by Greg Iles
darkened the Wilhelmstrasse skyline, they stopped to ponder its ghosts.
By dusk, only the prison heating plant still stood, its smokestack
painted in stark relief against the gunmetal clouds. A wrecking-crane
drew back its mammoth concrete ball. The stack trembled, as if waiting
for the final blow. The ball swung slowly through its arc, then struck
like a bomb.
The smokestack exploded into a cloud of brick and dust, showering what
had been the prison kitchen only minutes before.
A sharp cheer cut through the din of heavy diesel motors.
It came from beyond the cordoned perimeter. The cheer was not for the
eradication of Spandau particularly, but rather a spontaneous human
expression of awe at the sight of largescale destruction. @tated by the
spectators, a French corporal gestured for some German policemen to help
him disperse the crowd. Excellent hand signals quickly bridged the
language barrier, and with trademark efficiency the Berlin Polizei went
to work.
"Achtung!" they bellowed. "Go home! Haue ah! This area is clearly
marked as dangerous! Move on! It's too cold for gawking!
Nothing here but brick and stone!"
These efforts convinced the casually curious, who continued home with a
story of minor interest to tell over dinner.
But others were not so easily diverted. Several old men lingered across
the busy street, their breath steaming in the cold. Some feigned
boredom, others stared openly at the wrecked prison or glanced furtively
at the others who had stayed behind. A stubborn knot of young
toughs@ubbed "skinheads" because of their ritually shaven
scalpsswaggered up to the floodlit prison gate to shout Nazi slogans at
the British troops.
They did not go unnoticed. Every passerby who had shown more than a
casual interest in the wrecking operation had been photographed today.
Inside the trailer being used to coordinate the demolition, a Russian
corporal carefully clicked off two telephoto exposures of every person
who remained on the block after the German police moved in.
Within the hour these photographs would find their way into KGB
caserooms in East Berlin, where they would be digi tized, fed into a
massive database, and run through a formidable electronic gauntlet.
Intelligence agents, Jewish fanatics, radical journalists, surviving
Nazis: each exotic species would be painstakingly identified and
catalogued, and any unknowns handed over to the East German secret
policethe notorious Stasi-to be manually compared against their files.
These steps would consume priceless computer time and many man-hours of
work by the East Germans, but Moscow didn't mind asking.
The destruction of Spandau was anything but routine to the KGB.
Lavrenti Beria himself, chief of the brutal NKVD under Stalin, had
passed a special directive down through the successive heads of the
cheka, defining the importance of Spandau's inmates to unsolved cases.
And on this evening-thirty-four years after Beria's death by firing
squad-only one of those cases remained open.
Rudolf Hess. The current chief of the KGB did not intend to leave it
that way.
A little way up the Wilhelmstrasse, perched motionless on a low brick
wall, a sentinel even more vigilant an the Russians watched the Germans
clear the street. Dressed as a laborer and almost seventy years old,
the watcher had the chiseled face of a hawk, and he stared with bright,
unblinking eyes. He needed no camera. His brain instantaneously
recorded each face that appeared in the street, making associations and
judgments no computer ever could.
His name was Jonas Stern. For twelve years Stern had not left the State
of Israel; indeed, no one knew that he was in Germany now. But
yesterday he had paid out of his own pocket to travel to this country he
hated beyond all thought.
He had known about Spandau's destruction, of course, they all did.
But something deeper had drawn him here. Three days ago-as he carried
water from the kibbutz well to his small ev desert-something bilious
had shack on the edge of e Neg risen from his core and driven him to
this place. Stern had not resisted. Such premonitions came
infrequently, and experience had taught him they were not to be ignored.
Watching the bulwarked prison being crushed into powder, he felt
opposing waves of triumph and guilt roll through his chest. He had
known-he knew-men and women who had passed through Spandau on their way
to the death factories of Mauthausen and Birkenau. Part of him wished
the prison could remain standing, as a monument to those souls, and to
the punishment meted out to their murderers.
Punishment, he thought, but not justice. Never justice.
Stern reached into a worn leather bag at his side and withdrew an
orange. He peeled it while he watched the demolition. The light was
almost gone. In the distance a huge yellow crane backed too quickly
across the prison courtyard.
Stern tensed as the flagstones cracked like brittle bones.
Ten minutes later the mechanical monsters ground to a screeching halt.
While the senior British offic@r issued his dismissal orders, a pale
yellow Berlin city bus rumbled up to the prison, headlights cutting
through the lightly falling snow. The moment it stopped, twenty-four
soldiers dressed in a potpourri of uniforms spilled into the darkening
prison yard and broke into four groups of six. These soldiers
represented a compromise typical of the farcical Four Power
administration of Spandau. The normal month-long guard tours were
handled by rota, and went off with a minimum of friction. But the
destruction of the prison, like every previous disruption of routine,
had brought chaos. First the Russians had refused to accept German
police security at the prison.
