by Iles, Greg
“Pieter,” Horn said softly.
The tall Afrikaner stepped over to an electronic console and flipped a switch. An alarm buzzer sounded briefly; then, with a sucking sound, the centre door opened a fraction of an inch. A sickly orange-yellow light dribbled out of the crack. Smuts slipped a hand inside and pulled. When the door opened completely, the Libyan physicist gasped.
“Go ahead, Doctor,” said Horn with a slight smile, “have a look.”
Sabri looked shaken. “You don’t store the weapon in halves?”
“It’s quite safe,” Horn assured him. “The core has been temporarily removed. The weapon can be disassembled with the tools beside it. You may verify the soundness of the design at your leisure.”
Dr Sabri stepped gingerly into the storage chamber and tiptoed around the weapon. The blunt-nosed cylinder stood menacingly on its tail fins like a blasphemous icon. Painted a gleaming black, the bomb bore a single marking, emblazoned on one of its fins: a rising Phoenix. The bird’s head was turned in profile, its sharp, break screeching, its single fierce eye wide, its talons engulfed by red flames. Sabri’s left hand caressed the cool metal of the bomb chassis like a woman’s thigh.
Horn watched the Libyans with thinly veiled curiosity. Prime Minister Jalloud stood well back from the vault, his eyes on the physicist. His interpreter did the same. Major Karami stood rigid, his black eyes fixed unwaveringly on the upended weapon. “Where is the core?” he asked hoarsely.
“The fissile material,” Horn replied, “in this case plutonium 239—lies in a lead vault below our feet.”
“We must see it.”
“I’m afraid you can’t actually see it, Major, not without more safeguards than are available in this room. But you can see its effects.” Horn waved his right hand.
Smuts pressed another button on the console. Instantly a section of the metal floor to the left of the storage chamber whirred out of sight. Beneath it lay a lead-lined vault containing a wooden pallet stacked with orange fifty-five-gallon drums.
“The plutonium is in those drums?” Jalloud asked, instinctively stepping back from the gaping vault.
“They’re lined with concrete,” Horn explained. “We’re perfectly safe. For a short time, anyway. Look while you can. Those drums contain enough plutonium to turn the State of Israel into a smoking cinder.”
While the Arabs made approving noises, Smuts took a small metal box from a nearby shelf. The box had a long cable dangling from it with some type of sensor on the end. When Horn explained that the machine was a portable radiation detector, Dr Sabri came out of the chamber and followed Smuts to the edge of the vault. He watched the Afrikaner lower the sensor until it hung just above the row of drums. Most modern radiation detectors emit no sound, but Smuts’s “Geiger counter” began to crackle like an untuned radio dial. All of the Libyans but Sabri drew back in terror. While the interpreter held both hands protectively over his genitals, the physicist leaned over to read the instrument.
Major Karami asked, “How can we be sure the drums contain plutonium?”
Horn shrugged. “I have no motive to deceive you. Have I asked you for any money?”
“You are a rich man,” Karami pointed out. “Perhaps your only goal is to make our country look foolish in the eyes of the world. In the eyes of the Zionists.”
“Silence, Ilyas!” Prime Minister Jalloud commanded.
Horn smiled knowingly. “My intentions regarding the jews are identical to your own, Major. You can be sure of that.”
Karami looked sceptical. He turned to Dr Sabri and spoke rapidly in Arabic. “Could not spent reactor fuel produce this reaction? Couldn’t the instrument be tampered with to produce any desired reading?”
Already protective of his new toy, Sabri spoke defensively. “Spent fuel alone would not produce the reaction you see, Major. The drums contain plutonium.”
“You sound very sure of yourself for an inexperienced young man.”
“I am the most experienced man you will find in our country!”
“Yes, yes, we know that,” Prime Minister Jalloud said, switching back to English. “Why don’t we close the vault now?”
Horn nodded. Smuts pressed the button that hydraulically moved the lead-lined cover back into place. Angered by Major Karami’s scepticism, Dr Sabri returned to the bomb chamber. In a few seconds he had the weapon open for inspection. His eyes glinted like those of a boy over his first electric train. Major Karami, however, looked far from satisfied.
