Spandau Phoenix (89 page)

Both his parents had been killed in the air-raid, he wailed, burnt blacker than coat He wanted revenge: revenge on Goring, on the Luftwaffe, and most of all on Hitler I tried to turn this catastrophe to our advantage. Banks would have his revenge, I said. Tomorrow Hitler would be killed@just as Churchill would-by a communist martyr just like Banks.

What better revenge could his parents have?

When I mentioned Churthill, however, a strange look crossed Banks's face. Then an odd calm settled on him. "I won't do it, " he said simply. I almost collapsed "What?" I cried Speaking in a voice almost too low to hear, Banks said that all along Churchill had been the man who had stood up to Hitler That no mauer what extremes of capitalist greed Churchill stood for, Churchill wanted Hitler dead It seemed that this alone was now enough for "Big Bill" Banks. The 's f man anatical communist zeal had disappeared in the blink of an eye.

I wanted to shoot him on the spot. I could see that his uncertainty was having a similar effect on Fox. Immediately I redoubled my efforts to convince Banks to push on. Helmut did his best to help me, and after several minutes of emotional appeals Banks started to come around.

Somehow Helmut had redirected Banks's anger onto ChurrhilL It was Churchill who'd brought the air raids down on England he said, Churchill who'd actually killed Banks's parents. "Big Bill" took hold of his Sten and began marching around the room, a snarl on his lips and tears in his eyes. His rededication steeled Fox for his task, and I believed that our mission might yet succeed But disaster struck again, this time in the form of Sherwood. We heard the group's secret knock at the door Helmut answered it, ready to brain whatever fool had broken his order not to come around. The moment he unlatched the door, Sherwood burst in with a revolver and ordered me against the wall. Jabbing the gun at me, he told the others that I really was El Muerte, the Russian torturer from Spain.

I calmly called the man a lunatic and told him he was about to wreck the greatest strike for world communism since 1917. Sherwood laughed wildly. Both Helmut and "Linle Bill" Fox urged him to put the pistol down, but the fanatic showed no reluctance to point the gun at his own countrymen if they interfered.

Sherwood Stepped up to me and laid the barrel of the pistol between my eyes. "Tell them, " he said. "Tell them who you really are. " I could almost see Helmut's brain spinning.

No one suspected him yet, but he had to be careful. "Comrade Zinoviev comes from Moscow!" he told them. "From Stalin himself!

Don't bring Stalin's wrath down upon us. " But Helmut@ words had no effect on Sherwood. "He thinks we're fools, Bill!" Sherwood shouted to Banks. "Wants us to kill our own King, he does! Wants us to kill Churchill and help Hitler! " Banks looked confused "Why would a Russian want that?" he asked Sherwood Sherwood scowled "Aye, he@ a Russian, Bill, but he's no Communist. He's a Tsarist killer and a bloody Nazi-lover too! Aren't you?" he said, jabbing me with the revolver I told Sherwood he was mad, all the while praying that Helmut had a pistol on him. This couldn't go on much longer, I knew, and it didn't.

Sherwood suddenly called out a name, and a ragged old man shambled through the door My blood ran cold Before me stood the interrogator's nightmare@ne of my former victims, a man whose arm I had ordered broken in several places. I could not conceal my shock.

The man had only one arm now, but I remembered his face from Spain.

While Sherwood pointed his pistol at me, the old man raised his one arm and slapped me in the face. "Bastard, " he said. Then he turned to the others and said, "This is El Muerte. " Sherwood's eyes sparkled with glee. "Little Bill" Fox stood shaking his head in disbelief. Sherwood took two steps back and steadied his aim; he meant to kill me on the spot.

In that moment Helmut saved my life. He jerked a knife from his pocket and buried it in Sherwood's heart. The stunned Englishman staggered back, gurgled once, fired the pistol and fell dead.

Everyone in the room stood still, not quite sure what had happened. I had the insane notion that we might yet salvage the mission. Then-in a.flash of insight-"Big Bill" Banks understood it all. "You're a Nazi,"

he said to Helmut, his face slack with astonishment. "You-you always have been. " He looked like a shell-shocked recruit. "But you fought with us at Jarama, " he mumbled "And Madrid. " Helmut tried to deny it, but Banks heard nothing. His eyes narrowed and his lips grew white and thin. It was the killing look-I'd seen it a hundred times before.

