Cutler’s third team member was in a blue Nissan Micra, a nondescript car which would not draw attention. He would follow the Ford van, and radio Cutler when they were approaching the section where the police vans had parked. Cutler would then inform the commander in charge, and the van would be hemmed in on both sides, with nowhere to go. Where the roadblock had been situated was not Cutler’s choice or first option, but in line with working in partnership with the German police, he had reluctantly agreed to the commander’s choice of location.
The route was steep and cobblestoned, with minimal turning opportunities. There were sheer rock walls on the driver’s side and deep gorges on the passenger side.
Werner and his two henchmen would be going in the opposite direction. They would retrace the road Cutler had taken from Berchtesgaden. Cutler fell in love with the area with its small, picturesque villages with chalets adorned with paintings on the side of a man baking bread, or working the field, primarily depicting what the trade of the family that lived there.
As the road started to descend outside Berchtesgaden, you could either continue the high route towards the Austrian ski resorts, or take the road leading down to Bad Reichenhall. As the gang’s headquarters was in Bad Reichenhall, Cutler had set up a similar trap on this road just north of a small town called Bischofsweisen.
Again, the German commander had chosen the area to block, which was the village’s alpine railway crossing, a natural place for a roadblock, the leader had told Cutler. Again, it would not have been Cutler’s first choice.
Radio masts were few and far between, and not allowed in the alpine area. As a result, the reception was abysmal. Still as a precaution, Cutler had agreed with the police to ensure the masts were offline while the operation was underway. He knew Werner never used mobile phones as he did not trust them, but his men may have them as backup.
Because of the separate vans going in opposite directions, the last thing Cutler needed was one van to inform the other they had fallen into a trap.
Cutler, from earlier stakeouts of the gang, had already identified that they used shortwave radios with encrypted transmissions. Werner had taken technical equipment and weapons from the Stasi armoury on its demise. The problem was the technology was outdated and Cutler could listen in unhindered to their transmissions.The lack of new technology was a flaw in the gang’s communication capability—a significant weakness, as far as Cutler was concerned.
The Ford van navigated the cobblestoned hairpin bends slowly, as the road almost came parallel with the road back, which was now several metres higher. As soon as they had cleared the bend, they could see the police cars some hundred metres ahead.
Maybe it was the ten years they were almost certainly going to face in prison that made them make the foolish decision to try to navigate the roadblock. On the other hand, maybe as they came round the corner, the roadblock was on them too quickly, and they could not reverse, nor did they have any other escape routes.
In the blink of an eye, they skirted the roadblock, the left front and back wheels teetering on the edge of the cobbled road, the left-hand tyres spinning in open space above the 200-metre drop.
The centre of gravity is a moveable, invisible force, and gravity is forever the winner in battles of height and open spaces. The weight of the van and lack of support on the left-hand side began, slowly at first, to incline the van downwards over the open space. The right-hand tyres’ grip on the road began to slip, and the force trying to keep it on the road was not sustainable.
The two occupants, the driver and his accomplice, were both hard men. When not plying their illegal trade, they visited the gym and worked out for most days of their adult lives. They were large men, with T-shirts that were stretched taut against their bulging muscles. They were men who had known violence, had seen grown men pleading with them as they had beaten them close to death. Today it was they who screamed like frightened little boys, tossing around as if they were in a tumble dryer as the van spun slowly and hastened its descent onto the boulders below.
Immediately upon impact, the two men were no longer screaming. Both men had died immediately on impact, their heads no more than a wet stain inside the demolished vehicle.
Fire needs three things to ensure that ignition can start and maintain the inferno. First, it needs oxygen; the clean mountain alpine air, sweet to taste, if a little sparser than at sea level, would do. Fire also requires an ignition source, and there were certainly enough sparks as the van hit the stony bottom of the gorge. Finally, fire needs fuel, and the petrol tank ruptured giving way to a deafening explosion, milliseconds after the engine was forced through the car, exiting the car’s rear. Once the petrol had been spent, the fire sought out other sources of fuel to maintain the fire, and it found some. The cartons of money that were in the van seconds before the explosion now rained down to earth on fire. The vehicle’s plastic components plus the fat and muscle of the two occupants, all added fuel to maintain the fire.
While the fire consumed the Ford van, Agent Johnson had come down from his observation point behind the trees on the hill. Johnson had joined Cutler in an unassuming Opel. They drove out behind the Mercedes van in which Werner and his bodyguard were exiting the parking lot.
Cutler was not worried that Werner or his crony would see the Opel. Such was the width of the road. The van
