The Spandau Phoenix

The Spandau Phoenix

Greg Iles

The North Sea lay serene, unusual for spring, but night would soon fall

on a smoking, broken continent reeling from the shock of war.

From the bloody dunes of Dunkirk to the bomb-shattered streets of

Warsaw, from the frozen tip of Norway to the deserted beaches of the

Mediterranean Europe was enslaved. Only England, beleaguered and alone,

stood against the massed armies of Hitler's Wehrmacht, and tonight

London was scheduled to die.

By fire. At 1800 hours Greenwich time the greatest single concentration

of Luftwaffe bombers ever assembled would unleash their fury upon the

unprotected city, and over seven hundred acres of the British capital

would cease to exist.

Thousands of incendiary bombs would rain down upon civilian and soldier

alike, narrowly missing St. Paul's Cathedral, gutting the Houses of

Parliament. History would record that strike against London as the

worst of the entire war, a holocaust. And yet ...

... all this-the planning, the casualties, the goliathan destruction-was

but the puff of smoke from a magician's gloved hand. A spectacular

diversion calculated to draw the eyes of the world away from a mission

so -daring and intricate that it would defy understanding for

generations to come. The man behind this ingenious plot was Adolf

Hitler, and tonight, unknown to a single member of his General Staff, he

would reach out from the Berghof and undertake the most ambitious

military feat of his life.

He had worked miracles before-the blitzkrieg of Poland, the penetration

of the "impassable" Ardennes-but this would be the crowning 'achievement

of his career. It would raise him at last above Alexander, Caesar, and

Napoleon. In one stunning blow, he would twist the balance of world

power inside out, transforming his mortal foe into an ally and

consigning his present ally to destruction. To succeed he would have to

reach into the very heart of Britain, but not with bombs or missiles.

Tonight he needed precision, and he had chosen his weapons accordingly:

treachery, weakness, envy, fanaticism-the most destructive forces

available to man. All were familiar tools in Hitler's hand, and all

were in place.

But such forces were unpredictable. Traitors lived in terror of

discovery; agents feared capture. Fanatics exploded without warning,

and weak men invited betrayal. To effectively utilize such resources,

Hitler knew, someone had to be on the scene-reassuring the agent,

directing the fanatic, holding the hand of the traitor and a gun to the

head of the coward. But who could handle such a mission? Who could

inspire both trust and fear in equal measure? Hitler knew such a man.

He was a soldier, a man of forty-eight, a pilot.

And he was already in the air.

Two thousand feet above Amsterdam, the Messerschmitt Bf-110 Zerstdrer

plowed through a low ceiling of cumulus clouds and burst into clear sky

over the glittering North Sea.

The afternoon sun flashed across the fighter's silver wings, setting off

the black-painted crosses that struck terror into the stoutest hearts

across Europe.

Inside the cockpit, the pilot breathed a sigh of relief. For the last

four hundred miles he had flown a tiring, highly restricted route,

changing altitude several times to remain within the Luftwaffe's

prescribed corridors of safety. Hitler's personal pilot had given him

the coded map he carried, and, with it, a warning. Not for amusement

were the safety zones changed daily, Hans Bahr had whispered; with

British Spitfires regularly penetrating Hermann Goering's "impenetrable"

wall of air defense, the danger was real, precautions necessary.

The pilot smiled grimly. Enemy fighters were the least of his worries

this afternoon. If he failed to execute the next step of his mission

perfectly, it would be a squadron of Messerschmitts, not Spitfires, that

shot him into the sea. At any moment the Luftwaffe flight controllers

expected him to turn back for Germany, as he had a dozen times before,

test flying the fighter lent to him personally by Willi Messerschmitt,

then returning home to his wife and child, his privileged life. But

this time he would not turn back.

Checking his airspeed against his watch, he estimated the point at which

he would fade from the Luftwaffe radar screens based on the Dutch island

of Terschelling. He'd reached the Dutch coast at 3:28 Pm. It was now

3:40. At 220 miles per hour, he should have put forty-four miles of the

North Sea behind him already. German radar was no match for its British

counterpart, he knew, but he would wait another three minutes just to

make sure. Nothing could be left to chance tonight.

Nothing.

The pilot shivered inside his fur-lined leather flying suit.

So much depended upon his mission: the fates of England and Germany,

very possibly the whole world. It was enough to make any man shiver.

And Russia, that vast, barbaric land infected by the cancer of

communism-his Fatherland's ancient enemy-if he succeeded tonight, Russia

would kneel beneath the swastika at last!

The pilot nudged the stick, dipping the Messerschmitt's left wing, and

looked down through the thick glass canopy.

Almost time. He looked at his watch, counting. Five ... four ...

three ... two ...

Now! Like a steel falcon he swooped toward the sea, hurtling downward

at over four hundred miles per hour. At the last instant he jerked the

stick back and leveled out, skimming the wave tops as he stormed north

toward Aalborg, the main Luftwaffe fighter base in Denmark. His

desperate race had begun.

Fighting through the heavy air at sea level, the Messerschmitt drank

fuel like water, but the pilot's main concern now was secrecy.

And finding the landing signal, he reminded himself. Two dozen training

flights had familiarized him with the aircraft, but the detour to

Denmark had been unexpected. He had never flown this far north without

visual references. He was not afraid, but he would feel much better

once he sighted the feords of Denmark to starboard.

It had been a long time since the pilot had killed. The battles of the

Great War seemed so vague now. He had certainly fired hundreds of

rounds in anger, but one was never really sure.about the killing.

Not until the charges came, anyway the terrible, bloody, heroically

insane assaults of flesh against steel. He had almost been killed-he

remembered that clearly enough-by a bullet in the left lung, one of

three wounds he'd taken while fighting in the famous List regiment.

But he had survived, that was the important thing. The dead in the

enemy trenches ... who knew, really?

He would kill tonight. He would have no choice. Checking the two

compasses strapped to his left thigh, he took a careful bearing, then

quickly returned his eyes to the horizon indicator. This close to the

surface of the sea, the water played tricks on the mind. Hundreds of

expert pilots had plowed into the waves simply by letting their

concentration falter for a few moments. Only six minutes to Aalborg, he

thought nervously. Why risk it? He climbed to one thousand feet, then

leveled out and craned his neck to survey the sea below.

Waveless, it receded before him with the gentle curve of the earth.

Except ... there ... dead ahead. He could see broken coastline ...

Denmark! He had done it!

Feeling a hot surge of adrenaline, he scanned the clouds for fighter

patrols. If one spotted him, he decided, he would sit tight, hold his

course and pretend to be a straggler from an early raid. The hard,

empty northern land flashed beneath him. His destination was a small

ancillary strip just short of Aalborg air base. But where was it? The

runway ... his special cargo ... where?

A thousand feet below, the red flash of railway flares suddenly lit up

in parallel lines to his left. The signal! A lone green flare

indicated the proper direction of approach. The pilot circled wide

until he had come 180 degrees, then began nursing the Messerschmitt in.

The strip was short-no margin for error. Altimeter zero. With hated

breath he felt tentatively for the runway. Nothing... nothing...

whump!-the wheels dropped hard onto concrete. The plane shuddered from

the impact but steadied fast. Cutting his engines, the pilot rolled to

a stop thirty meters beyond the last two flares.

Before he could unfasten his harness, two ground crewmen slid the canopy

back over his head. Silently, they helped him with his straps and

pulled him from the cockpit.

Their rough familiarity startled him, but he let it pass. To them he

was just another pilot@n a somewhat irregular mission perhaps, operating

solo from a practically deserted strip south of the base-but just a

pilot, all the same. Had he removed his flying helmet and goggles, the

crewmen would have exhibited quite a different attitude, and certainly

would not have touched him without permission. The pilot's face was

known to every man, woman, and child in Germany indeed to millions across

Europe and the world.

Without a word, he walked a little way off the strip and unzipped his

suit to relieve himself. There were only the two crewmen, he saw, and

they had been well briefed. From a battered tank truck one pumped fuel

into the plane while the other toiled with special fittings beneath the

Messerschmitt's left wing. The pilot scanned the small runway. There

was an old sock-type wind indicator, a pile of scrap parts left from

pre-war days, and, several yards down the strip, a small wooden shack

that had probably once housed some Danish mechanic's tools.

It houses something quite different now, I'll wager, he thought.

Zipping up, he walked slowly toward the shack, alert for any sign of

human occupation. The sleek black bonnet of a Daimler jutted from

behind the ramshackle building, gleaming like a funeral hearse. The

pilot slipped around the shack and peered through the windshield of the

car. Empty. Remembering his instructions, he wound a long flying scarf

around the lower half of his face. It made breathing difficult, but

combined with his flying helmet, it left only his eyes visible to an

observer. He entered the shack without knocking.

Darkness shrouded the interior, but the fetid air was pregnant with

human presence. Someone, not the pilot, lit a lantern, and the room

slowly revealed itself. A major wearing the smart black uniform of

Himmler's SS stood less than a meter from the pilot. Unlike most of his

type, this representative of Himmler's "elite corps" was quite fat.

He looked more accustomed to the comforts of a soft billet like Paris

than a battle zone. Behind him, a thinner man dressed in a leather

flying suit sat rigidly in a straight-backed wooden chair.

Like the pilot, his face was also draped by a scarf. His eyes darted

nervously between the newcomer and the SS man.

"Right on time," the SS major said, looking at his watch.

"I'm Major Horst Berger."

The pilot nodded, but offered no name.

"Drink?" A bottle appeared from the shadows. "Schnapps?

Cognac?"

My God, the pilot thought. Does the fool carry a stocked bar about in

his car? He shook his head emphatically, then jerked his thumb toward

the half-open door. "I'll see to the preparations."

"Nonsense," Major Berger replied, dismissing the idea with a flick of

his bottle. "The crewmen can handle it.

They're some of the best from Aalborg. It's a shame, really."

It is, the pilot thought. But I don't think you're too upset about it.

I think you're enjoying all this. "I'm going back to the plane," he

muttered.

The man in the wooden chair stood slowly.

"Where do you think you're going?" Major Berger barked, but the man

ignored him. "Oh, all right," Berger complained. He buttoned his

collar and followed the pair out of the shack.

"They know about the drop tanks?" the pilot asked, when Berger had

caught up.

"Ja. "

"The nine-hundred-liter ones?"

"Sure. Look, they're fitting them now."

Berger was right. On the far side of the plane, two ground crewmen

attached the first of two egg-shaped auxiliary fuel containers to the

Messerschmitt's blunt-tipped wings. When they finished, they moved to

the near side of the aircraft.

"Double-check the wet-points!" the pilot called.

The chief mechanic nodded, already working.

The pilot turned to Major Berger. "I had an idea," he said.

"Flying up."

The SS man frowned. "What idea?"

"I want them to grease my guns before we take off."

"What do you mean? Lubricate them? I assure you that the weapons are

in perfect working order."

"No, I want them to pack the barrels with grease."

Behind Majo@ Berger, the man in the flying suit stepped sideways and

looked curiously at the pilot.

"You can't be serious," Berger objected. He turned around.

"Tell him," he said. But the man in the flying suit only cocked his

head to one side.

"But that's suicide!" Major Berger insisted. "One chance encounter

with a British patrol and-" He shook his head. "I simply cannot allow

it. If you're shot down, my career could take a very nasty turn!"

Your career is over already, the pilot thought grimly.

"Grease the guns!" he shouted to the crewmen, who, having fitted the

empty drop tanks, now anxiously pumped fuel into them. The chief

mechanic stood at the rear of the fuel truck, trying to decide which of

the two men giving orders was really in charge. He knew Major Berger

from Aalborg, but something about the tall, masked pilot hinted at a

more dangerous authority.

"You can't do that!" Major Berger protested. "Stop that there!

I'm in command here!"

The chief mechanic shut off the fuel hose and stared at the three men at

the edge of the runway. Slowly, with great purpose, the pilot pointed a

long arm toward the crewman under the wing and shouted through his

scarf: "You! Grease my guns! That's a direct order!"

The chief mechanic recognized the sound of authority now. He climbed

onto the fuel truck to get a grease gun from his tool box.

Major Berger laid a quivering hand on a Schmeisser machine pistol at his

belt. "You have lost your mind, I believe," he said softly.

"Rescind that order immediately or I'll put you under arrest!"

Glancing back toward the crewmen-who were now busy packing the

Messerschmitt's twenty-millimeter cannon with heavy black grease-the

pilot took hold of his scarf and unwrapped it slowly from his head.

When his face became visible, the SS man fell back a step, his eyes wide

in shock.

Behind him the man in the flying suit swallowed hard and turned away.

The pilot's face was dark, saturnine, with eyes set deep beneath bushy

black brows that almost met in the center. His imperious stare radiated

command. "Remove your hand from that pistol," he said quietly.

For several moments Major Berger stood still as stone.

Then, slowly, he let his hand fall from the Schmeisser's grip.

"Jawohl, Herr ... Herr Reichminister."

"Now, Herr Major! And be about your business! Go!"

Suddenly Major Berger was all action,. With a pounding heart he hurried

toward the Messerschmitt, his face hot and tingling with fear.

Blood roared in his ears. He had just threatened to place the Deputy

Fuhrer of the German Reich-Rudolf Hess-under arrest! In a daze he

ordered the crewmen to speed their packing of the guns. While they

complied, he harried them about their earlier maintenance.

Were the wet-points clear? Would the wing drop tanks disengage properly

when empty?

At the edge of the runway, Hess turned to the man in the flying suit.

"Come closer," he murmured.

The man took a tentative step forward and stood at attention.

"You understand about the guns?" Hess asked.

Slowly the man nodded assent.

"I know it's dangerous, but it's dangerous for us both.

Under certain circumstances it could make all the difference."

Again the man nodded. He was a pilot also, and had in fact flown many

more missions than the man who had so suddenly assumed command of this

situation. He understood the logic: a plane purported to be on a

mission of peace would appear much more convincing with its guns

disabled.

But even if he hadn't understood, he was in no position to argue.

"It's been a long time, Hauptmann, " Hess said, using the rank of

captain in place of a name.

The captain nodded. Overhead a pair of Messerschmitts roared by from

Aalborg, headed south on patrol.

"It is a great sacrifice you have made for your country, Hauptmann. You

and men like you have given up all normality so that men like myself

could prosecute the war in comparative safety. It's a great burden, is

it not?"

The captain thought fleetingly of his wife and child. He had not seen

them for over three years; now he wondered if he ever would again.

He nodded slowly.

"Once we're in the plane," said Hess, "I won't be able to see your face.

Let me see it now. Before."

As the captain reached for the end of his scarf, Major Berger scurried

back to tell them the plane was almost ready.

The two pilots, enthralled in the strange play they found themselves

acting out, heard nothing. What the SS man saw when he reached them

struck him like a blow to the stomach. All his breath passed out in a

single kasp, and he knew that he stood at the brink of extinction.

Before him, two men with the same face stood together shaking hands! And

that face! Major Berger felt as if he had stumbled into a hall of

mirrors where only the dangerous people were multiplied.

The pilots gripped hands for a long moment, their eyes heavy with the

knowledge that both their lives might end tonight over foreign soil in

the cockpit of an unarmed fighter.

"My God," Berger croaked.

Neither pilot acknowledged his presence. "How long has it been,

Hauptmann?" Hess asked.

"Since Dessau, Herr Reichminister."

"You look thinner." Hess murmured, "I still can't believe it.

It's positively unnerving." Then sharply, "Is the plane ready, Berger?"

"I... I believe so, Herr@' "TO your work, then!"

"Jawohl, Herr Reichminister!" Major Berger turned and marched toward

the crewmen, who now stood uncertainly against the fuel truck, waiting

for permission to return to Aalborg. Berger unclipped his Schmeisser

with one hand as he walked.

"All finished?" he called.

, "Jawohl, Herr Major," answered the chief mechanic.

"Fine, fine. Step away from the truck, please." Berger raised the

stubby barrel of his Schmeisser.

"But ... Herr Major, what are you doing! What have we done? "

"A great service to your Fatherland," the SS man said.

"Now-step awayfrom the truck!"

The crewmen looked at each other, frozen like terrified game.

Finally it dawned on them why Major Berger was hesitating. He obviously

knew something about the volatility of aircraft fuel vapor.

Backing closer to the truck, the chief mechanic clasped his greasy hands

together in supplication.

"Please, Herr Major, I have a family-2' The dance was over. Major

Berger took three steps backward and fired a sustained burst from the

Schmeisser. Hess screamed a warning, but it was too late. Used with

skill, the Schmeisser could be a precise weapon, but Major Berger's

skill was limited. Of a twelve-round burst, only four rounds struck the

crewmen. The remainder tore through the rusted shell of the fuel truck

like it was pap@r.-, The explosion knocked Major Berger a dozen feet

from where he stood. Hess and the.captain had instinctively dived for

the concrete. Now they lay prone, shielding their eyes from the flash.

When Hess finally looked up, he saw Major Berger silhouetted against the

flames, stumbling proudly toward them through a pall of black smoke,

"How about that!" the SS man cried, looking back at the inferno. "No

evidence now!"

"Idiot!" Hess shouted. "They'll have a patrol from Aalborg here in

five minutes to investigate!"

Berger grinned. "Let me take care of them, Herr Reichminister!

The SS knows how to handle the Luftwaffe!"

Hess felt relieved; Berger was making it easy. Stupidity was something

he had no patience with. "I'm sorry, Major," he said, looking hard into

the SS man's face. "I cannot allow that."

Like a cobra hypnotizing a bird, Hess transfixed Berger with his dark,

deep-set eyes. Quite naturally, he drew a Walther automatic from the

forepouch of his flight su I it and pulled back the slide. The fat SS

man's mouth opened slowly; his hands hung limp at his sides, the

Schmeisser clipped uselessly to his belt.

"But why?" he asked quietly. "Why me?"

"Something to do with Reinhard Heydrich, I believe."

Berger's eyes grew wide; then they closed. His head sagged onto his

tunic.

"For the Fatherland," Hess said quietly. He pulled the trigger.

The captain jumped at the report of the Walther. Major Berger's body

jerked twice on the ground, then lay still.

"Take his Schmeisser and any ammunition you can find," Hess ordered.

"Check the Daimler."

"Jawohl, Herr Reichminister!"

The next few minutes were a blur of action that both men would try to

remember clearly for the rest of their lives-plundering the corpse for

ammunition, searching the car, double-checking the drop tanks of the

aircraft, donning their parachutes, firing the twin Daimler-Benz

engines, turning the plane on the old cracked concrete-both men

instinctively carrying out tasks they had rehearsed a thousand times in

their heads, the tension compounded by the knowledge that an armed

patrol might arrive from Aalborg at any moment.

