THE PLOT OF EUROPE

Rob Bakker

LetterRijn publishers, Leidschendam, The Netherlands

Although the utmost care has been taken in the preparation of this publication, the author and publisher accept no liability for any errors and omissions, nor for the direct or indirect consequences thereof.

No part of this publication may be published or reproduced without the prior written permission of the publisher, including reproduction by print, offset, photocopy or microfilm or in any digital, electronic, optical or other form or (as appropriate in addition to copyright) reproduce (i) for the benefit of any business, organization or institution or (ii) for personal practice, study or use which is not strictly private in nature.

Any resemblance to actual persons, events, activities, quoted examples or names of persons is purely coincidental

First print, November 2021

© 2021 Rob Bakker

Author: Rob Bakker

Translation: John Knecht a.o.

Editor for USA: Janet Greco

Cover photo: Shutterstock

Graphic design: LetterRijn

Publisher: LetterRijn

www.letterrijn.nl

isbn: 978-94-931922-8-7

Prologue

The former Yugoslavia

A row of three men and three women stood opposite an armed man, a US Army Colt 45 in his hand, obligingly handed over by one of the many soldiers of the UN peace-keeping force whom they had baited and plundered during the past few months. The open eyes of the only woman thirsty to look at him, and the mouth of the weapon were in line. She looked at the other man, who did not move. His face was grooved with many lines that ran down his cheeks, continuing on past his mouth, and his eyes were two glittering slits. A face ravaged by war. She wondered if she were going to scream, she wanted to, but she wondered if she would, and that one second seemed to last an eternity. The slits kept appraising her, and it was deathly quiet under the burning sun.

Higher up on the mountain, unseen and unheard by the woman and man on the narrow path, a camera clicked. The camera was in the hands of one of two UN-soldiers - too far away for any possible action - who watched the region through his tele. Automatically he made the photo. Some action.

The armed man below assessed the situation, looked at his panting prey, then scanned the mountain slopes. His eyes became even narrower slits and the thin mouth curled with amusement and the barrel dropped slightly, a little game of suspense. He shot through her left breast and the dumdum bullet blew a crater in her upper body, pulverizing her heart. She was already dead by the time her back hit the ground. Five quick shots followed, the three men were hit in the crotch and the other two women in the chest. The dum-dum bullets made every wound a deadly one. He turned and walked away. Once he looked back, as if in triumph. He could not hear the camera click again. The first flies were already feeding on the carnage.

‘Jesus! He gunned them down! What the…’

The camera now dangling from his neck, the words of the Dutch UN soldier faltered. His superior officer’s eyes followed his pointing finger, seeing the dead bodies only now.

‘Jesus!’

The photographer picked up his gun, wanting to shoot, but there was nothing to aim at. ‘We have to do something,’ his voice rose despairingly, as his trembling rifle barrel canvassed the jagged cliffs in vain.

‘We are not going to intervene, we’ll do better,’ said his superior grimly, and his warlike, flaring mustache seemed to quiver. ‘We are going to report this.’

Chapter 1

Amsterdam, Day 1, The Assassination

The waiter, pushing a cart carrying an elaborate breakfast for two, made his way through the broad hallways of Le Géant Hotel accompanied by the Chief Police Commissioner of Amsterdam, now in charge of European Coordination, and an alert security agent. Their footsteps were muffled by the thick carpets, in which many a rock star had left his immortal footprints – and God only knows what else. For this occasion the Commissioner had found a suitable uniform with enough gold braid and insignias to enable his reflection to nod in the morning mirror and say: ‘You can do it.’ Outwardly he now appeared calm, but he was nervous about the general security precautions for the European Summit Conference now taking place. Despite public criticism of the rigid security measures during the previous Summit, when hundreds of people were unjustly picked up and detained, security measures this year were more extensive than ever.

However, that was not the most important reason for Commissioner Cordduwer’s nervousness. It was the breakfast he would be having with the German Federal Chancellor, whose room they were now heading toward. Flying in the face of protocol, this meeting was, but that didn’t worry the vain Commissioner. If the German Federal Chancellor let it be known through friendly German-Dutch police channels that he would like a word in private with a Dutch Chief Police Commissioner for European Coordination, a little fact-finding mission, nobody was going to stand in his way. Naturally the Commissioner had informed the Minister who was in charge, but the man could only shrug his shoulders in resignation, realizing that there were no adequate guidelines for this kind of situation. The Dutch Minister had sighed, but go ahead, do as you please.

The minister sighed for good reason: Commissioner Cordduwer was regarded by more than one person as an unguided missile, led by vanity alone, and that was simply not enough, even for a politician. The minister’s sighs and the Commissioner’s nerves – however decorated with honors he might be - stemmed from The Sensitive Topic on Summit’s agenda. There were two main items on the agenda: a far-reaching decision which eventually would lead to the Federation of Europe and The Sensitive Topic, the formation of a European Court of Justice.

