by Greg Iles
“Not yet at least.”
“We should look into something like the British Harrier. Wonderfully simple idea, vertical takeoff. There must be a commercial variant in development somewhere.”
“Surely you’re joking, sir?”
Horn looked reprovingly at his aide. “You would never have made an aviator, Pieter. To fight in the skies you must believe all things are possible, bendable to the human will.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“But you are excellent at what you do, my friend. I am living proof of your skill and dedication. I am the only one left who knows the secret. The only one. And that is due in no small part to you.”
“You exaggerate, Herr Horn.”
“No. Though I have great wealth, my power rests not in money but in fear. And one instrument of the fear I generate is you. Your loyalty is beyond price.”
“And beyond doubt, you know that.”
Horn’s single living eye pierced Smuts’s soul. “We can know nothing for certain, Pieter. Least of all about ourselves. But I have to trust someone, don’t I?”
“I shall never fail you,” Smuts said softly, almost reverendly.
“Your goal is greater than any temptation.”
“Yes,” the old man answered. “Yes it is.”
Horn backed the wheelchair away from the desk and turned to face the window. The skyline of Pretoria, for the most part beneath him, stretched away across the suburbs to the soot-covered townships, to the great plateau of the northern Transvaal, where three days hence Horn would host a meeting calculated to alter the balance of world power forever. As Smuts closed the door softly, Horn’s mind drifted back to the days of his youth … the days of power. Gingerly, he touched his
glass eye. “Der Tag kommt,” he said aloud. “The day approaches.”
CHAPTER THREE
3.31 pm. British Sector West Berlin
Hans awoke in a sweat. He still cowered inside a dark cave, watching in terror as a Russian soldier came for him with a Kalashnikov rifle. The illusion gripped his mind, difficult to break. He sat upright in bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Still the wrecked compound hovered before him. His soiled uniform still chafed, still smelled of the dank prison yard. He shook his head violently, but the image would not disappear.
It was real …
On the screen of the small Siemens television two metres in front of Hans, a tall reporter clad in the type of topcoat favoured by West Berlin pimps stood before a wide shot of the wasteland that yesterday had been Spandau Prison. Hans clambered over the footboard of the bed and turned up the volume on the set.
“… Deutsche Welle broadcasting live from the Wilhelmstrasse. As you can see, the main structure of Spandau Prison was destroyed with little fanfare yesterday by the British military authorities. it was here early this morning that Soviet troops in conjunction with West Berlin police arrested the two West German citizens whom the Russians are now attempting to extradite into East Berlin. There is virtually no precedent for this attempt. The Russians are following no recognized legal procedure, and the story that began here in the predawn hours is rapidly becoming an incident of international proportions. To the best of Deutsche Welle’s knowledge, the two Berliners are being held inside Polizei Abschnitt 53, where our own Peter Muller is following developments as they occur. Peter?”
Before switching to the second live feed, the producer stayed with the Spandau shot for a few silent seconds. What Hans saw brought a sour lump to his throat. A hundred metres behind the reporter, dozens of uniformed men slowly picked their way across the ruined grounds of Spandau.
They moved over the icy rubble like ants in search of food, some not far from the very mound where Hans had made his discovery. A few wore white lab coats, but others—Hans’s throat tightened—others wore the distinctive red-patched brown uniforms of the Soviet infantry. Hans scoured the screen for clues that might explain the Soviet presence, but the scene vaporized.
Now a slightly better-dressed commentator stood before the great three-arched doorway of the police station where Hans reported to work every morning. He shifted his weight excitedly from one foot to the other as he spoke. “Thank you, Karl,” he said. “Other than the earlier statement by the police press officer that a joint investigation with the USSR is under way, no details are forthcoming. We know that an undetermined number of Soviet soldiers remain inside Abschnitt 53, but we do not know if they are guests here, as is claimed, or if—as has been rumoured—they control the station by force of arms.
“While the Spandau incident occurred in the British sector of the city, the German prisoners were taken by a needlessly lengthy route to Abschnitt 53, here in the American sector, just one block from Checkpoint Charlie. Informed sources have speculated that a quick-witted police officer may have realized that the Soviets would be less likely to resort to violence in the American-controlled part of the city. We have received no statements from either the American or the British military commands. However, if Soviet troops are in fact inside this police station without the official sanction of the US Army, the Allied occupational boundaries we have all by familiarity come to ignore may suddenly assume a critical importance.
