Spandau Phoenix (97 page)

"I'm trying to save your damned country for you," Hauer snapped.

"Since you don't have the presence of mind to do it yourself.

Would you use your brain for one minute? Let's say I tell General Steyn everything. Where the bomb is, who really has it, everything.

What will he do? His first impulse will be to do what Stern wants-take a battalion up there and flatten Horn's place. But guess what? While the good general is flying up to the Transvaal, he's going to realize something. He's going to realize that Alfred Horn's target is not South Africa.

Eh? Because if it was, Horn could have sabotaged it a thousand ways before now. He'll realize that Horn's target must be outside South Africa, as we well know. And when General Steyn's political bosses find that out, they're going to realize that the smart thing to do for South Africa-is to simply let the deal happen. Let whoever's buying that bomb land their plane, load it on board, and fly it right out of South Africa, thereby neutralizing the threat to their country."

The color drained from Gadi's face. "They wouldn'L@ -They damn well would," Hauer asserted. "Even if they want to stop Horn, how can they?

He's got the ultimate blackmail weapon. If they attack him, he can detonate the weapon right where he is-inside South Africa. And I imagine someone in the South African government knows he's crazy enough to do it."

"All right," Gadi said. "I see your point. But General Steyn isn't going to give you any men."

"He is," Hauer said calmly. "On one condition."

"What condition?"

Suddenly, the steel door clanged open. General Steyn marched in with Captain Bernard on his heels.

"Let's see," Hauer murmured to GadiGeneral Steyn stopped in front of Hauer. "Before I answer," he said, "I want to hear exactly what you want."

Hauer didn't hesitate. He'd made his shopping list while he waited in the cell. "I want an armored car. I want it mounted with a heavy machine gun, not a water cannon. I want five men from your elite counterterror unit. I don't want them to know where they're going or what the mission is, but I want them to bring along their whole bag of tricks: flash-bang grenades, body armor, flares, combat shotguns, the works."

"Mmm," the geneml murmured. "Is that all?"

"No. One more thing."

"yes?

"A Steyr-Mannlicher SSG.69."

General Steyn glanced at Captain Barnard-our counterterror team uses a different sniper rifle," Barnard explained. "But I think we can get hold of a Steyr."

Hauer was still watching General Steyn. "Do I get my men, General?"

"On one condition," the Afrikaner said stiffly. "And it's nonnegotiable."

"I can't imagine what it is," Hauer said, almost smiling.

"I go with you."

Gadi's jaw dropped.

"But I'm in command," Hauer pressed.

General Steyn pursed his lips. "Tactical command," he allowed.

Hauer breathed a sigh of satisfaction. "Make your calls, General."

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

5.51 Pm. Horn House Jonas Stern's head, chest, and ankles had been scraped bloody by the leather restraining straps of the X-ray table.

Blinding white light stabbed his eyes. He had counted forty blasts of the X-ray unit already, and in between he had heard the muffled voices of the men behind the heavy lead shield.

His murderers. They had asked no questions, given no explanations, and Stern needed none. He was a Jew.

"That's 150 rads," said a voice Stern recognized as Pieter Smuts's.

"How much is that?" asked a second, eager voice. Jiirgen Luhr.

"How much can he take?"

"Oh, quite a bit more," Smuts replied. "And he will."

"Just a moment," said a hoarse, high-pitched voice.

Stern heard the hum of an electric wheelchair, and then Hess rounded the lead shield. Stern tried to move his head to look, but the straps held him fast. He saw only the brilliant white light overhead.

Hess chuckled beside his ear.

"Pieter has devised a rather ingenious method of eliminating my Jewish problem, wouldn't you say, Herr Stern?"

Stern said nothing.

"I wanted you punished, you see," Hess explained, "but I also wanted you to live long enough to see your country destroyed."

"He may not actually see it, sir," Smuts INTERJECTED as he stepped around the shield. "In a few hours he will experience blindness similar to that caused by flashburns. He may or may not recover his sight."

