by Greg Iles
"I hope I killed the son of a bitch," growled the other.
"That wouldn't go over too well upstairs, ROIL"
"Who gives a shit?
The bastard broke my ribs."
Hans heard a low chuckle. "Be more careful the next time. Come on,
we've got to clear a space in there for this thing.
"Fuck it. Just throw this filthy Jew in on top of that one.
Not much left of him, anyway."
"Apfel isn't a Jew."
"Jew-lover, then."
"The doctor said leave this one on the gurney."
"Make him clear a space," said Rolf, pointing in at Hans.
"Sure. If you can wake him up."
Rolf picked up a rusted joint of pipe from the floor and rankled the
bars with it. "Wake up, asshole!"
Hans ignored him.
"Get up or we'll kill you."
Hans heard the metallic click of a pistol slide being jerked back.
Christ ... Slowly he rose to his feet.
"See," said Rolf, "he's not dead. Clear out a space in there, you. And
be quick about it."
Hans tried to see who lay on the gurney, but Rolf smashed the pipe
against the bars near his face. It took him forty seconds to clear a
space wide enough to accept the gurney.
"Get back against the wall," Rolf ordered. "Go on!"
Hans watched the strange policemen roll the man on the gurney feet-first
into the cleared space, then slam the door behind him.
"You stay away from this Jew-boy, Sergeant," @olf warned.
"Anything happens to him, it's on your head.
The pair hurried up the stairs, taking the shaft of light with them.
Hans couldn't make out the face of his new cellmate. He felt in his
pocket for a match, then remembered he'd given them to Kurt in the
waitin room upstairs. He put his hands on the unconscious man's
shoulders and stared downward, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the
blackness, but they didn't. Moving his hand tentatively, he felt
something familiar. Shoulder patches. Surprised and a little afraid,
Hans felt his way across the man's chest like a blind man. Brass
buttons ... patch ... collar pins ... Hans felt his left hand brush an
empty leather holster. A police officer!
Shutting his eyes tight, he put his right hand on the man's face and
waited. When he opened his eyes again, he could just make out the lines
of the face.
My God, he thought, feeling a lump in his throat. Weiss!
Erhard Weiss! For the second time tonight Hans felt cut loose from
reality. Gripping his friend's body like a life raft, he began trying
to revive him. He spoke into Weiss's ear, but heard no answer.
He slapped the slack face hard several times. No response.
Groping around in desperation, Hans crashed into the back wall of the
cell.
His palms touched something moist and cold. Foundation stones.
Condensation.
Rubbing his hands a@ross the stones until they were sufficiently wet, he
returned to Weiss and laved the cool liquid over his forehead.
Still Weiss lay silent.
Alarmed, Hans pressed both forefingers against Weiss's carotid arteries.
He felt pulse beats, but very faint and unbelievably far apart. Weiss
was alive, but just. The jailers had mentioned a doctor, Hans
remembered. What kind of doctor would send a man to a cell in this
condition? The obscenity of the situation drove him into a rage as he
stood by the cadaverous body of his friend. Someone would answer for
this outrage! Lurching to the front of the cell, Hans began screaming
at the top of his lungs. He screamed until he had no voice left, but no
one came. Slipping to the floor in exhaustion, he realized that the
stacks of boxes in the basement must be deadening the sound of his
voice. He doubted anyone upstairs had heard even a whimper.
Suddenly Hans bolted to his feet in terror. Someone had screamed!
It took him a moment to realize that the scream had come from inside the
cell. He shivered as it came again, an animal shriek of agony and
terror. Erhard Weiss-who had lain like a corpse through all
Hans's.attempts to revive him-now fought the straps that held him as if
the gurney were on fire. As Hans tried to restrain the convulsing body,
the screwning suddenly ceased. It was as if a great stone had been set
upon Weiss's chest. The young policeman's right arm shot up and gripped
Hans's shoulder like a claw, quivered desperately, then, after a long
moment, relaxed.
Hans checked for a pulse. Nothing. He hadn't expected one.
Erhard Weiss was dead. Hans had seen this death before-a heart attack,
almost certainly. He had seen several similar cases during the last few
years-young, apparently healthy men whose hearts had suddenly stopped,
exploded, or fibrillated wildly and fatally out of control.
In each case there had been a common factor-drugs. Cocaine usually, but
other narcotics too. This case appeared no different.
Except that Weiss never used drugs. He was a fitness enthusiast, a
swimmer. On several occasions he and his fiancee had dined with Hans
and Ilse at a restaurant, Hans remembered, and once in their apartment.
In their home. And now Weiss was dead. Dead. The young man who had
argued so tenaciously to keep two fellow Berliners-strangers, at
that-out of the clutches of the Russians.
In one anguished second Hans's exhaustion left him. He sprang to the
front of the cell and stuck his arm through the bars, frantically
searching the floor with his right hand.
