The Hess Cross (37 page)

"Diffuse it, Schneider." Hess's voice cracked.

The technician jumped to the side panel. He threw a single switch and gulped air. His knees wavered. Crown and Hess exhaled in unison.

The needle crossed to the red, and the clicking bounced to a steady hum. Fermi looked up with his radiant smile and yelled, "We've made it, boys. It's self-sustaining. The nuclear age is here."

The room exploded with applause and backslapping and handshaking. The court filled with the high-pitched laughter that is tension's release. The technicians on the rigging leaned back on their haunches, lowered the buckets, and laughed. Fermi grasped hand after hand. A few of the scientists jumped up and down with joy. Someone produced a bottle of Chianti and passed it around. There were no glasses, and no one cared. One of the scientists pounded out a tattoo on the table, unable to think of a more appropriate way to express his joy. There were cries of "We did it!" and "Beautiful, Enrico, beautiful!" and "Where's more wine?"

Crown opened the door and said to Hess, "I suppose it's too late for the million dollars?"

Hess stuffed his damp handkerchief into a rear pocket. "Typical Anglo humor, Crown. Typical."

Crown pushed the technician through the door. The white-coat had trouble controlling his feet. Hess followed the technician.

The guard asked, "Enjoy the show, Mr. Crown?"

"More than you'd know." Crown could not keep the elation out of his voice.

The sound of the celebration died as the iron door swung shut, and now all they could hear was the clicking of their heels. It sounded like a prison.

XVIII

H
EATHER WINCED
as Crown opened the door, but Everette Smithson's body had been removed. It was a professional job. No blood on the landing or on the rug at the base of the stairs. The banister posts had been repaired, and the scuff marks on the stairs were no longer visible. Crown had not ordered the cleanup. It meant only one thing. The Priest was here.

"You came back for Miguel Maura's knife, perhaps?"

Sackville-West emerged from the living room, and Crown took his hand, relieved. The Priest's dignified banker's presence was the official signal that things were under control. When he appeared after a case, it was time to shed the pressure and tension, to reassess and rethink the mission, and perhaps to receive the next assignment. Once again, Sackville-West's traveling to Chicago was unusual, reflecting the enormous stakes of the Hess cross.

"When did you get here, sir?"

"An hour or so ago. After our conversation this morning,
I decided that a journey to Chicago might be appropriate, thinking we could brainstorm the problem, but it looks like you have things under control here."

"It was close, but I think so."

"I've had to do a little cleaning up after you," the Priest said, marking his amusement by lightly stroking his salt-and-pepper mustache. "Quite a little mess in the chapel gallery, if you will remember. Our removal team had never seen anything like it."

"I was in a place of worship, so I was inspired."

"Quite. I've also had therapeutic discussions with a shaken organist and a bewildered housekeeper. They are both doing well."

"How much was in the satchel?" Crown asked.

"A quarter of a million dollars," Sackville-West answered as he pointed them to chairs in the living room. "Because Smithson headed our Chicago office, the Nazis bought him, thinking he would be in charge of Hess when he was in Chicago. They didn't expect you and Miguel Maura to step in to guard and transport Hess. If Smithson had been overseeing Hess, killing Fermi during one of the interviews would have been easy."

"So they came after Miguel and me, thinking that once we were dead, Smithson would guard Hess."

"That's right." Sackville-West could have seconded as a model, with his tailored black pinstripe suit and crisp white shirt. Only the tedious green tweed tie argued against his impeccable taste. "By the way, Miss McMillan, it's nice to see you. I trust that you and John have your little difficulties worked out."

If this was cultured American humor, Heather didn't appreciate it, but she briefly told him of Smithson's deception and her reason for reporting Crown's locations to him.

"I can't blame you for that. I would have fallen for it, too, in my younger days. So Hess was bait, John?"

"That's right. He probably had to learn the scientific data the hard way, by long cramming sessions with Germany's scientists, before he flew to Scotland. It's unlikely he was ever in charge of the German experiments, like he claimed. After his flight, he told the London interrogators enough about the German experiments so he would be shipped to the U. S. to talk to our scientists."

