precious polygraph before him on a wheeled cart like the head of a
heretic. Ilse had been right, Hans realized. He should never have come
here.
'I said is that all right with you, Sergeant?' Funk repeated testily.
Hans could see that both Hauer and Lieutenant Luhr had suddenly taken a
keen interest in him. It took all his concentration to keep his facial
muscles still. He cleared his throat again. 'Yes, sir. No problem.'
'Good. The procedure is simple: Schmidt asks you a few calibration
questions, then we get to it.' Funk sounded bored. 'Hurry it up,
Schmidt.'
As the polygrapher attached the electrodes to his fingers, Hans felt his
earlier bravado draining away. Then came the blood-pressure cuff,
fastened around his upper arm and pumped until he could feel his
arterial blood throbbing against it like a toumiquel Last came the chest
bandsrubber straps stretched around his torso beneath his shirt-to
monitor his respiration. Three separate sensing systems, cold and
inhuman, now silently awaited the slightest signals of deception.
Hans wondered which vital sign would give him away: a trace of sweat
translated into electrical resistance? His thudding heart? Or just his
eyes? I must be crazy, he thought wildly. Why keep it up anyway?
They'llfind me out in the end. For one mad moment he considered simply
blurting out the truth. He could exonerate himself bdfore Schmidt even
asked the first stupid control question. He could'Are you Sergeant Hans
Apfel?' Schmidt asked in a high, abrasive voice.
@I am.'
'Yes or no, please, Sergeant. Is your name Hans Apfel?'
'Yes.'
'Do you reside in West Berlin?'
'Yes.'
Hans watched Schmidt make some adjustments to his machine. The ferret's
shirt was soiled at the collar and armpits, his fingernails were long
and grimy, and he smelled of ammonia. Suddenly, Schmidt pulled a red
pen from his pocket and held it up for all to see.
'Is this pen red, Sergeant?' he asked.
Schmidt made@r seemed to make-still more adjustments to his machine.
Nervously, Hans wondered how much Schmidt knew he knew about the
polygraph test. Because Hans knew a good deal. The concept of the 'lie
detector' had always fascinated him. He had taken the Experimental
Interrogation course at the police school at Hiltrup, and a close look
at his personnel file would reveal that. As Schmidt tinkered with his
machine, Hans marshaled what he remembered from the Hiltrup course. The
first tenet of the polygrapher was that for test results to be accurate,
the subject needed to believe the machine infallible. Polygraphers used
various methods to create this illusion, but Hans knew that Schmidt
favored the card trick.' Schmidt would ask his subject to pick a
playing card at random from a deck, then to lay,it facedown on a table.
Schmidt's ability to name the hidden card after a few yes or no'
questions seemed to prove his polygraph infallible. Of course the
subject always chose his card from a deck in which every card was
identical, but he had no way of knowing that. Many skilled criminals had
confessed their crimes immediately after Schmidt's little parlor show,
certain that his machine would eventually find them out.
Hans saw no deck of cards tonight. Maybe Schmidt thinks his reputation
is enough to intimidate me, he thought nervously. And maybe he's right.
Already perspiring, Hans tried to think of a way to beat the little
weasel's machine. Some people had beaten the polygraph by learning to
suppress their physiological stress reactions, but,Hans knew he had no
hope of this. The suppression technique took months to master, and
right now he could barely hold himself in his chair.
He did have one hope, if he could keep a cool head: picking out the
'control' questions. Most people thought questions like 'Is this pen
red?' were the controls. But Hans knew better. The real control
questions were ones which would cause almost anyone asked them to lie.
'Have you ever failed to report income on your federal tax return?'. was
a corrtmon control. Most people denied this almost universal crime, and
by doing so provided Schmidt with their baseline 'lie.' Later, when
asked, 'Did you cut your wife's throat with a kitchen knife?' a guilty
person's lie would register far stronger than his baseline or 'control'
reference. Questions like 'Is this pen red?'
were asked simply to give a person's vital signs time to return to
nominal between the relevant questions.
Hans knew if he could produce a strong enough emotional response to a
control question, then an actual lie would appear no different to the
polygraph than his faked control responses. Schmidt would be forced to
declare him 'innocent.' The best method to do this was to hide a
thumbtack in your shoe, but Hans knew that an exaggerated response could
also be triggered by holding your breath or biting your tongue. He
decided to worzy about method later.
If he couldn't pick out the control questions, method wouldn't matter.
Schmidt's voice jolted him back to reality.
'Sergeant Apfel, prior to discharging your Spandau assignment, did you
conununicate with any person other thaln the duty sergeant regarding
that assignment?'
'No,' Hans replied. That was true. He hadn't had tim I e to discuss it
with anyone.
'Is Captain Hauer a married man?'
Irrelevant question, Hans thought bitterly. To anyone except me.
'No,' he answered.
Schmidt looked down at the notepad from which he chose his questions.
'Have you ever stopped a friend or public official for a traffic
violation and let them go without issuing a citation?'
Control question, Hans thought. Almost any cop who denied this would be
lying. Keeping a straight face, he bit down on the tip of his tongue
hard enough to draw blood.
He felt a brief flush of perspiration pass through his skin.
'No,' he said.
When Schmidt glanced up from the polygraph, Hans knew he had produced an
exaggerated response. 'Am I holding up two fingers?'
Schmidt asked.