“This small incident could well escalate into one of the most volatile crises of the post-glasnost era. We will update this story at 18:00 this evening, so please stay tuned to this channel. This is Peter Muller, Deutsche Welle, live …”
While the reporter solemnly wrapped his segment, he failed to notice the huge station door open behind him. Haggard but erect, Captain Dieter Hauer strode out into the afternoon light. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in hours. He surveyed the sidewalk like a drill sergeant inspecting a barracks yard; then, apparently satisfied, he gave the reporter a black look, turned back toward the station door, and dissolved into a BMW commercial.
Hans fell back against the footboard of the bed, his mind reeling. Russian troops still in his home station? Who had leaked the Spandau story to the press? And who were the men in the white lab coats? What were they searching for? Was it the papers he’d found? It almost had to be. No one cared about a couple of homosexuals who happened to trespass public property in their search for a love nest. The realization of what he had done by keeping the papers hit Hans like a wave of fever. But what else could he have done? Surely the police brass would not have wanted the Russians to get hold of the papers. He could have driven straight to Polizei headquarters at Platz der Luftbrucke, of course, but he didn’t
know a soul there. No, when he turned in the papers, he wanted to do it
at his home station. And he couldn’t do that yet because the Russians were still inside it! He would simply have to wait.
But he didn’t want to wait. He felt like a boy who has stumbled over a locked chest in a basement. He wanted to know what the devil he’d found! Anxiously, he snapped his fingers. Ilse, he thought suddenly. She had a gift for languages, just like her arrogant grandfather. Maybe she could decipher the rest of the Spandau papers.
He lifted the phone and punched in the first four digits of her work number; then he replaced the receiver. The brokerage house where Ilse worked did not allow personal calls during trading hours. Hans would break a rule quicker than most Germans, but he remembered that several employees had been fired for taking this rule lightly. A reckless thought struck Hans. He wanted information, and he knew where he could get some. After sixty seconds of hard reflection, he picked up the telephone directory and looked up the number of Der Spiegel. Several department numbers were listed for the magazine. He wasn’t sure which he needed, so he dialled the main switchboard.
“Der Spiegel, ” answered a female voice.
“I need to speak to Heini Weber,” Hans said. “Could you connect me with the proper department, please?”
“One moment.”
Thirty seconds passed. “News,” said a gruff male voice.
“Heini Weber, please. He’s a friend of mine.” A bit of an exaggerati
on, Hans thought, but what the hell?
“Weber’s gone,” the man growled, “He was just here, but he left again. Field assignment.”
Hans sighed. “If he comes back—”
“Wait, I see him. Weber! Telephone!”
Hans heard a clatter of chairs, then a younger male voice came on the line. “Weber here. Who’s this?”
“Hans Apfel.”
“Who ?”
“Sergeant Hans Apfel. We met at—”
“Right, right,” Weber remembered, “that kidnapping thing. Gruesome. Listen, I’m in a hurry, can you make it fast?”
“I need to talk to you,” Hans said deliberately. “It’s important.”
“Hold on—I’m coming already! What’s your story, Sergeant?”
“Not over the phone,” Hans said, knowing he probably sounded ridiculous.
“Jesus,” Weber muttered. “I’ve got to get over to Hannover. A mob of Greens is disrupting an American missile transport on the E-30 and I need to leave five minutes ago.”
“I could ride with you.”
“Two-seater,” Weber objected. “And I’ve got to take my photographer. I guess your big scoop will have to wait until tomorrow.”
“No!” Hans blurted, surprised by his own vehemence. “It can’t wait. I’ll just have to call someone else.”
A long silence. “All right,” Weber said finally, “where do you live?”
“Lützenstrasse, number 30.”
“I’ll meet you out front. I can give you five minutes.”
“Good enough.” Hans hung up and took a deep breath. This move carried some risk. In Berlin, all police contact with the press must be officially cleared beforehand. But he intended to get information from a reporter, not to give it. Without pausing to shower or shave, he stripped off his dirty uniform and threw on a pair of cotton pants and the old shirt he wore whenever he made repairs on the VW. A light raincoat and navy scarf completed his wardrobe.
