A blast from the past

[Eiffelland]

23 October 2025
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland

Bastian Holzbrenner looked around him. He was in an abandoned and stripped office building from the 1960s, together with a lot of people. They had squatted the building. He was here together with the far-left group he was a member of 15 years ago. But this was not a democratic Eiffelland. This was a dictatorship. And Bastian and his friends were fighting against it.
Everybody was talking. The building was crowded. The sound of talking people was everywhere. Everybody felt that the police was on its way, and everybody was determined to stand his ground. It was time for revolution.
“Come, let’s barricade the entrance,” somebody said. Bastian and his friends walked down the stairs. The elevators didn’t work.
Then he realised that he had to go to work at the RND the next day, and he hadn’t told anyone where he was. Not even Christoph. Furthermore, because of his leg problem, he wasn’t allowed to do this kind of work. He wasn’t allowed to carry items which were heavier than five kilograms, and he was definitely not allowed to fight. How had he landed here?

Bastian woke up. He was lying in his bed, naked, spooning his husband Christoph. He realised that he had dreamt. About his friends from 15 years ago. About the far-left group he was a member of 15 years ago. People he lost contact with during his revalidation in 2011 and 2012. He hadn’t thought about them for years. And suddenly he dreamt about them. Why?
He turned around and grabbed his Nichsdorf Lumin smartphone to check the time. 03:06. The alarm clock function would go off in three hours. They needed to go to work today; Bastian at the internet department of the RND, and Christoph at Rathenau Militärausrüstung, where he worked on new military drones.
Bastian got out of bed, went to the toilet, emptied his bladder, returned to the bedroom, crouched into bed, and started to spoon Christoph again. After five minutes, he fell back asleep.


31 October 2025
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
“I was 11 years old when the Fischer‑Bienenhof‑Gruppe committed its first assault,” retiring secret agent Kasper Hoffmann said during his goodbye speech on his last working day as RND officer. “Or like they called themselves, the Rote Befreiungarmee. It started with a fire-raising in a Raimer factory on 22 April 1970. Then a cascade of bank robberies, bomb assaults and murders followed, until Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines were arrested on 18 March 1972.”

Seventeen days ago, Kasper Hoffmann turned 67. Soldiers, police officers and secret agents usually retire at age 60 in Eiffelland, but Kasper Hoffmann had volunteered to continue working in desk functions after that to obtain a higher pension. During his military service, he was noticed by some officials from the military secret service. Hoffmann had always been part of the department for far left extremism of the Reichsnachrichtendienst (RND).
Today was the day of his retirement party. A party that was also attended by Bastian.

“All of them were sentenced to life imprisonment. But like you all know, that wasn’t the end of the story …”


8 April 1976
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
The Jungfernheide is a forest in the Northwest of Fehrbellin. It used to be a hunting area for the Royal Family of Eiffelland, until in the beginning of the 1900s the southeastern half was turned into a military exercise terrain. In 1952, the army decided to abandon the area, after which the city council decided to turn it into a business district. Construction works started in 1955, and the first skyscraper was finished in 1962. More and more followed. In 1976, twothirds of the Jungfernheide had been turned into skyscrapers. The northwestern third remained a forest or park.
It was in this area, Geschäftsviertel Tegel, or shortly Tegel, where the Fuger Bank had its headquarters. Also the Eiffellandian stock exchange had its headquarters there, as well as many Eiffellandian banks. Oscar Fuger, head of the family behind the Fuger Bank and CEO of the Fuger Bank, phoned his driver Uwe Schwenke that he wanted to go home. Then he put his coat on, took his attache case, left his office, and took the elevator to the basement of the office building, where the parking garage was situated.
In the basement, Schwenke held the right back door open while he got in. One minute later, the car left the garage.

The normal routine was, that Schwenke would drive to the Fuger family villa in Zehlendorf, where he lived himself as well, together with his wife, who was the cook of the family. The route was an easy one: First the A111, then the A100 (the Fehrbelliner Innenring), then over the A115 to the exit Ebrische Allee, and then about 3 km to Fuger’s house. But not today. Soon after they left the office building, they were forced off the road. Schwenke was shot. Fuger was dragged out of his car and forced into another car. The kidnappers spurted away, leaving Schwenke and Fuger’s car behind.

Four days later, the minister of economic affairs was kidnapped.


31 October 2025
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
“It lasted four days before the Neue Rote Befreiungsarmee announced itself. It claimed the responsibility for the disappearance of Oscar Fuger and the Minister of Economic Affairs, Dieter Kretschmar, and it stated its demand: The release of Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines. It must have been a tough decision by the Chancellor of those days, Ansgar Mettmann, but he didn’t intend to give in. That was not told to the kidnappers though. The contacts with the kidnappers were kept. Signs of life from Oscar Fuger and Dieter Kretschmar were asked and given. Meanwhile, a team from the RND was trying to find out where Fuger and Kretschmar were kept hostage,” Kasper Hoffmann told.


18 April 1976
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
Easter is usually a big issue in Eiffelland, but Easter 1976 was celebrated under the shadow of the kidnappings. The government didn’t celebrate Easter at all. Chancellor Mettmann and the Ministers of Justice and Internal Affairs were discussing intensively with the generals and the heads of the police and the RND about the next steps. The RND had captured a trace leading to the kidnappers’ whereabouts, but now it had to report that the body of its informant had been found. Meanwhile, a package with a finger in it had been found as well. According to the accompanying letter, it was one of the fingers of Minister Kretschmar.


20 April 1976
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
The 11:30 plane Fehrbellin‑Propontis from Air Eiffelland taxied to the runway and positioned itself for the start. As per the applicable standard operating procedure in Air Eiffelland, the pilots applied a rolling start: They first took the brakes off, then let the plane roll forward softly, and then pushed the throttles forward. The plane gently took off and took the route to Propontis.
As soon as the seat belts lights were switched off and the copilot announced that everybody could open the cabin luggage boxes above their heads again, several people stood up to do so. Four people walked to the pantry in the back of the plane and started to talk to one of the stewardesses. She opened one of the cabinets. It contained four shotguns.
Seconds later, they entered the cabin again. “All back on your seats! This is a hijacking! Back on your seats! Now!”
When one of the hijackers noticed that one of the toilets was locked, he pounded on the door. “Hey! You! Get out! Back on your seat!”
The man inside was the Fehrbelliner businessman Dieter Kögler. He was on his way to Propontis to close a deal. Unaware of the fact that there was a hijacking going on, he growled: “Was sind das für Töne? Ich komme raus wenn ich fertig bin!” (What are you screaming there? I get out when I’m ready!)
“Komm raus, oder ich schiesse, du Wichser!” the hijacker screamed. (Get out or I shoot, you jerk!)
“Schiessen? Du bist ja blöd! Du wartest anständig, du Schreihals!” Kögler said. (Shooting? What a rubbish! Be a good boy and wait, you squaller!)
Then the hijacker kicked the door open, and shot Kögler.

Meanwhile, also the pilots and the flight engineer had understood that there was a hijacking going on. The pilot sent out the hijacking code. At that moment, the plane was flying above Sachsen-Franken & Landshut.
The flight engineer, who had already been in a hijacking once, turned a couple of buttons.
“Diese Wichser können mich mal!” he growled. (Those jerks can lick my ass!)
Soon after that, two engines of the four-engine-machine started to misfire, and then fell out.
“Hirschfeld, was haben Sie gemacht?” the pilot asked frightened. (Hirschfeld, what did you do?)
At that moment, one of the hijackers entered. “Dies ist eine Entführung! Ändere den Kurs zu Hymiar!” (This is a hijacking! Change the course to Hymiar!)
“Ich muss sowieso den Kurs ändern, denn zwei Motoren sind ausgefallen,” The pilot said, visibly stressed for keeping a plane in the air whose engines on one side had fallen out. (I have to change the course anyway, because two engines fell out.)
“Übrigens hat Jósefania den Luftraum für uns geschlossen. Wir müssen zurück,” the co-pilot said. (By the way, Jósefania closed the airspace for us. We have to go back)
“Zurück nach Fehrbellin?” the hijacker asked. (Back to Fehrbellin?)
“Das schaffen wir nicht. Hoffentlich Würzwald,” the pilot said stressed. (We won’t get there, hopefully Würzwald)
“Erledige es,” the hijacker said. “Und ich warne dich, ich spreche Engellisch, also besprich keine komische Sachen mit den Behörden. Du weisst was ich meine.” (Arrange it. And I warn you, I speak Engellish, so don’t discuss any strange things with the authorities. You know what I mean.)
“Du verstehst glaube ich die Lage nicht ganz. Dein Problem ist momentan nicht, ob ich komische Sachen mit den Behörden bespreche,” the Co-Pilot said. (I think you don’t see the whole picture. Your current problem is not whether I discuss strange things with the authorities.)


