Spandau Phoenix (26 page)

Summoning a smile, he extended his hand to Ochs. "Guten Abend, Herr Ochs. I'm Captain Dieter Hauer." Ochs nodded respectfully.

"I'm afraid Hans is right. A rather'special situation has arisen.

I myself believe it's just another of the endless exercises they put us through, but of course we never know for sure. If we could just use your telephone for a few minutes, we would be gone before you know it."

Ochs nodded again, slower this time. "You are a poor liar, Captain. But I count that in your favor. Most honest men make poor liars. If you're anything like your young friend, you are always welcome in my house.

This boy"-Ochs grinned and patted Hans on the shoulder-"this boy saved my life.

Three years ago I was trapped in a burning car, and Hans was the only man who had the nerve to get me out."

The light of realization dawned on Hauer's face. Only now did he notice the old man's left hand; it was withered and covered with scar tissue from a deep burn.

Ochs shook his head in wonder. "I thought he was trying to kill me! He blasted out the window right over my head!"

The old man laughed and stepped over to the counter. "Here is the chicken," he said. Then he held up a dark bottle his wife had pulled from a high cabinet. "And here is some brvm @ .fn randy-for the nerves.

We'll leave you to your business now. Come along, Bernice."

Taking his wife under his silk-covered arm, Benjamin Ochs left the kitchen without looking back.

"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 you." Hans laughed. "Then I found out I liked the job. What would Freud say about that, I wonder?"

Hauer forced a smile.

"I believe what you've told me," Hans said. "But when I showed up in Berlin wearing this uniform, why didn't you tell me your side of it?"

"That was ten years after Munich," Hauer explained.

"Long before then I'd resigned myself to the fact that I'd have to live the rest of my life without you, or any family.

When you came marching up to me outside that police station, with a hundred-pound chip on your shoulder and reciting that stupid agreement you'd worked out, I didn't know what to think. You'd already come that far back to me on your own ... I wasn't going to rush anything."

Hans nodded. "I wanted to make it on my own. I didn't want an help from you. And no matter how much I hated Mother then, I wasn't ready to find out the truth about you.

Not if the truth was that you really had run out on us."

"She never told me she was pregnant, Hans. It's an old story. I was good enough to fall in love with, but not to marry. It's sad, really.

She hadn't grown up any better than I had, but she'd set her sights on marrying rich. Fear of poverty, I guess. She did love me, I still believe that. But there was no way her kid was going to be raised by a cop. She wanted it all for you, Hans, gymnasium, university-I, "You don't have to tell me," Hans cut in. "I know it all by heart."

"But what I can't forgive is her putting it all on me. Making me out to be ... Christ, I don't know."

"It's okay. It is. How could she tell me it was her fault I didn't have a father?" Hans's eyes fell on the face of his watch. He looked up quickly. Hauer was still pointing the Walther at him.

"I know what you're thinking," Hauer said. "Don't try it.

Look, if whoever was in your apartment really had Ilse, they would have put her on the phone. They'd have made her draw you. It's you they want@r what you found."

"But you can't know that. What if she's hurt? What if she couldn't speak? What if she's deaal?"

Hauer lowered the pistol a few centimeters. "I concede those possibilities. But we're not going to charge into a situation we know nothing about to die like romantic fools.

First we must know if we are being hunted officially." He picked up the telephone with his left hand and punched in a number. "I want you to think of any possible places Ilse might have run to, or even gone innocently. And Hansthink like a policeman, not a husband. That, if anything, will save your wife." With a last look at Hans, he stuck the Walther into his belt.

Hans felt his fists quivering. A wild voice told him to bash Hauer's skull and take the car keys, that quick action was Ilse's only chance.

But his police experience told him that Hauer-that his father-was right.

"Communications desk," Hauer said curtly.

"Who's calling?"

"Telefon. There's a line problem."

"Hold, bitte."

Hauer put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Pray Steuben's still on duty,"

he whispered.

"This is Sergeant Steuben," said a deep voice. "We have no line problem."

"Steuben-"

"Dieter? My God! Where are you?"

"Let's just say I'm still under my own.recognizance."

Steuben's voice dropped to a whisper. "You're damned lucky. Funk has an army out looking for you and that young sergeant. They're watching all the checkpointseverywhere."

"I knew they'd come after us, but I didn't think they'd make such a fuss about it. Shine too much light on us, and some inevitably shines on them."

"No, Dieter, listen. They're saying that you and-"

"Apfel."

"Yes, they're saying that you and Apfel killed Erhard Weiss.

They're playing it like a simple murder. They brought Weiss's body up from the basement and paraded a few lieutenants and pressmen through.

I'll tell you, Dieter, some of the boys were pretty upset. The story is that you and Apfel were tied into organized crime and Weiss found out.

Most don't quite believe you did it, but everyone's damned angry.

You'd better walk softly if you come up on any old friends."

"I understand, Josef. What about that other matter?"

"Another call went out from an empty office about 16:30 this afternoon-same destination."

"Pretoria?"

"Right." Steuben's voice dropped lower. "Dieter," he said hesitantly, "you didn't really kill young Weiss, did you?"

"My God, Josef, you know better than that!"

Steuben hesitated. "What about Apfel? I don't know him."

"He tried to save the boy! They were comrades. Think, Josef.

Weiss was Jewish-that doesn't lead you anywhere?"

Steuben's reply was almost inaudible. "Phoenix."

"Yes. I've got to go now. I want you to stay on duty as long as you can, Josef. You're my last link to that place.

Someone's got to watch them. And watch yourself, too. Now that I've shown my true colors, they'll start looking for others. They know we were friends. I'll use the same story when I call back-Telefon."

"Don't worry," Steuben whispered. "I'm here for the duration.

But ... I'm worried about my family, Dieter. My wife, my little girls.

Did you cover them?"

"Just as I promised. There are two men with them now, good friends of mine. GSG-9 veterans. No worries there.

Funk couldn't get into your house with anything less than a full-scale military assault."

"Thank you, my friend."