Before boarding the plane, they exchanged personal effects. Hess

quickly but carefully removed the validating items that had been agreed

upon: three compasses, a Leica camera, his wristwatch, some photographs,

a box of strange and varied drugs, and finally the fine gold

identification chain worn by all members of Hitler's inner circle.

He handed them to the captain with a short word of explanation for each:

"Mine, my wife's, mine, my wife and son . . ." The man receiving these

items already knew their history, but he kept silent. Perhaps, he

thought, the Reichminister speaks in farewell to all the familiar things

he might lose tonight. The captain understood that feeling well.

Even this strange and poignant ceremony merged into the mind-numbing

rush of fear and adrenaline that accompanied takeoff, and neither man

spoke again until they found themselves forty miles over the North Sea,

arrowing toward their target. As the plan dictated, Hess had yielded

the controls to the captain. Hess now sat in the radio operator's seat,

facing the twin tail fins of the fighter. The two men used no

names-only ranks-and limited their conversation to the mechanics of the

mission.

"Range?" the captain asked, tilting his head back toward the

rear-facing seat.

"Twelve hundred and fifty miles with the nine-hundredliter tanks," Hess

replied.

"I meant range to target."

"The island or the castle?"

"The island."

"Six hundred and seventy miles."

The captain asked no more questions for the next hour. He stared down

at the steadily darkening sea and thought of his family. Hess studied a

sheaf of papers in his lap: maps, photographs, and mini-biographies

secretly copied from SS files in the basement of the

Prinz-Albrechtstrasse. Ceaselessly, he went over each detail,

visualizing the contingencies he could face upon landing. A hundred

miles off the English coast, he began drilling the pilot in his duties.

"How much did they tell you, Hauptmann?"

"A lot. Too much, I think."

"You see the extra radio to your right?"

"You can operate it?"

"if all goes well, you have only a few things to remember.

First, the drop tanks. Whatever happens, you ditch them into the sea.

Same with the extra radio. After my time is up, of course.

Forty minutes is the time limit, remember that. Forty minutes. "

"Forty minutes I wait."

"If you have not received my message within that time, the mission has

failed. In that case@' There was a sharp intake of breath from the

pilot, quiet but audible. Hess knew what caused that sound--the

unbanishable fear of death. He felt it too. But for him it was

different. He knew the stakes of the mission, the inestimable strategic

gain that dwarfed the possible loss of two human lives. Like the man in

the pilot's seat, Hess too had a family-a wife and young son. But for a

man in his position-a man so close to the Fuhrer-such things were

luxuries one knew might be lost at any moment. For him death was simply

an obstacle to success that must be avoided at all costs. But for the

man in the pilot's chair ...

"Hauptmann?" Hess said, almost gently.

"Sir?"

"I know what frightens you now. I really do. But there are worse

things than death. Do you understand me? Far worse."

The pilot's reply was a hoarse, hollow gurgle. Hearing it, Hess decided

that empathy was not the proper motivator for this man. When he next

spoke, his voice brimmed with confidence. "Dwelling on that is of no

use whatsoever, Hauptmann. The plan is flawless. The important thing

is, have you been studying?"

"Have I been studying!" The captain was obviously relieved to be

talking about something else. "My God, some iron-assed SS

Brigadefiihrer grilled me for two days straight."

"Probably Schellenberg."

"Who?"

"Never mind, Hauptmann. Better that you don't know."

Silence filled the cockpit as the pilot's mind drifted back to the fate

that awaited him should his special passenger fail.

"Herr Reichminister?" he asked at length.

"Yes?"

"How do you rate your chances of sudcess?"

"It's not in my hands, Hauptmann, so I would be foolish to guess.

It's up to the British now." My advice is to prepare for the worst,

Hess thought bitterly. The Fuhrer's bankers have been since January.

"Just concentrate on your part of the mission," he said. "And for God's

sake, be sure to jump from a high enough altitude to destroy the plane.

It's nothing the British haven't seen before, but there's no need to

make them a present of it. Once you've gotten my message, just jump and

wait until I can get you released. It shouldn't take more than a few

days. If you don't get the message Verdammt! Hess cursed silently.

There's just no avoiding it. His next words cut with the brittle edge

of command. "If you don't get my message, Hauptmann, you know what must

be done."

"Jawohl," the pilot murmured, hoping he sounded more confident than he

felt. He was sickeningly aware of the small, sticky cyanide capsule

taped against his chest. He wondered if he could possibly go through

with this thing that everyone but him seemed to consider simply business

as

usual. said earnestly. "You

"Listen to me, Hauptmann, " Hess know why your participation is

necessary. British Intelligence knows I am coming to England ..."

Hess kept talking, trying to fill the emptiness that would give the

pilot too much time to think. Up here, with Germany falling far behind,

the concept of duty seemed much more abstract than it did when one was

surrounded by the reinforcing order of the army and the SS.

The captain seemed sound-and Heydrich had vouched for him-but given

enough time to consider his position, he might do anything.

After all, what sane man wanted to die?

"Cut your speed!" Hess ordered, his voice quickening.

"Hold at 180."

The miles had melted away before the Messerschmitt's nose. They were a

mere sixty miles off the Scottish coast.

On a clear evening like this, the RAF radar stations would begin to pick

up reflections from the fighter at any moment.

Hess tightened his parachute harness, then set aside his maps and leaned

backward.

"Stay high and clear!" he shouted to the canopy lid. "Make sure they

see us coming in!"

"Where are you going out?"

"We should make landfall over a place called Holy Island.

I'll jump there. Stay high over the mainland for a few miles, then dive

and run like hell! They'll probably scramble a whole squadron once they

realize what you're flying!"

"Jawohl, " the pilot acknowledged. "Herr Reichminister?"

"What is it?"

"Have you ever parachuted before?"

"Nein. Never."

An ironic laugh cut through the drone of the twin engines.

"What's so funny, Hauptmann?"

"I've never jumped either! That's a pretty significant fact to have

overlooked in the planning of this mission, don't you think?"

Hess permitted himself a wry smile. "Perhaps that fact was taken into

account, Hauptmann. Some people might even be counting on it."

"Oh ... my God."

"It's too late to worry about that now. We don't have the fuel to make

it back to Germany even if we wanted to!"

"What?" the pilot exclaimed. ",But the drop tanks-"

"Are empty!"

Hess finished. "Or soon will be!"

The pilot felt his stomach turn a somersault. But before he could

puzzle out his passenger's meaning, he spied land below.

"Herr Reichminister! The island! I see it!"

From sixty-five hundred feet Holy Island was a tiny speck, only

distinguishable by the small, bright ribbon separating it from the

mainland. "And ... a flare. I see a flare!"

"Green or red?" Hess asked, his face taut.

"Red!"

"The canopy, Hauptmann! Move!"

Together the two men struggled to slide back the heavy glass.

Parachuting from a Messerschmitt was not common practice-strictly an

emergency measure-and quite a few aviators had died attempting it.

"Push!" the pilot yelled.

With all their strength the two men heaved their bodies against the

transparent lid of the cockpit. Their straining muscles quivered in

agony until all at once the frame gave way and locked in the open

position. The noise in the cockpit was deafening now, the engines

roaring, the wind a screaming, living thing that struggled to pluck the

men from their tiny tube of steel. Above it all, the pilot shouted,

"We're over the gap now, Herr Reichminister! Go! Go!"

Suddenly Hess looked into his lap. Empty. He had forgotten to ditch

his papers! No sign of them in the cockpit; they must have been sucked

out the moment the canopy opened.

He prayed they had found their way down to the sea, and not to the

island below.

"Jump, Herr Reichminister!"

Hess struggled into a crouch and faced the lethal tail fins

of the Zersts'rer. The time for niceties had passed. He reached behind

him and jerked the pilot's head back.

"Hauptmann!" he shouted. "Heydrich only ordered those drop tanks

fitted to make sure you came this far! They are empty! No matter what

happens, you cannot turn back! You have no choice but to follow orders!

If I succeed, your actions really won't matter! But if I fail, you

cannot! You know the price of failure-Sippenhaft! Never forget that!

Sippenhaft binds us both! Now climb! Give me some draft!"

The Messerschmitt's nose pitched up, momentarily creating a small space

shielded from the wind. With a defiant yell Hess hurled himself up and

backward. A novice, he pulled the ripcord the moment he cleared the

plane. The tightfolded silk tore open with a ripping sound, then

quickly blossomed into a soft white mushroom that circled lazily down

through the mist toward the Scottish earth below.

Cursing, the pilot struggled to secure the canopy. Without help it was

twice as difficult, but Hess's final words had chilled him to the core.

Only a sheet of curved glass could now separate him from the terrifying

destiny he had been ordered to face. With the desperate strength of a

condemned man, he slammed it shut.

He dipped his left wing.@d glanced backward. There was the descending

chute, soft and distant and peaceful. Barring a catastrophic landing,

the Reichminister would at least begin his mission safely. It heartened

the pilot to know that a novice could actually clear the plane, but

something deeper in him recoiled in dread.

They had tricked him! The bastards had lured him into a suicidal

mission by letting him think he would have a way out! After all his

training, they hadn't even trusted him to carry out his orders! Empty

auxiliary tanks. The swine! They had known he would have sole control

of the plane after Hess jumped, and they had made sure he wouldn't have

enough fuel to turn back if the mission went bad. And as if that

weren't enough ... Hess had threatened him with Sippenhaft!

Sippenhaft! The word caused the pilot's breath to come in quick gasps.

He had heard tales of the Nazis' ultimate penalty for betrayal, but he

hadn't really believed them.

Sippenhaft dictated that not only a traitor's life but the lives of his

entire family became forfeit when judgment was rendered against him.

Children, parents, the aged and infirm none were spared. There was no

appeal, and the sentence, once decreed, was swiftly executed.

With a guttural scream the pilot cursed God for giving him another man's

face. In that moment, he felt it was a surer death sentence than a

cancer of the brain. Setting his mouth in a grim line, he hurled the

plane into a screaming dive, not pulling up until the rocky Scottish

earth seemed about to shatter the nose of his aircraft. Then-as Hess

had suggested-he ran like hell, opening the Zerstdrer up to 340 miles

per hour over the low stone villages and patchwork fields. In other

circumstances, the heart-stopping, groundlevel flight might have been an

exhilarating experience. Tonight it felt like a race against death.

It was. A patrolling Boulton Paul Defiant had answered a scramble call

from the RAF plotting room at Inverness. The Messerschmitt pilot never

even saw it. Oblivious, he stormed across the darkening island like a

banshee, sixteen feet above the earth. With the twin-engined

Messerschmitt's tremendous speed advantage, the pursuing British fighter

was outpaced like a sparrow behind a . hunting hawk.

Dun avel Hill rose in the distance. Height.-45

9 8 meters: the information chattered into the pilot's brain like a

ticker tape. "There it is," he muttered, spying the silhouette of

Dungavel Castle. "My part of this insane mission." The castle flashed

beneath his fuselage. With one hand he checked the radio set near his

right knee. Working. Please call, he thought. Please ...

He heard nothing. Not even static. With shaking hands he touched the

stick and hopped over a line of trees bisecting a sheep pasture.

He saw fields ... a road ... more trees ...

then the town of Kilmamock, sprawled dark across the road.

He swept on. A patch of mist, then fog, the sea!

Like a black arrow he shot out oVer the western coast of Scotland,

climbing fast. To his left he sighted his turning landmark, a giant

rock jutting 120 meters into the sky, shining pale in the moonlight.

As if drawn by a magnet, his eyes locked onto the tiny face of his newly

acquired watch.

Thirty minutes gone and no signal. Ten minutes from now his fate would

be sealed. If you receive no signal in forty minutes, Hauptmann, you

will turn out to sea and swallow your cyanide capsule ... He wondered if

he would be dead before his plane plowed into the icy depths of the

North Atlantic.

Christ in Heaven! his mind screamed. What mad bastard dreamed this one

up? But he knew-Reinhard Heydrichthe maddest bastard of them all.

Steeling himself against panic, he banked wide to the south and flew

parallel to the coast, praying that Hess's signal would come. His eyes

flicked across the instrument panel. Altimeter, airspeed, compass,

fuel-the tanks! Without even looking down he jerked a lever next to his

seat. Two auxiliary fuel tanks tumbled down through the darkness. One

would be recovered from the Clyde estuary the next day by a British

drifter, empty.

The radio stayed silent. He checked it again. Still working.

His watch showed thirty-nine minutes gone. His throat went dry.

Sixty seconds to zero hour, Sixty seconds to suicide. Here you are, sir

one cyanide cocktailfor the glory of the Reich! For the last time the

pilot looked longingly down upon the dark mirror of the sea. His left

hand crept into his flying suit and touched the cyanide capsule taped

against his breast. Then, with frightening clarity, an image of his

wife and daughter came into his mind. "It's not fair!" he shouted in

desolation. "It's the fucking nobodies who do the dying!"

In one violent flash of terror and outrage, the pilot jerked the stick

to port and headed the roaring fighter back inland.

His tear-filled eyes pierced the Scottish mist, searching out the

landmarks he had studied so long in Denmark. With a shudder of hope, he

spied the first-railroad tracks shining like quicksilver in the night.

Maybe the signal will still come, he hoped desperately. But he knew it

wouldn't. His eyes scoured the earth for his second landmark-a small

lake to the south of Dungavel Castle. There ...

The Messerschmitt streaked across the water. Like a mirage the small

village of Eaglesham appeared ahead. The fighter thundered across the

rooftops, wheeling in a high, climbing circle over Dungavel Castle. He

had done it! Like an intravenous blast of morphine, the pilot.felt a

sudden rush of exhilaration, a wild joy cascading through him. Ignited

by the nearness of death, his survival instinct had thrown some switch

deep within his brain. He had but one thought nowsurvive!

At sixty-five hundred feet the nightmare began. With no one to fly the

plane while he jumped, the pilot decided to kill his engines as a safety

measure. Only one engine c<)operated. The other, its cylinders red-hot

from the long flight from Aalborg, continued to ignite the fuel mixture.

He throttled back hard until the engine died, losing precious seconds,

then he wrestled the canopy open.

He could not get out of the cockpit! Like an invisible iron hand the

wind pinned him to the back panel. Desperately he tried to loop the

plane, hoping to drop out as it turned over, but centrifugal force,

unforgiving, held him in his seat.

When enough blood had rushed out of his brain, he blacked out.

Unaware of anything around him, the pilot roared toward oblivion.

By the time he regained consciousness, the aircraft stood on its tail,

hanging motionless in space. In a millisecond it would fall like two

tons of scrap steel.

With one mighty flex of his knees, he jumped clear.

As he fell, his brain swirled with visions of the Reichminister's chute

billowing open in the dying light, floating peacefully toward a mission

that by now had failed.

His own chute snapped open with a jerk. In the distance he saw a shower

of sparks; the Messerschmitt had found the earth.

He broke his left ankle when he hit the ground, but surging adrenaline

shielded his mind against the pain. Shouts of alarm echoed from the

darkness. Struggling to free himself from the harness, he surveyed by

moonlight the small farm at the edge of the field in which he had

landed. Before he could see much of anything, a man appeared out of the

darkness. It was the head plowman of the farm, a man named David

McLean. The Scotsman approached cautiously and asked the pilot his

name. Struggling to clear his stunned brain, the pilot searched for his

cover name. When it came to him, he almost laughed aloud.

Confused, he gave the man his real name instead. What the hell?

he thought. I don't even exist anymore in Germany. Heydrich saw to

that.

"Are you German?" the Scotsman asked.

"Yes," the pilot answered in English.

Somewhere among the dark hills the Messerschmitt finally exploded,

lighting the sky with a momentary flash.

"Are there any more with you?" the Scotsman asked nervously.

"From the plane?"

The pilot blinked, trying to take in the enormity of what he had

done-and what he had been ordered to do. The cyanide capsule still lay

like a viper against his chest. "No," he said firmly. "I flew alone."

The Scotsman seemed to accept this readily"I want to go to Dungavel

Castle," the pilot said. Somehow, in his confusion, he could not-or

would not-abandon his original mission. "I have an important message

for the Duke of Hamilton," he added solemnly.

"Are you armed?" McLean's voice was tentative.

"No. I have no weapon."

The farmer simply stared. A shrill voice from the darkness finally

broke the awkward silence. "What's happened?

Who's out there?"

"A German's landed!" McLean answered. "Go get some soldiers."

Thus began a strange pageant of uncertain hospitality that would last

for nearly thirty hours. From the McLeans' humble living room-where the

pilot was offered tea on the family's best china-to the local Home Guard

hut at Busby, he continued to give the name he had offered the plowman

upon landing-his own. It was obvious that no one knew what to make of

him. Somehow, somewhere, something had gone wrong. The pilot had

expected to land inside a cordon of intelligence officers; instead he'd

been met by one confused farmer. Where were the stern-faced young

operatives of mI-5? Several times he repeated his request to be taken

to the Duke of Hamilton, but from the bare room at Busby he was taken by

army truck to Maryhill Barracks at Glasgow.

At Maryhill, the pain of his broken ankle finally burned through his

shock. When he.mentioned it to his captors, they transferred him to the

military hospital at Buchanan Castle, about twenty miles south of

Glasgow- It was there, nearly thirty hours after the unarmed

Messerschmitt first crossed the Scottish coast, that the Duke of

Hamilton finally arrived to confront the pilot.

Douglas Hamilton looked as young apd dashing as the photograph in his SS

file. The Premier Peer of Scotland, an RAF wing commander and famous

aviator in his own right, Hamilton faced the tall German confidently,

awaiting some explanation. The pilot stood nervously, preparing to

throw himself on the mercy of the duke. Yet he hesitated.

What would happen if he did that? It was possible that there had simply

been a radio malfunction, that Hess was even now carrying out his secret

mission, whatever it was. Heydrich might blame him if Hess's mission

failed. And then, of course, his family would die. He could probably

save his family by committing suicide as ordered, but then his child

would have no father. The pilot studied the duke's face.

Hamilton had met Rudolf Hess briefly at the Berlin Olympics, he knew.

What did the duke see now? Fully expecting to be thrown into chains,

the pilot requested that the officer accompanying the duke withdraw from

the room. When he had gone, the pilot took a step toward Hamilton, but

said nothing.

The duke stared, stupefied. Though his rational mind resisted it, the

first seeds of recognition had been planted in his brain. The haughty

bearing ... the dark, heavy-browed patrician face ... Hamilton could

scarcely believe his eyes.

And despite the duke's attempt to conceal his astonishment, the pilot

saw everything in an instant. The dizzying hope of a condemned man who

has glimpsed deliverance surged through him. My God! he thought. It

could still work! And why not? It's what I have trained to do for five

years!

