Greg Iles - Spandau Phoenix

It was the Americans who disturbed Hans. Some leaned casually against broken slabs of concrete, their weapons nowhere in evidence. Others squatted on piles of brick, hunched over their M-16 Armalites as if they could barely stay awake. None of the U.S. soldiers had even bothered to challenge Hans’s passage. At first he felt angry that NATO soldiers would take such a casual approach to their duties. But after a while he began to wonder. Their indifference could simply be a ruse, couldn’t it? Certainly for an assignment such as this a high-caliber team would have been chosen?

After three hours’ patrol, Hans’s suspicions were proved correct, when he nearly stumbled over the black American sergeant surveying the prison grounds through a bulbous scope fitted to his M-16. Not wishing to startle him, Hans whispered, “Versailles, Sergeant.” When the American didn’t respond, he tried again. “What can you see?”

“Everything from the command trailer on the east to that Ivan pissing on a brick pile on the west,” the sergeant replied in German, never taking his eyes from the scope.

“I can’t see any of that!”

“Image-intensifier,” the American murmured. “Well, well … I didn’t know the Red Army let its sentries take a piss-break on guard du— What —” The noncom wrenched the rifle away from his face.

“What is it?” Hans asked, alarmed.

“Nothing … damn . This thing works by light magnification, not infrared. That smartass flashed a spotlight toward me and whited out my scope. What an asshole.”

Hans grunted in mutual distaste for the Russians. “Nice scope,” he said, hoping to get a look through it himself.

“Your outfit doesn’t have ’em?”

“Some units do. The drug units, mostly. I used one in training, but they aren’t issued for street duty.”

“Too bad.” The American scanned the ruins. “This is one weird place, isn’t it?”

Hans shrugged and tried to look nonchalant.

“Like a graveyard, man. A hundred and fifty cells in this place, and only one occupied—by Hess. Dude must’ve known some serious shit to keep him locked down that tight.” The sergeant cocked his head and squinted at Hans. “Man, you know you look familiar. Yeah … you look like that guy, that tennis player—”

“Becker,” Hans finished, looking at the ground.

“Becker, yeah. Boris Becker. I guess everybody tells you that, huh?”

Hans looked up. “Once a day, at least.”

“I’ll bet it doesn’t hurt you with the Fräuleins .”

“I’d rather have his income,” Hans said, smiling. It was his stock answer, but the American laughed. “Besides,” he added, “I’m married.”

“Yeah?” The sergeant grinned back. “Me too. Six years and two kids. You?”

Hans shook his head. “We’ve been trying, but we haven’t had any luck.”

“That’s a bitch,” said the American, shaking his head. “I got some buddies with that problem. Man, they gotta check the calendar and their old lady’s temperature and every other damn thing before they can even get it on. No thanks.”

When the sergeant saw Hans’s expression, he said, “Hey, sorry ’bout that, man. Guess you know more about it than you ever wanted to.” He raised his rifle again, sighting in on yet another invisible target. “ Bang ,” he said, and lowered the weapon. “We’d better keep moving, Boris.” He disappeared into the shadows, taking the scope with him.

For the next six hours, Hans moved through the darkness without speaking to anyone, except to answer the challenges of the Russians. They seemed to be taking the operation much more seriously than anyone else, he noticed. Almost personally.

About four A.M. he decided to have a second look at his map. He approached the command trailer obliquely, walking backward to read by the glow of the single floodlamp. Suddenly he heard voices. Peering around the trailer, he saw the French and British sergeants sitting together on the makeshift steps. The Frenchman was very young, like most of the twenty-seven hundred conscripts who comprised the French garrison in Berlin. The Brit was older, a veteran of England’s professional army. He did most of the talking; the Frenchman smoked and listened in silence. Now and then the wind carried distinct words to Hans. “Hess” was one—“ lefe nant” and “bloody Russians” were others. Suddenly the Frenchman stood, flicked his cigarette butt into the darkness, and strode out of the white pool of light. The Englishman followed close on his heels.

Hans turned to go, then froze. One meter behind him stood the imposing silhouette of Captain Dieter Hauer. The fiery eye of a cigar blazed orange in the darkness.

“Hello, Hans,” said the deep, burnished voice.

Hans said nothing.

“Damned cold for this time of year, eh?”

“Why am I here?” Hans asked. “You broke our agreement.”

“No, I didn’t. This was bound to happen sooner or later, even with a twenty-thousand-man police force.”

Hans considered this. “I suppose you’re right,” he said at length. “It doesn’t matter. Just another assignment, right?”

Hauer nodded. “You’ve been doing a hell of a job, I hear. Youngest sergeant in Berlin.”

Hans flushed a little, shrugged.

“I lied, Hans,” Hauer said suddenly. “I did break our agreement. I requested you for this detail.”

Hans’s eyes narrowed. “ Why? ”

“Because it was busy work. Killing time. I thought we might get a chance to talk.”

Hans studied the slushy ground. “So talk.”

Hauer seemed to search for words. “There’s a lot that needs saying.”

“Or nothing.”

Hauer sighed deeply. “I’d really like to know why you came to Berlin. Three years now. You must have wanted some kind of reconciliation … or answers, or something.”

Hans stiffened. “So why are you asking the questions?”

Hauer looked hard into Hans’s eyes. “All right,” he said softly. “We’ll wait until you’re ready.”

Before Hans could reply, Hauer vanished into the darkness. Even the glow of his cigar had disappeared. Hans stood still for some moments; then, shaking his head angrily, he hurried into the shadows and resumed his patrol.

Time passed quickly now, the silence broken only by an occasional siren or the roar of a jet from the British military airport at Gatow. With the snow soaking into his uniform, Hans walked faster to take his mind off the cold. He hoped he would be lucky enough to get home before his wife, Ilse, left for work. Sometimes after a particularly rough night shift, she would cook him a breakfast of Weisswurst and buns, even if she was in a hurry.

He checked his watch. Almost 6:00 A.M. It would be dawn soon. He felt better as the end of his shift neared. What he really wanted was to get out of the weather for a while and have a smoke. A mountain of shattered concrete near the rear of the lot looked as though it might afford good shelter, so he made for it. The nearest soldier was Russian, but he stood at least thirty meters from the pile. Hans slipped through a narrow opening when the sentry wasn’t looking.

He found himself in a comfortable little nook that shielded him completely from the wind. He wiped off a slab of concrete, sat down, and warmed his face by breathing into his cupped gloves. Nestled in this dark burrow, he was invisible to the patrolling soldiers, yet he still commanded a surprisingly wide view of the prison grounds. The snow had finally stopped, and even the wind had fallen off a bit. In the predawn silence, the demolished prison looked like pictures of bombed-out Dresden he had seen as a schoolboy: motionless sentries standing tall against bleak destruction, watching over nothing.