Then he saw the gunman put his foot to the windshield and push it out. The glass flew up and away in a fluid sheet, then shattered into countless, jagged pellets as it hit the road.

The man poked the gun out and sighted on the car. He fought to steady his weapon in the whipping wind. It was a nightmarish sight, a thug riding shotgun in a van.

Herbert only had a moment to act. He smashed his hand down on the brake, the Mercedes stopped suddenly, and the van rear-ended him hard. His trunk folded up and in like a ribbon. But above it, he saw the gunman tossed forward. The man was thrown at the waist across the lower portion of the window frame. The gun flew from his hands, onto the hood of the van, and slid over the side. The driver was also thrown ahead, his chest colliding hard with the steering wheel. He lost control of the van, though the vehicle stopped as his foot slipped from the gas.

Herbert's only wound was another unpleasant scrape across his chest, inflicted by the shoulder strap.

There was a moment of clear silence, broken by cars honking from far off, and people approaching cautiously, yelling to other people to get help.

Not sure that he had put the car or its occupants out of commission, Herbert pressed down on the gas to get away. The car didn't move. He could feel his tires racing, but he could also feel the tug of the two fenders locked together.

He sat still for a moment, realizing for the first time how his heart was racing as he wondered if he could get himself and the wheelchair out.

Suddenly, the van bellowed back to life. Herbert felt a rough tug and looked in the rearview mirror. A new driver had taken the place of the old one and had shifted into reverse. Now he moved ahead, then shifted back, then jerked ahead.

Trying to shake me loose, Herbert thought, even as the vehicles unhooked. Without stopping, the van continued to back up. It sped off, then turned a corner and vanished.

The intelligence officer sat gripping the steering wheel, trying to decide what to do. In the distance, he heard the siren which had sent the neo-Nazis on their way. One of those loud ones which made the Opel police cars sound like Buicks. People began coming up to the window and speaking to Herbert softly, in German.

"Danke, " he said. "Thanks. I'm all right. Gesund Healthy."

Healthy? he thought. He thought of the police coming to question him. German police were not famed for their friendliness. At best, he would be treated objectively. At worst

At worst, he thought, the police station has a couple of neo-Nazi sympathizers. At worst; they put me in prison. At worst, somebody gets to me in the middle of the night with a knife or a length of steel wire.