Spandau Phoenix (66 page)

Natterman shook his head.

"LAKAM is Israel's nuclear security force. Not in the sense of operating the weapons, but in protecting them.

LAKAM safeguarded Israel's nuclear program from inception to completion.

That's why I know so much about the South African program."

"And is this LAKAM work what led you to Berlin? To Spandau?"

"Not exactly. What led me to Spandau was a chain of facts. A very fragile chain with four links that spans three decades. The first link wag a warning note-an anonymous, cryptic note written in Cyrillic handwriting and delivered to Israel in 1967. It warned of terrible danger to Israel and spoke of 'the fire of An-nageddon.' This note claimed that the secret of this danger could be found in Spandau.

That, of course, was a very broad hint. Did the writer mean Spandau the city? Spandau the prison? What? Two days later, the Six-Day War broke out and the note was dismissed as a warning of the Egyptian attack, probably written by a Russian with a conscience."

Stern rubbed his temples. "Now, ump ahead to the early 1970s. I was working for LAKAM by then, and we in the agency became aware that certain German scientistsformer Third Reich physicists-were working in the rocketry section of South Africa's nuclear program. This by itself was not unusual. After all, it was German scientists who built the bombs for America and Russia. But when you c sider that the prime minister of South Africa in 1979-the year of the secret Israeli/South African nuclear test-was John Vorster, a man who had supported the Nazis during World War Two, it takes on a rather different significance.

"Now, let's jump ahead again, to the 1980s. It was then, through contacts in the Mossad, that I became aware of a neofascist police organization called Bruderschaft der Phoenix, headquartered in West Berlin-"

"Phoenix!" Natterman exclaimed. "Hurry, Stern, tell me!"

"Again, this by itself was not of great import. It took the fourth and final link to join the others in my mind. Just three weeks ago, the Israeli Foreign Ministry received a typed warning from an anonymous source. The writer obviously knew of the secret Israeli/South African nuclear partnership, and stated that he had personal knowledge that there were some in the South African defense establishment who had anything but Israel's best interests at heart.

The writer claimed he believed that Israel might actually be in danger of a nuclear attack, and that the best line of inquiry for us to pursue was with a South African defense contractor called Phoenix AG."

Natterman caught his breath. After several moments, he said, "Forgive me, Stern, but there's something I don't understand here. You told me you were retired. This situation seems serious enough. that Israel would be making a significant effort to investigate it."

Stern's smile carried the bitterness of a lifetime's disillusionment.

"You would think that, wouldn't you? But some people don't see it that way, Professor. South Africa is Israel's nuclear partner, remember? No one in Jerusalem wants to upset that status quo.

The Israeli/South African 'special relationship' is so close that, as we speak, a secret contingency plan exists to remove South Africa's entire stockpile of nuclear weapons to Israel in the event, that the blacks appear likely to overthrow the government."

Natterman's eyes grew wide. "My God. This is all so unbelievable. Why would Israel sup orta repressive, even genocidal state like South Afiica) "The Israeli people probably wouldn't, Professor. But decisions guiding Israel's nuclear program were never voted on in the Knesset.

Israel's nuclear policy is formed by a very few men who happen to hold the key positions in the government." Stern sighed. "And some men will do anything in the name of survival. For some Jews, the Holocaust justifies any act to prevent a repetition of history, even a preemptive Holocaust perpetrated by Jews." Stern reached beneath his seat, withdrew an orange from his leather bag, and slowly began to peel it.

"Professor, how much do you know about Israel's resistance to the British during the Mandate and World War Two?"

Natterman shrugged. "I know about the Haganah."

"What about the Zionist terrorist groups?"

"The Stern Gang and the Irgun?"

"Yes.

"Some. Which did you fight with?"

"That is unimportant now. What matters is that prior to World War Two, both groups violently resisted the British occupation of Palestine. But when the war broke out, the two groups split. The Irgun supported the British, rightly believing that Israel could never be born in a world under Hitler. But the Stern Gang believed that driving out the British was more important than defeating the Nazis."

