The Spandau Phoenix wwi-2 Read online

  were asked simply to give a person's vital signs time to return to

  nominal between the relevant questions.

  Hans knew if he could produce a strong enough emotional response to a

  control question, then an actual lie would appear no different to the

  polygraph than his faked control responses. Schmidt would be forced to

  declare him "innocent." The best method to do this was to hide a

  thumbtack in your shoe, but Hans knew that an exaggerated response could

  also be triggered by holding your breath or biting your tongue. He

  decided to worzy about method later.

  If he couldn't pick out the control questions, method wouldn't matter.

  Schmidt's voice jolted him back to reality.

  "Sergeant Apfel, prior to discharging your Spandau assignment, did you

  conununicate with any person other thaln the duty sergeant regarding

  that assignment?"

  "No," Hans replied. That was true. He hadn't had tim I e to discuss it

  with anyone.

  "Is Captain Hauer a married man?"

  Irrelevant question, Hans thought bitterly. To anyone except me.

  "No," he answered.

  Schmidt looked down at the notepad from which he chose his questions.

  "Have you ever stopped a friend or public official for a traffic

  violation and let them go without issuing a citation?"

  Control question, Hans thought. Almost any cop who denied this would be

  lying. Keeping a straight face, he bit down on the tip of his tongue

  hard enough to draw blood.

  He felt a brief flush of perspiration pass through his skin.

  "No," he said.

  When Schmidt glanced up from the polygraph, Hans knew he had produced an

  exaggerated response. "Am I holding up two fingers?"

  Schmidt asked.

  Irrelevant, thought Hans. "Yes," he answered truthfully.

  Schmidt came a step closer. "Sergeant Apfel, you've made several

  arrests for drug possession in the past year.

  Have you ever failed to turn the entire quantity of confiscated drugs

  over to the evidence officer?"

  Control ques-Hans started to bite his tongue again; then he hesitated.

  If this was a control question, Schmidt had upped the stakes of the

  game. Giving an exaggerated response here would not be without serious

  consequences. Police corruption involving drugs was an epidemic

  problem, with accordingly severe punishment for those caught.

  The men at the table gave no indication that they saw this question as

  anything but routine, but Hans thought he detected a feral gleam in

  Schmidt's eyes. The dirty little man knew his business.

  "Sergeant?" Schmidt prodded.

  Hans fidgeted. He did not want to appear guilty of a drug crime, but

  the Spandau questions still awaited. If he intended to keep the papers

  secret, he would have to give at least a partially exaggerated response

  to this question. In silent desperation he held his breath, counted to

  four, then answered, "No," and exhaled slowly.

  "Is your wife's maiden name Natterrnan, Sergeant?"

  Irrelevant. "Yes," Hans replied.

  Schmidt wiped his upper lip. "Were you the last man to arrive at the

  scene of the argument over custody of the trespassers at Spandau

  PrisonT' Relevant question. Hans glanced up at the panel. All eyes

  were on him now. Stay calm ... "I don't remember," he said. "Things

  were so confused then. I really didn't notice."

  "Yes or no, Sergeant!"

  "I suppose I could have been."

  Exasperated, Schmidt looked to Funk for guidance. The prefect fixed

  Hans with his imperious stare. "Sergeant," he said curtly, "one of your

  fellow officers told us you were the last man there. Would you care to

  answer the question again?"

  "I'm sorry," Hans said sheepishly, "I just don't remem-her." He looked

  at the floor. The Russian soldier who had caught him in the rubble pile

  could call him a liar right now, he knew, but for some reason the man

  hadn't spoken up.

  Funk appeared satisfied with Hans's answer, and told Schmidt to move

  along. There can't be many more questions, Hans thought. Just a little

  longer"Sergeant Apfel?" Schmidt's voice cut like slivers of glass. "Did

  you remove any documents from a hollow brick in the area of the

  cellblocks last occupied by the Nuremberg war criminals?"

  Holy Mother of God! Hans choked down a scream. Every eye in the room

  burned upon his face. For the first time Hauer's steely mask cracked.

  His probing eyes fixed Hans motionless in his chair, stripping away the

  pathetic layers of deception. But it was too late to come clean.

  "No," Hans said lamely.

  "Specifically, " Schmidt bored in, "did you discover, remove, see, or

  even hear of documents pertaining to or written by Prisoner Number

  Seven-Rudolf Hess?"

  Hans felt cold sweat running down his spine.. His heart became an enemy

  within his chest, thumping out the tattoo of his guilt. And there stood

  Schmidt, lie-hungry, watching each centimeter of paper unspool from his

  precious machine.

  Looking at him now, Hans fancied he saw a mad doctor reading an

  electrocardiograph, a diabolical quack watching each fateful squiggle in

  the hope of witnessing a fatal heart attack. Hans felt his willpower

  ebbing away. The truth welled up in his throat, beyond his control.

  Just tell the truth, urged a voice in his head, tell it all and take

  whatever consequences come. Then this insanity willfocus elsewhere.

  Yet as Hans started to do just that, Schmidt said"Sergeant, have you

  ever omitted an important piece of information from a job application?"

  Hans felt like a spacewalker cut loose from his tether.