The duke was waiting. Without further hesitation-and out of courage or

cowardice, he would never know-the pilot stepped away from the iron

discipline of a decade.

"I am Reichminister Rudolf Hess," he said stiffly. "Deputy Fuhrer of

the German Reich, leader of the Nazi Party."

With classic British reserve, the duke remained impassive.

"I cannot be sure if that is true," he said finally.

Hamilton had strained for skepticism, but in his eyes the pilot

discerned a different reaction altogether-not disbelief, but shock.

Shock that Adolf Hitler's deputy-arguably the second most powerful man

in Nazi Germany-stood before him now in a military hospital in the heart

of Britain! That shock was the very sign of Hamilton's acceptance!

I am Reichminister Rudolf Hess! With a single lungful of air the

frightened pilot had transformed himself into the most important

prisoner of war in England. His mind reeled, drunk with the reprieve.

He no longer thought of the man who had parachuted from the

Messerschmitt before him.

Hess's signal had not come, but no one else knew that. No one but Hess,

and he was probably dead by now. The pilot could always claim he had

received a garbled signal, then simply proceeded with his mission as

ordered. No one could lay the failure of Hess's mission at his door.

The pilot closed his eyes in relief. Sippenhaft be damned! No one

would kill his family without giving him a chance to explain.

By taking this gamble-the only chance he could see of survival-the

desperate captain unknowingly precipitated the most bizarre conspiracy

of the Second World War. And a hundred miles to the east, alive or eat

rea u Hess-a man with enough secrets in his head to unleash catastrophic

civil war in England@isappeared from the face of the earth.

The Duke of Hamilton maintained his attitude of skepticism throughout

the brief interview, but before he left the hospital, he issued orders

that the prisoner be moved to a secret location and held under double

guard.

BOOK ONE

WE T BERLIN, 1 7

A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit

concealeth the matter.

PROVERBS 11.13

CHAPTER ONE

The wrecking ball arced slowly across the snow-carpeted

courtyard and smashed into the last building left on the prison grounds,

launching bricks through the air like mosscovered mortar rounds. Spandau

Prison, the brooding redbrick fortress that had stood for over a century

and housed the most notorious Nazi war criminals for the past forty

years, was being leveled in a single day.

The last inmate of S andau, Rudolf Hess, was dead. He had committed

suicide just four weeks ago, relieving the West German government of the

burden of one million pounds sterling it paid each year to maintain the

aged Nazi's isolated captivity. In a rare display of solidarity,

France, Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union-the

former Allies who guarded Spandau by monthly turns-had agreed that the

prison should be destroyed as quickly as possible, to prevent its

becoming a shrine to neo-Nazi fanatics.

Throughout the day, crowds had gathered in the cold to watch the

demolition. Because Spandau stood in the British sector of Berlin, it

fell to the Royal Engineers to carry out this formidable job. At first

light an explosives team brought down the main structure like a

collapsing house of cards.

Then, after the dust settled into the snow, bulldozers and wrecking

cranes moved in. They pulverized the prison's masonry, dismembered its

iron skeleton, and piled the remains into huge mounds that looked all

too familiar to Berliners of a certain age.

This year Berlin was 750 years old. All across the city massive

construction and restoration projects had been proceeding apace in

celebration of the historic anniversary. Yet this grim fortress, the

Berliners knew, would never rise again. For years they had passed this

way as they went about their business, rarely giving a thought to this

last stubborn symbol of what, in the glow of glasnost, seemed ancient

history. But now that Spandau's forbidding battlements no longer

darkened the Wilhelmstrasse skyline, they stopped to ponder its ghosts.

By dusk, only the prison heating plant still stood, its smokestack

painted in stark relief against the gunmetal clouds. A wrecking-crane

drew back its mammoth concrete ball. The stack trembled, as if waiting

for the final blow. The ball swung slowly through its arc, then struck

like a bomb.

The smokestack exploded into a cloud of brick and dust, showering what

had been the prison kitchen only minutes before.

A sharp cheer cut through the din of heavy diesel motors.

It came from beyond the cordoned perimeter. The cheer was not for the

eradication of Spandau particularly, but rather a spontaneous human

expression of awe at the sight of largescale destruction. @tated by the

spectators, a French corporal gestured for some German policemen to help

him disperse the crowd. Excellent hand signals quickly bridged the

language barrier, and with trademark efficiency the Berlin Polizei went

to work.

"Achtung!" they bellowed. "Go home! Haue ah! This area is clearly

marked as dangerous! Move on! It's too cold for gawking!

Nothing here but brick and stone!"

These efforts convinced the casually curious, who continued home with a

story of minor interest to tell over dinner.

But others were not so easily diverted. Several old men lingered across

the busy street, their breath steaming in the cold. Some feigned

boredom, others stared openly at the wrecked prison or glanced furtively

at the others who had stayed behind. A stubborn knot of young

toughs@ubbed "skinheads" because of their ritually shaven

scalpsswaggered up to the floodlit prison gate to shout Nazi slogans at

the British troops.

They did not go unnoticed. Every passerby who had shown more than a

casual interest in the wrecking operation had been photographed today.

Inside the trailer being used to coordinate the demolition, a Russian

corporal carefully clicked off two telephoto exposures of every person

who remained on the block after the German police moved in.

Within the hour these photographs would find their way into KGB

caserooms in East Berlin, where they would be digi tized, fed into a

massive database, and run through a formidable electronic gauntlet.

Intelligence agents, Jewish fanatics, radical journalists, surviving

Nazis: each exotic species would be painstakingly identified and

catalogued, and any unknowns handed over to the East German secret

policethe notorious Stasi-to be manually compared against their files.

These steps would consume priceless computer time and many man-hours of

work by the East Germans, but Moscow didn't mind asking.

The destruction of Spandau was anything but routine to the KGB.

Lavrenti Beria himself, chief of the brutal NKVD under Stalin, had

passed a special directive down through the successive heads of the

cheka, defining the importance of Spandau's inmates to unsolved cases.

And on this evening-thirty-four years after Beria's death by firing

squad-only one of those cases remained open.

Rudolf Hess. The current chief of the KGB did not intend to leave it

that way.

A little way up the Wilhelmstrasse, perched motionless on a low brick

wall, a sentinel even more vigilant an the Russians watched the Germans

clear the street. Dressed as a laborer and almost seventy years old,

the watcher had the chiseled face of a hawk, and he stared with bright,

unblinking eyes. He needed no camera. His brain instantaneously

recorded each face that appeared in the street, making associations and

judgments no computer ever could.

His name was Jonas Stern. For twelve years Stern had not left the State

of Israel; indeed, no one knew that he was in Germany now. But

yesterday he had paid out of his own pocket to travel to this country he

hated beyond all thought.

He had known about Spandau's destruction, of course, they all did.

But something deeper had drawn him here. Three days ago-as he carried

water from the kibbutz well to his small ev desert-something bilious

had shack on the edge of e Neg risen from his core and driven him to

this place. Stern had not resisted. Such premonitions came

infrequently, and experience had taught him they were not to be ignored.

Watching the bulwarked prison being crushed into powder, he felt

opposing waves of triumph and guilt roll through his chest. He had

known-he knew-men and women who had passed through Spandau on their way

to the death factories of Mauthausen and Birkenau. Part of him wished

the prison could remain standing, as a monument to those souls, and to

the punishment meted out to their murderers.

Punishment, he thought, but not justice. Never justice.

Stern reached into a worn leather bag at his side and withdrew an

orange. He peeled it while he watched the demolition. The light was

almost gone. In the distance a huge yellow crane backed too quickly

across the prison courtyard.

Stern tensed as the flagstones cracked like brittle bones.

Ten minutes later the mechanical monsters ground to a screeching halt.

While the senior British offic@r issued his dismissal orders, a pale

yellow Berlin city bus rumbled up to the prison, headlights cutting

through the lightly falling snow. The moment it stopped, twenty-four

soldiers dressed in a potpourri of uniforms spilled into the darkening

prison yard and broke into four groups of six. These soldiers

represented a compromise typical of the farcical Four Power

administration of Spandau. The normal month-long guard tours were

handled by rota, and went off with a minimum of friction. But the

destruction of the prison, like every previous disruption of routine,

had brought chaos. First the Russians had refused to accept German

police security at the prison.

Then-because no Allied nation trusted any of its "allies" to guard

Spandau's ruins alone-they decided they would all do it, with a token

detachment of West Berlin police along to keep up appearances. While

the Royal Engineers boarded the idling bus, the NCO's of the four guard

details deployed their men throughout the compound.

Near the shattered prison gate, a black American master sergeant gave

his squad a final brief: "Okay, ladies. Everybody's got his sector map,

right?"

"Sir!" barked his troops in unison.

"Then listen up. This ain't gate duty at the base, got it?

The Germs have the perimeter-we got the interior. Our orders are to

guard this wreckage. That's ostensibly, as the captain says. We are

here to watch the Russians. They watch us; we watch them. Same old

same old, right? Only these Ivans probably ain't grunts, dig?

Probably GRU-maybe even KGB. So keep your pots on and your slits open.

Questions?" I "How long's the gig, Sarge?" "This patrol lasts twelve

hours, Chapman, six to six. If you're still awake then-and you'd

better be-then you qan get back to your hot little pastry on the

Bendlerstrasse."

When the laughter died, the sergeant grinned and barked, "Spread out,

gentlemen! The enemy is already in place."

As the six Americans fanned out into the yard, a greenand-white

Volkswagen van marked PoLizEi stopped in the street before the prison.

It waited for a break in traffic, then jounced over the curb and came to

rest before the command trailer steps. Instantly, six men wearing the

dusty green uniform of the West Berlin police trundled out of its cargo

door and lined up between the van and the trailer.

Dieter Hauer, the captain in charge of the police contingent, climbed

down from the driver's seat and stepped around the van. He had an

arresting face, with a strong jaw and a full military mustache. His

clear gray eyes swept once across the wrecked prison lot. In the dusk

he noticed that the foul-weather ponchos of the Allied soldiers gave the

impression that they all served the same army. Hauer knew better.

Those young men were a fragmented muster of jangling nerves and

suspicion-two dozen accidents waiting to happen.

The Germans call their police bullen-"bulls"-and Hauer personified the

nickname. Even at fifty-five, his powerful, barrel-chested body

radiated enough authority to intimidate men thirty years his junior.

He wore neither gloves, helmet, nor cap against the cold, and contrary

to what the recruits in his unit suspected, this was no affectation

meant to impress them. Rather, as people who knew him were aware, he

possessed an almost inhuman resilience against external annoyances,

whether natural or man-made. Hauer called, "Attention!"

as he stepped back around the van. His officers formed a tight unit

beneath the command trailer's harsh floodlamp.

"I've told anyone who'd listen that we didn't want this assignment," he

said. "Naturally no one gives a shit."

There were a few nervous chuckles. Hauer spat onto the snow. A

hostage-recovery specialist, he-'plainly considered this token guard

detail an affront to his dignity. "You should feel very safe tonight,

gentlemen," he continued with heavy sarcasm. "We have the soldiers of

France, England, the United States, and Mother Russia with us tonight.

They are here to provide the security which we, the West Berlin police,

are deemed unfit to provide." Hauer clasped his hands behind his back.

"I'm sure you men feel as I do about this, but nothing can be done.

"You know your assignments. Four of you will guard the perimeter.

Apfel, Weiss-you're designated rovers. You'll pa&ol at random, watching

for improper conduct among the regular troops. What constitutes

'improper conduct' here, I have not been told. I assume it means

unsanctioned searches or provocation between forces. Everyone do your

best to stay clear of the Russians. Whatever agencies those men out

there serve, I doubt it's the Red Army. If you have a problem, sound

your whistle and wail. I'll come to you. Everyone else hold your

position until instructed otherwise."

Hauer paused, staring into the young faces around him.

His eyes lingered on a reddish-blond sergeant with gray eyes, then

flicked away. "Be cautious," he said evenly, "but don't be timid. We

are on German soil, regardless of what any political document may say.

Any provocation, verbal or physical, will be reported to me immediately.

Immediately."

The venom in Hauer's voice made it plain he would brook no insult from

the Soviets or anyone else. He spoke as though he might even welcome

it. "Check your sector maps carefully," he added. "I want no mistakes

tonight. You will show these soldier boys the meaning of

professionalism and discipline. Go!"

Six policemen scattered.

Hans Apfel, the reddish-blond sergeant whom Hauer had designated one of

the rovers, trotted about twenty meters, then stopped and looked back at

his superior. Hauer was studying a map of the prison, an unlit cigar

clamped between his teeth. Hans started to walk back, but the American

sergeant suddenly appeared from behind the police van and engaged Hauer

in quiet conversation.

Hans turned and struck out across the snow, following the line of the

Wilhemstrasse to his left. Angrily, he crushed a loose window pane

beneath his boot. With no warning at all this day had become one of the

most uncomfortable of his life. One minute he had been on his way out

of the Friedrichstrasse police station, headed home to his wife; the

next a duty sergeant had tapped him on the shoulder, said he needed a

good man for a secret detail, and practically thrust Hans into a van

headed for Spandau Prison. That in itself was a pain in the ass.

Double shifts were hell, especially those that had to be pulled on foot

in the snow.

But that wasn't the real source of Hans's discomfort. The problem was

that the commander of the guard detail, Captain Dieter Hauer, was

Hans's father. None of the other men on this detail knew that-for which

Hans was grateful-but he had a strange feeling that might soon change.

During the ride to Spandau, he had stared resolutely out of the van

window, refusing to be drawn into conversation. He couldn't understand

how it had happened. He and his father had a long-standing

arrangement-a simple agreement designed to deal with a complex family

situation-and Hauer must have broken it. It was the only explanation.

After a few minutes of bitter confusion, Hans resolved to deal with this

situation the way he always did. By ignoring it.

He kicked a mound of snow out of his path. So far he had made only two

cautious circuits of the perimeter. He felt more than a little tense

about strolling into a security zone where soldiers carried loaded

assault rifles as casually as their wallets. He panned his eyes across

the dark lot, shielding them from the snow with a gloved hand. God, but

the British did theirjob well, he thought.

Ghostly mountains of jagged brick and iron rose up out of the swirling

snow like the bombed-out remnants of Berlin buildings that had never

been restored. Drawing a deep breath, he stepped forward into the

shadows.

it was a strange journey. For fifteen or twenty steps he would see

nothing but the glow of distant street lamps. Then a soldier would

materialize, a black mirage against the falling snow. Some challenged

him, most did not. When they did, Hans simply said, "Versailles"-the

code word printed at the bottom of his sector map-and they let him pass.

He couldn't shake a vague feeling of anxiety that had settled on his

shoulders. As he passed the soldiers, he tried to focus on the weapon

each carried. In the darkness all the uniforms looked alike, but the

guns identified everyone.

Each Russian stood statue-still, his sharklike Kalashnikov resting

butt-first on the ground like an extension of his arrnThe French also

stood, though not at attention. They cradled their FAMAS rifles in

crooked elbows and tried vainly to smoke in the frigid wind. The

British carried no rifles, each having been issued a sidearm in the

interest of discretion.

it was the Americans who disturbed Hans. Some leaned casually against

broken slabs of concrete, their weapons nowhere in evidence.

Others squatted on piles of brick, hunched over their M-16

Arinalites as if they could barely stay awake. None of the U.S.

soldiers had even bothered to challenge Hans's passage. At first he

felt angry that NATO soldiers would take such a casual approach to their

duties.

But after a while he began to wonder. Their indifference could simply

be a ruse, couldn't it? Certainly for an assignment such as this a

high-caliber team would have been chosen?

After three hours' patrol, Hans's suspicions were proved correct, when

he nearly stumbled over the black American sergeant surveying the prison

grounds through a bulbous scope fitted to his M-16. Not wishing to

startle him, Hans whispered, "Versailles, Sergeant." When the American

didn't respond, he tried again. "What can you see?"

"Everything from the command trailer on the east to that Ivan pissing on

a brick pile on the west," the sergeant replied in German, never taking

his eyes from the scope.

"I can't see any of that!"

"Image-intensifier," the American murmured. "Well, well ... I didn't

know the Red Army let its sentries take a piss-break on guard du-What-"

The noncom wrenched the rifle away from his face.

"What is it?" Hans asked, alarmed.

"Nothing ... damn. This thing works by light magnification, not

infrared. That smartass flashed a spotlight toward me and whited out my

scope. What an asshole."

Hans grunted in mutual distaste for the Russians. "Nice scope," he

said, hoping to get a look through it himself.

"Your outfit doesn't have 'em?"

"Some units do. The drug units, mostly. I used one in training, but

they aren't issued for street duty."

"Too bad." The American scanned the ruins. "This is one weird place,

isn't it?"

Hans shrugged and tried to look nonchalant.

"Like a graveyard, man. A hundred and fifty cells in this place, and

only one occupied-by Hess. Dude must-ve known some serious shit to keep

him locked down that tight." The sergeant cocked his head and squinted

at Hans.

"Man, you know you look familiar. Yeah ... you look like that guy, that

tennis player-"

"Becker," Hans finished, looking at the ground.

"Becker, yeah. Boris Becker. I guess everybody tells you that, huh?"

Hans looked up. "Once a day, at least."

"I'll bet it doesn't hurt you with the Frduleins."

"I'd rather have his income," Hans said, smiling. It was his stock

answer, but the American laughed. "Besides," he added, "I'm married."

"Yeah?" The sergeant grinned back. "Me too. Six years and two kids.

You?"

Hans shook his head. "We've been trying, but we haven't had any luck."

"That's a bitch," said the American, shaking his head. "I got some

buddies with that problem. Man, they gotta check the calendar and their

old lady's temperature and every other damn thing before they can even

get it on. No thanks."

When the sergeant saw Hans's expression, he said, "Hey, sorry 'bout

that, man. Guess you know more about it than you ever wanted to." He

raised his rifle again, sighting in on yet another invisible target.

"Bang, " he said, and lowered the weapon. "We'd better keep moving,

Boris." He disappeared into the shadows, taking the scope with him.

For the next six hours, Hans moved through the darkness without speaking

to anyone, except to answer the challenges of the Russians.

They seemed to be taking the operation much more seriously than anyone

else, he noticed. Almost personally.

About four A.M. he decided to have a second look at his map. He

approached the command trailer obliquely, walking backward to read by

the glow of the single floodlamp. Suddenly he heard voices. Peering

around the trailer, he saw the French and British sergeants sitting

together on the makeshift steps. The Frenchman was very young, like

most of the twenty-seven hundred conscripts who comprised the French

garrison in Berlin. The Brit was older, a veteran of England's

professional army. He did most of the talking; the Frenchman smoked and

listened in silence. Now and then the wind carried distinct words to

Hans. "Hess" was one"lefenant" and "bloody Russians" were others.

Suddenly the Frenchman stood, flicked his cigarette butt into the

darkness, and strode out of the white pool of light. The Englishman

followed close on his heels.

Hans turned to go, then froze. One meter behind him stood the imposing

silhouette of Captain Dieter Hauer. The fiery eye of a cigar blazed

orange in the darkness.

"Hello, Hans," said the deep, burnished voice.

Hans said nothing.

"Damned cold for this time of year, eh?"

"Why am I here?" Hans asked. "You broke our agreement."

"No, I didn't. This was bound to happen sooner or later, even with a

twenty-thousand-man police force."

Hans considered this. "I suppose you're right," he said at length. "It

doesn't matter. Just another assignment, right?"

Hauer nodded. "You've been doing a hell of a job, I hear.

Youngest sergeant in Berlin."

Hans flushed a little, shrugged.

"I lied, Hans," Hauer said suddenly. "I did break our agreement.

I requested you for this detail."

Hans's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Because it was busy work. Killing time. I thought we might get a

chance to talk."

Hans studied the slushy ground. "So talk."

Hauer seemed to search for words. "There's a lot that needs saying."

"Or nothing."

Hauer sighed deeply. "I'd really like to know why you came to Berlin.

Three years now. You must have wanted some kind of reconciliation ...

or answers, or something."

Hans stiffened. "So why are you asking the questions?"

Hauer looked hard into Hans's, eyes. "All right," he said softly.

"We'll wait until you're ready."

Before Hans could reply, Hauer vanished into the darkness. Even the

glow of his cigar had disappeared. Hans stood still for some moments;

then, shaking his head angrily, he hurried into the shadows and resumed

his patrol.

Time passed quickly now, the silence broken only by an occasional siren

or the roar of a jet from the British military airport at Gatow.

With the snow soaking into his uniform, Hans walked faster to take his

mind off the cold. He hoped he would be lucky enough to get home before

his wife, Ilse, left for work. Sometimes after a particularly rough

night shift, she would cook him a breakfast of Weisswurst and buns, even

if she was in a hurry.

He checked his watch. Almost 6:00 A.M. It would be dawn soon. He felt

better as the end of his shift neared. What he really wanted was to get

out of the weather for a while and have a smoke. A mountain of

shattered concrete near the rear of the lot looked as though it might

afford good shelter, so he made for it. The nearest soldier was

Russian, but he stood at least thirty meters from the pile. Hans

slipped through a narrow opening when the sentry wasn't looking.

He found himself in a comfortable little nook that shielded him

completely from the wind. He wiped off a slab of concrete, sat down,

and warmed his face by breathing into his cupped gloves. Nestled in

this dark burrow, he was invisible to the patrolling soldiers, yet he

still commanded a surprisingly wide view of the prison grounds. The

snow had finally stopped, and even the wind had fallen off a bit. In

the predawn silence, the demolished prison looked like pictures of

bombed-out Dresden he had seen as a schoolboy: motionless sentries

standing tall against bleak destruction, watching over nothing.

Hans took out his cigarettes. He was trying to quit, but he still

carried a pack whenever he went into a potentially stressful situation.

Just the knowledge that he could light up sometimes calmed his nerves.

But not tonight. Removing one glove with his teeth, he fumbled in his

jacket for matches. He leaned as far away as he could from the opening

to his little cave, scraped a match across the striking pad, then cupped

it in his palm to conceal the light. He held it to his cigarette,

drawing deeply. His shivering hand made the job difficult, but he soon

steadied it and was rewarded with a jagged rush of smoke.

As the match flame neared his fingers, a glint of white flashed against

the blackness of the chamber. When he flicked the match away, the

glimmer vanished. Probably only a bit of snow, he thought. But boredom

made him curious. Gauging the risk of discovery by the Russian, he lit

a second match. There. Near the floor of his cubbyhole he could see

the object clearly now-not glass but paper-a small wad stuck to a long

narrow brick. He hunched over and held the match nearer.

In the close light he could see that rather than being stuck to the

brick as he had first thought, the paper actually protruded from the

brick itself. He grasped the folded wad and tugged it gently from its

receptacle. The paper made a dry, scraping sound. Hans inserted his

index finger into the brick.

He couldn't feel the bottom. The second match died. He lit another.

Quickly spreading open the crinkled wad of onionskin, he surveyed his

find in the flickering light. It seemed to be a personal document of

some sort, a will or a diary perhaps, hand-printed in heavy blocked

letters. In the dying matchlight Hans read as rapidly as he could: This

is the testament of Prisoner #7. I am the last now, and I know that I

shall never be granted the freedom that I-more than any of those

released before me-deserve.

Death is the only freedom I will know. I hear His black wings beating

about me! While my child lives I cannot speak, but here I shall write.

I only pray that I can be coherent. Between the drugs, the questions,

the promises and the threats, I sometimes wonder if I am not already mad

I only hope that long after these 'events cease to have immediate

consequencest . n our insane world, someone will find these words and

learn the obscene truth, not only of Hammier, Heydrich, and the rest,

but of England-of those who would have sold her honor and ultimately her

existence forThe crunch of boot heels on snow jolted Hans back to

reality. Someone was coming! Jerking his head to the aperture in the

bricks, he closed his hand on the searing match and peered out into an

alien world.

Dawn had come. In its unforgiving light, Hans saw a Russian soldier

less than ten meters from his hiding place, moving slowly forward with

his AK-47 extended. The flare of the third match had drawn him. "Fool!"

Hans cursed himself. He jammed the sheaf of paper into his boot, then

he stepped boldly out of the niche and strode toward the advancing

soldier.

"Halt!" cried the Russian, emphasizing the command with a jerk of his

Kalashnikov.

"Versailles," Hans countered in the steadiest voice he could muster.

His calm delivery of the password took the Russian aback.

"What are you doing in there, Polizei?"lasked the soldier in passable

German.

"Smoke," Hans replied, extending the pack. "Having a smoke out of the

wind." He waved his sector map in a wide arc as if to take in the wind

itself.

"No wind," the Russian stated flatly, never taking his eyes from Hans's

face.

It was true. Sometime during the last few minutes the wind had died.

"Smoke, comrade," Hans repeated.

"Versailles! Smoke, tovarich!"

He continued to proffer the pack, but the soldier only cocked his head

toward his red-patched collar and spoke quietly. Hans caught his breath

when he spied the small transmitter clipped to the sentry's belt. The

Russians were in radio contact! In seconds the soldier's zealous

comrades would come running. Hans felt a hot wave of panic. A

surprisingly strong aversion to letting the Russians discover the papers

gripped him. He cursed himself for not leaving them in the little cave

rather than stuffing them into his boot like a naive shoplifter. He had

almost reached the point of blind flight when a shrill whistle pierced

the air in staccato bursts.

Chaos erupted all over the compound. The long, anxious night of

surveillance had strained everyone's nerves to the breaking point, and

the whistle blast, like a hair trigger, catapulted every man into the

almost sexual release of physical action. Contrary to orders, every

soldier and policeman on the lot abandoned his post to converge on the

alarm. The Russian whipped his head toward the noise, then back to

Hans. Shouted commands echoed across the prison yard, rebounding

through the broken canyons.

"Versailles!" Hans shouted. "Versailles, Comrade! Let's go!"

The Russian seemed confused. He lowered his rifle a little, wavering.

"Versailles," he murmured. He looked hard at Hans for a moment more;

then he broke and ran.

Rooted to the earth, Hans exhaled slowly. He felt cold sweat pouring

across his temples. With quivering hands, he pocketed his cigarettes,

then carefully refolded his sector map, realizing as he did so that the

paper he held was not his sector map at all, but the first page of the

papers he had found in the hollow brick. Like a fool he had been waving

under the Russian's nose the very thing he wanted to conceal! Thank God

that idiot didn't check it, he thought. He pressed the page deep into

his left boot, pulled his trouser legs down around his feet, and

sprinted toward the sound of confusion.

In the brief moments it took Hans to respond to the whistle, a routine

police matter had escalated into a potentially explosive confrontation.

Near the blasted prison gate, five Soviet soldiers stood in a tight

circle around two fortyish men wearing frayed business suits. They

pointed their AK-47s menacingly, while nearby their commander argued

vehemently with Erhard Weiss. The Russian was insisting that the

trespassers be taken to an East German poliee station for interrogation.

Weiss was doing his best to calm the shouting Russian, but he was

obviously out of his depth. Captain Hauer was nowhere in sight, and

while the other policemen stood behind Weiss looking resolute, Hans knew

that their Walthers would be no match for the Soviet assault weapons if

it came to a showdown.

The sergeants of the NATO detachments kept their men well clear of the

argument. They knew political dynamite when they saw it. While the

Soviets kept their rifles leveled at the wide-eyed captives-who looked

as if they might collapse from shock at any moment-the Russian

"sergeant" bellowed louder and louder in broken German, trying to bully

the tenacious Weiss into giving up "his" prisoners. TO his credit,

Weiss stood firyn. He refused to allow any action to be taken until

Captain Hauer had been apprised of the situation.

Hans stepped forward, hoping to interject some moderation into the

dispute. Yet before he could speak, a black BMW screeched up to the

curb and Captain Hauer vaulted from its rear door.

"What the hell, is this?" he shouted.

The screaming Russian immediately redirected his tirade at Hauer, but

the German bnisquely raised his hand, breaking the flood of words like a

wave against a rock.

"Weiss!" he barked.

"Sir!"

"Explain."

Weiss was so relieved to have the responsibility of the prisoners lifted

from his shoulders that his words tumbled over themselves.

"Captain, five minutes ago I saw two men moving suspiciously inside the

perimeter. They must have slipped in somewhere between Willi and me.

I flashed my light on them and shouted, 'Halt!' but they were startled

and ran. They charged straight into one of the Russians, and before I

could even blow my whistle, every Russian on the lot had surrounded

them."

"Radios," Hauer muttered.

"Captain!" the Soviet "sergeant" bellowed. "These men are prisoners of

the Soviet government! Any attempt to interfere-" Without a word, Hauer

strode past the Russian and into the deadly circle of automatic weapons.

He began a rapid, professional interrogation of the prisoners, speaking

quietly in German.

The black American sergeant whistled low. "That cop's got balls," he

observed, loudly enough for all to hear. One of his men giggled

nervously.

The terrified civilians were elated to be questioned by a fellow

countryman. In less than a minute, Hauer extracted the relevant

information from them, and his men relaxed considerably during the

exchange. It revealed a familiar situation-distasteful perhaps, but

thankfully routine. Even the Russians holding the Kalashnikovs seemed

to have picked up on Captain Hauer's casual manner. He patted the

smaller of the two trespassers on the shoulder, then slipped out of the

circle. A few of the rifles dropped noticeably as he stepped up to the

Russian officer.

"They're quite harmless, Comrade," he explained. "A couple of homos,

that's all."

Misunderstanding the slang, the Russian continued to scowl at Hauer.

"What is their explanation?" he demanded stiffly.

"They're homosexuals, Sergeant. Queers, Schwiile ...

golden boys, I think you call them. Looking for a temporary love nest,

that's all. They're all over Berlin."

"No matter!" the Russian snapped, grasping Hauer's meaning at last.

"They have trespassed on Soviet territory, and they must be interrogated

at our headquarters in East Berlin." He motioned to his men. The

rifles jerked back up instantly. He barked an order and started

marching toward the parking area.

Hauer had no time to consult his superiors as to legalities, but he knew

that allowing Russian soldiers to drag two of his fellow countrymen into

the DDR without any semblance of a trial was something no West Berliner

with an ounce of pride would do without a fight.

Glancing,around, he tried to gauge the sympathies of the NATO squads.

The Americans looked as if they might be with him, but Hauer knew he

couldn't rely on that if it came to a fight. Force would probably be

counterproductive in any case, he thought; it usually was. He'd have to

try a different tack.

Five steps carried him to the departing Russian. He grasped the burly

man by his tunic and spun him around.

"Listen, Sergeant," he whispered forcefully, "or Major or Colonel or

whatever the hell you are. These man have committed no serious offense

and they certainly pose no threat to the security of this site.

I suggest we search them, then book them into one of our stations just

like anybody else. That way we keep the press out of it, understand?

Pravda?

izvestia? If you want to make an international incident out of this,

you're quite welcome to do it, but you take full responsibility.

Am I clear?"

The Russian understood well enough, and for a moment he considered

Hauer's suggestion. But the situation was not so simple now. He had

gone too far to back down in front of his men. Ignoring Hauer, he

turned to his squad.

"These men are suspected enemies of the Soviet Union!

They will remain'in Soviet custody until the objective of their mission

has been determined! Corporal, put them aboard our bus!"

Furious but outgunned, Hauer thought quickly. He had dealt with Russian

officers for more than twenty-five years, and all his experience had

taught him one lesson: the communist system, inefficient as it was, had

grown proficient at breeding one thing out of its citizens-individual

initiative.

This Russian had to be reminded that his actions could have serious

international implications. With two fingers Hauer removed his Walther

from its holster and handed it to an astonished Weiss with a theatrical

flourish. Again, the Soviet riflemen paused uncertainly, their eyes

riveted on the unpredictable policeman.

"We have a stalemate, Comrade!" Hauer declared loudly.

"You wish to keep these men in Soviet custody? Very well!

You now stand on the only plot of Russian soil in West Berlin-an

accident of history that will soon be rectified, I think. You may keep

the prisoners here for as long as you wish-" The Russian slowed his

march.

"-however crossing into the DDR with two citizens of the Federal

Republic is an entirely different matter-a political matter-and quite

beyond my power or yours to authorize. The prisoners must remain here

until we have contacted our superior officers! I shall accompany you to

the command trailer, where we can make the necessary calls." Hauer

looked over his shoulder. "I would also suggest to the British sergeant

that he join us, as we are in the British sector of the city."

Hauer started toward the trailer. He didn't intend to give the Russian

time to argue. "Apfel!" he shouted. "Weiss!

Drive everyone back to the station, then go home! I'll handle the

paperwork on this!"

"But Captain!" Weiss protested.

"Go! "

Hans grabbed Weiss's sleeve and pulled him toward the van. The dazed

recruits followed, their eyes on Hauer as he marched toward the trailer.

The British sergeant, suddenly made aware of his responsibility,

conferred with his men, a couple of whom restlessly fingered their

Browning HiPower pistols.

Bristling with fury, the Russian ordered his men to follow Hauer with

the prisoners. it made a strange parade. Hauer, unarmed, strode

purposefully toward the command trailer, while the Russians-looking a

bit sheepish in spite of being armed to the teeth-herded their rumpled

prisoners along behind. The British brought up the rear.

The American master sergeant stood with his hands on his hips, shaking

his head in amazement. "That Kraut is one smooth son of a bitch,

gentlemen. I hope y'all were paying attention. He may be wearing a

cop's uniform, but that man is a soldier. Yes, sir, I'd bet my stripes

on it!"

The American was right. As Hauer marched toward the trailer, every inch

of his ramrod bearing bore the indelible stamp of military discipline.

Nothing betrayed the turmoil he felt knowing that the only thing

stopping the angry Russian from taking control of the prisoners was the

ring of men and steel at the checkpoints leading out of the

city@ertainly not one headstrong police captain just six weeks from

retirement.

inside the police van Hans calmed down a little. He pulled into the

Wilheimstrasse, then wheeled onto the Heerstrasse, heading east.

For a time no one spoke. Hauer's actions had unnerved them all.

Finally Weiss broke the silence.

"Did you see that, Hans?"

"Of course," he said tersely. The sheaf of papers felt like a kilo of

heroin strapped to his leg.

"Old Hauer stepped in front of those machine guns like they weren't even

there," said one of the younger men.

"I kind of got the feeling he'd done it before," mused Weiss.

"He has," Hans said flatly.

"When?" asked a chorus of surprised voices.

"Quite a few times, actually. He works Hostage Recovery for Special

Tasks Division."

"How do you know so much about him?"

Hans felt his face flush; he shrugged and looked out the window to cover

it.

"I'm glad it happened," Weiss said softly.

"Why?" asked one of the recruits.

"Showed those Russians what for, that's why. Showed them West Berlin's

not a doormat for their filthy boots.

They'll have quite a little mess on their hands now, won't they, Hans?"

"We all will, Erhard."

"Hauer ought to be prefect," suggested an old hand of twenty-one.

"He's twice the man Funk is."

"He can't," Hans said, in spite dr himself.

"@y not?"

"Because of Munich."

"Munich?"

Hans sighed and left the question unanswered. How could they

understand? Every man in the van but him and Weiss had been toddlers at

the time of the Olympic massacre.

Turning onto the Friedrichstrasse, he swung the van into a space in

front of the colossal police station and switched off the engine.

He sensed them all-Weiss especially-watching him for a clue as to what

to do next. Without a word he handed Weiss the keys, climbed out of the

van, and started for his Volkswagen.

"Where are you going?" Weiss called.

"Exactly where Hauer told me to go, my friend! Home!"

"But shouldn't we report this?"

"Do what you must!" Hans called, still walking. He could feel the

papers in his boot, already damp, with nervous sweat.

The sooner he was inside his own apartment, the better he would feel.

Again he prayed silently that Ilse would be home when he got there.

After three unsuccessful attempts, he coaxed his old VW to life, and

with the careful movements of a policeman who has seen too many traffic

fatalities, he eased the car into the morning rush of West Berlin.

The car that fell in behind him-a rental Ford-was just like a thousand

others in the city. The man at the wheel was not. Jonas Stern rubbed

his tired eyes and pushed his leather bag a little farther toward the

passenger door. It simply would not do for a traffic policeman to see

what lay on the seat beneath the bag. Not a gun, but a night-vision

scope-a third-generation Pilkington, far superior to the one the

American sergeant had been toying with.

Definitely not standard tourist equipment.

But worth its weight in gold, Stern decided, following Hans's battered

VW around a turn. In gold.

CHAPTER TWO

5.'55 A.M. Soviet Sector. East Berlin, DDR The KGB's RYAD computer

logged the Spandau call at 05:55:32 hours Central European Time. Such

exactitude seemed to matter a great deal to the new breed of agent that

passed through East Berlin on their training runs these days.

They had cut their too-handsome teeth on microchips, and for them a case

that could not be reduced to microbits of data to feed their precious

machines was no case at all. But to Ivan Kosov-the colonel to whom such

calls were still routed-high-tech accuracy without human judgment to

exploit it meant nothing. Snorting once to clear his chronically

obstructed sinuses, he picked up the receiver of the black phone on his

desk.