That Europe was being shoved down the people’s throats in bits and pieces was nothing new: European money, the European Central Bank and so on and so forth. The product Europe was being introduced in separate components - first the wheels, then the windshield wipers and the trunk and next the motor and the steering wheel, and before people knew it they were traveling in a European car against their will. Nobody ever asked them if they wanted a European car. Where’s my American convertible?

But the Commissioner didn’t have such thoughts. He was already riding in a beautiful black European limousine. Just the same, he was nervous. He was aware of the protests against a European police force, the Europol. Misplaced, of course, because Holland would be the seat of that Europol and the present government considered this a diplomatic success. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, Dutch politicians had learned. Still, protests were vehement and who would bear the brunt of the Chancellor’s annoyance? The Commissioner in his best regalia.

Despite his eccentric outward appearance - round head with nut-brown eyes and the wrong attire – Commissioner Cordduwer wasn’t crazy. He knew what kind of pressure the Chancellor would exert on him and he was acquainted with the nervousness of the Dutch population when it came to surrendering national powers to vague international bodies. Like the dreaded word ‘cancer’, which has spawned so many synonyms and acronyms, the Federation of Europe had acquired many evasive synonyms in order to disguise the fact that the F.E. was not a Federation. The initials F.E! – with an exclamation point – were adopted enthusiastically by opponents of the Federation of Europe to protest a body they considered cancerous, using the F word for Federation. There was even a popular international hit called F.E! and its popularity was not only due to its musical virtue. F.E! had become just as popular as the V for Victory. Even his own granddaughter sang the song at the top of her lungs and she took part in demonstrations, too.

The hallway in Le Géant Hotel seemed long to the Commissioner, long enough to dwell upon what urgent questions a Federal Chancellor might put to him at eight o’clock in the morning. ‘Tell me, why wouldn’t the people feel safe with a European police force protecting them?’ That question coming from the mouth of a German would be difficult to answer without insulting such an important guest, the Commissioner felt. He didn’t like to insult important guests. Bad for business.

When Germany and France jointly supported the proposal for a European police force, nothing seemed to stand in the way of implementing the idea. But there was still one more barrier: the decision had to be upheld by a general majority. And this was putting poor Holland in an awkward position at the Summit. Now that it held the Chair, it would be impolite to block the resolution all alone; there should be at least one other opposing vote. Perhaps it was no coincidence that this sensitive resolution – to which the Dutch raised the greatest opposition – was to be voted upon at the summit that Holland was hosting. Didn’t the little country behind the dikes have the reputation of going to practically any lengths to oblige?

Cordduwer himself had no fundamental objections to the Europol. You had to be able to adapt to the new European order. But what did the Chancellor want of him? The conversation would center on this subject; that was certain. What did he want?

The little party of men had reached the door of the Federal Chancellor’s suite. In front of the door were two vigilant bodyguards, machine-guns in hand, a German and a Dutchman. The Dutchman was an accommodating gesture from Weber, the courteous German Commander. The two seemed superfluous considering the fact that the entire floor was hermetically sealed off and all entryways were guarded by security agents. As was the entire hotel, to the point of hysteria. No one could enter unseen. Dutch security, German security, and French security guaranteed it. The French President slept beneath this safe roof also - the symbol of French-German unity. The Géant, formerly so very Dutch and at one time the city hall, was now a French possession. And of course the Federal Chancellor slept in the best suite, formerly the room of the mayor himself. Only the red-light district behind the hotel and the ‘coffee shops’ selling hash and marijuana betrayed the fact that all this French grandeur was situated in Dutch territory.

One of the two bodyguards - the German, not entirely without coincidence - knocked on the door and waited politely a moment. The little party – the waiter, the Commissioner and their security escort - stood at a proper distance from the door. Only after some hesitation did the German give a second, more insistent knock. The Chancellor’s temper in the morning was notorious. No sound came. He took the risk of a third knock. No reaction.

The German guard coughed in embarrassment, took a deep breath, he had to do his job, and now drummed firmly on the door, calling out: ‘Herr Kanzler.’ He had expected an irate thunderstorm, not the silence that followed.

After deliberating somewhat, the guard summoned up all his courage and gently turned the doorknob. The room was not locked, of course. It might be necessary to gain access quickly for security reasons, and no one would dream of taking that liberty without well-founded reason. Slowly he pushed the door open and knocked once more on the beautiful wooden paneling. ‘Herr Kanzler?’

The door was wide open, giving the curious heads a clear view of the room and the bed to the right, behind the library corner. The Chancellor lay on his back in bed, stretched out at full length. But the proposed conversation would never take place. In the buzzing silence, they gazed upon the impossible: the gigantic torso naked, the sheets red, and the mouth open wide in a soundless scream that would never be heard. A large knife stood upright in his gut, making a dot, as it were, at the conclusion of the gruesome marks carved diagonally across the Chancellor’s chest. The blood flowing from the carved marks thickened the letters they formed: ‘F.E,’ followed by a cruel, bloody exclamation point dotted by the knife.

