Spandau Phoenix (23 page)

"Seven, goddamnit! The lucky number. What a fucking joke. Now can we get out of here?"

Hauer shook his head slowly. "Hess," he murmured. "It's impossible.

The restriction&, the endless searches. It can't Hans ground his teeth angrily. "Captain, I know what you're talking about, but right now I don't care! I just want to know my wife is safe!"

Hauer laid a hand on his shoulder. "Where are these papers now?"

"At the apartment."

"No! You made copies?"

"No, damn it! I don't care about the papers anymore!

We're going to get Ilse now!"

Hauer pinned him against the seat with an arm of iron.

"You saw Weiss, didn't you? If you go charging into your apartment, the same thing could happen to you. And to Ilse."

The memory of Weiss's mutilated corpse brought a strange stillness over Hans. "What did happen to Weiss?"

Hauer sighed. "Someone got too impatient, pushed the doctor too far.

Probably Luhr, Funk's personal stormtrooper." He shook his head.

"Later tonight they'll shoot his body full of cocaine and dump him in the Havel."

"My God," Hans breathed. "You saw it. You were there."

He balled his hands into fists.

"Hans! Get hold of yourself! I did not see Weiss tortured."

"You knew about his chest!"

Hauer grimaced. "I overheard someone talking about it.

It's ... it's sort of a specialty of theirs. With certain Jews.

Why did that boy join the-department at all? You'd think a Jew would know better."

Hans's mouth fell open. "You're saying it was Weiss's fault someone mutilated him?"

"I'm saying if you're a lamb you don't run with the wolf pack!"

The memory of Weiss brought back the mark on Rolf's head, the haunting eye from the Spandau papers. "What about the tattoo?" Hans asked quietly. "What does that mean?"

Hauer shook his head. "It's complicated, Hans. The eye is a mark some people use-some very dangerous people. I'm not one of them. I just wanted you to remember the design."

He leaned his head across the seat. "Look behind my right ear.

In the hair. If I had the tattoo, it would be there."

Hans studied Hauer's close-cropped scalp, but he saw no tattoo.

"I'm not one of them," said Hauer, straightening up. "But until five minutes ago, they thought I was. We've Fot to find somewhere safe to hide, Hans, somewhere with a phone. Before we can get your wife, we've got to know what Funk and Luhr are up to. I've got a man inside the station I can call- "

"So let's go upstairst There are probably a dozen phones up in the lobby. I can call Ilse, warn her to get out!"

Hans reached for.the door handle, but Hauer stopped him again.

"We can't, Hans. We're in uniform. Everyone will be staring at the two beat-up cops using the pay phones. Funk's men would find us in no time."

Hans jerked his arm free. "Where, then? A friend's house?"

"No. No friends, no family. It's got to be untraceable. An empty house or ... something."

Slowly, almost mechanically, Hans removed his wallet from his pants pocket and took out a tattered white business card. He stared at it a moment, then handed it to Hauer.

"What's this?" Hauer read aloud: " 'Benjamin Ochs, The Best Tailor in Berlin.' You want to go to your tailor shop?"

"He's not my tailor," Hans said tersely.

"Eleven-fifty Goethestrasse. No one can trace you to this place?"

"Trust me."

Hauer looked skeptical.

Hans turned away. The stress of being treated like an animal, caged and hunted, was congealing into something cold and hard in the pit of his stomach. With a guttural groan he slammed his open hand against the dashboard. "Get this fucking car moving!"

Hauer looked hard into Hans's eyes, gauging the mettle there.

"Right," he said finally. He fired the engine and roared out of the hotel garage with tires squealing, making for the Goethestrasse.

CHAPTER EIGHT

lL725 pm. Liitzenstrasse: West Berlin The men waiting within and without Ilse's apartment building were not police. They were KGB agents sent to the Liitzenstrasse by Colonel Ivan Kosov. Kosov himself waited impatiently in a second BMW parked at the end of the block.

Kosov hated stakeouts. Long ago he had foolishly thought that once he attained sufficient rank he would be spared the monotony of these endless vigils. And perhaps one day he would. But tonight was one more in an endless series of proofs to the contrary. Exasperated, he reached for the radio microphone mounted on the auto's dash.

"Report, One," he said.

"The lobby's clear," crackled a metallic voice.

"Two?"

"Nothing in the hall. The door's locked, no sound from inside."

"Four?"

"Three's with me. No sign of Apfel or the wife."

"Stay awake," Kosov said gruffly. "Out."

Shit, he thought, how long will it take? Sitting in this ballfreezing cold, chattering over the short-,range radios as if simply alternating frequencies could mask the russian-accented commands ricocheting through the Berlin audio net like lines from a bad movie.

He wished there were another way. But he knew there wasn't.

Three floors above Kosov, the door to apartment 43

opened and two garishly made-up redheads stepped into the hallway.

One locked the door while her young companion stared invitingly at the man standing at attention outside apartment 40. The young woman nudged her middle-aged com anion, who chuckled and led the wa over to the silent manNa , mein Siisser, " Eva flirted in a husky voice. "All alone up here tonight?"

Taken aback by her directness, the Russian stared back in silence.

She's at least fifty, he thought, much too old for my taste. But you're something else altogether he thought, hungrily eyeing the younger woman's cleavage. With a flash of surprise, he realized that she was the demure blonde he had seen enter apartment 43 twenty minutes earlier.

He barely recognized her beneath the heavy makeup and wig, She can't be more than twenty-five, he guessed, and breasts like a Georgian goddess .

..

"Guten Abend, Frdulein," he said to the younger woman.

I think you looked much better before."

Ilse felt her throat tighten.

