Brandenburg (56 page)

‘This is bad,’ said Rosenharte testily. ‘Very bad. Have her brought down here immediately.’

The man’s hand went to the telephone. The Bird darted a warning look to Rosenharte, but it was too late; the man had begun speaking. He listened for a second or two and put the phone down. ‘She’s still in interrogation. That means you’ll have to wait.’

Rosenharte leaned forward confidentially. ‘Colonel Zank is being as diligent as ever, eh? You’d better take us to the interrogation room. This is a matter of national security.’ He drew the man aside. ‘My companion is from the KGB. He is their chief interrogator and he has come to take delivery of the prisoner. Let’s not waste any more time.’

The man nodded, picked up the phone again and barked an order. Very shortly a younger man appeared in an ill-fitting dark suit. ‘Take these men to the interrogation wing. Forty-two A.’

He beckoned them down a flight of five steps and out into the U-shaped courtyard formed by the interrogation cell blocks. They walked diagonally across the yard to a door on the eastern wing. The buildings that had seemed so expressive of the police state’s dull efficiency when he saw Konrad that last time, appeared brooding, much larger and more sinister at night. Behind the net curtains in one or two windows lights burned bright, indicating that no effort was being spared to break the few souls still being questioned at that hour. The Bird gave him an encouraging nod behind the man’s back as he worked at the door lock. They entered and looked up a stairwell that was barred all the way up to the top floor to prevent prisoners jumping to their deaths. They climbed to the second floor and turned left, were taken through an iron gate and walked past twenty or so identical doorways. Lights on above some indicated the room was occupied, but apart from the squelch of the guard’s rubber soles on the patterned lino there was no sound in the airless gloom of the passage. The guard stopped and looked up at the number, then pulled a heavy, padded door open to reveal a second door. He knocked. ‘Do not interrupt us!’ came a muffled command from within.

The Bird drew a gun and put it to the prison guard’s head.

Rosenharte leaned forward and whispered, ‘Open the door or he will shoot you now.’

The man put a key in the lock, turned it and pushed against the door with his body. A pneumatic sigh came from the hinge. The Bird flung the man into the room and stepped inside, moving the gun between the three interrogators. ‘Move and I’ll fucking kill the lot of you.’ It was said in the unrepentant tones of the English upper class.

Rosenharte looked down. Ulrike was crouching, bare feet on the floor, torso wobbling, grimacing like a child trying to hold a pose, her face streaked with tears that shone in the single desk light trained on her. She did not look up when they came in and clearly had not absorbed their arrival. He rushed to her and lifted her in his arms. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘We’ve come to take you away from here. It’s okay - I’m here, my love.’ She looked at him with the same incomprehension as Konrad had - that same disbelief that Hohenschönhausen would suffer any intrusion or trespass from the reasonable, humane world outside. There were bruises round her eyes and her neck was ringed with a chain of love bites - strangle marks.

The Bird glanced round. ‘Here, give her one of these.’ He passed a blister pack to Rosenharte. ‘It’s a painkiller and light opiate. There’s some water over by that fucker with the red tie. And then give her one of these. It will keep her awake.’

Ulrike took the pills, gulped at the glass and put it down. She stood kneading the blood into one foot by rubbing it with the other, shaking the numbness from her hands. Rosenharte quickly took in the standard hell of a Hohenschönhausen interrogation room. There was a T-shaped desk, partly in pale-blue formica, three chairs, a low stool for the prisoner, a safe, a console for the recording equipment and phones, and a desk light designed around an upright bracket that allowed shade to be swivelled to the horizontal, as it was now. In the lino, curtains and wallpaper, the Stasi had striven for a bureaucratic norm. ‘What shall we do with these fucking bully boys?’ asked the Bird. He turned to them. ‘Treating a woman like that! You’re a bloody disgrace, d’yer hear? A bloody disgrace.’ He jabbed the gun at each of them in turn.

Rosenharte left her side and went over to the lead interrogator at the head of the table, pulled his head back by his hair and put the gun to his ear. ‘You people killed my brother. I told Zank I’d hold you responsible; now I’m here to keep that promise.’ There was no question in his mind that he was going to kill this man. He must pay for allowing Konrad to die and burning his body like a piece of trash.