Then-because no Allied nation trusted any of its "allies" to guard
Spandau's ruins alone-they decided they would all do it, with a token
detachment of West Berlin police along to keep up appearances. While
the Royal Engineers boarded the idling bus, the NCO's of the four guard
details deployed their men throughout the compound.
Near the shattered prison gate, a black American master sergeant gave
his squad a final brief: "Okay, ladies. Everybody's got his sector map,
right?"
"Sir!" barked his troops in unison.
"Then listen up. This ain't gate duty at the base, got it?
The Germs have the perimeter-we got the interior. Our orders are to
guard this wreckage. That's ostensibly, as the captain says. We are
here to watch the Russians. They watch us; we watch them. Same old
same old, right? Only these Ivans probably ain't grunts, dig?
Probably GRU-maybe even KGB. So keep your pots on and your slits open.
Questions?" I "How long's the gig, Sarge?" "This patrol lasts twelve
hours, Chapman, six to six. If you're still awake then-and you'd
better be-then you qan get back to your hot little pastry on the
Bendlerstrasse."
When the laughter died, the sergeant grinned and barked, "Spread out,
gentlemen! The enemy
is already in place."
As the six Americans fanned out into the yard, a greenand-white
Volkswagen van marked PoLizEi stopped in the street before the prison.
It waited for a break in traffic, then jounced over the curb and came to
rest before the command trailer steps. Instantly, six men wearing the
dusty green uniform of the West Berlin police trundled out of its cargo
door and lined up between the van and the trailer.
Dieter Hauer, the captain in charge of the police contingent, climbed
down from the driver's seat and stepped around the van. He had an
arresting face, with a strong jaw and a full military mustache. His
clear gray eyes swept once across the wrecked prison lot. In the dusk
he noticed that the foul-weather ponchos of the Allied soldiers gave the
impression that they all served the same army. Hauer knew better.
Those young men were a fragmented muster of jangling nerves and
suspicion-two dozen accidents waiting to happen.
The Germans call their police bullen-"bulls"-and Hauer personified the
nickname. Even at fifty-five, his powerful, barrel-chested body
radiated enough authority to intimidate men thirty years his junior.
He wore neither gloves, helmet, nor cap against the cold, and contrary
to what the recruits in his unit suspected, this was no affectation
meant to impress them. Rather, as people who knew him were aware, he
possessed an almost inhuman resilience against external annoyances,
whether natural or man-made. Hauer called, "Attention!"
as he stepped back around the van. His officers formed a tight unit
beneath the command trailer's harsh floodlamp.
"I've told anyone who'd listen that we didn't want this assignment," he
said. "Naturally no one gives a shit."
There were a few nervous chuckles. Hauer spat onto the snow. A
hostage-recovery specialist, he-'plainly considered this token guard
detail an affront to his dignity. "You should feel very safe tonight,
gentlemen," he continued with heavy sarcasm. "We have the soldiers of
France, England, the United States, and Mother Russia with us tonight.
They are here to provide the security which we, the West Berlin police,
are deemed unfit to provide." Hauer clasped his hands behind his back.
"I'm sure you men feel as I do about this, but nothing can be done.
"You know your assignments. Four of you will guard the perimeter.
Apfel, Weiss-you're designated rovers. You'll pa&ol at random, watching
for improper conduct among the regular troops. What constitutes
'improper conduct' here, I have not been told. I assume it means
unsanctioned searches or provocation between forces. Everyone do your
best to stay clear of the Russians. Whatever agencies those men out
there serve, I doubt it's the Red Army. If you have a problem, sound
your whistle and wail. I'll come to you. Everyone else hold your
position until instructed otherwise."
Hauer paused, staring into the young faces around him.
His eyes lingered on a reddish-blond sergeant with gray eyes, then
flicked away. "Be cautious," he said evenly, "but don't be timid. We
are on German soil, regardless of what any political document may say.
Any provocation, verbal or physical, will be reported to me immediately.
Immediately."
The venom in Hauer's voice made it plain he would brook no insult from
the Soviets or anyone else. He spoke as though he might even welcome
it. "Check your sector maps carefully," he added. "I want no mistakes
tonight. You will show these soldier boys the meaning of
professionalism and discipline. Go!"
Six policemen scattered.
Hans Apfel, the reddish-blond sergeant whom Hauer had designated one of
the rovers, trotted about twenty meters, then stopped and looked back at
his superior. Hauer was studying a map of the prison, an unlit cigar
clamped between his teeth. Hans started to walk back, but the American
sergeant suddenly appeared from behind the police van and engaged Hauer
in quiet conversation.
