Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

hundred times worse.

Do you understand?"

Gadi wiped the sweat from his forehead. "God in Heaven."

"Once you get within a few miles of here, you and every man with you

will be within the blast radius."

"No one else will know," Gadi said in Hebrew.

"Good boy. There's one more thing. Once you learn the exact

coordinates of Horn House, I want you to call Tel Aviv and ask for

Major-General Gur. Explain the situation, give him the coordinates,

then say 'Revelation.' That's the IAF crisis code for imminent nuclear

emergency. I doubt Jerusalem would give clearance for a raid here, but

it's worth a tiy.

If we fail, perhaps the air force will make an attempt. Now, Gadi, I

must go. It's time to become the professor again. I hope to see you

soon, my boy. Shalom."

Gadi swallowed. "Shalom, Uncle."

Stern disconnected.

Hauer stared suspiciously at Gadi for a few moments, but he decided not

to press. He shoved his Walther into his belt.

"Let's go blackmail some spies," he said.

Separated from Jonas Stern by one thin wall, Lieutenant Jiirgen Luhr

held the silent telephone to his ear. Luhr had been unable to sleep

after the exhilaration of the battle, and his wanderings through Horn

House had eventually led him to Alfred Horn's study. He'd been standing

by the shattered picture window through which Ilse had blasted Lord

Grenville when he saw a yellow light flashing on Horn's desk.

Hesitating but a moment, he had lifted the receiver and over heard the

final few seconds of Stern's conversation with Gadi.

Now he stood still as stone, trying to comprehend what he had heard. It

seemed impossible. Apparently Professor Natterman-or the Jew claiming

to be Professor Natterman!-had made a call from somewhere inside this

house.

But to whom? From the little he'd heard, Luhr could not be sure.

He would have suspected Dieter Hauer, but he'd heard the swine on the

other end of the phone speak Hebrew, and Hauer wasn't a Jew. Luhr was

sure of one thing. Alfred Horn and his Afrikaner security chief would

be very grateful to the man who informed them not only that they had a

Zionist spy in their midst, but that they might soon be the target of an

Israeli air strike! With his pulse racing, Luhr dashed into the hall to

rouse the house.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

520 A.iw. Horn House They came for Jonas Stern as the Gestapo had come

for his father in Germany. Four heavy-booted soldiers burst through the

door with pistols drawn and snapped on the overhead light, shouting at

the top of their lungs: "Up JUdin! Up!

Schnell!

The sudden light blinded Stern, for he had been lying fully clothed in

the darkness. He leaped from the bed with his broken fork raised, but

the click of pistol slides made him freeze where he stood. There was

only one explanation for this. The worst had happened. Somehow, on the

same night he had discovered that Alfred Horn was not who he pretended

to be, Alfred Horn had discovered the same thing about him.

Powerful hands seized Stern's arms and lifted him off his feet.

The soldiers-their khaki uniforms now replaced by Wehrmacht

gray-frog-marched him into the corridor and hustled him along at the

double. When Stern glanced up, he saw the cold black eye of a pistol

barrel. Above it hovered the face of Pieter Smuts.

"Where are you taking me?" asked Stern.

"Where do you think, Jew?" the Afrikaner jeered, walking backward. "To

see the Fuhrer!"

Stern stared across the mahogany desk with a lump in his, throat.

Ghostlike and gray, the old man who called himself @

I r

Alfred Horn sat hunched in his wheelchair, an expression of bemusement

on his deeply lined face. As Stern stared, he felt a sudden stab of

doubt. Concealed in his shirt were the@ X-rays that he believed would

prove beyond doubt that' Alfred Horn was Rudolf Hess. And yet ... the

old man sitting across from him no longer looked quite as he had before.

Now, instead of a glass eye, Horn wore an eyepatch.

All Stern could think of was Zinoviev's description of Helmut Steuer:

Helmut had worn an eyepatch. Had Helmut Steuer survived his mission

after all? Was Rudolf Hess really dead? Had Helmut somehow managed to

hunt down Hess's X-rays to conceal the truth? Or had both men survived?

Could it be that Hess had lived for a time as Alfred Horn, and then,

after he died, Helmut had quite naturally taken over the false identity?

Whatever his true identity, the old man across from Stern was not

wearing the plain khaki uniform Rudolf Hess had worn as Deputy Fuhrer of

the Reich. He was wearing a gray suit jacket much like the one Adolf

Hitler had worn as Supreme Commander of German Armed Forces. And

suspended around his neck was the Grand Cross-Nazi Germany's highest

military award. To Stern's knowledge, Rudolf Hess had never won that

decoration.

Pieter Smuts stood rigid behind his master, eyes smoldering, mouth set

in a grim line. Above him reared the bronze Phoenix; directly behind,

the maps from which Stern had copied the coordinates he'd given

Hauer.'Stern sensed the soldiers standing behind him.

"We seem to have a problem of mistaken identity," Horn said. "Would you

care to enlighten us, Herr Professor?"

Stern stood still as a pillar of salt.

Smuts 'nodded. One of the soldiers behind Stern smashed a savage fist

into his right kidney. Stern crumpled, but managed to stay on his feet.

As he straightened up, the two X-rays he had stolen from the medical

unit made a crackling sound. Smuts came around the desk, ripped Stern's

shirt open and jerked out the films. He handed them to Horn; who held

them up to his desk lamp and clucked his tongue softly.

"You're a clever little rat, aren't you?" he growled. "Herr Stern?"

Stern struggled to hold his face immobile as his brain raced to adapt to

the changing situation. If Horn knew his name, that meant that either

Ilse had been made to talk, or Hauer and Gadi had been captured.

Stern prayed it was the former. "I'd say we have two cases of mistaken

identity," he said coolly.

Smuts signaled for another kidney blow, but Horn raised a peremptory

hand. "I think you know who I am," he said, his watery eye twinkling.

"Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess, I suppose?"

"That title is long out of date. After the Fuhrer died, his

responsibilities passed to me."

"You've pinched his uniform and decorations, at any rate," Stern

needled. "I thought the dubious honor of the Nazi succession passed to

Hermann Goring."

Hess colored. Another vicious blow hammered Stern's left kidney,

driving him to his, knees "The Reichsmarschall is also dead," Hess said

testily.

"And the Grand Cross was awarded to me by the Fuhrer himself.

Secretly, of course."

Stern looked up at the old man and stared into the single furtive eye.

"If you are Hess," he said, "what happened to Helmut Steuer?"

"Helmut died a hero's death in 1941. He was a German patriot of the

highest order, and I immortalized his efforts by awarding him the

Knight's Cross."

"And the tattoo? The single eye?"

Hess shrugged. "I needed a symbol. I couldn't risk telling my

associates my true identity. I wanted a mystical sign that would

signify their bond to me and to each other. I remembered the All-Seeing

Eye from my childhood in Egypt."

Hess touched his eyepatch. "It certainly seemed appropriate.

As did the Phoenix."

All just as Professor Natterman guessed. "How did you lose the eye?"