In the first few seconds the silence in the room and the hallway was deafening. The security men trained their guns, more out of habit than to aim at a non-existent target and they looked all over the place, dumbfounded, but there was nothing.

The waiter, at least, had some presence of mind: ‘Call the police,’ he stammered.

‘I am the police,’ said Commissioner Cordduwer, but of course he was totally confused again.

Chapter 2

The Friends of Peace, before the Assassination

There was also a shadow European Summit that had taken place that autumn, and there was not one journalist to be seen. There were no barricaded streets or demonstrating shopkeepers angrily brandishing their fists, for protests were conspicuously absent. Also absent were weldedshut manhole covers and the circus of shrill sirens and flashing lights enacted by overzealous motorcycle cops every time a map of Amsterdam was forgotten and had to be retrieved for the second assistant to the first speaker of one of the advisors to the French President.

This was an unofficial and very secret Summit of the people behind the screens, not the chosen politicians. The Summit had no name. But no secret can survive decades, and on occasion it had been obliquely referred to by the outside world as ‘The Lodge.’ Journalists love nothing better than a lodge. But participants of long standing preferred that this term not be used by third parties. The German and French members sometimes used it among themselves a summit has it own small élite but the preferred term was ‘The Friends.’ Freunden vom Frieden, Les Amis de la Paix, Friends of Peace.

This autumn Summit was situated in the Germanspeaking section of the Alsace, and for good reason; if you needed personnel you could trust completely, who would never betray your secrets, you had to stay off the French side steer clear of France altogether, in fact, although Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg would do. As would Switzerland, but if you have something to hide, convening there would only call attention to that fact. The German Alsace would suffice.

For this Summit the entire castlecumhotel had been rented - unheard of in October, a stunning time of year in the Alsace with its superb wines and prime hunting. Normally the castle had to be reserved a year in advance, and only because those attending were all important people with equally important schedules did the organizers take the same precaution. A single phone call by the owner, who was also the proprietor of a large international, yet very French, chain of hotels, was sufficient to acquire all desired rooms for the summit weekend, free of charge. The invitations had not been issued in writing, but had traveled via special messengers operating in strictest confidentiality. The Summit had no protocol, no founding statutes, and most importantly, no written agenda. Ever since its founding during the Second World War, the agenda had always been Europe and European peace. Peace was a noble aim, but the conventionally accepted means by which to achieve it left most of the participants cold, one good reason for shrouding the meetings in airtight secrecy, a lesson learned the hard way during the Summit’s 75-plus years of existence.

The hotel had its own private access to the station and nearby airport with its own shuttle service. But the shuttle was not used; instead, anonymous and rather subduedlooking limousines collected the sundry guests, who preferred to keep their own chauffeurs entirely in the dark about such meetings. The odd guest made his own way, such as the Dutch former Prime Minister who surprised one and all by arriving with a racing bike on the roof of his car, yet another reminder that no one need take this ‘nether land’ too seriously should the impulse ever arise.

The Summit was pan-European with a German-French accent and had a high Roman Catholic content: as such it recreated the structure of the European ideal during the Holy Roman Empire in the Middle Ages. But it was not presented as such, but rather couched in more palatable formulae such as ‘peace’ and ‘cooperation.’ The history of The Friends began in the most roaring part of the twentieth century. Its composition had changed over the decades, but its reason for existence and ideas remained the same. The germ of its existence could be traced to the Second World War, specifically after the Battle of Stalingrad in December 1942, when the Russian armies decided to stop retreating and stand their ground, after which they encircled the Sixth German Army and, aided by bitter winter weather, soundly defeated them.

It had all started with two Alsatian families whose vast estates bordered at various points. Like two winegrowers having a chat across the hedge, they began a dialogue motivated primarily by practical considerations: war hurt business. In addition to their vast estates, these prominent families were at the helm of a portion of the steel and coal industries and the emerging oil industry, and those who figured in these primary sectors of national importance also figured in the war and had access to its makers. Although in principle war could be highly profitable to these sectors, in practice it was peace that netted greater gains at lower cost, and without the loss of too many human lives. It was a truth quite like those that apply to making prime wines. And thus the two founding fathers, each from his own imperium, discussed peace and the division of power. Power is like fine wine: he who dispenses it takes care not to spill, and pours for a select group so as not to weaken the effect. Democracy had proven to be a powerless host.

The first dialogue was based on this shared premise and led eventually to an unavoidable conclusion: this war too would end. And after Stalingrad, the German branch was prepared to acknowledge that this war would have no winners, at the time a compelling reason to talk in secret.

