uncertain time-the spring of 1941-but his memories seemed foggy, misted
at the edges somehow. His brain contained so many fragments of history
that he was no longer sure what he had merely read about and what he had
actually lived through. He had lived through so much.
More books, he thought. That's what I need now. Documentation.
I'll have Ilse stop at the university library on her way here.
I'll make a list as soon as I get to the house.
Churchill's memoirs, Speer's book, copies of Reich documents, a sample
of Hess's handwriting ... I'll need all that for even a preliminary
study of the document. And eventually the ink, the paper
itselfNatterman hit the brakes, bringing the Audi to a sliding stop.
He had reached the cabin. He turned slowly onto the narrow, snow-packed
lane that wound through the forest to the cabin. When the familiar
flicker of a lantern appeared in the darkness ahead, he smiled and
watched it wink in and out of sight as he negotiated the last few
curves.
As he pulled the car into the small turnaround beside the cabin, he
decided to invite Karl Riemeck up for a schnapps tomorrow. The old
caretaker had obviously taken the trouble to drive out here and light a
lamp for him, and Natterman suspected he would also find a good supply
of firewood laid by for his convenience. Deciding to retrieve his
suitcase later, he halted his heavy book satchel over his shoulder and
climbed out of the Audi- The cold practically pushed him up onto the
cabin porch, where he found a week's supply of oak logs stacked on a low
iron rack.
"Thank you, Karl," he murmured; "This is no night for old men like us to
go without heat." On impulse he tried the knob; the door swung open
soundlessly. "You think of everything, old friend," he said, shivering.
"I come to the door with a burden, and must I search for my key? No.
All, is prepared for me."
Switching on the electric lights-which the cabin had done without until
1982-he saw that the main room looked just as it always had. Not too
small, but cozy, lived in.
Natterman's father had liked it that way. No false opulence, just rough
comfort in the old ways. Built of birch and native oak, the cabin felt
more solid today than it had when Natterman was a boy. He tossed his
satchel on a worn leather chair and walked back out to the porch.
Adjusting his eyes to the darkness, he stared out through the& forest,
up the dark access road, searching for the glimmer of headlights, but he
saw none.
He gathered as much wood as he could hold, carried it into the cabin,
and stacked it carefully in the rack beside the fireplace. Then he
placed two well-split logs on the cast-iron rack, dropped to his knees,
and began to build a small pyramid of twigs beneath them, just as his
father had taught him to do six decades before. Though his brain still
simmered in anticipation of uninterrupted study of the Spandau papers,
the familiar ritual calmed him.
When his pyramid stood ready to be lit, he searched the hearth for
matches, but found none. Rising with a groan, he padded over to the
woodstove that occupied an entire alcove in the rear of the front room.
Along with a walk-in pantry, this antique constituted the cabin's
kitchen. Here also the professor had no luck. Muttering quietly, he
recrossed room and opened the bedroom door.
When he saw what lay beyond, his chest muscles contracted with a force
he thought would burst his heart. On the bed directly before him, bound
to the brass bedframe with a thick leather belt, Karl Riemeck stared
sightlessly ahead, his face contorted in a mask of rage,
incomprehension, and pain.
A huge freshly clotted stain of blood blossomed on the caretaker's chest
like an obscene flower.
Natterman became as a child. His bowels boiled; urine dribbled into his
trousers. He desperately wanted to run, but he had no idea where safety
lay. He whirled back toward the main room. Empty and pristine as a
magazine photograph.
Unable to focus on Karl, he stumbled to the front door and locked it.
"My God, my God, my God," he muttered, bending over and putting his
hands on his knees. "My God!" His chant was a mantra. An incantation.
A way to begin thinking. A way back to reality.
Forcing down the wave of bile that struggled to erupt from his throat,
the old professor stood erect and strode back into the bedroom to see if
he could do anything for his friend. He ignored the gore that matted
the shirt, and placed his hand directly over Karl's heart.
Still. Natterman had expected nothing. He knew death when he saw it.
Perhaps it was the shock of Karl's death that dulled Natterman's
instincts, blinding him to further danger. Perhaps it was fatigue.
But when the cold hand reached from beneath the bed and locked itself
around his spindly ankle, he froze. He opened his mouth to scream, but
no sound came. Again his brain shut itself off against reality. The
iron claw jerked his feet from under him; he crashed to the floor like a
sack of kindling, certain that his hip was broken.
Moaning in pain and terror, he tried to crawl toward the doorway, but
strong arms caught his shoulders and spun him onto his back. When his
eyes focused, a flashing silver blade filled almost his entire field of
vision. Beyond it he saw only a mane of blond hair. He tried to
breathe, but an anvil seemed to have settled on his chest. When the
pressure eased slightly, then moved higher, he realized the anvil was a
man's knee.