“I understand your scepticism, Major,” Alfred Horn said. “And under the circumstances, perhaps you deserve more assurance of my motives than my word alone.”
Pieter Smuts shifted uneasily. “If you gentlemen will join Dr Sabri,’ Horn went on, “I believe I can satisfy all doubts as to my motives regarding the Jews.”
Major Karami stepped quickly into the yellow-lit chamber. Jalloud and his interpreter reluctantly followed him inside, where they formed a respectful half-circle around the bomb. Smuts leaned down and whispered into Horn’s ear, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Nonsense,” Horn said. He buzzed his wheelchair up to the door of the chamber. “The time for secrecy is past. Remove the decal, Pieter.”
With a sigh of frustration the Afrikaner flipped a wall switch, flooding the storage chamber with fluorescent white light. Then he shouldered past the Libyans and knelt beside the upended weapon. Taking a penknife from his pocket, he unfolded a short blade and began to scrape lightly beneath the flames of the painted Phoenix. Soon he had pried up a triangle of black polyurethane. He put the knife back into his pocket, then took the curled edge between his thumb and forefinger and pulled with a gentle, steady pressure. There was a soft, adhesive ripping sound as the black decal tore away from the metal fin.
Prime Minister Jalloud gasped.
“Allah protect us,” whispered the interpreter.
Dr Sabri stared in mute wonder.
But Major Karami smiled with wolfish glee. For hidden beneath the black polyurethane decal was Alfred Horn’s true Phoenix design—a blood red planet Earth clutched in the flaming talons of the Phoenix. And, spanning the red globe, a curved black swastika. Karami’s sigh of satisfaction told Horn that his revelation had produced its desired effect.
Horn smiled. “It will take the doctor a half hour at least to complete his inspection. Why don’t we go upstairs and wait in more comfortable surroundings? Smuts will stay until he has finished.”
“An … an excellent idea,” Jalloud stammered.
Jumah the interpreter stumbled out of the chamber, his face ashen. He and Prime Minister Jalloud followed Horn’s wheelchair to the elevator at the far end of the basement lab. But Major Karami lingered behind. At the elevator Jalloud turned and watched him. Still only halfway to the elevator, the stubborn major stood staring back down the length of the lab to the vault where Sabri—under the watchful gaze of Pieter Smuts—toiled over his deadly prize.
Horn called, “More questions, Major?”
Karami turned and walked toward the elevator. “What is behind the other two doors? More bombs?”
Horn’s smile faded. “No. I keep only one weapon here. They’re too dangerous.”
“More dangerous than raw plutonium?” Karami stepped into the elevator.
Horn smiled thinly. “Far more dangerous. There is always the chance that some unscrupulous individual or nation might attempt to steal them.”
The elevator closed with a hydraulic hiss.
“I’m sure this house is well protected,” Karami baited.
“Did you see any security on your way in?” Horn asked gamely.
Karami’s eardrums registered a painful relief of pressure as the elevator rocketed toward the surface. He had already noted the lack of security with great satisfaction. “No, I didn’t.”
“It’s there, Major. Smuts is the best in his field.”
“And what is his field, Herr Horn? Personal security?”
The old man smile
d. “I believe the English term is ‘asset protection’.”
“Translate,” Karami commanded. When the prime minister’s interpreter obliged, Karami said, “Ah. Was he a soldier, then, this Smuts? Where did he train?”
Horn folded his spotted hands in his lap. “He served in the South African army as a young man. But he has a varied background. By the time I found him, he’d fought all over Africa.”
The elevator opened on the ground floor.
“And who trained him in this ‘asset protection’, as you call it?” Karami asked. “The South African Army?”
“I did,” Horn said tersely, rolling into the spacious reception hall. “I—”
“With all due respect,” Karami called, who trained you?”
Horn sopped his wheelchair and whirled to face the Libyan. “The German Army,” he said quietly.
The Arab’s eyelids fell, hooding the yellow sclera of his eyes.
“More questions?” Horn challenged.
