by Greg Iles
heroism, had been brief and fiery. He was promoted to sergeant, and
they were married as his splash of celebrity faded from the picture
magazines.
Ilse had always believed she made a good choice, no matter what her
snobby friends or her grandfather said. But this madness from Spandau
was no traffic accident. Hans couldn't summon a burst of physical
courage to stop the danger she felt tightening around them now. The
papers lying on her kitchen table were like a magnet drawing death
toward them-she knew it. She did not believe in premonitions, but as
she thought of Hans driving anxiously toward a situation he knew nothing
about, her heart began to race.
A wave of nausea rolled inside her. The pregnancy ... ?
Afraid she might throw up, she hurried into the kitchen and leaned over
the sink. She managed to choke down the nausea, but not her terror.
With tears blurring her eyes, Ilse lifted the phone and dialed her
grandfather's apartment.
CHAPTER FIVE
7.30 Pm. Polizei Abschniff 53
A stubborn group of reporters huddled on the sidewalk in the freezing
wind, hoping for a break in the Spandau Prison story or the weather. As
Hans idled his Volkswagen past the front steps of the police station, he
saw klieg lights and cameras leaning against a remote-broadcast truck,
evidence of how seriously the Berlin media were taking the incident. He
felt a nervous thrill when he realized that even now the press was
driving up the asking price of the Spandau papers for him. He
accelerated past the journalists before they could get a decent look at
him or the car and swung into the rear lot of the station.
The unexpected summons had taken him by surprise, but upon reflection he
wasn't really worried. It made sense for the police brass to try to
defuse the crisis before the Allied commandants got too involved-if they
weren't already. Nobody liked the Four Powers poking about in German
affairs, even if Berlin still technically belonged to them.
As he unlocked the rear door of the station, he spied Erhard Weiss's red
coupe parked against the wall. A good sign, Hans thought.
At least he hadn't been singled out for questioning. He flicked his
cigarette onto the snow and walked inside. The back hallway was usually
empty, but tonight a pinch-faced young man he didn't know waited behind
a rickety wooden table. The unlikely sentry leapt to attention when he
saw Hans.
"Identify yourself!" he ordered.
"What?"
"Your identification!"
"I'm Hans Apfel. I work here. Who are you?"
The little policeman shot Hans an exasperated look and reached for a
piece of paper on his desk. It was apparently a list of some sort; he
ran his finger down it like a pnm schoolmaster.
"Sergeant Hans Apfel?"
"That's right."
"Report immediately to room six for interrogation."
Under normal circumstances Hans would have challenged the man's
authority on general principles alone. Officers from other
districts@specially snotty bureaucrats like this one-were treated coolly
at Abschnitt 53 until they had proved their competence.
Tonight, however, Hans didn't feel quite confident enough to push.
He walked on toward the stairs without comment.
The oppressive block of interrogation rooms lay on the second floor, out
of the main traffic of the station. At least they chose number six, he
thought. Slightly larger than the other questioning rooms, "six" held a
long table on a dais, some straight-backed chairs and, mercifully, an
electric heater. Emerging from the stairwell on the second floor, Hans
saw another unfamiliar policeman standing guard between rooms six and
seven. A silent alarm sounded in his head, but it was too late to turn
back.
Suddenly a door further down the hall burst open. Two uniformed men
with heavy beards bustled Erhard Weiss out of the room and down the hall
away from Hans. Weiss's feet seemed to be dragging behind him.
He turned and gave Hans a dazed look; then he was gone. Hans slowed
down. Something odd was happening here.
"Interrogation?" the guard queried, noticing him.
Hans nodded warily.
"Wait in room seven."
Hans looked for a name tag on the man's chest but saw none. "You from
Wansee?" he asked. When the man didn't answer, he tried again.
"What's going on in there, friend?"
"Room seven," the man repeated.
"Seven," Hans echoed softly. "All right, then."
Taking a deep breath, he stepped through the door. There was only one
man inside the smoky room-Kurt Steger, one of the four recruits from the
Spandau assignment. Kurt jumped to his feet like a nervous puppy when
he saw Hans.
"Thank God!" he cried. "What's going on, Hans?"
Hans shook his head. "I've no idea. It looks' like the whole place has
been taken over by strangers. What have you seen?"
"Nichts, almost nothing. We started in here together-all of us from
Spandau except you. One by one they call us into room six.
Nobody comes back."
Hans frowned. "They were practically dragging Weiss down the hall when
I walked up. It didn't look right at all."
He hated to ask the next question, but he needed the information.
"Have you seen Captain Hauer, Kurt?"
"No. I think the prefect's handling this."
Hans considered this in silence.
"I haven't been on the force very long," said Kurt, "but I get the
feeling Captain Hauer and the prefect aren't too fond of each other."
Hans nodded thoughtfully. "To say the least. They've been at each
other's throats since Funk took over eight years ago."
