Spandau Phoenix

by Greg Iles

  “I know that … but he’s been gone so long. Maybe that’s where he is, meeting a reporter somewhere.”

  Natterman shook his head. “God forgive me, I hope that’s it. He’ll probably turn up any minute. But I’m afraid I can’t wait.” He held up his hand. “Please, Ilse, no more questions.

  I’m going to the university to get some things, then I’m leaving the city.”

  “Leaving the city! Why?”

  Natterman donned his long overcoat, then picked up his I briefcase and took his umbrella from the stand by the front door. “Because anyone could find me in Berlin, and eventually they would. People are searching for these papers now—I can feel it.” He laid a hand on Ilse’s shoulder. “We have stumbled into a storm, my child. I’m trying to do what is best. It’s nine o’clock now. You wait here until midnight. If Hans hasn’t returned by then, I want you to leave. I’ll be at the old cabin.”

  “On the canal? But that’s two hundred kilometres from here!”

  “I just hope it’s far enough. I’m serious, Ilse. If Hans hasn’t arrived by

  midnight, leave. The cabin telephone’s still connected. I always pay

  the bill. You have the number?”

  She nodded. “But what about Hans?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  The professor set down his briefcase and hugged his granddaughter. “Hans is a grown man,” he said gently. “A policeman. He knows how to take care of himself. He’ll find us when he’s ready. Now I must go. You do exactly as I said.” He patted his briefcase. “This little discovery is going to make a lot of people very nervous.”

  Too dazed to argue, Ilse kissed him on the cheek. “You be careful,” she said. “You’re not a young bull anymore, you know.”

  “No,” said Natterman softly, his eyes glittering. “I’m a wise old serpent.” He grinned. “You haven’t forgotten your patronymic, have you? ‘Natter’ still means snake. Don’t worry about me.”

  With that the professor kissed Ilse’s forehead and slipped outside the door. He looked disdainfully at the old elevator; then he stepped into the stairwell and, despite his excitement, started down with an old man’s careful tread. He did not hear the stairwell door open again behind him, or the whisper of Jonas Stern’s stockinged feet descending

  the concrete steps.

  Stern knew the game now. It was a simple one. Follow the papers. Strange how the peaceful present could be shattered by a few strokes from an old pen, he reflected. Cryptic telegrams from an unquiet past. For in the Israeli’s pocket nestled another scrap of paper—the seed of the premonition that had brought him to Germany after so many years.

  One hour before he’d driven out of the Negev desert headed for Ben Gurion Airport, Stern had dug it out of the little chest he’d saved from Jerusalem—his unfinished-business chest; an old cherry box containing the musty collection of loose ends that would not leave a man in peace. On this scrap of paper was a brief note written in Cyrillic script, unsigned. A Russian Jew had translated it for Stern on the day it arrived in his office, June 3, 1967.

  People of Zion Beware! The Unholy Fire of Armageddon may soon be unleashed upon you! I speak not from hatred or from love, but from conscience. Fear of death stays my hand from revealing the secret of your peril, but the key awaits you in Spandau. God is the final judge of all peoples!

  Stern’s colleagues had not been impressed. In Israel, such warnings were common as dust. Each was routinely investigated, but rarely did any prophesy real danger. But Stern had had a feeling about that particular note. It was vague, yes. Was the author referring to Spandau Prison in West Berlin? Or the district of Spandau, which covered over five square miles of the city? Stern never found out. Two days after the “Spandau note” arrived, the ‘67 war erupted. Shells were falling on Jerusalem, and the note was brushed aside like junk mail. Israel was in peril, but from Egyptian tanks and planes, not the “Unholy Fire of Armageddon,” whatever that meant.

  Later, when the smoke had cleared and the dead were buried, Stern’s superiors decided the note had merely been a warning of Egypt’s imminent war plans. After all, the note was in Russian, and it was the Russians who had been supplying Egypt with weapons. “A communist with a religious conscience,” they’d said, “a common enough breed.” But Stern

  had never accepted that. Why would the note have mentioned Spandau, of all things? And so he’d kept the note.