The Friends were in overwhelming agreement that European peace could only be secured on the basis of a German-French axis. Given time, both could learn to trust in this collaboration. Mentally they were already ripe for it, judging by the impeccable cooperation between the Germans and French during the former Vichy regime in unoccupied southern France. To be secured, peace and cooperation had to be based on equality; this was the only way in which to put an end to two centuries of European wars. The remaining European countries, this much was clear, would have to anchor themselves to this axis for stability, become a part of the tapestry of a new Europe.

England was in a category by herself, about this the partners were in agreement. At the time the island was still playing its global role, but after the war it would be permitted to pull up a chair or not, as may be the case to the European table. After all, this was to be a European Europe, not a Europe under the supervision of the AngloSaxons, which included the mutually disliked Americans.

War causes acceleration in all areas. The German and French families spoke frequently and each gathered a supportive network of industrialists, merchants and politicians; the uniting and driving force here was not political ideals -- much too explosive -- but practical considerations like postwar reconstruction.

The think tank, as it would be called today, was not to be looked upon as a resistance group, and no objectives were defined in that direction. It started out with exchanging ideas and discovering what it was that inspired trust in the other, and what gave rise to suspicion. When an idea found mutual support, it was shared and propagated. In those dangerous times, the dissemination of such an idea amounted to creating a confidential circle: ideas were a dangerous commodity in dictatorial Germany and occupied France.

No program, no points of action, no governing structure. During those perilous years the group grew under adverse circumstances, warily, elusively, its structure consisting solely of multiple talks, gatherings of small groups with shared interests, the driving force behind it the German-French Friends. Violation of secrecy meant the death penalty and the disclosure of the ideas would also have meant death - death of the idea.

It was during those perilous years that The Lodge of Friends assumed its cloak of secrecy, which was to remain an essential characteristic. Secrecy, working in silence behind the scenes. Ideas were developed into concrete goals and goals in turn called for action, but The Lodge was not to become an action group. If it had, it would never have survived the war; treason and opportunism were rife in all strata of the German and French populations. The Lodge itself never acted in the capacity of executor; it had no apparatus of its own, issued no direct orders. It merely created the conditions that could lead to a new situation. The power of the spoken word was supreme: consult with friend and enemy alike, keep all contacts open and reap the benefits. Take the time, be patient.

As the war years progressed and America joined the arena, the German-French partners arrived at the critical and perilous conclusion that consensus on the Western front was unavoidable if they were to make a collective Western fist against the advancing Russian hordes. The Friends clearly saw that the West would never accept a truce with Hitler in the saddle, yet a truce was necessary if they were to escape destruction at the hands of the barbarians from the East, the Huns. The Friends arrived at a dire conclusion: Hitler had to be ousted. A sacrifice had to be made. The year was 1944.

With utmost discretion, The Friends consulted their extensive network in search of alternatives for Hitler, and for a Western regime that the Allies would accept as their representative willing to capitulate. Their contacts even reached as far as that camp, and were utilized with the greatest prudence to explore the possibility of peace talks.

The Friends discovered to their great displeasure that doing business directly with the Allies was simply not an option. ‘Seeing is believing.’ The Friends realized that Germany had to make this sacrifice just to open up dialogue with the Allies. As treacherous as it might be, the idea of deposing Hitler was not theirs exclusively, The Friends learned.

As The Friends always left the execution of their plans to other social or military groups, they looked, not without reason, to the young colonels: there was a young group under Von Stauffenberg that took offense to the ‘yes men’ generals under Hitler. There were exceptions, such as the renowned General Rommel. But by and large, the generals had been in league with Hitler too long and owed too much to him to have the strength to turn against him. In addition, the distrust and embitterment that the Allies felt for the clique of generals was so great that they would never accept them as negotiators of peace on behalf of the ‘Thousand Year Reich’ that they themselves had helped defeat. So The Friends attempted to construct a new network that would serve the interests of the potentially rebellious colonels.

With the help of The Friends, minds were primed to respond adequately should der Führer meet a particular fate. It was a matter of timing, when the moment came, to have the proper divisions in the proper place to ensure that the power vacuum was filled by someone other than the feared and loathed Nazi clique. At the time, all these thoughts, cautious talks and cautious pledges by generals such as Rommel amounted to high treason.

Von Stauffenberg’s bomb exploded on 20 July 1944. Hitler came away with only minor wounds, and in his hysteria made the mistake of immediately ordering the Gestapo to string up as many conspirators as possible. Otherwise he could possibly have had the perpetrator tracked down, starting with the executor and working back. But Hitler had no time for patience; paranoia had cast its shadow over him, and this in effect kept The Friends out of harm’s way. But they knew they had blown their chance and that their last desperate contacts with the Allies, had been frustrated.

The English wanted one thing only, and that was capitulation. After Roosevelt uttered the term ‘unconditional surrender’ The Lodge had to learn, and swallow, its first lesson. A most unsatisfying conclusion that only reinforced prejudices on the side of the Germans and the French against the pigheaded AngloSaxons: impossible to talk to.