Hess's face darkened. "But he will live long enough to know that Israel is no more?"

"If the Libyans stick to the schedule, yes. We could stretch this out for months, if you like."

Hess shook his head. "Just long enough for the Jew to see what happens to Israel. What will become of him after that?"

Smuts's voice took on a clinical detachment. "It varies.

This dosage will cause severe nausea and vomiting for the next twenty-four hours. He'll have deep burns, bloody diarrhea, his hair will fall out, there'll be bone marrow destruction-" Hess raised his hand. "How much.can he stand and survive for two weeks?"

"I wouldn't push it over 500 rads, sir. Not if you want him to live until the detonation."

When Stern finally spoke, his voice was a knife blade. "In one week, Hess, you will stand in the dock before a war crimes tribunal in Jerusalem."

Hess laughed. "Yes? Well, you might be interested to know that your friend Hauer and his young Jewish companion are now in a Pretoria police cell. And General Jaap Steyn is chasing a school of red herrings at the request of my Pretoria office."

"You will be manacled," Stern went on stubbornly. "Israeli schoolchildren will file past your cell and spit in your face. History will judge you as it did your master, as one more tragic gangster with an inferiority complex@, "Swine!" Hess shrieked. "When your skin turns black and begins to drop off, you will regret your words!"

"Don't let him provoke you, sir," Smuts said evenly. "In ten days time, Israel will be a dead island in a sea of Arabs."

"Yes," Hess rasped. "What do you think of that, Jew?"

"I think you should plead guilty," Stern retorted. "It will shorten the time' you have to stand in shame before the world's cameras."

Enraged, Hess stabbed a button on'his wheelchair and wheeled away toward the door. "Give him 500 rads! Now!"

Jtirgen Luhr's hysterical laugh was cut short by a sharp knock at the door. A gray-uniformed soldier stepped in, saluted Hess, then turned to Smuts. "The radar shows one aircraft approaching, sir.

Twenty kilometers out. It responded properly to the codes."

Hess smiled. "Our Libyan friends have arrived to take possession of their new toy."

"I should get up to the tower, sir," Smuts said.

"No, finish here first. I want this Jew to get his 500 rads today."

Smuts frowned. "I should be with you when you meet the Libyans.

Lieutenant Luhr can finish here. The machine is set. All he need do is press the button."

Hess paused. "Very well."

"Fifty more exposures," Smuts tofu Luhr.

"Jawohl," Luhr replied, his eyes exultant.

After Smuts rolled Hess out, Luhr swaggered over to the table and leaned over Stern. "Are you enjoying this, you filthy@' Stern spat into Luhr's open mouth. The German gagged, raised his fist high over Stern's neck, then dropped it shaking to his side. He reached up, took hold of the X-ray tube housing and brought its barrel to within an inch of Stern's groin. Then he hurried behind the lead shield and peered through the thick bubble window.

"Let's see if we can burn your balls off, Jew," he snarled.

He pressed the trigger.

604 Pm. The Northern Transvaol

The South African-built Armscor AC-200 armored car swerved off of the last road east of Giyani and crashed down onto hard veld. Six huge wheels hurled the long, wedge'shaped hull over berms and trenches at forty miles per hour-the speed of a mildly agitated rhinoceros.

Machine guns bristled from the Arinscor's steel hide, giving the lowslung fighfing vehicle the look of a tank designed for a war on the moon. Inside, Dieter Hauer checked his watch. The hell-for-leather journey from Pretoria had taken three hours, they still had twenty kilometers of punishing, trackless wilderness to cover before they reached Horn House. He estimated they would find it about dusk-the worst possible time. It would still be light enough for the defenders to see them coming, but too dark for accurate small-arms fire by his assault team. He had tried to keep his mind off Hans's fight during the trip; he'd spent most of the ride conferring quietly with General Steyn.

By concentrating on tactics, he ad almost managed to ignore the fact that with Stern and the missing pages now in his custody, Hess had no reason to keep Hans and Ilse alive any longer.

