tonight, if we ever get out of this blasted city. That helicopter of mine spends more time in the service hangar than it does on my rooftop.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I still don’t like those aircraft, Pieter. They look and fly like clumsy insects. Still, I suppose we can’t very well put a runway on the roof, can we?”
“Not yet at least.”
“We should look into something like the British Harrier. Wonderfully simple idea, vertical takeoff. There must be a commercial variant in development somewhere.”
“Surely you’re joking, sir?”
Horn looked reprovingly at his aide. “You would never have made an aviator, Pieter. To fight in the skies you must believe all things are possible, bendable to the human will.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“But you are excellent at what you do, my friend. I am living proof of your skill and dedication. I am the only one left who knows the secret. The only one. And that is due in no small part to you.”
“You exaggerate, Herr Horn.”
“No. Though I have great wealth, my power rests not in money but in fear. And one instrument of the fear I generate is you. Your loyalty is beyond price.”
“And beyond doubt, you know that.”
Horn’s single living eye pierced Smuts’s soul. “We can know nothing for certain, Pieter. Least of all about ourselves. But I have to trust someone, don’t I?”
“I shall never fail you,” Smuts said softly, almost reverently. “Your goal is greater than any temptation.”
“Yes,” the old man answered. “Yes it is.”
Horn backed the wheelchair away from the desk and turned to face the window. The skyline of Pretoria, for the most part beneath him, stretched away across the suburbs to the soot-covered townships, to the great plateau of the northern Transvaal, where three days hence Horn would host a meeting calculated to alter the balance of world power forever. As Smuts closed the door softly, Horn’s mind drifted back to the days of his youth … the days of power. Gingerly, he touched his glass eye.
“Der Tag kommt,” he said aloud. “The day approaches.”
3:31 P.M. British Sector: West Berlin
Hans awoke in a sweat. He still cowered inside a dark cave, watching in terror as a Russian soldier came for him with a Kalashnikov rifle. The illusion gripped his mind, difficult to break. He sat upright in bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Still the wrecked compound hovered before him. His soiled uniform still chafed, still smelled of the dank prison yard. He shook his head violently, but the image would not disappear. It was real …
On the screen of the small Siemens television two meters in front of Hans, a tall reporter clad in the type of topcoat favored by West Berlin pimps stood before a wide shot of the wasteland that yesterday had been Spandau Prison. Hans clambered over the footboard of the bed and turned up the volume on the set.
“… Deutsche Welle broadcasting live from the Wilhelmstrasse. As you can see, the main structure of Spandau Prison was destroyed with little fanfare yesterday by the British military authorities. It was here early this morning that Soviet troops in conjunction with West Berlin police arrested the two West German citizens whom the Russians are now attempting to extradite into East Berlin. There is virtually no precedent for this attempt. The Russians are following no recognized legal procedure, and the story that began here in the predawn hours is rapidly becoming an incident of international proportions. To the best of Deutsche Welle’s knowledge, the two Berliners are being held inside Polizei Abschnitt 53, where our own Peter Müller is following developments as they occur. Peter?”
Before switching to the second live feed, the producer stayed with the Spandau shot for a few silent seconds. What Hans saw brought a sour lump to his throat. A hundred meters behind the reporter, dozens of uniformed men slowly picked their way across the ruined grounds of Spandau. They moved over the icy rubble like ants in search of food, some not far from the very mound where Hans had made his discovery. A few wore white lab coats, but others—Hans’s throat tightened—others wore the distinctive red-patched brown uniforms of the Soviet infantry.
Hans scoured the screen for clues that might explain the Soviet presence, but the scene vaporized. Now a slightly better-dressed commentator stood before the great three-arched doorway of the police station where Hans reported to work every morning. He shifted his weight excitedly from one foot to the other as he spoke.
“Thank you, Karl,” he said. “Other than the earlier statement by the police press officer that a joint investigation with the USSR is under way, no details are forthcoming. We know that an undetermined number of Soviet soldiers remain inside Abschnitt 53, but we do not know if they are guests here, as is claimed, or if—as has been rumored—they control the station by force of arms.
“While the Spandau incident occurred in the British sector of the city, the German prisoners were taken by a needlessly lengthy route to Abschnitt 53, here in the American sector, just one block from Checkpoint Charlie. Informed sources have speculated that a quick-witted police officer may have realized that the Soviets would be less likely to resort to violence in the American-controlled part of the city. We have received no statements from either the American or the British military commands. However, if Soviet troops are in fact inside this police station without the official sanction of the U.S. Army, the Allied occupational boundaries we have all by familiarity come to ignore may suddenly assume a critical importance. This small incident could well escalate into one of the most volatile crises of the post-glasnost era. We will update this story at 18:00 this evening, so please stay tuned to this channel. This is Peter Müller, Deutsche Welle, live …”
While the reporter solemnly wrapped his segment, he failed to notice the huge station door open behind him. Haggard but erect, Captain Dieter Hauer strode out into the afternoon light. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. He surveyed the sidewalk like a drill sergeant inspecting a barracks yard; then, apparently satisfied, he gave the reporter a black look, turned back toward the station door, and dissolved into a BMW commercial.
Hans fell back against the footboard of the bed, his mind reeling. Russian troops still in his home station? Who had leaked the Spandau story to the press? And who were the men in the white lab coats? What were they searching for? Was it the papers he’d found? It almost had to be. No one cared about a couple of homosexuals who happened to trespass public property in their search for a love nest. The realization of what he had done by keeping the papers hit Hans like a wave of fever. But what else could he have done? Surely the police brass would not have wanted the Russians to get hold of the papers. He could have driven straight to Polizei headquarters at Platz der Luftbrücke, of course, but he didn’t know a soul there. No, when he turned in the papers, he wanted to do it at his home station. And he couldn’t do that yet because the Russians were still inside it! He would simply have to wait.
But he didn’t want to wait. He felt like a boy who has stumbled over a locked chest in a basement. He wanted to know what the devil he’d found! Anxiously, he snapped his fingers.
