by Greg Iles
The metallic groan of the ancient elevator jolted Ilse from the window. Too late to run. They would reach her floor in seconds. With her back to the corridor wall, she inched toward the corner that led back to her apartment. She felt a tingling numbness in her hands as she peeked around it. A tall young man in a dark suit stood outside her door.
Remembering the fire stairs, she started in the other direction, but the echo of ascending steps made her thought redundant. Hopelessly trapped, she decided to try to bluff her way out.
Feeling adrenaline suffuse her body, she stepped around the corner as if she owned the building and marched toward the man outside her apartment. She cocked her chin arrogantly upward, intending to walk right past him and into the lift that would take her to the lobby. After all, she had appeared from another part of the floor—she might be anybody. If she could only reach the lobby …
The man looked up. He began to stare. First at Ilse’s legs, then at her breasts, then her face. I can’t do it! she thought. I’ll never make it past him. In a millisecond she saw her chance. Stay calm, she told herself. Steady … Fifteen feet away from her apartment she stopped and withdrew her apartment key from her purse. She smiled coolly at the guard, then turned her back to him and bent over the door handle of apartment 43.
Be here, Eva! she screamed silently. For God’s sake, be here! Ilse scratched her key against the knob to imitate the sound of an unlocking door, then she said one last prayer and turned the knob. It opened! Like a reprieved prisoner, she backed into her friend’s apartment, smiling once at the guard before she shut and locked the door. After shooting home the bolt, she sagged against the door, her entire body quivering in terror.
For an unsteady moment she thought she might actually collapse, but she forced down her fear and padded up the narrow hall to her friend’s bedroom door. A crack of light shone faintly beneath it. Ilse knocked, but heard no answer. “Eva?” she called softly. “Eva, it’s Ilse.”
Too anxious to wait, she opened the door and stepped into the room. From behind the door a hand shot out and caught her hair, then jerked her to the floor. She started to struggle, but froze when she felt a cold blade press into the soft flesh of her throat. “Eva!” she rasped. “Eva, it’s me—Ilse!” The hand jerked harder on her hair, drawing her head back. The blade did not relent. Then, suddenly, she was free.
“Ilse!” Eva hissed. “What the hell are you doing here? I might have killed you. I would have. I thought you were a rapist. Or worse.”
The remark threw Ilse off balance. “What’s worse than a rapist?”
“A faggot, dearie,” Eva answered, bursting into laughter. She folded the straight razor back into its handle. Ilse’s panic finally overcame her. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she sobbed as her middle-aged friend hugged her wet face to a considerable bosom and stroked her hair like a mother comforting her child.
“Ilse, darling,” Eva murmured. “What’s happened? You’re beside yourself.”
“Eva, I’m sorry I came here, but it was the only place I could go! I don’t know what’s happening—”
“Shh, be quiet now. Catch your breath and tell Eva all about it. Did Hans do something naughty? He didn’t hit you?”
“No … nothing like that. This is madness. Crazy. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you!”
Eva chuckled. “I’ve seen things in this city that would drive a psychiatrist mad, if you could find one who isn’t already. Just tell me what’s wrong, child. And if you can’t tell me that, tell me what you need. I can at least help you out of trouble.”
Ilse wiped her face on her blouse and tried to calm down. Despite the presence of the men outside, she felt better already. Eva Beers had a way of making any problem seem insignificant. A barmaid and tavern singer for most of her fifty-odd years, she had worked the rough-and-tumble circuit in most of the capitals of western Europe. She had returned home to Berlin three years ago, to “live out my days in luxury,” as she jokingly put it. Hans sometimes commented that Eva was only semi-retired, for the frequent pilgrimage of well-dressed and ever-changing old gentlemen to her door seemed to indicate that something slightly more profitable than conversation went on inside number 43. But that was Eva’s business; Hans never asked any questions. She was a cheerful and discreet neighbour who often did favours for the young couple, and Ilse had grown very close to her.
“Eva, we’re in trouble,” Ilse said. “Hans and I.”
“What kind of trouble? Hans is Polizei. What can’t he fix?”