  At the foot of the stairs, he slipped his shoes back on and glided out into the frigid darkness. Forty metres up the Lützenstrasse stood Professor Natterman, clinging to his briefcase like a diamond courier. He flagged down a speeding yellow taxi and climbed inside.

  Stern smiled and climbed into his rental car.

  Four floors above the street, Ilse sat cross-legged on the floor behind her triple-bolted door, fixed her eyes on the wall clock, and waited with both hands on the telephone.

  9.40 P.m.. Polizei Abschnitt 53

  The clang of the pipe apparently carried much farther than a human voice. Hans had been smashing it against the bars for less than a minute when the basement door crashed open and a powerful flashlight beam sliced down through the darkness.

  “Stop that goddamn banging!” shouted a guttural voice.

  Rolf again, Hans thought. The profanity was a dead giveaway. The same bearded man trailed behind him, but this time the pair stayed well back from the cell and aimed the flashlight in.

  “Well?” said Rolf from behind the glare. “What the hell do you want? The facilities not up to your high standards?”

  Hans flexed his fists in rage. If he could only lure one of them into the cell…

  “This man’s dead,” he said, pointing to the gurney.

  Neither guard responded.

  “Come in here and check his pulse, if you don’t believe me.”

  “If he’s dead, what can we do?” said Rolf, chuckling at his logic.

  “Get him out of here!” Hans cried.

  “Sorry,” said the other guard, with a trace of sympathy. “We can’t come in. Orders.”

  In desperation Hans shoved the gurney to the front of the cell and thrust his friend’s lifeless arm through the bars. “Feel it, damn you!”

  “Take it easy,” said the second man. “I’ll do it.” He pinched Weiss’s wrist expertly between his thumb and middle finger and counted to thirty. “The man’s dead, all right.”

  Rolf checked Weiss’s pulse himself. “So he is. Well, you just stay right here with him, Sergeant. We’ll send somebody down for him. Eventually.”

  Hans turned to the wall in despair. Obviously these two thugs weren’t going to be lured into the cell. When he finally turned back around, they had gone. He picked his way to the rear of the cell and sat down on a box of files. I can wait, he told himself. Someone’s got to come in here eventually, and when they do …

  Fifteen minutes later the basement door crashed open again. This time Hans heard no cursing or stumbling from the stairs. The tread of boots was loud and regular. Whoever was coming knew his way around down here.

  “This way, idiot,” muttered a disembodied voice.

  Nothing could have prepared Hans for the next few seconds. When the boots stopped in front of his cell, the flashlight beam arced in and blinded him completely. He squinted in pain. Then, out of the blackness behind the dazzling light came a voice that froze his heart.

  “Hans? Are you okay?”

  Oh God … Slowly his contracting pupils filtered out the glare. He saw the hand gripping the flashlight through the bars. Then, just above it, Captain Dieter Hauer’s mustached face coalesced in the darkness. The leering grin of Rolf floated above and behind him.

  Hans felt a caustic wave of bile rising into his throat. Whatever was going on, Hauer was part of it! His mind reeled, fighting the realization that his own father had helped murder his friend. He felt a knifelike pain in his chest, as if his very heart had cracked. Come in here, you bastard! he thought savagely Just come right in …

  Appare
ntly, Hauer intended to do just that. He turned to Rolf. “Give me the key,” he said.

  “But we’re not supposed to go in,” Rolf objected. “Lieutenant Luhr said—” Hauer snatched the key from Rolf’s hand and opened the cell door.

  “Hans, listen,” he said softly, “I need to ask—”

  “Aaaaaarrgh!”

  With every ounce of strength in his body, Hans drove himself off the back wall and into Hauer’s midsection. The flying tackle crushed Hauer against the steel bars, driving the breath from his lungs. He collapsed in a heap on the floor, sucking for air. Hans grabbed his neck and began throttling him in blind hatred. Here was the man to pay for Weiss’s life, and so much more …

  It was a simple matter for Rolf to pick up the lead pipe and knock Hans unconscious. Having done so, he viciously kicked the limp body off Hauer and revived the captain by taking hold of his belt and lifting him repeatedly off the floor. Slowly Hauer sat up and looked at Hans lying motionless on the cell floor.

