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“I wish I could help, my dear.”

“Just be the mother you’ve always been. That’s all I ask.”

She gave another of the smiles that served to take the years off her. “It’s too late for me to change.”

“Which is exactly what I want.” He kissed her forehead, then went quickly out of the galleried entrance hall.

In the staircase hall, a rich Persian carpet partly covered the polished wooden floor and wide stairs of dark polished wood wound their way upwards in three flights, to the first floor.

As he reached the top landing a thin man in
his late fifties, dressed in a dark suit, came out of a nearby room.

“Good evening, Herr Baron,” he greeted respectfully. “It is good to see you at home.”

“Good evening, Hans. It’s always good to be here. Has my mother been well?”

“You know how it is with the chill, sir. But she is strong.”

Hohendorf smiled. “So she’s just been telling me.”

“You will be having supper in the small dining room, sir?”

“Yes, Hans.”

“I shall see to it.”

“Thank you.”

Back erect, Hans gave a little nod. “Herr Baron,” he acknowledged, and went down the stairs.

Hohendorf watched him for some moments. Repeated attempts over the years to get the manservant to address him less formally had failed. It had been “Herr Baron” and it always would be.

As he made his way to his room, he glanced at the ancestral portraits that graced the walls of the corridor. Most of the male members were in some form of military attire, from the early days up to the present. There was even a portrait of Axel himself, the ultimate modern warrior in full flying kit, helmet beneath his arm, but that one took pride of place down in the drawing room. His mother’s wish. It was hung next to his own favorite: the portrait of a naval
Commander in best blues, cap at a rakish angle. His maternal grandfather.

His mother always maintained he took after that particular grandfather, a man who had died long before he was born and whose sole child had only been four at the time.

The Count, Axel’s businessman father did not think the dead commander a good role model, and frequently said so.

Supper was quiet and enjoyable and at the end of it as they had coffee, the Countess said: “I almost forgot, your commanding officer called with a message.”

Hohendorf was surprised. “Wusterhausen? What did he want?”

“Nothing. He’s given you some extra time off. He says you can take two days, but be back by Wednesday. Is it about Anne-Marie?”

Hohendorf nodded.

“This is not hurting your career?”

“No, Mother. Wusterhausen is a good CO.”

“Oh, Axel. I wish I could do something for you both.” She stroked his arm, as if to comfort him.

He smiled at her. “I’ll work it out.”

“With all this on your mind, it must be difficult when you’re flying. All those crashes one reads about …”

“It does not affect my flying. Believe me. Wusterhausen is very sharp. If he thought I was slip
ping, he’d ground me very quickly. In his place, I’d do the same. So don’t worry.”

“I won’t,” she said; but the smile she gave him was less certain.

Hohendorf finished his coffee, and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “And now, I’d better get myself off to bed. It’s an early start for me.”

“Goodnight, my son.”

“Goodnight, Mother. Coming up?”

“No. I think I’ll stay down for a while.”

“All right. But not too late, or Hans will be ordering you off.”

She gave him a hug. “Away you go. You’ve got that long drive to München.”

After he’d gone, she went into the drawing room to stand before the portrait of her father.

“Look after him,
Vati,
“she said. “I don’t want to lose him too.” She turned to her son’s portrait. “And you, Axel,” she said to it softly, “take care in that machine of yours. Take care.”

Saturday morning, the Welsh mountains.

Flying Officer Richard Palmer was twenty-two and was aware that if he couldn’t hack this low-flying, he wouldn’t live to be twenty-three. He’d just caught himself keeping his eyes glued to the elusive Hawk twisting through the valleys ahead of him, almost to the exclusion of the rest of his environment. Yet he knew that situation awareness was paramount to continuing survival: target-fixation easily led to a premature acquaintance with the ground.

The instructor flying the target Hawk advanced trainer in front of him with such fiendish skill was totally determined to make life as difficult as possible for his pursuer. Palmer knew his every move was being analyzed by another instructor in another Hawk, lurking somewhere. Between them, the two instructors had him in a psychological sandwich,
putting on the pressure. If he couldn’t cope, he’d be no use as a front-line fighter pilot.

And Palmer very much needed to cope. It was of vital importance to him.