"You have something I want, old man!"
The words were quick and angry, the voice flint against stone.
The knee pressed down so hard into Natterman's chest that he could not
have spoken if he wanted to.
"Answer me!" the man screamed.
That's not a British accent, Natterman thought with relief, his mind on
the safety of the Spandau papers. Thank God!
It's only a robber-a rvbber who has killed Karl. The professor's brain
raced through its knowledge of languages, trying to place the unfamiliar
accent, but to no avail. Dutch maybe?
The blond man flicked the blade back and forth in a lethal dance, then
inserted the point deep into Natterman's left nostril.
"Don't be stubborn like your friend, old man. It cost him -what little
life he had left. Now, talk."
The pressure eased a little. "Take whatever you want!"
Natterman rasped. "My God, poor Karl-"
"Pool Karl? You idiot!
You know what I want! Speak!
Where is it!"
For another moment Nattennan's mind resisted, then he knew. As
impossible as it seemed, this murderer knew his secret. He knew about
the Spandau papers, and he had managed to beat Natterman here-to his
father's house-to steal them!
"Oh God," Natterman whispered. "Oh no."
"No?" the blond man sneered.
"But I don't know what-"
"Liar!" In a rage the killer jerked his knife up and outward, severing
the old man's left nostril in a spray of blood.
Tears filled N
atterman's eyes, temporarily blinding him. A warm rush of
blood flooded over his lips and chin. He coughed and gurgled,
struggling for air.
"Listen, you Jew maggot! You're nothing to me!" The killer put his
lips to Natterman's ear and lowered his voice to a deadly whisper.
"If you don't signal your agreement to cooperate in five seconds, I'm
going to' sever your carotid artery. Do you understand? That's the
pipeline to your addled brain."
To validate his threat the killer jabbed the point of his knife into the
soft skin beneath Natterman's left ear. Choking horribly on his own
blood, Natterman tried to nod.
"You'll show me where it's hidden?"
Natterman nodded again, spitting up frothy red foam.
The killer hauled him to his feet as easily as he would a dead branch.
He took out a white handkerchief and thrust it toward the professor's
streaming wound. "Direct pressure," he muttered.
Natterman nodded, stanching the flow, surprised at even this small
gesture of humanity. The man before him looked scarcely thirty. The
long mane of blond hair gave him a starving-student look that the
professor knew well. A handsome face lit by zealot's eyes.
"Now," the killer said softly, "show it to me."
Natterman turned back to the bed where Karl's body lay.
He began to sob as the enormity of what had happened struck him.
"For God's sake, old man, don't fall apart on me! Your friend stuck
himself into this business and wouldn't clear off. He forced me.
Come into the other room."
Like a drone Natterman followed the killer into the front room.
With his face partially masked by the bloody handkerchief, he tried
frantically to think of a way out of his predicament. Chess, he thought
suddenly. It's just like a game of chess. But played to the death.
"Don't think, you idiot! Show me where it is! Now!"
The blond killer stood two meters from Natterman, but when he thrust the
knife forward he halved the distance with fearful effect.
Natterman dropped the blood-soaked handkerchief on the floor and began
to fumble with the buttons of his shirt.
"What are you doing, fool!"
"It's taped to my back," Natterman explained.
For a moment the man looked confused; then his face resumed its tight
grimace. "Well, then," he said uncertainly, "be quick about it."
My God, thought Natterman, he doesn't know what he's looking for He was
sent ... by someone else. Who? How did they connect me with Hans and
the papers? Shaking with terror, the professor stripped the
foil-wrapped bundle from his back. He felt as if three layers of skin
had come up with the tape. I must survive, he told himself Survive to
learn the truth. I must distract him...
"Now," said the killer, "walk forward slowly and hand it to me."
Natterman tossed the taped bundle across the room. It landed on the
floor and slid partially under a heavy cabinet that stood in the corner.
"You cracked bastard! Pick it up and bring it here!"
Natterman hesitated for a moment, then slowly walked to the cabinet,
bent over, retrieved the bundle. Just like chess, he thought.
I move-he moves.
"Hand it to me."
Natterman extended the packet, watching curiously as several drops of
blood fell from his nose onto his twitching biceps. I must be in shock,
he realized. I'm watching someone else...
Keeping his eyes on Natterman, the killer stripped the tape from the
foil that the professor had used to protect the papers.
"Carefully," Natterman pleaded. "They're very delicate."
"Is this all there is?"
Natterman shrugged. "That's it."
"Is this all, you filthy Yid?" The killer shook the papers in the air.
Afrikaans, blurted a voice in Natten-nan's brain. The accent is
Afrikaner But ... why does the animal think I'm Jewish? "I swear that's
all there is," he said. "Please be careful. That's a very important
document." As Natterman spoke, he let his eyes wander toward his book
satchel. It lay exactly where he had tossed it when he came in-on the
leather chair by the door. He stared for a moment, then looked quickly
back at the intruder.
