by Iles, Greg
Stern paused, apparently conducting some debate with himself. “Tell me, Professor,” he said suddenly, “does the Spandau diary mention weapons or scientific materials of any type?”
Natterman blinked in confusion. “Weapons? Herr Stern, the Spandau diary has nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of weapons.”
“Are you positive?”
“Absolutely. What is it, suddenly? First Hauer badgers me about reunification, now you ask me about weapons.”
“Reunification?” Stern asked sharply.
“Oh, it’s nonsense,” Natterman said. “These papers deal only with the Hess case. They are going to expose those who share responsibility for the scars on Germany’s national pride.”
Stern’s suspicious face hardened. “I’m afraid there’s new infection festering beneath those old scars,” he said coldly.
“What the devil do you mean?”
“Professor, I don’t care if you’re after academic fame, or if you want to ease Germany’s national guilt.” The Israeli waved away Natterman’s protests. “I care about the past only insofar as it impacts the present and the future. The people who are after these papers are worried about a lot more than history books. I tried to interrogate that Afrikaner. He had the crazy eyes, did you notice? With only one arm he fought like a tiger, and before he died he screamed something very startling at me. It was in Afrikaans—which I don’t speak—but I knew enough Dutch to translate it. Roughly, it was ‘Death Israel! Death to Zion!”’ Stern paused. “He didn’t even know I was Jewish.”
Natterman looked thoughtful. “He said something similar to me in the cabin. He called me a ‘Jew maggot,’ I believe.”
Stern raised an eyebrow. “You don’t find that curious? Why should a South African have some fixation on Jews? Or on Israel?”
“I never considered it until now.”
Stern glanced back toward the main road as the drone of a heavy truck filled the woods. “Tell me,” he said, “are Hauer and Apfel flying directly to South Africa?”
Natterman’s eyes grew wide. “You know their destination?”
“Answer me!”
Natterman held out but a moment more. “Yes!” he blurted. “My granddaughter is being held prisoner there. The kidnappers instructed Hans by phone to leave today from Frankfurt.”
“With the Spandau papers as ransom?”
“Yes, but Hauer has some kind of rescue plan up his sleeve.”
Stern looked off into the dark forest. Frozen limbs cracked in the slowly rising sun. Icicles stretched earthward, reaching it one drop at a time. “The diary is incomplete now,” he murmured. “Who is aware of that?”
“No one,” Natterman confessed. “Only you and I.”
Stern turned and eyed the professor appraisingly. “That is good for us, but very dangerous for your granddaughter. Tell me, what kind of man is this Captain Hauer?”
“Tough. Very tough.”
“And the boy?”
“Angry … frightened to death. Untested.”
Stern nodded. “One thing has puzzled me from the beginning, Professor. Why has Captain Hauer—a man nearing retirement, a man whose own personnel file shows him to be a member of a neo-fascist police organization—sacrificed his pension and possibly his life to help this apparently innocent young sergeant?”
Natterman smiled at the irony. “Hauer is Hans’s father. It’s a complicated family matter. Very few people know about it.”
Stern took a deep, satisfying breath, as if this last bit of information had completed some circle in his mind.
‘You must tell me who you are,” Natterman demanded. “Are you a spy? Are you really an Israeli?”
To the professor’s amazement, Stern turned suddenly on his heel and without a word marched down the lane toward the main road. “Where are you going?” Natterman cried.
“South Africa, Professor! Get that log out of the road if you want to come!”
Natterman’s jaw dropped in astonishment. “But I have no passport …”
“In an hour you shall!” Stern called, then he disappeared around the curve.
As the huffing professor wrestled the rotted tree trunk over a snowdrift at the lane’s edge, he heard the sound of an approaching engine. Seconds later, a big blue Mercedes rounded the curve from the direction of the main road and stopped beside him. At the wheel sat Jonas Stern. In the backseat, laid out and trussed like a Christmas turkey, Hermann the forger jerked his head back and forth in impotent rage. “Get in,” said Stern. “I thought this fellow might come in handy, so I invited him to stay for a while.”
Too surprised to speak, Natterman climbed into the car and stared back at Hermann as they drove back to the cabin.
“Is the cabin phone still working?” Stern asked.
Natterman nodded.
