by Greg Iles
Ten minutes later Professor Natterman was safely berthed in a
first-class car, poring over a short volume by Dr. J. R.
Rees, the British Army psychiatrist who had supervised the first
extensive examinations of "Rudolf Hess" after his famous flight. It
made for tedious reading, and Natterman had trouble concentrating. His
mind kept returning to the Spandau papers. He had no doubt that
Prisoner Number Seven had told the truth-if only because, to date, the
man had provided the only possible version of events that fit all the
known facts.
The Rudolf Hess case, Natterman believed, shared one major similarity
with the assassination of the American president John F.
Kennedy. There was simply too much information. A surfeit of facts,
inconsistencies, myth, and conjecture. Everyone had his pet conspiracy
theory. If one accepted the medical evidence that "Number Seven" was
not Hess, then two general theories held popular sway.
Natterman dismissed them both out of hand, but like most farfetched
theories, each was based upon a tantalizing grain of truth.
The primary theory-put forward by the British surgeon who first
uncovered the medical evidence-held that one of the top Nazis (either
Heinrich Himmler or Hermann Goring) had wanted to supplant Hitler and
had decided to use Hess's wartime double to do it. To accomplish this,
either Goring or Himmler (or both) would have to have ordered the real
Hess shot down over the North Sea, then sent his double rushing on to
England. There the double would supposedly have asked the British
government if it might accept peace with Germany, if someone other than
Hitler reigned in Berlin.
Natterman considered this pure fantasy. Both Nazi chieftains had
possessed the power to give such orders, of course. And there was quite
a body of evidence suggesting that both men had prior knowledge of
Hess's plan to fly to Britain. But the question Natterman could not
ignore was why Himmler or Goring should have elected to murder Hess,
then use his double for such a sensitive mission in the first place.
It was a harebrained scheme that would have carried tremendous risk of
discovery by Hitler, and thus was totally out of character for both the
prudent SS chief and the flamboyant but wily Luftwaffe commander. Only
a week before Hess's flight, Himmler had sent a secret envoy to
Switzerland to discuss the possibility of an Anglo-German peace, with
himself as chancellor of the Reich. That might not be so exciting as
murder in the skies, but it was Himmler's true style.
The other popular theory held that the real Hess had reached England
alive, but that the British government-for reasons of its own-had wanted
him silenced. They supposedly killed Hess, then searched among German
prisoners of war for a likely double, whom they brainwashed, bribed, or
blackmailed into impersonating the Deputy Fuhrer.
Natterman considered this tripe of the lowest order. His researches
indicated that a "brainwashed" man was little more than a
zombie-certainly not capable of impersonating Hess for more than a few
hours, much less for forty-six years.
And as far as British bribes or blackmail, Natterman didn't believe any
German impersonator would sacrifice fifty years of his life for British
money or even British threats.
Yet this theory, too, was partially based on fact. No informed
historian doubted that the British government wanted the Hess affair
buried. They had proved it time and again throughout the years, and
Professor Natterman did not discount the possibility that the British
had murdered Hess's double just four weeks ago. It was also true that
only a native German could have successfully impersonated Hess for so
long. Not just any German, however, it would have to have been a German
trained specifically by Nazis to impersonate Hess, and whose service was
either voluntary, or motivated by the threat of some terrible penalty. A
penalty like Sippenhaft.
Natterman felt a shiver of excitement. The author of the Spandau papers
had satisfied- all those requirements, and more. For the first time,
someone had offered a credible-probably the only)-answer to when and how
the double had been substituted for the real Hess. If the papers were
correct, he never had been. Hess and his double had flown to Britain in
the same plane. It had been the double in British hands from the very
first moment! Natterman recalled that a prominent British journalist
had written a novel suggesting that, since the Messerschmitt 110 could
carry two men, Hess might not have flown to Britain alone. But no one
had ever suggested that Hess's double could have been that passenger!
Natterman drummed his fingers compulsively as his brain shifted up to a
higher plane of analysis. Facts were the province of history
professors; motives were the province of historians. The ultimate
question was not how the double had arrived in England, but why. Why
was it necessary for both the double and the real Hess to fly to
Britain, as the Spandau papers claimed they had? Whom did they fly
there to meet?
Why was it necessary for the double to remain in Spandau?
Had he been murdered for the same reason? If so, who murdered him?
Circumstantial evidence pointed to the British.
Yet if the British killed the double, why had they done it now, after
all these years? Publicly they had joined France and the United States
in calling for Number Seven's early release (though they knew full well
they could rely on the Russians to veto it, as they had done every year
before)My God, Natterman thought suddenly. Was that it?
Had Mikhail Gorbachev, in the spirit of glasnost, proposed to release
Hess at last? As Natterman scrawled this question in the margin of Dr.
