by Iles, Greg
Hans’s eyes widened. “I have! It was in the Spandau papers. Something about the ‘soldiers of Phoenix’ appearing before Prisoner Number Seven.”
“Christ, what else do you remember?”
Hans shook his head. “I only remembered that because it was in German, not Latin.”
Hauer began pacing the kitchen. “God, it’s so easy to see now. Der Bruderschaft is neo-Nazi. It would only be natural for them to try to contact Hess in prison, to try to use him as some kind of mascot. But maybe Hess didn’t like the idea, eh? Maybe—my God,” Hauer said suddenly. “They might well be the ones who killed him! Hess would be much more valuable to them as a martyr than a pathetic prisoner!”
“Who comes to these Bruderschaft meetings?” Hans asked.
“A bunch of malcontents and young toughs, mostly. You know the type—cops who won’t answer a call to help a Turkish woman who’s being beaten in the street. Most weren’t even born until fifteen or twenty years after the war.” Hauer shook his head in disgust. “‘They get drunk, argue, make speeches about throwing the traitors out of Bonn and making Berlin the capital again. Then they sing Deutschland über Alles. If they’re really tanked they sing the Horst Wessel. At first the whole thing seemed comical. But after a while I realized something. These clowns were bringing in millions of marks through their drug operations, yet they didn’t seem to be keeping any of it. No Ferraris, no new houses. Where was all the money going? I traced the command chain all the way up to Prefect Funk, but after six months of investigation I hit a dead end.” Hauer’s eyes flickered. “Then I had my revelation. It had been right in front of me all the time. Their money came from drugs, right? Well, where do the drugs flow in from?”
“The East,” Hans said softly.
“Right. So I asked myself, What if their organization extended laterally, not vertically? You see? How were the drugs getting through East Germany? Were the Vopos blind? Hell no. They were allowing the drugs to get through. The East German police have their own Bruderschaft members.”
Hans blinked in astonishment. “The Volkspolizei?”
Hauer nodded. “And the Stasi.”
Hans drew back at the mention of the hated East German secret police. “But why would the Stasi smuggle drugs? For hard currency?”
Hauer shook his head. “Think about being a Stasi agent for a minute, Hans. What it’s really like.”
“No thanks.”
Hauer waved his cigar. “Sure, a lot of them are scum. But they’re German scum. You see? All day and night they have the Russians leaning over their shoulders telling them what to do. They hate the Russians more than we ever could. They’re communists, sure, but what choice do they have? They’ve been under the Russian boot since 1945. So, what do you think they do? Lie down and take Moscow’s crap? Most of them do.” Hauer’s eyes gleamed. “But some of them don’t. The HVA—East German intelligence—sucks Moscow’s shit pipe. They’re like a German arm of the KGB. But the Stasi? Forget it. They go their own way. They can beat the KGB at their own game and the KGB knows it. If Moscow complains about the Stasi, Honecker himself tells the Kremlin to mind its own business.”
“You sound like you admire the bastards.”
Hauer shook his head. “This isn’t a case of absolutes, Hans. The point is that some elements of the Stasi want reunification even more than we in the West do, and they’re willing to fight for it. They want their slice of the European economic pie, and they know that so long as they’re separate from us, they’ll never get it. And that brings us to the drugs.”
“How? Drugs are their slice of the pie?”
“No. Drugs are part of the strategy. I think their theory runs something like this: the more rapidly the social situation in West Germany breaks down, the more rapidly the right-wing and nationalist factions in the West consolidate their power. Think about it. For twenty years the Stasi supplied the Red Army Faction and other left-wing terrorists with guns and plastique. Why? Just to create chaos? No. Because every time those misguided hotheads blew up a bank or an airport lounge, the right wing in the West hit back a little bit harder. The public reaction got a little stiffer. I’m telling you, Hans, it’s a sound strategy. Moscow has never been more lenient than it is right now. The entire Eastern Bloc is restless. Trouble and sedition are brewing everywhere. And East Germany is the most independent satellite of all. The Stasi monitors everything there: student unrest, political volatility, economic stress, plus they have that rarest of all commodities, direct intelligence lines into Russia. I think Der Bruderschaft—and whoever controls it—believes that a strong enough chancellor in West Germany could seize the right opportunity and wrench the two Germanies back together.” Hauer was breathing hard. And by God, they may be right.”
