“How the hell did I get myself into this mess?”

 I wasn’t just thinking this; I was saying it out loud to any of the pigeons that might understand English. I was hanging upside down from the roof of the Grand Hotel in downtown Nuremberg, Germany, looking five floors down to what I suspected was a very hard concrete sidewalk.

Pigeons…. damned pigeons, they are what got me into this mess. It was supposed to be a simple repair job. I was attached to the local Grenzschutzgruppe 9, GSG-9 for short. GSG-9 is the counter-terrorism arm of the German State Border Patrol. I had been through their training and respected them and their abilities. No, I am not by trade a repairman. I am, for lack of better term, an American agent.

The pigeons had pecked at the parabolic microphone that I had installed less than a week before on the roof of the hotel. It seems that right across the street from the hotel was the local Community Center. The locals called it the Com-Center, Com being short for communist. The center was suspected to be involved in actively supporting what remained of a group of young terrorists.

We had installed several microphones and some pan and zoom cameras on the roof of the hotel to keep an eye on activity at the Com-Center. No one had figured on the pigeons. We had to clean the equipment daily due to the "presents" left by the pretty feathered pests, and had discovered the roof tiles were very slippery, so I always wore my safety harness. Today this would prove to be fortuitous.

 It was a very pretty day in Bavaria, the sun was shining brightly and for a change the skies were blue instead of the dismal gray they usually were. All the better for the crowd of people gathering below to watch what I was sure was to be my ultimate demise. I kept seeing that late night comedian’s routine of throwing items from the roof of the television studio.  I remember thinking, hoping, praying I wouldn’t hurt anyone when I splattered. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The team had set up operations in the old Armed Forces radio studio in the attic of the US Army hotel the Bavarian-American Hotel. The hotel was used for military families in transit. The attic door opened up onto the pitched roof of the Grand Hotel. At first glance it looked simple, but like so many plans, nothing is simple and what is, never works. The tiled roofs are always in need of repair, so who would notice workmen on the roof. We were dressed in the style of the common German workman, gray smocks and trousers.

We had hoped the people in the Bavarian-American would ignore us since with our longish hair and these rather distinctive clothes we would appear to belong. We had forgotten about kids and their curiosity.  They kept following us to the radio station. We had also underestimated the tenacity of female hotel guests who wanted us to repair things in their rooms. We had not planned on the slickness of the roof. We had not planned on the pigeons! Solving the problem of the female guests was simple … usually we just shrugged and acted like we didn’t understand English. Unfortunately, many of the guests of the hotel were on their way out of country and spoke German, "nicht verstehen",(I don’t understand), did not work. So whenever we ventured out of the radio studio we left our tools behind, and just asked the guests to call the front desk.

The kids, now that was a different story. I often wondered just where their parents were. Kids seem to have a million unanswerable questions and they really don’t care if you answer them or not. If only they could make a machine gun which would fire as fast as kids ask questions. We never did really solve the problem of the kids; they would just get bored and eventually leave.

 To resolve the problem of the slick roof tiles we rigged a safety line and changed to some special shoes with what appeared to be sandpaper on the soles. But the pigeons!!! We just had to live with them. Pigeons might look cute, but they are persistent and fearless. They are also curious and perpetually hungry.

 We were an eight-man team. We had set up the electronic surveillance on the roof, and we also had men on the ground watching the center. We slept in shifts at the old radio station and rotated weekly with another team. All in all it was a fairly routine assignment; until the pigeons. Have you gotten the idea yet that I learned to dislike pigeons? The droppings from the pigeons had to be cleaned off the equipment daily, since it was corrosive to the equipment. We had to inspect all the wiring to make sure one of the little feathered darlings hadn’t poked a hole in the insulation looking for something to eat.

I had just finished installing the new microphone head and was coordinating its alignment with Peter. This required minute movements of the dish, so I was fairly motionless for several minutes. I had been concentrating on the job at hand and had not noticed that the winged demons had settled back in around me. When I heard Peter tell me that the mike was aligned correctly through the earpiece of my radio, I stood up. I must have startled the pigeons for they took off in all directions. Several right at me; pigeons must also not be real bright. I instinctively covered my face and in doing so lost my footing and started sliding off the edge of the building. I twisted quickly around and grabbed at empty air. In twisting I became entangled in the safety line. It’s true what they say about your life passing before your eyes. Everything went into ultra-slow motion as I flailed at the air in a futile attempt to fly. I saw quite vividly the sidewalk below and the people. I saw my tools come out of my smock’s pockets and tumble down toward the ground below .All thoughts ceased as I came to the end of my rope, literally.

