gorge, not far from one of his associates. Their bodies got hung up on some rocks and were discovered by the police.’
‘How did they die?’
‘Krueger was shot at close range. The other man died from a broken neck. Autopsies are scheduled for later today. We’ll know more then.’
‘What else?’
His assistant flipped through his paperwork. ‘They found another body near the ambush site. According to our police source, the victim was dressed in camouflage like the driver of the caravan. His name was Lange. He was a known associate of Kaiser’s.’
Mueller held up his hand and spread his fingers wide. ‘That makes five. Five dead gunmen, and we don’t know what they were fighting over. Or do we? What’s this caravan you keep talking about?’
He flipped to another page. ‘Witnesses, including several employees at the Eckbauerbahn, reported a black man driving an off-road vehicle. He was hauling a soldier, four wooden crates and an unconscious man, who was being treated by a French doctor. They used the cableway to get off the mountain.’
Mueller stared at him like he was crazy. ‘They used a ski lift to escape?’
‘According to witnesses, yes.’
‘Who the fuck does that?’
The assistant shrugged, but said nothing.
‘Does the ski lift go over the gorge?’
‘No, sir. It’s east of the gorge by a considerable distance. Here, take a look at this.’ He reached into his folder and pulled out a map of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Several additions had been handwritten in coloured ink. ‘I marked the ambush site where the bodies were found and the location of the cableway. As you can see, the violence was spread out.’
Mueller stared at the map and tried to make sense of things. Two of Kaiser’s men had been killed in the initial ambush, which had occurred on a hiking trail above the gorge. Afterwards, the vehicle had headed east where its passengers had linked up with the cableway that took them to the Olympic stadium at the base of the mountain. Meanwhile, Krueger and his associate had gone in the opposite direction, perhaps trying to beat Kaiser’s crew into town by using a shortcut through the gorge. A solid plan, especially if Krueger had someone waiting down below - which would explain the presence of Krueger’s friend near the ski stadium. Of course, everything went to shit when Krueger and his associate were killed in the gorge. Without backup, Krueger’s friend was killed as well, overpowered by the crew from the cableway.
As far as Mueller was concerned, all that made perfect sense. The one thing that didn’t, the one thing that still eluded him, was what had attracted Ulster and Kaiser to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the first place. ‘What was in the crates?’
His assistant shrugged. ‘No one knows.’
Mueller shoved the table forward, driving it into his assistant’s stomach. ‘Obviously someone knows, or there wouldn’t have been a gunfight!’
The assistant nodded while trying to regain his breath. Once he did, he grabbed some napkins from a ceramic holder and cleaned up the coffee that had spilled on the table. Mueller watched him with a mixture of amusement and contempt, wondering how someone could take that much abuse without fighting back. If nothing else, his assistant was loyal.
Mueller waited until the mess was cleared up before he spoke again. ‘What else?’
His assistant glanced through his folder. ‘Krueger got me thinking. He tracked down the chopper’s registration by using its tail number. That’s how he discovered Ulster’s involvement in the first place.’
‘So?’ Mueller snapped.
‘So,’ he said as he kept flipping pages, ‘I took it a step further. Most luxury helicopters are equipped with radio transceivers that are used to track the vehicle in case of theft. I gave Ulster’s tail number to our police connection, who reported the chopper stolen. That automatically triggered its theft transceiver, a small device that emits an inaudible signal that can be detected by police tracking computers throughout Europe.’
‘And?’
‘And the Bavarian State Police got a hit.’
‘Where?’ Mueller demanded.
His assistant finally found the sheet he was looking for. ‘As of thirty minutes ago, Ulster’s chopper had crossed the German-Austrian border.’
‘Shit! He’s probably going back to Switzerland.’
‘Actually, sir, the chopper was headed into Germany.’
Mueller stared at him. ‘Ulster had left, but is coming back?’
‘We don’t know about Ulster, but his chopper was in Bavarian airspace as of thirty minutes ago. Our source said he would call us with updates.’
Mueller smiled for the first time that morning. ‘Wonderful! Just wonderful! Good thinking on your part. I should have thought of that myself.’
His assistant beamed. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘What