with GSG-9, the counterterror unit.
'Connections like that don't hurt. Plus he's only got one month before
retirement. Funk's been waiting for that day a long time. Now he's
almost rid of him.'
'What a bastard.' Kurt snapped his fingers anxiously.
'You got any cigarettes? We smoked all we had..'
Hans handed over his pack and matches. 'Have they said who's handling
the questions?'
Kurt's hands shook slightly as he lit up. 'They haven't said anything.
We've tried to listen through the wall, but it's useless.
They could beat a man to death in there and you'd never hear him
scream.'
'Thanks a lot. I'll remember that while I'm in there. What about the
Russians?'
Kurt cut his eyes toward the door. 'Weiss said he saw the very same
bastard who tried to take the prisoners from us-' The door banged open,
silencing the young recruit. A bearded man wearing captain's bars
stared back and forth between Hans and Kurt, then pointed to Hans.
'You,' he growled.
'But I've been here for two hours,' Kurt protested.
The captain ignored him and motioned for Hans to follow.
In the hall Hans saw another young officer being led around the corner
toward the elevators, his arms pinned to his sides by two large
policemen. Fighting a growing sense of unreality, Hans stepped into
room six.
The scene unnerved him. The sparsely furnished interrogation room had
been transformed into a courtroom. A single wooden chair faced a long,
raised table from which five men stared solemnly as Hans entered.
At the center of the table sat Wilhelm Funk, prefect of West Berlin
police. He eyed Hans with the cold detachment of a hanging judge. A
young blond man wearing lieutenant's bars hovered at Funk's left
shoulder. Hans guessed he was Lieutenant Luhr, the aide who had
summoned him by telephone. To the prefect's right sat three men wearing
Soviet Army uniforms.
Hans recognized one as the 'sergeant' who had bullied Weiss at Spandau,
but the others-both colonels-he had never seen before. And to Funk's
left, a little apart from Lieutenant Luhr, sat Captain Dieter Hauer.
Dark sacs hung under his gray eyes, and he regarded Hans with a
Buddhalike inscrutability.
'Setzen she sich, ' Funk ordered, then looked down at a buff file open
before him.
As Hans turned to sit, he saw more men behind him. Six Berlin policemen
stood in a line to the left of the door. He knew them all slightly; all
were from other districts. On the right side of the door stood the
Russian soldiers from the Spandau detail. Their bloodshot eyes gave the
lie to their freshly shaven faces, and the mud of the prison yard still
caked their boots. Hans looked slowly'from face to face.
When his eyes met those of the Russian who had caught him in the rubble
pile, Hans looked away first. He did not see the Russian nod almost
imperceptibly to the 'sergeant' at the table, nor did he see the
'sergeant' soffly touch the sleeve of one of the colonels as Funk began
his interrogation.
'You are Sergeant Hans Apfel?' the prefect asked, still looking at the
file before him. 'Born Munich 1960, Bundeswehr service 1978 to 1980,
two-year tour Federal Border Police, attached Munich municipal force
1983, transfelled Berlin 1984, promoted sergeant May of '84?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Speak up, Sergeant.'
Hans cleared his throat. 'I am.'
'Better. I want you to listen to me, Sergeant. I have convened this
informal hearing to save everyone-yourself included-a great deal of
unnecessary trouble. Because of the publicity surrounding this
morning's events, the Allied commandants have scheduled a formal
investigation into this matter, to commence at seven o'clock tomorrow
morning. I want this matter cleared up long before then. The problem
is that our Soviet friends'-Funk nodded deferentially to his
right-'Oberst Zotin and Oberst Kosov, claim to have uncovered something
rather disturbing at Spandau today. Their forensic people say they have
evidence that something was removed from the area of the cellblocks last
occupied by the Nuremberg war criminals.'
Hans's stomach rolled. For a moment the room seemed to spin wildly. It
righted itself when he focused on the immobile mask of Captain Hauer'Of
course I denied their request to question our officers directly,' Funk
went on, 'but for the sake of expediency I've agreed to act as the
Soviets' proxy. That way they can be quickly satisfied as to our lack
of complicity in this matter.
Thus, the whole mess is over before it really begins, you see, Sergeant?
It's really better all around.'
For the first time Hans noticed another man in the room.
He had been hunched out of sight behind Hauer, but when Funk spoke again
he moved.
'By the way, Sergeant,' Funk said casually, 'in the interest of veracity
I've agreed to monitor all responses by polygraph.
Hans felt a jolt of confusion. Polygraph test results were inadmissible
as evidence in a German-,court. The Berlin Polizei were not even
permitted to use the polygraph as an investigative tool. Or almost
never, anyway. Buried in the budget of the Experimental Section of the
Forensics Division was a small cadre of technicians devoted to the
subtle art of lie detection. They were used only in crisis situations,
where hives were at stake. The only explanation Hans could come up with
for the use of a polygraph tonight was that the Russians had requested
it.
'We'll be using our own man, of course,' Funk said.
'Perhaps you know Heinz Schmidt?'
Hans knew of Schmidt, and what he knew made his heart race. The
ferretlike little polygrapher took perverse pleasure in wringing secrets
out of people-criminals or not-no matter how trivial. He even
moonlighted to sate his fetish, screening employees for industrial inns.
Funk's inquisitor padded around Hauer's corner of the table, pushing his
