Hans saw no deck of cards tonight. Maybe Schmidt thinks his reputation is enough to intimidate me, he thought nervously. And maybe he’s right. Already perspiring, Hans tried to think of a way to beat the little weasel’s machine. Some people had beaten the polygraph by learning to suppress their physiological stress reactions, but Hans knew he had no hope of this. The suppression technique took months to master, and right now he could barely hold himself in his chair.
He did have one hope, if he could keep a cool head: picking out the “control” questions. Most people thought questions like “Is this pen red?” were the controls. But Hans knew better. The real control questions were ones which would cause almost anyone asked them to lie. “Have you ever failed to report income on your federal tax return?” was a common control. Most people denied this almost universal crime, and by doing so provided Schmidt with their baseline “lie.” Later, when asked, “Did you cut your wife’s throat with a kitchen knife?” a guilty person’s lie would register far stronger than his baseline or “control” reference. Questions like “Is this pen red?” were asked simply to give a person’s vital signs time to return to normal between the relevant questions.
Hans knew if he could produce a strong enough emotional response to a control question, then an actual lie would appear no different to the polygraph than his faked control responses. Schmidt would be forced to declare him “innocent.” The best method to do this was to hide a thumbtack in your shoe, but Hans knew that an exaggerated response could also be triggered by holding your breath or biting your tongue. He decided to worry about method later. If he couldn’t pick out the control questions, method wouldn’t matter.
Schmidt’s voice jolted him back to reality.
“Sergeant Apfel, prior to discharging your Spandau assignment, did you communicate with any person other than the duty sergeant regarding that assignment?”
“No,” Hans replied. That was true. He hadn’t had time to discuss it with anyone.
“Is Captain Hauer a married man?”
Irrelevant question, Hans thought bitterly. To anyone except me. “No,” he answered.
Schmidt looked down at the notepad from which he chose his questions. “Have you ever stopped a friend or public official for a traffic violation and let them go without issuing a citation?”
Control question, Hans thought. Almost any cop who denied this would be lying. Keeping a straight face, he bit down on the tip of his tongue hard enough to draw blood. He felt a brief flush of perspiration pass through his skin. “No,” he said.
When Schmidt glanced up from the polygraph, Hans knew he had produced an exaggerated response. “Am I holding up two fingers?” Schmidt asked.
Irrelevant, thought Hans. “Yes,” he answered truthfully.
Schmidt came a step closer. “Sergeant Apfel, you’ve made several arrests for drug possession in the past year. Have you ever failed to turn the entire quantity of confiscated drugs over to the evidence officer?”
Control ques—Hans started to bite his tongue again; then he hesitated. If this was a control question, Schmidt had upped the stakes of the game. Giving an exaggerated response here would not be without serious consequences. Police corruption involving drugs was an epidemic problem, with accordingly severe punishment for those caught. The men at the table gave no indication that they saw this question as anything but routine, but Hans thought he detected a feral gleam in Schmidt’s eyes. The dirty little man knew his business.
“Sergeant?” Schmidt prodded.
Hans fidgeted. He did not want to appear guilty of a drug crime, but the Spandau questions still awaited. If he intended to keep the papers secret, he would have to give at least a partially exaggerated response to this question. In silent desperation he held his breath, counted to four, then answered, “No,” and exhaled slowly.
“Is your wife’s maiden name Natterman, Sergeant?”
Irrelevant. “Yes,” Hans replied.
Schmidt wiped his upper lip. “Were you the last man to arrive at the scene of the argument over custody of the trespassers at Spandau Prison?”
Relevant question. Hans glanced up at the panel. All eyes were on him now. Stay calm … “I don’t remember,” he said. “Things were so confused then. I really didn’t notice.”
“Yes or no, Sergeant!”
“I suppose I could have been.”
Exasperated, Schmidt looked to Funk for guidance. The prefect fixed Hans with his imperious stare. “Sergeant,” he said curtly, “one of your fellow officers told us you were the last man there. Would you care to answer the question again?”
“I’m sorry,” Hans said sheepishly, “I just don’t remember.” He looked at the floor. The Russian soldier who had caught him in the rubble pile could call him a liar right now, he knew, but for some reason the man hadn’t spoken up. Funk appeared satisfied with Hans’s answer, and told Schmidt to move along. There can’t be many more questions, Hans thought. Just a little longer—
“Sergeant Apfel?” Schmidt’s voice cut like slivers of glass. “Did you remove any documents from a hollow brick in the area of the cellblocks last occupied by the Nuremberg war criminals?”
Holy Mother of God! Hans choked down a scream. Every eye in the room burned upon his face. For the first time Hauer’s steely mask cracked. His probing eyes fixed Hans motionless in his chair, stripping away the pathetic layers of deception. But it was too late to come clean.
“No,” Hans said lamely.
“Specifically,” Schmidt bored in, “did you discover, remove, see, or even hear of documents pertaining to or written by Prisoner Number Seven—Rudolf Hess?”
Hans felt cold sweat running down his spine. His heart became an enemy within his chest, thumping out the tattoo of his guilt. And there stood Schmidt, lie-hungry, watching each centimeter of paper unspool from his precious machine. Looking at him now, Hans fancied he saw a mad doctor reading an electrocardiograph, a diabolical quack watching each fateful squiggle in the hope of witnessing a fatal heart attack. Hans felt his willpower ebbing away. The truth welled up in his throat, beyond his control. Just tell the truth, urged a voice in his head, tell it all and take whatever consequences come. Then this insanity will focus elsewhere. Yet as Hans started to do just that, Schmidt said:
“Sergeant, have you ever omitted an important piece of information from a job application?”
Hans felt like a spacewalker cut loose from his tether. Schmidt had asked another control question! Hadn’t he? But why hadn’t he triumphantly proclaimed Hans’s guilt to the tribunal? Hans had expected the little demon to dance a jig and scream: Him! Him! There is the liar!
“No—no, I haven’t,” Hans stammered.
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
While Hans sat stunned, Schmidt turned to Funk and shook his head. The prefect closed the file before him, then turned to the Soviet colonels and shrugged. “Any questions?” he asked.
The Russians looked like sleeping bears. When one finally shook his head to indicate the negative, the gesture seemed the result of a massive effort. Hans even sensed the soldiers in the back of the room relaxing. Only Captain Hauer and Lieutenant Luhr remained tense. For some reason it struck Hans just then that Jürgen Luhr was the kind of German who made Jews nervous. He was a racial type—the proto-Germanic man, tall