by Greg Iles
African. General Steyn stared back with the tenacity of a bulldog.
Behind him, his masked soldiers stood with their shotguns at the ready.
"Jaap," Stern said softly. "I simply cannot allow these weapons to fall
into Libyan hands. Not even for an hour.
The risks are simply too great."
General Steyn raised his right hand. The gesture had a distinctly
military quality to it, and it brought an immediate response. Both
South African commandos pointed their shotguns at Stern.
Their futuristic garb gave them the look of hostile aliens, and their
command over the group was total.
Or almost total. At the moment they brought their guns to bear, Gadi
swung the barrel of his assault rifle up from behind Ilse and fired from
the hip.
Ilse screamed.
Gadi's accuracy was startling. Fully aware that the South Africans wore
body armor, he fired two consecutive bursts straight through the black
gas masks, killing both men instantly. General Steyn groped for the
pistol at his belt. Gadi put one round through the general's left
shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him to the floor. Then he
darted back into position behind Stern and pointed his carbine at the
rest of the group.
Dr. Sabri's face had gone white. Smuts was grinning. Ilse was still
screaming, but Stern shouted above her: "Everyone stay calm! He had no
choice!"
"No choice!" Hans cried. "He murdered them!"
General Steyn struggled slowly to his feet, his face flushed with pain
and outrage. Hauer had already relieved him of his pistol. "You will
pay for this, Jonas," he vowed.
"Israel will pay! And you know South Africa can make it pay!"
"Yes," Stern acknowledged. "The problem is, some of you were already
planning to make us pay."
"A few fanatics!" General Steyn spat. "You've gone too far!"
Stern spoke in a monotone. "We are talking about the survival of
Israel, Jaap. If these weapons explode here in the Transvaal, it will
be a disaster, to be sure. But if only one of these bombs were to
explode over Israel, our tiny state would cease to exist, and the entire
world might be sucked into the vortex of war. It's a devil's choice,
but it's that simple. Tragedy versus a worldwide holocaust."
There was a high-pitched cackle from the far wall. "An excellent choice
of words, Jew!" Even in his helpless position, Rudolf Hess wore an
expression of triumph. "A holocaust is exactly what is going to happen!
Just as the Fuhrer planned! Even if you could persuade these cowards to
allow you to detonate the weapons, you don't have the knowledge to do
it. I have won!"
Gadi Abrams pointed his R5 at Hess's face.
"No, Gadi!" Stern cried. "God, I wanted so badly to take him back to
Israel for trial! To see him forced to tell the world his vile story.
To tell what he knows about the British."
"I'll tell you now," Hess coughed. "You'll all be dead within minutes,
anyway. I might as well entertain you while we wait for Major Karami."
"Shut up!" Stern snapped in German. "No one cares anymore!"
"Let him talk," Hauer said. "If we're going to die, I want to know why.
I want to know what this Nazi bastard had planned for Germany."
Hess smiled defiantly. "I think I'll keep that to myself, Captain. But
I will tell you about the British."
Hans stepped forward. "Maybe there is another way out of here, Captain.
Why don't we search the lab?"
Pieter Smuts laughed dryly. "Sorry, Sergeant. One way in, one way out.
That's the best security there is. You're going to die where you
stand."
"You'll die before I do," Hans shot back.
Ilse reached out and squeezed Hans's arm. "I want to hear Hess's story,
Hans. I want to know why an innocent man rotted in Spandau all those
years, and why the Allies kept silent about it. My grandfather came
here to find those answers.
He thought they were very important. I want to learn them, if I can."
Hess signaled for Smuts to set him up straighter. The gesture silenced
everyone in the room. In spite of the Libyan commandos who would soon
hammer through the protective shields above, in spite of the
incomprehensible danger that lay between them all like coals delivered
up from hell, every person in the basement crowded silently around the
old man propped against the steel wall.
"The Jew knows most of it already," Hess rasped. "What he doesn't
know-what nobody knows-is what my part of the mission was. For so long
the furor has focused on my flight to Scotland. The simple truth is
that my flight was only a small part of the plan." Hess's voice gained
strength.
"Our goal was to replace the government of England. No one in England
wanted another war, yet any idiot could see that Churchill would never
make peace with the Fuhrer. So, the answer was simple-get rid of
Churchill. The Americans and the Soviet Union did the same thing many
times after the war.
Coup d'etat is the fashionable term, yes? The Fuhrer was always years
ahead of his time." Hess scratched at a wisp of beard on his chin.
"It makes me laugh now, all that rot about how the valiant British saved
the world from Hitler. Ha! There were dozens of powerful Englishmen
ready to throw Churchill out and put a right-thinking man in Downing
Street. And I don't mean radicals. They were lords and ladies, members
of Parliament, knights of the realm.
They understood that the only,way to stop communism was to ally England
with the Reich. So they tried it! They got word to the Fuhrer that if
Churchill and his gang could be got out, they had men ready to step in.
