Spandau Phoenix (10 page)

Hans fell back against the footboard of the bed, his mind reeling.

Russian troops still in his home station? Who had leaked the Spandau story to the press? And who were the men in the white lab coats? What were they searching for?

Was it the papers he'd found? It almost had to be. No one cared about a couple of homosexuals who happened to trespass public property in their search for a love nest. The realization of what he had done by keeping the papers hit Hans like a wave of fever. But what else could he have done? Surely the police brass would not have wanted the Russians to get hold of the papers. He could have driven straight to Polizei headquarters at Platz der Luftbriicke, of course, but he didn't know a soul there. No, when he turned in the papers, he wanted to do it at his home station. And he couldn't do that yet because the Russians were still inside it!

He would simply have to wait.

But he didn't want to wait. He felt like a boy who has stumbled over a locked chest in a basement. He wanted to know what the devil he'd found! Anxiou@ly, he snapped his fingers. Ilse, he thought suddenly.

She had a gift for languages, just like her arrogant grandfather. Maybe she could decipher the rest of the Spandau papers.

He lifted the phone and punched in the first four digits of her work number; then he replaced the receiver. The brokerage house where Ilse worked did not allow personal calls during trading hours.

Hans would break a rule quicker than most Germans, but he remembered that several employees had been fired for taking this rule lightly.

A reckless thought struck Hans. He wanted information, and he knew where he could get some. After sixty seconds of hard reflection, he picked up the telephone directory and looked up the number of Der Spiegel. Several department numbers were listed for the magazine. He wasn't sure which he needed, so he dialed the main switchboard.

"Der Spiegel, " answered a female voice.

"I need to speak to Heini Weber," Hans said. "Could you connect me with the proper department, please?" "One moment."

Thirty seconds passed. "News," said a gruff male voice.

"Heini Weber, please. He's a friend of mine." A bit of an exaggeration, Hans thought, but what the hell?

"Weber's gone," the man growled, "He was just here, but he left again.

Field assignment."

Hans sighed. "If he comes back-"

"Wait, I see him. Weber!

Telephone!"

Hans heard a clatter of chairs, then a younger male voice came on the line. "Weber here. Who's this?"

"Hans Apfel."

"Who ?"

"Sergeant Hans Apfel-We met at-"

"Right, right," Weber remembered, "that kidnapping thing. Gruesome.

Listen, I'm in a hurry, can you make it fast?"

"I need to talk to you," Hans said deliberately. "It's important."

"Hold on-I'm coming already! What's your story, Sergeant?"

"Not over the phone," Hans said, knowing he probably sounded ridiculous.

"Jesus," Weber muttered. "I've got to get over to Hannover. A mob of Greens is disrupting an American missile transport on the E-30 and I need to leave five minutes ago."

"I could ride with you."

"Two-seater," Weber objected. "And I've got to take my photographer. I guess your big scoop will have to wait until tomorrow."

"No!" Hans blurted, surprised by his own vehemence. "It can't wait.

I'll just have to call someone else."

A long silence. "All right," Weber said finally, "where do you live?"

"Lijtzenstrasse, number 30."

"I'll meet you out front. I can give you five minutes."

"Good enough." Hans hung up and took a deep breath.

This move carried some risk. In Berlijf, all police contact with the press must be officially cleared beforehand. But he intended to get information from a reporter, not to give it.

Without pausing to shower or shave, he stripped off his dirty uniform and threw on a pair of cotton pants and the old shirt he wore whenever he made repairs on the VW. A light raincoat and navy scarf completed his wardrobe.

The Spandau papers still lay beneath the rumpled mattress. He retrieved them, scanning them again on the off chance that he'd missed something before. At the bottom of the last page he found it: several hastily written passages in German, each apparently a separate entry: The threats stoppedfor a time. Foolishly, I let myself hope that the madness had ended. But it started again last month.

Can they read my thoughts? No sooner do I toy with the idea of setting down my great burden, than a soldier of Phoenix appears before me. Who is with them? Who is not? They show me pictures of an old woman, but the eyes belong to a aurtger I am certain my wife is dead My daughter is alive! She wears a middle-agedface and bears an unknown name, but her eyes are mine. She is a hostage roaming free, with an invisible sword hanging above her head But safe she has remained I am strong! The Russians have promised to find my angel, to save her, if I will but speak her name. But I do not know it! It would be useless if I did.

Heydrich wiped all trace of me from the face of Germany in 1936. God alone knows what that demon told my family!

My British warders are stern like guard dogs, very stupid ones.

But there are other Englanders who are not so stupid.

Have you found me out, swine?

And a jagged entry: Phoenix wields my precious daughter like a sword of fire! If only they knew! Am I even a dim memory to my angel?

No. Better that she never knows. I have lived a life of madness, but in the face of death I found courage. In my darkest hours-I remember these lines from Ovid: "It is a smaller thing to suffer punishment than to have deserved it. The punishment can be removed, the fault will remain forever " My long punishment shall soon cease.

After all the slaughtered millions, the war finally ends for me.

May God accept me into His Heaven, for I know that Heydrich and the others await me at the gates of HelL Surely I'have paid enough.

Number 7

A car horn blared outside. Strangely shaken, Hans folded the pages into a square and stuffed them back under the mattress. Then he tugged on a pair of old sneakers, locked the front door, and bounded into the stairwell. He bumped into a tall janitor on the third floor landing, but the old man didn't even look up from his work.

Hans found Heini Weber beside a battered red Fiat Spyder, bouncing up and down on his toes like a hyperactive child. A shaggy-haired youth with a Leica slung round his neck peered at Hans from the Fiat's jump seat.

"So what's the big story, Sergeant?" Weber asked.