Fearing a deal-breaking dispute, Prime Minister Jalloud stepped between the two men. “The major has a great curiosity, Herr Horn. He’s known as a zealous military historian in our country.”
Karami ignored him. “You must have fought in the Second World War, Herr Horn. Were you SS?”
Horn spat contemptuously on the marble floor. “I said the army, Major, not Himmler’s lapdogs. The Wehrmacht was my home!” Horn had taken all he intended to from this arrogant Bedouin. “Listen to me, Arab. In 1941 the mufti of Jerusalem went to Berlin to beg the Führer’s help in destroying the Jews of Palestine. The Führer generously armed the Arabs,”—Horn stabbed a finger at Karami—“yet still your fathers could not push the Jews into the sea! I hope you do better this time!”
Major Karami shook with rage, but Horn simply turned his wheelchair away and whirred off down a long corridor. Jalloud shot Karami an angry glance. “Fool! What are you trying to do?”
“Just testing the old lion’s claws, Jalloud. Calm yourself.”
“Calm myself?” The prime minister caught hold of Karami’s robe. “If you wreck this negotiation, Qaddafi will have your head on a spike! And mine with it!”
Karami easily pulled his arm free. “If you had half the cunning of a rug peddler, Jalloud, you’d see that this old Nazi needs us as much as we need him. Probably more.”
Karami reached out and laid his forefinger lightly on Jalloud’s cheek. “When our business is done,” he vowed, “I will gut that old man for his insult.”
Jalloud stared at Karami with horror, but the major only smiled.
“Hurry!” the interpreter whispered. “He’s already around the corner!”
“Let us go, my friend,” Karami said pleasantly. “We’ll see what else our host has to offer us.”
He started down the hall. Jalloud followed slowly. He didn’t know exactly what the second-in-command of the Libyan People’s Army had in mind, but he knew already that he didn’t like it. He also knew that the fanatical, impulsive dictator who still held the reins of power in Tripoli would probably love it. “Allah protect us,” he murmured, hurrying after the receding figure of Karami. “From ourselves, if no one else.”
Ilse Apfel opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling of her bedroom prison cell. How did I get here? she wondered. As she lay there, trying to gather her thoughts, a key scratched in the door. Ilse sat up slowly, her eyes on the knob. It turned slowly; then the door burst open. Robert Stanton stood there wobbling, with two crystal goblets in one hand and a bottle of cognac in the other. The Englishman smiled crookedly.
“Guten Abend, Fraulein!” he bellowed.
While Ilse stared, he stepped in, closed the door, and propped himself haughtily against it.
“Get out of my room,” she said forcefully.
“Now, now, Fraulein, let’s just relax and have a sip of something nice, shall we?”
“I’ll scream,” Ilse threatened, though she knew it sounded ridiculous.
“Wonderfully solid house, this,” Stanton said, grinning. “Damned near soundproof, I should think.”
Ilse summoned her coldest voice. “If you touch me, Herr Horn will make you pay.”
Stanton raised an eyebrow. “The old goat’s taken quite a fancy to you, it’s true. But he’s terribly busy just now, hobnobbing with the Great Unwashed. He doesn’t have time for domestic squabbles. So, it’s up to us to have a good time while the business gets done.” Stanton poured two brimming glasses of Remy Martin VSOP, spilling as much again on the floor.
The mention of the Arabs brought the earlier meeting back in a rush. “Business?” Ilse echoed. “You’re aware of what he’s doing, and you call it business? Aren’t you an Englishman, for God’s sake?”
“The genuine article,” Stanton said with a mock bow. “I told you, my blood’s nearly as blue as the queen’s.”
“Then why don’t you try to stop him?”
Stanton shrugged. “What’s the point? Alfred stopped listening to me long ago. Although what he thinks he can get from those flea-ridden Arabs, I haven’t the slightest idea. Poppies, I suppose. Very old hat. He certainly can’t sell them anything—they’ve got their own sources of supply in the trade, haven’t they? Rather like trying to sell them oil, what? Now, come here and give us a kiss.”
“My God,” Ilse whispered. “You don’t even know what he’s doing! What he’s selling!”