Hans stared, fascinated. “Is the Stasi really as powerful as people say? I’ve heard they have hundreds of informers here and in Bonn.”
Hauer chuckled. “Hundreds? Try thousands. If I had the files from Stasi headquarters, I could break half the political careers in West Germany and a good many in Moscow. I mean that. Some of our most powerful senators are actually on the Stasi payroll. Funk is just small beer.”
Hans was shaking his head. “Do you really believe all this?”
Hauer shrugged. “I don’t know. One minute I believe every word of it, the next I wonder if schnapps has pickled my brain. When I stand in those Bruderschaft meetings, I want to laugh. Funk and his rabble are just grown-up children fantasizing about a Fourth Reich. It’s classic infantile bullshit. Germany will be united again, don’t doubt it. But not by drunk policemen or skinheads. It’s the bankers and board chairmen who’ll bring it off. Men from the world your mother worshipped. We’re the richest country in Europe now, Hans, and anything can be bought for a price. Even a united Germany.” Hauer tugged at his mustache. “The question is this: is there a connection between Der Bruderschaft and those bankers and board chairmen? And if so, what is it? How much power does Phoenix exert over the institutions in Germany? The Stasis potential for blackmail is formidable. Funk’s group may seem like clowns, but no matter how you look at it, the Polizei are an arm of the state.”
Hans look confused. “But how could all this tie in with the Spandau papers? With Ilse?”
“Bruderschaft der Phoenix, remember? Phoenix was mentioned in the Spandau papers, therefore it ties Funk and the Stasi to the papers. Your hooker friend said Russians came looking for you and chased Ilse. The Russians went on the rampage when you discovered the Spandau papers. Do the Russians know about Phoenix? Maybe they’ve infiltrated Der Bruderschaft through the Stasi. Maybe they suspect the Stasis role in a grab for reunification. What the hell is Phoenix? A man? A group of men? At one Bruderschaft meeting I heard Funk—who was drunk out of his mind—babbling about how Phoenix was going to change the world, make everything right again, clean out the Jews and the Turks once and for all. But when I tried to pump him, Lieutenant Luhr shut him up.”
Hauer shifted in the small chair. “Whatever Phoenix is, I’m almost certain it’s based outside Germany. About a month ago, Steuben started noticing calls going out from Funk to different towns in South Africa. I assumed it was more drug business, looking for new markets, et cetera. But I don’t think that anymore. Hans, I think you have dredged up something so politically hot that we can’t even imagine it. I hope Ilse managed to get those papers to Wolfsburg, but whether she did or not, we won’t get out of Berlin by driving your VW through Checkpoint Charlie. We’ve got to take precautions, make arrangements. People owe me.”
“Pardon me,” said a soft voice from the shadows.
Hauer turned in his chair. Benjamin OCAS stood silhouetted against the lighted hall door. “Forgive me,” he said, “but the shouting alarmed my wife. Could I join you for a moment?” The old man shuffled into the kitchen and took a seat at the table. He poured a brandy into one of the unused tumblers his wife had set down earlier, drank it, then wiped his mouth on his pyjama sleeve. “I know what you’re thinking, Captai
n,” he said. “How much did the old goat hear, yes? Well, I’ll tell you. I didn’t hear everything, but I heard enough. I wish I’d heard damned all. What I heard … God help us. You never said it, but I know what you were talking about. Are you afraid to say it?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Hauer said.
“Nazis!” OCAS cried, his wizened head shaking. “That’s what you’re talking about. Isn’t it? And not just a pack of hooligans desecrating Jewish cemeteries. You’re talking about policemen—professional men, bankers, board chairmen!”
“You misunderstood, Herr OCAS. It’s not so bad as that.”