OOC 1: I don’t know how the safety measures were in the 1970s, but I do have the impression that it was possible to smuggle guns into a plane, given the plane hi-jackings of those days.

OOC 2: A lot of the first part of this story line describes events that took place in the past. Please look carefully at the dates in the posts when you intend to write a news article to prevent that you describe events from 50 years ago as today’s news

OOC 3: Although the reason for the action lies in the past, most of the action will take place in the present. Therefore, I decided to post this storyline here.

 

[Eiffelland]

20 April 1976
Würzwald, Eiffelland
14:15
Pilot Von Luckenwalde didn’t know exactly what Hirschfeld had done. He wasn’t sure that what seemed to be an engine problem was really an engine problem, so he made sure that the tires of the front wheel would blast during the landing. Now the plane was standing at a far-away spot of the airport Würzwald-Riems (in those days the airport of Würzwald, that would be closed 16 years later, when the new airport, named after the politician Franz-Karl Strauss, would take over).
One of the hi-jackers contacted the control tower: “We are members of the Neue Rote Befreiungsarmee. Our comrades have kidnapped Minister Kretschmar and Mr. Fuger. Our demands are the following: 1. The release of Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines. 2. The repair of the broken engine and the broken nose wheel. 3. Fuel so that we can fly to Hymiar. 4. Food and water for us and the passengers. The government of Eiffelland has 8 hours to comply with these demands. From then onwards, we will kill a passenger every hour.”
Then another hi-jacker opened the door to throw Kögler’s body out of the plane.


31 October 2025
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
“There was a vehement discussion within the cabinet on how to proceed. Chancellor Mettmann, leading a centre-left coalition of his own SPE, the CDV, the LDP and two of the parties that would later merge into Grün, wanted to give in to the demands of the Neue Rote Befreiungsarmee, but the CDV threatened with a cabinet crisis if the government would do so, despite the fact that Kretschmann was a member of the CDV. Under this threat of a cabinet crisis, the Ministers gave in. The plan was to do as much as possible to gain time, while a team from the RSK would go to Würzwald,” Kasper Hoffmann told.
“Just before the deadline would pass, the control tower of the airport Würzwald-Riems gave the message to the hi‑jackers that their demands would be met. Two teams of mechanics went to the plane; one team to replace the front tyre, and the other team to repair the engines. The mechanics working on the engines told the hi-jackers that both engines had to be replaced, and that getting the new engines would take a day. In fact, the engine wasn’t that seriously broken, but the mechanics had received some instructions. Meanwhile, night had fallen.”


21 April 1976
Würzwald, Eiffelland
02:10
“Flugzeug gesichert!” the lieutenant leading the platoon said to the captain supervising the action.
The captain thanked the lieutenant, and then announced that the plane was safe. Ambulances drove to the plane to take care of wounded passengers.
The balance of the action was the following. All hi-jackers were dead. Two passengers and one soldier had lost their lives as well; furthermore, two passengers and two soldiers were wounded.


21 April 1976
Hochsicherheitsjustizvollzugsanstalt Lubjank
10 km north of Mainbad, Eiffelland
07:00
The Hochsicherheitsjustizvollzugsanstalt Lubjank (shortly HSJVA Lubjank) is Eiffelland’s most heavily fortified prison. In earlier days, it was called Hochsicherheitsgefängnis Lubjank, but when in 1972 the prisons were rebranded Justizvollzugsanstälte (“justice execution institutions”), also Lubjank was rebranded, leading to a word that exceeded the maximum length of a scrabble board and qualified for being the longest known Germanic word. This prison is meant for terrorists, persons who are likely to escape (for instance high persons in organised crime), extremely violent persons and persons serving life imprisonment. It is close to impossible to escape from this prison.
This was also the prison where Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines were serving their punishments. At least until 21 April 1976. What exactly happened, is still under discussion, because not everybody believes the official story. Fact is, that the guard taking breakfast to them discovered their corpses, hanging from the bars in front of the windows. The official story was that the members of the Rote Befreiungsarmee hanged themselves on their bed sheets.


31 October 2025
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
“Everybody thought that that was the end, but it wasn’t, as you know. In the 1980s, there was a new wave of assaults, this time by the Dritte Rote Befreiungsarmee,” Kasper Hoffmann told. “That was my first case. I’m still proud of the fact that I managed to catch Frank Bienenhof. Indeed, family of Ulrike. In fact her twin brother. I even have the feeling that he was involved in the Neue Rote Befreiungsarmee, but we couldn’t prove that. In any case, he is still serving life imprisonment, and with him five others. Must be cosy in Lubjank, with the far lefts and the far rights in the same prison,” Kaspar Hoffmann said.


OOC: RSK = Regiment Spezialkräfte, the special forces.

 

[Eiffelland]

25 December 2025
Herzogenrode, Eiffelland
23:00
The hi-jacking of the plane was terminated successfully by the RSK back in 1976. All hi-jackers were shot. Less successful was the action against the kidnappers of Kretschmar and Fuger. They escaped, leaving the corpses of the minister, the banker and their drivers behind. At least, initially they escaped. Later on, some of them were arrested. But not all. Three of them managed to stay out of the hands of the police. They grounded the Dritte Rote Befreiungsarmee, and escaped again. From the 1970s onwards, they kept themselves alive with bank robberies, jewellery robberies, money transport robberies, valuable transport robberies and museum burglaries. The RND knew that. Kaspar Hoffmann knew that. The fact that he never managed to capture the people who set up the Dritte Rote Befreiungsarmee was something he considered the failure of his career. But he didn’t tell that part of his story.

Herzogenrode, a town near Würselen, is famous for its large abbey. The municipality has 11,000 inhabitants, of which 8000 live in the town. The remaining 3000 people live in villages, hamlets and individual farms and houses spread over the large area of the community. About 1/3 of the municipality belongs to the Abbey. Much of this area is farmland that is farmed out, often from generation to generation. The remainder consists of the abbey itself, as well as a herbs garden, an orchard and a garden with berry shrubs maintained by the monks. Furthermore, the abbey sells honey harvested from the bees living on the abbey properties.
The remainder of the municipality consists of the town Herzogenrode, farmland and forests. In the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, some rich families of the Rhein-Dessel-Wopper area discovered the forests around Herzogenrode and built holiday houses there. Later on, some of those holiday houses were sold to people who bought them as their main residences. That also happened to a house far away in the forest, reachable over a 1 km long winding sand road.
Former member of the Neue Rote Befreiungsarmee and the Dritte Rote Befreiungsarmee Reinhold Basper was living in that house. He lived there alone. Now he was 72 years old, but still in good health. He was still able to assault a money transport if needed. Or break into a museum. This evening, he had three guests. Two of them were Wilfried Helsling and Erich Bienenhof, the two other members of the Neue Rote Befreiungsarmee and the Dritte Rote Befreiungsarmee who managed to escape. The third guest was Former Chancellor Horst Jörgens. He was Chancellor of Eiffelland from 2003 to 2010. He was a member of the SPE, but in his heart he was too radical for a sociodemocrat. His current source of inspiration was Volkskanzler Grasser, who tried to create a society in Ostmark that met Jörgenss ideals.
After having been fired by the Kaiser in 2010, Jörgens disappeared. He was declared dead in 2017, to be precise seven years after he was reported missing. Being a school friend of Reinhold Basper, he had the right contacts to disappear. Basper arranged a false passport, and Jörgens left the country. He travelled through Hymiar for several years, and went to Ostmark when Horst Grasser’s national-syndicalist movement started to gain momentum. He was there when Grasser grabbed the power, and was still there when Grasser’s regime fell. Full of Grasserist ideals, blind for what Grasser’s regime had done to Ostmark, he contacted Basper and returned to Eiffelland.
Meanwhile, Basper had created the Vierte Rote Befreiungsarmee. Like the first three ones, it was by far not enough for a revolution, at least not for a fast one. It was enough to stir up the country, however. And that was what Basper planned to do. He also agreed with taking up Jörgens into the Vierte Rote Befreiungsarmee as the ideologist.