Rees's book, the huge, bright yellow diesel engine disengaged its brakes
with a hiss and lurched out of the great glass hall of Zoo Station,
accelerating steadily toward the benighted fields of the DDR.
In a few minutes the train would enter the narrow, fragile corridor
linking the is land of West Berlin to the Federal Republic of Germany.
Natterman pulled the plastic shade down over his small window.
There were ghosts outside-ghosts he had no wish to see. Memories he
thought long laid to rest had been violently exhumed by the papers he
now smuggled through communist Germany. God, he wondered, does it ever
end?
The deceit, the casualties? He touched the thin bundle beneath his
sweater. The casualties ... More were coming, he could feel it.
Yet he couldn't give up the Spandau papers-not yet.
Those nine thin sheets of paper were his last chance at academic
resurrection. He had been one of the lions once, an academic demigod.
A colleague once told Natterman that he had heard Willy Brandt quote
from Natterman's opus on Germany no less than three times during one
speech in the Bundestag. Three times! But Natterman had written that
book over thirty years ago. During the intervening years, he had
managed to stay in print with "distinguished
contributor" articles, but
no publisher showed real interest in any further Natterman books. The
great professor had said all fie had to say in From Bismarck to the
Bunker-or so they thought. But now, he thought excitedly, now the
cretins will be hammering down my door! When he offered his explosive
translation of The Secret Diary of Spandau Prisoner Number
Seven-boasting the solution to the greatest mystery of the Second World
War-they would beg for the privilege of publishing him!
Startled by a sharp knock at the compartment door, Natterman stuffed Dr.
Rees's book under his seat cushion and stood.
Probablyjust Customs, he reassured himself This was the very reason he
had chosen this escape route from the city. Trains traveling between
West Berlin and the Federal Republic did not stop inside East Germany,
so passport control and the issue of visas took place during the
journey.
Still more important, there were no baggage controls.
"Yes?" he called. "Who is it?"
Someone fumbled at the latch; then the door shot open. A tall, wiry man
with a dark complexion and bright eyes stared at the professor in
surprise. A worn leather bag dangled from his left hand. "Oh, dear!"
he said. "Dreadfully sorry."
An upper-class British accent. Natterman looked the man up and down. At
least my own age, he thought. Stronglooking fellow. Thin, tanned,
beaked nose. Looks more Jew ish than British, come to think of it.
Which is ridiculous because Judaism isn't a nationality and Britishness
isn't a religion-although the adherents of both sometimes treat them as
such"I say there," the intruder said, quickly scanning the room,
"Stern's my name. I'm terribly sorry. Can't seem to find my berth."
"What's the number?" Natterman asked warily.
Sixteen, just like it says on the door here." Stern held out a k.
-e y.
Natterman examined it. "Right number," he said. "Wrong car, though.
You want second class, next car back."
Stern took the key back quickly. "Why, you're right.
Thanks, old boy. I'll find it."
"No trouble." Natterman scrutinized the visitor as he backed out of the
cabin. "You know, I thought I'd locked that door," he said.
"Don't think it was, really," Stern replied. "Just gave it a shove and
it opened right up."
"Your key fit?"
"It went in. Who knows? They always use the oldest trains on the
Berlin run. One key probably opens half the doors on the train." Stern
laughed. "Sorry again."
For an instant the tanned stranger's face came alive with urgent
purpose, so that it matched his eyes, which were bright and intense.
It was as if a party mask had accidentally slipped before midnight.
Stern seemed on the verge of saying something; then his lips broadened
into a sheepish grin and he backed out of the compartment and shut the
door.
Puzzled, and more than a little uncomfortable, Natterman sat down again.
An accident? That fellow didn't seem like the type to mix up his
sleeping arrangements. Not one bit.
And something about him looked familiar. Not his face ...
but his carriage. The loose, ready stance. He'd been unseasonably
tanned for Berlin. Impossibly tanned, in fact.
Retrieving Dr. Rees's book from beneath the seat cushion, the professor
tapped it nervously against his leg. A soldier, he thought suddenly.
Natterman would have bet a year's salary that the man who had stumbled
into his compartment was an ex-soldier. And an Englishman, he thought,
feeling his heart race. Or at least a man who had lived among the
English long enough to imitate their accent to per c n. Na
.fe tio tterman
didn't like the arithmetic of that "accident" at all if he was right.
Not at all.
10.04 Pm. mI-5 Headquarters: Charles Street, London, England Deputy
Director Wilson knocked softly at Sir Neville Shaw's door, then opened
it and padded onto the deep carpet of the director general's office.
Shaw sat at his desk beneath the green glow of a banker's lamp. He took
no notice of the intrusion; he continued to pore over a thick, dog-eared
file on the desk before him.
"Sir Neville?" Wilson said.