"Kosov," he growled.

The words that followed were delivered with such hysterical force that

Kosov jerked the receiver away from his ear.

The man on the other end of the phone was the "sergeant" from the

Spandau guard detail. His actual rank was captain in the KGB, Third

Chief Directorate-the KGB division responsible for spying on the Soviet

army. Kosov glanced at his watch. He'd expected his man back by now.

Whatever the flustered captain was screaming about must explain the

delay.

"Sergei," he said finally. "Start again and tell it like a

professional. Can you do that?"

Two minutes later, Kosov's hooded eyes opened a bit and his breathing

grew labored. He began firing questions at his subordinate, trying to

determine if the events at Spandau had been accidental, or if some human

will had guided them.

"What did the Polizei on the scene say? Yes, I do see. Lis ten to me,

Sergei, this is what you will do. Let this policeman do just what he

wants. Insist on accompanying him to the station.

Take your men with you. He is with you now?

What is his name?" Kosov scrawled Hauer, Polizei Captain on a notepad.

"Ask him which station he intends to go to.

Abschnitt 53?" Kosov wrote that down too, recalling as he did that

Abschnitt 53 was in the American sector of West Berlin, on the

Friedrichstrasse. "I'll meet you there in an hour. It might be sooner,

but these days you never know how Moscow will react. What? Be

discreet, but if force becomes necessary, use it. Listen to me.

Between the time the prisoners are formally charged and the time I

arrive, you'll probably have a few minutes. Use that time. Question

each of your men about anything out of the ordinary they might have

noticed during the night. Don't worry, this is what you were trained

for." Kosov cursed himself for not putting a more experienced man on

the Spandau detail. "And Sergei, question your men separately. Yes,

now go. I'll be there as soon as I can."

Kosov replaced the receiver and searched his pocket for a cigarette. He

felt a stab of incipient angina, but what could he expect? He had

already outfoxed the KGB doctors far longer than he'd ever hoped to, and

no man could live forever. The cigarette calmed him, and before he

lifted the other phone-the red one that ran only east-he decided that he

could afford sixty seconds to think this thing through properly.

Trespassers at Spandau. After all these years, Moscow's cryptic

warnings had finally come true. Had Centre expected this particular

incident? Obviously they had expected something, or they wouldn't have

taken such pains to have their stukatch on hand when the British leveled

the prison. Kosov knew there was at least one informer on his Spandau

team, and probably others he didn't know about. The East German

Security Service (Stasi) usually managed to bribe a@least one man on

almost every KGB operation in Berlin. So much forfraternal socialism,

he thought, reaching for a pencil.

He jotted a quick list of the calls he would have to make: KGB chairman

Zemenek at Moscow Centre; the Soviet commandant for East Berlin; and of

course the prefect of West Berlin police. Kosov would enjoy the call to

West Berlin. It wasn't often he could make demands of the arrogant West

Germans and expect to be accommodated, but today would be one of those

days. The Moscow call, on the other hand, he would not enjoy at all. It

might mean anything from a medal to expulsion from service without a

word of explanation.

This was Kosov's fear. For the past ten years, operationally speaking,

Berlin had been a dead city. The husk of its farmer romance clung to

it, but the old Cold War urgency was gone. Pre-eminence had moved to

another part of the globe, and Kosov had no Japanese or Arabic. His

future held only mountains of paperwork and turf battles with the GRU

and the Stasi. Kosov didn't give a damn about Rudolf Hess.

Chairman Zemenek might be obsessed with Nazi conspiracies, but what was

the point? The Soviet empire was leaking like a sieve, and Moscow was

worried about some intrigue left over from the Great Patriotic War?

The Chainnan's Obsession. That's what the KGB chiefs in Berlin had

called Rudolf Hess ever since the Nuremberg trials, when he was

sentenced to life imprisonment in Spandau.

Four weeks ago Kosov had thought he had received his last call about

Spandau's famous Prisoner Number Seven. That was when the Americans had

found the old Nazi dead, a lamp cord wrapped around his neck. Suicide,

Kosov remembered with a chuckle. That's what the Allied board of

inquiry had ruled it. Kosov thought it a damned remarkable suicide for

a ninety-three-year-old man. Hess had supposedly hanged himself from a

rafter, yet all his doctors agreed that the arthritic old Nazi couldn't

lift his arms any higher than his shoulders. The German press had

screamed murder, of course. Kosov didn't give a damn if it was murder.

One less German in the world made for a better world, in his view. He

was just grateful the old man hadn't died during a Soviet guard month.

Another sharp chest pain made Kosov wince. It was thinking about the

damned Germans that caused it. He hated them. The fact that both his

father and his grandfather had been killed by Germans probably had

something to do with it, but that wasn't all. Behind the Germans'

arrogance, Kosov knew, lurked a childish insecurity, a desperate desire

to be liked. But Kosov never gratified it. Because beneath that

insecurity seethed something else, something darker. An ancient, tribal

desire-a warlike need to dominate. He'd heard the rumors that Gorbachev

was softening on the reunification issue, and it made him want to puke.

As far as Kosov was concerned, the day the spineless politicians in

Moscow decided to let the Germans reunite was the day the Red army

should roll across both Germanys like a tidal wave, smashing everything

in its path.

Thinking about Moscow brought Kosov back to Hess. Because on that

subject, Moscow Centre was like a shrewish old woman. The Rudolf Hess

case held a security classification unique in Kosov's experience; it

dated all the way back to the NKVD. And in a bureaucracy where access

to information was the very lifeblood of survival, no one he had ever

met had ever seen the Hess file. No one but the chairman.

Kosov had no idea why this was so. What he did have was a very short

list-a list of names and potential events relating in responses.

to Rudolf Hess which mandated certa' One of those events was illegal

entry into Spandau Prison; and the response: immediate notification of

the chairman. Kosov felt sure that the fact that Spandau now lay in

ruins did not affect his orders at all. He glanced one last time at the

scrawled letters on his pad: Hauer, Polizei Captain. Then he stubbed

out his cigarette and lifted the red phone.

6.-25 A.M. British Sector. West Berlin

The warm apartment air hit Hans in a wave, flushing his skin, enfolding

him like a cocoon. Ilse had already left, he knew it instinctively.

There was no movement in the kitchen, no sound of appliances, no running

shower, nothing. Still jumpy, and half-starved, he walked hopefully

into the kitchen. He found a note on the refrigerator door, written in

Ilse's hurried hand: Wurst in the oven. I love YOU. Back by

18:00-Thank you, Liebchen, he thought, catching the pungent aroma of

Weisswurst- Using one of his gloves as a potholder, he removed the hot

dish from the oven and placed it on the counter to cool. Then he took a

deep breath, bent over, rolled up his pants leg and dug the sheaf of

onionskin out of his boot. His pulse quickened as he unfolded the pages

in the light. He backed against the stove for heat, plopped a chunk of

white sausage into his mouth, and picked up reading where the Russian

soldier had surprised him.

... I only hope that long after these events cease to have immediate

consequences in our insane world, someone will find these words and

learn the obscene truth not only of Himmler, Heydrich, and the rest, but

of England@f those who would have sold her honor and ultimately her

existence for a chance to sit at Hitler's blood-drenched table. The

facts are few, but I have had more time to ponder them than most men

would in ten lifetimes. I know how this mission was accomplished, but I

do not know why. That is for someone else to learn. I can only point

the way. You must follow the Eye.

The Eye is the key to it all!

Hans stopped chewing and held the paper closer to his face.

Sketched below this exhortation was a single, stylized eye.

Gracefully curved, with a lid but no lashes, it stared out from the

paper with a strange intensity. It seemed neither masculine nor

feminine. It looked mystical somehow. Even a little creepy. He read

on: Whatfollows is my story, as best I can remember it.

Hans blinked his eyes. At the beginning of the next paragraph, the

narrative suddenly switched to a language he could not understand.

He didn't even recognize it. He stared in puzzlement at the

painstakingly blocked characters. Portuguese? he wondered. Italian

maybe? He couldn't tell. A few words of German were sprinkled through

the gibberish-names mostly-but not enough to get any meaning from.

Frustrated, he walked into the bedroom, folded the pages, and stuffed

them underneath the mattress at the foot of his bed. He switched on the

television from habit, then kicked his mud-caked boots into an empty

corner and dropped his coat on top of them. Ilse would scold him for

being lazy, he knew, but after two straight shifts he was simply too

exhausted to care.

He ate his breakfast on the bed. As much as the Spandau papers, the

thought of his father weighed on his mind. Captain Hauer had asked him

why he'd come to Berlin. Hans often wondered that himself Three years

it had been now. He hardly thought of Munich anymore. He'd married

ilse after just five months here in Berlin. Christ, what a wedding it

had been. His mother-still furious at him for becoming a policeman-had

refused to attend, and Hauer had not been included in the plans. But

he'd shown up anyway, Hans remembered. Hans had spied his rigid,

uniformed figure outside the church, standing alone at the end of the

block. Hans had pretended not to notice, but Ilse had waved quite

deliberately to him as they climbed into the wedding car.

Angry again, Hans wolfed down another sausage and tried to concentrate

on the television. A silver-haired windbag of a Frankfurt banker was

dispensing financial advice to viewers saddled with the burden of

surplus cash. Hans snorted in disgust. At fifteen hundred

Deutschemarks per month, a Berlin policeman made barely enough money to

pay rent and buy groceries. Without Ilse's income, they would be

shivering in a cold-water flat in Kreuzberg. He wanted to switch

channels, but the old Siemens black-and-white had been built in the dark

ages before remote control. He stayed where he was.

He took another bite of sausage and stared blankly at the screen.

Beneath his stockinged feet, the wrinkled sheaf of papers waited, a

tantalizing mystery beckoning him to explore. Yet he had already hit a

dead end. The strange, staring eye hovered in his mind, taunting him.

After breakfast, he decided, he would take a shower and then have

another go at the papers.

He never made it off the bed. Exhaustion and the warm air overcame him

even before he finished the sausage. He slid down the duvet, the

unfinished plate balanced precariously on his lap, the Spandau papers

hidden just beneath his feet.

10.15 A.m. French Sector. West Berlin

Ilse hated these visits. No matter how many times she saw her

Gynakologe, she never got used to it. Ever. The astringent smell of

alcohol, the gleaming stainless steel, the cold table, palpating

fingers, the overly solicitous voice of the physician, who sometimes

peered directly into her eyes from between her upraised legs: all these

combined to produce a primal anxiety that solidified like ice in the

hollow of her chest. Ilse knew about the necessity of annual checkups,

but until she and Hans had begun trying to have a child, she'd skipped

more exams than she would care to admit.

All that had changed eighteen months ago. She had been up in the

stirrups so many times now that the stress of the ordeal had almost

diminished to that of a visit to the dentist-but not quite. Unlike many

German women, Ilse possessed an extreme sense of modesty about her body.

She suspected it was because she had never known her mother, but

whatever the reason, being forced to expose herself to a stranger,

albeit a doctor, for her required a considerable act of will. Only her

strong desire to have children allowed her to endure the interminable

series of examinations and therapies designed to enhance fertility.

"All done, Frau Apfel," Doctor Grauber said. He handed a slide to his

waiting nurse. Ilse heard that hard snap as he stripped off his

surgical gloves and raised the lid of the waste bin with his foot. It

crashed down, sending gooseflesh racing across her neck and shoulders.

"I'll see you in my office after you've dressed."

Ilse heard the door open and close. The nurse started to help her out

of the stirrups, but she quickly raised herself and reached for her

clothes.

Dr. Grauber's office was messy but well-appointed, full of books and

old medical instruments and framed degrees and the smell of cigars.

Ilse noticed none of this. She was here for one thing-an answer.

Was she pregnant or was she sick? The two possibilities wrestled in her

mind. Her instinct said pregnant. She and Hans had been trying for so

long now, and the other option was too unnatural to think about.

Her body was strong and supple, lean and hard. Like the flanks of a

lioness, Hans said once (as if he knew what a lioness felt like).

How could she be sick? She felt so well.

But she knew. Exterior health was no guarantee of immunity. Ilse had

seen two friends younger than she stricken with cancer. One had died,

the other had lost a breast. She wondered how Hans would react to

something like that. Disfigurement. He would never admit to revulsion,

of course, but it would matter. Hans loved her body-worshipped it,

really. Ever since their first night together, he had slowly encouraged

her until she felt comfortable before him naked.

Now she could turn gracefully about the room like a ballerina, or

sometimes just stand silently, still as alabaster.

"That was quick!" Dr. Grauber boomed, striding in and taking a seat

behind his chaotic desk.

Ilse pressed her back into the tufted leather sofa. She wanted to be

ready, no matter what the diagnosis. As she met the doctor's eyes, a

nurse stepped into the office.

She handed him a slip of paper and went out. Grauber glanced at it,

sighed, then looked up.

What he saw startled him. The poise and concentration with which Ilse

watched him made him forget the slip of paper in his hand. Her blue

eyes shone with frank and disarming curiosity, her skin with luminous

vitality. She wore little or no makeup-the luxury of youth, Grauber

thought-and her hair had that transparent blondness that makes the hands

tingle to touch it. But it wasn't all that, he decided.

Ilse Apfel was no film star. He knew a dozen women as striking as she.

It was something other than fine features, deeper than the glow of

youth. Not elegance, or earthiness, or even a hint of that intangible

scent Grauber called availability.

No, it was, quite simply, grace. Ilse possessed that rare beauty made

rarer still by apparent unconsciousness of itself.

When Grauber caught himself admiring her breasts-high and round, more

Gallic than Teutonic, he thought-he flushed and looked quickly back at

the slip of paper in his hand.

"Well," he coughed. "That's that."

Ilse waited expectantly, too anxious to ask for the verdict.

"Your urine indicates pregnancy," Grauber announced.

"I'd like to draw some blood, of course,'confirm the urine with a

beta-subunit test, but I'd say that's just a formality.

Would you like to bring Hans in? I know he'll be excited."

Ilse colored. "Hans didn't come this time."

Grauber raised his eyebrows in surprise. "That's a first.

He's got to be the most concerned husband I've ever met."

The smile faded. "Are you all right, Ilse? You look as though I'd just

given you three months to live."

Ilse felt wings beating within her chest. After all her anxiety, she

found it hard to accept fulfillment of her deepest hope. "I really

didn't expect this," she murmured. "I was afraid to hope for it. My

mother died when I was born, you know, and it's ... it's just very

important, to me to have a child of my own."

"Well, you've got one started," said Grauber. "Now our job is to see

that he-or she-arrives as ordered. I've got a copy of the standard

visiting schedule, and there's the matter of . . ."

Ilse heard nothing else. The doctor's news had lifted her spirit to a

plane where no mundane detail could intrude.

When the lab technician drew her blood, she felt no needle prick, and on

her way out of the office the receptionist had to call her name three

times to prevent her leaving without scheduling her next visit.

At the age of twenty-six, her happiness was complete.

11:27 A.M. Pretoria, The Republic of South Africa

Five thousand miles to the south of Germany, two thousand of those below

the equator, an old man sentenced to spend half his waking hours in a

wheelchair spoke acidly into the intercom recessed into his oaken office

desk.

"This is not the time to bother me with business, Pieter."

The man's name was Alfred Horn, and though it was not his native

language, he spoke Afrikaans.

"I'm sorry, sir," the intercom replied, "but I believe you might prefer

to take this call. It's from Berlin."

Berlin. Horn reached for the intercom button. "Ah ... I believe you're

right, Pieter." The old man let his finger fall from the button, then

pressed it again. "Is this call scrambled?"

"Sir, this end as always. I can't say for certain about the other. I

doubt it."

"And the room?"

"Swept last night, sir."

"I'm picking up now."

The connection was excellent, almost noiseless. The first voice Horn

heard was that of his security chief, Pieter Smuts.

"Are you still on the line, caller?"

"Ja, " hissed a male voice, obviously under stress. "And I haven't much

time."

"Are you calling from a secure location?"

"Nein. "

"Can you move to such a location?"

"Nein! Someone may have missed me already!"

"Calm yourself," Smuts ordered. "You will identify yourself again in

five seconds. Answer any questions Put to You-"

"You may remain on the line, Guardian," Horn interrupted in perfect

German.

"Go ahead, caller," Smuts said.

"This is Berlin-One," said the quavering voice. "There are developments

here of which I feel you should be apprised.

Two men were arrested this morning at Spandau Prison.

West Berliners."

"On what charge?" Horn asked, his voice neutral.

"Trespassing."

"For that you call this number?"

"There are special circumstances. Russian troops guarding the prison

last night have insisted that these men be charged with espionage, or

else transferred to East Berlin for such action."

"Surely you are joking."

"Does a man risk his career for a joke?"

Horn paused. "Elaborate."

"I don't know much, but there is still Russian activity at the prison.

They're conducting searches or tests of some sort. That's all I-"

"Searches at Spandau?" Horn cut in. "Has this to do with the death of

Hess?"

"I don't know. I simply felt you should be made aware."

"Yes," Horn said at length. "Of course. Tell me, why weren't our own

men guarding Spandau?"

"The captain of the unit was one of us. It was he who prevented the

Russians from taking the prisoners into East Berlin. He doesn't think,

the trespassers know anything, though."

"He's not supposed to think at all!"

"He-he's very independent," said the timid voice. "A real pain in the

neck. His name is Hauer."

Horn heard Smuts's pen scratching. "Was there anything else?"

"Nothing specific, but ...

"Yes?"

"The Russians. They're being much more forceful than usual. They seem

unworried by any diplomatic concerns. As if whatever they seek is worth

upsetting important people.

The Americans, for example."

There was a pause. "You were right to call," Horn said finally.

"Make sure things do not go too far. Keep us informed. Call this

number again tonight. There will be a delay as the call is re-routed

north. Wait for our answer."

"But I may not have access to a private phone-"

"That is a direct order!"

"Jawohl!

"Caller, disconnect," Smuts commanded.

The line went dead. Horn hit the intercom and summoned his security

chief into the office. Smuts seated himself opposite Horn on a spartan

sofa that typified its owner's martial disdain for excessive comfort.

With his wheelchair almost out of sight behind the desk, Alfred Horn

appeared in remarkably good health, despite his advanced years.

His strong, mobile face and still-broad shoulders projected an energy

and sense of purpose suited to a man thirty years his junior.