Basper invited his old friends Helsling, Bienenhof and Jörgens not only to celebrate Christmas, but also to discuss the upcoming actions. As a start: A cascade of what Basper called “some additional new year’s firework”.


31 December 2025
Würzwald, Eiffelland
04:00
Residential quarters are generally very quiet at 4 in the morning. It is the moment of the night that most people sleep. Occasionally, a car, motorcycle, scooter or moped starts; those are the people who have to start up public transport at 5am. Occasionally, a light is switched on in a bedroom; those are the nurses who have to attend the morning shift at the hospital, which starts at 6am. Occasionally, somebody arrives at home after a night out, or after having worked in a pub. But those are only small interruptions of the quietness. So small that nobody notices them. So small that they don’t disrupt the serene quietness of a residential quarter at 4 in the morning.
It was also very quiet in the early morning of 31 December 2025 in Würzwald-Ludwigvorstadt. Serenely quiet. The whole city was holding its breath for the New Year’s Party, when all brakes would go loose. Also the Mozartstraße, a street in Würzwald-Ludwigvorstadt, with city mansion houses in Neobaroque style or Jugendstil, turned into apartment buildings, sometimes a modern building in-between, but those modern buildings had been designed and plastered in such a way that they didn’t detonate. It was freezingly cold, with temperatures of –10 degrees Celsius. But there was no snow. The air was so dry, that the clouds from the chimneys immediately diffused. The moon was setting in a cloudless sky. The only light that was seen, was the white light of the LEDs in the street lamps, and the light of the occasional christmas decorations that people forgot to turn off when going to sleep.
Then, suddenly, a blast sounded in one of the apartment blocks. At the same time, the sound of windows cracking was heard. Footsteps, another blast. Then the sound of screaming voices, shots and fighting in one of the apartments. Then the for Eiffelland usual two-tone sound of the sirens, blue flashlighs in the street and a few helicopters above the neighbourhood. The sirens stopped sounding, but the blue flashlights kept flashing. Then the word “Gesichert” was heard through the walkietalkies. Red-white bands with POLIZEIABSPERRUNG were spanned across the street. Then again some sirens, and five ambulances arrived. As soon as the helicopters confirmed that nobody was trying to escape over the roofs or through the gardens, the leader of the team gave the command to end the action.

The Reichsschutzpolizei Abteilung Sondereinsätze (RASE) of the RND carried out actions like this in Engelsheim, Cöllen and Scharmbeck as well. Two groups, however, remained out of the hands of the RASE. One of those would make itself known on the same day. The second group remained in the dark.

 

[Eiffelland]

31 December 2025
Kaufhaus von Germanien, Wittenbergplatz
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
14:00
The Kaufhaus von Germanien (shortly called “KaVoGe”) is Fehrbellin’s most luxurious department store, surely the most luxurious department store of the Kaiserreich. It is surely one of the largest department stores in the world. It was grounded in 1907; the grounder had the intention to “serve the spoiled demands of the upper ten thousand, the uppermost one thousand, the upperuppermost five hundred“. From the 1920s onwards, it has an enormous delicacy department. It has also a restaurant at the top floor. It is located at the Wittenbergplatz in the city district Schöneberg.
Of course the KaVoGe has a jewellery department as well. It was this jewellery department who received a young customer today. He was looking for an engagement ring, because he wanted to propose to his girlfriend. After five minutes, he said that he hadn’t found what he was looking for, and walked away. But the saleswoman hadn’t seen that he had left his bag behind. The explosion took her by surprise.


31 December 2025
RND Headquarters
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
20:00

“So these are the images of the security cameras in the jewellery department of the KaVoGe,” RND-Hauptkommissar Ingo Kurzenberg said. He was from the department of counterterrorism of the RND. He was leading the investigations, but of course it could be that he would have to make use of other departments. “Now look here. This guy here walks away, and then the explosion takes place. But there is something I noticed. Could you roll back to the point that he walks to the desk?”
Bastian Holzbrenner did.
“Now look here,” Kurzenberg said. “He is carrying a bag. But he walked away without a bag. Roll forward, then you see it.”
Bastian did.
“Now you see him walk away,” Kurzenberg said. “Without a bag. This is our man. Could you enlarge the images so that we see his face clearer?”
“Of course. One moment,” Bastian said. He rolled the movie back until he had a clear picture of the face. Then he enlarged the image. And frightened up. As a result, he didn’t hear Kurzenberg thank him and ask him to pull the image through the images database for a comparison with known people. Bastian realised with a shock that he knew the guy on the picture.

“Herr Holzbrenner?” Kurzenberg asked worried.
Bastian frightened up again. “Sorry,” he said.
“Is there something wrong?” Kurzenberg asked.
“I know this guy,” Bastian said. “This is an old friend of mine. Jonas Barsano.”


OOC: For an additional explanation of Bastian Holzbrenner’s past, please see

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[Eiffelland]

31 December 2025
RND Headquarters
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
20:00

Kurzenberg immediately issued orders to visit the family of Jonas Barsano. Then he started to talk to Bastian again.
“How do you know this Jonas Barsano?” Kurzenberg asked.
“He came into my hockey team when I was 10,” Bastian told. “Later on, we appeared to agree on a lot of topics. I was quite leftwing in those days, especially antiracist and antifascist. In those days, the GEL was very active. It organised a lot of protest marches, and there was quite a lot of violence against Jews, migrants and gays. Jonas, I and ten other guys decided to act up. We went to protest gatherings of the GEL to disturb them. Those disturbance actions were mainly carried out by anarchists and far left organisations. We never joined such organisations though; the twelve of us were a far left group in itself. We agreed with the antifascist ideas, but not with the other ideas.”
“And they let you into the RND with such a past?” Kurzenberg asked.
“I underwent the usual investigational procedures, and maybe even more. Mr Strauss already knew quite a lot about me when he recruited me,” Bastian said. “Furthermore, I am not a member of that scene any more. The last time I saw Jonas Barsano and the other ten, is 15 years ago. I drifted away from them.”
“Hhmmm … You say that your group consisted of ten more people. Do you remember their names?” Kurzenberg asked.
“Yes, I do,” Bastian said. “Lorenz Jörgens, Steffan Severin, Jupp Hancker, Sepp Fleischer, Roland Basper, Karl Helsling, Fritz Graf, Patrick Vetter, Arik Blumenthal and Erich Honseck.”
“Basper? Helsling? Are they related to Max Basper and Casper Helsling?” Kurzenberg asked.
“I don’t know. I never made the link, and Roland and Karl never talked about Max Basper or Casper Helsling,” Bastian said.
“Lorenz Jörgens, is he family of Former Chancellor Horst Jörgens?” Kurzenberg asked.
“He is the youngest son of the Former Chancellor,” Bastian said.
“OK. We are going to follow those ten up as well. I will also call Strauss,” Kurzenberg said.

After his call with Strauss, Kurzenberg was nicer to Bastian.

“Mr. Holzbrenner, thank you very much. You have been a great help. You saved us several hours, maybe days, of searching through the pictures we have in the computer. I’m afraid I can’t let you go home now though. I need you to track the internet for communication about the attacks, and also to find out any information on your friends from 15 years ago,” Kurzenberg said.

Bastian called Christoph to tell that he would not come home to celebrate New Year, thinking about Jonas Barsano. The idea that his former friend had committed a terrorist assault bothered him very much. One of his childhood friends. What had become of this group of friends from his teenager time?

It is always possible to locate a mobile phone over the GSM network. This also applies to smartphones. In this way, police forces can always track somebody down. In Eiffelland, however, the police forces are only allowed to do so after approval by a judge based on a suspicion. Without that approval, the network providers cannot grant access to the network. That approval was immediately given for Jonas Barsano’s mobile phone. But it could not be traced. The battery either had been taken out or was empty.

