wind.' He waved his sector map in a wide arc as if to take in the wind
itself.
'No wind,' the Russian stated flatly, never taking his eyes from Hans's
face.
It was true. Sometime during the last few minutes the wind had died.
'Smoke, comrade,' Hans repeated.
'Versailles! Smoke, tovarich!'
He continued to proffer the pack, but the soldier only cocked his head
toward his red-patched collar and spoke quietly. Hans caught his breath
when he spied the small transmitter clipped to the sentry's belt. The
Russians were in radio contact! In seconds the soldier's zealous
comrades would come running. Hans felt a hot wave of panic. A
surprisingly strong aversion to letting the Russians discover the papers
gripped him. He cursed himself for not leaving them in the little cave
rather than stuffing them into his boot like a naive shoplifter. He had
almost reached the point of blind flight when a shrill whistle pierced
the air in staccato bursts.
Chaos erupted all over the compound. The long, anxious night of
surveillance had strained everyone's nerves to the breaking point, and
the whistle blast, like a hair trigger, catapulted every man into the
almost sexual release of physical action. Contrary to orders, every
soldier and policeman on the lot abandoned his post to converge on the
alarm. The Russian whipped his head toward the noise, then back to
Hans. Shouted commands echoed across the prison yard, rebounding
through the broken canyons.
'Versailles!' Hans shouted. 'Versailles, Comrade! Let's go!'
The Russian seemed confused. He lowered his rifle a little, wavering.
'Versailles,' he murmured. He looked hard at Hans for a moment more;
then he broke and ran.
Rooted to the earth, Hans exhaled slowly. He felt cold sweat pouring
across his temples. With quivering hands, he pocketed his cigarettes,
then carefully refolded his sector map, realizing as he did so that the
paper he held was not his sector map at all, but the first page of the
papers he had found in the hollow brick. Like a fool he had been waving
under the Russian's nose the very thing he wanted to conceal! Thank God
that idiot didn't check it, he thought. He pressed the page deep into
his left boot, pulled his trouser legs down around his feet, and
sprinted toward the sound of confusion.
In the brief moments it took Hans to respond to the whistle, a routine
police matter had escalated into a potentially explosive confrontation.
Near the blasted prison gate, five Soviet soldiers stood in a tight
circle around two fortyish men wearing frayed business suits. They
pointed their AK-47s menacingly, while nearby their commander argued
vehemently with Erhard Weiss. The Russian was insisting that the
trespassers be taken to an East German poliee station for interrogation.
Weiss was doing his best to calm the shouting Russian, but he was
obviously out of his depth. Captain Hauer was nowhere in sight, and
while the other policemen stood behind Weiss looking resolute, Hans knew
that their Walthers would be no match for the Soviet assault weapons if
it came to a showdown.
The sergeants of the NATO detachments kept their men well clear of the
argument. They knew political dynamite when they saw it. While the
Soviets kept their rifles leveled at the wide-eyed captives-who looked
as if they might collapse from shock at any moment-the Russian
'sergeant' bellowed louder and louder in broken German, trying to bully
the tenacious Weiss into giving up 'his' prisoners. TO his credit,
Weiss stood firyn. He refused to allow any action to be taken until
Captain Hauer had been apprised of the situation.
Hans stepped forward, hoping to interject some moderation into the
dispute. Yet before he could speak, a black BMW screeched up to the
curb and Captain Hauer vaulted from its rear door.
'What the hell, is this?' he shouted.
The screaming Russian immediately redirected his tirade at Hauer, but
the German bnisquely raised his hand, breaking the flood of words like a
wave against a rock.
'Weiss!' he barked.
'Sir!'
'Explain.'
Weiss was so relieved to have the responsibility of the prisoners lifted
from his shoulders that his words tumbled over themselves.
'Captain, five minutes ago I saw two men moving suspiciously inside the
perimeter. They must have slipped in somewhere between Willi and me.
I flashed my light on them and shouted, 'Halt!' but they were startled
and ran. They charged straight into one of the Russians, and before I
could even blow my whistle, every Russian on the lot had surrounded
them.'
'Radios,' Hauer muttered.
'Captain!' the Soviet 'sergeant' bellowed. 'These men are prisoners of
the Soviet government! Any attempt to interfere-' Without a word, Hauer
strode past the Russian and into the deadly circle of automatic weapons.
He began a rapid, professional interrogation of the prisoners, speaking
quietly in German.
The black American sergeant whistled low. 'That cop's got balls,' he
observed, loudly enough for all to hear. One of his men giggled
nervously.
The terrified civilians were elated to be questioned by a fellow
countryman. In less than a minute, Hauer extracted the relevant
information from them, and his men relaxed considerably during the
exchange. It revealed a familiar situation-distasteful perhaps, but
thankfully routine. Even the Russians holding the Kalashnikovs seemed
to have picked up on Captain Hauer's casual manner. He patted the
smaller of the two trespassers on the shoulder, then slipped out of the
circle. A few of the rifles dropped noticeably as he stepped up to the
Russian officer.
'They're quite harmless, Comrade,' he explained. 'A couple of homos,
that's all.'
Misunderstanding the slang, the Russian continued to scowl at Hauer.
'What is their explanation?' he demanded stiffly.
'They're homosexuals, Sergeant. Queers, Schwiile ...