It would explain The Lodge’s antipathy toward the AngloSaxons until long after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989: the East German provinces would never have been lost to the Communists if negotiations had only been held earlier. It also underscored the conviction that only a continental Europe resting upon a German-French axis stood a chance of survival in the future.

The Friends survived the war, and partly as a consequence of the attack, managed to keep up the network’s standards, expand it and amass unwritten authority. On occasion, postwar German and French politicians would join the ranks of this informal body; young, talented politicians could also count on the support and esteem of The Friends. The Lodge was more than an animator of European union. It had an integral role in its very inception through its industrialist contacts and, as such, in the European Coal and Steel Community. This later spawned the European Economic Community, the predecessor and trailblazer of the European Union. And slowly but surely it was expanded into a political union, the beginning of a definitive route to German-French rule. It started with the introduction of a common currency and the tide was right for the Friends. When East and West Germany were merged after the fall of the wall, Germany could be put under French pressure to arrive at a common currency in the future. Giving up the hard Deutsche Mark for the new euro was the sacrifice the Germans had to make in exchange for a reunification of East and West. This made the road to political union irreversible. Borders would disappear and more and more European policy was introduced every year from the European central Commission, step by step but unavoidable for the European partners. Former Balkan countries were involved and the participation of the small countries was watered down. They were satisfied with that as long as the prominent leaders from those small countries were recruited. Every politician willingly sacrificed a piece of control over his own country for his own ego.

And the future now began to roll out at will, as if of its own accord: England left the European Union, much to the delight of the Friends. America turned away from Europe, which significantly weakened the great post-war transatlantic alliance and Europe had to stand on its own two feet, that is to say: a German and a French leg. The European countries held on to each other with the illusion that this made them more solid in their 27-member division. Collective pressure from Brussels increased year by year. Individual countries had no answer to this and national legislation was increasingly subordinated to European legislation. The Friends could now reap what had been sown in three quarters of a century. Charlemagne’s ancient empire, once split into east and west, would once again take the place of previously divided Europe. France had coveted European power under Napoleon in the past, Germany had tried with Hitler, but the key to success was a combination of both countries, forging in peace.

How far it had come!

That weekend the spacious and exquisite drawing room of the Alsace hotel rang with heartfelt compliments and congratulations on the shadow Summit, and the satisfaction expressed seemed to lend a glow to the very surroundings, among them the choicest panels and crystal chandeliers in all of Europe. This glow was reflected in the exquisite cut crystal glasses and carafes and sparked an exalted smile on the face of the Dutch representative, who had just gratefully received a compliment for the Dutch Summit. ‘Holland has done splendidly.’ Of course.

When the Netherlands chaired, one factor could always be counted upon: the small pragmatic nation could disengage itself, even make concessions in the greater interest of a successful summit. For this reason, truly important decisions were inevitably made in the Netherlands or one of the other small European countries: Belgium or Luxembourg. Important decisions called for important compromises, and no really big nation is willing to reach a compromise on the soil of the country with which it is negotiating. The Benelux countries, though, were happy to oblige if the situation so demanded: the honor went to them, the loot to the big country.

It was a summit in the near future and it was a tricky issue: the European fight against crime. Within the Union it had been agreed, despite Dutch protests in front of the stage, that there would be a European uniform anti-drug abuse regime. And that had to be enforced by the European police organization: Europol. The Netherlands could be headquartered, but Europol could investigate internationally and prosecute before the European court. That meant surrendering an important part of sovereignty. Germany and France had already wholeheartedly agreed, the Dutch tolerance of drugs had been a thorn in the side of both countries for some time. This also applies to the Scandinavian countries. Even the Balkan states could agree because what they had with it went east and not west. But the Netherlands was a different story. Almost all Dutch crime was run on drugs, an estimated black economy of twenty billion euros per year. If Europol was allowed to intervene independently in the Netherlands, no one could be sure of his life, not in the underworld as well as in the whitewashed upper world. The Netherlands persisted in its rejection for a while, stating that it could take care of its own safety and that something must go very wrong somewhere if it wanted to deviate from it.

The Friends knew that international peace did not automatically lead to democracy or vice versa. And wasn’t democracy more for internal use? On an international level it had yet to prove its worth.

Chapter 3

Amsterdam, Day 1

Commissioner Cordduwer was shoved roughly aside by the security agents who flooded into the room from the hallway. They too were confronted with the impossible, the unbelievable, and after many seconds of denial, were struck by naked fear. This was followed by a collective pulling of weapons, but there was no visible enemy to fend off. It was quiet in the room: no devastation, no havoc, no traces of a struggle. Only this, the one utterly unthinkable scenario, entirely impossible. The carnage on the bed was an optical illusion.

Panic filled the air, electrified it. Three hands simultaneously produced cell phones and pressed panic buttons, alerting the German and Dutch security forces. The dazed agents moved through the room slowly, entirely unprofessionally. They pulled open cabinets with their weapons at the ready; kicked in the bathroom door: nothing; roughly flung open all the other doors: nothing; gave the closed window a sharp tug: nothing. Their training went no further.

