by Iles, Greg
“Follow me, Herr Professor,” the Afrikaner said stiffly.
In the dimly lit library, Alfred Horn sat motionless behind an enormous desk, his one good eye focussed on the man he believed to be Professor Georg Natterman.
Stern hesitated at the door. He had expected to be brought before a young English nobleman named Grenville, not a man twenty years his senior.
“Come closer, Herr Professor,” Horn said. “Take a seat.”
“I’ll stand, thank you,” Stern said uncertainly. He saw little more than a shadow at the desk. He tried to determine the shadow’s nationality by its voice, but found it difficult. The man spoke German like a native, but there were other inflections too.
“As you wish,” Horn said. “You wanted to see me?”
Stern squinted into the gloom. Slowly, the amorphous features of the shadow coalesced into the face of an old man. A very old man. Stern cleared his throat. “You are the man responsible for my granddaughter’s abduction?”
“I’m afraid so, Professor. My name is Thomas Horn. I’m a well-known businessman in this country. Such tactics are not my usual style, but this is a special case. A member of your family stole something that belongs to some associates of mine …”
Horn sat so still that his mouth barely moved when he spoke. Stern tried to concentrate on the old man’s words, but somehow his attention was continually drawn to the face—or what little he could see of it. A low buzz of alarm began to insinuate itself into his brain. With a combat veteran’s sensitivity to physical wounds, Stern quickly noticed that the old man had but one eye. Watery and blue, it flicked restlessly back and forth while the other stared ever forward, seeing nothing. My God! Stern thought. Here is Professor Natterman’s one-eyed man!
“… but I am a pragmatist,” Horn was saying. “I always take the shortest route between two points. In this case that route happened to run through your family. You have a fine granddaughter, a true daughter of Deutschland. But in matters such as this—matters with vast political implications—even family must take second place.”
Stern felt sweat heading on his neck. Who in God’s name was this man? He tried to recall what, Natterman had said about the one-eyed man. Helmut … That was the name the professor had mentioned. But of course Natterman had thought “Helmut” was a code name for the real Rudolf Hess. Stern felt his heart thud in his chest. It can’t be, he thought quickly. It simply cannot be.
“And so you see how simple it is, Professor,” Horn concluded. “For the Spandau papers, I give you back your family.”
Stern tried to speak, but his mind no longer controlled his vocal cords. The man murmuring to him from the shadows was at least twenty years older than himself. The face and voice had been ravaged by time, but as Stern stared, he began to discern the telltale marks of authority, the indelible lines etched into the face of a man who had held great power. Could it be? asked a voice in Stern’s brain. Of course it could, answered another. Hess’s double died only weeks ago, and he had endured the soul-killing loneliness of Spandau Prison for almost fifty years … This man has lived the life of a millionaire, with access to the best medical care in the world.
“I’ve read your book, Professor,” Horn said smoothly “‘Germany: From Bismarck to the Bunker’. A penetrating study, though flawed in its conclusions. I would be very interested to hear your opinion of the Spandau papers.”
Stern swallowed. “I-I haven’t really had that much time to study them. They deal mainly with the prisoners at Spandau.”
“Prisoners, Professor? Not one prisoner in particular?”
Stern blinked.
“Not Prisoner Number Seven?” Horn smiled cagily. “Have no fear, Professor, my interest is purely academic. I’d simply like to know if the papers shed any light on the events of May 10th, 1941—on the flight of Rudolf Hess. The solution to that mystery has always eluded me—as it has the rest of the world.”
Stern fought the urge to step backward. What kind of game was this? “There is mention of the Hess flight,” he whispered.
“And are you familiar with the case, Professor?”
“Conversant.”
“Excellent. I happen to have a unique volume related to it here in my library. The only one of its kind.” Horn tilted his head slightly. “Pieter?”
Smuts crossed to some tall shelves at the, dark edge of the library and pulled down a thin black volume. He hesitated a moment, but Horn inclined his head sharply and Smuts obeyed. Stern accepted the thin volume without looking at it.
