Silent (novel)

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A political thriller by the German author Frank Schätzing , published in 2000, is silent .

Most of the novel is set in Cologne (the author's hometown) or at Cologne / Bonn Airport . The main topic is the Kosovo conflict and the G8 summit in Cologne in 1999 , which in connection with the Kosovo conflict is also referred to as the peace summit . The main theme of the plot, however, is the attempt of some assassins to kill the President of the United States of America , Bill Clinton , who is in Cologne for the summit.

people

Protagonists

  • Liam O'Connor - highly eccentric, but also brilliant physicist and bestselling author with high alcohol consumption
  • Kirsten-Katharina, called "Kika" Wagner - O'Connor's press officer
  • Franz Maria Kuhn - lecturer; Old hippie, instructed to keep an eye on O'Connor with Wagner

Antagonists

  • Sonja Cośic (alias "Jana" [contract killer], "Laura Firidolfi" [Italian businesswoman] and "Cordula Malik" [Austrian journalist])
  • Karel Zeman Draković (alias "Mirko" [contract killer], "Biçic" [harmless contemporary], "Carl Seamus Drake" [Head of Housing, Secret Service ])
  • Patrick "Paddy" Clohessy (aka "Ryan O'Dea" [ Cologne Bonn Airport technician], former fellow student and drinking buddy O'Connor and former IRA terrorist)

Supporting characters

  • Aaron Silberman - Press Agent on the President's Staff
  • Eric Lavallier - Police Chief of Cologne / Bonn Airport
  • Maxim Gruschkow - accomplice of the terrorist Jana, programmer and technician
  • Martin Mahder - Head of Personnel at Cologne / Bonn Airport, Jana's liaison to the airport
  • Josef Pecek - Patrick Clohessy's assistant installing the target optics

action

prolog

At the beginning the narrator philosophizes about the situation in general, which is caused by today's media culture and in which by far most people in western countries evoke a correspondingly distorted view of the world.

Phase 1

You learn how an ominous client hires the professional killer Mirko to kill a person who remains anonymous at the time. Mirko accepts the order and in turn buys the help of a top terrorist who achieved fame under the pseudonym "Jana". Since the attack on the prominent target person is to take place at a very specific delicate point in time, the order seems almost impossible. As a reader, you won't find out more for the time being.

In between, the characters Franz Kuhn, Kirsten-Katharina "Kika" Wagner and Liam O'Connor were introduced. The editors Kuhn and Wagner are supposed to keep the eccentric and silly but ingenious physicist O'Connor from doing gross nonsense. They don't always succeed, and not long afterwards, Wagner falls violently in love with O'Connor. Shortly beforehand, O'Connor spotted his former student colleague Paddy Clohessy at Cologne Bonn Airport. O'Connor immediately suspects him of a rip-off because Clohessy, also a gifted physicist, works as a technician under a false name at the airport. Clohessy and O'Connor then speak out and the only result is that O'Connor is even more suspicious and does not believe in the maudlin story of a new beginning with a new identity.

Preparations for the planned attack are now in full swing and are about to be completed; an innocent homeless person is lured into the terrorists' quarters as a "test subject" and is put to death by the " YAG ", the unknown device with which the American president is expected to be killed.

Phase 2

Clohessy's camouflage is as good as blown against O'Connor and therefore Jana and Mirko treat him as a risk and kill him without further ado. Wagner and O'Connor and, as rearguard, Kuhn too, wanted to visit Clohessy. O'Connor and Wagner prefer to disappear into the bushes in the nearby park, but Kuhn ventures into Clohessy's apartment because the door is open. Mirko, who has just murdered Clohessy, finds Kuhn when he returns to the apartment and takes him prisoner. Shortly beforehand, Kuhn succeeds in sending a hastily typed SMS with a brief description of a fragment of the conversation and a cry for help.

Due to some unfortunate circumstances, Wagner received this short message the next morning. Although she and O'Connor are still completely drunk after the short night, they immediately head to the police station.