"Over here," said Hans, motioning toward the foyer of his building. He had seen nothing suspicious in the street, yet he could not shake the feeling that he was being watched-if not by hostile, at least by interested eyes. It's.just the photographer he told himself.

Weber followed him into the building and immediately resumed his nervous bouncing, this time against the dirty foyer wall.

"The meter's running," said the reporter.

"Before I tell you anything," Hans said carefully, "I want some information."

Weber scowled. "Do I look like a fucking librarian to you? Come on, out with it."

Hans nodded solemnly, then played out his bait. "I may have a story for you, Heini, but ... to be honest, I'm curious about what it might be worth."

"Well, well," the reporter deadpanned, "the police have joined the club.

Listen, Sergeant, I don't buy stories, I track them down for pay. That's the news game, you know? If you want money, try one of the American TV

networks."

When Hans didn't respond, Weber said, "Okay, I'll bite.

What's your story? The mayor consorting with the American commandant's wife? The Wall coming down tomorrow? I've heard them all, Sergeant.

Everybody's got a story to sell and ninety-nine percent of them are shit. What's yours?"

Hans looked furtively toward the street. "What if," he murmured, "what if I told you I'd got hold of something important from the war?

From the Nazi period?"

"Something," Weber echoed. "Like?"

Hans sighed anxiously. "Like papers, say. Like a diary.

Weber scrutinized him for some moments; then his eyebrows arched cynically. "Like the diary of a Nazi war criminal, maybe?"

Hans's eyes widened in disbeliel "How did you know?"

"Scheisse! " Weber cursed. He slapped the wall. "Is that what you got me over here for? Christ, where do they find you guys? That's the oldest one in the book!"

Hans stared at the reporter as if he were mad. "What do you mean?"

Weber returned Hans's gaze with something akin to pity; then he put a hand on his shoulder. "Whose diary is it, Sergeant? Mengele's?

Borinann's?"

"Neither," Hans snapped. He felt strangely defensive you ing t about the Spandau papers. "What the hell are try 0 say?"

"I'm saying that you probably just bought the German equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge."

Hans blinked, then looked away, thinking fast. He clearly wasn't going to get any information without revealing some first. "This diary's genuine," he insisted. "And I can prove it."

"Sure you can," said Weber, glancing at his watch. "When Gerd Heidemann discovered the 'Hitler diaries' back in '83, he even had Hugh Trevor-Roper swearing they were authentic. But they were crap, Sergeant, complete fakes. I don't know where you got your diary, but I hope to God you didn't pay much for it."

The reporter was laughing. Hans forced himself to smile sheepishly, but what he was thinking was that he hadn't paid n all papers. He had found them.

o e Pfennig for the Spand And if Heini Weber knew where he had found them, the reporter would be begging him for an exclusive story.

Hans heard the regular swish of a broom from the first-floor landing.

"Heini," he said forcefully, "just tell me this. Have you heard of any missing Nazi documents or anything like that floating around recently?"

Weber shook his head in amazement. "Sergeant, what you're talking about-Nazi diaries and things-people were selling them ten-a-penny after the war. It's a fixed game, a scam." His face softened. "Just cut your losses and run, Hans. Don't embarrass yourself."

Weber turned and grabbed the door handle, but Hans caught him by the sleeve. "But if it were authentic?" he said, surprising himself.

"What kind of money would we be talking about?"

Weber pulled his arm free, but he paused for a last look at the gullible policeman. The swish of the broom had stopped, but neither man noticed.

"For the real thing?" He chuckled. "No limit, Sergeant.

Stern magazine paid Heidemann 3.7 million marks for first rights to the 'Hitler diaries.' "

Hans's jaw dropped.

"The London Sunday Times went in for 400,000 pounds, and I think both Time and Newsweek came close to getting stung." Weber smiled with a touch of professional envy.

"Heidemann was pretty smart about it, really. He set the hook by leaking a story that the diaries contained Hitler's version of Rudolf Hess's flight to Britain. Of course every rag in the world was panting to print a special edition solving the last big mystery of the war.

They shelled out millions. Careers were ruined by that fiasco."

The reporter laughed harshly. "Guten Abend, Sergeant. Call me next time there's a kidnapping, eh?"

Weber trotted to the waiting Spyder, leaving Hans standing dumbfounded in the doorway. He had called the reporter for information, and he had gotten more than he'd bargained for. 3.7

million marks? Jesus!

"Make way, why don't you!" croaked a high-pitched voice.

Hans grunted as the tall janitor shouldered past him onto the sidewalk and hobbled down the street. His broom was gone; now a worn leather bag swung from his shoulder.

Hans followed the man with his eyes for a while, then shook his head.

Paranoia, he thought.

Looking up at the drab facade of his apartment building, he decided that a walk through the city beat waiting for Ilse in the empty flat.

Besides, he always thought more clearly on the move. He started walking. Just over a hundred meters long, the Liitzenstrasse was wedged into a rough trapezoid between two main thoroughfares and a convergence of elevated S-Bahn rail tracks. Forty seconds' walking carried Hans from the dirty brown stucco of his apartment building to the polished chrome of the Kurfiirstendamm, the showpiece boulevard of Berlin. He headed east toward the center of the city, speaking to no one, hardly looking up at the dazzling window displays, magisterial banks, open-air cafes, art galleries, antique shops, and nightclubs of the Ku'damm.

Bright clusters of shoppers jostled by, gawking and laughing together, but they yielded a wide path to the lone walker whose Aryan good looks were somehow made suspect by his unshaven face and ragged clothing. The tall, spare man gliding purposefully along behind Hans could easily have been walking at his shoulder. The man no longer looked like a janitor, but even if he had, it wouldn't have mattered; Hans was lost in heady dreams of wealth beyond measure.