Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

evidence of how seriously the Berlin media were taking the incident. He

felt a nervous thrill when he realized that even now the press was

driving up the asking price of the Spandau papers for him. He

accelerated past the journalists before they could get a decent look at

him or the car and swung into the rear lot of the station.

The unexpected summons had taken him by surprise, but upon reflection he

wasn't really worried. It made sense for the police brass to try to

defuse the crisis before the Allied commandants got too involved-if they

weren't already. Nobody liked the Four Powers poking about in German

affairs, even if Berlin still technically belonged to them.

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 pnm 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@specially 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 she 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