Only the eyes jarred this impression. They seemed strangely incongruous

between the high cheekbones and classical forehead. One hardly

moved-being made of glass-yet the other eye seemed doubly and

disturbingly alive, as if projecting the entire concentration of the

powerful brain behind it. But it wasn't really the eyes, Smuts

remembered, it was the eyebrows. Horn had none. The bullet wound that

had taken the left eye had been treated late and badly. Despite several

plastic surgeries, the pronounced ridge that surmounted the surviving

eye was entirely bare of hair, giving an impression of weakness where in

fact none existed. The other eyebrow was shaved to prevent an

asymmetrical appearance.

"Comments, Pieter?" Horn said.

"I don't like it, sir, but I don't see what we can do at this point but

monitor the situation. We're already pushing our timetable to the

limit." Smuts looked thoughtful. "Perhaps Number Seven's killer left

some evidence that was overlooked."

"Or perhaps Number Seven himself left some hidden writings which were

never found," Horn suggested. "A deathbed confession, perhaps?

We can take no chances where Spandau is concerned."

"Do you have any speeific requests?"

"Handle this as you see fit, but handle it. I'm much more concerned

about the upcoming meeting." Horn tapped his forefinger nervously on

the desktop. "Do you feel confident about security, Pieter?"

"Absolutely, sir. Do you really feel you are in immediate danger?

Spandau Prison is one thing, but Horn House is five thousand miles from

Britain."

"I'm certain," Horn averred. "Something has changed.

Our English contacts have cooled. Lines of communication are kept open,

but they are too forced. Inquiries have been made into our activities

in the South African defense program.

Ever since the murder of Number Seven."

"You don't think it could have been suicide?"

Horn snorted in contempt. "The only mystery is who killed him and why.

Was it the British, to silence him? Or did the Jews finally kill him,

for revenge? My money is on the British. They wanted him silenced for

good. As they want me silenced." Horn scowled. "I'm tired of waiting,

that's all."

Smuts smiled coldly. "Only seventy-two hours to go, sir."

Horn ignored this reassurance. "I want you to call Vorster at the mine.

Have him bring his men up to the house tonight."

"But the interim security team doesn't arrive until noon tomorrow,"

Smuts objected.

"Then the mine will just have to work naked for eighteen hours!"

Horn had wounded his security chief's pride, but Smuts kept silent.

His precautions for the historic meeting three nights hence, though

unduly rushed, were airtight. He was certain of it. Situated on an

isolated plateau in the northern Transvaal, Horn House was a veritable

fortress. No one could get within a mile of it without a tank, and

Smuts had something that could stop that, too. But Alfred Horn was not

a man to be argued with. If he wanted extra men, they would be there.

Smuts made a mental note to retain a contract security team to guard

Horn's platinum mine during the night.

"Tell me, Pieter, how is the airstrip extension proceeding?"

"As well as we could hope, considering the time pressure we're under.

Six hundred feet to go."

"I'll see for myself tonight, if we ever get out of this blasted city.

That helicopter of mine spends more time in the service hangar than it

does on my rooftop."

"Yes, sir."

"I still don't like those aircraft, Pieter. They look and fly like

clumsy insects. Still, I suppose we can't very well put a runway on the

roof, can we?"

"Not yet at least."

"We should look into something like the British Harrier.

Wonderfully simple idea, vertical takeoff. There must be a commercial

variant in development somewhere."

"Surely you're joking, sir?"

Horn looked reprovingly at his aide. "You would never have made an

aviator, Pieter. To fight in the skies you must believe all things are

possible, bendable to the human will."

suppose you're right."

"But you are excellent at what you do, my friend. I am living proof of

your skill and dedication. I am the only one left who knows the secret.

The only one. And that is due in no small part to you."

"You exaggerate, Herr Horn."

"No. Though I have-great wealth, my power rests not in money but in

fear. And one instrument of the fear I generate is you. Your loyalty

is beyond price."

"And beyond doubt, you know that."

Horn's single living eye pierced Smuts's soul. "We can know nothing for

certain, Pieter. Least of all about ourselves. But I have to trust

someone, don't I?"

"I shall never fail you," Smuts said softly, almost reverendy.

"Your goal is greater than any temptation."

"Yes," the old man answered. "Yes it is."

Horn backed the wheelchair away from the desk and turned to face the

window. The skyline of Pretoria, for the most part beneath him,

stretched away across the suburbs to the soot-covered townships, to the

great plateau of the northern Transvaal, where three days hence Horn

would host a meeting calculated to alter the balance of world power

forever. As Smuts closed the door softly, Horn's mind drifted back to

the days of his youth ... the days of power. Gingerly, he touched his

glass eye.

"Der Tag kommt, he said aloud. "The day approaches."

CHAPTER THREE

3.-31 Pm. British Sector West Berlin Hans awoke in a sweat. He still

cowered inside a dark cave, watching in terror as a Russian soldier came

for him with a Kalashnikov rifle. The illusion gripped his mind,

difficult to break. He sat upright in bed and rubbed the sleep from his

eyes. Still the wrecked compound hovered before him.

His soiled uniform still chafed, still smelled of the dank prison yard.

He shook his head violently, but the image would not disappear.

It was real ...

On the screen of the small Siemens television two meters in front of

Hans, a tall reporter clad in the type of topcoat favored by West Berlin

pimps stood before a wide shot of the wasteland that yesterday had been

Spandau Prison. Hans clambered over the footboard of the bed and turned

up the volume on the set.

"... Deutsche Welled broadcasting live from the Wilhelmstrasse.

As you can see, the main structure of Spandau Prison was destroyed with

little fanfare yesterday by the British military authorities. it was

here early this morning that Soviet troops in conjunction with West

Berlin police arrested the two West German citizens whom the Russians

are now attempting to extradite into East Berlin.. There is virtually

no precedent for this attempt. The Russians are following no recognized

legal procedure, and the story that began here in the predawn hours is

rapidly becoming an incident of international proportions. To the best

of Deutsche Welle's knowledge, the two Berliners are being held inside

Polizei Abschnitt 53, where our own Peter Muller is following

developments as they occur. Peter?"

Before switching to the second live feed, the producer stayed with the

Spandau shot for a few silent seconds. What Hans saw brought a sour

lump to his throat. A hundred meters behind the reporter, dozens of

uniformed men slowly picked their way across the ruined grounds of

Spandau.

They moved over the icy rubble like ants in search of food, some not far

from the very mound where Hans had made his discovery. A few wore white

lab coats, but others-Hans's throat tightened-others wore the

distinctive red-patched brown uniforms of the Soviet infantry.

Hans scoured the screen for clues that might explain the Soviet

presence, but the scene vaporized. Now a slightly better-dressed

commentator stood before the great threearched doorway of the police

station where Hans reported to work every morning. He shifted his

weight excitedly from one foot to the other as he spoke.

"Thank you, Karl," he said. "Other than the earlier statement by the

police press officer that a joint investigation with the USSR is under

way, no details are forthcoming. We know that an undetermined number of

Soviet soldiers remain inside Abschnitt 53, but we do not know if they

are guests here, as is claimed, or if-as has been rumored-they control

the station by force of arms.

"While the Spandau incident occurred in the British sector of the city,

the German prisoners were taken by a needlessly lengthy route to

Abschnitt 53, here in the American sector, just one block from

Checkpoint Charlie. Informed sources have speculated that a

quick-witted police officer may have realized that the Soviets would be

less likely to resort to violence in the American-controlled part of the

city. We have received no statements from either the American or the

British milimq commands. However, if Soviet troops are in fact inside

this police station without the official sanction of the U.S.

Army, the Allied occupational boundaries we have all by familiarity come

to ignore may suddenly assume a critical importance.

This small incident could well escalate into one of the most volatile

crises of the post-glasnost era. We will update this story at 18:00

this evening, so please stay tuned to this channel. This is Peter

Muller, Deutsche Welle, live . .

While the reporter solemnly wrapped his segment, he failed to notice the

huge station door open behind him. Haggard but erect, Captain Dieter

Hauer strode out into the afternoon light. He looked as though he

hadn't slept in hours. He surveyed the sidewalk like a drill sergeant

inspecting a barracks yard; then, apparently satisfied, he gave the

reporter a black look, turned back toward the station door, and

dissolved into a BMW commercial.

Hans fell back against the footboard of the bed, his mind reeling.

Russian troops still in his home station? Who had leaked the Spandau

story to the press? And who were the men in the white lab coats? What

were they searching for?

Was it the papers he'd found? It almost had to be. No one cared about

a couple of homosexuals who happened to trespass public property in

their search for a love nest. The realization of what he had done by

keeping the papers hit Hans like a wave of fever. But what else could

he have done? Surely the police brass would not have wanted the

Russians to get hold of the papers. He could have driven straight to

Polizei headquarters at Platz der Luftbriicke, of course, but he didn't

know a soul there. No, when he turned in the papers, he wanted to do it

at his home station. And he couldn't do that yet because the Russians

were still inside it!

He would simply have to wait.

But he didn't want to wait. He felt like a boy who has stumbled over a

locked chest in a basement. He wanted to know what the devil he'd

found! Anxiou@ly, he snapped his fingers. Ilse, he thought suddenly.

She had a gift for languages, just like her arrogant grandfather. Maybe

she could decipher the rest of the Spandau papers.

He lifted the phone and punched in the first four digits of her work

number; then he replaced the receiver. The brokerage house where Ilse

worked did not allow personal calls during trading hours.

Hans would break a rule quicker than most Germans, but he remembered

that several employees had been fired for taking this rule lightly.

A reckless thought struck Hans. He wanted information, and he knew

where he could get some. After sixty seconds of hard reflection, he

picked up the telephone directory and looked up the number of Der

Spiegel. Several department numbers were listed for the magazine. He

wasn't sure which he needed, so he dialed the main switchboard.

"Der Spiegel, " answered a female voice.

"I need to speak to Heini Weber," Hans said. "Could you connect me with

the proper department, please?" "One moment."

Thirty seconds passed. "News," said a gruff male voice.

"Heini Weber, please. He's a friend of mine." A bit of an

exaggeration, Hans thought, but what the hell?

"Weber's gone," the man growled, "He was just here, but he left again.

Field assignment."

Hans sighed. "If he comes back-"

"Wait, I see him. Weber!

Telephone!"

Hans heard a clatter of chairs, then a younger male voice came on the

line. "Weber here. Who's this?"

"Hans Apfel."

"Who ?"

"Sergeant Hans Apfel- We met at-"

"Right, right," Weber remembered, "that kidnapping thing. Gruesome.

Listen, I'm in a hurry, can you make it fast?"

"I need to talk to you," Hans said deliberately. "It's important."

"Hold on-I'm coming already! What's your story, Sergeant?"

"Not over the phone," Hans said, knowing he probably sounded ridiculous.

"Jesus," Weber muttered. "I've got to get over to Hannover. A mob of

Greens is disrupting an American missile transport on the E-30 and I

need to leave five minutes ago."

"I could ride with you."

"Two-seater," Weber objected. "And I've got to take my photographer. I

guess your big scoop will have to wait until tomorrow."

"No!" Hans blurted, surprised by his own vehemence. "It can't wait.

I'll just have to call someone else."

A long silence. "All right," Weber said finally, "where do you live?"

"Lijtzenstrasse, number 30."

"I'll meet you out front. I can give you five minutes."

"Good enough." Hans hung up and took a deep breath.

This move carried some risk. In Berlijf, all police contact with the

press must be officially cleared beforehand. But he intended to get

information from a reporter, not to give it.

Without pausing to shower or shave, he stripped off his dirty uniform

and threw on a pair of cotton pants and the old shirt he wore whenever

he made repairs on the VW. A light raincoat and navy scarf completed

his wardrobe.

The Spandau papers still lay beneath the rumpled mattress. He retrieved

them, scanning them again on the off chance that he'd missed something

before. At the bottom of the last page he found it: several hastily

written passages in German, each apparently a separate entry: The

threats stoppedfor a time. Foolishly, I let myself hope that the

madness had ended. But it started again last month.

Can they read my thoughts? No sooner do I toy with the idea of setting

down my great burden, than a soldier of Phoenix appears before me. Who

is with them? Who is not? They show me pictures of an old woman, but

the eyes belong to a aurtger I am certain my wife is dead My daughter is

alive! She wears a middle-agedface and bears an unknown name, but her

eyes are mine. She is a hostage roaming free, with an invisible sword

hanging above her head But safe she has remained I am strong! The

Russians have promised to find my angel, to save her, if I will but

speak her name. But I do not know it! It would be useless if I did.

Heydrich wiped all trace of me from the face of Germany in 1936. God

alone knows what that demon told my family!

My British warders are stern like guard dogs, very stupid ones.

But there are other Englanders who are not so stupid.

Have you found me out, swine?

And a jagged entry: Phoenix wields my precious daughter like a sword of

fire! If only they knew! Am I even a dim memory to my angel?

No. Better that she never knows. I have lived a life of madness, but

in the face of death I found courage. In my darkest hours-I remember

these lines from Ovid: "It is a smaller thing to suffer punishment than

to have deserved it. The punishment can be removed, the fault will

remain forever " My long punishment shall soon cease.

After all the slaughtered millions, the war finally ends for me.

May God accept me into His Heaven, for I know that Heydrich and the

others await me at the gates of HelL Surely I'have paid enough.

Number 7

A car horn blared outside. Strangely shaken, Hans folded the pages into

a square and stuffed them back under the mattress. Then he tugged on a

pair of old sneakers, locked the front door, and bounded into the

stairwell. He bumped into a tall janitor on the third floor landing,

but the old man didn't even look up from his work.

Hans found Heini Weber beside a battered red Fiat Spyder, bouncing up

and down on his toes like a hyperactive child. A shaggy-haired youth

with a Leica slung round his neck peered at Hans from the Fiat's jump

seat.

"So what's the big story, Sergeant?" Weber asked.

"Over here," said Hans, motioning toward the foyer of his building. He

had seen nothing suspicious in the street, yet he could not shake the

feeling that he was being watched-if not by hostile, at least by

interested eyes. It's.just the photographer he told himself.

Weber followed him into the building and immediately resumed his nervous

bouncing, this time against the dirty foyer wall.

"The meter's running," said the reporter.

"Before I tell you anything," Hans said carefully, "I want some

information."

Weber scowled. "Do I look like a fucking librarian to you? Come on,

out with it."

Hans nodded solemnly, then played out his bait. "I may have a story for

you, Heini, but ... to be honest, I'm curious about what it might be

worth."

"Well, well," the reporter deadpanned, "the police have joined the club.

Listen, Sergeant, I don't buy stories, I track them down for pay. That's

the news game, you know? If you want money, try one of the American TV

networks."

When Hans didn't respond, Weber said, "Okay, I'll bite.

What's your story? The mayor consorting with the American commandant's

wife? The Wall coming down tomorrow? I've heard them all, Sergeant.

Everybody's got a story to sell and ninety-nine percent of them are

shit. What's yours?"

Hans looked furtively toward the street. "What if," he murmured, "what

if I told you I'd got hold of something important from the war?

From the Nazi period?"

"Something," Weber echoed. "Like?"

Hans sighed anxiously. "Like papers, say. Like a diary.

Weber scrutinized him for some moments; then his eyebrows arched

cynically. "Like the diary of a Nazi war criminal, maybe?"

Hans's eyes widened in disbeliel "How did you know?"

"Scheisse! " Weber cursed. He slapped the wall. "Is that what you got

me over here for? Christ, where do they find you guys? That's the

oldest one in the book!"

Hans stared at the reporter as if he were mad. "What do you mean?"

Weber returned Hans's gaze with something akin to pity; then he put a

hand on his shoulder. "Whose diary is it, Sergeant? Mengele's?

Borinann's?"

"Neither," Hans snapped. He felt strangely defensive you ing t about

the Spandau papers. "What the hell are try 0 say?"

"I'm saying that you probably just bought the German equivalent of the

Brooklyn Bridge."

Hans blinked, then looked away, thinking fast. He clearly wasn't going

to get any information without revealing some first. "This diary's

genuine," he insisted. "And I can prove it."

"Sure you can," said Weber, glancing at his watch. "When Gerd Heidemann

discovered the 'Hitler diaries' back in '83, he even had Hugh

Trevor-Roper swearing they were authentic. But they were crap,

Sergeant, complete fakes. I don't know where you got your diary, but I

hope to God you didn't pay much for it."

The reporter was laughing. Hans forced himself to smile sheepishly, but

what he was thinking was that he hadn't paid n all papers. He had found

them.

o e Pfennig for the Spand And if Heini Weber knew where he had found

them, the reporter would be begging him for an exclusive story.

Hans heard the regular swish of a broom from the first-floor landing.

"Heini," he said forcefully, "just tell me this. Have you heard of any

missing Nazi documents or anything like that floating around recently?"

Weber shook his head in amazement. "Sergeant, what you're talking

about-Nazi diaries and things-people were selling them ten-a-penny after

the war. It's a fixed game, a scam." His face softened. "Just cut

your losses and run, Hans. Don't embarrass yourself."

Weber turned and grabbed the door handle, but Hans caught him by the

sleeve. "But if it were authentic?" he said, surprising himself.

"What kind of money would we be talking about?"

Weber pulled his arm free, but he paused for a last look at the gullible

policeman. The swish of the broom had stopped, but neither man noticed.

"For the real thing?" He chuckled. "No limit, Sergeant.

Stern magazine paid Heidemann 3.7 million marks for first rights to the

'Hitler diaries.' "

Hans's jaw dropped.

"The London Sunday Times went in for 400,000 pounds, and I think both

Time and Newsweek came close to getting stung." Weber smiled with a

touch of professional envy.

"Heidemann was pretty smart about it, really. He set the hook by

leaking a story that the diaries contained Hitler's version of Rudolf

Hess's flight to Britain. Of course every rag in the world was panting

to print a special edition solving the last big mystery of the war.

They shelled out millions. Careers were ruined by that fiasco."

The reporter laughed harshly. "Guten Abend, Sergeant. Call me next

time there's a kidnapping, eh?"

Weber trotted to the waiting Spyder, leaving Hans standing dumbfounded

in the doorway. He had called the reporter for information, and he had

gotten more than he'd bargained for. 3.7

million marks? Jesus!

"Make way, why don't you!" croaked a high-pitched voice.

Hans grunted as the tall janitor shouldered past him onto the sidewalk

and hobbled down the street. His broom was gone; now a worn leather bag

swung from his shoulder.

Hans followed the man with his eyes for a while, then shook his head.

Paranoia, he thought.

Looking up at the drab facade of his apartment building, he decided that

a walk through the city beat waiting for Ilse in the empty flat.