“You hold a piece of living history in your hand, Professor,” Horn said solemnly. “A piece no historian has ever seen before. May of 1941 was a critical juncture in the march of Western civilization. A time of great opportunities.” He sighed. “Missed opportunities. I’d like you to read that while we verify the Spandau papers. Perhaps it will help you to do what no one else has yet been able to do—solve the Hess mystery.”
Stern looked down at the book in his hands. It was a notebook, he saw, bound in black leather with a name stamped in gold on its cover: V.V. Zinoviev. The name meant nothing to Stern. What was he holding in his hands? Had this man Horn threatened to kill Ilse Apfel in order to suppress one clue to the Hess enigma, only to give the man he thought to be her grandfather another? Was he a fool? Of course not. He was a snake allowing the sparrow one last song before it felt the fangs strike. Any knowledge that “Professor Natterman” gained from the Zinoviev notebook in the next few hours would perish with him.
“Come closer, Professor,” Horn said, raising his chin like a connoisseur examining an antique for authenticity. “Do you have Jewish blood in your family?”
The flickering blue eye fixed on Stern and bored in, searching for the slightest hint of deception. Stern struggled to maintain his calm. During the helicopter flight he had worried that his rusty German would give him away, yet no one seemed to have noticed it. Would it be his Semitic nose that betrayed him? That put the final bullet through his heart?
“Nein, ” he said, forcing a smile. “This nose has been the bane of my life, Herr Horn. There’s some Arab blood far back down the line, I think. It almost cost me my life several times during the thirties.”
“I can imagine,” Horn said thoughtfully. “So. The Spandau papers. You have brought them to me?”
Horn’s cadaverous face seemed to waver ghostlike in the shadows. As if by its own volition, Stern’s right hand burrowed into his trouser pocket and brought out the missing pages. Before he even realized what he meant to do, he had lurched forward and laid the three sheets on Horn’s desk.
“You have it all now,” he blurted. “Make what you wish of it. Just give me back my granddaughter.”
He turned and moved zombie-like toward the door. His eyes focussed on the handle as he neared it.
“Herr Professor?”
Stern froze. Horn’s warbling voice floated through the darkness like a phantom, ancient and unreal. “I called the Document Centre in Berlin. They informed me that you were at the Siege of Leningrad. This shouldn’t be too great an ordeal for an old Wehrmacht soldier. Have a rest, see your granddaughter. All will soon be back to normal, and you and I will exchange old war stories. And don’t forget to read the Zinoviev book.”
Stern peered through the shadows. The conversation seemed to have tired the old man. The face which had looked so alive at the beginning of the meeting now sagged as if drained by chronic pain. Stern groped behind him for the door. Pieter Smuts turned the knob and slipped into the hall ahead of him. Stern saw Horn raise a skeletal arm in farewell, and then Smuts pulled the door shut.
Dazed, Stern followed the tall Afrikaner down the long corridor toward the reception hall. They crossed it, then walked the length of several dim passages. Stern felt like Alice being led through the warrens of the looking-glass world. Finally, Smuts stopped before a door and opened it. Stern saw a striking young blond woman dressed in a smart navy skirt and white blouse. From Natterman’s description, he recogniz
ed Ilse Apfel immediately, but he was still so deep in frenzied speculation about the old man that he failed to notice the shock on her face.
Ilse looked from Smuts to Stern, then back to Smuts. She started to speak, then held her tongue, waiting for the Afrikaner to explain the intrusion. Smuts said nothing. Ilse’s eyes moved up and down Stern’s lean frame, lingering on his unfamiliar face, finally settling on Professor Natterman’s patched tweed jacket. Smuts—who was normally quite sensitive to the subtleties of human behaviour—put Ilse’s awkwardness down to surprise. “I hope you both appreciate Herr Horn’s generosity,” he said.
The words woke Stern from his trance. Instantly he registered the dangerous bafflement on Ilse’s face. Steady, girl, he thought. Steady.
“Ilse!” he cried. “My little Enkelkinder! Come to me!” He took a step forward and held out his arms. Come on girl, get it.
