Meanwhile, other cops were already gathering boxes of photo files to take over to the State Hospital for Sergeant Willig to look at when he came out of surgery. And after a while, I said, “You know, that’s going to take a while. I mean, before he’s conscious again. By then the killers will be out of the city. Maybe on their way to Moscow.”

“Got a better idea?”

“I might. Look, sir, instead of showing Sergeant Willig a picture of every Red who’s ever been arrested in this city, let’s just pull a few.”

“Like who? There are hundreds of these bastards.”

“The chances are the attack was probably orchestrated from K.L. House,” I said. “So how about we pull the records of just seventy-six Reds? Because that’s how many Reds were arrested when we raided K.L. last January. Let’s stick to those faces for now.”

“Yes, you’re right,” agreed Heller. He snatched up the telephone. “Get me the State Hospital.” He pointed at another detective. “Get onto IA. Find out who was on that raid. And tell the records boys in ED to find the arrest files and to meet us at the hospital.”

Twenty minutes later we were on our way to the State Hospital in Friedrichshain.

They were just wheeling Willig into the operating theater when we arrived bearing the K.L. House arrest files. The wounded man had already received an injection, but in spite of the opposition of the doctors, who were anxious to operate as quickly as possible, Willig understood immediately the urgency of what was being asked of him. And it took the sergeant no time at all to pick out one of his attackers.

“Him, for sure,” he croaked. “That one pulled the trigger on Captain Anlauf, for sure.”

“Erich Ziemer,” said Heller, and handed me the charge sheet.

“The other one was about the same age and build and coloring as this bastard. They might even have been brothers, they looked so alike. But he’s not here. I’m certain of it.”

“All right,” said Heller. He spoke some words of encouragement to the sergeant before his doctors took the patient away.

“I recognize this man Ziemer,” I said. “Back in May, I saw Ziemer in a car with three other men. They were outside K.L. House, and according to Sergeant Adolf Bauer, who was on patrol in Bülowplatz, one of those others was Heinz Neumann.”

“The Reichstag deputy?”

I nodded.

“And the other two?”

“One of them I don’t know. Perhaps Bauer will remember it.”

“Yes, perhaps.”

He paused expectantly. “And the Red that you do know?”

I told him about the day I had saved the life of Erich Mielke from a troop of SA intent on killing him.

“He was the fourth man in that car. And it’s true what Sergeant Willig says. He looks a lot like Erich Ziemer.”