If the king could be eliminated, they could fill his shoes also. Of
course the Fuhrer agreed immediately. While he made arrangements to
have Churchill and the king liquidated, his English friends prepared to
fill the coming power vacuum. Windsor was to take his younger brother's
place on the throne."
Hess's voice gained strength. "It was to happen on the tenth of May-the
anniversary of our victorious attack on Western Europe. My mission was
simple. The Englishmen behind the coup demanded absolute proof that the
Fuhrer would live up to his end of the bargain-that he would actually
make peace with Britain, cease the terror bombing of London and so
forth." Hess's eyes glazed with lost glory.
"So the Fuhrer asked Rudi-his faithful deputy and lifelong friend-to be
his emissary to his British friends!"
"But why was your double sent?" Ilse asked.
Hess smiled cagily. "British Intelligence learned that I was planning
to fly to Britain. They had informers everywhere. They expected me to
land near Dungavel Castlewhich was my original plan-but two weeks before
my flight, Reinhard Heydrich discovered that mI-5 knew about the
Dungavel meeting. Rather than cancel it, however, Heydrich simply
changed the actual rendezvous to the beach opposite Holy Island." Hess
nodded admiringly. "It was Heydrich's idea to send my double on to
Dungavel. To act as if nothing had changed, you see! The doubl
e's
mission was to dupe mI-5 into believing they had captured me, but just
long enough for me to complete my real mission. It was never intended
that he do what he did!"
"But you didn't complete your mission," Hauer pointed out. "Why not?"
Hess sighed. "Because by the time I jumped out of the plane over Holy
Island, mI-5 had found out about that rendezvous as well. Another
informer had betrayed us. When I landed-several hundred meters off
target, by the way-I heard shooting. I quickly realized that something
had gone wrong. When I moved closer to the firing, I saw that British
agents had already stormed the rendezvous site-which consisted of a
half-dozen autos parked on a shingle of beach.
There was a gun battle between some mI-5 operatives and my contacts."
Hess grimaced as if at some private pain. "It was there I received the
wound that eventually took my eye.
A stray bullet." He shrugged. "My part of the mission had failed. I
knew the name of a German agent who maintained a radio link to Occupied
France from a nearby coastal village, and I made my way to his house on
a stolen motorbike.
The rest is unimportant."
"But what of the plan to kill Churchill?" Ilse asked.
Hess looked tired now. "Ask the Jew."
Stern cast Hess a disparaging look. "It actually might have worked," he
said, "but for a confused Englishman who came to his senses just in time
to thwart the assassination. If my guess is right, the only man to
escape from that part of the mission-a Russian named Zinoviev-fled to
the same German agent Hess did." Stern looked at Hess.
"Isn't that right? Isn't that where the two of you met?"
Hess smiled distantly.
"Zinoviev never went back to Germany as his journal claimed, did he?"
Hess chuckled.
"And in spite of your eye wound," Stern guessed, "the two of you escaped
together to South America, and finally ended up here." Stern's eyes
flashed as he looked at Hess.
"Zinoviev tried to warn us, you know. In 1967. He must have realized
then how mad you were."
Hess flung out a scarecrow-thin arm. "Zinoviev was weak! All he cared
about in the end was his precious Mother Russia! Holy Russia.
He was practically a religious fanatic by 1967." Hess sighed.
"We found out about that warning, though, didn't we, Pieter? And dear
Vasili had to meet his maker a bit earlier than even he wanted to."
"Why didn't you return to Germany?" Hauer asked.
Hess looked genuinely sad. "I was confused. It was never even
considered that things could turn out as badly as they had. You must
understand: I had long accepted in my mind that by May eleventh I would
have succeeded in my mission or I would be dead.
Yet I had failed, and I was still alive. It seemed foolish to kill
myself at that point. And stranger still, Churchill's government had
chosen to believe-publicly at least-that my double was, in fact, me.
Day after day, hiding on the coast, I listened to reports of my capture
while Zinoviev t@ended my eye. And then came the news from Germany-from
the Fuhrer himself-that I was mad. I had suggested he say that if the
worst happened, but it was unnerving all the same! The pronouncement
told me how things stood. The Fuhrer had assumed that eidier I had
committed suicide as planned or the British had indeed captured me. His
only option was to discredit me publicly. It was the most difficult
moment of his life, I am sure. Not only had he lost his most faithful
friend, but he now faced the impossible situation we had sought to avoid
in the first place! With the failure of my mission, war -on two fronts
was inevitable."
Hess took a deep breath. His face was pale and sweating.
"Nine days later, I managed to get a message to the Fuhrer.
I told him what had happened, that I was alive, and asked for
instructions." Hess's face steeled with resolve. "I mentioned nothing
of my wound, and I offered to do what cowardice had not let me do on May
tenth-take my own life.