There was not enough suspicion against the remaining ten members of Bastian’s old friends group, so classical research work was needed to find them. Six of them still lived in Fehrbellin; the other four had moved to other cities. All ten were called on their mobile phones. Unfortunately, it was New Year’s Eve. It was not easy to contact them all. Steffan Severin was on a holiday abroad. Arik Blumenthal was contacted at a party, together with Jupp Hancker. Sepp Fleischer, who lived in Cöllen, didn’t answer his phone. The phones of Patrick Vetter, Roland Basper, Karl Helsling, Fritz Graf and Erich Honseck didn’t ring at all.

Lorenz Jörgens appeared to have been reported missing a month ago. “Just like his father,” Kurzenberg commented on that.
“Just like his father?!” RND-Direktor Thorsten Mirkovitsch said. “Verdammt noch mal, that man walked around in Ostmark during the Grasser regime! I read a report about that.”
“Were they sure that they saw Horst Jörgens?” Kurzenberg asked.
“Not completely of course, but they said 80% sure,” Mirkovitsch said.
“Did they take pictures?” Kurzenberg asked.
“Yes, they did. Those pictures were pulled through our database. That increased the probability that it was Jörgens to 90%,” Mirkovitsch said.
“Where is he now?” Kurzenberg asked.
“We managed to track him down until recently. After Ostmark, he went to the CCCR. A couple of months ago, we lost track of him. We don’t know where he is now,” Mirkovitsch said.
“Could it be that he was also in the CCCR before he went to Ostmark?” Kurzenberg asked.
“We do have indications that he came into contact with the GLC, but that was not in the CCCR. Back in 2010, he really vanished from the world. Then in 2015, we tracked him down in Hymiar. It could have been that he was there from 2010 onwards,” Mirkovitsch said.
“Wow, who would have expected that from the petty-bourgeois and pedantic Horst Jörgens,” Kurzenberg said.
“Well, he may be a bit less petty-bourgeois than he seemed. And probably also more leftwing than we originally thought,” Mirkovitsch said.


23:50

An EKW E4 rushed over the three-lane Mehringdamm to an address in Fehrbellin-Kreuzberg. The people in the car were RND-Hauptkommissar Ingo Kurzenberg and RND-Kommissar Markus Hoffmann. They had crossed half the city. Jonas Barsano seemed to have vanished. His parents didn’t know where he was, but gave his girlfriend’s address. His girlfriend was not at home, but Kurzenberg and Hoffmann had found out where she was: At a party in Kreuzberg.
The EKW made a U-turn on the Lufthafenplatz (called this way, because the main building of the former airport Fehrbellin-Tempelhof bordered this place), drove a few hundred meters back, and turned into one of the side streets of the Mehringdamm. The car halted. Kurzenberg and Hoffmann stepped out. It was not really difficult to get inside the building where the party was held. They had a picture of Jonas’s girlfriend on their mobile phones, and managed to find her quite soon. Strange enough, they saw Jonas with her as well. Was it boldness or plain stupidity that the guy showed up at a party after having committed a terrorist assault? Jonas clearly enjoyed the kiss he was exchanging with his girlfriend. Kurzenberg and Hoffmann decided not to call a RASE-team but act themselves. Getting Jonas out of here by means of a RASE-action would have led to a very messy situation. They followed Jonas and his girlfriend to the toilets.
“Can we get him out of here without anybody noticing it?” Kurzenberg whispered.
“Yes, we can. We take the emergency exit,” Hoffmann whispered while pointing at a door.
The noise of two people making love had already sounded clearly through the toilets, but now the screams of Jonas’s girlfriend and the groans of Jonas became really loud.
“Hey, you two old perverts, what are you doing in the women’s toilet?” somebody shouted. Jonas immediately kicked the door out of the toilet where he was with his girlfriend, jumped out and ran to the emergency exit. Kurzenberg and Hoffmann got the door in their faces, pulled their police IDs out and ran after him. Jonas opened the door and ran outside. Kurzenberg and Hoffmann ran after him, but lost him.
“Scheisse,” Kurzenberg said.
“Großfahndung?” Hoffmann asked.
Then they heard the sound of a motorcycle. They ran to where the sound came from, but the motorcycle was away.
“Mist!” Kurzenberg said angrily. “Mist! Mist! Mist!!!”
At that moment, the New Year’s fireworks sounded over the city.
“In any case, happy new year,” Hoffmann said.
“Thanks. You too,” Kurzenberg said.


1 January 2026
Oranienburg, near Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
01:00
“Mist! You said that it would take the RND at least a day to find out that it was me in the KaVoGe, but they are already after me since before the year change,” Jonas Barsano shouted at Lorenz Jörgens. After having fled from Kurzenberg and Hoffmann, he had sped to his hiding place in Oranienburg.
Lorenz thought for a moment. Then he said: “Believe me, even if they already have your picture in their system, they can’t have found you there so fast, unless they have really fast computers. The only reason why they found you so soon, is that they have somebody in their team who knows you.“
“Fickscheisse,” Jonas shouted. Then he started to think. “I don’t know anybody who works for the RND, or the police. I don’t know of anybody that I met in the past that he worked for the RND or the police, either. Who in Heaven’s name can it be who knows me and works for the government?”
“Who are the people you lost contact with in the last couple of years?” Lorenz asked.
Jonas started to name them all. That more or less led to memorising things and talking about events of years ago.
“Do you remember when we travelled through the whole country to disturb far right demos? Where did Steffan, Jupp, Sepp, Patrick, Arik and Bastian go to?” Lorenz asked.
“Well, Bastian left the group while he was revalidating. He also had a relationship with that Von Weizenburg kid, Christoph,” Jonas said.
“Indeed, the Von Weizenburg story. The man got life imprisonment, and his fortune was seized,” Lorenz said. But then his face became thoughtful. “Now that I’m thinking of it … There are some rumours about Christoph von Weizenburg. Bastian was beaten up because of his relationship with Christoph, but rumours go that Christoph’s role in the Von Weizenburg story was larger than just being the good son of the bad guy, that he also acted as a mole for the RND.”
“Really!” Jonas said.
“Yes,” Lorenz said.
“What is he currently doing?” Jonas asked.
“Let’s check,” Lorenz said. Then he started typing. “Hhmmm, strange, his name doesn’t pop up. That would give some extra food to the theory that he helped out the RND against his father, and because of that he has to stay under the radar.”
“Could he be the one who tipped about me?” Jonas asked.
“It could theoretically be, but that would be improbable. He is not my first suspect. He may have seen you once, maybe twice, maybe three times. And that 15 years ago. We have to think of somebody who spent a lot of time with you, and therefore still remembers you after a couple of years. Let’s check all the people you mentioned first, and of course Bastian, Arik, Sepp, Jupp, Steffan and Patrick. You never know,” Lorenz said.
“Would they really betray me after all we went through?” Jonas asked.
“At least Arik explicitly stated that he didn’t want to be part of our group any more. The contacts to the other five blew over. In Bastian’s case because he wasn’t physically able any more to do the tough jobs, but the other four had different reasons,” Lorenz said. “Anyway, I am going to check all six out, and I will do that first.”


1 January 2026
RND Headquarters
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
16:00

“OK, we managed to contact Patrick Vetter in Cöllen. We can strike him off the list. Like the other four we managed to contact, he indicated that he has no contact with the other people in the group any more,” Hoffmann said.
“What about Lorenz Jörgens, Roland Basper, Karl Helsling, Fritz Graf and Erich Honseck?” Kurzenberg asked.
“Still dead telephones. We interrogated their relatives and friends, and also their girlfriends. As you all know, Lorenz Jörgens went missing on 29 November. The other four were last seen on 24 December, like Jonas Barsano. We received pictures of all six missing guys. They are currently loaded into the computer and compared with our database. Also with the recordings we made during the raids in Scharmbeck, Cöllen, Würzwald and Engelsheim,” Hoffmann said. “Holzbrenner set up an AI to check the internet for communication about the attacks. He already found some interesting things.”