Natterman's eyes widened in disbelief "The Stern Gang actually sent delegations to meet with representatives of Hitler's Reich and Mussolini's Italy. They actually promised to fight for the influence of Germany and Italy in the Middle East, if Hitler and Mussolini would agree 1

to allow Jews to leave their countries and also guarantee the safety of Israel after the war."

"Madness," Natterman breathed. "What fools could have believed that a guarantee from Adolf Hitler was worth anything?"

Stern shook his head in disgust. "One of those fools was Yitzhak Shamir, the prime minister of Israel."

Natterman sat in stunned silence. "Shamir was a Zionist terrorist, wasn't he? The Stern Gang ... my God."

"And that," said Stern, "brings us the the present, to the new LAKAM. I left the agency seven years ago. At that time it was a model intelligence organization. But under Shamir, LAKAM has grown completely out of control. Up until two years ago, they actually ran a spy against the United States.

Jonathan Pollard gave LAKAM information on U.S. weapons systems, satellite capabilities, even nuclear targeting data-the most sensitive intelligence in America. And do you know what Shamir did with this tanned face paled with fury sent it to Moscow. That bastard risked the life-giving support of America to prove that Israel could not be told what to do by anyone, even the United States!"

"Does LAKAM know about the Phoenix AG warning?"

Stern answered with bitter sarcasm. "The current chief of LAKAM feels that the Phoenix warning was fabricated by someone who wants to start us on a destructive mole hunt.

LAKAM is pursuing the warning, but very slowly, like a man walking on ice. There are 'constructive discussions' going on between Jerusalem and Pretoria. The only reason I found out about the Phoenix warning at all was that an old friend at LAKAM felt that the warning was not being taken seriously enough."

Stern smiled mischievously. "That is the main reason I went first to West Berlin rather than South Africa-to stay out of LAKAM's way. But there were other reasons. The name of the company-Phoenix AG-reminded me of Bruderschaft der Phoenix in Berlin. And when an old friend happened to mention that Spandau Prison was being torn down only two weeks after the warning arrived, the timing seemed impossibly coincidental. All I could think of was the 'fire of Armageddon' note that had mentioned Spandau.

Spandau as a city had always been too large to investigate, of course.

And while Hess-excuse me, Hess's double-was being held in Spandau Prison, it was one of the most closely guarded buildings in the world.

But when I heard it was to be knocked into pieces, well ... it was enough to get me on a plane to Berlin."

"But how are all these things connected?" Natterman asked.

"Where is the direct link between South Africa and Germany?"

Stern pursed his lips. "I don't think there is one, Professor. I think the link runs through EnglandThe British governed South Africa until 1961, remember. They're a minority now, but a powerful one.

Take Phoenix AGit's a defense contractor based in South Africa, but the majority stockholder is a young Englishman named Robert Stanton, Lord Granville. His father and grandfather owned the company before him."

"Granville!" Professor Natterman shook his forefinger excitedly.

"That's why you brought me with you. You think this nuclear danger to Israel could somehow be connected to the Hess case. To the English conspirators!"

"Keep your voice down!" Stern glanced across the aisle to make sure Gadi was still asleep. "LAKAM traced the paper used for the Phoenix AG

warning to an English mill. Lord Grenville's family has owned and operated the corporation since 1947. But it still doesn't add up.

Britain has always been anti-Semitic, but what motive could Englishmen have to support fascist groups now? Captain Hauer mentioned German reunification to you. Could these Englishmen stand to make great profits if Germany reunifies? Or could they have been blackmailed all these years by Germans who knew their dark secret?

Germans who had secret ends of their own?"

Natterman was shaking his head. "I keep coming back to the past, Stern.

Consider our highly placed clique of Nazi sympathizers in the wartime Parliament. I would imagine they had quite a bit of 'old boy' control over British policy vis-A-vis Palestine, wouldn't you? Think about it.

