Spandau Phoenix (91 page)

Hauer's throat went dry as Stern proceeded to describe in detail the most sensitive protocol of the secret nuclear agreements between the Republic of South Africa and the State of Israel. "Is that true?"

he asked, when Stern had finished.

"Captain, with that information you will be able to blackmail General Steyn into giving you anything you want."

"Or force him to shoot me."

"No. To avoid that, leave Yosef behind at the hotel. Tell General Steyn that if you don't check in with Yosef by telephone at prearranged times, he will forward the details of Plan Aliyah Beth to the Western press."

Hauer sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, Stern. Yosef is dead.

And Professor Natterman is wounded. Some Russians found us.

We've got corpses piled in the bathroom like firewood."

"Leave Aaron at the hotel instead," Stern said tersely.

"The Russians also got hold of our photos of the Spandau papers," Hauer confessed.

"You thick-headed Kraut!" Stern exploded. "Those rags mean nothing now! You just get those troops out here!"

Hauer forced down his anger. "Listen, Stern, South African Intelligence isn't going to give in to blackmail no matter what I threaten them with.

German Intelligence wouldn't."

"You must force them to. I've given you the leverage. But be careful.

Horn didn't gain access to a nuclear weapon by playing recluse up in the Transvaal. He's probably a key figure in their defense industries.

Trust only General Steyn. His loyalty to Israel is beyond dispute.

Anyone else, God only knows."

"Great."

"Oh, a tactical tip for you, Captain. There's some type Dr rotary cannon on the roof here, and there could be any number of other surprises as well. Bring enough firepower to flatten this place if you have to. Now, could I speak to Gadi for a moment?"

Hauer handed over the receiver.

"Yes, Uncle?"

"Listen to me, Gadi. Captain Hauer is going to give you my instructions. I want ypu to listen to him as if he were me.

Do you understand? On this mission Hauer will be in command."

Gadi clenched the phone tighter.

"I know it @on't be easy taking orders from a German, but I believe Hauer is the man to carry this through."

Gadi ground his teeth. "I understand, Uncle."

"Good. Because we are dealing with a nuclear weapon here, Gadi, possibly more than one. And it is targeted at Israel.

At Tel Aviv, maybe Jerusalem."

Gadi felt his face grow hot.

"The other crazy thing you heard is also true. Rudolf Hess is alive. If there is any way possible, I mean to get him away from here and take him back to Israel for trial. But if I can't-or if for any reason you and Hauer cannot raise enough force to take this house-I will locate the weapon and try to detonate it."

Gadi felt his heart stop. "No, Uncle-"

"I'll have no choice, Gadi. Anything could happen before you get here.

If you get here at all. It's like the Osiraq reactor in Iraq, only a hundred times worse.

Do you understand?"

Gadi wiped the sweat from his forehead. "God in Heaven."

"Once you get within a few miles of here, you and every man with you will be within the blast radius."

"No one else will know," Gadi said in Hebrew.

"Good boy. There's one more thing. Once you learn the exact coordinates of Horn House, I want you to call Tel Aviv and ask for Major-General Gur. Explain the situation, give him the coordinates, then say 'Revelation.' That's the IAF crisis code for imminent nuclear emergency. I doubt Jerusalem would give clearance for a raid here, but it's worth a tiy.

If we fail, perhaps the air force will make an attempt. Now, Gadi, I must go. It's time to become the professor again. I hope to see you soon, my boy. Shalom."

Gadi swallowed. "Shalom, Uncle."

Stern disconnected.

Hauer stared suspiciously at Gadi for a few moments, but he decided not to press. He shoved his Walther into his belt.

"Let's go blackmail some spies," he said.

Separated from Jonas Stern by one thin wall, Lieutenant Jiirgen Luhr held the silent telephone to his ear. Luhr had been unable to sleep after the exhilaration of the battle, and his wanderings through Horn House had eventually led him to Alfred Horn's study. He'd been standing by the shattered picture window through which Ilse had blasted Lord Grenville when he saw a yellow light flashing on Horn's desk.