Had Banks simply shot Helmut, I would not be here today-but Banks was a huge man, and his instinct was to smash what he hated with his hands.

Clutching the Sten gun like a bat, he smacked its stock across Helmut's face. I felt Helmut's blood hit me as it sprayed across the room. He staggered, but held his feet. Dazed, he tried to reason with Banks, but the Englishman raised the Sten above his head and brought it down on Helmut's skull Helmut crumpled to the floor Banks's fury at the loss of his parents had been unleashed, and nothing short of death could stop it.

Fox and the old man who had pointed me out backed against a wall, cowed by the violence of their comrade. As Banks raised the Sten once more, I snatched up Fox's Sten from the table, pulled back the bolt, and pointed the gun at Banks. The man did not even notice me. I could have cut him down at that instant, but I hesitated. By killing him, I would be admitting that my mission hadfailed. Of course it already had, but I could not yet accept that. My finger quivered on the trigger How could this specter from my past have traveled to this very room after so long?

And the bombs-how could they have fallen right on Banks's house! How could it possibly have happened!

I saw Banks bring the Sten down once more onto-or rather into-Helmut's skull, and I pulled the trigger Whirling around the room in fury, I cut them all down in seconds, then bolted for the car I had just got it started when I remembered my forged papers-my "orders from .Moscow. "

Dashing back inside, I searched for my suitcase, but couldn't find it in the main room. I checked the kitchen, found nothing, then returned to the room where the bodies lay. I caught sight of my case in a dark corner I started toward it, then froze. A pair of tall workboots stood beside it. And standing in the boots was a thick pair of legs. Bill"

Banks, the red-haired giant, had somehow gotten to his feet, and he still held his Sten.

He wobbled, then fired. He hit me twice-once in the right arm, once in the right shoulder I had no choice but to rum At worst, I thought, the forged papers implicated Stalin-not Hitler-so I ran. I cranked the old car, and in the confusion of the air raid I managed to escape to the countryside east of London. I used my escape plan just as if the mission had been accomplished. I lay low for a few days on the British coast, with a, German agent who maintained a radio link with Occupied France-then crossed the Channel to safety.

I served out the remainder of the war in Heydrich's SD, and near the end fled with some others to South America.

My dream of returning to my native Russia was crushed forever in 1944. I must live with the knowledge that the terrible shadow my Motherland lives under is in no small part due to my failure in England in the spring of 1941. Surely that knowledge is punishment enough for my failure.

Signed, V V Zinoviev, Paraguay, 1951

Witnessed, Rudolf Hess, Paraguay, 1951

Stern's stomach rolled. Rudolf Hess? 1951? Good God!

What did it mean? Had Hess survived the war after all? Had he fled to Paraguay with Zinoviev after his failed mission?

But what of Helmut, the daring German spy with the eyepatch? Had he really died from his terrible beating? Or had he somehow managed to escape and eventually make his way here, to South Africa? Stern felt more confused than he ever had in his life. How are Hess and Zinoviev connected?

he wondered. Where did their lives intersect? Nowhere in Zinoviev's account was Hess mentioned, yet the date of the planned assassinations simply couldn't be coincidence. Hess had flown to Britain on May 10-the exact date that Zinoviev had been ordered to kill Churchill and the king. So why had Hess been ordered there at all?

Abruptly Stern stood and closed the notebook. Of course!

Zinoviev's failed mission-the double assassination-as important as it was, was merely preparatory. The real objective was the replacement of Churchill's government-a coup d'etat. That was Hess's part of the mission, the political side. But what had gone wrong? The bombs had fallen as Hitler ordered, but Churchill and the king had not. As far as Stern knew, no assassin ever got close to either leader on May 10, 1941.