“Captain, it’s probably worse than that. Don’t you know what the Phoenix is? It’s the bird that perishes in the fire only to be reborn from its ashes.” The old tailor drew himself up to his full height. “I am a Jew, Captain, a German Jew. Before the war there were 160,000 of us here in Berlin. Now we are 7,000. I was not a child during the war. While you hunted scraps in the streets, I existed in a place you cannot imagine. Beyond hope, outside of time. I lost my entire family—parents, brother, two sisters—at this place. While they passed into oblivion, I sewed uniforms for the German Army. I lived while my family died. I promise you Captain, no uniforms were ever more poorly made than those Benjamin OCAS made for the Wehrmacht. Every bit of skill I had went into producing a uniform that would last just long enough to get a soldier to the frozen Russian front, then fall into pieces fit only for a shroud.”
OCAS raised his withered hand. “If you protect such men, Captain, I tell you now to get out of my house. Now! But if you mean to fight them … then let me help you. Tell me what you need.”
Hans sat speechless, but Hauer lost no time taking advantage of his offer. “We need a car,” he said.
“Done,” OCAS said simply.
“We need something to wear besides these uniforms. Do you have anything that might fit us well enough not to draw attention?”
OCAS smiled. “Am I not a tailor? I won’t be a minute with the clothes. Take whatever food you can find in the refrigerator. If you’re going through East Germany tonight, you won’t be stopping for coffee.” He turned and started for the hall.
“Herr OCAS?” Hauer called.
“Yes?”
“What kind of car do you have?”
OCAS’s eyes twinkled. “British Jaguar. She runs like the wind.”
“Petrol?”
“Both tanks are full.” The old man took a step back toward Hauer. “You stop these men, Captain. Root them out. Show them what the German people are made of.” He turned and scurried down the hall.
“Is he right?” Hans asked. “Are you talking about real Nazis?”
Hauer shook his head. “I don’t think so. Germany is the last place fascism could take hold again. We have the strongest democracy in Europe. And even if we didn’t, NATO and the Warsaw Pact would vaporise us before they allowed another German dictator. I think we’re dealing with accelerated reunification—economic, political, and military. There are massive profits to be made, and Phoenix knows that the nationalist button is the one to push to get the German people behind them. Funk and his clowns are just foot soldiers. Moneymaking drones.” Hauer knitted his brow. “Goddamn it, the answer is right in front of me and I can’t pin it down! All of this fits together somehow: Phoenix, reunification, the Spandau papers—” Hauer stopped dead. “My God. What if Hess’s papers contain something that could be used as leverage against NATO? Against England and the US? Or even Russia? People have always said Hess knew some terrible secret. What if it’s something Phoenix could use to pressure the Four Powers on reunification? Even to pressure one power?”
Hauer thrust the VW keys into Hans’s hand. “Move your car down the block. We don’t want to set the dogs on this old fellow. He’s been through enough hell for one lifetime.”
As Hans disappeared through the front door, Hauer opened the refrigerator. He couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten. As he reached for a jar of Polish pickles, an image of Rudolf Hess flashed into his mind. Tall and cadaverous, the solitary spectre shuffled silently through the snow-covered Spandau courtyards. What could that old man have known? he wondered. What did he leave behind? Something big enough to blackmail a superpower? Could anything really be that big? “If it is,” he told himself with a shiver, “I’m not sure I want to know.”
Hauer pressed down a wave of guilt. He had lied to Hans earlier—he had seen Erhard Weiss tortured. And he could not blot out the memory. Funk and his goons weren’t sophisticated enough for chemicals; they used beatings and electricity. On the face, up the anus, clipped to the penis. And they enjoyed it. Especially Luhr. Young Weiss had screamed until Hauer thought his jawbone would pop out of its socket. The poor boy would have shot his own mother to make them stop, but Luhr had wanted information, and Weiss hadn’t had any. And Hauer—the brave captain—had stood by in rigid silence while it happened. He could have tried to stop it, of course, but he would soon have taken Weiss’s place in the torture chair. Weiss is dead, he told himself. You can’t bring him back. Concentrate on the living. Hauer hoped Hans’s wife had made it to Wolfsburg, but he didn’t think much of her chances of getting safely out of Berlin tonight. If she had been caught, he hoped it was by the Russians. God alone knew what Jürgen Luhr would do to a woman if he got the chance.