Hesitating but a moment, he had lifted the receiver and over heard the final few seconds of Stern's conversation with Gadi.

Now he stood still as stone, trying to comprehend what he had heard. It seemed impossible. Apparently Professor Natterman-or the Jew claiming to be Professor Natterman!-had made a call from somewhere inside this house.

But to whom? From the little he'd heard, Luhr could not be sure.

He would have suspected Dieter Hauer, but he'd heard the swine on the other end of the phone speak Hebrew, and Hauer wasn't a Jew. Luhr was sure of one thing. Alfred Horn and his Afrikaner security chief would be very grateful to the man who informed them not only that they had a Zionist spy in their midst, but that they might soon be the target of an Israeli air strike! With his pulse racing, Luhr dashed into the hall to rouse the house.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

520 A.iw. Horn House They came for Jonas Stern as the Gestapo had come for his father in Germany. Four heavy-booted soldiers burst through the door with pistols drawn and snapped on the overhead light, shouting at the top of their lungs: "Up JUdin! Up!

Schnell!

The sudden light blinded Stern, for he had been lying fully clothed in the darkness. He leaped from the bed with his broken fork raised, but the click of pistol slides made him freeze where he stood. There was only one explanation for this. The worst had happened. Somehow, on the same night he had discovered that Alfred Horn was not who he pretended to be, Alfred Horn had discovered the same thing about him.

Powerful hands seized Stern's arms and lifted him off his feet.

The soldiers-their khaki uniforms now replaced by Wehrmacht gray-frog-marched him into the corridor and hustled him along at the double. When Stern glanced up, he saw the cold black eye of a pistol barrel. Above it hovered the face of Pieter Smuts.

"Where are you taking me?" asked Stern.

"Where do you think, Jew?" the Afrikaner jeered, walking backward. "To see the Fuhrer!"

Stern stared across the mahogany desk with a lump in his, throat.

Ghostlike and gray, the old man who called himself @

I r

Alfred Horn sat hunched in his wheelchair, an expression of bemusement on his deeply lined face. As Stern stared, he felt a sudden stab of doubt. Concealed in his shirt were the@ X-rays that he believed would prove beyond doubt that' Alfred Horn was Rudolf Hess. And yet ... the old man sitting across from him no longer looked quite as he had before.

Now, instead of a glass eye, Horn wore an eyepatch.

All Stern could think of was Zinoviev's description of Helmut Steuer: Helmut had worn an eyepatch. Had Helmut Steuer survived his mission after all? Was Rudolf Hess really dead? Had Helmut somehow managed to hunt down Hess's X-rays to conceal the truth? Or had both men survived?

Could it be that Hess had lived for a time as Alfred Horn, and then, after he died, Helmut had quite naturally taken over the false identity?

Whatever his true identity, the old man across from Stern was not wearing the plain khaki uniform Rudolf Hess had worn as Deputy Fuhrer of the Reich. He was wearing a gray suit jacket much like the one Adolf Hitler had worn as Supreme Commander of German Armed Forces. And suspended around his neck was the Grand Cross-Nazi Germany's highest military award. To Stern's knowledge, Rudolf Hess had never won that decoration.

Pieter Smuts stood rigid behind his master, eyes smoldering, mouth set in a grim line. Above him reared the bronze Phoenix; directly behind, the maps from which Stern had copied the coordinates he'd given Hauer.'Stern sensed the soldiers standing behind him.

"We seem to have a problem of mistaken identity," Horn said. "Would you care to enlighten us, Herr Professor?"

Stern stood still as a pillar of salt.

Smuts 'nodded. One of the soldiers behind Stern smashed a savage fist into his right kidney. Stern crumpled, but managed to stay on his feet.

As he straightened up, the two X-rays he had stolen from the medical unit made a crackling sound. Smuts came around the desk, ripped Stern's shirt open and jerked out the films. He handed them to Horn; who held them up to his desk lamp and clucked his tongue softly.