Stanton lurched forward, sloshing cognac onto her bed. “I don’t care if he’s selling the bloody crown jewels, love. I’m well out of it now and … darling, you make quite a dish in those natty secretary’s clothes. Makes one quite anxious to see what you look like out of them.”
Leering through a haze of alcohol, Stanton set the bottle on the bedside table, drained his glass and smashed it against the door with a flourish.
Ilse struggled to stay calm. “Lord Grenville,” she said evenly, “you’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re doing. Herr Horn will have you killed if you do this. Don’t you know that?”
Stanton laughed raucously, then his face grew deadly serious. “I advise you to choose your allies with care,” he said, wagging a finger in her face. “Very soon dear Alfred may no longer be in a position to have anyone killed.”
Ilse thought swiftly. She was afraid, but not in the way she had been on the X-ray table. This babbling Englishman was no Pieter Smuts. “All right, then,” she said. “I suppose there’s nothing I can do.”
As Stanton watched, fascinated, Ilse lifted the bottle of Remy Martin and swigged from the mouth of the bottle. She let some of the brandy dribble down her chin, her eyes fixed on Stanton’s. “Lock the door,” she said. “I don’t want to be interrupted.”
With an astonished gape Stanton turned around and lurched toward the door. The half-full bottle of Remy Martin crashed against the base of his skull like a glass avalanche. He staggered and fell to the floor. Ilse rifled his pockets and found the key he’d used to enter her room. Praying he didn’t have access to any others, she flung the bedroom door wide, dragged his unconscious body into the hall, then jumped back into her room and slammed the door. She tried to lock it with the key, but it didn’t seem to fit. She cursed as the useless metal bent in the lock. Either she’d taken the wrong key from Stanton, or the proper key only worked from the outside.
She thought of opening the door and searching him again, but she had lost her nerve. Her entire body was shaking. Ilse lurched into the bathroom and locked it with the flimsy door latch.
“Please hurry, Hans,” she murmured. “God, please hurry.”
7.55 p.m. Burgerspark Hotel, Pretoria
When Hans Apfel walked into the lobby of the Burgerspark, Yosef Shamir felt his heart thump with excitement. Hans looked neither left nor right as he walked, but marched straight across to the elevators set in the far wall. Yosef lifted the walkie-talkie that connected him to Stern’s room on the eighth floor. “Apfel has arrived,” he said. “He’s going for the elevators.”
“Any sign of Hauer?” asked Gadi
Abrams.
“No. Should I wait?”
A pause. “No. Get up to Natterman’s room.”
Yosef scurried to a second elevator. Just as he stepped inside, he glimpsed the broad back of a man wearing a dark business suit disappearing through the fire stairs door. “I think Hauer’s here,” he said as the elevator doors closed. “He’s coming up the stairs.”
“Acknowledged,” Gadi replied. “Get the professor ready to move.”
Dieter Hauer crashed through the third floor fire door and hit the up elevator button. The stairs were taking too long, and if anything rough was going to happen in suite 811, he didn’t want to be too late or too exhausted to participate. After a brief wait, he darted into an empty elevator and punched 8. The car whooshed up the remaining floors in seconds. It took Hauer a moment to get his bearings, but within fifteen seconds he was knocking on the door of suite 811. Hans opened the door after scrutinizing him through the fisheye peephole. “See anyone?”
Hauer stepped into the suite. “No, but I went through the lobby pretty fast.”
“The room’s empty,” Hans informed him. “Do you think they’ll call, or send somebody up?”
“I think they’ll call.” Hauer glanced at his watch. “In one minute we’ll know for sure.”
Gadi Abrams adjusted the headphones he was wearing and looked up at Jonas Stern. “Hauer’s inside,” he said.
Stern nodded. “Let’s see if anyone shows up.”
The unexpected ring of the telephone in the Israelis’ room startled both Gadi and Stern. Gadi asked sharply, “Who besides our own men knows we’re here?”
Stern tightened his lips. “No one. Except maybe the kidnappers.”
He lifted the receiver. “Yes?”
“Someone’s trying to hit us!” shouted a voice in Hebrew. “The professor’s stark naked!”