Hauer didn't bother berating Hans; it was difficult to speak for long in
the boot. There didn't seem to be much oxygen.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
11:15 Pm. PolizOi Abschniff 53.- West Berlin Funk set the phone back in
its cradle and reached for the bottle of soda water on his desk. His
hand quivered as he poured.
'I gather Pretoria was not amused?' Luhr said softly.
Funk swallowed a huge gulp of soda. 'Outraged,' he gargled.
'Said we were a disgrace to the German people.'
'Was it Phoenix himself.?'
'Are you joking? His aide or security chief or whatever that diabolical
Afrikaner calls himself'
'I believe Herr Smuts is half-German, Prefect.'
'And how would you know that?'
'That one time he came here in person, to our plenary meeting.
One of his men told me that he was such an efficient security chief
because he'd got the toughest qualities of both races from his parents.
'The worst qualities, if you ask me,' Funk complained.
'The man doesn't have much tact.'
'I don't think tact is a major asset in his business,' Luhr said dryly,
hoping he didn't sound too sarcastic. For the time being Funk was still
his superior in both the police and Phoenix's hierarchies.
And until that changed ...
A brisk knock at the door startled Luhr.
'Komm!' Funk barked.
An impeccably uniformed patrolman marched into the office and saluted.
'There's been a murder, Prefect,' he announced. 'Near the Tiergarten.'
Funk looked unimpressed. 'So?'
'The murdered man, sir. He was an East German trade liaison.
He'd lived here just four years. And the way he was killed, sir. Shot
in the head at close range by a Makarov pistol.
The gun was in his own hand like a suicide, but@' 'A Makarov?'
Luhr interrupted.
'Yes, but there were other shots fired at the scene. A burst of
automatic-weapons fire.'
'What? What was the victim's name?'
'Klaus Seeckt, Herr Oberleutnant.'
'Who do we have on the scene?' Funk interjected.
'A Kripo homicide team, sir. But they're from the Tiergarten district.
The photographer's ours, but he didn't get a chance to call until just
now.'
'Leave us,' Funk ordered.
The officer clicked his boot heels together and marched out.
'What do you make of this?' Funk asked anxiously.
Luhr looked thoughtful. 'I don't know, but I'd better get over there.
We can't let anything slip until we run Hauer down. I don't like any of
this. First the Russians barge in here like an invasion force, then
Hauer betrays us, then I find Steuben taping our calls at
the-switchboard. And now some East German is murdered with a
Russian-made pistol?
What did Apfel find at Spandau?'
Funk frowned worriedly. 'If the Russian forensic people are right, some
type of paper. A journal, perhaps? Whatever it is, Jiirgen, Phoenix
isn't amused. Do you think Steuben could be part of an official
investigation? One I don't know about? Something Hauer initiated,
perhaps?'
Luhr shook his head. 'Steuben was working with Hauer, but I don't think
it went any farther up than that. We'd have been warned if it did. As
soon as I get back, I'll make the bastard own up to the whole thing.
Don't worry, we're going to bag Hauer, send Phoenix his papers, and end
up better off than we were before.'
'You're probably right,' Funk said wearily. He stood.
'I'll be at home if you find anything I should know about.'
Luhr pulled on his coat and strode into the hall, smiling confidently
until he closed the door. You bumbling fool, he thought.
All you care about is collecting your filthy drug percentages and
keeping your mistress happy. Luhr felt a thrill of secret satisfaction.
As soon as he had learned of Hauer's treason and escape, he had
dispatched some of Phoenix's deadliest assets to every possible place
Hauer or Apfel might go to ground-from the apartment of a woman that
Hauer spent his weekends with, to a remote cabin on the Mittelland Canal
near the East German border. And as soon as one of Phoenix's killers
recovered the Spandau papers, Luhr would step forward and take the
credit. By tomorrow morning, he thought, I'll have enough to break that
fool with Phoenix, and then Berlin-One will pass to me. To a true
German!
He shoved open the main station door and hulled through the crowd of
reporters. Ignoring all questions, he climbed into an unmarked Audi and
slammed the door in a journalist's face. 'Those South Africans had
better be good,' he 1
muttered, as he rewed the cold engine. 'Because Dieter Hauer isn't
going to die easily.'
Ten minutes after Luhr pulled away from the curb, Ilse Apfel trudged
through the huge doors of Abschnitt 53 and presented herself to the desk
sergeant. Like the reporters outside, he mistook her for a prostitute
and so ignored her for as long as he could. While she waited for him to
finish a telephone conversation, Ilse tried to wipe off the remainder of
Eva's garish makeup with a tissue.
She did not feel comfortable coming into the station, but her choices
were limited: she could talk either to Hans's superiors or to the men in
the black BMWS. Twice during her journey here she had spotted the big
sedans combing the streets for her, but she'd managed to evade them. At
an allnight U-Bahn cafe she had changed some of Eva's paper
Deutschemarks for coins, which she used to phone the Wolfsburg cabin.
She had tried every ten minutes for an hour, but her grandfather never
answered. The proprietor had started to frown after her third cup of
coffee, and Ilse decided to get out before he called someone to remove
her.
'What can I do for you, Friiulein?'