There-the iron pipe Rolf had brandished! Steadily Hans began pounding
the pipe against the steel bars. The siimr, ui the blows rattled his
entire body, but he ignored the pain. He would hammer the bars until
they came for Weiss-until they came for his friend or he &opped dead.
At that moment he did not care.
CHAPTER SIX
8.12 pm. #30 Ldtzenstrasse, British Sector.- West Berlin Seated at the
kitchen table in apartment 40, Professor Emeritus of History Georg
Natterrnan hunched over the Spandau papers like a gnome over a treasure
map. His thick reading glasses shone like silver pools in the lamplight
as he ran his hand through his thinning hair and silver beard.
"What is it, Opa?" Ilse asked. "Is it dangerous?"
"Patience, child," the professor mumbled without looking up.
Knowing that further questions were useless until her grandfather was
ready to speak, she opened a cupboard and began preparing tea.
Perhaps Hans would get back in time to have some, she hoped; he'd been
gone too long already. Ilse had told her grandfather as little as
possible on the telephone, and by doing so she had failed to communicate
the depth of her anxiety. Professor Natterman lived only twelve blocks
away, but it had taken him over an hour to arrive. He understood the
gravity of the situation now. He hadn't spoken a word since first
seeing the Spandau papers and brusquely questioning Ilse as to how they
came into her possession. As she poured the tea, he stood stiddenly,
pulled off his reading glasses, and locked the nine pages into his
ancient briefcase.
"My dear," he said, "this is simply unbeli
evable. That this ...
this document should have come into my hands after all these years.
It's a miracle." He wiped his spectacles with a handkerchief.
"You were quite right to call me. 'Dangerous' does not even begin to
describe this find:' "But what is it, Opa? What is it really?"
Natterman shook his head. "In terms of World War Two history, it's the
Rosetta stone."
Ilse's eyes widened. "What? Are you saying that the papers are real?"
"Given what I've seen so far, I would have to say yes."
Ilse looked incredulous. "What did you mean, the papers are like the
Rosetta stone?"
"I mean," Natterman sniffed, "that they are likely to change profoundly
the way we view the world." He squinted his eyes, and a road map of
lines crinkled his forehead.
"How much do you know about Rudolf Hess, Ilse?"
She shrugged. "I've read the recent newspaper stories. I looked him up
in your book, but you hardly even mentioned his flight."
The professor glanced over to the countertop, where a copy of his
acclaimed Germany: From Bismarck to the Bunker lay open. "I didn't feel
the facts were complete," he explained, "so I omitted that part of the
story altogether."
"Was I right about the papers? Do they claim that Prisoner Number Seven
was not really Hess?"
"Oh, yes, yes indeed. Very little doubt about that now. It looks as
though the newspapers have got it right for once.
The wrong man in prison for nearly fifty years ... very embarrassing for
a lot of people."
Ilse watched her grandfather for any hint of a smile, but she saw none.
"You're joking with me, aren't you? How could that even be possible?"
"Oh, it's quite possible. The use of lookalikes was standard procedure
during the war, on both sides. Patton had one.
Erwin Rommel also. Field Marshal Montgomery used an actor who could
even imitate his voice to perfection. That's the easiest part of this
story to accept."
Ilse looked skeptical. "Maybe during* the war," she conceded.
"From a distance. But what about the years in Spandau? What about
Hess's family?"
Natterman smiled impishly. "What about them? Prisoner Number Seven
refused to see Hess's wife and son for the first twenty-eight years of
his captivity." He savored Ilse's perplexed expression. "The factual
discrepancies o on and 9
on. Hess was a fastidious vegetarian, Prisoner Number Seven devoured
meat like a tiger. Number Seven failed to recognize Hess's secretaries
at Nuremberg. He twice gave the British wrong birth dates for Hess, and
he missed by two years. And on and on ad nauseam."
Ilse sat quietly, trying to take it all in. Beneath her thoughts, her
anxiety for Hans buzzed like a low-grade fever.
"Why don't I let Number Seven speak for himself?"
Natterman suggested. "Would you like to hear my translation?"
Ilse forced herself not to look at the kitchen clock. He's I "Yes, all
right, she told herself. Just wait a ittle longer please," she said.
Putting his reading glasses back on, the professor opened his briefcase,
cleared his throat, and began to read in the resonant tones of the born
teacher: I, Prisoner Number Seven, write this testament in the language
of the Caesars for one reason: I know with certainty that Rudolf Hess
could not do so. I learned Latin and Greek at university in Munich from
1920 to 1923, but I learned that Hess did not know Latin at the most
exclusive "school" in the world-Reinhard Heydrich's Institute for
Practical Deception-in 1936. At this "institute"@n isolated barracks
compound outside Dessau-I also learned every other known fact about
Hess: his childhood; military service; Party record; relationship with
the Fuhrer; and, most importantly, his personal idiosyncrasies.