“I’ve quite a few calls to make, but soon we shall be on a plane bound for Israel. And from there, South Africa.”
“Why Israel? Why not fly straight to South Africa?”
Stern skidded to a stop before the battered cabin. “We have some packages to pick up. Now, untie that fool while I get his equipment. I have much to arrange before we can be on our way.”
Like a dazed recruit of eighteen, the old historian followed the Israeli’s orders—a little afraid, but grateful to be part of the chase at last.
5.55 P.m. Sonnenallee Checkpoint. American Sector, West Berlin
Harry Richardson walked slowly toward the barrier post on the eastern side of the Berlin Wall. In spite of Kosov’s assurances to Colonel Rose, Harry still half-expected to be arrested at the checkpoint. He walked quickly past the East German documents-control booth, then stopped as instructed at the currency-check station. Glancing right, he saw two pale faces peering out of the warmly-lit observation window. One hovered above the red shoulder boards of a KGB colonel: Ivan Kosov. The other, angrier face belonged to Captain Dmitri Rykov. A bad week altogether for the young communist, Harry thought. He tipped his head at Rykov, then walked on.
The gray sky had darkened. Harry could just make out the US, Army Ford waiting on the American side of the Wall, parked beyond the harsh glow of the checkpoint area, motor running. Beside the Ford, a restless line of cars and lorries waited to pass through the blocked checkpoint. Fifty yards closer, the door to the West Berlin customs booth opened suddenly and a young border policeman stepped out. Behind him emerged Colonel Rose, wearing a long olive-drab greatcoat. Then came two men wearing civilian clothes and handcuffs, followed by Sergeant Clary, who carried a Colt .45 in his right hand.
Harry heard footsteps behind him, then felt Kosov’s hand grip his upper arm. Twenty seconds later, seven men stood awkwardly around the white-painted line that marked the absolute boundary between East and West Berlin—five on the American side, two on the Soviet. Tonight protocols were few. With a nod Kosov signalled the two handcuffed Soviet illegals to step over the line. As they did, he released his grip on Harry’s arm. Harry stepped across the line. He breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief when Clary clapped him on the back in welcome.
Kosov looked at Rose. “I commend your nerve in negotiating this exchange, Colonel. Your pragmatic style is somewhat surprising in an American. Next time, however—”
Rose turned and marched away without a word. Sergeant Clary and the border policeman followed him. Before Harry could turn, however, Kosov reached out and caught hold of his arm. “Axel Goltz is dead,” he growled.
“Does that bother you?”
“What bothers me is that I don’t understand why he did what he did. Since you killed him, I doubt very much that he worked for you. And given that, I must begin to take seriously the nationalistic drivel he spouted off before he shot Corporal Ivanov. He mentioned something called Phoenix, I believe? Have you heard of this?”
Harry shrugged. “Sure. It’s about a hundred miles south of Tucson, isn’t it?”
Kosov smiled coldly. “Have it your way, Major. I would prefer that our two services collaborate on the He
ss case. All my country wants is for the truth to be exposed to the world. When Germany begins to stir, even traditional enemies must join forces.”
“Someone should have told Stalin that in 1939,” Harry observed. “Guten Abend, Colonel.” He turned and jogged to the waiting Ford.
While Kosov fumed, Rykov emerged from the customs booth, trailed noiselessly by a lean figure dressed from head to toe in black.
“Misha,” Kosov muttered, his voice hoarse with fury. The young killer pricked up his ears like a hungry panther. “I think it’s time you paid a visit to the whore who showed us such disrespect. Show her that we keep our promises.” Misha nodded, and then, with a swiftness that astonished Rykov, he melted into the gray dusk of the Sonnenallee.
“What now, Colonel?” asked Rykov.
“We wait,” Kosov replied, still staring after the Americans. “I’m expecting a visitor.”
Fifty metres away, Harry climbed into the Army Ford and found a bearish man wearing a hat and civilian clothes waiting in the backseat. He looked familiar, but Rose made no introductions. Sergeant Clary swept across West Berlin with the subtlety of a fire truck. Harry let his head fall back on the seat, intending to savour his newfound freedom, but Rose gave him no respite. The colonel heaved a beefy forearm back over the passenger seat and grinned. “Okay, Harry, what did you find out over there?”
