picture on his small mahogany captain’s desk of his pale, blonde wife, his two grown children, and the two grandchildren.

Paul had already been a widower before she appointed him to her cabinet. He spoke little of his wife’s long battle with leukemia and slow death. It must have been a good marriage, it seems. Paul said that he changed after her death. He became more introverted but has managed to get along well on his own with the help of his housekeeper. What he doesn’t like are the tiresome newspaper reports being deeming him the most eligible bachelor in Berlin’s political scene.

Her glaze sweeps over the white floor-length set of bookshelves. The books at the top are only accessible by the ladder hanging there. They aren’t all lined up like tin soldiers, rather some lie on their sides in a sort of pleasant disarray. The shelves are alive.

Amongst the books are souvenirs of his trips. A small herd of elephants, meerkats, giraffes, and zebras as well as a photo of him wearing a safari hat standing in front of the small hut of a Himba woman. She has to smirk about Paul’s mini zoo. Other people have parrots or songbirds in cages, Paul has meerkats.

The radiators are concealed by white covers and, together with the book shelves and the white transom windows, make a subdued, harmonious unit. In each corner is a floor lamp, each one giving off a different warm hue. His beloved rocking chair stands in front of the fireplace, as well as two leather seat cushions and a half a glass of red wine. In one corner is a guitar and note stand. She hasn’t yet seen the other rooms and wonders, as she has many times before, how his bedroom is decorated. Is it Spartan or does it match the same warm ambiance as the living room?

She scoots down in the chair, leans her head back, and rubs her temples with her fingers and then through her hair. Then lays her arms on the armrests, folds her hands together, and closes her eyes again. She enjoys being here and experiencing this wonderful warming spark between them, unbeknownst where it will lead them. She is in the mood today for a proper helping of this warmth.

Paul glances at her from the kitchen.

He recognizes what she is doing. She is recharging, in her own way.

He tries to be as quiet as possible as he brings her favorite dessert and sets it on the wooden side table. Chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce, chocolate sprinkles, and whipped cream. Her eyes are still closed. Henriette is completely relaxed.

She feels his hand on her head and his fingertips wandering behind her ears down her neck. He says nothing, but she can see his lovely smile lines in her mind’s eye. His radiance flows through her body like endless threads of warmth. They pass over her stomach and into her toes. She is enjoying it and realizes that she wants more. She breathes deeply and raises her arms toward him, takes his hands and lays them on her breasts. He can feel her quick pulse. She opens her eyes and wants to pull his head toward hers.

Her gaze falls onto the desk chair. She jolts! The spine of a file folder screams at her in ugly, red letters:

OPERATION EAGLE – TOP SECRET.

A flash! These over-dimensional hostage photos from today in the Crisis Response Center with two terrified faces being skewed by a man wearing her picture on his back. She shivers as though she could just shake the cursed picture out of her mind.

Paul notices her sudden tension.

“What‘s going on?” he asks as she pulls away from him. She slowly sits upright in the chair, smooths her hair, and points to the file folder. He understands.

Henriette is back in the crisis center.

“Tell me about these guys. Can they really manage it?”

“I have no doubt about it. Wolf has the best of the best in his team.”

“What does that mean, Paul?”

Paul gently lifts her feet and sits on the footrest in front of her, lays her feet on his lap, and hands her the ice cream.

“The rescue operation will be carried out by three of our best elite soldiers. They have known each other for a long time. The troop leader, Captain Marc Anderson, who is not even thirty, has successfully faced the terrorists a number of times in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Algeria, and has freed hostages behind enemy lines. One time, he was missing for fourteen days and suddenly just reappeared. He is a kind of multi-use weapon, extremely quick-thinking and prefers to work independently. We wanted to take him out of deployment operations months ago and gradually build him up long-term. But, he refused to participate in the General Staff training and rejected a promotion to major. Anderson prefers to stay with his men.”

“I assume the other two are his men?”

“Correct. The second in command at his side is First Sergeant Thomas Heinrich, twenty-six years old, an expert on explosives and hand-to-hand combat. He idolizes Marc.”

“And number three?”

“Sergeant Tim Nader, same age, a German-Lebanese, and Muslim. And by the way, the only Muslim in the KSK. He is an excellent warrior and a linguistic genius. He comes from an Islamic tea producing family dynasty in Hamburg. Without him, EAGLE can’t fly. All three of them have saved each other’s lives at some point or another. They know each other better than an old married couple, and they trust each other wholeheartedly.”

“Is any of them married?”

“Marc Anderson was married for two years and is now divorced. Tim and Thomas never pursued marriage in the first place. Pretty much no one in the unit is married anymore. Their family is their Band of Brothers. Wolf told me that Marc, Thomas, and Tim share that kind of special brotherhood with a very close emotional connection.”

“Why do the families break apart? Is Calw somehow a hostile environment to a happy family life?”

Paul reaches for a small pot on the side table and spoons a couple of ladles full of rum raisins onto her ice cream.

“Thank you, Paul. Hmm, that tastes so good! If we get ever get fired, we can sell your delicious rum raisins at the Christmas market.”

Paul laughs out loud as he imagines himself making the ice cream and her selling it. Her, the ex-chancellor, it would be a hit!

“Oh, Henriette, the social problems throughout the Special Forces of the Army and Navy are a constant topic. You have to imagine it like this: these special soldiers are not allowed to tell their families anything, where they go, what they do, where they are coming from. But because they have to talk about it, they talk with their brothers in the barracks. It’s like their safe fortress.”

“Why do the men do it then? Are they some sort of infantile Rambo-types, who, how do they say it these days, find it amazing to shoot someone into oblivion?”

“Sure, of course they want to prove themselves. They are permanently pushed to their physical and mental limits. But Rambo-types, no, Henriette, we don’t want anyone like that and Wolf doesn’t allow such men anyway. We want aggression, of course, but we only take men who can control their aggression. And these three men are also patriots. All three were awarded the Navy Presidential Unit Citation from the U.S. president. It’s a pretty high honor.”

“What for?”

“Marc and his troop sailed into Afghanistan with parachutes about 20 miles into enemy territory and, together with Navy Seals, they saved a group of American soldiers. Since then, they respectfully refer to Marc as “Marc Blitzkrieg.” Of course, they were not able to tell their families about it. The commander also quickly confiscated the medals and stuck them in his cabinet.”