Without quite understanding why, Ilse moved forward. First hesitantly, then in apparent jubilation, she rushed to the stranger and pressed her head against his jacket, clinging to him like a child. She would never know why she did it. It was an impulse, a tingling flash of inexplicable certainty like those that sometimes hit her as she watched the stock quotes flickering across the tote board at work. She didn’t question it, she simply obeyed.
“My little darling,” Stern said soothingly, stroking Ilse’s cheek.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, Opa, yes,” Ilse murmured. “Can we go home now?”
“Not yet, little one. Not quite yet. But soon.”
Stern glared at Smuts over Ilse’s blond hair. “Could we have some privacy?” he asked icily. A tight grimace plucked at the corner of the Afrikaner’s mouth, but he left them.
Ilse immediately pulled away from Stern and opened her mouth to speak. Stern stifled her with an upturned palm, then pointed to the door. Who are you? Ilse mouthed silently.
Stern leaned over until his lips touched the shell of Ilse’s ear. “A friend,” he whispered. “Thank God you managed to suppress your shock. I believe you just saved my life.”
“It was the jacket,” Ilse whispered excitedly. “You’re wearing Opa’s jacket. At first I thought it was some kind of crazy trick, but—”
“No trick.”
“Where is Opa?”
“He is safe. He’s with Captain Hauer.”
“And Hans? Is Hans safe?”
Stern nodded impatiently, as if Hans were merely a secondary problem to be dealt with when and if possible. “Hans is here now. He tried to trade the Spandau papers for your life, but failed.”
Ilse’s eyes widened. “Hans is here?”
“Yes, but we can’t worry about that now. If we don’t figure out exactly where we are and get me to a telephone, we’ll probably be dead within an hour.”
Ilse shook her head. “You’ll need an aeroplane to get out of here.”
“You know where we are?”
“Not exactly, but I’ve been outside. We’re far out in the wilderness. Near something called the Kruger Park, I think.”
“The Kruger National Park?” Stern looked at his watch, estimating the distance he had travelled by road and by helicopter. “Yes, that would be about right.” His voice grew urgent. “Ilse, I don’t know how much you know about the situation you are in. You may, like your grandfather, see it as merely a squabble over the Rudolf Hess case, but it’s much, much more than that. I believe that somewhere in this country there are men who mean to cause great harm to my country—Israel. Damn it!” Stern cried suddenly. “What is hiding here? That bastard asked me if I had any Jewish blood in my veins, and I—an Israeli—denied that I did!”
He threw the Zinoviev notebook onto the bed and tried the doorknob again, shaking it furiously. Ilse reached out and clutched the sleeve of her grandfather’s jacket. “You’re right,” she whispered. “About Israel.”
“What?” Stern turned to face her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that Horn wants to destroy Israel.”
Stern clutched her arms. “How do you know that? Out with it, girl! Speak!”
“You’re hurting me!”
Stern released her. “What are you talking about?”
Ilse brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Last night, Herr Horn met with some Arabs up in the central tower of the estate. For some reason he wanted me there, I don’t know why. He offered to provide these Arabs with a nuclear weapon—one or more than one, I’m not sure. He said he would provide it free of charge if the Arabs would use it as he wished. He said there was a nuclear weapon somewhere beneath this house.”
Stern swallowed hard, his eyes burning into Ilse’s. “Did you believe him?”
She hesitated a moment; then she nodded very slowly.
“How did he say he wanted the weapon used?”
“He said he wanted it exploded in Tel Aviv.”
Stern felt his bowels roll. “When?”
“Within ten days, he said.”
Stern crossed to the bed and picked up the thin black notebook Horn had given him. Again he read the gold letters stamped on the cover: V.V. Zinoviev. Still the name meant nothing. He slipped the notebook inside his shirt, backed against the far wall, and without a sound threw himself across the room and against the heavy wooden door. Ilse screamed. The door didn’t budge. Stern gasped for breath, backed up, charged again. His wiry frame smashed into the wood with a sound like a child falling down stairs. Ilse cringed. Twice more the old Israeli flung himself at the door, but it refused to give. Bruised and winded, Stern raised his right leg and kicked at the knob with all his strength.