1 January 2026
Fehrbellin-Wilmersdorf, Eiffelland
21:00
Bastian parked his and Christoph’s DW Mistral at the closed-off courtyard of the apartment block he and Christoph lived in. Then he walked into the apartment building and went to the 3rd floor, where he lived with Christoph. He had already seen on the street that the lights were on, so Christoph was awake. New Years Day was always a calm day in Eiffelland. Even quieter than Sundays, the other classical Day After Partying. Christoph would probably have slept until far in the afternoon.
Bastian opened the door. Christoph came out of the living room, embraced him and kissed him on the lips.
“Hi Schätzchen, shall I help you with cooking dinner?” Bastian asked.
“Well, first I would like to have an aperitive,” Christoph smiled.
“An aperitive! What were you thinking of?” Bastian asked.
“Well … You,” Christoph smiled while starting to kiss Bastian, who answered the kiss. While keeping the embracing, they walked to the bedroom, took each other’s clothes off and started to make love.

 

[Eiffelland]

1963-1973
Offenburg, Eiffelland
Offenburg is a quiet city with 60,000 inhabitants in the memberstate Ruppertswald, 60 kilometers north of Wittich. It is situated in a hilly landscape with much farmland. It does not really have a nightlife; there are some pubs, there are some clubs, there is a cinema, but there is no theatre and no concert hall. On Saturday night, Offenburg is quiet. Maybe because of the lack of a university or another kind of institution for higher education. Offenburg is the school example of a province town.
The war did affect Offenburg, but only in the sense of shortages and sons of the city loosing their lives on the battlefield. The fighting took place along the eastern border. The bombs fell in Fehrbellin, the Rhein-Dessel-Wopper area, the iron facilities in Thorsringen, the seaport cities and Würzwald. The atomic bombs fell in Wolfratshausen and Eisenach.
The rock ’n Roll from the late 1950s and early 1960s passed Offenburg almost completely, at least from the outside. The parents and the schools prohibited it. Families generally had only one radio, and that stood in the living room; the parents determined what was played. The same to the pick-up and the bandrecorder: They stood in the living room, and the parents determined what was played. Only in the 1960s, the portable transistor radio came into reach of adolescents and young adults. But as soon as they played rock ‘n roll too loudly, their parents ran up the stairs and forbade the music. The children obeyed, or listened to the music at low volume.

This is where Reinhold Basper and Horst Jörgens grew up in the 1950s and 1960s.

Reinhold was a son of the GP of a village 10 km away from Offenburg; Horst was a son of a high municipal official. They didn’t know each other, until 2 September 1963, the first school day of the school year 1963‑1964. The same period as when the Beatles started to conquer the world. Horst and Reinhold were assigned to the same class. During their first year at secondary school, they became friends. On their 14th birthdays in 1965, Reinhold and Horst got portable transistor radios. They listened much to it, together when they were together.
Then there was this day in November 1966 that determined their lives. They picked up a radio broadcaster which played a great mixture of the new music of that time. But in-between the music, it spread a far-left message of revolt. It was an illegal sender of the GLC, but Horst and Reinhold didn’t know that. They did hear the message of revolt, as two fourteen year old adolescents in third grade secondary school. Six months later, they would become the first ones in Offenburg to say “no” when they were forbidden to listen to modern music. The result was, that their parents seized their radios. They got them back, but only when they promised not to listen to modern music any more. From then onwards, they listened to it in secret.
In the summer of 1967, Horst and Reinhold were hiking with a group from their class, and met a group of hippies who had gathered together around a hikers lodge. They walked further to the next lodge, but during the evening Horst and Reinhold went back to the hippies. Also that was a determining night. Horst and Reinhold already secretly had very leftwing ideas, but those ideas were hardened during that night. Horst and Reinhold also blowed for the first time, and lost their virginities with two of the women in the hippie group.
In September 1967, they were the first ones to come to school in jeans and say “no” when the vice principal ordered them to go home and change clothes. They were barred from the lessons on that day, and the vice-principal called their mothers, who came to school with acceptable trousers. Horst and Reinhold also said “no” to their mothers, and were taken home. In the evening, their fathers made clear what their thoughts about their sons’ behaviour earlier that day was, and forbade them to see each other again. The next day, they came to school in acceptable clothes. But they continued to see each other, although in secret. They seduced girls together, drank together, put batteries in their radios and seated themselves in covered bus stops to listen to this illegal radio broadcaster.
The next confrontation with their parents took place when they refused to go to Church on Sunday morning. Whatever their parents said and did, they couldn’t make Horst and Reinhold go to Mass.
But then, in November 1967, Reinhold was caught making love to the wife of one of the deputy headmasters and Horst was caught making love to the wife of one of the teachers. They were expelled from school, and their fathers sent them to boarding schools from the Tiburan Catholic Church that were infamous for their extremely strict regime and had been founded to discipline rebellious elite children. The methods of those schools were harsh, extremely harsh, and focused at breaking the scholars’ own will at all costs. Horst and Reinhold were sent to different schools. They would hate their parents for this decision from now on.
Focused on leaving these schools as soon as possible, they studied hard and obtained their Abiturs with very good notes in 1970. After military service, they decided to study at a university as far away from their parents as possible. They saw each other back in Scharmbeck in 1973.

2 January 2026
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
“Mensch, I’ve already kicked you away from all the population registrations in the country, why do you try it again?” Bastian asked to nobody in person. He was sitting at his desk in the information technology department of the RND. His job here was among others to protect the internet in Eiffelland against hacking attacks from outside, but sometimes he himself hacked as well. Furthermore, he also cracked passwords of mobile phones and computers that had been seized as evidence in ciminal cases, and he had access to the picture database.
Yesterday, he had discovered that people were trying to inform themselves on the internet about his and Christoph’s whereabouts. And not only about that, also about the whereabouts of Patrick Vetter, Arik Blumenthal, Sepp Fleischer, Jupp Hancker and Steffan Severin.
Who were these people? For whom did they work? Bastian’s first thought would be the far-right scene. But why now? And why both Christoph and Bastian’s old friends? The far-right scene wanted Christoph for other reasons than Bastian and his group of 12. But if it was Bastan’s group of 12 that they wanted, then why did they only look for Bastian, Patrick, Arik, Sepp, Jupp and Steffan, and not for Jonas, Lorenz, Roland, Karl, Fritz and Erich?

Bastian decided to trace back the hacker who just tried again to hack a population registration. The track went from Fehrbellin to Nouvo Porto to Bouenville to New Providence to Da Qiao to Propontis to Arandum to Hierosolyma to …


2 January 2026
Oranienburg, near Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
As soon as he noted that he was traced, Lorenz Jörgens closed the connection.

 

[Eiffelland]

21 April 1976
Hochsicherheitsjustizvollzugsanstalt Lubjank
10 km north of Mainbad, Eiffelland
08:00
Sepp Kornstängl originated from Tirolstein, the southernmost province of Eiffelland, and was born there in 1950. Like many people from those days, he never travelled far when he was a child. Never further than the closest‑by city, 15 km away from his home‑village. Traveling was expensive, so only necessary travels were performed, for instance for things you could not buy in your home‑village.
In 1968, Sepp Kornstängl was called for society service. He served two years and two months in the army as an infanterist, and performed civil service for ten months in the park sevice of Neckarbrück.
Sepp was the third son of the farmer. In order to prevent fragmentation of the land belonging to the farm, resulting in too small farms to economicly survive, it was common practice in Eiffelland that the oldest surviving son inherited the farm. The second surviving son would become priest or monk. The next sons would have to find their ways themselves, but were not left alone completely blank; they received a lump sum of money or a monthly allowance for a couple of years when they left the family, so that they could establish themselves. The size of this lump sum of money or monthly allowance depended on the number of sons it had to be divided over, and the economic status of the farm. Similar constructions existed for other professions.
Those next sons ended up everywhere. They could become unskilled workers, soldiers, sailors, bailiffs, sheriffs etc. Many contributed to the formation of the cities during the second half of the middle ages. Some went to university, when the lump sum or monthly allowance was high enough and the young man was intelligent enough. Some others married daughters of farmers without sons and became farmers themselves, or did the same to marry into a guilded skill in the cities. In the 19th century, when industrialisation started, factory worker also became a possible job for next sons.
Sepp Kornstängl chose for a career in the police. When he would have been born ten years earlier, he would have gone to the Hauptschule (the lowest level of secondary education in Eiffelland) by default because of his descendance. But in 1962, the fact that his notes were good enough for the Realschule (the second‑highest level of secondary education in Eiffelland) was of more value than his descendance, so young Sepp went to the Realschule. And with that diploma, he could go straight to the police academy, which meant that he didn’t have to do society service. So in 1970, he started his first job as a prison guard in one of the youth prisons in Villach.
In August 1972, after a failed love‑affair in Villach, he went on a holiday trip through Eiffelland with some friends. During that trip, he met a nice girl who worked as a secretary. One week later, he met this girl again on the beach in Bad Hersfeld. Heavily in love, he decided to meet the girl more often. During the weekends, he traveled to Mainbad or she traveled to Villach. Meanwhile the salaries had increased more than the inflation percentage, so traveling had become a luxury that more people could afford. Furthermore, Sepp’s salary was enough to afford a second‑hand basic car, so driving to Mainbad was easy to him. He proposed to the girl in 1974. Nine months later, they married in Mainbad.

