Greg Iles - Spandau Phoenix

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 prim 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—especially 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 wearing 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 sie 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” softly 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, transferred 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.”