"Kohler was in on it. What about Professor Ludendorf?"

"I suspected him when I discovered Kohler was after me. They've been together since Kohler's student days in Germany. Ludendorf even helped Kohler escape to England. But it was Ludendorf who saved Fermi, with his incredible interrogation of von Stihl this afternoon."

"It's hard to believe von Stihl would tell anyone anything."

"As you know, he's got a head wound, one that has addled his brain, at least temporarily. He's babbling day and night, and Ludendorf managed to steer his talk to the mission. Von Stihl told the professor about the explosives planted at the experiments just thirty minutes or so before the blast would have gone off. If it hadn't been for Ludendorf, Hess would have succeeded at killing Fermi and the other scientists."

"Ludendorf must be as good as the British said."

"We also know why von Stihl and his men came to the U.S. They were the backup plan. Smithson and Hess couldn't kill Fermi at an interrogation, because I was there, so they resorted to explosives. The stormtroopers were sent into the U.S. to blow up the experiments. They were lucky to find a greedy technician."

"Why the attack on the navy base?" Sackville-West asked.

"Well, I think they hijacked the truck simply to get explosives," Crown said. "It was heavy-handed, but it worked. Then they launched that nonsensical assault on the navy
station to make us think that's why they hijacked the truck. Perhaps they thought if they blew up the navy buildings, we wouldn't suspect they were going to use the explosives on the experiment."

"This has been a very costly blunder for the Third Reich. By the way, John, would you kindly stop popping your elbow? Thank you. Not only did the Nazis lose the money they paid Smithson, Kohler, and the technician, they also lost some very competent commandos, plus their deputy führer, with all the embarrassment and bad propaganda resulting from his apparent defection."

"And more. To keep us interested, Hess had to reveal secrets about the German fission experiments, the most important of which is that they've bogged down."

"But it was all for nothing. Thank God," Sackville-West breathed. "I would love to see Hitler's tantrum when he hears the Hess cross has been bungled. I understand he can throw a fit like the most talented six-year-old."

There was laughter, then a pause. Heather reached for Crown's hand in an unnecessary reminder. The gesture was not lost on the Priest, who asked, "Something you want, John?"

"Now that his mission is blown, Hess won't be revealing any more German fission secrets, so we'll be flying to London with him tonight. I've already notified Wing Commander Stratton, and he assures me his crew and the plane will be ready."

"So you want some time in London, to sightsee and such, because you know someone who can show you the town." Sackville-West smiled.

"Something like that."

"In light of your very successful, if at times somewhat excessive actions on this assignment, that can be arranged. In fact, we have a little business in and around England that may keep you over there for the better part of a year, if
you're interested, although I can't imagine why you would be, with all the good restaurants and such closed."

Heather appreciated the humor this time.

Sounds like a soft assignment, thought Crown.

"I'll be getting back to Washington tomorrow," Sackville-West continued as he stood. "You'll receive my communiqué within the week on your London assignment. It may require a few short trips across the channel. You know how this work goes."

So much for the soft assignment.

Sackville-West showed them to the door, and Heather asked, "What will happen to Hess?"

"He'll be kept in hospitals or safe houses until the end of the war," Sackville-West replied. "Then he'll go on trial like any other Nazi criminals we manage to catch. This little episode will never be allowed to become part of the history books, though. It makes some people high up in various government circles look rather foolish. Me, for one. And some others higher up than I. Have a good time in England, then. I'll show up in a month or so to see how things are going."

When Heather grinned, Sackville-West added hastily, "Not those kinds of things."

The Priest bid them good-bye at the door, and as they reached the sidewalk Heather asked, "Do you think you can stand me for a year?"

"I'll have those brief, fun-filled jaunts into Germany and occupied France when I need a rest."

"My flat isn't very big, if it's still standing at all."

"I don't take up much room."

On the sidewalk, in Chicago's cold December, they held each other. For the first time, the joy of holding her was not overwhelmed and deadened by suspicion of treachery. His dilemma had been resolved in a way he had thought impossible that morning. She was alive and with him, with him
for a long time. With his arms wrapped around her, Crown felt light and complete and contented.