  Schmidt had asked another control question! Hadn't he? But why hadn't

  he triumphantly proclaimed Hans's guilt to the tribunal? Hans had

  expected the little demon to dance a jig and scream: Him! Him!

  There is the liar!

  "No-no, I haven't," Hans stammered.

  "Thank you, Sergeant."

  While Hans sat stunned, Schmidt turned to Funk and shook his head.

  The prefect closed the. file before him, then turned to the Soviet

  colonels and shrugged. "Any questions?" he asked.

  The Russians looked like sleeping bears. When one finally shook his

  head to indicate the negative, the gesture seemed the result of a

  massive effort. Hans even sensed the soldiers in the back of the room

  relaxing. Only Captain Hauer and Lieutenant Luhr remained tense. For

  some reason it struck Hans just then that Jiirgen Luhr was the kind of

  German who made Jews nervous. He was a racial type-the proto Germanic

  man, tall and broad-shouldered, thin-lipped and square-headed-a mythical

  Aryan fiend passed down in whispered tales from mother to daughter and

  father to son.

  "Thank you for your cooperation, Sergeant," Funk said wearily.

  "We'll contact you if we need any further details."

  Then over Hans's shoulder, "Bring in the last officer."

  Hans floundered. They had drawn him into the trap, yet failed-to pounce

  for the kill. "Am I free to go?" he asked uncertainly.

  "Unless you wish to stay with us all night," Funk snapped.

  "Excuse me, Prefect," Lieutenant Luhr cut in. All eyes tur
ned to him.

  "I'd like to ask the sergeant a question."

  Funk nodded.

  "Tell me, Sergeant, did you notice Officer Weiss acting in a suspicious

  manner at any time during the Spandau assignment?"

  Hans shook his head, remembering Weiss being dragged down the hall. "No,

  sir. No, I didn't."

  Luhr smiled with understanding, but he had the watchful eyes of a police

  dog. "Officer Weiss is a Jew, isn't he, Sergeant?"

  One of the Russian colonels staffed, but his comrade laid a restraining

  hand on his shoulder.

  "I believe that's right," Hans said tentatively. "Yes, he's Jewish."

  Luhr gave a curt nod of the head, as if this new fact somehow explained

  everything.

  "You may go, Sergeant," Funk said.

  Hans stood. They were telling him to go, yet he sensed that some

  unspoken understanding had passed between the men in the room. It was

  as if several decisions had been taken at once in some language unknown

  to him. He turned toward the soldiers and police at the back of the

  room and shuffled toward the door. No one moved to stop him. Why

  hadn't Schmidt called him a liar? Why hadn't the Russian who'd caught

  him searching called him a liar? And why did he feel compelled to keep

  lying, anyway?

  Because of the Russians, he realized. If the prefect@r even Hauer-had

  only questioned him alone, he could have told them. Just as Ilse wanted

  him to. He would have told them ...

  A burly policeman held open the door. Hans walked through, hearing

  Funk's tired voice resume behind him. He quickened his pace.

  He wanted to get out of the building as soon as possible. He entered

  the stairwell at a near trot, but slowed when he saw two beefy patrolmen

  ascending from the first floor. Nodding a perfunctory greeting, he

  slipped between the two menThen they took him.

  Hans had no chance at all. The men used no weapons because they needed

  none. His arms were immobilized as if by steel bands; then the men

  reversed direction and began dragging him down the stairs.

  "What is this!" Hans shouted. "I'm a police officer! Let me go!"

  One of the men chuckled quietly. They reached the bottom of the stairs

  and turned down a disused hallway, a repository of ancient files and

  broken furniture. When the initial shock and disorientation wore off,

  Hans realized that he had to fight back somehow. But how? In the

  darkest part of the corridor he suddenly let his body go limp, appearing

  to lose his will to resist.

  "Scheisse!" one man cursed. "Dead weight."

  "He soon will be," commented his partner.

  Dead weight? With speed born of desperation Hans fired his elbow into a

  rib cage. He heard bone crack.

  "Arrghh!" The man let go.

  With his free hand Hans pummeled the other attacker's head, aiming for

  his temple. The policeman held him fast.

  "You bastard . . . " from the darkness.

  Hans kept pounding the man's skull. The grip on his arm was looseningAn

  explosion that seemed to detonate behind his right eye paralyzed him.

  Darkness.

  Less than sixty feet away from Hans, Colonels Ivan Kosov and Grigori

  Zotin stood outside an idling East German transit bus in the central

  parking lot of the police station. Inside the bus, the Soviet soldiers

  from the Spandau patrol waited for their long-delayed return to -East

  Berlin.

  Most were already fast asleep.

  Zotin, a GRU colonel, did'not particularly like Kosov, and- he was

  deeply offended at the KGB colonel's effrontery in.

  donning the uniform of the Red Army. But what could he do? One

  couldn't keep the KGB out of something this big, especially when higher

  powers wanted Kosov involved.

  Rubbing his hands together against the cold, Zotin tested the KGB man's

  perception.

  "Can you believe it, Ivan? They gave them all clean reports."

  "Of course," Kosov growled. "What did you expect?"