Ilse fought the urge to blurt out everything. She didn’t want to involve Eva any more than she already had. “I don t know, Eva, I don’t know. Hans found something. Something dangerous!”
“It’s drugs, isn’t it?” Eva wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Hashish or something, right?”
“I told you, I don’t know. But it’s bad. There’s a man in the hall right now and he’s waiting for Hans to get home. There are three more men outside by the doors!”
“What? Outside here? Who do you mean, child? Police?”
Ilse threw up her hands. “I don’t know! All I know is that Hans’s station said he left hours ago. I’ve got to get out of here, Eva. I’ve got to warn Hans.”
“How can you warn him if you don’t know where he is?”
Ilse wiped a wet streak of mascara from her cheek. “I don’t know,” she said, trying to stop her tears. “But first I’ve got to get past those men outside.”
As the old barmaid watched Ilse’s mascara run, a hot wave of anger flushed her cheeks. “You dry those tears,” she said. “There hasn’t been a man born to woman that Mama Eva can’t handle.”
10.10 P.m. Europe Centre, Breitscheid Platz. West Berlin
Major Harry Richardson stared curiously at the receding back of Eduard Lenhardt, his contact in Abschnitt 53. In seconds the policeman disappeared into the crush of bodies crowding the bar of the imitation Irish pub in the basement of the Europe Centre, West Berlin’s answer to the American megamall. This twenty-two-story tower housed dozens of glitzy shops, bars, restaurants, banks, travel agencies, and even a hotel—all of whose goods and services seemed to be priced for the Japanese tourist. Harry had chosen it for its crowds.
He swallowed the last of an excellent Bushmill’s and then began to gather his thoughts. Eduard Lenhardt was only the third in a chain of personal contacts Harry had spoken with tonight. Contrary to Colonel Rose’s orders, Harry had kept his racquetball date. And by so doing, he had learned that Sir Neville Shaw, director of Britain’s MI-5, had ordered British embassy personnel to burn the midnight oil in West Berlin. Shortly after that, Harry had called a State Department contact in Bonn, an old college buddy, who had let it slip that the Russian complaint filed against the US Army specified papers taken from Spandau Prison as the primary object of Soviet concern. The British and the French had received the same complaint. Harry could well imagine the British consternation at such an allegation. After the phone call, Harry had finally gained an audience with his reluctant contact from Abschnitt 53—Lieutenant Eduard Lenhardt.
Lenhardt had revealed information to Harry in three ways: by what he’d said, by what he hadn’t said, and simply by how he’d looked. In Harry’s professional opinion, the policeman had looked scared shitless. What he had not said was anything about papers found in Spandau Prison. What he had said was this: That the prefect of police, Wilhelm Funk, had moved out of the Police Presidium and set up a command post in Abschnitt 53, after which the station had taken on the demeanor of an SS barracks after Graf Stauffenberg’s briefcase exploded in Hitler’s bunker. That two Berlin policemen had been detained in a basement cell, then had either escaped or been killed. And that while the Russians had pulled out of Abschnitt 53 at eight, they had acted as if they might return at any time with T-72 tanks. All this in breathless gasps from a veteran policeman whom Harry had never seen get excited about anything other than the piano quartets of Brahms. Harry dropped ten marks on the table and hurried out of the pu
b. Sixty seconds later he was on the Ku’damm, where he flagged down a taxi and gave the driver an address near the Tiergarten.
The man who occupied the house there was one of Harry’s “private assets,” a rather high-strung German trade liaison named Klaus Seeckt. During Harry’s first year in Berlin, he had spotted Klaus at the Philharmonie, in the company of an arrogant and well-known KGB agent named Yuri Borodin. It hadn’t taken Harry long to establish that Klaus was using his semi-official cover to funnel restricted technology to Moscow. That had not interested Harry much; what had interested him—after a thorough investigation of Seeckt—was that while Klaus dealt directly with the KGB, he had no ties, voluntary or otherwise, to the East German secret police, the Stasi. And that was a very rare combination in Berlin.