CHAPTER TEN
10.40 P.m. Polizei Abschnitt 53. West Berlin
Prefect Wilhelm Funk appeared on the verge of a myocardial infarction. A critical situation he’d thought admirably under his control had suddenly exploded in his grossly veined face, and he could do precious little about it. A genetic bureaucrat, Funk searched instinctively for scapegoats, but the unfortunate Rolf already lay dead in the basement cell with Weiss’s mutilated corpse. Now Funk sat fuming in his office, accompanied by his aide Lieutenant Jürgen Luhr and Captain Otto Gröner of the Kreuzberg district.
“They cannot escape, Prefect,” Luhr said, trying to calm his enraged superior. “We have men at every checkpoint. Even the smugglers know that taking Hauer out would be fatal. I made the threats myself.”
Funk’s fury eased a little at this news. Luhr had always been his favourite. The man had almost no human weaknesses, mercy least of all. “Where do you think Hauer might run, Jürgen? And why in God’s name would he betray us to save some green sergeant?”
“It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. We’ll find him. it’s only a question of time.”
“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it!” Funk exploded. “Who knows what that traitorous bastard’s gotten hold of! He could destroy years of work and planning!” Funk leaned forward and put his face in his plump hands. “At least you got the damned Russians out.”
“I’m not sure Kosov bought the lie detector charade,” Luhr said thoughtfully.
Funk waved away his concern. “You said it yourself, Jürgen, it’s just a matter of time before we run them down. And when we do, our problem is solved. All Bruderschaft men have the shoot-to-kill order, and the rest of the force will probably do the same out of anger. The Spandau papers will be confiscated, and that will be that.”
“What if we don’t catch them before they leave the city?” Otto Gröner, cut in.
“We shall!” Funk snapped. “The alternative is impossible to contemplate.”
“But you must contemplate it, Prefect,” Gröner insisted, laying smug emphasis on the title. An old rival of Funk’s, Gröner enjoyed seeing him placed squarely on the hot seat.
“Worry about your own district,” Funk grumbled.
“But the problem isn’t in my district.”
Funk slammed his fist down on the desk. “One small setback and already the dogs are yapping at my heels! What would you do in a real crisis, Gröner? Loot our accounts and sell out Phoenix?”
“How can I sell out someone I’m not even sure exists?”
Funk sighed. “Shut up, Otto. This problem will soon be resolved, and when it is, I shall turn my attention to you.”
The rotund Gröner leaned back in his chair and lit a stained pipe. “I hope you’re right, Wilhelm,” he said amiably. “For your sake. But somehow I don’t think you are. My instinct tells me that something unexpected has happened. Unexpected not only here, but in Pretoria.” He raised a fat eyebrow. “Perhaps Phoenix is not the omnipotent force we have been led to believe.”
“Fool!” Jürgen Luhr spat. “Words like that could cost you your life. You think you’re in private here? Because there are four walls around you? I’m starting to believe you think like a cow as well as look like one.”
“You insolent swine!” Gröner bellowed, coming to his feet. Luhr stood defiantly, daring the big man to move against him. His psychotic blue eyes and formidable physique made any question of rank irrelevant.
“Hauer is loose in the city, and here you two sit, arguing like children! What are you going to do?”
Gröner searched for a graceful way to reclaim his chair; Funk looked like a dog disciplined for some reason it doesn’t understand. “Every car has the names and pictures. God, every man out there knows Hauer by sight! I’ve convinced everyone that he and Apfel murdered one of their own. What more can I do?”
Luhr paced worriedly. “I’m not sure. But I’m not so certain you’ve convinced everyone. Most officers will get the report only by radio. They won’t actually have seen Weiss’s body. Hauer and Apfel have friends out there, Hauer especially. Men he’s been under fire with. They won’t betray him on the basis of a rumour. Particularly one started by you.”
Funk reddened. “But a moment ago you told me they couldn’t escape!”
Luhr smiled thinly. “I’m afraid that was to make you feel better. I’m really not that confident.” His face hardened. “Tell me about Munich,” he said. “I know Hauer was demoted because of the Olympic massacre, but what exactly did he do there?”
Funk wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
