The Grave of Truth by Evelyn Anthony Page A

city where he had been born. But then he only remembered the war, and the grim years afterwards when he had paid a visit to Berlin before taking up his post in London. The people had rebuilt out of the ruins; they lived with the Wall running through the city like a scar, and behind it lay the dead heart of Nazi Germany, the site of Hitler’s Chancellory, now razed to the ground by the Russians. The Bunker itself. The dead heart of Nazi Germany. It was a good phrase, and he could use it one day. But that heart was beating still; the murder of Sigmund Walther proved that. He and Fegelein had died because of Janus. Whoever or whatever Janus might be. He went to his room and put through a call to Ellie in London. Tim, the solicitor answered. Ellie and his wife and the children had gone to the cinema. They were all fine and enjoying their stay. He sounded offhand, and Max could imagine what Ellie had told them. He left affectionate messages and rang off.
    Hamburg tomorrow. His wife and children, the disapproval of Tim, the good family man—he’d forgotten them as he put the phone down. The tension in his stomach kept him awake; when he dozed images chased through his uneasy sleep. The crippled old man in the chair, Minna Walther by the window in the Crillon with the sunlight on her face, the crack of shots in the Chancellory garden that became the gunfire in a Paris street. Janus. A Roman god. A God with two faces. The symbol of Deceit.… At twenty minutes past eleven the next morning, Max Steiner walked through the domestic arrivals gate at Hamburg airport and found Minna Walther waiting for him.
    Curt Andrews arranged to meet the Inspector who had given Max Steiner his list of names and addresses in a restaurant in the Old Tempelhof district for an early lunch. Andrews no longer looked like an American tourist. He wore German casual clothes and when he took his table his accent was South German. He ordered beer and waited for the Inspector to come. There had always been a close liaison between the CIA and the West Berlin police and Intelligence services. His check with the Inspector had produced a surprising reaction. Something of interest had come up, and the Inspector wanted to talk to him urgently. They had arranged to lunch in an inconspicuous place where they could discuss their business without interruption. Or bugs, as Andrews thought cynically. Not even a police station was safe in West Berlin. It was one of the most sensitive areas in the world, penetrated and counter-penetrated by agents of East and West. The policeman was on time; Andrews had arrived early. He liked to look over a rendezvous before he used it.
    He listened quietly while his informant talked. ‘What’s the information on Steiner—any political tie-ups?’
    â€˜Not that we know,’ the Inspector said. ‘When he gave me this list of names I thought, Christ, here we go again, another Nazi scare story. But when he said it was tied in with Walther—then I knew you’d be interested.’
    â€˜We are,’ Andrews said. ‘That’s why I’m here. We want to know who killed him and why. So does Steiner, if he was telling the truth. It won’t be hard to check. But this list of names—how do you figure them?’
    â€˜I don’t,’ the policeman said. ‘But they all have one common denominator. They’re all people who were in the Bunker when Hitler died. Except for Kramer, the industrialist.’
    Andrews lit a pipe. ‘So it looks as if the snow-white knight Walther had some Nazi connections after all? My Director never believed in him.’
    â€˜It could be anti-Nazi,’ the Inspector suggested. ‘We have a theory that he was murdered by the extreme right. It could be he had started to get close to something certain people mightn’t like discovered. He had a lot of political enemies with his pro-East attitude.’
    â€˜And German reunification,’