So where did that leave the British conspirators who had planned to replace them? Where did that leave the real Rudolf Hess? Whatever Hess's mission had been, Zinoviev's failure had blown it. So where had Hess gone? When his mission failed, why didn't he go straight back to Germany? Why run to Paraguay, where he had ap patently witnessed Zinoviev's document? Many Nazis fled to South America after the war.

patently witnessed Zinoviev's document? Many Nazis fled to South America after the war. Had Hess been-one of the first to go? And had he gone alone? No. Somehow, Stern realized, somewhere, Hess had met Zinoviev before Paraguay.

Had it been in Germany? Or was it in England, on the run after the failed mission? I'll bet dear Helmut of the one eye could answer that question, Stern thought wryly. And I've got the oddestfeeling that he's sleeping in this very house!

Stern hurriedly reconstructed Hess's flight in his mind. If what the Spandau papers said was true, the real Hess had taken off from Germany, picked up his double in Denmark, then flown across the Channel and reached the Scottish Coast around ten Pm. The real Hess had bailed out over Holy Island; then the double flew on, directly over Dungavel Castle-his supposed target-all the way to the western coast of Scotland.

There he had turned, paralleled the coast for a while, then flown back toward Dungavel and parachuted into a farmer's field a few miles away.

Why was the double needed at all? Stern asked himself. As a diversion?

He pictured the lonely, frightened German falling from the Scottish sky-an image that had captivated the entire world.

What had been in the double's mind at that moment? In the Spandau papers he had frankly admitted ignorance of the real Hess's mission.

All the double knew was that the scheduled radio signal from Hess had not come, and rather than kill himself as ordered, he had bailed out of the Messerschmitt, broken his ankle, and then, when a shocked and sleepy Scottish farmer approached him, he had claimed to be Rudolf Hess-just as he'd been ordered to do had the proper signal come.

Stern felt the breath leave his lungs in a rush. My God! he thought.

The double had not claimed to be Rudolf Hess! Not at first, anyway. He had not given the farmer Hess's name, but another name-a name always thought to have been a cover. But that was ridiculous, Stern realized, because Rudolf Hess was the double's cover name! After his failure to swallow the cyanide pill, after his bloodcurdling first-time parachute jump, the confused pilot had given the farmer his real name. And his real name was Alfred Horn!

Stuffing the Zinoviev book under his shirt, Stern snatched the broken dinner fork from beneath his mattress and went to work on the door lock.

Thirty seconds later, he switched off the light and peeked outside. Two soldiers wearing khaki uniforms and carrying South African R-5 assault I'll guarded both ends of the dark corridor. Apparently the tive attack held prompted Pieter'Smuts to post sentries against anyone who might have leaked through his defenses.

Or perhaps, Stern thought desperately, perhaps Horn's Arab friends are scheduled to return sooner than I thought. With his chest pounding, he eased the door shut and slumped against it. He had to find a way out!

He knew exactly where he wanted to go, and it wasn't to the basement in search of Frau Apfel's alleged nuclear weapon. Nor was it to the shrine room telephone to call Hauer. All he could think about was something Professor Natterman had reminded him of during the flight from Israel.

Something he had known for so long that he had forgotten it ...

Something about Rudolf Hess.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

11.40 Pm. Horn House Hans and Ilse lay in darkness in the opulent main guest room of Horn House. They left the light off, for they knew each other better without it. Ilse's face, wet with tears, nuzzled in the hollow of Hans's neck, Piled upon the tortures she had already endured, killing Lord Granville had caused Ilse's brain to spin a protective cocoon around itself. After a time, though, the barrier began to thin and stretch. Whin it finally broke, the tears had come, and she began to answer Hans's questions. His first was about the baby, and Ilse's confirmation of what he had been too frightened to believe engendered a deep and dangerous tension within him. His left hand stroked Ilse's cheek, but his right fist clenched and unclenched at his side.

"Don't worry," she whispered from the darkness. "Herr Stern is going to help us."

Hans went still. "Who?"

"Herr Stern. I thought you knew about him. He came here impersonating Opa. He's come to help us."

"What?" Hans rolled out of the bed, stumbled over to the wall and found the light. "Ilse, what have you done?"

She sat up. "Nothing. Hans, my Oandfather is here in South Africa.

He's with your father in Pretoria. Herr Stern is working with your father."