In 1976, Sepp Kornstängl worked as a prison guard in the Hochsicherheitsjustizvollzugsanstalt Lubjank. He had the night shift in the cell block of Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines. He started his shift at 10 the night before. After the hand-over, he walked his first round. As per common practice, he walked a round every 2 hours. After his last round, around 4 in the morning, six people appeared before the glass plate in front of his office at the start of the cell block. They rang. Kornstängl came to the glass plate, looked at the men and activated the intercom.
“Grrüß Gott,” he said. Out of his mental balance due to the unexpected visit at that time of the night, he used the greet he was raised with instead of the “Morgen”, “Mahlzeit” or “Nabend” that was common in the Mainbad area.
The man who was apparently in charge said “Morgen” as well, introduced himself and the five other men, showed his RND ID, and indicated that they wanted to inspect the prisoners. Kornstängl opened the door.
The man who was in charge thanked, and asked for the keys to the cells. Kornstängl gave them. Then the men entered the cell block. Ten minutes later, they came back, gave the keys to the cells back, thanked, greeted, and left.
At 6am, Kornstängl’s shift ended. He handed over to the persons of the next shift, and drove home. He had already heard over the radio that the plane in Würzwald had been freed. When at home, he went straight to bed.

At ten to eight, a team from the local police entered the prison to start the investigations. But the Reichskriminalamt was already there.

“Kriminalhauptkommissar Roger Witzlaff, ReiKA,” the leader of the ReiKA team introduced himself to the police inspector from the local police. “I’m awfully sorry that we didn’t notify you earlier, but we weren’t able to do so. We have to take over this case. This is a case of national interest; therefore, we have to do it.”

“So the ReiKA has to take over a case that is a simple suicide case at first sight. That can mean two things: Either there is evidence that a party we are not equipped to handle is involved, or the real story behind this all is not supposed to be found,” the police inspector said to his assistant.
“This is frustrating,” his assistant said.
“I totally agree, but there is nothing we can do,” the police inspector said.
“Well, there must be something. No matter what they did, if it is not a suicide, then somebody killed them, and then that somebody must be punished,” his assistant said.
“I totally agree with you, but like I said, there is nothing we can do. First of all, we haven’t been allowed access to the crime scene. We only know that six people are dead in their cells, but we haven’t seen them. We heard that they were hanging from the window bars, but that is everything we know. Furthermore, you know who these six people were. When such people die in a prison from an unnatural cause, there is a PR problem. So the government will try to hush this up as soon as possible, either by giving the evidence as soon as possible that these people committed suicide, or by finding a culprit that is not aligned with the government so that it can show that it also seeks for justice when terrorists are murdered,” the police inspector said.
“But what if it was really a government official? For instance the RND?” the assistant asked.
“Then you and I will never find it out,” the inspector said. “Furthermore, even in this country, we will risk a transfer, or even worse, when we try to find the culprits for something that was committed because high officials believe it was done in the interest of the country. Let it rest. There is enough other work that we have to look at,” the police inspector said.

The local police left it all to the ReiKA, which presented the evidence that Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines committed suicide in their cells a couple of days later. Sepp Kornstängl wasn’t asked any questions. He wondered about that later on, but realised that it was the ReiKA which had done the investigations, meaning that either the culprit was a very big entity or the culprit had to remain unknown. Then better to remain silent, especially when your wife is pregnant.

 

[Eiffelland]

10 January 2026
Oranienburg, near Fehrbellin, Eiffelland
After so many years had passed, Sepp Kornstängl only occasionally thought about the suicide of Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines. He continued living, got some children, made a career, got some grandchildren, retired in 2010 and shifted his attention to his allotment garden. At least until the terrorist attack on Sylvester Day last year. Then he started to think about it more often.

Then he appeared to be the last person to be able to give information on the last night of Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines. Therefore, he appeared in the focus of the Vierte Rote Befreiungsarmee.

The next action of the Vierte Rote Befreiungsarmee would not be a terrorist attack. No terrorist attacks would take place before Ash Wednesday. Not everywhere in Eiffelland is Carnival a big issue, but if you don’t want to turn 40 million Eiffellandians into lifetime enemies, you should not take Carnival, or Fastelovend (like it is called in Ripuarien) or Fasching (like it is called in Spessart, Tirolstein, Casparringen, Wörgl, Stolzenau and Breisach), away, and not even spoil the athmosphere with a terrorist attack close before Carnival.

Instead …


14 January 2026
Mainbad, Eiffelland
The 16 years old Eva Mettmann was one of Kornstängl’s granddaughters. She attended a Realschule in Wetzlar. After the last hour at school, she cycled to her sidejob at a local supermarket. But she never got there.


19 January 2026
Mainbad, Eiffelland
Sepp Kornstängl was shocked after the telophone call. He was told to step into the VAN in front of his apartment building if he wanted to see his granddaughter again. He informed his wife, left the apartment, took the lift downstairs, and left the apartment building. The side door of the VAN was shifted open, Kornstängl stepped in and he was blindfolded. The VAN drove away.

It had snowed quite a lot in Eiffelland during the weeks after New Year’s Day. Because it was still freezing, the landscape was still white. The snow layer, originally 20 cm in the surroundings of Mainbad, around 10 cm near the western coastline and up to 1 meter further to the east, had bedded down and hardened. The sky was completely cloudy, leaving only partly room for the sun to provide light. The roads had been made snow-free, at least the main roads. The road into the forest leading to Reinhold Basper’s house was not.

Three hours after it had departed from Mainbad, the VAN stopped. Still blindfolded, Kornstängl was guided into a house, and was seated into a chair. When his blind fold was taken off, he blinked a few times, and then he saw the room he was sitting in. Two walls of the room were actually window frames. In one of those window frames, there were two doors that gave way to the garden. Although, garden … The house did not have a garden. Not even grass around it. People stepping outside through these doors stepped directly into the forest. There was not even a fence around the house.
“It is a great view,” a voice behind Kornstängl said. “It reminds me of my youth, in a landscape as hilly as around here.”
The voice sounded like belonging to a man of about the same age as Kornstängl.
“How is my granddaughter?” Kornstängl asked irritated. “I want to see her.”
The man walked around Kornstängl and positioned himself in front of him. He was wearing a mask. His head was bald. His body was athletic for someone in his seventies. It was Reinhold Basper, but Kornstängl didn’t know.
Basper signalled to one of the men who had brought Kornstängl in.
“Could you bring Sweet 16 here?” he asked.
Two minutes later, Kornstängl’s granddaughter was guided in, between two young men.
“Eva, how are you?” Kornstängl asked concerned.
“As you see, she is all right, our Sweet 16,” Basper said. Eva was standing in-between two masked young men. One of them stroke with his finger along her face, and then with his hand along one of her breasts down to her waist. That was Jonas Barsano.
“You have a very cute granddaughter, Kornstängl,” Jonas said. “You probably want her back, correct?”
Basper took over again: “Everyone who can tell what happened in the night Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines died, is either dead or too ill to answer our questions. Except you. You are the last one who can confirm that Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines were murdered. Or better said: Suicided. And that’s what you’re going to do.”
“Eh, what? Should I confess that I killed them? But I didn’t,” Kornstängl said.
Basper walked to him, and bent over him, so that their faces were very close to each other. Jonas remained silent for a minute. Then he continued talking.
“I believe you,” he said, and moved back. “But then tell what really happened. Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines didn’t commit suicide; they were killed. But by whom? Tell us.”
“Actually, I don’t know what exactly happened,” Kornstängl said. “I had the nightshift in the cell block of Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines in the night of their deaths. At 4 o’ clock in the morning, four men appeared before the door to the cell block. They were from the RND, and wanted the keys to the cells. I gave them, and they went into the cells. Ten minutes later, they left. That is the only thing I know.”
Basper set a step back to increase the distance between him and Kornstängl. “So it was the RND who killed them,” he said. “Just what I thought.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see them doing so,” Kornstängl said.
“But let’s face it, that’s what happened. The authorities of the Kaiserreich of Eiffelland, who call themselves democratic, undemocraticly killed its dissidents. And that under a government that called itself the most leftwing government that ever governed Eiffelland. That’s what you’re going to say on video.”
“What?” Kornstängl shouted.
“You are going to say on video that the RND wanted access to the cells of Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines at 4 o’ clock in the morning of the 21st April 1976, and that you heard the RND killing them. And you’re going to tell names, if you still know any,” Basper said. He waited a few seconds, and then continued: “That, or these two young men are, together with four more young men, going to really enjoy our little Sweet 16 and force you to watch, and after then we will kill you both in the most painful way possible, her first. And of course you will watch that too.”
“Krreiz Krruzifix,” Kornstängl said after some moments. Then he remained silent for some more moments, before saying: “I’ll do it, if you release us afterwards.”