Rather than arrest Klaus for the high-tech ripoff, Harry had opted to use his leverage whenever he needed a direct line into KGB operations. He never even filed a report on Klaus. Colonel Rose might have insisted that Harry push the German too hard, which would only have spooked him into fleeing the city. Men like Klaus had to be treated delicately. Harry cultivated the man’s ego, pretending to share with him the fraternal enjoyment of superior intellect, and applied pressure only when necessary. Tonight was different. Eduard Lenhardt’s apprehensions were worming their way into Harry’s gut, and the checks he normally kept on his imagination began to erode as his mind raced through the possible implications of the events at Abschnitt 53. When the taxi reached the Tiergarten house, Harry tipped its driver enough to satisfy, but not enough to draw attention. And as he reached Klaus’s door, he decided that his sensitive East German would have to pay the remainder of his debt tonight.
10.10 P.m. The Bismarckstrasse
“Captain!” Hans warned. “Motorcycle patrol, three cars back!”
“I see him.” Hauer swung the Volkswagen smoothly around a corner just as the traffic signal changed, stranding the police cycle in the line of vehicles stopped at the light.
“We’ve got to get off the street.”
“Where do we go? My apartment? Your house?”
“Think, Hans. They’ll be covering both places.”
“You’re right. Maybe—” He grabbed Hauer’s sleeve. “Jesus, Ilse’s at the apartment alone!”
“Easy, Hans, we’ll get her. But we can’t walk in there like lambs to the slaughter.”
“But Funk could have men there already!”
“Hold your water. Where are we, Bergstrasse? There should be a hotel four blocks south of us. The Steglitz. Just what we need.”
“A hotel?”
“Get in the backseat,” Hauer ordered, and stepped on the accelerator.
“What are you going to do?”
“Do it!”
As Hans climbed into the backseat, Hauer ripped the police insignia from his collar and spurred the VW into the Steglitz garage. The violent turn threw Hans against the side door. They squealed down the curving ramp to the parking sublevels below and into a tiny space between two large sedans.
“All right, Hans,” Hauer said. “Out with it. Everything. What really happened at Spandau this morning?”
Hans climbed awkwardly through the narrow gap between the seats. “I’ll tell you on the way to my apartment.”
Hauer shook his head. “We don’t move one metre until you talk.”
Hans bridled, but he could see that Hauer would not be swayed. “Look, I would have reported it if it hadn’t been for those damned Russians.”
“Reported what?”
“The papers. The papers I found at Spandau.”
“Christ, you mean the Russians were right?”
Hans nodded.
“Where did you find these papers? What did they say?”
Hauer looked strangely hungry. Hans looked out the window. “I found them in a pile of rubble. In a hollow brick, just like Schmidt asked me. What does it matter? I started reading them, but one of the Russians stumbled on me. I hid them without even thinking.” He turned to Hauer. “That’s it! That’s all I did! So why has everyone gone crazy?”
“What did the papers say, Hans?”
“I don’t know. Gibberish, mostly. Ilse said it was Latin.”
“You showed them to your wife?”
“I didn’t intend to, but she found them. She understood more of it than I did, anyway. She said the papers had something to do with the Nazis. That they were dangerous.” He looked down at his lap. “God, was she right.”
“Tell me everything you remember, Hans.”
“Look, I hardly remember any of it. The German part sounded bitter, like a revenge letter, but … there was fear in it, too. The writer said he had written because he could never speak about what he knew. That others would pay the price for his words.”
Hauer hung on every syllable. “What else?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?”
“It was Latin, I told you! I couldn’t read it!”
“Latin,” Hauer mused, leaning back into his seat. “Who wrote the papers? Were they signed?”
Hans shrugged uncomfortably. “There wasn’t any name. Just a number.”
“A number?” Hauer’s eyes grew wide. “What number, Hans?”
“Seven, goddammit! The lucky number. What a fucking joke. Now can we get out of here?”
Hauer shook his head slowly. “Hess,” he murmured. “It’s impossible. The restriction, the endless searches. It can’t be—”
Hans ground his teeth angrily. “Captain, I know what you’re talking about, but right now I don’t care! I just want to know my wife is safe!”