The Spandau papers still lay beneath the rumpled mattress. He retrieved them, scanning them again on the off chance that he’d missed something before. At the bottom of the last page he found it: several hastily written passages in German, each apparently a separate entry:
The threats stopped for a time. Foolishly, I let myself hope that the madness had ended. But it started again last month. Can they read my thoughts? No sooner do I toy with the idea of setting down my great burden, than a soldier of Phoenix appears before me. Who is with them? Who is not? They show me pictures of an old woman, but the eyes belong to a stranger. I am certain my wife is dead. My daughter is alive! She wears a middle-aged face and bears an unknown name, but her eyes are mine. She is a hostage roaming free, with an invisible sword hanging above her head But safe she has remained I am strong! The Russians have promised to find my angel, to save her, if I will but speak her name. But I do not know it! It would be useless if I did. Heydrich wiped all trace of me from the face of Germany in 1936. God alone knows what that demon told my family! My British warders are stern like guard dogs, very stupid ones. But there are other Englanders who are not so stupid. Have you found me out, swine?
And a jagged entry:
Phoenix wields my precious daughter like a sword of fire! If only they knew! Am I even a dim memory to my angel? No. Better that she never knows. I have lived a life of madness, but in the face of death I found courage. In my darkest hours—I remember these lines from Ovid: “It is a smaller thing to suffer punishment than to have deserved it. The punishment can be removed, the fault will remain forever ” My long punishment shall soon cease. After all the slaughtered millions, the war finally ends for me. May God accept me into His Heaven, for I know that Heydrich and the others await me at the gates of Hell. Surely I have paid enough.
Number 7
A car horn blared outside. Strangely shaken, Hans folded the pages into a square and stuffed them back under the mattress. Then he tugged on a pair of old sneakers, locked the front door, and bounded into the stairwell. He bumped into a tall janitor on the third floor landing, but the old man didn’t even look up from his work.
Hans found Heini Weber beside a battered red Fiat Spyder, bouncing up and down on his toes like a hyperactive child. A shaggy-haired youth with a Leica slung round his neck peered at Hans from the Fiat’s jump seat.
“So what’s the big story, Sergeant?” Weber asked.
“Over here,” said Hans, motioning toward the foyer of his building. He had seen nothing suspicious in the street, yet he could not shake the feeling that he was being watched—if not by hostile, at least by interested eyes. It’s just the photographer he told himself.
Weber followed him into the building and immediately resumed his nervous bouncing, this time against the dirty foyer wall. “The metre’s running,” said the reporter.
“Before I tell you anything,” Hans said carefully, “I want some information.”
Weber scowled. “Do I look like a fucking librarian to you? Come on, out with it.”
Hans nodded solemnly, then played out his bait. “I may have a story for you, Heini, but … to be honest, I’m curious about what it might be worth.”
“Well, well,” the reporter deadpanned, “the police have joined the club. Listen, Sergeant, I don’t buy stories, I track them down for pay. That’s the news game, you know? If you want money, try one of the American TV networks.” When Hans didn’t respond, Weber said, “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s your story? The mayor consorting with the American commandant’s wife? The Wall coming down tomorrow? I’ve heard them all, Sergeant. Everybody’s got a story to sell and ninety-nine percent of them are shit. What’s yours?”
Hans looked furtively toward the street. “What if,” he murmured, “what if I told you I’d got hold of something important from the war? From the Nazi period?”
“Something,” Weber echoed. “Like?”
Hans sighed anxiously. “Like papers, say. Like a diary.”
Weber scrutinized him for some moments; then his eyebrows arched cynically. “Like the diary of a Nazi war criminal, maybe?”
Hans’s eyes widened in disbelief “How did you know?”
“Scheisse!” Weber cursed. He slapped the wall. “Is that what you got me over here for? Christ, where do they find you guys? That’s the oldest one in the book!”
Hans stared at the reporter as if he were mad. “What do you mean?”
Weber returned Hans’s gaze with something akin to pity; then he put a hand on his shoulder. “Whose diary is it, Sergeant? Mengele’s? Bormann’s?”
