'Unbelievable,' said Hauer, shaking his head.
Hans snatched up the telephone and dialed the apartment.
He heard three rings ... four ... then someone picked up.
He waited for Ilse's voice, but heard only silence. 'Ilse?' he said
finally. 'Liebchen? Are you there?'
A brittle male voice chilled him to the bone. 'Guten Abend, Sergeant.
I'm afraid your wife is unable to get to the phone just now.'
'Who is this?' Hans shouted. 'Let me speak to my wife!'
Hauer signaled him to keep his voice down, but Hans ignored the warning.
'Put my wife on the phone!'
'As I said,' the voice continued, 'the lovely Frau is occupied just now.
Indisposed, let us say. If you wish to speak to her, it would be much
quicker for you to come here.'
'I'm on my way, you bastard! If she's harmed in any way, I'll-' Hans
looked at Hauer in a daze. The line had gone dead. He slammed down the
phone. 'They have her! We've got to get to the apartment!'
He was halfway to the foyer when Hauer barked, 'Wait!'
Hans whirled. 'Wait? Have you lost your mind?'
Hauer's voice went flat. 'You won't get far without keys.'
Hans groped in his pockets. 'Give them to me,' he said quietly.
'I can't, Hans. You're making a mistake.'
Hans took a step forward. 'Give me my keys.'
Hauer shook his head. 'You don't know they have Ilse.
You didn't actually speak to her.'
'Give me my goddamn keys!' Hans sprang forward, ready to thrash Hauer
until he gave up the keys. But when he raised his hands to Hauer's
neck, he felt something hard pressing into his stomach. When he looked
down, he saw a 9mm Walther PI pistol, standard issue for the West Berlin
police.
'Now,' said Hauer, 'you're going to sit there quietly while I make a
phone call. Then we'll decide what to do about Ilse.'
'Don't you understand?' Hans pleaded. 'They have my wife! I have to
go! You ... you . . .'-his voice changed suddenly-'you don't
understand, do you? You never had a wife. You ran out on the one woman
who loved you! My mother!'
'That's a lie,' Hauer whispered.
Hans's face burned with emotion. 'It isn't! You ran out on her when
she was pregnant! Pregnant with me! Give me those keys, you son of a
bitch!'
Hauer had gone very still. His big fists were clenchedone around the
butt of the Walther. 'You think you know something about me,' he said.
'You don't know anytning. A file isn't a man, Hans. Yes, I know you
went through my personnel file.' He worked his left fist angrily. 'I
don't know if you deserve the truth, but the truth is that I didn't know
I had a son until you were twelve years old.'
'You're lying!' Hans insisted. But something about that age had
sparked a strange light behind his eyes.
'I'm not,' Hauer said softly. 'Think back. You were twelve years old.'
Hans felt his chest tightening. The pain in his eyes told Hauer that he
had remembered. 'I knew you couldn't have forgotten that,' Hauer said.
'It was bad. Munich, the day after the Olympic massacre.
Did you ever make that connection?'
Hans looked away.
Hauer spoke quickly, as if the words burned his mouth passing through
it. 'It was the lowest point in my life. Those Jewish athletes died
for nothing, Hans. Because of German arrogance and stupidity. Just
like in the war. And I was a part of it. I'd been flown into Munich as
a sharpshooter . . .'
Hauer seemed about to continue the story-then he stopped, realizing that
one more telling wouldn't change anything.
'After the slaughter was over,' he murmured, 'I went crazy.
Went off on my own. I needed something-a human touch, a lifeline. And
there I was in the city my old lover had run off to, totally by chance.
After a dozen schnapps, though, I started thinking maybe it wasn't by
chance. So I went looking for your mother.'
'You found her.'
'I found you. You were the last thing in the world I expected.
Your mother called the Munich police on me, of course. My showing up
after all those years was her worst nightmare. But the moment I saw
you, Hans, I knew you were mine. I knew it. She didn't even try to
deny it.'
Hauer's eyes focused on the kitchen floor. 'But she had me over a
barrel, Hans. Somehow they'd fixed it-her and her rich husband@so that
he'd legally adopted you. I paid a lawyer two months' salary to look
into it, but in the end he told me to forget it. Your mother had
already poisoned you against me, anyway-she let me know that before
anything else.' Hauer looked up into Hans's eyes. 'What did she tell
you about that day?'
Hans shrugged. 'She told me who you were. That you were my real
father. But she said you'd only come back to ask for money. To beg for
a loan.'
Hauer looked stunned.
'I don't think I believed her, though,' Hans said softly, 'even then.
Not deep down. You know what I remember about that day?'
Hauer shook his head.
'Your uniform. A perfect green uniform with medals on the chest.
I never forgot that. And when the police showed up to take you away,
you showed them your badge and they went away instead.'
Hauer swallowed hard. 'Is that why you became a policeman?'
'Partly, I guess. I really became a cop because it was absolutely the
worst thing I could do in Mother's eyes. She'd spent twenty years
trying to mold me into,a banker, like her first husband. And I guess he
wasn't so bad, really, looking back, But when she married that goddamn
lawyer, I started to hate her. She was so transparent ...
always trying to buy respect. And I hated her more because I knew that
in some twisted way she was doing it all for me. After she married the
lawyer, I wanted to hurt her as much as she'd hurt me.
And the best way to do that was to become everything she had run away
from when she was young. To become a working-class slave, just like
