Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

death by only seconds. Natterman stumbled over to the gasping Israeli

and with painful effort shoved Swallow's corpse off his blood-soaked

chest. Aaron strained to raise his head, then fell back and reached up

to Natterman for succor. Natterman knelt over him.

"Lie back," he said.

"You're safe now."

A froth of blood bubbled from Aaron's mouth. 'Did I stop her?"

he asked softly. "She wanted ... Stern."

Natterman looked over at Swallow. Lying dead with the arrow buried in

her chest, she looked like a locust husk spiked to a display board.

Natterman smiled at the young Israeli. "You stopped her."

"Tell ... tell Gadi ... did my duty." Aaron coughed once more; then he

closed his eyes.

Natterman swallowed hard. This young soldier had given his life for

Jonas Stern. Filled with a gudden rage, Natterman lurched to his feet

and scrambled back to the telephone.

"Who is this?" he shouted. "Speak!"

"Who is this?" came the wary reply, the British accent clear.

Natterman felt his hands shaking. "Your assassin is dead!"

he yelled. "Your secret will be secret no more!"

He threw down the telephone. Moaning in pain, he stripped off his

shirt, picked up Aaron's first-aid bag, and began rummaging through the

drug bottles. He wanted lo anesthetic. He needed to dull the fire of

his wounds, but he could not risk losing consciousness. He had to be

able to board an airplane under his own power. He hated the idea of

leaving Ilse and the others behind, but he suspected that if he did not

get out of South Africa today, he might not get out at all.

7.01 A.Al- Mi-5 Headquailers: Ch8rigPs Street, London Sir Neville Shaw

dropped the phone, his face ashen. Deputy Director Wilson faced him

from the doorway.

"It's over," Shaw said quietly. "After all this time, it's over."

"What do you mean, sir?"

"Swallow's dead. There's no stopping the secret now.

We've fired our last shell. From Churchill down to me, and all for

nothing."

"Churchill, Sir Neville? I don't understand."

"Don't you? Haven't you got it yet, man? Horn is Hess, Hess is Horn.

The great bloody secret. Ever since Churchill, it's been our sacred

charge."

"Sacred charge?"

"This service, Wilson. My office, particularly. It was mI-5

who ran the original Hess double-cross in 1941. We intercepted the

first letter from Hess to the Duke of Hamilton."

Shaw lifted two sheets of Paper from his desk. "Why don't you read

this, old man?, It's a memo to the prime MiniSterTyped it myself while

you were getting tea."

Wilson stepped forward uncertainly and took the proffered pages.

His eyes widened as they flew over phrases that made his blood run cold.

Dear Mrs. Prime Minister:

In May 1941, Rudolf Hess, Deputy Fuhrer of the German Reich, flew to

this country to assist in a coup d'etat aimed at the government of Prime

Minister Winston Churchill and King George VI.

mI-5 was aware of this plot almost from its inception, and used it to

buy time to forestall the German invasion of this country [Operation Sea

Lion].

Regrettably, the success of the coup hinged on the participation of

numerous ranking members of the wartime Parliament and the nobility, as

well as a second accession of the Duke of Windsor to the throne. On

11May 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill instructed this office

[Secret Finding 5731 to conceal all evidence of this AngloNazi

collusion, on the grounds that exposure of such high-ranking treason

might bring down the government and possibly even prevent American entry

into the war.

Events of the past five days have made the continued suppression of this

information highly unlikely. I must inform you that Rudolf Hess is

alive as of this writing, and is a citizen of the Republic of South

Africa [living under the alias "Alfred Horn"]. Hess may soon reveal

this fact himself, or certain papers unearthed at Spandau Prison may do

so. My best efforts to silence Hess and to destroy the papers have

failed. Hess's current activities fall into the realm of the criminal,

and, if exposed, could put at risk a significant number of British

nationals. The family of Lord Granville, particularly, may soon be made

public in this connection, as it has owned and operated Phoenix AG [a

multinational defense contractor] at the bidding of "Alfred Horn" since

1947. Other families of the peerage [one of whom boasts a member of

your cabinet] have lent their names to similar enterprises in exchange

for large cash payments, and possibly for ideological reasons as well.

I'm afraid issuing a D-notice at this time would be counterproductive,

however, as it would tend to indicate prior knowledge by your office of

these activities.

The suppression of the Hess information to date has only been possible

thanks to the nerve and foresight of Prime Minister Churchill.

In October 1944, Churchill flew to Moscow for a meeting with Joseph

Stalin. With him he carried copies of assassination orders that were,

to all appearances, signed by Stalin himself. These orders were

actually forgeries fabricated by Reinhard Heydrich's SD.

They were brought into this country by a German-trained White Russian

agent named Zinoviev, and recovered by mI-5 on 11 May 1941.

In Moscow, Churchill warned Stalin that he would inform the world press

that Stalin had ordered the murders of Churchill and King George VI, if

Stalin did not cease making accusations about Anglo-Nazi collusion in

the Hess affair.

Five weeks ago, on the strength of Secret Finding 573, I ordered the

liquidation of Hess's double [the real Alfred Horn] in Spandau Prison.

On my order the Foreign Office file on Hess has been sanitized. I have

placed in my personal safe papers which washed ashore in Scotland on 11

May 1941, which were thought to have been ditched from Hess's plane.

These papers contain the names of many of the British coup conspirators.

The War Office file on Hess contains damaging information on the Duke of

Windsor [which the Royal Family is frightfully anxious to keep buried],

but that file is sealed until 2050. The F.O. file is sealed until 2016.

We should meet as soon as possible: Sir Neville Shaw Director General,

mI-5

P.S. This unfortunate situation has been complicated by the arrest

yesterday of an mI-6

intelligence analyst@who for seven years made available to agents of

"Alfred Horn" some of our most sensitive intelligence secrets, including

copies of American satellite photography. 'three weeks ago, this man

inferred [from information which had been requested by Phoenix AGI that

some type of attack [possibly nuclear] was imminent against the State of

Israel. In a belated fit of conscience, he sent an anonymous warning to

the Israeli Embassy in London. We cannot discount the possibility that

my efforts to liquidate Hess prompted him to attempt some desperate

action against Israel, but I consider this scenario unlikely. "Alfred

Horn" does have significant uranium holdings in South Africa, but the

possibility that he has acquired a nuclear device is infinitesimally

small.

Deputy Director Wilson looked up at Shaw with horror on his face. "You

don't really mean to send this?"

Shaw raised his eyebrows. "of course I do. As far as I'm concerned,

the Hess secret is blown. I'll be sacked tomorrow, so what do I care?

I'm tired of protecting traitors, Wilson. It's time the world learned

what a heroic mission this service performed in 1941. We saved