Spandau Phoenix (104 page)

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 me.

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 commando gear, and his left hand held a well-oiled MP-5

submachine gun. "Hullo," he said. "In a bit of a pinch, are we?"

"Who the devil are you?" General Steyn croaked.

"How did you get in?" asked Hauer. "That's the question."

"Name's Burton, sport. Ex-major in the British Army, too long a story to tell."

"Have the shields been lowered?" Stern asked, afraid that the Libyans might already have penetrated into the inner complex.

"Don't know about any shields. I came in through a bunker.

There's tunnels running to every one of 'em and they all intersect right here."

Are you serious?" Hauer cried. "The Arabs didn't see you?"

""Those camel bumpers? Not bloody likely."

"But what's past the bunkers? Is there any way to get truly out of here? Away from this place?"

"It just so happens," said Burton, "that I've got my own personal jet and pilot waiting outside."

Hauer's mouth fell open.

Hans and Ilse ran to the Englishman. "We've got to get out of here!"

Ilse cried. "Now! The Arabs will break through any minute!"

"Boarding in five minutes," Burton said jauntily. "One carry-on bag per person, please."

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

General Steyn threw his good arm over Hauer's shoulder, believing that Burton's revelation of an escape route had resolved de facto all the argument that had gone before Ilse barely had time to snatch up Hess's black briefcase before Hans pulled her across the room toward the Englishman. Dr.

Sabri also moved cautiously in that direction.

Yet Stern and Gadi did not move. They stood with their backs against the gleaming steel storage vault, staring watchfully at the excited group gathering around the British mercenary. Hauer laid his hand on General Steyn's pistol.

He understood only too well what was passing through the minds of the Israelis.

"Gadi," Stern said sharply.

With his rifle braced on his hip, the young Israeli marched past Hauer, grabbed Dr. Sabri by the sleeve and pulled him back to where the three bombs waited on their carts. He kicked the Libyan behind the knee, dropping him to the floor, then shoved him down over the bomb in the middle of the cart.

"Open it," Stern commanded.

"Wh-what?" the Libyan stammered.

"Open the weapon!"

"I need tools."

Gadi swung his rifle around on Smuts.

"We don't keep any down here," Smuts lied.

Gadi fired a slug into the wall beside the Afrikaner's head.

Smuts didn't flinch, but after a face-saving moment he stepped over to a drawer and pulled out a metal tool kit. He carried it to the Libyan, then returned to Hess's side.

General Steyn watched all this in disbelief. "What are you doing now, Jonas? Our problem is solved! As soon as take off, I can radio the air force from this man's plane Stern looked up from where Dr. Sabri worked on the bomb. "This changes only two things," he said quietly.

"First, you people now have a chance to get clear. And second, Hess can go with you."

Pieter Smuts stiffened.

Stern touched Gadi's sleeve. "Hess is your responsibility.

You'll take him out with the others."

The young Israeli's face wilted like a little boy's, then it hardened to stone. "I shall stay behind, Uncle," he said solemnly.

"You should be the one who takes Hess to Israel."

Stern shook his head impatiently. "You-2' "I say there," Burton cut in.

"You're not talking about setting off these bombs. I've seen enough conventional weapons to know an unconventional one when I see it. Even if we manage to get airborne, the blast wave from one of those would knock us right out of the sky."

Stern crouch&d beside Dr. Sabri, who had just gotten the cover plate off the bomb's arming system. "What's the minimum safe distance for the aircraft that delivers this weapon?"

Dr. Sabri looked up at Stern with wild eyes. "There's no way to know!

If the explosion breaks through the surface ...

Five ... perhaps six kilometers?"

Stern rose to his feet. "If you all leave now," he said loudly, "you should be able to reach minimum safe distance before the Libyans break through the shields. I suggest you get moving."

Hauer jabbed a finger toward the bomb cart. "Stern, that dung must have some kind of timing mechanism. Why not set it for thirty minutes and get out with the rest of us?"

Gadi's face lit up. "Uncle, that's it!"

Stern shook his head. "In fifteen minutes the Libyans will be inside this room. They're almost certain to have someone with them who would know how to stop the timer." Stern pulled Dr. Sabri to his feet.

"What kind of detonator does this weapon have? Is there a timing mechanism?"

"A timer, yes! But not the kind you imagine. This is an air-burst weapon. It's meant to be exploded above ground.

Once armed, its clock begins at a preprogrammed atmospheric pressure level."

"How long does the clock run?"

"This one is set for twelve seconds. But I could set it for much longer!"

Gadi jammed the barrel of his R5 into the terrified Libyan's stomach.

"How do we know he's telling us the truth about the detonator? What if you stay behind and the bomb doesn't explode?

You'll have thrown your life away for nothing!"

Stern turned to Sabri. "Show me how the detonator works.

Be quick!"

While the Libyan bent, over the bomb casing, Hauer stepped up to Stern.

"Do you want to throw your life away, Stern? You have a real alternative now. General Steyn is right-the South African air force can easily shoot down the Libyans when they try to leave the country."

Stern smiled wryly. "And if someone in the South African air force doesn't want to shoot them down?"

"Sir?" said Dr. Sabri, looking up from the weapon.

Hauer looked down. In the Libyan's hands, held as gingerly as if they were coiled vipers, were four tricolored wires that led from a small aperture in the bomb casing. Two exposed copper wire ends glinted in the fluorescent light.

"Touch these together," Dr. Sabri said hoarsely, "and the bomb will think it has reached the preprogrammed altitude.

The timing mechanism will run its course, and the detonator will explode. A few nanoseconds later, nuclear fission will be initiated."

There was dead silence in the room.

"Must the wires remain connected during the timer's entire run?"

Stern asked.

The Libyan nodded.

Before anyone could stop him, Stern seized the two wires, wrapped them together, and closed them in his fist.

Ilse screamed.

Alan Burton dived under a soapstone lab table, as if it could somehow protect him from a nudlear blast. Hauer and Gadi froze, mesmerized by Stern's insane act. But no one reacted with the abject terror of Dr.

Sabri. Shrieking wildly, the Libyan grabbed Stern's wrists and tried desperately to separate the two wires. But despite the great age difference between the two men, Sabri failed. After what Stern judged to be nine seconds-long enough for everyone in the room to stare death in the face-he jerked the two wires apart.

"I think he's telling the truth, Gadi."

Dr. Sabri fell to his knees and peered into the bomb's cess panel.

"There are only two seconds left on the clock!

the name of Allah, do not let the wires touch again!"

"Not until you're all safely away," Stern promised.

Hauer half-smiled. "Or until the Libyans break into this complex.

Right, Stern?"

"You'd better hurry," Stern said tersely.

Gadi laid a hand on his shoulder. "Uncle, please do not sacrifice yourself. I am a soldier. I should be the one."

"I am a soldier too." Stern sighed deeply. "An old one.

But it doesn't matter. I'm dead already."

"What?"

"I've already been exposed to enough radiation today to kill me.

And if not enough to kill me, at least enough to make what little that remains of my life quite unpleasant."

Stern rubbed his eyes and sighed. "I can barely see you now, Gadi.

Everything has a halo."

"What are you talking about?" Gadi cried.

"It's true," Ilse interjected. "They did the same to me. Or they pretended to."

Gadi looked mystified.

Against the wall, Pieter Smuts shifted his body slightly away from Hess.

"X-rays, Gadi," Stern explained. "The same way I confirmed that Horn was actually Hess. They strapped me down and dosed me with X-rays for two hours."

The young commando blinked. "What? Who did that to you? Who!"

At that moment Smuts nodded almost imperceptibly.

Rudolf Hess slid silently to the floor.

"That man there!" Ilse shouted, pointing to Smuts.

As her accusing finger went up, the Afrikaner whipped up a Beretta automatic he had slipped from an ankle holster and aimed it at the two Israelis. No one had thoug t to searc him; now he had both Stern and Gadi in his sights. From ten feet he could not miss.

With a short cry Gadi knocked Stern down with his left hand and jerked up his carbine with his right.

The two men fired at the same instant.

Outside the front entrance of Horn House, one of Major Karami's commandos leaned into the empty driver's compartment of the Armscor and saw that the ignition keys had been removed. He craned his neck around the seats just in time to see Captain Barnard's bloody face appear out of the gloom like a ghost.

It was the last thing the Libyan would ever see. Barnard's bullet struck him right between the eyes.

Hearing the shot, two more Libyans leaped through the Arinscor's doors.

Captain Barnard shot them both through the head. Struggling to breathe through the blood in his throat, the South African thrust his pistol through the shattered windshield and fired wildly at the Libyans grouped around the howitzer.