It mattered little to Bauer that he knew both his targets and had worked with them in the past.
Schweinsteiger was based in Cologne; he occupied an apartment just behind the magnificent Gothic twin-spired cathedral. Originally built in 1248; the towers were added in 1880. It was a huge cathedral that barely survived the Second World War. Cologne’s tallest building had been lovingly rebuilt to dominate the skyline, hovering magnificently above the roofs and chimneys of the city.
Bauer crossed over the Severinsbrücke Bridge, which ran parallel to the Rhine river. A hundred metres further on he turned right and found a parking spot near the Church of St George. Bauer put the coins into the parking meter, as the last thing he needed was a parking ticket to identify he had been there at all.
Bauer walked the short distance to Severin Strasse and found the large brick house. Ensuring no one saw him, he entered the main door and walked up the three flights of marble-capped steps to Schweinsteiger’s apartment. Bauer knocked heavily on the solid wooden door of the apartment. Schweinsteiger opened the door after a slight pause after he had looked through the peephole in the door. Schweinsteiger was happy to let Bauer in; after all, they had worked together many times, and he assumed that this would be for a new job.
Schweinsteiger was the bag man; he was the man the cash came to. He would be the delivery man to take it from several cities to Bad Tölz, where he would hand the money over to Richter.
Bauer explained quickly to Schweinsteiger that he had been sent by Werner with orders for him and the accountant.
Schweinsteiger had been like a rudderless ship since Werner had gone off the radar several days before. He had collated the information, counted the money, ensured that every cent was accounted for, and he had completed three deliveries to Richter in Bad Tölz.
Bauer accepted the offer of a Jägermeister, and Schweinsteiger turned his back on him to prepare the drink.
“How is the boss? I heard—” Schweinsteiger was cut off mid-sentence.
Bauer had put on thin rubber gloves, and in a fluid, motion removed a clear plastic bag from his pocket. Before Schweinsteiger finished his sentence, he had a bag put over his head and was kicked in the back of his left knee. Bauer pushed him down into a kneeling position, facing away from him. Schweinsteiger knew his time was up and who had ordered him dead. Schweinsteiger struggled for the best part of a minute, his strength depleting every second. Schweinsteiger’s last thoughts were of his father, who had been executed many years before as a war criminal.
I’ll be seeing you soon, he thought, and then he expired.
Bauer had previously wiped the interior of the bag with an amphetamine so Schweinsteiger would inhale and ingest the drug in his dying breaths. The bag puffed out weaker and weaker as Schweinsteiger fought for the oxygen that was no longer available.
Once Bauer was satisfied Schweinsteiger was dead, he placed the body on its back. Bauer looked intently at the vacant, dead of eyes of Schweinsteiger, now a cadaver, a piece of meat, not human anymore, just a problem.
Bauer removed the contaminated plastic bag from the head. He retrieved a piece of amphetamine-contaminated orange from a small plastic container in his left pocket and placed it between the dead man’s lips. Bauer then put the original plastic bag back over the cadaver’s head and pulled the drawstring tight.
It would be several hours before Schweinsteiger’s hands would go stiff with rigor mortis; Bauer manipulated his fingers on his left hand onto the drawstring. He then undid Schweinsteiger’s trousers and pulled them down to below his knees. He manipulated the right hand of the dead man around his penis. He took a final look around the apartment for any incriminating evidence. Finding none, he left.
Bauer had used this method several times, and the result was the same every time. The family wanted it all hushed up with minimum investigation; bad press on a loved one with the morbid hobby of masturbation and strangulation is not one many would want as an epitaph.
Bauer drove out of the city of Cologne, joining the E43 Autobahn, passing Frankfurt and Nuremberg down to Munich. He had rented the Mercedes under a false name using false identification documents, provided by the same expert who produced the counterfeit notes.
Shortly before 6 pm, he entered the English Garden, and immediately noticed the man in the garb of a nurse on the far side of the park, sitting on a wooden bench. Bauer manoeuvred his way around the park out of Nurse Hessler’s vision until he stood no more than a few yards behind him.
Bauer scanned the area three hundred and sixty degrees to ensure he was not being watched. He quickly covered the two yards to the back of the bench while removing the weapon of choice from the inside pocket of his black leather jacket. Bauer expertly thrust the ice pick into the nape, killing Hessler instantly. The pick had been out of his pocket less than a second before it was replaced, and Bauer was already ten yards away from Nurse Hessler, who remained sitting upright.
Bauer returned to his car, not wanting to stay in the city longer than he had to. He had to get to Bad Tölz, to kill Richter. It was just another hit for Bauer, but the instruction to kill him immediately after Schweinsteiger and Nurse Hessler was intriguing. Never before had he been contracted for three separate hits to be carried out in three different places in one day. But that is what he would do; it was suicide to double-cross Werner or the
