repeatedly off the floor. Slowly Hauer sat up and looked at Hans lying
motionless on the cell floor.
''Thanks,' he coughed.
'You owe me for that@' said Rolf. 'That prick meant to kill you!'
'I don't blame him,' Hauer muttered.
'What?' Rolf's eyes narrowed. 'What were you trying to say to him,
anyway?'
Hans moaned and rolled over. His head banged against the bars.
'Shit,' Rolf grumbled, 'why don't we just kill this Klugscheisser?'
'We need him. Help me get him up on one of these boxes.'
Focusing his eyes slowly, Hans sat up. He'd vomited a little on his
shirt front. 'Fa he moaned. 'Father? You can't be part of this-'
'What did he say?' Rolf asked.
'He's delirious.'
'Weiss is dead!' Hans screamed suddenly.
'So are you,' Rolf spat. 'You pathetic fuck.'
The next four seconds were a blur of motion. Hauer's lips flattened to
a thin line. Quicker than thought he whirled on Rolf and shattered his
jaw with a killing blow from his right fist. Almost simultaneously he
snatched the pipe away with his left hand and brought it down on Rolf's
skull, fracturing his cranium with a sickening crunch. Rolf died before
he hit the floor.
Hans had been stunned by the blow to his head, but even more by this
sudden reversal. But there was no time to think. Hauer knelt over him.
'Don't ask me anything!' he snarled. 'Don't say anything!
I don't know how you got involved in this, but you're in way over your
empty head. I don't know if Weiss was in it, but he paid the price
tonight.
You're hiding something-I saw that at Funk's little hearing, and so did
anyone else who was paying attention. You can't lie for shit, Hans,
you're too honest for it.'
'Wait-I don't understand,' Hans stammered. 'Why?'
'Quiet! We're about to take the most dangerous walk of our lives.
If someone finds this shitbag before we get out of the station, we're
dead. Can you move?'
Hans tried to rise, but his legs buckled.
'Get up!'
'I can't. It's my head ... my balance.'
'Christ!' With a sudden violence Hauer shoved Weiss's corpse off the
gurney and onto the floor.
'Captain!'
Listen, Hans, he's gone! We're alive, You just be ready when I get
back.'
with startling speed Hauer battled the gurney through the dark basement,
then collapsed its legs and dragged it up the stairs. In two minutes he
was back in the cell, leaning over Hans.
'i'm going to carry you up to that gurney and wheel you out the back
door. Can you hang on?'
Hans nodded dully.
'I want you to see something before we go.'
Hauer picked up the flashlight and held it to the right side of Rolf's
smashed skull. He dug in the blond hair until he found what he wanted,
then lifted the head slightly and leaned back to make room for Hans.
'First this,' he said.
'Look.'
Hans looked. At first he saw nothing. Only the bloody roots of Rolf's
flaxen hair. Then Hauer's thick fingers scratched against the dead
man's scalp, scraping some of the blood away. Hans saw it now, behind
the right ear. It was a tattoo. Bloodred ink had @en injected into
Rolf's scalp by a very talented needle. The design itself was less than
two centimeters long, but very detailed. It was an eye. A single,
gracefully curved red eye. With a lid but no lashes. Hans felt his
stomach turn a slow somersault. The eye was identical to the one
sketched on the opening page of the Spandau papers!
You mustfollow the Eye ... The Eye is the key to it all!
'See it?' Hauer grunted.
Hans nodded dumbly.
Rolf's head thudded against the cement floor. Hauer stepped across the
cell and dragged Weiss's corpse over to where Hans sat against the wall.
'You won't forget this for a while,' he said. He put his hands into
Weiss'shirt and ripped it open down the front.
Then he pulled up the undershirt.
'What are you doing?' Hans asked, offended by this further indignity
visited upon the dead.
Hauer picked up the flashlight and shone it onto Weiss's almost hairless
chest. Hans leaned over, straining his eyes, then he froze.
Weiss's chest was awash in blood.
'Take a deep breath,' Hauer advised. He wiped away most of the blood
with Weiss's undershirt. 'Now,' he said.
'See it?'
Hans felt dizzy with horror. Gouged deep into Erhard Weiss's flesh by
some unspeakable instrument was a large, six-pointed star.
The Star of David. The edges of the linear wounds looked so ragged that
whoever had inflicted them must have done it with a screwdriver, or a
long nail. Hans felt vomit coming up like a geyser.
He gagged and turned away.
'No!' Hauer snapped, grabbing his shoulder. 'Get up!'
Choking down bile, Hans tried to stand. With a stifled groan, Hauer
caught hold of him, slung him over his shoulder like a sack, and plodded
out of the cell. Tlwice Hauer stumbled as they crossed the cluttered
basement floor, but both times he regained his balance. The stairs took
longer.
Each successive step required increasing amounts of time and energy from
Hauer's sleep-deprived body.
'Stop!' Hans begged, fearing they would both fall. 'Put me down.
I can make it.'
Just as he felt Hauer's broad back sag under the strain, he saw a crack
of light in the darkness. The basement door.
They had made it. Grunting, Hauer kicked open the door and heaved Hans