The scene inside the Armscor comforted Hauer, though it would have terrified most civilians. Ever since Giyani, his team had worn their black Kevlar helmets and anti-riot respirators. These sophisticated gas masks concealed the entire face, giving their wearers the insectile look of Hollywood movie aliens. Every man also wore a full suit of black body armor. Made of Kevlar composite material fortified by ceramic tile inserts, these suits would stop not only pistol rounds and shrapnel, but high-velocity armor-piercing bullets.

Hauer could scarcely tell the men apart. He knew that General Steyn sat beside him on the metal bench seat, and that one of the men sitting across from him was Gadi Abrams. Captain Barnard was up front in the shotgun seat.

The driver and the other two men were members of South Africa's elite counterterror (CT) commando unit, making up the five-man force Hauer had originally requested. All the rifles save Hauer's were South African.

Gadi did not mind this, as the South African R-5 assault rifle was merely a carbine style variant of the Israeli Galil. Hauer carried the long, graceful sniper rifle he had requested from General Steynthe Austrian-built Steyr-Mannlicher SSG.69. On the floor lay an assortment of weapons from grenades to combat shotguns.

He wrenched his respirator aside. "Stern said to expect a strong defense!" he shouted. "And I think he knows what he's talking about."

General Steyn pulled his own buglike mask off, revealing his perpetually red face. "He does, Captain. You're the one who insisted on one vehicle and five men. I would have hit this place with an airborne division!"

"And seen this corner of your country vaporized," Hauer reminded him.

"What about land mines, General? Aren't they popular down here?"

"Very. We have so many unpaved roads that mines are the weapon of choice. The bottom of this vehicle is designed to deflect mine blasts upward and away, but a sustained series of hits-one large minefield, say-and we've bought it."

General Steyn grinned. "I may be getting up in age, but I don't fancy a hot fragment in the balls!"

Hauer laughed. The closeness of the sound inside the respirator gave him a brief flush. Wearing a full suit of armor was disorienting. It insulated a man from lethal projectiles, but it also isolated him from the men around him.

Staring through his bubble eyeholes, Hauer wondered about the South African CT troops. General Steyn had vouched for their loyalty, but Hauer didn't count that for' much. Not when one of the general's own staff officers had been on Phoenix's payroll. Hauer would have given his pension for a German GSG-9 assault team to replace the South Africans.

He'd have few doubts about success then. But it was no use wishing. You fight with what you have.

He wondered if Jonas Stern calculated the same way. He could imagine the dilemma the Israeli was struggling with now-if Stern was still alive. If it came to a choice between detonating a nuclear weapon on South African soil or letting it be captured by Arab fanatics sworn to destroy Israel, Hauer knew Stern would not hesitate to turn this corner of South Africa into a radioactive wasteland. If the choice were between Germany and South Africa, he knew he would do the same. He only prayed it wouldn't come to that.

Across the narrow aisle, the South Africans sat like Sphimes behind their black masks. Hauer ' finally discerned the smoldering gaze of Gadi Abrams through the bubble eyes of one respirator. Hauer stared back, trying to read the message in the Israeli's dark eyes.

The best he could come up with was, "I trust only you and me, and I'm not too sure about you, " before the young commando turned away.

Hauer felt exactly the same.

6.11 Pm. Horn House

This time Smuts did not meet the Libyans on the runway. He waited in the relative security of the recept@,on hall with his master. If they don't like being met by a kaffir he thought, to hell with them.

Hess sat in his wheelchair beside Smuts, wearing a gray suit-jacket and black eyepatch. He had once again assumed the role of Alfred Horn.

Smuts peered through a window as his Zulu driver goosed the Range Rover up the final crescent of the drive. When the Libyan delegation climbed out, Smuts immediately noticed the ratio of four bodyguards to two negotiators. On the last trip, he recalled, that ratio had been reversed. He also noted the conspicuous absence of Major Ilyas Karami.