Hans turned and struck out across the snow, following the line of the
Wilhemstrasse to his left. Angrily, he crushed a loose window pane
beneath his boot. With no warning at all this day had become one of the
most uncomfortable of his life. One minute he had been on his way out
of the Friedrichstrasse police station, headed home to his wife; the
next a duty sergeant had tapped him on the shoulder, said he needed a
good man for a secret detail, and practically thrust Hans into a van
headed for Spandau Prison. That in itself was a pain in the ass.
Double shifts were hell, especially those that had to be pulled on foot
in the snow.
But that wasn't the real source of Hans's discomfort. The problem was
that the commander of the guard detail, Captain Dieter Hauer, was
Hans's father. None of the other men on this detail knew that-for which
Hans was grateful-but he had a strange feeling that might soon change.
During the ride to Spandau, he had stared resolutely out of the van
window, refusing to be drawn into conversation. He couldn't understand
how it had happened. He and his father had a long-standing
arrangement-a simple agreement designed to deal with a complex family
situation-and Hauer must have broken it. It was the only explanation.
After a few minutes of bitter confusion, Hans resolved to deal with this
situation the way he always did. By ignoring it.
He kicked a mound of snow out of his path. So far he had made only two
cautious circuits of the perimeter. He felt more than a little tense
about strolling into a security zone where soldiers carried loaded
assault rifles as casually as their wallets. He panned his eyes across
the dark lot, shielding them from the snow with a gloved hand. God, but
the British did theirjob well, he thought.
Ghostly mountains of jagged brick and iron rose up out of the swirling
snow like the bombed-out remnants of Berlin buildings that had never
been restored. Drawing a deep breath, he stepped forward into the
shadows.
it was a strange journey. For fifteen or twenty steps he would see
nothing but the glow of distant street lamps. Then a soldier would
materialize, a black mirage against the falling snow. Some challenged
him, most did not. When they did, Hans simply said, "Versailles"-the
code word printed at the bottom of his sector map-and they let him pass.
He couldn't shake a vague feeling of anxiety that had settled on his
shoulders. As he passed the soldiers, he tried to focus on the weapon
each carried. In the darkness all the uniforms looked alike, but the
guns identified everyone.
Each Russian stood statue-still, his sharklike Kalashnikov resting
butt-first on the ground like an extension of his arrnThe French also
stood, though not at attention. They cradled their FAMAS rifles in
crooked elbows and tried vainly to smoke in the frigid wind. The
British carried no rifles, each having been issued a sidearm in the
interest of discretion.
it was the Americans who disturbed Hans. Some leaned casually against
broken slabs of concrete, their w
eapons nowhere in evidence.
Others squatted on piles of brick, hunched over their M-16
Arinalites as if they could barely stay awake. None of the U.S.
soldiers had even bothered to challenge Hans's passage. At first he
felt angry that NATO soldiers would take such a casual approach to their
duties.
But after a while he began to wonder. Their indifference could simply
be a ruse, couldn't it? Certainly for an assignment such as this a
high-caliber team would have been chosen?
After three hours' patrol, Hans's suspicions were proved correct, when
he nearly stumbled over the black American sergeant surveying the prison
grounds through a bulbous scope fitted to his M-16. Not wishing to
startle him, Hans whispered, "Versailles, Sergeant." When the American
didn't respond, he tried again. "What can you see?"
"Everything from the command trailer on the east to that Ivan pissing on
a brick pile on the west," the sergeant replied in German, never taking
his eyes from the scope.
"I can't see any of that!"
"Image-intensifier," the American murmured. "Well, well ... I didn't
know the Red Army let its sentries take a piss-break on guard du-What-"
The noncom wrenched the rifle away from his face.
"What is it?" Hans asked, alarmed.
"Nothing ... damn. This thing works by light magnification, not
infrared. That smartass flashed a spotlight toward me and whited out my
scope. What an asshole."
Hans grunted in mutual distaste for the Russians. "Nice scope," he
said, hoping to get a look through it himself.
"Your outfit doesn't have 'em?"
"Some units do. The drug units, mostly. I used one in training, but
they aren't issued for street duty."
"Too bad." The American scanned the ruins. "This is one weird place,
isn't it?"
Hans shrugged and tried to look nonchalant.
"Like a graveyard, man. A hundred and fifty cells in this place, and
only one occupied-by Hess. Dude must-ve known some serious shit to keep
him locked down that tight." The sergeant cocked his head and squinted
at Hans.
"Man, you know you look familiar. Yeah ... you look like that guy, that
tennis player-"
"Becker," Hans finished, looking at the ground.
"Becker, yeah. Boris Becker. I guess everybody tells you that, huh?"
Hans looked up. "Once a day, at least."
"I'll bet it doesn't hurt you with the Frduleins."