over the settlements, blocking out the sun. In South Africa electricity
is a selectively p@, vided commodity.
Ilse looked down at the sun-baked earth. What hope had she here, so far
from Germany? What chance did her childm have? Hans was on his way
here now, if Horn could be believed . And from Smuts's questions in the
X-ray session, shorn thought there was a chance Hans's father might be
coming too. She hoped so. Even from Hans's rare comments about Dieter
Hauer, Ilse had gleaned that he was a highly respected, even feared,
police officer. But what could he do against men like Pieter Smuts?
Again!
Jiirgen Luhr, who had slashed a helpless policeman before her eyes?
She thought of Alfred Horn. Lord Grenville was right about one
thing-the old man had taken to her. Ilse had enough experience with men
to recognize infatuation, and Horn had definitely fallen for her. And
here, she realized, his infatuation might be the key to very survival.
And to her child's survival. She wonder what madness the old man had
planned for tonight. From what Stanton had told her of Horn's business
dealings, meetings could augur no good for anyone. Still. she c not
very well refuse to attend-not if she wanted ate herself further with
Horn. And she might le@ thing that could help her escape.
Pulling a long blade of grass from the ground and started back toward
the house. She had wandered afield than she'd thought. Linah was no
longer in sig before Ilse had covered fifty meters, she confronted thing
she had not seen on her way out: a shimmering stretch of hot asphalt
running off through the grass and scrub. A @? Her heart quickened with
hope. Then she saw the plane. Three hundred meters to her right, on a
round asphalt runway, Horn's sleek Lear-31A. Ilse sighed hopelessly,
and continued west.
a long rise, she caught sight of Horn House about away. She gasped.
Fleeing the house earlier, she had not looked back. But now she saw
the whole estate laid out before her like a postcard photograph, stark
and stunning in its originality. She had never seen anything like it,
not in .)magazines, not even on television. Horn House-a building #kat
from inside gave the impression of a classical manor Med with ornate
rooms and endless hallways-was actually an equilateral triangle. A
triad of vast legs surrounded a central tower that rose like a castle
keep above the three outer legs. Crowning this tower was a.glittering
copper-plated dome. The observatory, Ilse remembered. Hexagonal
turrets ked each vertex of the great triangle. She half expected to see
archers rise up from behind the tessellated parapets.
With a sudden shiver, she realized that Horn House was exactly what it
appeared to be-a fortress. On the seemingly ureless plain, the massive
citadel stood ofi a hill set in center of a shallow, circular bowl
created by gradually rig slopes on all its sides. Anyone approaching it
would have to cross this naked expanse of ground beneath the gaze of the
central tower.
Ilse pressed down her apprehension and set off across the asphalt, using
the observatory dome as her homeward beacon.
She was quickly brought up short by a deep, dry gully. She d crossing a
shallow defile earlier, but nothing s. She must have crossed it at
another point on her from the house. Easing herself down over the rim,
carefully into the dusty ravine.
Smuts had christened this dry creek bed 'the wash and it served as the
first barrier in an impregnable security screen which the Afrikaner had
constructed around his master's isolated redoubt. If Ilse had known
what lay been her and Horn House, she would have hunkered down he Wash
and refused to take another step. The Afrikaner used all his experience
to turn the grassy bowl between the Wash and his master's fortress into
a killing zone from which no intruder could escape alive.
Every square meter of the circular depression was protected by Claymore
mines, explosive devices containing hundreds of steel balls that, when
remotely detonated, blasted outward at an angle and cut any living
creature to pieces in a millisecond. Concrete bunkers, each armed with
an M-60 machine gun, studded the inner lip of the huge bowl.
Each was connected to the central tower by a network of underground
tunnels, providing a secure means of directing fire and reinforcing the
bunkers in the event of casualties. But the linchpin of Horn House's
defenses was the 'observatory.' The nerve center of the entire security
complex, the great copper dome housed closed-circuit television
monitors, radar screens, satellite communications gear, and the pride of
Smuts's arsenal-a painstakingly machined copy of the American Vulcan
mini-gun, a rotary cannon capable of pouring 6,600 armor-piercing rounds
per minute down onto the open ground surrounding Horn House.
None of these precautions was visible, of course; Pieter Smuts knew his
job. The Claymore mines-designed to be spiked onto the ground
surface-had been waterproofed and hidden beneath small mounds of earth.
The bunkers had sheets of sun-scorched sod laid over their outward
faces.
Even the Vulcan gun slept silently behind the retractable 'lllescope
cover' of the 'observatory,' waiting to be aimed not at the heavens, but
at the earth.
Oblivious to the matrix of death that surrounded her, Ilse fought her
way up and over'the far rim of the Wash, brushed herself off, and
continued toward the still distant house.
With a soft buzz Alfred Horn turned his wheelchair away from his
security chief and gazed across the veld. Ilse had just topped the rim
of the bowl to the northeast. With her blond hair dancing in the sun,
she looked as carefree as a Jungfrau picnicking in the Grunewald.
Without taking his eyes from her, Horn asked, 'Is the helicopter
available, Pieter?'
'Yes, sir.'
Horn watched Ilse make her way across the long, shallow depression and
climb the hill to the house. It took several minutes. When Ilse spied
the Ahikaner, she started to avoid the table, but Horn motioned her
over. She stepped tentatively up to his wheelchair.
'Is there any news of my husband?' she asked diffidently.
'Not yet, my dear. But there soon will be, I'm sure.' Horin turned to
Smuts. 'Pieter, have one of the office girls order some clothes for
Frau Apfel. They can fly them out in the helicopter. And make sure