The mountains were terrifyingly close. He listened to his ragged breathing within the confines of his helmet and mask. He was determined to fight this fear. Too much was at stake.

His urgent desire to fly had begun at the age of twelve when his father had taken him to the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon. He had spent most of that visit staring at the imposing bulk of the Lightning operational prototype, the P.1B. Neck craning at the towering white shape, the “overunder” configuration of its powerful engines and its strange, coned nose intake, he’d felt it
wanted
to fly, even as it quietly stood there.

“I want to be a pilot,” he told his father.

And his father, a World War Two baby who had not known Service life, said: “To be able to do that, you must do your homework and learn well at school. Only an officer will fly something like that, and they won’t let you be an officer if you don’t do well at school.”

“I’ll do well,” he vowed.

He’d done better, and a proud father had seen him go on to university and come away with a first class degree. He had got his first taste of flying with the university’s air squadron before going on to the RAF College for officer training, academic work,
more flying, months of praying he’d make it, and watching others fail. Making it and going on to more advanced training, now a real officer, father and mother very proud. He’d done it all: the propeller-driven little Bulldogs; the Jet Provost, for his first experience of jet flying; then the red and white Hawks for the beginnings of true fast jet experience and now, the sharp end was getting nearer. Now, he was at the advanced stage, piloting a Hawk in air superiority light grey colours, chasing a wily instructor in a sister aircraft, its low-level grey/green camouflage pattern making it difficult to acquire visually, even against the snow-mottled background of the mountains. General visibility, thank God, was perfect.

Three pressure-filled years of sweat and here he was. Not bad for the son of a man who owned an electrical appliance shop in Reading. Fear or no fear, he would hang on to that dancing Hawk.

Then it was gone.

Oh shit,
he thought.
Shit shit!

Don’t panic. He’s still there. He must be. He hasn’t gone over the top or he’d have been silhouetted. There, that valley. Into it.

Palmer stood the Hawk on its wingtip, hauled the stick towards him, eased off, reversed the turn. The agile little aircraft threaded its way through. The ground rushed by above the canopy, speckled walls rising towards the sky. 400 knots on the HUD.

Where’s that bloody instructor?

“Are you with me, three-six?” The voice in the helmet daring him to say otherwise.

“I’m with you.”

But I’m not. Christ, oh Christ. Where is he?

The area had been cleared of other aircraft for the duration of the sortie, but that did not allow complacency. Anything could happen. People had met each other coming over the tops of mountains and certainly in the real game no enemy was going to conveniently tell you where he was going to be.

Keep the eyeballs working. Be conscious of the HUD.
Don’t
stare at it. Don’t get mesmerised by the ground rushing past. Monitor, monitor, monitor. Be aware! Watch for his pull-up. He’ll try to do it when he thinks you’re not looking. Then he’ll be away between the mountains and you’ll have lost him. He’ll be waiting for you when you land. What were you doing, Palmer? Daydreaming? The taxpayer didn’t fork out nearly three-and-a-half million quid on you, to allow you the luxury of a daydream in one of Her Majesty’s aircraft.

Oh dear God, where is he? Christ. The ground’s close! Don’t panic. You’re two hundred feet up. There. On the HUD. You’re OK. Engine’s spooling smoothly. Nicely on the throttle. That’s it.

The light gray Hawk flashed between the rising walls of the mountain slopes in pursuit of its prey. Palmer held the controls firmly, but without undue pressure. The terrain rolled this way and that as he sped by, tearing the air with his passage.

And then, he saw it. A speck seeming to leap up the side of the mountain. He was on to it, keeping it firmly in sight. He trailed it all the way back to base.

When they had landed, the instructor said: “Did you lose me at all, Palmer?” Gray eyes seemed to stare into his very soul.

“There was a time when I thought I had,” Palmer said, warily covering his options.

“I never would have thought it. Well done, lad. You can buy me a beer later.”

“Yes, sir!” Palmer flushed with relief.

The instructor smiled. “A little bird tells me, Rick, that a choice posting’s coming up soon. Tornadoes. I think you’ll like it.”

Palmer stammered incoherently, at a loss for words, so great was his pleasure.