Besides, he always thought more clearly on the move. He started

walking. Just over a hundred meters long, the Liitzenstrasse was wedged

into a rough trapezoid between two main thoroughfares and a convergence

of elevated S-Bahn rail tracks. Forty seconds' walking carried Hans

from the dirty brown stucco of his apartment building to the polished

chrome of the Kurfiirstendamm, the showpiece boulevard of Berlin. He

headed east toward the center of the city, speaking to no one, hardly

looking up at the dazzling window displays, magisterial banks, open-air

cafes, art galleries, antique shops, and nightclubs of the Ku'damm.

Bright clusters of shoppers jostled by, gawking and laughing together,

but they yielded a wide path to the lone walker whose Aryan good looks

were somehow made suspect by his unshaven face and ragged clothing. The

tall, spare man gliding purposefully along behind Hans could easily have

been walking at his shoulder. The man no longer looked like a janitor,

but even if he had, it wouldn't have mattered; Hans was lost in heady

dreams of wealth beyond measure.

He paused at a newsstand and bought a pack of American cigarettes.

He really needed a smoke. As he sucked in the first potent drag, he

suddenly remembered something from the Spandau papers. The writer had

said he was the last ...

The last what? The last prisoner? And then it hit Hans like a bucket

of water in the face. The Spandau papers were signed Prisoner Number

Seven ... and Prisoner Number Seven was Rudolf Hess himself.

He felt the hand holding the cigarette start to shake. He tried to

swallow, but his throat refused to cooperate. Had he actually found the

journal of a Nazi war criminal? With Heini Weber's cynical comments

echoing in his head, he tried to recall what he could about Hess. All

he really knew was that Hess was Hitler's right-hand man, and that he'd

flown secretly to Britain sometime early in the war, and had been

captured. For the past few weeks the Berlin papers had been full of

sensational stories about Hess's death, but Hans had read none of them.

He did remember the Occasional feature from earlier years, though.

They invariably portrayed an infantile old man, a once-powerful soldier

'reduced to watching episodes of the American soap opera Dynasty on

television. Why was the pathetic old Nazi so important?

Hans wondered. Why should even a hint of information about his mission

drive the price of forged diaries into the millions?

Catching his reflection in a shop window, Hans realized that in his work

clothes he looked like a bum, even by the Ku'damrn's indulgent

standards. He stubbed out his cigarette and turned down a side street

at the first opportunity. He soon found himself standing before a small

art cinema. He gazed up at the colorful posters hawking films imported

from a dozen nations. On a whim he stepped up to the ticket window and

inquired about the matinee. The ticket girl answered in a sleepy

monotone.

"American western film today. John Wayne. Der Searchers.', "In

German?"

'Nein. English."

"Excellent. One ticket, please."

"Twelve DM," demanded the robot voice.

"Twelve! That's robbery."

"You want the ticket?"

Reluctantly, Hans surrendered his money and entered the theater.

He didn't stop for refreshments; at the posted prices he couldn't afford

to. No wonder Ilse and I never go to movies, he thought. Just before

he entered the screening room, he spied a pay phone near the restrooms.

He slowed his stride, thinking of calling in to the station, but then he

walked on. There isn't any rush, is there? he thought. No one knows

about the papers yet. As he seated himself in the darkness near the

screen, he decided that he might well have found the most anonymous

place in the city to decide what to do with the Spandau papers.

Six rows behind Hans, a tall, thin shadow slipped noiselessly into a

frayed theater seat. The shadow reached into a worn leather bag on its

lap and withdrew an orange. While Hans watched the tides roll, the

shadow peeled the orange and watched him.

Thirty blocks away in the Liitzenstrasse, Ilse Apfel set her market

basket down in the uncarpeted hallway and let herself into apartment 40.

The operation took three keys-one for the knob and two for the heavy

deadbolts Hans insisted upon. She went straight to the kitchen and put

away her grocenes, singing tunefully all the while.

The song was an old one, Walking on the Moon by the Police. Ilse always

sang when she was happy, and today she was ecstatic. The news about the

baby meant far more than fulfillment of her desire to have a family. It

meant that Hans might finally agree to settle permanently in Berlin. For

the past five months he had talked of little else but his desire to try

out for Germany's elite counterteffor force, the Grenzschutzgruppe-9

(GSG-9), oddly enough, the unit whose marksmen his estranged father

coached. Hans claimed he was tired of routine police work, that he

wanted something more exciting and meaningful.

Ilse didn't like this idea at all. For on@ thing, it would seriously

disrupt her career. Policemen in Berlin made little money; most police

wives worked as hairdressers, secretaries, or even

housekeepers-low-paying jobs, but jobs that could be done anywhere.

Ilse was different. Her parents had died when she was very young, and

she had been raised by her grandfather, an eminent history professor and

author.

She'd practically grown up in the Free University and hadtaken degrees

in both Modern Languages and Finance. She'd

T

even spent a semester in the United States, studying French and teaching

German. Her job as interpreter for a prominent brokerage house gave

Hans and her a more comfortable life than most police families. They

were not rich, but their life was good.

If Hans qualified for GSG-9, however, they would have to move to one of

the four towns that housed the active GSG-9

units: Kassel, Munich, Hannover, or Kiel. Not exactly financial meccas.

Ilse knew she could adapt to a new city if she had to, but not to the

heightened danger. Assignment to a GSG-9 unit virtually guaranteed that

Hans would be put into life-threatening situations.

GSG-9 teams were Germany's forward weapon in the battle against

hijackers, assassins, and God only knew what other madmen. Ilse didn't

want that kind of life for the father of her child, and she didn't

understand how Hans could either. She despised amateur psychology, but

she suspected that Hans's reckless impulse was driven by one of two

things: a desire to prove something to his father, or his failure to

become a father himself.

No more conversations about stun grenades and storming airplanes, she

told herself. Because she was finally pregnant, and because today was

just that kind of day. Returning to work from the doctor's office,

she'd it)und that her boss had realized a small fortune for his clients

that morning by following a suggestion she had made before leaving. Of

course by market close the cretin had convinced himself that the clever

bit of arbitrage was entirely his own idea. And who really cares? she

thought. When I open my brokerage house, he'll be carrying coffee to my

assistants!

Ilse stepped into the bedroom to change out of her business clothes. The

first thing she saw was the half-eaten plate of Weisswurst on the unmade

bed. Melted ice and dirt from Hans's uniform had left the sheets a

muddy mess. Then she saw the uniform itself, draped over the boots in

the corner.

That's odd, she thought. Hans was as human as the next man, but he

usually managed to keep his dirty clothes out of sight. In fact, it was

odd not to find him sleeping off the fatigue of night duty.

Ilse felt a strange sense of worry. And then suddenly she knew.

At work there had been a buzz about a breaking news story-something

about Russians arresting two West Berliners at Spandau Prison. Later,

in her car, she'd half-heard a radio announcer say something about

Russians at one of the downtown police stations. She prayed that Hans

hadn't got caught up in that mess. A bureaucratic tangle like that

could take all night.

She frowned. Telling Hans about the baby while he was in a bad mood

wasn't what she had had in mind at all. She would have to think of a

way to put him in a good mood- first.

One method always worked, and she smiled thinking of it.

For the first time in weeks the thought of sex made her feel genuinely

excited. It seemed so long since she and Hans had made love with any

other goal than pregnancy. But now that she had conceived, they could

forget all about charts and graphs and temperatures and rediscover the

intensity of those nights when they hardly slept at all.

She had already planned a celebratory dinner-not a health-conscious

American style snack like those her yuppie colleagues from the

Yorckstrasse called dinner, but a real Berlin feast: Eisben, sauerkraut,

and Pease pudding. She'd made a special trip to the food floor of the

KaDeWe and bought everything ready-made. It was said that anything

edible in the world could be purchased at the KaDeWe, and Ilse believed

it. She smiled again. She and Hans would share a first-class supper,

and for dessert he could have her-as healthy a dish as any man could

want. Then she would tell him about the baby.

Ilse tied her hair back, then she took the pork from the refrigerator

and put it in the oven. While it heated, she went into the bedroom to

strip the soiled sheets. She laughed softly. A randy German woman

might happily make love on a forest floor, but on dirty linens? Never!

She knelt beside the bed and gathered the bedclothes into a ball. She

was about to rise when she saw something white sticking out from under

the mattress. Automatically, she pulled it out and found herself

holding a damp sheaf of papers.

What in the world? She certainly didn't remember putting any papers

under the mattress. It must have been Hans. But what would he hide

from her? Bewildered, she let the bedclothes fall, stood up, and

unfolded the onionskin pages.

Heavy, hand-printed letters covered the paper. She read the first

paragraph cursorily, her mind more on the circumstances of her discovery

than on the actual content of the papers. The second paragraph,

however, got her attention. It was written in Latin of all things.

Shivering in the chilly ai'r, she walked into the kitchen and stood by

the warm stove.

She concentrated on the word endings, trying to decipher the carefully

blocked letters. it was almost painful, like trying to recall formulas

from gymnasium physics. Her specialty was modern languages; Latin she

could hardly remember. Ilse went to the kitchen table and spread out

the thin pages, anchoring each corner with a piece of flatware.

There were nine. She took a pen and notepad from the telephone stand,

went back to the first paragraph of Latin, and began recording her

efforts. After ten minutes she had roughed out the first four

sentences. When she read straight through what she had written, the

pencil slipped from her shaking hand.

"Mein Gott, " she breathed. "This cannot be."

Hans exited the cinema into the gathering dusk. He couldn't believe the

afternoon had passed so quickly. Huddling against the cold, he

considered taking the U-Bahn home, then decided against it.

It would mean changing trains at Fehrbelliner-Platz, and he would still

have some distance to walk. Better to walk the whole way and use the

time to decide how to tell Ilse about the Spandau papers. He started

west with a loping stride, moving away from the crowded Ku'damm. He

knew he was duty-bound to hand the papers over to his superiors, and he

felt sure that the mix-up with the Russians had been straightened out by

now. Yet as he walked, he was aware that his mind was not completely

clear about turning in the papers. For some irritating reason, when he

thought of doing that, his father's face came into his mind. But there

was something else in his brain. Something he soon recognized as Heini

Weber's voice saying: "Three point seven million Deutschemarks -- ."

Hans had already done the calculations. At his salary it would take 150

years to earn that much money, and that represented the offer of a

single magazine for the "Hitler diaries." That was a powerful

temptation, even for an honest man.

As Hans reached the mouth of the side street, a dark shape disengaged

itself from the gloom beneath the cinema awning and fell into step

behind him. It neither hurried nor tarried, but moved through the

streets as effortlessly as a cloud's shadow.

CHAPTER FOUR

5.'50 Pm. American Sector. West Berlin Colonel Godfrey A. "God" Rose

reached into the bottom drawer of his mammoth Victorian desk, withdrew a

halfempty bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon, and gazed fondly at the label.

For five exhausting hours the U.S. Army's West Berlin chief of

intelligence had sifted through the weekly reports of his "snitches"-the

highly paid but underzealous army of informers that the U.S. government

maintains on its shadow payroll to keep abreast of events in Berlin-and

discovered nothing but the usual sordid list of venalities committed by

the host of elected officials, bureaucrats, and military officers of the

city he had come to regard as the Sodom of Western Europe. The colonel

had a single vice-whiskey-and he looked forward to the anesthetic burn

of the Kentucky bourbon with sublime anticipation.

Pouring the Turkey into a Lenox shot glass, Rose glanced up and saw his

aide, Sergeant Clary, silhouetted against the leaded glass window of his

office door. With customary discretion the young NCO paused before

knocking, giving his superior time to "straighten his desk." By the

time Clary tapped on the glass and stepped smartly into the office,

Colonel Rose appeared to be engrossed in an intelligence brief.

Clary cleared his throat. "Colonel?"

Rose looked up slowly. "Yes, Sergeant?"

"Sir, Ambassador Briggs is flying in from Bonn tomorrow morning.

State just informed us by courier."

Rose frowned. "That's not on my calendar, is it?"

"No, sir."

"Well?"

"Apparently the Soviets have filed some sort of complaint against us,

sir. Through the embassy."

"Us?"

"The Army, sir. It's something to do with last night's detail at

Spandau Prison. That's all I could get out of Smitty-I mean the

courier, sir."

"Spandau? What about it? Christ, we've watched the damned coverage all

day, haven't we? I've already filed my report."

"State didn't elaborate, sir."

Rose snorted. "They never do, do they."

"No, sir. Care to see the message?"

Rose gazed out of his small window at the Berlin dusk and wondered about

the possible implications of the ambassador's visit. The American

diplomatic corps stayed in Bonn most of the time-well out of Rose's area

of operationsand he liked that just fine.

"The message, Colonel?" Sergeant Clary repeated.

"What? No, Sergeant. Dismissed."

"Sir." Clary beat a hasty retreat from the office, certain that his

colonel would want to ponder this unpleasant development over a shot of

the good stuff.

"Clary!" Rose's bark rattled the door. "Is Major Richardson still down

the hall?"

The sergeant poked his head back into the office. "I'll run check,

sir."

"Can't you just buzz him?"

"Uh ... the major doesn't always answer his pages, sir.

After five, that is. Says he can't stand to hear the phone while he's

working."

"Who the hell can? Don't people just keep on ringing the damned thing

when he doesn't answer?"

"Well, sir ... I think he's rigged some type of switch to his phone or

something. He just shuts it off when he doesn't want to hear it."

Rose stuck out his bottom lip. "I see."

"Checking now, sir," said Clary, on the fly.

Since 1945, Berlin has been an island city. It is a political isiana,

quadrisected by foreign conquerors, and a psychological island as

insulated from the normal flow of German life as a child kidnapped from

its mother. Berlin was an island before the Wall, during the Wall, and

it will remain so long after the Wall has fallen. Kidnapped children

can take years to recover.

The American community in Berlin is an island within that larger host.

It clusters around the U.S. Military Mission in the affluent district of

Dahlem, a giant concrete block bristling with satellite dishes, radio

antennae, and microwave transmitters. In this city of hastily built

office towers, bomb-scarred churches, and drab concrete tenement blocks

whose color accents are provided mostly by graffiti, the American

housing area manages to look neat, midwestern, suburban, and safe. Known

as "Little America," it is home to the sixty-six hundred servicemen,

their wives, and children who comprise the symbolic U.S. presence in

Berlin.

These families bustle between the U.S. Mission, the Officer's club, the

well-stocked PX, the private Burger King and McDonald's, and their patio

barbecues like suburbanites from Omaha or Atlanta. Only the razor wire

that tops the fences surrounding the manicured lawns betrays the tension

that underpins this bucolic scene.

Few Americans truly mix with the Berliners. They are more firmly tied

to the United States than to the streets they walk and the faces they

pass each day in Berlin. They are tied by the great airborne umbilical

cord stretching from Tempelhof Airport to the mammoth military supply

bases of America. Major Harry Richardson-the man Colonel Rose had sent

Sergeant Clary to find-was an exception to this pattern. Richardson

needed no umbilical cord in Berlin, or anywhere else. He spoke

excellent German, as well as Russian-and not with the stilted State

Department cadence of the middle and upper ranks of the army. He did

not live in Dahlem or Zehlendorf, the ritzy addresses of choice, but in

thoroughly German Wilmersdorf. He came from eL iiiuiieyed family, had

attended both Harvard and Oxford, yet he had served in Vietnam and

remained in the army after the war. His personal contacts ranged from

TJ.S. senators to supply sergeants at distant Army outposts, from

English peers to Scottish fishing guides, from Berlin senators to

kabob-cooks in the Turkish quarter of Kreuzberg. And that, in Colonel

Rose's eyes, made Harry Richardson one hell of an intelligence officer

Harry saluted as he sauntered into Rose's office and collapsed into the

colonel's infamous "hot seat." The chair dropped most people a head

lower than Rose, but Harry stood six feet three inches without shoes.

His gray eyes met the stocky colonel's with the self-assured steadiness

of an equal.

"Richardson," Rose said across the desk.

"Colonel."

Rose eyed Harry's uniform doubtfully. It was wrinkled and rather plain

for a major. Harry had won the silver star in Vietnam, yet the only

decoration he ever wore was his Combat Infantryman's Badge. Rose didn't

like the wrinkles, but he liked the modesty. He clucked his tongue

against the roof of his mouth.

"Bigwig Briggs is flying in from Bonn tomorrow," he announced.

Harry smiled wryly. "I thought he might."

"You did. Why's that?"

"Stands to reason, doesn't it? With the ham-fisted way the Soviets have

handled the Spandau mess so far, I figured the negotiations would have

to be bumped up a notch on both sides. Sir."

"Can the 'sir' crap, Harry. Just what do you think did happen last

night?"

"Do you have anything that wasn't on TV?"

"Nothing substantive. Master Sergeant Jackson pretty much confirmed the

press accounts of the incident, and the German police aren't saying

squat. Christ, you'd think if the Russians wanted to file a complaint

against the Army, they'd give it to us and not the goddamn State

Department."

Harry rolled his eyes. "If it's got anything to do with Spandau, the

State Department doesn't trust us, and you know why."

"Bird," Rose muttered. He sighed wearily. In 1972 the first U.S.

commandant of Spandau Prison, Lieutenant Colonel Eugene Bird, had been

relieved of his duties for secretly bringing a tape recorder and camera

into Spandau over a period of months and compiling a book on Rudolf

Hess, which was published in 1974. The colonel's entrepreneurial spirit

hadn't exactly improved the relationship between the Army and the State

Department,.

"The point," Rose went on, "is that the ambassador will be here in the

morning, and he'll want to grill me for breakfast. I want you with me

when I talk to him, and I want to know everything he's going to say

before he says it."

"No problem, Colonel."

"Okay, Harry, what's your read on this thing?"

"I'm not sure yet. I was over at Abschnitt 53 for a few minutes this

morning-"

"You what?"

"I've got a friend over there," Harry explained.

"Naturally." Rose opened his bottom drawer and set the bottle of Wild

Turkey between them on the desk. "Drink?"

he asked, already pouring two shots.

Harry accepted the glass, raised it briefly, then drank it off neat and

wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "As I was saying, Colonel, I

dropped by there just to get a feel for what was going on.

The problem was, I couldn't even get near my guy's office. I got

through the reporters okay, but inside the station it was wall-to-wall

cops. There was a squad of Russian soldiers guarding the cellblock, and

they weren't ceremonial roosters. One guy was wearing a sergeant's

uniform, but he was no noncom. Wasn't even regular army. KGB down to

his BVDS."

Rose groaned. "Is this the Hess thing again?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't think so, Colonel. They've run Hess

into the ground already. Pardon the pun, but it's a dead issue."

"So, what is it?"

"I think this is a Russian territorial thing. Spandau was a Soviet

foothold in West Berlin-small maybe, but they don't like giving it up."

"Hmm. What about the Russian accusations that someone murdered Hess?"

