The taxi driver just stood at the edge of the crowd. An experienced KGB case officer, he'd seen operations go bad before, but this was... absurd. There was always something new that could ruin an operation, so often the most simple, most foolish thing. This proud Spetznaz commando, cut down by a middle-aged Frenchwoman driving a sedan! Why hadn't he looked at the damned traffic? I should have gotten someone else to fetch the envelope, and screw the damned orders. Security, he swore behind an impassive face. Orders from Moscow Center: minimum personnel involvement. He walked back across the street to his cab, wondering how he'd explain this to his control. Mistakes were never the Center's fault.
The ambulance arrived next. The sergeant removed the victim's wallet from his pants. The victim was one Siegfried Baum-wonderful, the lieutenant thought, a Jew-from the Altona district of Hamburg. The driver of the car was French. He decided he had to ride in to the hospital with the victim. An "international" accident: there'd be extra paperwork on this. The lieutenant wished he'd stayed in the Gasthaus across the street and finished his after lunch pilsener. So much for devotion to duty. Then there was his possible mobilization to worry about...
The ambulance crew worked quickly. A cervical collar was fitted around the victim's neck, and a backboard brought in before they rolled him over onto the stretcher. The broken lower legs were immobilized with cardboard splints. The paramedic clucked over them. Both ankles looked to be badly crushed. The whole procedure took six minutes by the lieutenant's watch, and he boarded the ambulance, leaving three police officers to manage the rest of the incident and clear the accident scene.
"How bad is he?"
"Probably fractured his skull. He has lost a lot of blood. What happened?"
"Walked out into traffic without watching."
"Idiot," the paramedic commented. "As if we don't have work enough."
"Will he live?"
"Depends on the head injury." The ambulanceman shrugged. "The surgeons will be working on him within the hour. You know his name? I have a form to fill out."
"Baum, Siegfried. Kaiserstrasse 17, Altona District, Hamburg."
"Well, he'll be in the hospital in four minutes." The paramedic took his pulse and made a notation. "Doesn't look Jewish."
"Be careful saying things like that," the lieutenant cautioned.
"My wife is Jewish. His blood pressure is dropping rapidly." The ambulanceman debated starting an IV, but decided against it. Better to let the surgeons make that decision.
"Hans, have you radioed in?"
"Ja, they know what to expect," the driver replied. "Isn't Ziegler on duty today?"
"I hope so."
The driver horsed the ambulance into a hard left turn, and all the while the two-tone siren cleared traffic ahead of them. One minute later he halted the Mercedes and backed it into the emergency receiving area. A doctor and two orderlies were already waiting.
German hospitals are nothing if not efficient. Within ten minutes the victim, now a patient, had been intubated to protect his airway, punctured for a unit of O-positive blood and a bottle of IV fluids, and wheeled up to neurosurgery for immediate surgery at the hands of Professor Anton Ziegler. The lieutenant had to stay in the emergency room with the registrar.
"So who was he?" the young doctor asked. The policeman gave the information over.
"A German?"
"Does that seem strange?" the lieutenant asked.
"Well, when the radio call came in, and said you were coming also, I assumed that this was, well, sensitive, as though a foreigner were injured."
"The auto was driven by a Frenchwoman."
"Ach, that explains it. I thought he was the foreigner."
"Why so?"
"His dental work. I noticed when I intubated him. He has a number of cavities, and they've been repaired with stainless steel-sloppy work."
"Perhaps he originally comes from the East Zone," the lieutenant observed. The registrar snorted.
No German ever did that work! A carpenter could do better." The doctor filled out the admission form rapidly.
"What are you telling me?"
"He has poor dental work. Strange. He is very fit. Dressed well. Jewish. But he has miserable dental work." The doctor sat down. "We see many strange things, of course."
"Where are his personal effects?" The lieutenant was a naturally curious type, one reason he'd become a policeman after his service in the Bundeswehr. The doctor walked the officer to a room where the personal effects were inventoried for secure storage by a hospital employee.
They found the clothing neatly arranged, with the jacket and shirt separate so that their bloodstains would not damage anything else. Pocket change, a set of keys, and a large envelope were set aside for cataloging. The orderly was filling out a form, looking up to list exactly what had come in with the patient.