Harry answered with his eyes closed. “I found out that whatever is in those Spandau papers is important enough for a Stasi agent to kill a KGB officer over it.”
“Axel Goltz,” said Rose. “Did you kill him?”
“He didn’t leave me any choice.”
The colonel nodded. “Our East German sources said Kosov went berserk when he found out he couldn’t interrogate Goltz. He arrested every ranking Stasi officer he could lay his hands on.”
Harry shook his head. “Colonel, Goltz was no more afraid of Kosov than a rabid dog would have been. He acted as if he expected Heinz Guderian’s tanks to roll out of the Black Forest any minute and chase the Russians right out of Germany.”
“It’d take more than that,” Rose muttered. “Every T-72 tank in the DDR is on the move. They’re running civilian vehicles right off the roads. Someone in Moscow has decided that the Germans need a lesson in humility.”
“Maybe they do,” Harry said softly. “Did you pick up anything on the names I gave you? Zinoviev or Phoenix?”
“Yes and no.” Rose shared a glance with the unidentified passenger in the backseat. “In the office, Harry.”
Harry nodded slowly. “Okay.”
In the silence that followed, it became impossible for Harry to ignore the man on the seat beside him. Finally, Rose acknowledged the stranger. “Harry, meet Detective Julius Schneider of the Berlin Kriminalpolizei. He’s gonna be working with us for a while. He’s the guy who saved your ass. Says he knows you.”
“A pleasure, Detective.” Harry shook Schneider’s bearlike paw.
“I thought you looked familiar. I owe you a very tall beer.”
“It is not necessary,” said the German.
“Okay, okay,” Rose grumbled. “Let’s adjourn this mutual admiration society and get up to my office.”
The car had arrived in Clay Allee, the thoroughly American boulevard named for the first US commandant of West Berlin. While Sergeant Clary returned the Ford to the motor pool, Rose, Schneider and Richardson made their way to the fourth floor. Rose took a seat behind his huge desk, poured whiskeys all around, and waited for Clary to take up his post outside the door before he opened the discussion.
“So what’s the big secret, guys? Who’s Comrade Zinoviev? He isn’t Lenin’s Zinoviev, is he?” Rose gave Schneider a sidelong glance. “Hey, Harry. We don’t know exactly who Zinoviev is, or was. We don’t know if he’s dead or alive. But I can guarantee you that ‘comrade’ wasn’t his preferred manner of address.”
Harry drummed his fingers impatiently. “Christ, tell me something.”
Rose took a pull from his Wild Turkey. “Our computers didn’t have squat on Zinoviev, Harry, zero. I was tempted to put in a coded request to Langley—you know, can we run a name through your sacred database, blah, blah? But I never liked using those guys. To me it’s kind of like going to the Mafia. They’re a little too greasy for my taste. So what I ended up doing was calling an old buddy of mine stateside. Programs computers for the FBI. He ran it through their setup for me, and you wouldn’t believe what their machine spit out.”
“Surprise me.”
Rose smiled, knowing that for once he would. “V.V. Zinoviev was a captain in the Okhrana. Ring any bells?”
Harry looked bewildered. “The tsar’s secret police?”
“Give the boy an apple,” Rose quipped. “The Okhrana were the world’s original anti-communists. They make Joe McCarthy and his pals look like a pack of church ladies. The question is, what could a hitman for Tsar Nicholas possibly have in common with Rudolf Hess?”
“Well,” Harry reflected, “for one thing, the Okhrana carried out massive pogroms against the Jews in Russia.”
Both Rose and Schneider looked stunned.
“Look, Colonel,” said Harry, “you’re way ahead of me on this. Why don’t you just back up and give me the Reader’s Digest version?”
“Okay. My FBI buddy punches Zinoviev into the Bureau computers, right? Well, up comes a file. It gives the Okhrana reference, Zinoviev’s date of birth, but no death date. It says he disappeared from sight in 1941, which was—”
“The year Hess flew to Scotland,” Harry finished.
“Right. Well, in Zinoviev’s file was a code—HCO—which I’m told stands for ‘Hardcopy Only.’ There was also a cross-index to another file.”
“Hess?”
