Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

"What are you doing?" Hans asked, offended by this further indignity

visited upon the dead.

Hauer picked up the flashlight and shone it onto Weiss's almost hairless

chest. Hans leaned over, straining his eyes, then he froze.

Weiss's chest was awash in blood.

"Take a deep breath," Hauer advised. He wiped away most of the blood

with Weiss's undershirt. "Now," he said.

"See it?"

Hans felt dizzy with horror. Gouged deep into Erhard Weiss's flesh by

some unspeakable instrument was a large, six-pointed star.

The Star of David. The edges of the linear wounds looked so ragged that

whoever had inflicted them must have done it with a screwdriver, or a

long nail. Hans felt vomit coming up like a geyser.

He gagged and turned away.

"No!" Hauer snapped, grabbing his shoulder. "Get up!"

Choking down bile, Hans tried to stand. With a stifled groan, Hauer

caught hold of him, slung him over his shoulder like a sack, and plodded

out of the cell. Tlwice Hauer stumbled as they crossed the cluttered

basement floor, but both times he regained his balance. The stairs took

longer.

Each successive step required increasing amounts of time and energy from

Hauer's sleep-deprived body.

"Stop!" Hans begged, fearing they would both fall. "Put me down.

I can make it."

Just as he felt Hauer's broad back sag under the strain, he saw a crack

of light in the darkness. The basement door.

They had made it. Grunting, Hauer kicked open the door and heaved Hans

onto the gurney. "Don't even breathe," he said, wheezing like a draft

horse. "If anyone stops us, I take him out. You stay on this cart! As

far as anyone knows, you killed Rolf, then I killed you. Period."

Hauer shoved the gurney into motion and veered right, rolling his human

contraband toward the rear entrance Hans had used when he arrived. Hans

opened one eye to orient himself, but Hauer promptly struck him on the

head. Rounding the last corner, Hauer saw the pinch-faced young

policeman who had questioned Hans earlier. The guard rose from his desk

before Hauer reached him.

"Where are you taking this man?" he challenged. "No one leaves the

building without written orders from the prefect."

"This man's dead," Hauer said, slowing to a stop. "He was alive when he

walked in here. The prefect doesn't write orders that tie him to

embarrassing corpses. Now, let me pass."

For a moment the officer looked uncertain. Then he cocked his chin up

and resumed his arrogant tone. "There's no one back here but us. It

won't hurt to ring Lieutenant Luhr upstairs."

He lifted the phone from its cradle, then leaned over Hans's face and

stared. Hans lay completely still, but it would not have saved them.

Hauer could see what was comw ing. The policeman's left hand ' as

moving up to Hans's wrist, searching for a pulse ...

Hauer brought his right fist down like a hammer on the man's temple.

Hans's eyes shot open when the body landed on him, but he stayed on the

gurney. Hauer quickly wrapped the telephone cord several times around

the stunned guard's wrists, then, spying a cloth napkin on the desk,

stuffed it into his mouth and let him fall to the floor.

"Hang on!" he bellowed. He slammed the gurney through the heavy door

that led to the rear parking lot.

The cold hit them like a wall of ice.

"Get up!" Hauer said. "We've got to steal a car. Mine's parked in

front of the station."

"Mine's back here," Hans groaned, trying to rise.

"You've still got your keys?"

"No one took them."

"Idiots! Give them to me!"

Hans fished the keys out of his pocket and handed them over.

Hauer helped him off the gurney and into the car, then climbed into the

driver's seat and fired the engine. Incredibly, the Volkswagen kicked

over without grumbling.

"This is our lucky day," Hans croaked, still a bit silly from the blow

to his head.

Hauer drove slowly out of the lot, turning south on the Friedrichstrasse

to avoid the reporters, then shot down the first side street he came to.

He had to make some decisions very fast, but he could think of nowhere

safe to make them.

Just drive, he thought. Headfor the seedy section of the city and let

my mind clear Instinct would guide him. It always had. Maybe Hans

could give him a direction. He reached over and jerked Hans's chin up.

"Wake up! It's time to talk."

"My God," Hans mumbled. "Weiss ... what did they do to him?"

Hauer cruised past the Anhalter Banhof, then wrenched the VW into

another side street. "That was play time," he growled, "compared to

what they'll do if they find us. You'd better have some answers, Hans.

I just threw away my badge, my reputation, my pension, and probably my

life. If you mention our stupid agreement now, I'll brain you myself.

Now make yourself useful. Start watching for patrol cars."

Praying that he would awaken from this nightmare, Hans slid up in his

seat, put a hand to his throbbing head, and peered out into the icebound

Berlin darkness.

CHAPTER SEVEN

9.55 Pm. British Sector.- West Berlin As Captain Hauer wheeled Hans's

Volkswagen out of Polizei Abschnitt 53, Professor Natterman stepped out

of a taxi thirty blocks away, paid his cabbie, and hurried into the

milling throngs of Zoo Station. He tried to walk slowly, but found it

difficult. Missing his train would mean standing around the station for

hours with nothing to do but worry about the nine sheets of onionskin

taped into the small of his back. Sighting a ticket window with a short

queue, he got into line and set down his heavy suitcase.

Ten minutes later Professor Natterman was safely berthed in a

first-class car, poring over a short volume by Dr. J. R.

Rees, the British Army psychiatrist who had supervised the first

extensive examinations of "Rudolf Hess" after his famous flight. It

made for tedious reading, and Natterman had trouble concentrating. His

mind kept returning to the Spandau papers. He had no doubt that

Prisoner Number Seven had told the truth-if only because, to date, the

man had provided the only possible version of events that fit all the

known facts.

The Rudolf Hess case, Natterman believed, shared one major similarity

with the assassination of the American president John F.

Kennedy. There was simply too much information. A surfeit of facts,

inconsistencies, myth, and conjecture. Everyone had his pet conspiracy

theory. If one accepted the medical evidence that "Number Seven" was

not Hess, then two general theories held popular sway.

Natterman dismissed them both out of hand, but like most farfetched

theories, each was based upon a tantalizing grain of truth.

The primary theory-put forward by the British surgeon who first

uncovered the medical evidence-held that one of the top Nazis (either

Heinrich Himmler or Hermann Goring) had wanted to supplant Hitler and

had decided to use Hess's wartime double to do it. To accomplish this,

either Goring or Himmler (or both) would have to have ordered the real

Hess shot down over the North Sea, then sent his double rushing on to

England. There the double would supposedly have asked the British

government if it might accept peace with Germany, if someone other than

Hitler reigned in Berlin.

Natterman considered this pure fantasy. Both Nazi chieftains had

possessed the power to give such orders, of course. And there was quite

a body of evidence suggesting that both men had prior knowledge of