Hauer laid a hand on his shoulder. “Where are these papers now?”
“At the apartment.”
“No! You made copies?”
“No, damn it! I don’t care about the papers anymore! We’re going to get Ilse now!”
Hauer pinned him against the seat with an arm of iron. “You saw Weiss, didn’t you? If you go charging into your apartment, the same thing could happen to you. And to Ilse.”
The memory of Weiss’s mutilated corpse brought a strange stillness over Hans. “What did happen to Weiss?”
Hauer sighed. “Someone got too impatient, pushed the doctor too far. Probably Luhr, Funk’s personal stormtrooper.” He shook his head. “Later tonight they’ll shoot his body full of cocaine and dump him in the Havel.”
“My God,” Hans breathed. “You saw it. You were there.” He balled his hands into fists.
“Hans! Get hold of yourself! I did not see Weiss tortured.”
“You knew about his chest!”
Hauer grimaced. “I overheard someone talking about it. It’s … it’s sort of a specialty of theirs. With certain Jews. Why did that boy join the department at all? You’d think a Jew would know better.”
Hans’s mouth fell open. “You’re saying it was Weiss’s fault someone mutilated him?”
“I’m saying if you’re a lamb you don’t run with the wolf pack!”
The memory of Weiss brought back the mark on Rolf’s head, the haunting eye from the Spandau papers. “What about the tattoo?” Hans asked quietly. “What does that mean?”
Hauer shook his head. “It’s complicated, Hans. The eye is a mark some people use—some very dangerous people. I’m not one of them. I just wanted you to remember the design.”
He leaned his head across the seat. “Look behind my right ear. In the hair. If I had the tattoo, it would be there.”
Hans studied Hauer’s close-cropped scalp, but he saw no tattoo.
“I’m not one of them,” said Hauer, straightening up. “But until five minutes ago, they thought I was. We’ve got to find somewhere safe to hide, Hans, somewhere with a phone. Before we can get your wife, we’ve got to know what Funk and Luhr are up to. I’ve got a man inside the station I can call— “
“So let’s go upstairs. There are probably a dozen phones up in the lobby. I can call Ilse, warn her to get out!” Hans reached for the door handle, but Hauer stop
ped him again.
“We can’t, Hans. We’re in uniform. Everyone will be staring at the two beat-up cops using the pay phones. Funk’s men would find us in no time.”
Hans jerked his arm free. “Where, then? A friend’s house?”
“No. No friends, no family. It’s got to be untraceable. An empty house or … something.”
Slowly, almost mechanically, Hans removed his wallet from his pants pocket and took out a tattered white business card. He stared at it a moment, then handed it to Hauer.
“What’s this?” Hauer read aloud: ” ‘Benjamin OCAS, The Best Tailor in Berlin.’ You want to go to your tailor shop?”
“He’s not my tailor,” Hans said tersely.
“Eleven-fifty Goethestrasse. No one can trace you to this place?”
“Trust me.”
Hauer looked sceptical.
Hans turned away. The stress of being treated like an animal, caged and hunted, was congealing into something cold and hard in the pit of his stomach. With a guttural groan he slammed his open hand against the dashboard. “Get this fucking car moving!”
Hauer looked hard into Hans’s eyes, gauging the mettle there. “Right,” he said finally. He fired the engine and roared out of the hotel garage with tires squealing, making for the Goethestrasse.
CHAPTER EIGHT
11:25 pm. Lützenstrasse : West Berlin
The men waiting within and without Ilse’s apartment building were not police. They were KGB agents sent to the Lützenstrasse by Colonel Ivan Kosov. Kosov himself waited impatiently in a second BMW parked at the end of the block. Kosov hated stakeouts. Long ago he had foolishly thought that once he attained sufficient rank he would be spared the monotony of these endless vigils. And perhaps one day he would. But tonight was one more in an endless series of proofs to the contrary. Exasperated, he reached for the radio microphone mounted on the auto’s dash.