"I think he's set on you, Helga," Eva said, laughing. She patted the Russian on his rear. "Too bad, dearie,'Iittle Helga's booked for tonight. But you're in luck. I know a dozen tricks this child's never even heard of. What do you say?" .

Abashed by the old tart's boldness, the Russian went temporarily blank.

"Oh, forget it," Eva said, pulling Ilse down the hall. "If you don't know what you want, we don't have time to wait."

Kosov's young agent watched the middle-aged redhead follow her shapely companion into the elevator cage. Eva yanked the lever that started the slow descent and then, still holding eye contact with the guard, pumped her fist lewdly up and down the iron rod. When the Russian colored in embarrassment, she hiked her bright skirt over a well-preserved thigh and burst into laughter.

As soon as the cage sank below the line of the floor, Eva cut her voice to a whisper. "Here comes the hard part. We were lucky that time. The odds just went-'down."

Ilse clutched her friend's arm. "You shouldn't have come with me!"

"You'd never have made it by yourself, darling.' "But you're in danger too!"

Eva plucked a gob of mascara out of her eye. "I'm glad to do it.

If I hadn't had you to talk to for the last three years, I'd have gone mad in that tiny apartment."

"But all your men friends-" 146 n le in isgust. "Don't even mention those bums. Don't act like you don't know what I do.

You and Hans have always known, and you've never treated me any different than family. So shut up and take some help. We're not out of this yet."

The elevator screeched to an uncertain stop. Eva yanked open the screen and stormed through the lobby, cursing the elevator and every other mechanical device ever invented.

With Ilse struggling along behind on a pair of Eva's four-inch heels, the old barmaid clacked past the two Russians at the building's entrance as if they did not exist.

"Halt!" yelled one of Kosov's men as Ilse hurried past.

Ilse's heart thudded in her chest.

The Russian caught hold of her elbow. "Hey, Frdulein," he said, leaning close to her. "Why the hurry?"

Eva paused impatiently at the curb. She looked up and down the street, then walked back to the door. "Next time, sweetie," she snapped, stepping protectively in front of Ilse.

"We've got a party to go to."

"It can wait," said the young man, leering at his companion.

"Stay here and keep us warm for a while. It's cold out."

"Colder by the minute, Arschloch," Eva spat. "If we don't get out of this wind in thirty seconds our tits will snap off."

The Russian shed his smile like a snakeskin. His eyes glazed with a reptilian sheen. He took a step toward Eva.

"Forget it, Misha," urged his companion. "They're just whores."

"Fucking filth," the Russian muttered.

"Misha, " said his partner anxiously. "Remember Colonel Kosov."

Misha took a long look at Eva as if to mark her for future retribution, then snorted and walked into the lobby. When he next looked outside, the two women were already across the street and halfway down the block, moving toward Colonel Kosov's BMW.

Kosov had just lifted the microphone from the dash when he spied two prostitutes walking quickly up the Liitzenstrasse.

"Report, One," he said, half-watching them.

"Lobby still clear."

"Two?"

"No movement inside the apartment."

"Damn. Three and Four?"

r

"All clear here. No sign of him."

The prostitutes reached the hood of the BMW, passed it.

"All positions," said Kosov, "I have two women passing me from your direction. Anyone see where they entered the street?"

The radio squawked as three signals competed for reproduction.

"Four here, sir. They came from the apartment building. Looked like two whores to us."

Kosov felt a tic in his cheek. He turned away as the headlights of a passing car shone through the BMW. When he looked again he saw one of the women raise an arm and flag the car to a stop. That's odd, he thought, a taxi here at this hour And picking up a couple of streetwalkers ...

"Two here," crackled the radio. "Those prostitutes came from number forty-three, this floor. Opposite my position.

One of them even propositioned me."

Kosov struck the dash with his fist. "One of them is the wife!

Misha, to the car! Two, enter number forty and proceed!" Kosov looked frantically for an alley in which to turn the BMW around. With cars parked both sides of the street he had no room to make a U.

Inside the taxi, Eva spoke rapidly. "Perfect timing, Ernst darling. Now zoom around the corner and stop as fast as you can." She looked back over her shoulder. "Ilse, when he stops, you jump right out and get into the alley there. If they keep after me, you've made it. If they don't@' "Who were those men, Eva? Police?"

"Stinking Russians, sweetie. Didn't you catch the name Misha?"

The taxi jounced onto the curb. "Eva, how can I thank@' "Go!"

Eva cried, squeezing Ilse's hand. "Jump! Go!"

The screech of tires drowned Ilse's reply as the taxi sped down the Gervinusstrasse. Ilse ducked into the alley just as Kosov's BMW

careened around the corner and surged after Eva and her cabbie friend.

She collapsed,against the cold concrete wall of an office building, her heart beating wildly.

Ten seconds later a second BMW raced after the first.

Turning her back to the icy wind, Ilse doffed the sluttish clothes Eva had given her and tossed the wig into an overflowing garbage bin.

Now she wore the conservative casuals she'd had on when she first spotted the BMW. Habit made her hang on to one costume accessory Eva had thrust into her hand-a large plastic purse. As she debated whether to keep Eva's flashy coat, Ilse heard the rumble of a heavy automobile engine. Seconds later a pair of headlights nosed into the far end of the alley.

Ilse snatched up the discarded clothes and climbed into the only hiding place she could see-the garbage bin. The smell was terrible, cloyingly sweet. She held her nose with one hand and covered her eyes with the other. The powerful purr of the BMW edged closer, a tiger trying to spook its prey. Ilse knotted herself into a tight ball and prayed. It took little imagination to guess how @thless the men in the black autos must be. The young man who had propositioned her at the front door-the one called Misha-his eyes had glazed almost to sightlessness when Eva insulted him. Like fish eyes, Ilse thought.