Then salvation arrived from the hallway in a rush of shouting, rapidly advancing footsteps that thundered audibly even upon the thick pile carpets. Suddenly the room was packed with grimfaced men wielding machine pistols and shouting. Granted, the Germans were first, then the Dutch. More bellowing issued from a protesting German personal physician fighting in vain for space at the Chancellor’s bedside. The room was full to the bursting point. Gradually a group consciousness crystallized, a command rang out; finally someone had taken charge. The shouts died down and slowly the men formed a silent stunned circle around the bed. Nothing more could be done. There was no screenplay to consult.

When the initial alarm sounded, not only did guards storm up to the Chancellor’s room, they also sprinted for the chamber occupied by Le Président. The bewildered man was dragged from his bed and, enmeshed in an impenetrable human wall, was borne off to the parking garage, then hastily deposited in a limousine that tore away in a squeal of rubber, surrounded by a fleet of motorcycles with flashing lights and shrieking sirens. Within five minutes the frantic procession was trapped behind a chugging delivery truck on a narrow canal street. That situation was remedied.

The hotel thundered with the rush of feet. Security forces trained weapons on all doors and emergency exits to prevent passage into or out of the building. The hotel personnel began to mill about in panic. Deserting their stations, they sought communal cover in the lobby.

After storming the rooms of the German Chancellor and the French President, the officers burst into the rooms occupied by the second echelon, powerful figures in their own right. Aside from catching one diplomat redhanded with an under-aged redhaired girl, they found nothing out of the ordinary. Eventually it came to an end: the rushing along the corridors, the flinging open of doors, the threatening pointing of guns at curtains, the kicking in of bathroom doors. The entire hotel had been covered and the men were waiting for reinforcements from outside. Their arrival was heralded by deafeningly shrill sirens. Squad after squad emptied from hastily parked vehicles, the men in bulletproof vests, helmets, carrying machine pistols. These troops too invaded the hotel, and for a moment it seemed that the previous exercise would be repeated.

But there was Weber.

A hard and grimfaced German, postwar generation, he was accompanied by his second-in-command Schnellinger, who called to mind an old bloodhound. Weber shouted several commands and all fell silent. He listened to the story and, where anyone else would have rushed to his Chancellor’s room, first carefully appraised the situation. Observing the chaos in the hotel, it was clear to him that the search had been conducted in the same chaotic fashion. It would have to be done over, systematically and without anyone being able to evade the search party. Second, a forensics team had to be called to the room immediately, and more importantly: the time of the murder had to be determined. The murderer, or murderers, must still be in this city, this neighborhood, maybe this hotel. Third, the staff. Weber sighed. He was sure that everyone had moved from the position they were in at the time the murder was discovered, meaning that anyone could have been anywhere without a valid explanation. This meant that the entire staff was suspect and would have to be confined, certainly prevented from leaving the hotel. Fourth, they had to take to the streets this very minute and scour every inch of the surrounding area, seal off the city and make increasingly large concentric sweeps from this spot to... to where? Fifth, Weber sighed again and looked around for the Dutch commander: who was in charge? He knew that he wanted to be, but reminded himself that he was on Dutch soil - get the matter squared away for the sake of speed. He consulted with the Dutch commander, and shortly after that mixed squads swarmed out into the streets, each under the command of a Dutchman, every German with his weapon poised, finger on the trigger. The Dutch agents pointed the way, and starting at the hotel, the men systematically stormed the canals; scoured Dam Square; occupied the bridges; stormed the notorious redlight district where drunk stragglers from the previous night and earlyrising pastyfaced office workers sought paid pleasures. Following at a slow pace were squad members who suspiciously peered through all windows, from living rooms to bars and coffee shops, and barged into prostitutes’ cubicles, using force where necessary and searching everywhere. A steady flow of men came from the direction of the hotel, and buses dispatched from other strategic squares began disgorging men who occupied intersections and checked cars and their drivers, deaf to the profanities that rose from the entire city and setting the tone for the worst mass traffic jam Amsterdam and environs had ever known. The city awoke under occupation.