"What's the problem?"
"The problem is that Funk is an ass-kissing bureaucrat with no real
police experience, and Hauer reminds him of it every chance he gets."
"Can't the prefect fire whoever he wants?"
"Firing Hauer isn't worth the controversy it would start."
Hans felt himself coloring as he went to the defense of the father he
had accused of terrible things in the silence of his own mind.
"He's a decorated hero, one of the best cops in the city. He also works
with GSG-9, the counterterror unit.
'Connections like that don't hurt. Plus he's only got one month before
retirement. Funk's been waiting for that day a long time. Now he's
almost rid of him."
"What a bastard." Kurt snapped his fingers anxiously.
"You got any cigarettes? We smoked all we had.."
Hans handed over his pack and matches. "Have they said who's handling
the questions?"
Kurt's hands shook slightly as he lit up. "They haven't said anything.
We've tried to listen through the wall, but it's useless.
They could beat a man to death in there and you'd never hear him
scream."
"Thanks a lot. I'll remember that while I'm in there. What about the
Russians?"
Kurt cut his eyes toward the door. "Weiss said he saw the very same
bastard who tried to take the prisoners from us-" The door banged open,
silencing the young recruit. A bearded man wear
ing captain's bars
stared back and forth between Hans and Kurt, then pointed to Hans.
"You," he growled.
"But I've been here for two hours," Kurt protested.
The captain ignored him and motioned for Hans to follow.
In the hall Hans saw another young officer being led around the corner
toward the elevators, his arms pinned to his sides by two large
policemen. Fighting a growing sense of unreality, Hans stepped into
room six.
The scene unnerved him. The sparsely furnished interrogation room had
been transformed into a courtroom. A single wooden chair faced a long,
raised table from which five men stared solemnly as Hans entered.
At the center of the table sat Wilhelm Funk, prefect of West Berlin
police. He eyed Hans with the cold detachment of a hanging judge. A
young blond man wearing lieutenant's bars hovered at Funk's left
shoulder. Hans guessed he was Lieutenant Luhr, the aide who had
summoned him by telephone. To the prefect's right sat three men wearing
Soviet Army uniforms.
Hans recognized one as the "sergeant" who had bullied Weiss at Spandau,
but the others-both colonels-he had never seen before. And to Funk's
left, a little apart from Lieutenant Luhr, sat Captain Dieter Hauer.
Dark sacs hung under his gray eyes, and he regarded Hans with a
Buddhalike inscrutability.
"Setzen she sich, " Funk ordered, then looked down at a buff file open
before him.
As Hans turned to sit, he saw more men behind him. Six Berlin policemen
stood in a line to the left of the door. He knew them all slightly; all
were from other districts. On the right side of the door stood the
Russian soldiers from the Spandau detail. Their bloodshot eyes gave the
lie to their freshly shaven faces, and the mud of the prison yard still
caked their boots. Hans looked slowly'from face to face.
When his eyes met those of the Russian who had caught him in the rubble
pile, Hans looked away first. He did not see the Russian nod almost
imperceptibly to the "sergeant" at the table, nor did he see the
"sergeant' soffly touch the sleeve of one of the colonels as Funk began
his interrogation.
"You are Sergeant Hans Apfel?" the prefect asked, still looking at the
file before him. "Born Munich 1960, Bundeswehr service 1978 to 1980,
two-year tour Federal Border Police, attached Munich municipal force
1983, transfelled Berlin 1984, promoted sergeant May of '84?"
"Yes, sir."
"Speak up, Sergeant."
Hans cleared his throat. "I am."
"Better. I want you to listen to me, Sergeant. I have convened this
informal hearing to save everyone-yourself included-a great deal of
unnecessary trouble. Because of the publicity surrounding this
morning's events, the Allied commandants have scheduled a formal
investigation into this matter, to commence at seven o'clock tomorrow
morning. I want this matter cleared up long before then. The problem
is that our Soviet friends"-Funk nodded deferentially to his
right-"Oberst Zotin and Oberst Kosov, claim to have uncovered something
rather disturbing at Spandau today. Their forensic people say they have
evidence that something was removed from the area of the cellblocks last
occupied by the Nuremberg war criminals."
Hans's stomach rolled. For a moment the room seemed to spin wildly. It
righted itself when he focused on the immobile mask of Captain Hauer"Of
course I denied their request to question our officers directly," Funk
went on, "but for the sake of expediency I've agreed to act as the
Soviets' proxy. That way they can be quickly satisfied as to our lack
of complicity in this matter.
Thus, the whole mess is over before it really begins, you see, Sergeant?
It's really better all around."
For the first time Hans noticed another man in the room.
He had been hunched out of sight behind Hauer, but when Funk spoke again
he moved.
"By the way, Sergeant," Funk said casually, "in the interest of veracity
I've agreed to monitor all responses by polygraph.