Hitler's reply came two weeks later. First, he awarded both myself and
Helmut the Grand Cross. As a foreign national, Zinoviev received only
the Iron Cross. Then came my orders: I was to sail to Brazil, and there
administer a massive network of assets and companies that the Fuhrer had
moved for safety to South America. The coming two-front war had sobered
him. At this time he was still of sound mind, and he knew the chances
for ultimate victory were problematical.
The Fuhrer was surrounded by traitors; Himmler plotted ceaselessly to
take his place. Some of the@ Party's top bankers had already fled
Germany. Hitler wanted-he neededsomeone he could trust outside the
country, preparing a place for him should his position become
untenable." Hess's face glowed with pride. "I was that mant When the
time came, Zinoviev killed the agent who had hidden us, and he and I
traveled to South America. Just as Alfred Horn had become Rudolf Hess
to the world, I became Alfred Horn.
Zinoviev served as my lieutenant and bodyguard until we emigrated to
South Africa." Hess looked up at Smuts. "And Pieter assumed that
position after I arrived."
"There's one question you haven't answered," Stern said, recalling
Professor Natterman and his obsession with the Hess mystery. "Was the
Duke of Windsor really a traitor?"
Hess mopped his forehead. "Who knows? Windsor was a fool. He just
wanted to be king again."
"Yes, but did he knowingly conspire with the Nazis to regain the throne?
That's what I want to know."
"It never came to the test!" Hess snapped. "Don't you understand, Jew?
It was a setup! A double-cross from the very beginning. They used us.
Me, Windsor ... even the Fuhrer.
British Intelligence discovered their own bloody traitors and played
them back against us! They lured me to England, damn them. Of course
Windsor conspired with us! Would he really have assumed the throne as
Hitler's vassal? Would he have stolen the throne from his murdered
brother? No one will ever know!" Hess shook his head in desolation.
"Lies ... all lies. Letting us hope for peace with England until it was
too late . . ."
Hess's head swayed oddly on his neck. He seemed to have forgotten his
audience. "Bor-mann," he murmured. "Ilse always knew. Abandoning the
Fuhrer in his hour of need!"
Smuts tried to calm Hess, but the old Nazi slapped the Afrikaner across
the face. "Borrnann terrorized my family! My own wife! He tried to
evict my Ilse from our house! Thank God Himmler stopped him!"
"My God," Ilse murmured. "No wonder he had a fixation on me."
Hess's eye came clear again. "The swine paid for his impudence!
In 1950 1 I saw him hanged with piano wire by members of the ODESSA!
I have the film in my study!"
"Enough!" Stern cried, stepping in front of Hess. "Everyone, stand
back! The time has come to bring down the curtain on this farce.
Dr. Sabri, prepare the weapon for detonation."
"Wait!" Hans cried, springing up to Stern. "Listen to m
e.
To hell with Hess! To hell with the Nazis! I understand your love for
Israel, but not everyone here is a Jew. I am German.
General Steyn is South African. We want to live. Does that make us
cowards? If it does, I'm a coward! Look at my wife. She's pregnant,
you understand? We want our child to live! What right have you to take
that away from us?"
"The right of the greater good," Stern said soffly. "I'm sorry,
Sergeant."
"You're sorry? Do you plan to murder everyone who doesn't agree with
you?" Hans pointed to the South Africans Gadi had shot. "How are you
different than the Nazis?"
Stern looked at Ilse. His face softened momentarily, but he quickly
turned away. "Captain Hauer," he said tersely, "do you believe I am
wrong about what must be done here?"
With a strange sense of fatalism Hauer looked down at the dead South
Africans. He looked at General Steyn, bleeding steadily from his
shoulder and heaving for breath. He looked at Hans, his own son, his
face flushed with passion for life, his innocent fervor mirrored in his
wife's beautiful eyes. He looked at Hess, cadaverous and gray, a living
anachronism sitting aloof on the floor beneath his Afrikaner protector.
And finally at Stern. Hauer had known the old Israeli less than a day,
yet he felt closer to him than he did to many men he had known all his
life. Stern is no fanatic, he thought.
He's a realist He's seen enough of the world to know that giving fate
one chance to beat you is one chance too many.
Or perhaps he's just my kind of fanatic. Hauer didn't want to die. But
what choice was there? To fight their way out was impossible. With all
eyes in the room turned to him, he stepped toward Hans and Ilse with a
heavy heart. Yet before he could speak, an unfamiliar voice shouted
from somewhere in the dark jungle of laboratory equipment behind them:
"Hullo the house! Hullo! White flag and truce!"
Gadi jerked his rifle toward the sound.
Hauer spun to face the darkness, but he saw nothing.
"Call off your dog, Stern! That's a British accent!"
"That doesn't make me feel any better!" Stern retorted.
"All right, Gadi," he said finally. "Stand down."
After the young Israeli lowered his weapon, a sandyhaired man of medium
height rose from beneath a soapstone lab table. He was wearing tattered