"You're a clever little rat, aren't you?" he growled. "Herr Stern?"

Stern struggled to hold his face immobile as his brain raced to adapt to the changing situation. If Horn knew his name, that meant that either Ilse had been made to talk, or Hauer and Gadi had been captured.

Stern prayed it was the former. "I'd say we have two cases of mistaken identity," he said coolly.

Smuts signaled for another kidney blow, but Horn raised a peremptory hand. "I think you know who I am," he said, his watery eye twinkling.

"Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess, I suppose?"

"That title is long out of date. After the Fuhrer died, his responsibilities passed to me."

"You've pinched his uniform and decorations, at any rate," Stern needled. "I thought the dubious honor of the Nazi succession passed to Hermann Goring."

Hess colored. Another vicious blow hammered Stern's left kidney, driving him to his, knees "The Reichsmarschall is also dead," Hess said testily.

"And the Grand Cross was awarded to me by the Fuhrer himself.

Secretly, of course."

Stern looked up at the old man and stared into the single furtive eye.

"If you are Hess," he said, "what happened to Helmut Steuer?"

"Helmut died a hero's death in 1941. He was a German patriot of the highest order, and I immortalized his efforts by awarding him the Knight's Cross."

"And the tattoo? The single eye?"

Hess shrugged. "I needed a symbol. I couldn't risk telling my associates my true identity. I wanted a mystical sign that would signify their bond to me and to each other. I remembered the All-Seeing Eye from my childhood in Egypt."

Hess touched his eyepatch. "It certainly seemed appropriate.

As did the Phoenix."

All just as Professor Natterman guessed. "How did you lose the eye?"

Stern asked.

Hess grimaced. "A British bullet. I had no access to a doctor until it was too late." The old man jerked his finger away from his face. "This is ancient history! I want to know what you hoped to accomplish by your ridiculous deception, Jew. Other than suicide, of course."

Stern stared back with cold assurance. "I have come to take you back to Israel to stand trial'for the crimes you escaped at Nuremberg-the crimes for which your double served a life sentence in Spandau Prison."

Hess's laugh was hoarse and hollow, but frightening all the same.

"You should see a psychiatrist, Herr Stern. You suffer from serious delusions of the paranoid type. I will arrange for my personal physician to visit you."

Stern waved his arm, taking in the Nazi regalia that covered the walls.

"You're the one who's mad. If you believe you're going to raise some kind of Fourth Reich in Germany, you're hopelessly senile."

Hess's eye brightened. "Is that what you think I want? A Fourth Reich in Germany? I'm afraid the only people with whom you share that fantasy are paranoid Russians and writers of pulp fiction." He glanced at Smuts. "Perhaps a few German policemen," he added.

"What is it then? I'm sure you have some master plan for German world domination."

Hess smiled. "Do you really think I need one? The postwar world has evolved along the very lines the Fuhrer predicted. Germany-even when divided-is the most powerful nation in Europe. America has assumed Britain's imperial mantle and rules the seas in her stead.

Japan rules the Pacific and a lot more besides. Which brings us to the Soviet Union.

How far are we, really, from seeing Russia as an economic colony of Greater Germany? The Soviet economy is almost as weak now as it was just prior to the 1917 Revolution.

How long before it explodes? When that explosion comes, it will be Germany who rebuilds the country. We'll trade cash for raw materials and gain access to the enormous markets that will be opened there. The final step toward economic hegemony over Europe. We already hold the purse strings to half the American national debt, and our power and influence grow stronger every day. Reunification is inevitable."

"Then why destroy Israel?"

Hess scratched beneath the black eyepatch. "For the most pragmatic of reasons, I assure you. In a way, I almost regret having to do it.

Sometimes I think you Jews learned more from the Fuhrer than anyone.

Have you ever seen Israeli soldiers at the Wailing Wall, Herr Stern?

Praying in formation?

It is a sight worth seeing. The Israelis have become the new Germans!