In 1917

Britain promised the Jews a national home in Palestine. Yet while England drifted into war with Hitler-the man who had vowed to exter?ninate world Jewry-the British government used military force to prevent every European Jew it could from reaching safety in Palestine-the country Britain had already promised them. Was that rational policy? Who really made those decisions? Could those anti-Semitic feelings still be thriving in some families in Britain?"

Stern's face burned red with anger. "Professor, I can't even think about those days without feeling rage toward the British."

Natterman was staring at Stern with strange intensity.

"Tell me," he said softly. "Were you part of the Stern Gang?

Is that how you know all this? Or were you Irgun?"

Stern's eyes bored in on Natterman. "Neither, Professor.

A very long time ago-before LAKAM-I helped found the Haganah."

Stern glanced past Natterman, to the small window-square of cerulean sky. "In the winter of 1935, I emigrated with my mother to Palestine.

My father refused to leave our homeland, which happened to be Germany.

Despite my youth, I did a bit of everything for the Haganah: foug4t Arabs, procured illegal arms, set up radio links across the Arabian peninsula, smuggled in Jews from Europe-but mostly I fought the British." The Israeli's face hardened.

"But I was no terrorist. Haganah was a moral army, Pr sor. The moment Israel declared nationhood, we emerged as her legitimate defense forces.

I've never believed in senseless violence to achieve political ends. I saw too many men start out as patriots and end up as criminals." Stern's eyes misted with some half-forgotten emotion.

"Terror is a tempting tool in war, Professor. The easiest short-term solution is always to lash out-to murder. I know. I tried it once."

He sighed deeply. "But 'an eye for an eye' is no road map to a better world."

In her seat near the staircase, Swallow clenched her trembling hands.

Jonas Stern's voice-his hypocritical, Zionist voice-had hurled her back into the past, back to Palestine.

Swallow knew all about Jonas Stern's flirtation with revenge, and she had a very different opinion about the merits of the concept. She could no longer even think coherently about her pain. Her clearest memory was of her time as a mathematics prodigy studying at Cambridge, her time as Ann Gordon. She still remerhbered the stunned expressions of the dons as she soared through the nether reaches of theoretical calculus at age @ixteen. When the war broke out, British Intelligence had snatched her up with the rest of the savants and whisked her into cryptography. Her parents lived in London, but her two brothers were stationed abroad: the elder an RAF bombardier on Malta, the younger-Ann's fraternal twin-a military policeman in Palestine. Ann and her twin brother, Andrew, had been inseparable as children, and they had danced with joy when fate landed them both in the same theater of the war.

. The family had a splendid war-right up until the end. In 1944

both of Ann's parents were killed by one of the last V-rockets to fall on London. Then her elder brother was shot down over Germany and lynched by civilians while the WarrenSS looked on. That left only Ann, decoding German signals in a stifling shed inTel Aviv, and Andrew, caught in the escalating violence between Jews, Arabs, and the British in Palestine. With the rest of the family dead, the twins had grown closer than ever. They even shared a small apartment in the poor quarter of Tel Aviv-until the night Andrew was blown into small pieces as he sat on a toilet in the British police barracks. His brutal death finally shattered Ann's Enghsh stoicism. During the long, desolate months of anguish, her grief slowly metamorphosed into a dark, implacable fury. The war with Germany ended, but she had found a new war to fight.

With methodical fanaticism she set to work finding out who had killed her twin brother. It didn't take long. The bomb that killed Andrew had been a Zionist reprisal attack, revenge for some filthy Jews who had died in a British deportation camp. And the name of the young firebrand who had planned and carried out that reprisal? Jonas Stern.

It had taken Ann just two hours to learn everything the local authorities knew about Stern. He had apparently helped the British quite a bit during the war, but before and since, the young Zionist had killed enough Englishmen to earn an unofFicial bounty of a thousand pounds on his head. Ann Gordon didn't give a damn about the bounty.