The video was recorded, and put on the internet. Basper kept his word and released Kornstängl and his granddaughter. Jonas Barsano, Roland Basper and Karl Helsling blindfolded them, put them into the VAN, drove around for a couple of hours and dropped them alive next to a bus stop in a small village. The bus driver who found them, notified the police. Kornstängl told about the video, and then Ferdinand Strauss and his team were at play. They manipulated the search engines to make it more difficult to find the video. Computer specialist of the Vierte Rote Befreiungsarmee Lorenz Jörgens took action, and so the video’s availability constantly jumped and dropped and jumped and dropped. Meanwhile, the preparations for the really big action started.

 

[Eiffelland]

27 February 2026
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland

It was a funny situation Bastian Holzbrenner found himself in. Fighting his friends from his youth. Friends he experienced so many things with. Friends with whom he fought for his ideal of a free world, a world in which your ancestry didn’t matter, a world in which whom you loved didn’t matter. Friends with whom he fought for a better environment and animal rights. Friends he shared everything with.

What had become of his fight for his ideals? Was he still fighting for them, now that he worked for exactly the type of organisation that curbed freedoms? Or was he betraying them? Was he standing on the right side now, or was it betrayal of his ideals, the fact that he was fighting his youth friends, his brothers in arms from 15 years ago?

He was not allowed to talk about his work, but at a certain moment he had to discuss it with others. With Christoph. With Ludwig and Jonathan.

“What exactly was it that you were fighting for 15 years ago?” Ludwig asked. They were sitting at Bastian’s and Christoph’s dinner table, enjoying a cheese platter after dinner. “You and your friends from those days were chasing far right people for the obvious reasons, but what was under the obvious reasons?”
Bastian had to think about that. “The principle that everybody should be able to live the live they want to live. And that is what I see endangered by the far right, which was why I fought them in those days. And still fight them now, although with other means. As far as I could see, that were also the motives of my friends of those days. But now I see that I am on the opposite side of where six of them are now. Who is right and who is wrong? Am I not fighting my own ideals by fighting them, who are fighting for justice for the members of the Rote Befreiungsarmee?”
“That is indeed a good question. Difficult to answer,” Ludwig said. He thought for a moment. “There are two things we have to look at here. One thing is indeed the death of the members of the Rote Befreiungsarmee. What happened and why? If they were indeed suicided, then maybe to prevent that a follow-up group would commit another series of terrorist attacks to get them free. But then why only Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines, and not all the others who were arrested after them? And also, is prevention of terrorist attacks a valid reason to kill people who are basically defenceless? If a terrorist is about to commit an assault and killing him is the only way to prevent that assault, then killing that terrorist is justified. But Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines were not about to commit a terrorist assault; they were in a prison cell in the best secured prison of the country, a prison from where escape is nearly impossible, if not completely. That is a complete different situation.”
“But apart from that, is killing people who have no link whatsoever with the killing of the Rote Befreiungsarmee a valid way to get justice?” Christoph asked.
“That is indeed the second thing we have to look at. And to be very honest, I’m afraid I have to answer that question with ‘no’,” Ludwig said. “I don’t know your friends from those days, but I do know that you were not planning terrorist assaults. The only thing you did, was disturbing far-right demos and defending people against assaults by far-right people. Would you have joined in when the others would propose a terrorist assault against far-right organisations?”
Bastian had to think about that. “I consider it important that no innocent people are hurt because of my actions. So I would seriously hesitate about that.”
“Then what to think of assaulting a department store?” Ludwig asked. Everybody remained silent.
“I am in a similar position as you with my work at the Reichsstaatsanwaltschaft. What we are fighting against, are not ideals, but deeds and intentions. We are not fighting the fact that people want justice for the Rote Befreiungsarmee, we are fighting the fact that people try to achieve that justice by means of severe violence,” Ludwig said.
Then Bastian’s telephone rang. It was his superior, Ferdinand Strauss. He called Bastian to come to the RND-headquarters because of an emergency.
“I can’t drive. I drank two glasses of wine,” Bastian said.
“I’ll drive to you to pick you up,” Strauss said.

Five minutes later, Strauss stopped his electric Darner Bayamo in front of the door leading to the stairs of the apartment building Bastian and Christoph were living in. Bastian saw the blue flashlight on the car’s roof, stepped in, and Strauss drove away.

“What is going on?” Bastian asked.
“The nuclear power plants in Eiffelland are under cyberattack. People are trying to destabilise them. Several power plants have been shut down, but if that goes on in this pace, we’ll have blackouts tonight, apart from the risk that the hackers actually get in and push a reactor into a meltdown,” Strauss said. “I asked all the programmers to come to the office and block this attack off.”
Strauss and Bastian were the first ones to arrive at the location of the computer security department of the RND to support the night shift. Two men were standing next to Strauss’s parking place. When Strauss stopped the car, one man opened the left back door to get Strauss’s wheelchair out. Then he lifted Strauss out of the car and into the wheelchair. The second man grabbed Strauss’s bag. Then they all rushed into the building.


28 February 2026
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland

Cyberattack upon cyberattack. All against the nuclear power plants, with the aim to destabilise them and cause a meltdown. Recently Bastian had followed a couple of courses about the computer programs running nuclear power plants, so he knew what was happening there, and he knew what not to touch when you wanted to keep the reactor stable. And now he was defending Eiffelland’s power plants against cyberattacks, together with all the other programmers from the RND. Verdammte Scheisse, who was doing this?
Then he suddenly saw a possibility. While in parallel shielding a nuclear power plant, he managed to track down where the attacks came from. He grabbed the phone, dialled the RASE and screamed an address into the telephone.


28 February 2026
Oranienburg, Eiffelland

“Was? Was?” Lorenz Jörgens screamed while watching how his computers suddenly shut themselves down.
At that moment, the RASE entered the house with extreme violence. The son of former Chancellor Horst Jörgens was arrested. The Spurensicherung investigated the whole house and transported Lorenz’s computers to the RND headquarters, together with a lot more items and samples.


28 February 2026
Fehrbellin, Eiffelland

One-by-one, Bastian found out where the cyberattacks came from. Every time, he screamed the address into the phone while calling the RASE. It took half an hour to locate all the servers used for the attacks and shut them down. Thirty servers in total, most of them hacked and used for the attack while the owners didn’t know about it. Three people were arrested, 27 people were phoned out of their beds because their servers were used while they didn’t know it. 27 people who suddenly saw the police in their companies and whose servers were seized. 27 people whose companies had to temporarily be shut down, because their servers had been hacked. Luckily the February salaries had already been paid.

