Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

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