“Neither,” Hans snapped. He felt strangely defensive about the Spandau papers. “What the hell are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying that you probably just bought the German equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge.”
Hans blinked, then looked away, thinking fast. He clearly wasn’t going to get any information without revealing some first. “This diary’s genuine,” he insisted. “And I can prove it.”
“Sure you can,” said Weber, glancing at his watch. “When Gerd Heidemann discovered the ‘Hitler diaries’ back in ‘83, he even had Hugh Trevor-Roper swearing they were authentic. But they were crap, Sergeant, complete fakes. I don’t know where you got your diary, but I hope to God you didn’t pay much for it.” The reporter was laughing.
Hans forced himself to smile sheepishly, but what he was thinking was that he hadn’t paid a pfennig for the Spandau papers. He had found them. And if Heini Weber knew where he had found them, the reporter would be begging him for an exclusive story.
Hans heard the regular swish of a broom from the first-floor landing. “Heini,” he said forcefully, “just tell me this. Have you heard of any missing Nazi documents or anything like that floating around recently?”
Weber shook his head in amazement. “Sergeant, what you’re talking about—Nazi diaries and things—people were selling them ten-a-penny after the war. It’s a fixed game, a scam.” His face softened. “Just cut your losses and run, Hans. Don’t embarrass
yourself.”
Weber turned and grabbed the door handle, but Hans caught him by the
sleeve. “But if it were authentic?” he said, surprising himself. “What kind of money would we be talking about?”
Weber pulled his arm free, but he paused for a last look at the gullible policeman. The swish of the broom had stopped, but neither man noticed.
“For the real thing?” He chuckled. “No limit, Sergeant. Stern magazine paid Heidemann 3.7 million marks for first rights to the ‘Hitler diaries.’ “
Hans’s jaw dropped.
“The London Sunday Times went in for 400,000 pounds, and I think both Time and Newsweek came close to getting stung.” Weber smiled with a touch of professional envy. “Heidemann was pretty smart about it, really. He set the hook by leaking a story that the diaries contained Hitler’s version of Rudolf Hess’s flight to Britain. Of course every rag in the world was panting to print a special edition solving the last big mystery of the war. They shelled out millions. Careers were ruined by that fiasco.” The reporter laughed harshly. “Guten Abend, Sergeant. Call me next time there’s a kidnapping, eh?”
Weber trotted to the waiting Spyder, leaving Hans standing dumbfounded in the doorway. He had called the reporter for information, and he had gotten more than he’d bargained for 3.7 million marks? Jesus!
“Make way, why don’t you!” croaked a high-pitched voice.
Hans grunted as the tall janitor shouldered past him onto the sidewalk and hobbled down the street. His broom was gone; now a worn leather bag swung from his shoulder.
Hans followed the man with his eyes for a while, then shook his head. Paranoia, he thought.
Looking up at the drab façade of his apartment building, he decided that a walk through the city beat waiting for Ilse in the empty flat. Besides, he always thought more clearly on the move. He started walking. Just over a hundred metres long, the Lützenstrasse was wedged into a rough trapezoid between two main thoroughfares and a convergence of elevated S-Bahn rail tracks. Forty seconds’ walking carried Hans from the dirty brown stucco of his apartment building to the polished chrome of the Kurfürstendamm, the showpiece boulevard of Berlin. He headed east toward the centre of the city, speaking to no one, hardly looking up at the dazzling window displays, magisterial banks, open-air cafes, art galleries, antique shops, and nightclubs of the Ku’damm. Bright clusters of shoppers jostled by, gawking and laughing together, but they yielded a wide path to the lone walker whose Aryan good looks were somehow made suspect by his unshaven face and ragged clothing. The tall, spare man gliding purposefully along behind Hans could easily have been walking at his shoulder. The man no longer looked like a janitor, but even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered; Hans was lost in heady dreams of wealth beyond measure. He paused at a newsstand and bought a pack of American cigarettes. He really needed a smoke. As he sucked in the first potent drag, he suddenly remembered something from the Spandau papers. The writer had said he was the last … The last what? The last prisoner? And then it hit Hans like a bucket of water in the face. The Spandau papers were signed Prisoner Number Seven … and Prisoner Number Seven was Rudolf Hess himself.