The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [132]
The rest of the half hour was spent going over the records of the exercise. The officers left the room for a larger one, where they would relive the exercise, learning what the Red Team had seen and done. Lieutenant Commander Claggett slowed the Captain down.
"Skipper, you were a little hard on Shaw."
"What do you mean?" Ricks asked in annoyed surprise.
"He didn't make any mistakes. I couldn't have done the track more than thirty seconds faster myself. The quartermaster I had with him has been doing TMAs for five years. He's taught it at sub school. I kept an eye on both of them. They did okay."
"Are you saying the mistake was my fault?" Ricks asked in a deceptively gentle voice.
"Yes, sir," the XO replied honestly, as he had been taught to do.
"Is that a fact?" Ricks walked out the door without another word.
To say that Petra Hassler-Bock was unhappy was an understatement of epic proportions. A woman in her late thirties, she'd lived over fifteen years on the run, hiding from the West German police before things had simply become too dangerous, precipitating her escape to the East Zone - what had been the East Zone, the Bundes Kriminal Ami. investigator smiled to himself. Amazingly, she'd thrived on it. Every photo in the thick file showed an attractive, vital, smiling woman with a girl's unlined face framed by pretty brown hair. This same face had coldly watched three people die, one after several days of knife-work, the detective told himself. That murder had been part of an important political statement - it had been at the time of the vote on whether or not to allow the Americans to base their Pershing-2 and Cruise missiles in Germany, and the Red Army Faction had wanted to terrify people into seeing things their way. It hadn't worked, of course, though it had made the victim's death into a gothic exercise.
"Tell me, Petra, did you enjoy killing Wilhelm Manstein?" the detective asked.
"He was a pig," she answered defiantly. "An overweight, sweaty, whore-mongering pig."
That was how they'd caught him, the detective knew. Petra had set up the kidnapping first by attracting his attention, then by establishing a brief but fiery relationship. Manstein had not been the most attractive example of German manhood, of course, but Petra's idea of women's liberation was rather more robust than the norm in Western countries. The nastiest members of Baader-Meinhof and the RAF had been the women. Perhaps it was a reaction to the Kinder-Kuche-Kirche mindset of German males, as some psychologists said, but the woman before him was the most coldly frightening assassin he'd ever met. The first body parts mailed to Manstein's family had been those which had offended her so greatly. Manstein had lived for ten days after that, the pathologist's report stated, providing noisy red entertainment for this still-young lady.
"Well, you took care of that, didn't you? I imagine Gunther was somewhat unsettled by your passion, wasn't he? After all, you spent - what? Five nights with Herr Manstein before the kidnapping? Did you enjoy that part also, mein Schatz!' The insult scored, the detective saw. Petra had been attractive once, but no longer. Like a flower a day after cutting, she was no longer a living thing. Her skin was sallow, her eyes surrounded by dark rings, and she'd lost at least eight kilos. Defiance blazed out from her, but only briefly. "I expect you did, giving in to him, letting him "do his thing." You must have enjoyed it enough that he kept coming back. It wasn't just baiting him, was it? It could not have been just an act. Herr Manstein was a discerning philanderer. He had so much experience, and he only frequented the most skillful whores. Tell me, Petra, how did you acquire so much skill? Did you practice beforehand with Gunther - or with others? All in the name of revolutionary justice, of course, or revolutionary Komaradschaft, nicht wahr? You are a worthless slut, Petra. Even whores have morals, but not you.
"And your beloved revolutionary cause," the detective