only to restore Germany's lost might.'
Hans shrugged. 'Sure. So what? What's wrong with working to make
Germany strong? I agree with them. Not some of the crazier factions,
maybe, but I want Germany to be united again. One nation, without the
Wall.'
Hauer raised an eyebrow.
Hans colored. 'It's my country, isn't it? I want it to be strong!'
'Of course you do, boy. So do 1. But there are different kinds of
strength. Some of these groups have some very strange ideals. Old
ideals. Old agendas.' 'What do you mean? How do you know?'
Hauer studied his cigar. 'Because we've been to their meetings-Steuben
and 1. I stumbled into this whole thing by accident.
About two years ago, I got drawn into a Special Tasks drug case.
The money trail led me to two police officers. In short order I became
aware that quite a few cops were involved in the drug traffic flowing
into and through Germany. And in spite of orders to the contrary, I
began to compile evidence on these officers. Steuben helped me all the
way. It didn't take us long to realize that their drug operation
extended into the highest ranks of the force.'
'Prefect Funk?'
'Excellent example. But then things got strange. Pretty soon we
discerned a attem. Every officer involved in the drug traffic was also
a member of a semisecret society called Der Bruderschaft.'
'The Brotherhood? I've heard of that.'
Hauer exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. 'I'm not surprised.
I joined it myself last year. That's what the tattoo is about.
The eye is their symbol. Ever see a policeman with a bandage behind his
right ear? That means he's gotten the mark.
They wear the bandage till the hair grows back. I don't know what the
eye means, but I was only a month away from getting it myself. You get
marked after a year in the group.' Hauer stood up and flicked some
cigar ash into Ochs's sink. 'The real name of the organization is not
Der Bruderschaft, however; it's Bruderschaft der Phoenix. Have you
heard of that?'
Hans's eyes widened. 'I have! It was in the Spandau papers.
Something about the 'soldiers of Phoenix' appeanng before Prisoner
Number Seven.'
'Christ, what else do you remember?'
Hans shook his head. 'I only remembered that because it was in German,
not Latin.'
Hauer began pacing the kitchen. 'God, it's so easy to see now.
Der Bruderschaft is neo-Nazi. It would only be natural for them to try
to contact Hess in prison, to try to use him as some kind of mascot.
But maybe Hess didn't like the idea, eh? Maybe-my God,' Hauer said
suddenly. 'They might well be the ones who killed him! Hess would be
much more valuable to them as a martyr than a pathetic prisoner!'
'Who comes to these Bruderschaft meetings?' Hans asked.
'A bunch of malcontents and young toughs, mostly. You know the type@ops
who won't answer a call to help a Turkish woman who's being beaten in
the street. Most weren't even born until fifteen or twenty years after
the war.' Hauer shook his head in disgust. ''They get drunk, argue,
make speeches about throwing the traitors out of Bonn and making Berlin
the capital again. Then they sing Deutschland fiber Alles. If they're
really tanked they sing the Horst Wessel. At first the whole thing
seemed comical.
But after a while I realized something. These clowns were bringing in
millions of marks through their drug operations, yet they didn't seem to
be keeping any of it. No Ferrans, no new houses. Where was all the
money going? I traced the command chain all the way up to Prefect Funk,
but after six months of investigation I hit a dead end.'
Hauer's eyes flickered. 'Then I had my revelation. It had been right
in front of me all the time. Their money came from drugs, right?
Well, where do the drugs flow in from?'
'The East,' Hans said softly.
'Right. So I asked myself, What if their organization extended
laterally, not vertically? You see? How were the drugs getting through
East Germany? Were the Vopos blind?
Hell no. They were allowing the drugs to get through. The East German
police have their own Bruderschaft members.'
Hans blinked in astonishment. 'The Volkspolizei?'
Hauer nodded. 'And the Stasi.'
Hans drew back at the mention of the hated East German secret police.
'But why would the Stasi smuggle drugs? For hard currency?'
Hauer shook his head. 'Think about being a Stasi agent for a minute,
Hans. What it's really like.'
'No thanks.'
Hauer waved his cigar. 'Sure, a lot of them are scum. But they're
German scum. You see? All day and night they have the Russians leaning
over their shoulders telling them what to do. They hate the Russians
more than we ever could.
They're communists, sure, but what choice do they have?
They've been,under the Russian boot since 1945. So, what do you think
they do? Lie down and take Moscow's crap?
Most of them do.' Hauer's eyes gleamed. 'But some of them don't.
The HVA-East German intelligence-sucks Moscow's shitpipe. They're like
a German arm of the KGB.
But the Stasi? Forget it. They go their'own way. They can beat the
KGB at their own game and the KGB knows it. If Moscow complains about
the Stasi, Honecker himself tells the Kremlin to mind its own business.'
'You sound like you admire the bastards.'
Hauer shook his head. 'This isn't a case of absolutes, Hans. The point
is that some elements of the Stasi want reunification even more than we
in the West do, and they're willing to fight for it. They want their
slice of the European economic pie, and they know that so long as
they're separate from us, they'll never get it. And that brings us to
the drugs.
'How? Drugs are their slice of the pie?' 'No. Drugs are part of the
strategy. I think their theory runs something like this: the more
rapidly the social situation in West Germany breaks down, the more