The stop was rather sudden and I immediately felt a sharp pain in my leg. Looking up I could see the safety line wrapped around my leg and preventing me from up righting myself. I was hanging upside down, head pointed at the hard sidewalk below. I became aware of a voice in my head, and I realized I was talking to the pigeons. Well maybe talking isn’t quite the right word to use and I am sure any sailors within hearing distance would have blushed at what I was screaming.

The pounding in my head was getting worse and I was on the verge of passing out. I soon heard Peter telling me on the radio that he couldn’t pull me up because he couldn’t get any footing and that maybe I should think about going on a diet. His Germanic wit was not appreciated. I tried to raise myself up to untangle the rope from my leg, but was unable as the blood pounded louder in my head. I then heard Hans. Hans was about 400 meters away on top of the train station, the hauptbahnhof, he was our cover man. He was up there with an H&K model G3 sniper rifle and 10-power scope. His assignment was to protect us and provide security.

Hans was yelling halt into the radio. The tone in his voice was one of panic. I tried to look around and see what was happening, then remembered...Gee maybe it is me hanging upside down. Then i heard him yell into the radio, “gewehr“. Okay, I had been working and training with these guys for months and that term rang a bell, but I couldn’t place it. The pain made my thinking very muddled. My head was pounding and every movement of my body brought more pain. Then I remembered. He was shouting rifle. I quickly responded, “nein, no gewehr“. I thought he was recommending shooting me. Like I said, I wasn’t thinking real straight.

Hans, then yelled, “Sniper“. Now this I understood, and I wondered just where they were and whom they were aiming at. Hans then switched to English and said, “Freeze, don’t move!“. I realized he was talking to me. Hans told me to look up. I did and all I could see were the people on the sidewalk below staring back up at me. I could see them picking up my tools. I looked but couldn’t see anyone with what could be a gun. “Scheiße“, I heard Hans say. “Look the other way, dummkopf“.

I looked upwards toward my feet and saw a faint dot of red light on my chest. I remembered thinking, gee a laser sight, the terrorists are going high tech on us. Judging from the angle, I figured the sniper had to be inside the Grand Hotel and at this range he couldn’t miss with a sling-shot much less a high-powered rifle. I was no longer spinning and I was unable to see in any of the hotel rooms due to the heavy window curtains. I heard Hans call all the team to the lobby of the Grand and call for the local Polizei. About this time, I guess I lost consciousness. Later I found out the rest of the team had gone up to the fourth floor (fifth story in Germany) and started kicking in doors. From their stories later, I gathered they upset a couple of people and the hotel manager. The next thing I remember was being hit in the face with water. I saw Hans and Stephan in the window grinning broadly.

 I was too far away for them to reach me and they were asking me to swing towards them. They tossed me a rope, which I tied off on the D-ring. They then pulled me as close to the window as they could. But I was still hanging out over the sidewalk and my outstretched hands couldn’t grab on to anything. I heard Peter ask if it was time to cut the rope. I think everyone in the Hotel...hell in all of Nuernberg could of heard me yell, “Nein!!“  They were all grinning like Cheshire Cats at what they thought a funny joke.  I wasn’t laughing.

Hans turned to Gruber, who was standing behind him and sent him to join Peter. They loosened the safety line as Hans and Stephan pulled me into the room. I immediately collapsed on the floor, since my leg wasn’t able to support my weight. I was so glad to be on solid ground and not to part of the sidewalk. The guys were fussing over me, making sure I was all right. I asked them if they got the sniper. They started laughing. Stephan turned towards the wall and started pounding on it he was laughing so hard.

 I just sat in the middle of room totally confused with a quizzical look on my face. Every time one of them would look at me he would just start laughing all over again. Finally Hans pointed at the ceiling. I looked up but all that was there was a crystal teardrop chandelier. Then I saw it, the refracted light from the chandelier’s prisms were making a rainbow of red, blue and yellow dots around the room. There never was a sniper. We had all panicked unnecessarily.

 Epilogue: