Spandau Phoenix (107 page)

Stern laughed silently. "Come forward, Major. You'll understand soon enough."

Karami considered this. "All right," he said at length.

"I'm coming! I am unarmed!"

Crouched behind the bomb casing, Stern watched the tall, black-mustached Arab step from the darkness, his hands raised above his head. His onyx eyes blazed with fierce passion.

"Herr Horn?" Karami asked, puzzled.

Stern raised a hand and pointed to the motionless heap lying just in front of the bomb cart. "There," he said.

Karami's eyes searched the gloom until they settled on Hess. "Who is behind there?" he asked. "Mr. Smuts? What happened here?"

"Allah took a hand in things," Stern said.

For the first time, Karami noticed the masked corpses of the South African commandos. Not far away he saw the body of Pieter Smuts. Then his black eyes lifted, drawn by the gleaming cylinders behind which Stern waited.

"So there are three," he said, his voice shallow. "I knew there had to be more. I knew it."

Stern waited in silence. In spite of what the X-rays had done to him, he felt strangely awed by the knowledge that his life was now measured in seconds. His mouth felt dry as sawdust.

"If Hess is dead," Major Karami wondered aloud, "and Mr. Smuts is dead ... who are you?"

Stern poked his head above the bomb casing. Then, slowly, he raised his hands. The exposed copper wires glinted in the dim light.

With a weight like a cancer in his stomach, Ilyas Karami comprehended what the wires meant. "What do you want?"

he asked hoarsely. "Do you want gold? Drugs? Diamonds?

For these weapons, my master will grant you a kingdom!"

Stern crouched lower. He prayed to God the Leet was well away by now.

"Why do you consider this mad thing?" Karami asked, genuinely puzzled.

"You want to die? You want to be a martyr? Martyrdom is for the sons of Allah, my friend, not good Christians. For rescuing these weapons you will be a hero in my nation! Come out from there and let me make you the richest man in the world! Come out and tell me who you are."

Stern laughed. The sound was brittle as a voice from the grave.

"We're both martyrs, Major. Isn't it funny how that works out?"

His face hardened. "I'll see you in the afterlife, my Arab friend.

Shalom."

In one terrible instant Ilyas Karami realized that the man facing him across his coveted weapons was a Jew. From the hot core of his being he screamed a curse of pure hatred at his lifelong enemy, at the same time jerking out the pistol he had hidden in the belt behind his back.

But at that moment Hess jerked up from the floor and clutched at the wires in Stern's hands. "Deutschland!" he shrieked. "Deutschland Uber Alles! " Stern swatted the skeletal arms aside, wrapped the two bare wires together, and clenched them in his fist. He smiled sadly, then closed his eyes.

Karami emptied his pistol as fast as his finger could pull the trigger, but Hess's still-struggling body shielded Stern from the first bullets.

The old Nazi danced horribly in midair, and by the time a slug found Stern it was too late.

In the blink of an eye, darkness turned to noon. Even with the nose cone of the Leadet pointed away from the blast, the flash blinded everyone inside. Diaz lost control of the aircraft. It pitched over into a screaming, spinning dive, hurtling earthward at over five hundred miles per hour.

In the cabin, people slammed into each other in the terror of flashblindness. General Steyn screamed in pain.

Hauer half-fell past Burton into the cockpit. "Straig] up!" he screamed. "Level out!"

The Lear's engines whined insanely as the plane plummeted earthward.

Hauer grabbed the Cuban's wounded shoulder and squeezed maniacafly-

"Level out, damn you!

The blast wave's coming! The blast wave!"

Somehow Diaz managed to pull out of the dive. He had almost succeeded in stabilizing the Lear when the blast wave hit. The solid wall of superheated air tossed the tiny jet like a wave throws a surfboard, pitching it up and forward, then dropping it into a trough of dead air.

Hauer felt a sudden nausea, as if hydroplaning a car around a curve, then just as suddenly the feeling passed. He heard Diaz cursing ftiriously from the cockpit as he wrestled with the controls.

"is anyone hurt!" Hauer shouted. His vision was slowly returning"I can't see!" someone moaned.

"Holy Mother of God," General Steyn mumbled. "He did it! Stern actually did it!"

"I can't see anything!" someone cried. "Help me!"

"The blindness will pass!" Dr. Sabri shouted from the floor.

"We were lucky! It could have been twice that bad!"

"The papers!" Gadi muttered, his voict cracking. "The Spandau papers are gone! Jonas is dead! Where is that German bitch?"

With Ilse now the object of all his rage and frustration, the Israeli scrabbled blindly across the cabin floor in search of his rifle. Hauer had finally had enough. When Gadi's hand closed around Ilse's ankle, Hauer lifted the rifle from beneath the Israeli's sightless eyes and struck him on the side of the head with its stock.

Gadi collapsed in a heap. Quickly Hauer collected every weapon he could find-beginning with Burton's MP-5-and piled them all behind some pillows at the back of the cabin. Then he took Hans's hand and led him over to Ilse.

"It's all right," he said. "Just keep your eyes closed for a minute."

Ilse's arms went around Hauer's neck as well as Hans's.

"We're alive," she said softly. "My God, we're alive." She opened her eyes. Tears of relief welled up in them and ran down her cheeks. A smile started across her face; then she pulled up her hand and covered her mouth. "Stern," she said haltingly. "Herr Stern ...

he's dead."

As Hauer held Hans and Ilse in his arms, he thought about that.

He suspected that the old Israeli would have called the trade more than fair. The mystery of Rudolf Hess would probably remain "unsolved"

forever@r at least until the British government opened its secret vaults-but Stern had never cared much about that. What mattered was that the State of Israel had received a new lease on life. A gift from one of its youngest fathers, and eldest sons. EPILOGUE (WASHINGTON)-At 8:47 Pm. Eastern Standard Time last night, a National Weather Office RORSAT a meteorological satellite recorded an intense flash and heat bloom over the northeastern corner of the Republic of South Africa.

Weather Office analysts report that the event was consistent with data resulting from a large underground nuclear blast. The Weather Office recorded many such events over the Soviet Union during the 1960s, and believes its opinion to be accurate.

Both the National Reconnaissance Office and the Pentagon have refused to comment, but it is believed that this incident confirms the existence of a secret nuclear weapons arsenal in South Africa. A similar event was photographed over the Indian Ocean off the South African coast in 1984.

Weather Office analysts do not have the equipment required to measure the release of radiation into the atmosphere, but they suggest that, with the prevailing winds over the northern Transvaal yesterday, any such radiation would likely have been blown out over the Indian Ocean.

Several international environmental groups have expressed outrage over the test. National Weather Office analysts place the probable nuclear test site less than 20 miles from the Kruger National Park, one of the richest preserves for wildlife on the African continent. The environmental organization Greenpeace intends to file complaints with both the international Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations, but the activist group expects that "little will be done."

The White House has issued no statement on the event, and government officials in Pretoria and Capetown have bluntly refused to grant interviews, calling the charges alarmist and unfounded. A National Weather Office analyst who refuses to be named gave this comment: "Tell the South Africans, 'Welcome to the Club.' (WEST BERLIN-API)-At 4:00

A.M. Central European Time yesterday, an elite counterteffor unit consisting of GSG-9

commandos working in concert with the U.S. Army stormed a Friedrichstrasse police station and cleared it of hostile elements.

U.S. Army Colonel Godfrey Rose, the American commander on the scene, stated that a hostage situation had been going on for some time without the knowledge of the press. The terrorists inside the station had not demanded media coverage, Rose said, and it was felt that premature press involvement "could have impeded the rapid resolution of what was not a critical, but rather an unpleasant situation."

API has no further information on the terrorists who took over Abschnitt 53, but the West Berlin mayor's office has indicated that several West Berlin police hostages died in the assault. Among them was Wilhelm Funk, the prefect of West Berlin police. Funk, along with his fellow officers, will be buried on Friday with full police honors.

Colonel Rose, who had worked extensively with Funk in the past, called his death "a loss that will be deeply felt, but is best put behind us."

The funeral service at the Wilmersdorf cemetery is expected to draw thousands of loyal West Germans.

Minutes of the Special InterAllied Intelligence Conference on Disposition of the Phoenix Case. Schloss Bellevue, West Berlin [Present: (US) Colonel Godfrey Rose, Chief of Military Intelligence, West Berlin; US Undersecretary of State John Taylor/ (USSR) Colonel Ivan Kosov' Grigori Zemenek, Chairman of KGB/ (UK) Sir Neville Shaw, Director General mI-5; Peter Billingsley, Special Counsel to Her Majesty/ (FRG) -Senator Karl Holer, Aide to the Chancellor; HansDietrich Muller, Director of Operations for the BND (West German Intelligence) Meeting chaired by Undersecretary Taylor] Following passage excerpted from the questioning of Julius K. Schneider, Kripo Detective First Grade: [Taylor] Detective Schneider, is it your opinion, then, the Russians will carry through with their purge of Stasi officers who are listed on Captain Hauer's list?

[Zemenek] I strenuously object, Mr. Undersecretary! I have assured this council that all appropriate measures are being taken.

[Taylor] Then you should have no objection to Herr Schneider answering the question.

[Schneider] I believe the Russians will vigorously pursue such a purge.

(pause) It's the political members of Ph@nix I worry about, sir, on both sides of the Wall. I doubt that Captain Hauer's list contained a full[Miillerl Objection' There is no evidence whatsoever that the Phoenix cult has influence in the political hierarchy of the Federal Republic! If there is such evidence, our Russian comrades should force the Stasi to open their infamous blackmail files, so that we may see who is vulnerable to coercion.

[Hoferl I do not think that will be necessary, gentlemen. The Chancellor has full confidence that our colleagues in the BND can root out whatever remains of this atavistic, but entirely anomalous reversion to the Nazi period of Germany's history.

[unintelligible grumbling on all sides] [Taylor] Gentlemen, I understand the ramifications of the Phoenix matter. What I'm having difficulty accepting is that Rudolf Hess actually survived the war and lived until just a few days ago. The man would have been over ninety years old.

[Rose] (laughter) Ever watch the Today show, Mr. Undersecretary ?

[Taylor] I don't follow you, Colonel.

[Rose] Every morning Willard Scott flashes up pictures of people having their birthdays. Every picture he puts up is of someone over a hundred years old. Hell, Prisoner Number Seven only died six weeks ago!

[Billingsley] (clears throat) Gentlemen, I am loath to waste Detective Schneider's valuable time with trivialities. If I may, I would like to return to the question of the Hess material. The security of the Spandau papers, the Zinoviev papers, and other related artifacts. Her Majesty's government is most concerned to know that all such material is now in the possession of the United States government, particularly, in Colonel Rose's Military Intelligence office here in West Berlin.

Detective Schneider?

[Schneider] Sir?

[Billingsley] Is it your opinion that all tangible evidence of Rudolf Hess's actual mission in 1941 has now been suppressed? That no physical artifacts remain?

[Schneider] Artifacts?

[Billingsley] Photocopies, photographs, tapes, et cetera?

[Schneider] (lengthy pause) To the best of my knowledge, that is true.

[Shaw] Frankly, I'm much more concerned about the Russian promise.

For the record, I want us all to be absolutely clear on that. In exchange for the list of Phoenix members compiled by Captain Hauer, the Soviet government will drop all public pursuit of the Rudolf Hess case.

[Kosov] (burst of unintelligible Russian) [Zemenek] Colonel Kosov!

I apologize, gentlemen. Yes, that is the agreement. My signature carries the weight of the Politburo.

[Billingsley] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we are agreed, then-unanimously-that the Israeli government will not be informed of the contents of any of these documents?

[Rose] From what we've learned about the secret Israeli/ South African nuclear agreements, and the involvement of Rudolf Hess, I doubt the Israelis would make the story public even if they knew.