The qualified flying instructor, a hardened Squadron Leader, clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t thank me, lad. You did it all by yourself.” He smiled again. “With a little help from your friendly QFI, of course.”

The QFI began to walk away, then paused. “And Palmer, I don’t want to hear you’ve bent any of those nice Tornadoes … or I’ll come looking for you. Got that?”

Palmer grinned. “Yes, sir.”

When the QFI had gone, he found himself remembering just how much the mountains had scared him.

*   *   *

Munich was cold at midday, but the sky was clear of cloud. Low banks of hard-packed snow bordered the dry streets. The red Porsche cruised along a wide, spotlessly clean road towards an exclusive residential area in a northern part of the city.

Hohendorf slowed for an approaching corner. To his right, a cobbled pedestrian path with a paved cycle track running alongside, probed into a snow-covered park. He turned left into the side street. A hundred meters later, he turned right. Another right turn took him into the short drive of a large, two-storeyed house. There was enough room for four cars. Only one stood there: a big, gunmetal gray BMW coupé, gleaming in the cold light of the winter’s day. It was washed daily by one of the family chaffeurs.

Hohendorf parked next to it. He was glad she was in. Better to have it out now, than to sit waiting for her return. He turned off the engine, picked up his bag, climbed out of the car, and shut it quietly. He walked up the short flight of steps. As he got to the porticoed entrance, the tall door opened.

“Hello, Axel,” she said. She never called him dear or darling. Too common.

By any standards, Anne-Marie was a beauty. Her long hair was a burnished gold, her eyes almost white in their paleness, and the fine bones of her face bespoke of noble breeding. She was elegantly tall, and curvaceously slim. Her voice was deep and capable
of sensuousness. One of the von Ettlingens before her marriage, she was a countess in her own right, with a family schloss deep in the Bavarian hinterland. She was dressed as if she was on her way out.

She came forward to kiss him full on the mouth. “Come in. I’ll make you something to eat.” It was not what he would have expected of her. Summons to a servant would have seemed more her style. “You look tired,” she went on as he followed her inside. “A bad drive?”

“No. It was quite enjoyable. But I’ve been flying long hours this week. Perhaps it’s caught up with me at last.”

She appeared about to say something, but changed her mind.

“I see you’re ready to go out,” he began. “I don’t want to interrupt your business.”

“Just a lunch date,” she said. “I’ll cancel. It’s not a problem. Go and freshen up. We’ll eat in the breakfast room.”

“Where are Manfred and Ute?”

“Ute’s looking after the schloss for the weekend, and Manfred is driving Father to Stuttgart. You might even have passed them on the way. Father will be going on to the schloss, so Manfred won’t be back either. We’ll be all alone.”

“Is that what you want? I can find a hotel if you’ve got … people coming.”

Her eyes did not turn away from his. “If by ‘people’
you mean Gerhard … no, he’s not coming here. I would not do that.”

“You go to his apartment instead.”

“Yes.” She was not coy about it.

“Is he the lunch date?”

“Yes. He’s not flying today.”

“Then don’t cancel your lunch. I can make my own …”

“I said it is no problem. I’ll simply tell him I can’t come.”

She did not say Gerhard would just have to put up with it, but that was implicit in her tone. Hohendorf almost felt sorry for the man. A senior pilot with the Ettlingen family airline, it could not be easy trying to keep on the right side of the boss’s already married daughter. One false move and bang would go a flying career. It would be very difficult to get a job with another airline based in the country. A vengeful Anne-Marie could be fearsome.

“I’ll do that freshening-up,” he said. “See you in the breakfast room.”

She nodded. “Axel …”

“Later. We’ll talk later.”

She nodded again, and left him to it.

The Munich town house was expensively decorated, expensively furnished, its valuable paintings and objets d’art protected by an unobtrusive but comprehensive electronic security system. AnneMarie, Hohendorf reflected, was certainly a luxury the handsome Gerhard Linden would find difficult
to afford, despite his generous salary with Ettling Luft. Presumably she would not want to change the high-priced style into which she had been born—on the other hand, perhaps she was attracted to Linden’s way of life, which must seem to her bohemian by comparison. It was all relative. Many people would consider Linden’s lifestyle very enviable indeed. But guessing which way Anne-Marie would jump next had always been a hazardous occupation.