doesn't matter. Just another assignment, right?'
Hauer nodded. 'You've been doing a hell of a job, I hear.
Youngest sergeant in Berlin.'
Hans flushed a little, shrugged.
'I lied, Hans,' Hauer said suddenly. 'I did break our agreement.
I requested you for this detail.'
Hans's eyes narrowed. 'Why?'
'Because it was busy work. Killing time. I thought we might get a
chance to talk.'
Hans studied the slushy ground. 'So talk.'
Hauer seemed to search for words. 'There's a lot that needs saying.'
'Or nothing.'
Hauer sighed deeply. 'I'd really like to know why you came to Berlin.
Three years now. You must have wanted some kind of reconciliation ...
or answers, or something.'
Hans stiffened. 'So why are you asking the questions?'
Hauer looked hard into Hans's, eyes. 'All right,' he said softly.
'We'll wait until you're ready.'
Before Hans could reply, Hauer vanished into the darkness. Even the
glow of his cigar had disappeared. Hans stood still for some moments;
then, shaking his head angrily, he hurried into the shadows and resumed
his patrol.
Time passed quickly now, the silence broken only by an occasional siren
or the roar of a jet from the British military airport at Gatow.
With the snow soaking into his uniform, Hans walked faster to take his
mind off the cold. He hoped he would be lucky enough to get home before
his wife, Ilse, left for work. Sometimes after a particularly rough
night shift, she would cook him a breakfast of Weisswurst and buns, even
if she was in a hurry.
He checked his watch. Almost 6:00 A.M. It would be dawn soon. He felt
better as the end of his shift neared. What he really wanted was to get
out of the weather for a while and have a smoke. A mountain of
shattered concrete near the rear of the lot looked as though it might
afford good shelter, so he made for it. The nearest soldier was
Russian, but he stood at least thirty meters from the pile. Hans
slipped through a narrow opening when the sentry wasn't looking.
He found himself in a comfortable little nook that shielded him
completely from the wind. He wiped off a slab of concrete, sat down,
and warmed his face by breathing into his cupped gloves. Nestled in
this dark burrow, he was invisible to the patrolling soldiers, yet he
still commanded a surprisingly wide view of the prison grounds. The
snow had finally stopped, and even the wind had fallen off a bit. In
the predawn silence, the demolished prison looked like pictures of
bombed-out Dresden he had seen as a schoolboy: motionless sentries
standing tall against bleak destruction, watching over nothing.
Hans took out his cigarettes. He was trying to quit, but he still
carried a pack whenever he went into a potentially stressful situation.
Just the knowledge that he could light up sometimes calmed his nerves.
But not tonight. Removing one glove with his teeth, he fumbled in his
jacket for matches. He leaned as far away as he could from the opening
to his little cave, scraped a match across the striking pad, then cupped
it in his palm to conceal the light. He held it to his cigarette,
drawing deeply. His shivering hand made the job difficult, but he soon
steadied it and was rewarded with a jagged rush of smoke.
As the match flame neared his fingers, a glint of white flashed against
the blackness of the chamber. When he flicked the match away, the
glimmer vanished. Probably only a bit of snow, he thought. But boredom
made him curious. Gauging the risk of discovery by the Russian, he lit
a second match. There. Near the floor of his cubbyhole he could see
the object clearly now-not glass but paper-a small wad stuck to a long
narrow brick. He hunched over and held the match nearer.
In the close light he could see that rather than being stuck to the
brick as he had first thought, the paper actually protruded from the
brick itself. He grasped the folded wad and tugged it gently from its
receptacle. The paper made a dry, scraping sound. Hans inserted his
index finger into the brick.
He couldn't feel the bottom. The second match died. He lit another.
Quickly spreading open the crinkled wad of onionskin, he surveyed his
find in the flickering light. It seemed to be a personal document of
some sort, a will or a diary perhaps, hand-printed in heavy blocked
letters. In the dying matchlight Hans read as rapidly as he could: This
is the testament of Prisoner #7. I am the last now, and I know that I
shall never be granted the freedom that I-more than any of those
released before me-deserve.
Death is the only freedom I will know. I hear His black wings beating
about me! While my child lives I cannot speak, but here I shall write.
I only pray that I can be coherent. Between the drugs, the questions,
the promises and the threats, I sometimes wonder if I am not already mad
I only hope that long after these 'events cease to have immediate
consequencest . n our insane world, someone will find these words and
learn the obscene truth, not only of Hammier, Heydrich, and the rest,
but of England-of those who would have sold her honor and ultimately her
existence forThe crunch of boot heels on snow jolted Hans back to
reality. Someone was coming! Jerking his head to the aperture in the
bricks, he closed his hand on the searing match and peered out into an
alien world.
Dawn had come. In its unforgiving light, Hans saw a Russian soldier
less than ten meters from his hiding place, moving slowly forward with
his AK-47 extended. The flare of the third match had drawn him. 'Fool!'
Hans cursed himself. He jammed the sheaf of paper into his boot, then
he stepped boldly out of the niche and strode toward the advancing
soldier.
'Halt!' cried the Russian, emphasizing the command with a jerk of his
Kalashnikov.
'Versailles,' Hans countered in the steadiest voice he could muster.
His calm delivery of the password took the Russian aback.
'What are you doing in there, Polizei?'lasked the soldier in passable
German.
'Smoke,' Hans replied, extending the pack. 'Having a smoke out of the