The programmer and technician of the assassination squad, Gruschkow, follows them unnoticed and informs Jana immediately when he recognizes the target of Wagner and O'Connor, the police station at the airport.

Phase 3

Jana immediately and rightly suspects Kuhn to be responsible for this development. But Kuhn doesn't give in and stays tough.

Now the hot phase begins, Jana makes her way as "Cordula Malik", superficial journalist from Austria, to the reception of the American president at the airport.

With Grushkov's help, she developed a system with which a normal camera can be used to control an enormous laser (a so-called " YAG "). The laser is not too far from the airport and is supposed to shoot a laser pulse, which is brought to the right place by cleverly camouflaged mirrors, which is supposed to kill Clinton.

Meanwhile, O'Connor slowly guesses the details of the plan, then faster and faster. After discovering two more traitors among airport employees, O'Connor can literally have a sniper instructed to shoot the crucial final mirror at the last minute.

Phase 4

The plan could not have been thwarted any closer, because Jana pressed the trigger at almost the same moment. But the sniper was faster and the assassination attempt failed, not even noticed.

Even in the face of the defeat, Jana remains completely calm and tries to leave the airport area as quickly as possible but unobtrusively. After some waiting and a very thorough but unsuccessful search, this also succeeds.

However, Gruschkow does not stay calm at all, he storms through the shipping company in a mad rage and beats and kicks Kuhn blindly until he is unconscious.

Jana drives back to the specially bought shipping company in which the laser is hidden. She surprises O'Connor, Wagner and Silberman, who are also standing in front of the shipping company, because O'Connor noticed the building's strikingly favorable location near a telecommunications mast.

Jana takes O'Connor, Wagner and Silberman hostage and announces herself and O'Connor in the shipping company via radio, then the shipping company is opened from the inside. The radio message was overheard by some agents from a Secret Service car .

In the shipping company, the airport employee and helper of the assassins, Mahder, is waiting for his payment. However, this is not done in monetary terms, as he hoped, but through a headshot.

A little later, the Secret Service officials follow the orders of their commander, Drake, and storm the company.

The Secret Service agents are hopelessly inferior, especially when they are surprised that there are a few other hostages in the room besides O'Connor, some of which are blocking the view.

Two of the four officers were shot dead and the third seriously injured. Your commanding officer, Drake, can flee outside - the unbelievable thing about it: Drake is identical to Mirko! Gruschkow also falls victim to the attack, Silberman is injured.

It quickly turns out that the four agents belong to a conspiracy within the Secret Service. To have the president murdered was just as much part of the plan as was the murder of the terrorists and hostages who were now in the know. Since Mirko, who is probably lying in wait outside, threatens them all, everyone inside decide to pull together to at least get away with their lives.

Mirko is lured inside by the remaining injured Secret Service officer on the pretext of killing Jana. Wagner then tries to finish him off with the YAG, but it fails. Jana, disguised as the corpse of one of the Secret Service people, jumps up and shoots Mirko.

A little later the excitement subsided, but there is still one death to complain about: Franz Kuhn succumbed to his injuries caused by Gruschkow. Apart from those directly involved, nobody knows about the attack, because the knowledge about it was placed under the strictest secrecy.

epilogue

In the final epilogue it becomes clear that at the very beginning the client was not in the mountains of Yugoslavia (which the reader is cleverly deceived, but not explicitly said), but in the Appalachian Mountains , Tennessee . At the same time, he is a radical nationalist, but not a Serb, but an American.

attachment

In the appendix, the author gives explanations and background information on the Kosovo conflict, terrorism , the Russian mafia, the USA and especially the fight for the presidency, laser technology (with references to the work of Achim Wixforth ) and finally good whiskey .

filming

Frank Schätzing has announced that he will have a script written from the novel by the end of 2007 so that the film (possibly as a TV production) can begin. The premiere of the film was planned for 2009 .

literature