Contentment. It filled him. It had been a long time since he felt this way. Years. No, only a month, since Miguel Maura was murdered. A part of him had been torn away that night on the Dearborn Street Bridge, ripped out and replaced with blue-cold revenge that had chilled him for a month. That was gone now. As they embraced, Crown could feel Heather replace that dead part of him. She healed and replenished and lifted him. A year of her in London. Maybe more. Crown laughed abruptly and squeezed her hard.

"I bet this works out between you and me," he said, looking into her kelly-green, wonderful eyes.

"I think it will, John."

An hour later, they arrived at the EDC house in the escort car, and Crown knew something was terribly wrong when the red light did not flash from the second-story window in response to his signal. Crown shoved the iron gate, and it swung open freely. Why wasn't it locked?
Oh, Jesus, no!

"Wait here, Heather." His throat was tight.

"What's wrong, John?"

"Something bad. Really bad. Better get in the car." Crown's voice trembled, and as if to compensate, he drew his pistol.

She followed him up the porch stairs anyway. Rather than press the signal buttons under the mailbox, Crown pushed on the front door. It was unlocked, and opened under the pressure. There was no sound from inside. There should have been buzzers and code words and radio static and grumbling. Nothing.

The door bumped into a soft object and stopped. Crown pressed it again, and it gave a few inches, then stood firm. An arm plopped out from behind the door. A dead arm
connected to a dead body. Moving very quietly, very tentatively, Crown stepped around the door. The window guard had been shot in the chest. That is, his chest had been laid open by a stream of bullets shot at close range. The guard's army Colt lay on the windowsill, untouched.

"Oh, God, the house has been blown," Crown whispered. He looked again at what was left of the window guard's chest. "Willi Lange."

Heather had seen too much that day to be shocked at the sight. She paused for only a moment, then asked, "What happened?"

"The German stormtroopers got out somehow. Jesus, and I thought we had Hess beat."

With his pistol in front of his face, Crown walked lightly into the kitchen. He knew what awaited them, and he was right. The radioman was slumped over his table. He appeared to be napping, with his chin resting on his folded arms. His chair sat in a pool of blood. A single knife thrust into his back had ended his life.

There was no further need for stealth. No one would be alive in the EDC house. Crown ran up the stairs to the second floor. The second-floor guard, Jones, lay on the floor, shot in the back. A pistol lay next to him, but Crown doubted he had had a chance to use it. He had fallen out of his chair sideways without turning around, completely surprised. His red flashlight had rolled ten feet down the hall.

The cell-room doors were open, of course. Their bolts were intact, which meant they had been opened with keys. Von Stihl and Lange's shackles lay on their beds. They displayed no signs of force, so they had also been opened with a key. Hess's room was empty. His kit of pills was gone, as was his change of clothes. He had casually packed, knowing someone was coming for him.

"John, where is Professor Ludendorf?"

Then it hit him, the full scope of the German plan, their
full plot. He had been completely duped. He had played his hand just as Hess had dealt it. He had been led by the nose, step by step. Hess had been the puppeteer, and Crown had let himself be pulled by the strings, blinded by revenge and all the other smoke screens Hess had thrown up.

"He's gone, Heather." The words almost choked him. "Ludendorf let the stormtroopers and Hess out of their cells, and they hit the guards, and they've gone."

"Why?"

"So they could get away, for Christ's sake!" Crown felt like shooting something, and he lined the Smith and Wesson up on Hess's bed. "No, not so they could get away." The next realization made Crown's head swim. "They could have done that days ago. And they could have killed Fermi with the bomb if they wanted to, because if von Stihl and Ludendorf were working together all along, then Ludendorf wouldn't have told me about the bomb just in time for me to diffuse it unless they had another purpose. . . . "

The last words were said as he jumped down the stairs three at a time and rushed into the radio room. He pushed the dead radio operator out of the way and dialed the Metallurgical Laboratory.