"Again you lie!" the Afrikaner cried. "If I find something else in
that bag, old man, you're dead."
Natterman stood by the corner cabinet. Silently he willed the killer
toward the satchel. Toward the chair. Holding his knife out in front
of him, the Afrikaner backed slowly toward the satchel. Just a little
_further, Natterman thought, a little further ...
The killer averted his eyes as he reached for the satchelNow!
Natterman groped in the space between the cabinet and the wall and
closed his hand aroufid the big Mannlicher shotgun that had stood there
for over sixty years. The shotgun his father had always kept out of the
way, yet within easy reach if a deer wandered into the clearing or
poachers encroached on his land. The professor cocked both hammers as
he brought the weapon up, and fired the moment the barrels cleared the
back of the couch.
The killer dived for cover behind the leather chair, but not quickly
enough. Twenty-four pellets of double-aught buck shot tore through his
right shoulder, leaving his upper arm a mass of pulp and bone that hung
from his torso by sinew alone. The bloody knife that had butchered Karl
chair.
"Bastard!" Natterman screamed. Never in his life had he wanted to kill
another human being-not even in the war.
But now a rage of terrifying power surged through him as his stinging
eyes probed the outline of the chair for a clear shot.
The Afrikaner knelt motionless behind the chair, thinking.
He had known pain before, and he knew that to give in to it meant death.
Silently he seized the door handle with his good arm and jerked inward.
His shattered shoulder seared with pain; his agonized scream filled the
small cabin as he fought to stay conscious. An almost-forgotten voice
shouted from the depths of his brain: Move soldier! Move! And move he
did. In seconds he had scrambled alligator-style through the doorway,
dragging his useless arm behind, pulling the door shut with his foot as
he passed through. He flopped off the porch into the snow just as the
second blast from Natterman's shotgun splintered the lower quarter of
the oak door.
I should have known! the Afrikaner thought furiously.
Should have anticipated. I underestimated the old bastard.
He had a 9mm automatic in his car, but he'd parked his car in the woods
beyond the clearing. He'd never make it, not if the old man could see
at all. In desperation he swept away a hummock of snow and rolled
beneath the cabin into icy blackness.
Above him, Professor Natterman rooted hysterically through the cabinet
in search of extra shotgun shells. There' I Beneath an overturned
wicker basket he found a full box of twelve-gauge shells.
He broke the breech of the antique weapon, removed the empties,
chambered two shells, jammed the gun closed, and coc
ked both @ammers.
Then he bolted the splintered oak door.
The papers! he thought suddenly. The Afrikaner had them!
in a panic he searched the cabin for the onionskin pages, but saw none.
No! his mind screamed. He cannot have them!
Crazed with rage, he blasted another hole in the door, then unbolted it
and shoved it open. Just outside, crumpled and matted in a huge smear
of blood, lay six of the nine Spandau pages. Natterman darted outside
and frantically gathered them up, then scanned the snow for the other
pages. He saw none. Furious, he staggered back into the cabin and
snatched up the tinfoil that had protected the papers. He wrapped it
carefully back around the bloodstained pages, then stuffed the foil
packet deep into his pocket.
The exertion had broken loose the clot in his nose. Blood poured down
his bare chest. The animal must have a gun, he thought wildly.
He must. He wouldn't have come with just the knife. Natterman seized
his shirt and jacket from the floor and stumbled into the bedroom, where
Karl still stared sightless at the door.
"Aaarrrgh! " he roared in anguish. It took almost all his remaining
strength to drag the linen chest from the foot of the bed and wedge @it
against the bedroom door. When he had blocked it as well as he could,
he picked up the telephone beside the bed.
Dead as Karl, he thought bitterly. Pinching his bloody nostrils closed,
he surveyed the room. A washstand. A chair.
An old pine armoire. His father's bed beside the window.
The window!
Even as Natterman realized his vulnerability, he saw a pale hand working
just over the sill, trying to force the glass upward. He obliterated
the window with a double-barreled blast, gibbering like a madman as he
did. The stress had finally overcome him. Like a drunkard he staggered
over to the armoire and heaved and pushed until finally it slid across
the gaping window. Then he collapsed in a heap against it, not even
trying to stop the blood that continued to plop onto his heaving chest.
His last act before he fainted was to chamber two more rounds into the
Mannlicher.
142 A.m. The Northern Transvaal, Republic of South Africa Alfred Horn
sat hunched in his motorized wheelchair, his prehensile forearms
pressing a leopardskin rug against his arthritic knees, and stared into
the fire. As always, his mind raced back and forth between past and