Ulrike said, ‘Don’t, Rudi. This isn’t you! Konrad wouldn’t want this.’ She put her hand to her forehead and waited a few seconds. She looked dreadfully pale. ‘He’s not worth the trouble it will cause your conscience.’

He looked down at the man’s moist, puffy skin. The other interrogators and the guard who had brought them had imperceptibly moved away, believing that he was about to pull the trigger. Instead he raised the gun and let it come down very hard just above the man’s ear. He fell forward with blood seeping from a deep, curved gash, still conscious.

‘Where’s Kurt?’ Rosenharte demanded.

‘They’ve got Kurt?’ said Ulrike, her voice rising.

‘They picked him up yesterday on the street outside. He was in on this with me. Where is he, you bastard? And where’s Biermeier?’

‘Biermeier’s dead,’ she said. ‘They killed him - shot him last week. Zank showed me his body.’

Rosenharte turned to the man he had hit. ‘Is that what you did with Konrad - put a bullet into the back of his head? Is that what you did, you filthy piece of scum?’ But by now he was watching himself at a distance, perhaps with Konrad’s eyes. He knew Ulrike was right: this wasn’t him. He leaned forward with the fingers of one hand splayed on the table. ‘Where’s Kurt?’ he said to the back of the man’s head. ‘Is he in the U-boats? Is that where Zank put him?’ He glanced up and caught the expression on the face of the guard, which told him he’d guessed right. He leaned forward to the senior interrogator. ‘Then you’d better come with us and let him out.’

Rosenharte felt in his pocket and handed Ulrike the other gun. ‘You may have to use this; it could be our only way out of here. Okay?’ She stuffed it into her pocket and hobbled to the door, where her shoes were. She leaned on Rosenharte while putting them on.

The Bird took the keys from the guard then began to rip the wires from the base of the console. With one hand he hauled the chief interrogator towards the door and, having deposited him in Rosenharte’s charge in the passage, tucked the gun into his waistband and went back inside. Holding a hand over his nose and mouth, he sprayed the room with an aerosol canister. Rosenharte saw the three remaining men slump to the desk and floor before both doors were shut and locked.

‘We won’t be hearing much from them for a while,’ he said, taking the interrogator in an arm lock. ‘Right, you bloody toe-rag, show us where these U-boats are.’

Outside in the yard nothing stirred as they made their way towards the van bay. Eventually they would have to pass through the office to reach the truck, but this wasn’t their immediate problem. The entrance to the U-boat cells lay across from the office and van bay, and they would have to pass through an area that could be observed from the watchtower some way off on Genslerstrasse. Rosenharte led the way around the corner of the old brick kitchen block, hugging the wall. Ulrike clutched his hand while the Bird followed with his arm hooked round the man’s neck. In the shadows of the old Nazi kitchen they could make out the steps sunk like a well on the side of the building. When they came to the bottom the Bird said, ‘Now get them to open up, you little cunt.’

The interrogator pressed a bell and announced himself through an intercom. Immediately the door was pulled open and Rosenharte sprang inside with Ulrike behind him. One man, almost a caricature of the medieval jailer, was inside. He had protruding, expressionless eyes, a vast stomach and two or three days’ worth of stubble. He staggered backwards. On a table beneath a lone naked light was a pair of reading glasses, a newspaper, a large bottle of beer and a cigarette smouldering in an ashtray. Though the air was rank with mustiness and urine, Rosenharte could see no evidence of the cells. He moved to a low door below the spine of the building and told him to unlock it and lead them to Kurt. A look of awkwardness came into the man’s eyes. He glanced at the interrogator. ‘This facility hasn’t been used for years. He’s the only one here - just for the night, you understand.’

‘Take us to him,’ said Rosenharte very quietly, before ducking to get through the doorway.

They followed the beam of the guard’s torch as it dodged along a narrow brick passageway. Overhead a number of pipes shuddered and made a dull clanking noise, but little else moved in the thick dankness of the U-boats. It was easy to imagine that they were submerged a mile beneath the ocean, locked in an isolation tank. The man stopped outside a door painted the same light blue-grey as the prison gates and turned a key in the lock, which allowed him to draw a bar across the surface of the door and tug it open. There was no light or sound in the void beyond. Rosenharte snatched the torch and, pushing the guard aside, went in. Kurt was propped against a stone ledge. His arms and legs were bound up in a kind of canvas jacket so that he could not stand, lie or sit. He was wet through and deathly cold. Rosenharte tried to undo the ties but realized he’d need more than one pair of hands. He picked him up and helped him into the passageway, knocking his head on the low ceiling several times in the process, and told the guard to undo the jacket. This he did, shaking his head with a look of theatrical remorse, as though he was as shocked as they were. The interrogator stared down without feeling.