Hans felt a jolt of confusion. Polygraph test results were inadmissible
as evidence in a German-,court. The Berlin Polizei were not even
permitted to use the polygraph as an investigative tool. Or almost
never, anyway. Buried in the budget of the Experimental Section of the
Forensics Division was a small cadre of technicians devoted to the
subtle art of lie detection. They were used only in crisis situations,
where hives were at stake. The only explanation Hans could come up with
for the use of a polygraph tonight was that the Russians had requested
it.
"We'll be using our own man, of course," Funk said.
"Perhaps you know Heinz Schmidt?"
Hans knew of Schmidt, and what he knew made his heart race. The
ferretlike little polygrapher took perverse pleasure in wringing secrets
out of people-criminals or not-no matter how trivial. He even
moonlighted to sate his fetish, screening employees for industrial inns.
Funk's inquisitor padded around Hauer's corner of the table, pushing his
precious polygraph before him on a wheeled cart like the head of a
heretic. Ilse had been right, Hans realized. He should never have come
here.
"I said is that all right with you, Sergeant?" Funk repeated testily.
Hans could see that both Hauer and Lieutenant Luhr had suddenly taken a
keen interest in him. It took all his concentration to keep his facial
muscles still. He cleared his throat again. "Yes, sir. No problem."
"Good. The procedure is simple: Schmidt asks you a few calibration
questions, then we get to it." Funk sounded bored. "Hurry it up,
Schmidt."
As the polygrapher attached the electrodes to his fingers, Hans felt his
earlier bravado draining away. Then came the blood-pressure cuff,
fastened around his upper arm and pumped until he could feel his
arterial blood throbbing against it like a toumiquel Last came the chest
bandsrubber straps stretched around his torso beneath his shirt-to
monitor his respiration. Three separate sensing systems, cold and
inhuman, now silently awaited the slightest signals of deception.
Hans wondered which vital sign would give him away: a trace of sweat
translated into electrical resistance? His thudding heart? Or just his
eyes? I must be crazy, he thought wildly. Why keep it up anyway?
They'llfind me out in the end. For one mad moment he considered simply
blurting out the truth. He could exonerate himself bdfore Schmidt even
asked the first stupid control question. He could"Are you Sergeant Hans
Apfel?" Schmidt asked in a high, abrasive voice.
@I am."
"Yes or no, please, Sergeant. Is your name Hans Apfel?"
"Yes."
"Do you reside in West Berlin?"
"Yes."
Hans watched Schmidt make some adjustments to his machine. The ferret's
shirt was soiled at the collar and armpits, his fingernails were long
and grimy, and he smelled of ammonia. Suddenly, Schmidt pulled a red
pen from his pocket and held it up for all to see.
"Is this pen red, Sergeant
?" he asked.
Schmidt made@r seemed to make-still more adjustments to his machine.
Nervously, Hans wondered how much Schmidt knew he knew about the
polygraph test. Because Hans knew a good deal. The concept of the "lie
detector" had always fascinated him. He had taken the Experimental
Interrogation course at the police school at Hiltrup, and a close look
at his personnel file would reveal that. As Schmidt tinkered with his
machine, Hans marshaled what he remembered from the Hiltrup course. The
first tenet of the polygrapher was that for test results to be accurate,
the subject needed to believe the machine infallible. Polygraphers used
various methods to create this illusion, but Hans knew that Schmidt
favored the card trick." Schmidt would ask his subject to pick a
playing card at random from a deck, then to lay,it facedown on a table.
Schmidt's ability to name the hidden card after a few yes or no"
questions seemed to prove his polygraph infallible. Of course the
subject always chose his card from a deck in which every card was
identical, but he had no way of knowing that. Many skilled criminals had
confessed their crimes immediately after Schmidt's little parlor show,
certain that his machine would eventually find them out.
Hans saw no deck of cards tonight. Maybe Schmidt thinks his reputation
is enough to intimidate me, he thought nervously. And maybe he's right.
Already perspiring, Hans tried to think of a way to beat the little
weasel's machine. Some people had beaten the polygraph by learning to
suppress their physiological stress reactions, but,Hans knew he had no
hope of this. The suppression technique took months to master, and
right now he could barely hold himself in his chair.
He did have one hope, if he could keep a cool head: picking out the
"control" questions. Most people thought questions like "Is this pen
red?" were the controls. But Hans knew better. The real control
questions were ones which would cause almost anyone asked them to lie.
"Have you ever failed to report income on your federal tax return?". was
a corrtmon control. Most people denied this almost universal crime, and
by doing so provided Schmidt with their baseline "lie." Later, when
asked, "Did you cut your wife's throat with a kitchen knife?" a guilty
person's lie would register far stronger than his baseline or "control"
reference. Questions like "Is this pen red?"