“It’s no good!” Ilse cried. “Please stop! You’re only hurting yourself!”
Stern did not even look at her. With a howl of rage he kicked at the knob again. When it refused to yield, he backed up and launched his body at the door yet again. This time the impact knocked him to his knees. He got unsteadily to his feet and prepared to try again. Ilse caught his arm, meaning to restrain him, but when Stern whirled, something in his eyes moved her into some region beyond logic, beyond reason. She counted to three, and together they flung themselves against the wood.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
7.05 p.m. Mozambique/South Africa Border
The helicopters stormed northward on the Mozambique side of the border, hugging the plain between the Lebombo Mountains and the Limpopo River. Occasionally they jinked westward long enough for Burton to take bearings. The Englishman knew this part of Africa well, and the Kruger Park had enough landmarks to keep him oriented. The border itself, a garish scar of bare earth bisected by a huge electric fence, divided two countries that might have been different continents. On the Mozambique side, a desolate war-ravaged plain stretched toward the sea. On the South African side, the lushness of the Kruger Park began immediately. Wide green troughs of rivers in vegetation snaked westward out of sight. Forests of mopane, Sycamore fig, and Natal mahogany sheltered herds of elephant and zebra, white rhino and lion.
“Take her back up!” Alan Burton ordered.
Juan Diaz breathed a sigh of relief. The Cuban pilot prided himself on his flying skill, but this crazy English gringo had badgered him about the altitude until he wondered if the man had a secret death wish. Burton pointed to the north and shouted above the rotor noise “We want to keep on this heading until we see the Olifants River! Then we’ll veer west and cross the park at treetop level!” He showed Diaz the map. “The house we want lies about halfway between the western edge of the park and this little town here.” Burton pointed to Giyani, then indicated an X marked about fifteen kilometres from the western edge of the Kruger Park.
Diaz nodded, then returned his gaze to the plain below.
“The Kruger Park’s about the size of Wales,” Burton told him. “But it’s thin—runs north to south.” Diaz ignored him. “Probably never heard of Wales, eh?” Burton laughed. “The Prince of Wales?”
Diaz shook his head. Either the Cuban hadn’t understood or he simply did not
want to be bothered. Burton switched to a more relevant subject. “That fence down there,” he yelled, pointing westward, “11,500 volts! They fry a whole gang of Mozambican refugees on that thing every year. Bloody awful.”
The Cuban grimaced. He did know about dead refugees. Glancing back into the cabin of the JetRanger, Burton looked the Colombian soldiers over again. The presence of Alberto, the big MNR observer, made them look even more unprofessional. “What do you think of our South American friends, Diaz?” he yelled.
The Cuban pilot did not share Burton’s confidence in the deafness of the Colombians. He pulled the Englishman’s head down near his own. “Banditos, ” he muttered. “No soldiers.” He cut his eyes back toward the cabin, then crossed himself so that only Burton could see.
“Bloody hell.” Burton had hoped Diaz might know something encouraging about the Colombians that he didn’t. Suddenly the Englishman sighted a silver serpentine glittering beneath the dark clouds to the north. “There’s the river!” he shouted.
Diaz nodded, then banked westward and dove for the plain. Their sister ship followed closely, behind and to the right. The green sea of the Kruger Park rushed toward them. The JetRangers skimmed over the border fence and swept westward over the verdant foliage below. Burton saw a herd of antelope raising a huge cloud of dust as they fled the noise of the approaching choppers.
Diaz pointed to the dark cloud ceiling above them. “Much rain when it comes?”
“Buckets this time of year!” Diaz frowned, but Burton smiled wryly. The weather didn’t worry him; that was the pilots’ problem. But the accuracy of his intelligence reports did. Who in hell was the English informer who supposedly waited inside the target house? Probably anything but a soldier, Burton thought ruefully. The informer had reported that Alfred Horn relied primarily upon isolation for security—isolation and a neo-Nazi security chief. Burton wondered if the informer would even recognize defensive measures if he saw them. Swallowing his anxiety, he slapped Diaz on the back and grinned. “Rain’s good for us!” he yelled. “Better cover!”
