“For five hundred Marks we could have avoided a hot car,” he said.
“It will not be missed until late tomorrow. I chose it carefully, and it is very easy to cross the ignition on this model.”
The ride took twenty-one minutes. We passed a few trucks on a boulevard, and then Maas took to the side streets. East Berlin was asleep. At five-nine he pulled up in front of a house.
“Is this it?” Padillo asked.
“No. It is around the next corner. But I will leave the car here. We will walk.”
“You take Symmes,” Padillo told me. “Burchwood will come with me. Let’s make it a group, not a procession.”
We walked in a bunch. Around the corner Maas stopped before a three-story house. He went up three white marble steps and knocked softly on the door. It opened and Maas whispered, “In quickly!”
We went in. A tall, indistinct figure stood in what seemed to be a hallway. There were no lights. “This way,” a man’s voice said. “Walk straight. When you come to a door, be prepared to step down past me on the stairs. When you are all on the stairs, stop and I will turn on a light.”
We moved slowly in the dark. I went first, feeling my way, my hands in front of me.
“You are at the stairs,” the voice said, right next to me. “The railing is on the right. It will guide you.”
I found the railing with my right hand and walked down six steps and stopped. I heard the rest of them follow. I heard the door close and a light was turned on. We were standing on a stairway that led down to a landing and then turned right. I glanced back up. A tall, thin man with a hawk nose and bristling salt-and-pepper eyebrows stood at the top of the stairs, his hand on a light switch. He wore a white shirt, open at the neck. A few tufts of gray hair poked out at his throat. He could have been fifty or fifty-five. Maas was on the next step down from him, and below Maas were Padillo, Burchwood and Symmes.
“Straight down,” the thin man said.
I walked down the remaining two steps, turned and walked down five more. The basement walls were painted white and blue, and bluespeckled linoleum covered the floor. A workbench with a vise attached to it ran the length of one side of the room. Above it was a series of cabinets, stained a dark brown. At one narrow end of the basement, at what I judged to be the street side, was a five-foot cabinet of good walnut. It had four small shelves at the top and a series of flat drawers beneath them. Brass knobs were attached to the drawers. I kept my hand on my gun in my coat pocket. Padillo motioned Burchwood and Symmes to one side of the room. He stood next to them.
The tall man came down the stairs and looked at us. “They are Americans,” he said angrily.
Maas took his hands out of the pockets of a tan raincoat that I hadn’t seen him wear before and spread them in a placating gesture. “Their money is good. It would not be wise to change your mind at this point. Please open the passage.”
“You said they were Germans,” the man muttered.
“The passage,” Maas said.
“The money,” the thin man demanded.
Maas took his left hand out of his pocket again and handed over an envelope.
The thin man walked over to the workbench, ripped open the envelope, and counted the money. Twice. He stuffed the envelope and the money into his trouser pocket and moved to the chest. He pulled out the first drawer, closed it; pulled out the third, closed it; and then pulled out the bottom drawer and left it open. There was nothing in any of them, but the pulling and closing were some kind of combination.
He tugged at the chest and it swung open easily. It seemed to have clearance from the floor of less than a fourth of an inch. Behind the chest was the tunnel, its mouth about three feet high by two and a half feet wide. I could see that a reddish linoleum covered its floor. Rough, brown-stained boards framed its entrance. The thin man reached into the tunnel and switched on the lights. Padillo and I knelt to look. When we rose, Maas had a Luger in his right hand. It was aimed at the tall, thin man. I made a motion in my pocket, but Padillo caught my arm. “It’s his play.”
“Please, Captain, would you hand back the money?”
“Liar!” the thin man yelled.
“Please, the money.”
He reached into his pocket and handed it to Maas. The fat man stuffed it back into his pocket. “Now, Captain, would you please put your hands on the top of your head and stand next to the wall? No, turn around so that your back is to me.” The man obeyed. Mass nodded in satisfaction.
“You remember, Herr Padillo and Herr McCorkle,” Maas continued in German, “that man Schmidt I told you about? His name was no more Schmidt than mine is Maas. But he was my brother and I feel I have a debt to pay. I think you will understand, Captain.”
He shot the thin man in the back twice. Symmes screamed. The thin man was knocked against the wall and crumpled in a heap on the floor. Maas put the Luger back into his coat pocket and turned to us. “It was a matter of honor,” he said.
“You’re through?” Padillo asked.
“Yes.”
“Let’s go, then. You first, Maas.”
The fat man got down on his hands and knees and disappeared into the tunnel. “You next, Mac.”
I followed Maas. Symmes and Burchwood scrambled after me. The tunnel was shored with rough lumber, about the size of two-by-fours. In a few spots dirt had dribbled down on the linoleum. The forty-watt electric bulbs were spotted every twenty feet. I counted nine of them. We crawled on our hands and knees. My head occasionally knocked against a piece of the wooden shoring. Dirt got down my neck.