It became quiet on the Internet. The cyberattacks stopped. The only persons at the department who knew why, were Bastian and the people he shared the room with. Those people had heard him every time he called the RASE. The Abteilung Computer und Internet of the RND had prevented blackouts in the country, but it was a close call. One more power plant in shut down and parts of the power grid would have to be shut down.

That was also what Strauss said before thanking everyone. Bastian got some extra praising for finding out where the hacker was. The people were also informed about the arrestments, and that at least one person had been identified as a member of the Vierte Rote Befreiungsarmee.
Bastian was separately informed that the person identified as a member of the Vierte Rote Befreiungsarmee was one of his friends from 15 years ago: Lorenz Jörgens. On the one hand, Bastian wanted to talk to Lorenz to find out what had happened that he had radicalised into someone who didn’t hesitate to turn a nuclear power plant into a weapon. On the other hand, he was enough a secret agent to realise that it was unwise to unveil himself. Lorenz was on his way to Lubjank, but through his lawyer he would still have access to the outside world, and with that able to send a message to the Vierte Rote Befreiungsarmee that Bastian was working for the RND. But still it felt unfinished.

Strauss was very happy about one thing. Recently the whole team had followed a training on the computer systems of nuclear power plants. This with the aim to test the security of the nuclear power plants in Eiffelland and its allies. During those trainings, Bastian found a possible leak. Later on, that possible leak turned out to be a real one. And that was exactly the leak that Lorenz Jörgens tried to use. Luckily, because the leak was a known one, the RND knew what to shield. The size of the attack made the defence a hectic task though.
And the attack as a whole made Bastian furious. Although not educated in nuclear physics, he knew enough about nuclear power plants through his recent training and what Christoph had told about it, to understand to what a meltdown could lead. “A nuclear power plant is not something to play with,” he said to Strauss. And later on also to Christoph, who understood that this whole incident was actually a state secret.

Bastian had to think of an old song by an Ostmarker artist. The song was called “Coming home (Jeanny Part 2, one year later)”, and was a follow-up song on a song called “Jeanny”. Both songs described the kidnapping and rape of a woman from the perspective of the rapist, who was completely obsessed with his victim. Of course that all was completely unrelated to the situation Bastian was in, but three sentences from the song did apply:

Du hast dich verändert
Wir haben uns verändert
Das Leben ist Veränderung

It was a funny situation Bastian Holzbrenner found himself in. Fighting his friends from his youth. Friends he experienced so many things with. Friends with whom he fought for his ideal of a free world, a world in which your ancestry didn’t matter, a world in which whom you loved didn’t matter. Friends with whom he fought for a better environment and animal rights. Friends he shared everything with. Friends he lost contact with. Friends he didn’t recognise any more, because of what they had become.

OOC 1: Abbreviations:
RASE = Reichsschutzpolizei Abteilung Sondereinsätze, i.e. the elite tactical police unit responsible for counterterrorism, hostage rescue and other high-risk operations. Think of the GSG-9.
RND = Reichsnachrichtendienst, i.e. the secret service.

OOC 2: Here is the song:

You must be registered for see medias

 

[Eiffelland]

28FEB2026
Oranienburg, Eiffelland
Looking into the barrels of two assault rifles carried by two persons in Kevlar body armour carrying helmets with one-way-vizors on their heads, realising that there might be more of such people pointing their assault rifles on him, Lorenz Jörgens put his hands in the air and followed the orders screamed at him. Lying on his belly, he was first handcuffed, then footcuffed, and then gagged with a plaster over his mouth. Then he was examined very thoroughly. He was literally stripped on the spot. All the pockets in his clothes were checked, the clothes themselves were checked, the shoes were checked as well. Then he was dressed again. Still gagged and cuffed, he was carried to a prison van. And that all while two police officers kept their assault rifles pointed at him. One of the police officers told him in the usual euphemistic way common in Eiffelland: “Herr Jörgens, Sie sind vorläufig festgenommen.” (Mr. Jörgens, you have been temporarily taken into custody.) Then his rights were read out to him. The last thing the police officer said was: “I have to inform you that we will make use of the firearms if you attempt to escape, or if an attempt to help you with escaping is conducted.”
Then Lorenz was carried out of the house and into a helicopter that had landed on the street in front of the house he worked from. He was chained to the seat he had been put in. Then two police officers still carrying their helmets and their guns entered the helicopter. Finally, somebody in civil clothes stepped in. The door was closed. The helicopter took off.

“Lorenz Jörgens,” the man in civil clothes started to talk. “The youngest son of the infamous Kanzler a.D. Horst Jörgens. Hardened socialist as he is, maybe even communist, and as a result hardened atheist, he didn’t have his children baptised. You yourself are an atheist as well?”

Lorenz made a screaming noise, subdued by the plaster on his mouth.

“You don’t need to answer that question,” the man in civil clothes said. “Hardened atheist, that father of yours, but he procreated in a way that would generate respect from the refos. Three sons, three daughters. With the intern he seduced when she was 22. You are the youngest child. You, your mother and your brothers and sisters came into our focus when we discovered that your father, while he was Chancellor, transferred top-secret information to a far-left organisation. Up to now, you are the only child of Kanzler a.D. Jörgens who followed his father’s foodsteps into far left terrain. First it was just disturbing far-right demos and taking up fights with far-right idiots. That was something we condoned. But what happened after that? What made you decide to become a terrorist? What drove you so far to hack nuclear power plants? Why are you who you have become?”

The man in civil clothes took the plaster from Lorenz’s mouth. Lorenz remained silent.

“We are really interested in those questions, but take your time to find answers,” the man in civil clothes said. “You are transported to the Hochsicherheitsjustizvollzugsanstalt Lubjank. You will have all the time to think about those questions.”

“Are you going to kill me there, like you did with Andreas Fischer, Ulrike Bienenhof, Casper Helsling, Max Basper, Horst Müller and Carl Meines?” Lorenz asked furiously.

“No, but you will be trialed. In secret. We are not going to let your friends know that we have you. They will have to find that out themselves,” the man in civil clothes said. “And of course we are also interested in other things. Where are your friends, for instance? And where is your father? He has been declared dead, but we know that he is alive.”

“You’ll have to torture me to get that out of me,” Lorenz said angrily.

“Torture? What do you think of us? This is a democracy. We don’t torture,” the man in civil clothes said.

He did not speak the truth there. The RND did torture people, but only in very special cases, when the needed piece of information was essential to prevent disasters from happening. It could have very well been that Lorenz would have been tortured as well, given his membership of a terrorist group, but his former friendship with Bastian Holzbrenner prevented that from happening. It was not Bastian who had lobbied for that, but Ferdinand Strauss. He was afraid that he would lose Bastian’s loyalty if the latter’s former friends would be treated too harshly.

However, given what he had done, trying to hack nuclear power plants, he would be kept in isolation with the other three arrested hackers. Eiffelland would not allow that the news about a computer security leak in the nuclear power plants would become public. Not even if that leak was about to be closed. Not even if the RND would continue to challenge the security software of the nuclear power plants, and very intensely during the months to come, leading to a couple of more patches to the security software protecting the nuclear power plants. Eiffelland took this very seriously, and if the hacker would not have been one of Bastian’s former friends, the RND would have made an example of him.

“What if we make it public that the security software of the nuclear power plants has a leak?” Lorenz asked. “That’s going to be a blow for Rathenau, and a blow for the trust in the nuclear power plants. The population will want the end to nuclear power.”

“How would that become public?” the man in civil clothes asked.

“SCHAU! publishes everything,” Lorenz said with an evil grin. “Sooner or later, my friends will find out that I have been arrested. And then the notification will be passed on.”

“But then we will also make public that we stopped a group of hackers trying to make use of that leak, and that we have arrested the hackers. And we will make sure that your names become public as well. I don’t know what you planned to do, but we will leak to the press that you wanted to cause a nuclear disaster. The public will want your heads. And not only yours, also the ones of your friends in the Vierte Rote Befreiungsarmee,” the man in civil clothes asked. “We will also leak the addresses of your families. Be careful with your threats.”

“By the way, is this an interrogation? Then where is my lawyer?” Lorenz asked.

“I am very well aware of the rules. I won’t use information and evidence that was not obtained through legal means,” the man in civil clothes said.