Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

past four months. Steuben had no university degree, but Hauer

considered him an electronics genius. It had taken him less than a

minute to piggyback the signal cable coming from the thirdfloor office

Funk had commandeered. -There were no voltage-measuring devices

monitoring Abschnitt 53, so he felt reasonably safe.

Besides, he thought, if this thing ever gets to court, wild charges by a

computer technician and an accused murderer will be worthless. We've

got to have physical evidence.

"Dieter will love this," he said aloud. "Catch the buggers in the act@'

A voice like cracking ice froze Steuben in his chair. "Are you the only

man on duty in here?" it asked.

Steuben whirled. Lieutenant Jijrgen Luhr stood in the doorway of the

communications room, his right hand resting on the butt of his Walther.

"Stand back from the console," he ordered.

11:06 Pm. Prinzenstrasse: West Berlin Blindness, Hans thought.

This must be what blindness is like.

He felt as if he were staring backward into his own skull. He couldn't

see his father's face, although he knew it was only centimeters from his

own. Cramped and disoriented, he reached out.

"Be still!" Hauer grunted.

"Sorry."

Somehow, he and Hauer had stuffed themselves into the boot of Benjamin

Ochs's Jaguar. Ochs had thrown an old blanket on top of them, and

luckily they had gone in head first, so that what little heat passed

through the rear seat by convection kept their heads reasonably warm.

Now they sped across the city, the nattily dressed old couple staring

sternly ahead whenever they passed a green police vehicle.

In the lightless boot, Hans struggled to keep his limbs awake.

One leg was completely numb already, and his left shoulder felt as

though it might actually be dislocated.

"Captain?" he said. "I've been thinking about what you said.

About Stasi officers working for reunification. It just doesn't make

sense to me. If the Wall came down, wouldn't the Stasi be dismantled?

Even prosecuted for criminal actions?"

"Yes. And that should tell you something. Someone in the West must be

guaranteeing them some kind of immunity in exchange for their

assistance. Don't ask me who, because I don't know."

Hans digested this in the rumbling blackness. "Do you really think it

could happen?" he asked at length. "Reunification, I mean."

"It's inevitable," Hauer said. "It's just a question of when and how.

Mayor Diepgen himself said as much this year: 'this year with the 750th

anniversary we begin with the idea of Berlin as the capital of all

Germany.' No one outside Germany took any notice, of course. But they

will, Hans. You're young. People on the other side of the Wall seem

different to you. And they are in some ways. Big things separate us.

The Wall, our educational system, ideologies. But little things join

us. What we eat ... our old songs. The mothers in the East tell their

children the same fairy tales your mother told you at night. The

fathers tell the same stories of heroism from the same wars. Little

things, maybe. But in my experience, the little things outlast the big

things." Hauer shifted position. "We Germans are a tribe, Hans. That's

the best and the worst thing about us."

Hans nodded slowly in the darkness. "Where are we crossing?" he asked.

"Staaken?"

"No. That's what everyone will expect. They'll assume that if we run,

we'll run west. That's where the heaviest security should be."

"So where are we crossing?"

"Heinrich-Heine Strasse. We're going right into the heart of East

Berlin, then swinging south around the city. That old Jew has balls,

I'll tell you."

"How are we getting out, exactly?" Hans asked above the drone of the

Jaguar's engine. "You don't think they're going to let this car through

without checking the boot?"

Hauer chuckled softly in the dark. "I'd hoped you wouldn't ask.

The truth is, I'm glad the old man demanded to come. Now we've got

three things going for us: glasnost, the weather, and the reluctance of

the border guards to bother two old Jews traveling to a funeral."

"Funeral? What are you talking about? Whose funeral?"

Before Hauer could answer, Benjamin Ochs leaned back and struck the rear

seat with his balled fist. Two muted thuds sounded in the boot. "That's

it," Hauer whispered. "We're there."

Two more thuds reverberated through the closed space.

"Damn, " Hauer muttered. "Extra security. Don't say a word, Hans. And

pray the Vopos are lazy tonight."

Benjamin Ochs stared through his spotless windshield at the gauntlet

ahead. Thirty meters away, red-and-white steel barriers blocked the

road at both checkpoints. On the East German side, a steel-helmeted

Vopo stood at the window of a white Volkswagen, checking the driver's

papers. The West Berlin border guards had gone into their booth to

escape the biting wind.

The border guards weren't the problem. Ten meters in front of Ochs's

Jaguar, a black minivan marked PoLizEi had been parked diagonally across

the road, partially blocking it.

Beside the van, two great-coated police officers were questioning four

men in a black Mercedes that sat idling just ahead of Ochs's Jaguar. As

casually as he could, Benjamin Ochs rolled down his window.

"Step out of the car, Herr Gritzbach," said a large, surly police

sergeant to the driver of the black Mercedes. "And shut off the

engine."

"Certainly, Officer."

KGB Captain Dmitri Rykov smiled and turned the ignition key. The

Mercedes' engine sputtered into silence.

Rykov climbed slowly out of the car, moving as if he had all night to

stand in the cold and chat with his West German comrades. His three

passengers soon joined him.

"Why do you travel at this late hour?" the policeman asked sharply.

Rykov smiled. "Our employer wants us back at a construction site in the

East. Apparently there's some sort of emergency"What was your business

in West Berlin?"

Rykov pointed to his papers. "It's all there on the second page.

We're architects for the firm of Huber and R6hi. We're building a civic

hall near the Muggelsee. We came to West Berlin to consult with some

architects here, and also to study the Philharmonie building.

Magnificent."

"Yes, quite," added Corporal Andrei Ivanov, whose East German assport

identified him as one Gunther Burkhalter.

The policeman grunted. He knew about these men. He had seen the black

Mercedes with their drivers who spoke notquite-perfect German too many

times before. He also knew that their cover stories would check out.

When operating in West Berlin, the KGB carried authentic East German ID

documents supplied by the Stasi. Still, the sergeant was in no mood for

a silky-voiced Russian who,acted as if he expected the West Berlin

police to kowtow to him.

"Open the boot, Herr Gritzbach," he said.

Rykov smiled again and reached into the car for the keys.

Andrei and the others tensed, but their worries were for nothing.

Hidden in the cramped compartment beneath the rear seat of the Mercedes,

Harry Richardson remained unconscious. His hands and feet were boand so

tightly with duct tape that they received almost no blood at all. Even

if he had regained consciousness, he couldn't have moved.

Crammed into every inch of space unoccupied by his body were the oiled

weapons of the KGB team.

"You see?" said Rykov, gesturing into the Mercedes' trunk.

"Nothing but suit bags. Disappointed, Sergeant?"