  "But one of them was certainly lying!"

  "Certainly."

  "But how did they fake the polygraph readouts?"

  Kosov looked bored. "We were six meters from the machine. They could

  have shown us anything."

  Grigori Zotin knew exactly which policeman had lied, but he wanted to

  keep the information from Kosov long enough to initiate inquiries of his

  own. He was aware of the Kremlin's interest in the Hess case, and he

  knew his career could take a giant leap forward if he cracked it.

  He made a mental note to decorate the young GRU officer who had caught

  the German policeman searching and showed enough sense to tell only his

  immediate superior. "You're right, of course," Zotin agreed.

  Kosov grunted.

  "What, exactly, do you think was discovered? A journal perhaps?

  Do you think they found some proof of@' "They found a hollow brick,"

  Kosov snapped. "Our forensic technicians say their tests indicate the

  brick held some type of paper for an unknown period of time. It could

  have been some kind of journal. It could also have been pages from a

  pornographic magazine. It could have been toilet paper! Never trust

  experts too much, Zotin."

  The GRU colonel sucked his teeth nervously. "Don't you think we should

  have at least mentioned Zinoviev during the interrogation? We could

  have-2' "Idiot!" Kosov bellowed. "That name, isn't to be mentioned

  outside KGB! How do you even know it?"

  Zotin stepped back defensively. "One hears things in Moscow."

  "Things that could get you a bullet in the neck," Kosov warned.

  Zotin tried to look unworried. "I suppose we should tell the general to

  turn up the pressure at the commandants' meeting tomorrow."

  "Don't be ridiculous," scoffed Kosov. "Too little, too late."

  "What about the trespassers, then? Why are you letting the Germans keep

  them?"

  "Because they don't know anything."

  "What do you suggest we do, then?" Zotin ventured warily.

  Kosov snorted. "Are you serious? It was the second to last man-Apfel.

  He was lying through his Bosche teeth. Those idiots did exactly what we

  wanted. If they'd admitted Apfel was lying, he'd be in a jail cell now,

  beyond our reach. As it is, he's at our mercy. The fool is bound to

  return home, and when he does"-Kosov smiled coldly-"I'll have a team

  waiting for him."

  Zotin was aghast. "But how-?" He stifled his imprudent outburst with a

  cough. "How can you get a team over soon enough?" he covered.

  "I have two teams here now," Kosov snapped. "Get me to a damned

  telephone!"

  Startled, the GRU colonel clambered aboard the bus and found a seat.

  "And Zotin?" Kosov said, leaning over his rival.

  "Yes?"

  "Keep nothing from me again. It could be very dangerous for you."

  Zotin blanched.

  "I want everything there is on this man Apfel. Everything.

  I suggest you ride your staff very hard on this. Powerful eyes are

  watching us."

  "How will you approach this policeman?"

  "Approach him?" Kosov cracked a wolfish smile. "Break him, you mean.

  By morning I'll know how many times that poor bastard peeked up his

  mother's ski
rts."

  Hans awoke in a cell. There was no window. He'd been thrown onto a

  stack of damp cardboard boxes. One pale ray of light filtered down from

  somewhere high above. When he had focused his eyes, he sat up and

  gripped one of the steel bars. His face felt sticky. He put his

  fingers to his temple.

  Blood The familiar slickness brought back the earlier events in a

  throbbing rush of confusion. The interrogation ... his father's stony

  silence ... the struggle in the hallway. Where was he?

  He tried to rise, but he collapsed into a narrow space tween two boxes.

  Rotting cardboard covered almost the entire concrete floor. A cell full

  of boxes? Puzzled, Hans reached into one and pulled out a damp folder.

  He held it in the shaft of light. Traffic accident report, he thought.

  Typed on the standard police fonn- He found the date-1973. Flipping

  through the yellow sheaf of papers, he saw they were all the same, all

  traffic accident reports from 1973. He checked the station listed on

  several forms: Abschnitt 53 every case. Suddenly he realized where he

  was.

  In the early 1970s, Abschnitt 53 had been partially renovated during a

  city wide wave of reform that lasted about eighteen months.

  There had been enough money to refurbish the reception area and overhaul

  the main cellblock, but the third floor, the basement, and the rear of

  the building went largely untouched. Hans was sure he'd been locked in

  the basement.

  But why? No one had accused him of anything. Not openly, at least. Who

  were the policemen who had attacked him? Funk's men? Were they even

  police officers at all?

  They had said he would soon be dead weight. It was crazy.

  Maybe they were protecting him from the Russians. Maybe this was the

  only way the prefect could keep him safe from them. That's it! he

  thought with relief. It has to be.

  A door slammed somewhere in the darkness above. Someone was

  coming-several people by the sound-and making no effort to hide it.

  Hans heard clattering and cursing on the stairs; then he saw who was

  making the noise. Outlined in the fluorescent light streaming down from

  the basement door, two husky uniformed men were wrestling a gurney off

  the stairs. Slowly they cleared a path to the cell through the heaps of

  junk covering the basement floor. Hans closed his eyes and lay

  motionless on the holes where he'd been thrown.

  "Looks like he's still out," said one mdn.