It was a squad behind the vanguard, which had been proceeding slowly, the peering men scanning the unlit windows of the closed hash bars with vigilant distrust, that came across the seated figure. The squad had almost passed by. A drugged figure propped against a wall was not an unusual sight, and the handful of vagrants and junkies circling him like vultures added the finishing touch to the picture of serene innocence in this metropolis. It was by chance that one of the last German commandos momentarily slowed to take in the sight, then came to a stunned halt. His eye was drawn to the left pocket of the drugged figure’s shabby black blazer, and what he saw raised a red alert. Protruding from the pocket was a white cloth stained with dark red, unmistakably blood. He whistled softly, and the last two men in the squad turned. The whistle seemed to rouse the man from his stupor and he looked up in alarm. Two staring eyes, drugged to the hilt and with dilated pupils, but registering panic nonetheless. The commando automatically raised his gun, a gesture that seemed to unleash the chain of events that the German commander would later think back on in frustration. The sitting junkie made a failed attempt at a groan, and his hand went to his right pocket; the commando cried out a warning in German, and the hand reappeared clasping a whopping automatic pistol. A split second later the weapon’s reports were echoing against the quaint canal houses and bullets sprayed in all directions, mortally wounding the commando. Adrenalin searing through their veins, the entire squad reacted with lightning speed. Two stragglers opened fire, another commando was hit, and simultaneous volleys spewed from scores of machine pistols. The merciless crossfire swept the junkie from the building and hurled two nearby vagrants screaming and spouting blood against the wall, a third took a bullet to the back and rolled over the street and into the canal, sending up a dark red plume in the murky water.

The squad leader had to bellow three commands before the fire ceased. A deathly silence descended over the canal, with five dead sprawled grotesquely on the sidewalk and one in the water. Trembling, the commander walked over to the carnage and peered down at the culprit. He too saw the bloodied cloth poking out of the blazer pocket and gingerly drew it out with his fingertips to protect it from the rivulets of blood running over the body. He stared at the cloth in his hand, unmistakably a napkin. In one corner, embroidered elegantly in gold, were the words ‘Hotel Le Géant.’

Police and security troops came in thick and fast from all sides and formed an impenetrable wall around the bloodied scene on the canal street. The wail of ambulances drew near, but the commander kept a cool head: no lives to save here. ‘Forensics!’ he ordered, and moments later several men were meticulously and methodically collecting evidence. They took photographs; forced their way into the nearby coffee shop only to find it empty; lifted fingerprints from countless surfaces; placed every thread in a plastic bag; examined the wallets of the dead gunman and the vagrants. They barricaded the street, and other squads continued the search along the canals. No one assumed that the attack on the Chancellor had been solved. People were looking for something, but no one knew what or who.

Chapter 4

Amsterdam, Jonas Goldhagen

Jonathan -‘Jonas’ - Goldhagen saw the big news on CNN in his Amsterdam hotel room. His career in New York and these past months with the Tribunal had prepared him for a lot, hardened him. But he knew with bitter certainty he would never grow used to this kind of shock.

So it was always possible, could happen anywhere at any time. Dallas, Memphis, Jerusalem, Amsterdam. Nothing ever changed. Dutch soil was not exempt.

It had been two months since the American prosecuting attorney Jonathan Goldhagen had joined the Yugoslavia Tribunal. The Tribunal would have been dissolved long ago, but the United Nations, feeling the tiniest twinge of conscience, kept the institute running via the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, IRMCT) of The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT).

Goldhagen wanted to dedicate the final years of his active service as a New York City Public Prosecutor to international jurisprudence, focusing of course on his specific area of expertise: prosecution. He was in his fifties and had an illustrious career behind him in the raw Big Apple. He answered crime with its own vernacular, and in his own way. This had netted him plenty of results and a fair number of reprimands. The respect he earned from the underworld was certainly matched by the reverence his own men felt for him.

He left the hotel and was assailed by an atmosphere of panic, agitation, the scent of danger, made more acute by the feigned nonchalance of the cab drivers, the professional calm of the numerous police officers. The first wave of horror had passed. Rumors that the offender had been caught rang in the streets, but the battle configuration of the ant colony had been irrevocably shattered; nothing was as it seemed, everyone was milling about on the streets. He slept in this overgrown village, as did several of his colleagues, to afford himself in any event a physical distance from his exhausting daytime duties. Every day he took the train from Amsterdam’s Central Station to The Hague, the official seat of the Tribunal, often encountering in his compartment equally stressed and frustrated colleagues and judges.

Goldhagen arrived in Holland as yet another successor to the latest in a long line of frustrated examining magistrates. He accepted the stack of files in silence and listened to his predecessor’s complaints. He heard the man’s fury at what he had been unable to accomplish, at the data the allied governments had refused to provide, at the solitary battle against bureaucracy and political opportunism. Fury at his own failure, for like most of the men who had held this post, he had arrived brimming with ideals and was leaving emptyhanded.

There was one difference: Goldhagen had not arrived with ideals; he had come to wage war, and every unfinished file was his enemy. His departing colleague pointed to a small stack of files. ‘I call that my black stack. Personally, I think they should be looked into, but there’s no sound legal basis for it, nothing to trace. These characters are the lowest of the low, though. But rotten individuals don’t make practical court cases. Rotten in the extreme. And anonymous in the extreme.’

‘Do you have any advice for me?’ asked Goldhagen, with uncharacteristic modesty.

‘Loads,’ his colleague blurted out. ‘But the three most important things to bear in mind are: don’t get emotional or personal, admit when you’ve been defeated and...’ The man fell silent.

‘Yes?’