“You got it. So my buddy goes for the Hess file, right? And what does he find? A bunch of crap you can get from Encyclopaedia Britannica. But he also finds a notation showing a special addendum to Hess’s file, with what the Bureau calls a J classification. Want to guess what the J is for?”
Harry’s face showed disbelief. “No way.”
Rose smiled thinly. “Old J. Edgar himself. And J files cannot be accessed by anyone except the director.”
“Christ. What does the FBI have to do with Rudolf Hess?”
“You’re not gonna believe this, Harry. Remember the big Soviet defections of the sixties and seventies? Nosenko, Penkovsky and the rest? The CIA handled their debriefings, right?”
“Naturally.”
“But, if you’ll recall, the FBI wasn’t always limited to operations within the Continental US During World War Two, Hoover couldn’t stand seeing Bill Donovan’s OSS get all the glory, and the result—aside from a lot of political head-butting—was that the Bureau got involved in some pretty big espionage cases. So—after the CIA finished debriefing those big defectors, the FBI got themselves a little taste. They were given a very limited brief, of course, questions to be confined to KGB recruitment methods on US soil, et cetera.”
Harry nodded slowly.
“However, when the FBI got their shot at these defectors, they took the chance to clean up some unfinished business. They had quite a few unsolved cases from the war years, and Hoover had left instructions that they be pursued whenever possible. One of those cases happened to involve British collaboration with the Nazis—e.g the flight of Rudolf Hess.”
Harry whistled long and low.
“The FBI questioning turned up a shitload of information, but as you might imagine, the Bureau wasn’t anxious to reveal to the CIA how far outside their brief they had strayed. Anything that couldn’t be confirmed by collateral evidence was buried in the basement of a file warehouse. ‘Hardcopy Only’—get it? Apparently Zinoviev fell into that category.” Rose’s eyes shone with excitement. ‘“Those files have been sitting in that warehouse for twenty-five years. My contact thinks our query is the first to turn up Zinoviev’s name since it went to disk.”
“Jesus. What kind of access do we have?”
; “Hess’s file is out of the question. A team of MIT hackers couldn’t break into a J file in a month.” Rose suppressed a satisfied smile. “Zinoviev, on the other hand, we may get. My buddy is constantly updating the Bureau files, and it seems he’s got legitimate access to the warehouse where the ‘Hardcopy Only’ stuff is. He’s probably digging through Zinoviev’s file right now.”
Harry looked sceptical. “Colonel, you realize that there may be nothing on Zinoviev in that warehouse. If Zinoviev is cross-indexed to Hess, his real file probably has a J classification too.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Rose concluded. “Let’s get to the heart of this mess—the Spandau papers.”
Harry glanced over at Schneider. “I assume the Berlin police have them?”
“Not exactly,” said Rose. “Two Berlin police officers have them.”
Rose consulted a file on his desk. “Hans Apfel, sergeant, age twenty-seven; Dieter Hauer, captain, age fifty-five. Schneider here thinks one of these two must have stumbled over the papers while they were guarding the prison. He says this guy Hauer’s a real piece of work—counter-terror training, the works. And he must be right. Not only have these two escaped the city, they’ve escaped Germany. They flew out of Frankfurt two hours ago.”
“What? How do you know that?”
While Schneider listened in silence, Rose summarized his actions after receiving Harry’s call. Rose had wanted to storm Abschnitt 53 with guns blazing, but Schneider had persuaded him to pursue a more discreet course. The colonel’s compromise had been a city wide communications blanket of West Berlin, conducted by the Army Signal Corps under the reserve powers held by the Allies since the Second World War. Assets nominally dedicated to the Soviet target were reassigned to cover all police communications traffic entering or leaving Berlin. Rose was grinning as he revealed his minor coup.
“Six hours ago it paid off, Harry. We intercepted a call from the Wolfsburg police to West Berlin police HQ. A traffic unit stopped a man for speeding and reckless driving, and because they’d received reports of shooting in the forest to the south the night before, they made a routine search of the car. They hit the jackpot. The driver was a forger from Hamburg. Right away the guy starts screaming how he’s just been blackmailed into manufacturing false passports for two West Berlin cops. Claimed he knew Hauer personally, and he described Apfel to a T.”