Harry sighed. "Colonel, I don't think the Russians ever believed

Prisoner Number Seven was Hess. But if this is about Hess, I think we

should stay out of it. Let the Russians knock themselves out. They've

been obsessed with the case for years. But I don't think that's it. I

think it's Russian paranoia, plain and simple."

"Jesus," Rose grumbled, "I thought'the goddamn Cold War was over."

Harry smiled wryly. "The reports of its death have been greatly

exaggerated. Which reminds me, Colonel, I caught a glimpse of Ivan

Kosov at that police station this morning."

"Kosov! What the hell was that old bear doing in our sector?"

Harry shrugged. "We'd better find out."

"Okay, what do you need?"

"Do you have a list of all personnel with access to the Spandau site

last night? Ours and theirs?"

"I'll have Clary get Ray down here to crack the computer file."

"Don't bother, I'll get it."

"Ray's the only one with the codes, Harry. He buries that stuff deep."

Harry smiled thinly. "Just get me into his office."

Rose cocked an eye at Richardson, then pushed on.

"There's something else. I know you're pretty chummy with some of the

Brits over here. Been fishing in Scotland with a few ministers and

such. But on this thing-the Spandau thing-I'd like to keep the Brits

out of it. Just for the time being. It's a matter of-"

"Understood, Colonel. You're not sure they've always played straight

with us on the Hess affair."

"Exactly," Rose said, relieved. "Even if you're right about this not

having anything to do with Hess, I'd feel better keeping it in-house for

a while."

"No problem."

Rose smiled humorlessly. "Right. I'll just-"

"Shit," Harry muttered. "There is one problem. I've got a racquetball

date this evening with a girl from the British embassy."

"Cancel it."

Harry looked thoughtful. "Colonel, I understand your thinking on this,

but don't you think breaking the date might call more attention@',

think!" Rose cut in with surprising "I'll tell you what force. "I

think the goddamn Brits killed Hess! And during our goddamn guard

month! How about that?" His face flushed. "You think I'm crazy,

Major?"

Harry swallowed his surprise. "No, sir. I wouldn't say that scenario

was outside the realm of possibility."

"Possibility! Ever since Gorbachev came out with the goddamn glasnost,

the limeys have been quaking in their boots thinking the Russians would

go soft and let Hess out to spill his guts to the world.

The Russians were the only ones vetoing his release those last few

years, you know. The Brits knew if they ever had to step in and veto

it, all the old questions would start again." Rose nodded angrily. "I

think those smug sons-of-bitches slipped one of their ex-SAS killers

over the wall last month, strangled that old Nazi, and left

us holding the goddamn bag! That's what I think about the

British, Major! And you will cancel your racquetball date as

of now. Is that clear?"

"Absolutely, Colonel."

"I want your report on my desk by oh-eight-hundred," Rose growled.

Harry stood, saluted, and marched out.

"Clary!" Rose's gruff baritone boomed through the open I

door.

"Yes, sir?"

"Let Major Richardson into Captain Donovan's office.

He's got a little work to do on the computer."

"Yes, sir."

"And Clary?"

"Sir?"

"I want one of those phone gadgets like Richardson's

got."

Grinning, Sergeant Clary backed out and pulled the door

shut.

Rose looked longingly at the Wild Turkey bottle, then

slipped it back into his bottom drawer. He closed his eyes,

leaned his chair all the way back and propped his legs up on f

the huge desk. That Richardson is one strange bird, he

thought. Damn near insubordinate sometimes. But he gets

the job done. Rose congratulated himself on a f me piece of

human resource management. Harry can handle the fairies

,from State, he thought with satisfaction, and I'll take care of

the,friggin' Russians. And if the Brits stick their stufft noses

into it, the devil take the hindmost.

6. 10 pm. mI-5 Headquarters. Charles Street, London, England Sir

Neville Shaw looked up from the report with anger in his eyes. As

director general of mI-5, he had witnessed his share of crises, but the

one he now faced was one he had long prayed would remain buried in the

ashes of history.

"This, cock-up started almost twelve hours ago!" he snapped.

"Yes, Sir Neville," admitted his deputy. "The unit on the scene

reported it to General Bishop in Berlin. Bishop informed mI-6 but saw

no reason to apprise us. The Russian complaint went to the Foreign

Office, and the F.O. apparently felt as the general did. We've got one

contact on the West Berlin police force; he's the only reason we got

onto this at all. He can't tell us much, though, because he's stationed

in our sector. These German trespassers were taken to a police station

in the American sector. The thing's been on the telly over there since

this afternoon."

"Good God," Sir Neville groaned. "One more bloody week and this would

have been nothing but a minor flap."

"How do you mean, sir?"

Shaw rubbed his forehead to ease a migraine. "Forget it.

This was bound to happen sooner or later. Damned journalists and

curiosity hounds poking at the story for years. Matter of time, that's

all."

"Yes, sir," the deputy director commiserated.

"Who did we have at Spandau, anyway?"

"Regular military detail. The sergeant in charge said he knew nothing

about any papers. He didn't have the foggiest idea of the

implications."

"What monumental stupidity!" Shaw got to his feet, still staring at the

report in his hands. "Can this Russian forensic report be relied upon?"

"Our technical section says the Soviets are quite good at that sort of

thing, sir."

Sir Neville snorted indignantly. "Papers at Spandau- Good Christ.

Whatever has turned up over there, ten to one it's got something to do

with Hess. We've got to get hold of it, Wilson, fast. Who else was at

Spandau?"

"The Americans, the Frogs, and the Russians. Plus a contingent of West

Berlin police."

Sir Neville wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I could hang

for this one, that's sure. What do we have in Berlin?"

"Not much. What we do have is mostly on the commercial side. No one

who's cleared for this."

"I didn't think anyone was cleared for this rot," Shaw murmured.

"All right, you get me four men who are cleared for it-men who can quote

me the bloody Official Secrets Act-and get them here fast.

Arrange air transport to West Berlin straightaway. I want those lads

airborne as soon as I've briefed them."

"Yes, sir."

After an almost interminable silence, Shaw said, "there is a ship,

Wilson. I want you to locate her for me."

"A ship, sir?"

"Yes. A freighter, actually. MV Casilda, out of Panama.

Get on to Lloyd's, or whoever keeps up with those things.

Talk to the satellite people if you have to, just find out where she

is."

Perplexed, the deputy director said, "All right, sir," and turned to go.

At the door he paused. "Sir Neville," he said hesitantly. "is there

anything I should know about this Hess business? A small brief,

perhaps?"

Shaw's face reddened. "If there was, you'd know it already, wouldn't

you?" he snapped.

Wilson displayed his irritation by clipping out a regimental "Sir!"

before shutting the door.

Shaw didn't even notice. He walked to his well-earned window above the

city and pondered the disturbing news.

Spandau, he thought bitterly. Hess may stab us in the back yet.

In spite of the ticklishness of his own position, Sir Neville Shaw

smiled coldly. There'll be some royal arses shaking in their beds

tonight, he thought with satisfaction.

Right along with mine.

He reached for the telephone.

625 pm. #39 Liitzenstrasse, West Berlin

Hans reached the apartment building too winded to use the stairs.

He wriggled into the elevator, yanked the lever that set the clattering

cage in motion, then slumped against the wrought-iron grillwork.

Despite his frayed nerves, he was smiling. Heini Weber could joke all

he wanted, but in the end the joke would be on him. Because Hans knew

something Weber didn't: where he had found the papers. And that single

fact would make him rich, he was certain of it. He jerked back the

metal grille and trotted to the apartment door.

"Ilse!" he called, letting himself in. "I'm home!"

In the kitchen doorway he stopped cold. Wearing a white cotton robe,

Ilse sat at the table holding the papers Hans had found at Spandau.

"Where did these come from?" she asked coolly.

Hans searched for words. This was not the way he'd planned to explain

the papers.

"Your night duty was at Spandau Prison, wasn't it?' "Yes, but Liebchen,

give me a chance to explain. It was a secret detail. That's why I

couldn't call you."

She studied him silently. "You haven't told anyone about this, have

you?"

Hans remembered his conversation with Heini Weber, but decided that

would be best kept private for now. "No," he lied, "I didn't have time

to say anything to anyone."

"Hans, you've got to turn these papers in."

"I know."

She nodded slowly. "Then why am I so worried about you?"

He took a deep breath, exhaled. "We have a chance here, Ilse. If you

looked at those papers, you know that as well as I do. Finding those

papers ... it's like winning the lottery or something. Do you realize

what they might be worth?"

Ilse closed her eyes. "Hans, what is going on? You could lose your job

for this."

"I'm not going to lose my job. So I found some old papers. What was I

supposed to do?"

"Turn them in to the proper authorities."

"The proper authorities?" Hans snorted. "And who are the proper

authorities? The Americans? The British? The French? This is Berlin,

Ilse. Every person, every company, every nation here is looking after

its own interests-nobody else's. Why shouldn't I look after ours for

once?"

Ilse rubbed her throbbing temples with her fingertips.

"Liebchen, " Hans insisted, "no one even knows these papers exist.

If you'd just listen for five minutes-if you heard how I found

them-you'd see that they're a godsend."

She sighed hopelessly. "All right, tell me."

Four floors below the apartment, in the cold wind of the Liitzenstrasse,

Jonas Stern accepted a thick stack of files from a young man wearing a

West Berlin police uniform.

"Thank you, Baum," he said. "This is everyone?"

"Everyone from the Spandau patrol, yes sir. I couldn't get the file on

the prefect. It's classified."

Stern sighed. "I think we know enough about dear Herr Funk, don't we?"

Shivering from the wind, the young policeman nodded and looked up at the

suntanned old man with something near to awe in his eyes.

"You've done well, Baum." Stern flipped through the computer printouts.

He stopped at Apfel, Hans but saw little of interest.

Hauer, Dieter, however, told a different story.

Stern read softly to himself: "Attached to Federal Border Police 1959.

Promoted sergeant 1964, captain in 1969. Sharpshooter qualification

1963. National Match Champion 1965, '66 ... Decorated for conspicuous

bravery in '64, '66, '70 and '74. All kidnapping cases. Transferred

with rank to the West Berlin civil police January 1, 1973. Hmm," Stern

mused. "I'd say that's a demotion." He picked up further down.

"Sharpshooting coach and hostage recovery adviser to GSG-9 since 1973@'

Stern paused again, memorizing silently. Credentials like those made

Dieter Hauer a match for any man. Stern read on.

"Member of International fraternal Order of Police since 1960 ...

Ah," he said suddenly, "Member of Der Bruderschaft since 1986. Now we

learn something."

The Israeli looked up, surprised to see his young informant still

standing there. "Something else, Baum?"

"Oh-no, sir."

Stern smiled appreciatively. "You'd better get back to your post.

Try to monitor what's going on in Abschnitt 53 if you can."

"Yes, sir. Shalom.

"Shalom.

Stern cradled the files under his arm and stepped back into the

apartment building. He reclaimed his broom and dustpan, then started

noisily back up to the fourth floor. This role of custodian isn't

half-bad, he thought. He had certainly known much worse.

Ilse's eyes flickered like camera lenses; they always did when she was

deep in thought. Hans had ended his account of the night at Spandau

with Captain Hauer's facing down the furious Russian commander.

Now he sat opposite Ilse at the kitchen table, staring down at the

Spandau papers.

"Your father," she said softly. "Why did he pick last night to try to

talk to you, I wonder?"

Hans looked impatient. "Coincidence ... what does it matter?

What matters right now is the papers."

"Yes," she agreed.

"I read what I could," he said breathlessly. "But most of it's written

in some strange language. It's like "Latin," she finished.

"It's Latin."

"You can read it?"

"A little."

"What does it say?"

Ilse's lips tightened. "Hans, have you told anyone about these papers?

Anyone at all?"

"I told you I didn't," he insisted, compounding the lie.

Ilse twisted two strands of hair into a rope. "The papers are about

Rudolf Hess," she said finally.

"I knew it! What do they say?"

"Hans, Latin isn't exactly my specialty, okay? It's been years since I

read any." She looked down at her notes. "The papers mention Hess's

name frequently, and some othersHeydrich, for instance-and something

called the SD. They were signed by Prisoner Number Seven.

You saw that?"

Hans nodded eagerly.

"The odd thing is that Prisoner Number Seven was Rudolf Hess, yet these

papers seem to be talking about Hess as if he were another person." She

pushed her notes away. "I've probably got it all wrong.

The writer describes a flight to Britain, but mentions a stop somewhere,

in Denmark. It's crazy. There seem to be two men in the plane, not

one. And I do know one thing for certain-Rudolf Hess flew to Britain

alone."

Hans blinked. "Wait a minute. Are you saying that the man who died in

Spandau Prison might not have been Rudolf Hess?"

"No, I'm saying that the papers say that. I think. But I don't believe

it for a minute."

"Why not?"

Ilse got up, went to a cupboard, and removed a beer, which she placed on

the counter but did not open. "Think about it, Hans. For weeks the

newspapers brave run wild with speculation about Prisoner Number Seven.

Was he murdered? Why did he really fly to Britain? Was he really Hess

at all? Now you find some papers that seem to indicate that the

prisoner wasn't Hess, just as some of the newspapers have been

speculating?" She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "It's too

convenient. This has to be some kind of press stunt or something.""My

God," he said, coming to his feet. "Don't you see?

It doesn't matter if the papers are real or not. The fact that I found

them in Spandau is enough. They could be worth millions of marks!"

Ilse sat down carefully and looked up at Hans. When she spoke her voice

was grave. "Hans, listen to me. I understand why you didn't turn in

the papers immediately. But now is the time for clear thinking. If

these papers are fakes, they're worthless and they can only get us into

trouble. And if they are genuine . . ." She trailed off, glanced up

at the clock on the kitchen wall. "Hans, I think we should call my

grandfather," she said suddenly. "I could only read part of this ...

diary, I guess you'd call it, but Opa will be able to read it all.

He'll know what we should do." She pushed her chair away from the

table.

"Wait!" Hans cried. "What business is this of his?"

Ilse reached out and hooked her fingers in Hans's trouser pocket.

"Hans, I love you," she said gently. "I love you, but this thin is too

deep for us. I heard some of the news bulletins at work today.

The Russians have gone crazy over this Spandau incident. Imagine what

they might think about these papers. We need some good advice, and Opa

can give it to us."

Hans felt a hot prickle of resentment. The last thing he wanted was

Ilse's arrogant grandfather strutting around and telling him what to do.

"We're not calling the professor," he said flatly.

Ilse started to snap back, but she checked herself "All right," she

said. "If you won't call Opa, then call your father."

Hans drew back as if struck physically. "I can't believe you said

that."

"For God's sake, Hans. Three years without more than a nod to the man.

Can't you admit that he's in a position to help you? To help us?

He obviously wants to-"

"Three years! He went twenty year@ without talking to me!"

There was a long silence. "I'm sorry," Ilse said finally. "I shouldn't

have said that. But you're not acting like yourself."

"And what's so wrong with that? Liebchen, people get a chance like this

once in their lives, if they're lucky. I found these papers, I didn't

steal them. The man they belonged to is dead. They're ours now.

Imagine ... all the things you've ever wanted. All the things I could

never afford to buy you.

Your friends from work are always flaunting their fine houses, their

clothes, the best of everything. You never complain, but I know you

miss those things. You grew up with them. And now you can have them

again."

"But I don't care about those things," Ilse countered.

"You know that. You know what's important to me."

"That's what I'm talking about! Children aren't cheap, you know.

When you finally get pregnant, we'll need all the money we can get."

He snatched up one of the Spandau pages. "And it's right here in our

hands!"

For the first time since finding the papers, Ilse remembered the baby.

She had been so happy this afternoon, so ready to celebrate their

blessing. She'd wanted everything to be perfect. But now ...

"Hans," she said solemnly, "I wasn't being honest, okay?

I probably would prefer driving to work in a Mercedes rather than riding

the U-Babn." Suddenly Ilse laughed, flirting momentarily with the idea

of easy money. "I wouldn't turn down a new wardrobe or a mansion in

Zehlendorf, either. But if these papers are real, Hans, they are not

our ticket to getting those things. Finding these papers isn't like

finding a lottery ticket. If they are genuine, they are a legacy of the

Nazis. Of war criminals. How many times have we talked about the

Hitler madness? Even almost fifty years after the war, it's like an

invisible weight dragging us backward. When I spent that semester in

New York, I made some friends, but I also saw the looks some people gave

meJews maybe, I don't know-wondering about the blond German girl. 'Does

she think she's better than we are? Racially superior?' Hans, our whole

generation has paid the price for something we had nothing to do with.

Do you want to profit from that?"

Hans looked down at the papers on the table. Suddenly they looked very

different than they had before. In a span of seconds their spell had

been broken. Ilse's laugh had done it, he realized, not her impassioned

speech. Her musical, selfmocking laugh. He gathered up the loose

sheets and stacked them at the center of the table. "I'll turn them in

tonight," he promised. "I'll take them downtown right after supper.

Good enough?"

Ilse smiled. "Good enough." She stood slowly and pulled Hans to her.

He could feel the swell of her breasts through the cotton robe.

She laughed softly. "You see? Doing the right thing sometimes has its

rewards." She stood on tiptoe and nuzzled into his neck, at the same

time pressing her bare thigh into his groin.

Hans laughed into her hair. He wanted her, and his want was obvious,

but he sensed something more than desire behind her sudden affection.

"What are you up to?" he asked, pulling away a little. Ilse's eyes

glowed with happiness. "I've got a secret too," she said. She reached

up and touched her forefinger to his lips-then the telephone rang.

With a curious glance, Hans tugged playfully at her rot)e and walked

into the living room. "Hans Apfel," he said into the phone. He looked

back toward the kitchen. Standing in the doorway, Ilse opened her robe

with a teasing smile. He forced himself to look away. "Yes, Sergeant

Apfel. Yes, I was at Spandau last night. Right, I've seen the

television.

What? What kind of questions?" Sensing Ilse behind him, he motioned

for her to keep quiet. "I see. Formalities, sure."

His face darkened. "You mean now? What's the hurry? Is everyone to be

there? What do you mean, you can't say?

Who is this?" Hans's jaw tightened. "Yes, sir. Yes, I do realize

that, sir. Don't worry, I'll be there. I'm leaving now."

Slightly dazed, he returned the phone to its cradle and turned around.

Ilse had retied her robe. "What is it?" she asked, her eyes troubled@

"I'm not sure." He looked at his watch. "That was the prefect's aide

on the phone, a Lieutenant Luhr. He said the Russians are still in the

station. They're making some kind of trouble, and the prefect wants to