‘Did you order this?’ demanded Rosenharte.

‘No, he’s not my prisoner.’

‘Colonel Zank?’

The man seemed to nod.

At length Ulrike helped Kurt to his feet. He stood naked and white in the light of the torch. He managed a smile, but was mostly taken up with trying to control the shaking in his arms and legs.

‘You,’ she said, waving the gun at the interrogator. ‘Take off your jacket and trousers and shoes and give them to my friend here - and that nice sweater too. Move it.’ Rosenharte saw real anger in her eyes, and fleetingly noted that although she had been treated badly too, and over a much longer period, she had no pity for herself. Kurt was her only concern.

The interrogator undressed, dabbing at the cut on his head. Then Rosenharte pushed him into the cell, consigned the fat guard to the neighbouring hole and locked both doors behind them.

Kurt could feel nothing in his feet and they had to help him up the passageway. When they got into the light at the entrance to the U-boats they saw that he had been beaten very severely. There were welts on his forehead and chin, and he was bruised on his back, feet and legs. The sharp pain he experienced on the in-breath suggested that at least one rib was broken on his left side. They sat him down at the guard’s table and gave him pills to swallow with the remainder of the beer. Ulrike held his shoulders and kissed the top of his head.

Eventually he rose and stretched his arms, but he was still unable to put any weight on his feet.

‘You two bring him,’ said the Bird, moving to the door. ‘I’ll go ahead and get the truck started and the gate opened up. Don’t worry about the guard. I’ll sort him out. Leave it two minutes, then come.’

He disappeared through the doorway and shot up the steps. A minute passed before they moved into the dark space outside the door and began to help Kurt take the steps one by one. As they reached the open, Rosenharte heard some movement off to the left. He let go of Kurt and turned round to see a group of three men running towards them in the shadow of the kitchen block. He raised his gun and took aim.

Two men with pistols emerged into the light, with Colonel Zank following. He was smiling and slightly out of breath. ‘Put down your weapons. You cannot escape.’ Ulrike had moved away from Kurt and levelled her gun at Zank.

‘We may be outnumbered,’ she said, ‘but you’ll die with us.’

‘You’re a pacifist,’ said Zank teasingly. ‘You only take punishment; you don’t hand it out.’ He looked at Rosenharte. ‘You should have seen what I did to her; I began to wonder if she got off on it . . . But then perhaps you would know about that better than I.’

‘There’s no question you will die,’ said Rosenharte.

Zank laughed. ‘You’re interested in birds, aren’t you, Rosenharte?’

‘Birds! What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Little Ulrike told me that you were interested in birds. Perhaps you know about the Larsen trap?’ He moved towards them, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a standard-issue handgun. ‘Do you know about the Larsen trap?’

‘No.’ He moved a pace backwards to keep the other men in view.

‘It’s a new invention from Sweden that traps magpies. You first catch one magpie and you put it in a cage with several compartments. Then you set the cage out in the open and the trapped bird - aptly named the caller - summons other magpies which enter the trap one by one.’ He pointed first to Ulrike with his gun then turned it to Kurt and Rosenharte. ‘One, two, three. Soon you’ve trapped all the magpies in the locality - and all from one bird singing its little head off.’ He stopped. ‘I knew you would come, Rosenharte. I left Colonel Biermeier free because I knew she would call him. And I was sure that a vain romantic like you wouldn’t leave her.’

Rosenharte moved closer so that his gun pointed at the middle of Zank’s forehead. ‘Your world is over - the little traps you set for people, your power to destroy good men like my brother and Kurt. Your obvious delight in tormenting a beautiful and brave woman. You’re a sick bastard, Zank, but more important you’re the past, a leftover from the time when this disgusting place was built.’ He gestured with his left hand at the Nazi kitchen block to divert attention away from the Bird, who had slipped without a sound from the office above the van bay and had rolled a clutch of round objects behind the men. ‘And that’s why you’re going to let us walk out of here.’