Greg Iles - Spandau Phoenix

The Israeli looked up, surprised to see his young informant still standing there. “Something else, Baum?”

“Oh—no, sir.”

Stern smiled appreciatively. “You’d better get back to your post. Try to monitor what’s going on in Abschnitt 53 if you can.”

“Yes, sir. Shalom .”

“Shalom.”

Stern cradled the files under his arm and stepped back into the apartment building. He reclaimed his broom and dustpan, then started noisily back up to the fourth floor. This role of custodian isn’t half-bad , he thought. He had certainly known much worse.

Ilse’s eyes flickered like camera lenses; they always did when she was deep in thought. Hans had ended his account of the night at Spandau with Captain Hauer’s facing down the furious Russian commander. Now he sat opposite Ilse at the kitchen table, staring down at the Spandau papers.

“Your father,” she said softly. “Why did he pick last night to try to talk to you, I wonder?”

Hans looked impatient. “Coincidence … what does it matter? What matters right now is the papers.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“I read what I could,” he said breathlessly. “But most of it’s written in some strange language. It’s like …”

“Latin,” she finished. “It’s Latin.”

“You can read it?”

“A little.”

“What does it say?”

Ilse’s lips tightened. “Hans, have you told anyone about these papers? Anyone at all?”

“I told you I didn’t,” he insisted, compounding the lie.

Ilse twisted two strands of hair into a rope. “The papers are about Rudolf Hess,” she said finally.

“I knew it! What do they say?”

“Hans, Latin isn’t exactly my specialty, okay? It’s been years since I read any.” She looked down at her notes. “The papers mention Hess’s name frequently, and some others—Heydrich, for instance—and something called the SD. They were signed by Prisoner Number Seven. You saw that?”

Hans nodded eagerly.

“The odd thing is that Prisoner Number Seven was Rudolf Hess, yet these papers seem to be talking about Hess as if he were another person.” She pushed her notes away. “I’ve probably got it all wrong. The writer describes a flight to Britain, but mentions a stop somewhere in Denmark. It’s crazy. There seem to be two men in the plane, not one. And I do know one thing for certain—Rudolf Hess flew to Britain alone.”

Hans blinked. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that the man who died in Spandau Prison might not have been Rudolf Hess?”

“No, I’m saying that the papers say that. I think. But I don’t believe it for a minute.”

“Why not?”

Ilse got up, went to a cupboard, and removed a beer, which she placed on the counter but did not open. “Think about it, Hans. For weeks the newspapers have run wild with speculation about Prisoner Number Seven. Was he murdered? Why did he really fly to Britain? Was he really Hess at all? Now you find some papers that seem to indicate that the prisoner wasn’t Hess, just as some of the newspapers have been speculating?” She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “It’s too convenient. This has to be some kind of press stunt or something.”

“My God,” he said, coming to his feet. “Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter if the papers are real or not. The fact that I found them in Spandau is enough. They could be worth millions of marks!”

Ilse sat down carefully and looked up at Hans. When she spoke her voice was grave. “Hans, listen to me. I understand why you didn’t turn in the papers immediately. But now is the time for clear thinking. If these papers are fakes, they’re worthless and they can only get us into trouble. And if they are genuine …” She trailed off, glanced up at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Hans, I think we should call my grandfather,” she said suddenly. “I could only read part of this … diary, I guess you’d call it, but Opa will be able to read it all. He’ll know what we should do.” She pushed her chair away from the table.

“Wait!” Hans cried. “What business is this of his?”

Ilse reached out and hooked her fingers in Hans’s trouser pocket. “Hans, I love you,” she said gently. “I love you, but this thing is too deep for us. I heard some of the news bulletins at work today. The Russians have gone crazy over this Spandau incident. Imagine what they might think about these papers. We need some good advice, and Opa can give it to us.”

Hans felt a hot prickle of resentment. The last thing he wanted was Ilse’s arrogant grandfather strutting around and telling him what to do. “We’re not calling the professor,” he said flatly.

Ilse started to snap back, but she checked herself. “All right,” she said. “If you won’t call Opa , then call your father.”

Hans drew back as if struck physically. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“For God’s sake, Hans. Three years without more than a nod to the man. Can’t you admit that he’s in a position to help you? To help us? He obviously wants to—”

“Three years! He went twenty years without talking to me!”

There was a long silence. “I’m sorry,” Ilse said finally. “I shouldn’t have said that. But you’re not acting like yourself.”

“And what’s so wrong with that? Liebchen , people get a chance like this once in their lives, if they’re lucky. I found these papers, I didn’t steal them. The man they belonged to is dead. They’re ours now. Imagine … all the things you’ve ever wanted. All the things I could never afford to buy you. Your friends from work are always flaunting their fine houses, their clothes, the best of everything . You never complain, but I know you miss those things. You grew up with them. And now you can have them again.”

“But I don’t care about those things,” Ilse countered. “You know that. You know what’s important to me.”

“That’s what I’m talking about! Children aren’t cheap, you know. When you finally get pregnant, we’ll need all the money we can get.” He snatched up one of the Spandau pages. “And it’s right here in our hands!”

For the first time since finding the papers, Ilse remembered the baby. She had been so happy this afternoon, so ready to celebrate their blessing. She’d wanted everything to be perfect. But now …

“Hans,” she said solemnly, “I wasn’t being honest, okay? I probably would prefer driving to work in a Mercedes rather than riding the U-Bahn.” Suddenly Ilse laughed, flirting momentarily with the idea of easy money. “I wouldn’t turn down a new wardrobe or a mansion in Zehlendorf, either. But if these papers are real, Hans, they are not our ticket to getting those things. Finding these papers isn’t like finding a lottery ticket. If they are genuine, they are a legacy of the Nazis. Of war criminals. How many times have we talked about the Hitler madness? Even almost fifty years after the war, it’s like an invisible weight dragging us backward. When I spent that semester in New York, I made some friends, but I also saw the looks some people gave me—Jews maybe, I don’t know—wondering about the blond German girl. ‘Does she think she’s better than we are? Racially superior? ’ Hans, our whole generation has paid the price for something we had nothing to do with. Do you want to profit from that?”

Hans looked down at the papers on the table. Suddenly they looked very different than they had before. In a span of seconds their spell had been broken. Ilse’s laugh had done it, he realized, not her impassioned speech. Her musical, self-mocking laugh. He gathered up the loose sheets and stacked them at the center of the table. “I’ll turn them in tonight,” he promised. “I’ll take them downtown right after supper. Good enough?”