  “‘Thanks,” he coughed.

  “You owe me for that,” said Rolf. “That prick meant to kill you!”

  “I don’t blame him,” Hauer muttered.

  “What?” Rolf’s eyes narrowed. “What were you trying to say to him, anyway?”

  Hans moaned and rolled over. His head banged against the bars.

  “Shit,” Rolf grumbled, “why don’t we just kill this Klugscheisser?”

  “We need him. Help me get him up on one of these boxes.”

  Focussing his eyes slowly, Hans sat up. He’d vomited a little on his shirt front. “Fa…” he moaned. “Father? You can’t be part of this—”

  “What did he say?” Rolf asked.

  “He’s delirious.”

  “Weiss is dead!” Hans screamed suddenly.

  “So are you,” Rolf spat. “You pathetic fuck.”

  The next four seconds were a blur of motion. Hauer’s lips flattened to a thin line. Quicker than thought he whirled on Rolf and shattered his jaw with a killing blow from his right fist. Almost simultaneously he snatched the pipe away with his left hand and brought it down on Rolf’s skull, fracturing his cranium with a sickening crunch. Rolf died before he hit the floor.

  Hans had been stunned by the blow to his head, but even more by this sudden reversal. But there was no time to think. Hauer knelt over him. “Don’t ask me anything!” he snarled. “Don’t say anything! I don’t know how you got involved in this, but you’re in way over your

  empty head. I don’t know if Weiss was in it, but he paid the price tonight. You’re hiding something—I saw that at Funk’s little hearing, and so did anyone else who was paying attention. You can’t lie for shit, Hans, you’re too honest for it.”

  “Wait—I don’t understand,” Hans stammered. “Why?”

  “Quiet! We’re about to take the most dangerous walk of our lives. If someone finds this shitbag before we get out of the station, we’re dead. Can you move?”

  Hans tried to rise, but his legs buckled.

  “Get up!”

  “I can’t. It’s my head … my balance.”

  “Christ!” With a sudden violence Hauer shoved Weiss’s corpse off the gurney and onto the floor.

  “Captain!”

  “Listen, Hans, he’s gone! We’re alive, You just be ready when I get back.”

  With startling speed Hauer battled the gurney through the dark basement, then collapsed its legs and dragged it up the stairs. In two minutes he was back in the cell, leaning over Hans. “I’m going to carry you up to that gurney and wheel you out the back door. Can you hang on?”

  Hans nodded dully.

  “I want you to see something before we go.” Hauer picked up the flashlight and held it to the right side of Rolf’s smashed skull. He dug in the blond hair until he found what he wanted, then lifted the head slightly and leaned back to make room for Hans. “First this,” he said. “Look.”

  Hans looked. At first he saw nothing. Only the bloody roots of Rolf’s flaxen hair. Then Hauer’s thick fingers scratched against the dead man’s scalp, scraping some of the blood away. Hans saw it now, behind the right ear. It was a tattoo. Blood red ink had been injected into Rolf’s scalp by a very talented needle. The design itself was less than two centimetres long, but very detailed. It was an eye. A single, gracefully curved red eye. With a lid but no lashes. Hans felt his stomach turn a slow somersault. The eye was identical to the one sketched on the opening page of the Spandau papers! You must follow the Eye … The Eye is the key to it all!

  “See it?” Hauer grunted. Hans nodded dumbly.

  Rolf’s head thudded against the cement floor. Hauer stepped across the cell and dragged Weiss’s corpse over to where Hans sat against the wall. “You won’t forget this for a while,” he said. He put his hands into Weiss’s shirt and ripped it open down the front. Then he pulled up the undershirt.

  “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. Twice 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 coming. The policeman’s left hand was 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. Head for 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 Bahnhof, 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.