Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Eighty-Three
2nd June 1978
New York City, New York
David Roth, AKA Andreas Baader, was more than happy to sell out his employer, in fact he didn’t seem to be in the least bit surprised that the FBI had picked him up. It seemed that like most other bodega’s in New York City the place had a thriving sideline of items sold under the counter that the NYPD's Vice and Narcotics Divisions would be more than happy to learn about. For Ed that was all well and good, but he had used the arrest and interview to confirm to his satisfaction that Roth was in fact Baader. Ed had a hard time not leaping across the table and strangling Baader after becoming aware of what all the evidence said he had allegedly done. Shooting up a street crowded street full of commuters fully aware that the resulting chaos and terror would cause more injury and death, and he had done it just to make a political point.
Ed had let Jimmy do most of the talking as let Baader continued to tell them everything that he assumed they wanted to hear. Ed tried to listen, but his mind kept going back to the photographs that had appeared in daily newspapers of Germany. They had been in black and white, but that had hardly mattered, and the German papers were not as inclined to avoid offending the sensibilities of their readers as their American counterparts. The images had been of bodies lying in the street having been hit by rifle bullets, broken after falling down a flights of stairs, crushed against walls as a result of this man’s actions had stuck with Ed.
As soon as Sven Werth had alerted him to Baader’s presence in New York Ed had known that this was something that he wouldn’t be able to let go of. It was a feeling that had only grown stronger as he had learned more.
“I think that will be Mister Roth” Jimmy said evenly, reminding Ed why he had been uninvited from their supervisor’s poker nights back in Dublin. “Unless you can think of anything else?”
“Nothing” Baader replied, “I have wanted to move on to greener fields anyway.”
“I’m sure you have” Ed said, breaking his silence. “There is just one thing that we need to know.”
“Yes, what is that” Baader asked in reply with a smile that was as fake as the identity he had been using.
“We stumbled across the business your employer had on the side by accident” Ed replied, “It is rare to see them operating outside of Germany, but the… I’m not going to try to say this out loud because I would probably butcher it, but it translates to Federal Interior Intelligence, they had the store you worked at under surveillance. You have to understand why we would take an interest in that.”
“I had no idea I was being watched” Baader hastily lied in reply, committing another felony in the process. The cool that he’d had when he thought that he had them snowed had vanished in an instant. “Why on earth would they be investigating me?”
“Really?” Ed asked with a smirk, “Do you think that they didn’t tell us what they were after?”
“More like who?” Jimmy said.
“I can assure you that it was a case of mistaken identity” Baader replied.
“I thought that you had no idea that they were watching you” Jimmy said.
“I left Germany more than a decade ago” Baader said, “In case that has escaped your notice, and agencies like them, the ones who enforce the orders of an unelected tyrant are the very reason why I left.”
“I think that is the only thing about yourself that you have told us that wasn’t a complete load of bullshit” Jimmy said.
“Let’s start with your name” Ed said, “David Roth died thirty-four years ago and was buried in the family plot in New Jersey. It didn’t take us long to figure that one out, that lazy jackass you bought that identification from likes to reuse documents.”
“And the Roth family has absolutely no connection to Germany” Jimmy said, “We asked them about that.”
“You not being who you said you are fits neatly with your comment about your employer blackmailing you” Ed said as Baader was clearly trying to think of an excuse for all of that. It wasn’t going to do him much good. The German BII had sent a partial handprint found on the wall where graffiti left by the shooter had been written. It had taken their experts only minutes to declare that Andreas Baader/David Roth had been the individual whose handprint matched. This interview was all about crossing all the T’s and dotting all the I’s.
“Of course, as an illegal alien we can just throw you onto the next flight back to Deutschland” Jimmy said. Ed saw something pass across the face of Baader. Fear.
“Ten years is a long time Dave, or whatever your name is” Ed said, “A long time spent hiding, working in a crappy bodega, and living in a one room apartment in Alphabet City. What could possibly be worse?”
That got Ed an angry glare in return.
“What I don’t get is why your own government would still be hunting you after all this time?” Jimmy asked.
“I have no idea” Baader said through gritted teeth.
“I have few ideas” Ed said with a smirk as he opened the paper folder he had been holding and sat it on the table in front of Baader. Inside was the newspaper articles he had been reading. “You just had to sign your work leaving the BII the evidence needed to nail your ass to the wall, Andreas Baader. Can you tell me what he is looking forward to in Germany?”
“I don’t know” Jimmy replied, “They don’t have the death penalty over there, throwing people into holes they never come out of is more their speed. Especially for this sort of thing.”
Jimmy tapped the newspaper clippings for emphasis.
It was dawning on Baader they had been onto him the whole time, a bit too late.
“Perhaps you should have taken Jimmy’s advice about waiting for a legal representative” Ed said.