‘Nab them! For God’s sake, forget points one and two and nab whoever you can.’ The man smiled. ‘Maybe that’s why I have to leave. ‘

Goldhagen shook the man’s hand warmly. ‘I’ll begin with point three and end with point three.’

The man nodded. ‘They call you the American pit bull. Quite refreshing, I’d say. Point four: watch out for the French.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘No what’s or how’s, just watch out for them. They’re in cahoots with the Serbs.’

Goldhagen chuckled. ‘Do you know where the word ‘service’ comes from?’ he asked.

‘America, I assume?’ asked his puzzled colleague.

‘From the Latin servire, and that is related to serbian, the Serbs were always slaves to the Romans, they fought in their legions.’

‘That explains their bloodthirsty nature. How do you know such things?’

‘War,’ Goldhagen said simply, as though that could be considered an explanation. Goldhagen had always been in the front line, and he had not applied for this international position with a mind to taking things easy: he believed firmly in the administration of international justice; he wanted to believe in it.

Goldhagen knew he would first have to go through his predecessor’s normal files, the files that stood a good chance of leading to prosecution and indictment. Those files were also in the possession of the judges, and Goldhagen’s new colleagues brought him up to date on these individuals. The judges were of various nationalities and each nationality had its own pet ideas and opportunistic inclinations. At the beginning of the Yugoslavia Tribunal this had not been the case, but unfortunately, everything that drags on for years eventually becomes politicized. There was also a female judge among them, and all the colleagues were in agreement that she was a bitch, a manhater, and a bitch again to top it off! Nevertheless, she was held in awe by the prosecuting attorneys. Goldhagen recognized this. The entry of female officers and judges might be further along in New York than in the old world, but their presence was still similarly disputed. Justice was a man’s world. Goldhagen always got on well with his female opponents: they were a bit harder, a bit more black and white, a bit more inclined to draw a sharp conclusion instead of a wishywashy compromise. He liked that. But they were opponents nonetheless, because Goldhagen did not like to lose.

The first files Goldhagen took back to his hotel room were the ‘black’ ones, the anonymous stack. He had experience with anonymous files.

It became habit for Goldhagen to take the most anonymous of the anonymous ‘black files’ home with him, and it was not unusual for him to corner a colleague the next day with the most detailed and outlandish questions. In these cases he would have spent an evening poring over numerous files in search of a common thread, which could lead to a person, to an identification - and identification meant a new case.

Tribunal employees spent their days trying to attach names and faces to war crimes, which was how Goldhagen looked for evidence, attempting new combinations using the copious data from the many files. It was like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle consisting largely of sky: sometimes two pieces fit together, and little by little the portrait of a perpetrator began to take shape. Using this method, Goldhagen caught wind of a new trail, a perpetrator defined by certain acts, but without a face or name. What struck him at once, making him aware of his hypersensitivity to it, had been a specific method of killing. He thought of his grandfather, executed after surrender in WOII and realized he was waging a personal war.

‘One more anonymous file,’ thought Goldhagen grimly. But this was now his anonymous file. He had to sift through other events, other names and track down this individual, a man who operated on his own. But even this anonymous lone wolf must have a family, a place of birth, a tribe, a wife perhaps, friends, fellow combatants. A number of files had information on men who had been murdered in an identical fashion: a dumdum bullet to the crotch. One single bullet in each case. Goldhagen had learned that killers with a method, a signature as it were, usually belonged to the most savage and bloodthirsty category, and took pride in their work. Weaving together the many details in the stack of anonymous files, Goldhagen started a new file. Concrete details and less concrete details. He wanted to construct a portrait of a killer. This pursuit led him to ask his colleague, a database expert, a question that made the man’s eyes widen in bewilderment. Only since the millennium had the database system on Yugoslavia existed in a complete and integrated form. Four years too late.

‘Keep it in mind for a future war: get everything stored in a database system,’ suggested Goldhagen.

But it wasn’t to work that way. Official registration requires a response, a political decision, and that puts every database at least four years behind. Goldhagen knew he had to trust in the oldfashioned investigation methods, the same methods underlying his own reputation as public prosecutor: ask yourself questions, spur the detectives on, lead the pack of hounds yourself. But this was different: there was no pack of hounds, there was no budget, no adequate reporting, no this, no that.

In the first few weeks, Goldhagen had been irritated by an approach that in most cases amounted to routine. He understood that staff motivation had been dulled by the misery of the subject matter and the uninspired contributions by the other UN authorities. And dulled by time, too: hadn’t it all happened years ago?

But Jonas did not calculate in terms of time; this he had learned in his youth. A life was a life, a perpetrator a perpetrator. Unwilling to accept the lack of fervor at his office, he took up his puny new file and approached his colleague who dealt with the database. After his first introduction to the compactly built, pudgy man in a checked blazer, brown pants and brown shoes a nightmare in American eyes a fine rapport quickly grew between the two.

‘So you’re the cowboy?’