Birgitt Haas Must Be Killed

In the 1980s, an obscure French agency receives an assignment: German terrorist Birgitt Haas is to be eliminated, with her death made to look like a private tragedy. The mission is handled by a team led by agent Athanase, recently reinforced by the young, ambitious agent Colonna. It is Colonna who comes up with the idea of how to eliminate Haas, who is portrayed as a nymphomaniac: a decoy is to seduce the terrorist and orchestrate her death, so to speak. The political murder would thus be covered up as a crime of passion; neither the media nor the judiciary would suspect anything. Charles-Philippe Bauman is to serve as Colonna's useful idiot; he seems tailor-made for the job. Bauman was recently abandoned by his wife and also lost his job. He has self-doubt in abundance. The zeal of his new recruit Colonna raises concerns for Athanase, so the boss himself takes it upon himself to establish contact with the unsuspecting Bauman. Everything goes according to plan: when Bauman is offered a job as a sales representative in Munich on the pretext of his German language skills, he accepts immediately. There, the omnipresent spies have an easy job bringing the unlucky fellow and the charming but lonely Birgitt Haas together. The closer the night of the planned murder approaches, the more intense Athanase's pangs of conscience become. Especially when it emerges that Colonna's choice of Bauman was not random, but guided by private interests. If Birgitt Haas has to be liquidated, Athanase is now doing everything he can to ensure that the enamored Bauman survives.