Shaw did not look up. "What is it? Your hard boys arrived?" "
"No, sir. It's something else. A bit rum, actually.
Sir Neville looked up at last. "Well?"
"It's Israeli Intelligence, sir. The head of the Mossad, as a matter of
fact. He's sent us a letter."
Shaw blinked. "So?"
"Well, it's rather extraordinary, sir."
"Damn it, Wilson, how so?"
"The letter is countersigned by the Israeli prime minister.
It was hand-delivered by courier."
"What?" Sir Neville sat up. "What in God's name is it about?"
His ruddy face slowly tightened in dread. "Not Hess?"
Wilson quickly shook his head. "No, sir. It's about an old
intelligence hand of theirs. Chap named Stern. Seems he's been holed
up in the Negev for the past dozen years, but a couple of days ago he
quietly slipped his leash."
Shaw looked exasperated. "I don't see what the devil that's got to do
with us."
"The Israelis-their prime minister, lather-seem to think we might still
hold a grudge against this fellow. That there might be a standing order
of some type on him. A liquidation order."
"That's preposterous!" Shaw bellowed. "After all this time?"
The deputy director smiled with forbearance. "It's not so preposterous,
Sir Neville. Our own Special Forces Clubwhich the Queen still visits
occasionally, I'm proud to say still refuses to accept Israeli members.
They welcome elite troops from almost every democratic nation in the
world, even the bloody Germans. Everyone but the Israelis, and they're
probably the best of the lot. And all because the older agents still
hold a grudge for the murder of an SAS man by Zionists during the
mandate." "Just a minute," Shaw interrupted.
"Stern, you said?"
"Yes, sir. Jonas Stern. I pulled his file."
"Jonas Stern," Shaw murmured. "By God, the Israelis ought to be
concerned. One of our people has been after that old guerilla for
better than thirty years."
Wilson looked surprised. "One of our agents, sir?"
"Retired," Shaw explained. "A woman, actually. Code name Swallow. A
real harpy. You'd better pull her file, in fact. Just in case she's
still got her eye on this fellow." Shaw nodded thoughtfully. "I
remember Stern. He was a terrorist during the Mandate, not even twenty
at the time, I'll bet. He swallowed his vinegar and fought for us
during the war. It was the only way he could get at Hitler, I suppose.
Did a spot of sticky business for us in Germany, as I recall."
Wilson looked at Shaw in wonder. "That's exactly what it says in the
file!"
"Yes," Shaw remembered, "he worked for LAKAM during the 'sixties and
'seventies, didn't he? Safeguarding Israel's nuclear development
program." Shaw smiled at his deputy's astonishment. "No strings or
mirrors, Wilson. Stern was a talented agent, but the reason I rem
ember
him so clearly is because of this Swallow business. I think she
actually tried to assassinate him a couple of times. That's why the
Mossad sent that letter."
"Do you really think this woman might pose a danger to him?"
Shaw shook his head. "I doubt Stern's in England. Or even in Europe,
for that matter. He's probably sunning himself on Mykonos, or something
similar. 'Which reminds me-did you find that freighter for me?"
"Oh, yes, sir. Lloyd's puts her off Durban; she rounded the cape three
days ago."
Shaw rummaged through the stack of papers on his desk until he found a
map of southern Africa. "Durban," he murmured, running his finger
across the paper. "Twenty knots, twenty-five ... two days ...
yes. Well."
Shaw brushed the map aside and thumped the stack of papers before him.
"This is the Hess file, Wilson. iNo one's cleared to read it but me-did
you know that? I tell you, there's enough rotted meat between these
covers to make you ashamed of being an Englishman."
Wilson waited for an explanation, but Shaw provided none. "About the
Israeli letter, sir?" he prompted. "It's basically a.polite request to
leave this Stern alone. How should I reply?"
"What? Oh. The Israeli prime minister is an old terrorist himself, you
know." Sir Neville chuckled. "And still looking after his own, after
all these years." His smile turned icy.
"No reply. Let him sweat for a while, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
"And him-y those hard boys along, would you? I thought I had it tough
with the P.M. climbing my back. An hour ago I got a call from the
bloody Queen-Mother herself She makes the Iron Lady sound like a French
nanny!"
As Wilson slipped out, Sir Neville butted and went back to the Hess
file. On top lay a very old eight-by-ten glossy photograph.
Scarred and faded, it showed a man in his late forties with dark hair, a
strong jaw, and a black oval patch tied rakishly across his left eye.
Shaw jabbed his heavy forefinger down on the eye patch.
"You started it all, you sneaking bastard," he muttered. He slammed the
file closed and leaned back in his chair. "Sometimes I wonder if the
damned knighthood's worth the strain," he said.
"Protecting skeletons in the royal bloody chest."
10.-07 Pm. #30 Lfitzenstrasse
Outside the apartment another car rattled down the street without