Ironically, one of the first facts I learned was that Hess had attended
university in Munich at the same time I had, though I do not remember
meeting him.
I did not serve as a pilot in the First world War, but I joined one of
Hermann Gdring's "flying clubs" between the wars. It was during an
aerial demonstration in 1935 that the Reichsmarschall _first noticed my
remarkable resemblance to Deputy-Fuhrer Hess. At the time I did not
make much of the encounter-comrades had often remarked on this
resemblance-but seven months later I was visited at the factory where I
worked by two officers of Heydrich's SD. They requested me to accompany
them on a mission of special importance to the Reich- From Munich I was
flown to the "Practical School" building outside Dessau.
I never saw my wife and daughter again.
During the first week at the school I was completely isOlated from my
fellow students. I received my "orientation" from Standartenfiihrer
Ritter Graf headmaster of the Institute.
He informed me that I had been selected to fulfill a mission of the
highest importance to the Fuhrer My period of training-which would be
lengthy and arduous, he saidwas to be carried out in total secrecy.
I soon learned that this meant total separation from my family. To
alleviate the stress of this separation, Graf showed me proof that my
salary from the factory had been doubled, and that the money was being
forwarded to my wife.
After one week I met the other students. I cannot express the shock I
felt. In one room in one night I saw the faces of not only famous Party
Gauleiters and Wehrmacht generals, but also the most celebrated
personalities of the Reich. At last I knew what my mission was. Hermann
Gdring had not forgotten my resemblance to Rudolf Hess; it was Goring
who had given my name to Reinhard Heydrich, the SD commender responsible
for the program.
There were many students at the Institute. Some completed the program,
others did not. The unlucky ones paid for their failure in blood. We
were constantly reminded of this "incentive. " One of the most common
causes for "dismissal" from the school was the use of one's real name.
Two slip-ups were forgiven. The third guaranteed erschlessen
(execution). We were known by our "role " names, or, in situations
where these were not practical, by our farmer ranks-in my case
Hauptmann.
I trained in an elite group. There were eight of us: "Hitler" (3
"students" studied him); "Gdring"; "Himmler"; " Goebbels "; "Stretcher
"; and myself- "Hess. " The training for our group lasted one year
During that year I had four personal interviews with Deputy-Fuhrer Hess.
The rest of my training was accomplished through study of newsreels and
written records. During our training, several of the "doubles "for the
Party Gauleiters left the school to begin their duties. Apparently
their roles did not riquire so much preparation as ours.
At the end of the training period my group was broken up and sent to
various locations to await duty. I was sent first to Grvnau, where I
was kept in isolation, then later to a remote airfield at Aalborg,
Denmark. I repeatedly requested to be allowed to see my wife and
daughter, but by this time Germany was at war and my requests wer
e
summarily rejected I spent my time in solitude, reviewing my Hess mate
rials and occasionally being visited by an SD officer I did have access
to newspapers, and from them I deduced that Hess's position in the Nazi
hierarchy seemed to have declined somewhat in favor of the generals
since the outbreak of war I took this to be the reason I had not yet
been assigned a mission.
I must admit that, in spite of the hardship of the duty, I was very
proud of the degree to which I could impersonate the Deputy Fuhrer
During my final interview with H at the school, he was so shocked by my
proficiency that his reaction verged on disorientation.
Actually, a few of the other "students" had honed their skills to a
finer edge than my own, but what happened to them I have no idea ...
Natterman removed his spectacles, put the papers back into his
briefcase, then closed and locked it. "A rather detailed story to be
made up out of thin air, wouldn't you say?
And that's only the first two pages."
Ilse was smiling with satisfaction. "Very detailed," she agreed.
"So detailed that it destroys your earlier argument. If this 'double'
was so meticulously trained to imitate Hess, he certainly wouldn't make
factual mistakes as obvious as missing Hess's birthday, or eating meat
when Hess was a vegetarian. Would he?"
Natterman met his granddaughter's triumphant smile with one of his own.
"Actually, I've been thinking about that since I first translated the
papers. You're quite right: a trained double wouldn't make factual
mistakes like that-not unless he did so on purpose."
Ilse's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"Just this. Since the double remained silent for all these years, he
could only have done so for one of two reasons: either he was a
fanatical Nazi right up until the end, which I don't accept, or-and this
is supported by the papers-the fear of some terrible retribution kept
him from speaking out.
If we accept that scenario, Number Seven's mistakes' appear to me to be
a cry for help-a quiet but desperate attempt to provoke skeptics to
investigate his case and thus uncover the truth. And believe me, that
cry was heard. Hundreds of scholars and authors have investigated the
case.
Dozens of books have been written, more every year."
Natterman held up an admonishing finger. "The more relevant question is
