Schneider's grip was like a bear's. 'You come back to Berlin, Captain.
And bring your son. We need more men like YOU.'
At the door Hauer spoke softly. 'It's funny, Schneider. I want the
same thing Phoenix wants, a united Germany, but-'
'We all want that,' Schneider cut in. 'But we don't want men like Funk
running it.
There is a better Germany than that.'
Hauer met Schneider's eyes. 'We'll never get them all, you know.
Not the ones at the top. Those bastards never pay-' Schneider laid a
hand on the Walther in his belt. 'If the courts don't get them,
Captain, there are other ways. And don't take too long here. The local
police are going to start discovering corpses soon.'
With that, Schneider turned and walked away, a hatted man whose
shoulders stretched half the breadth of the hallway.
When Hauer walked back through the foyer, Gadi said, 'Isn't there
something else we can do while we wait?'
Hauer shook his head. 'Stern is our only chance. We've got to wait
until he calls us.'
'I've got a bad feeling about this,' Gadi confided. 'What if Uncle
Jonas can't find a way to call?'
Hauer shrugged. 'Then he dies. Just like Hans and Ilse.'
Perhaps inspired by Schneider, he touched the grip of his own pistol.
'Then we hunt the bastards down and kill them-every one of them.'
Gadi exhaled in frustration. 'So we just sit here?'
'We sit here.'
'How longt' 'As long as it takes.'
'I don't like it, Captain. And I don't trust that detective, either.'
Hauer lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. 'Who cares.'
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
4.55 Pm. mI-5 Headquarters, Charles Street, London Sir Neville Shaw sat
alone in his darkened office, clutching the telephone receiver to his
ear.
'What do you mean, you lost him?' he asked.
Swallow's low voice quavered with barely controlled hysteria.
'Someone picked him off a motorway with a helicopter. I was too far
back to stop it.'
Shaw rubbed his forehead. This was bad news indeed.
'Thank you for informing me,' he said at length. 'Your services have
been appreciated, but they will no longer be needed.'
'What?'
'There will be no further contact between you and this office.'
'Don't give me that, you bastard!' Swallow shrieked. 'I want to know
where Stern went! I know you know, and you had better tell me!'
Shaw straightened up at his desk. 'Listen to me very carefully.
Your orders are to stand down. Stand down as of this moment. Any
further action on your part may disrupt a parallel operation, and will
thus be considered not insubordination, but treason to the Crown. Is
that clear?'
Swallow's laugh was like the cackling of a witch. 'The Crown,' she
scoffed. 'Listen to me, little man. I know what kind of operation this
is. I know you ordered the murder of Rudolf Hess in Spandau. And if
you don't tell me where Stern is now, I'll blow this story wide open.
I'll kill Stern one way or the other, and when I've done with him, I'll
come for you. Now-' Shaw broke the connection. The light on his phone
went dark. Seconds later Deputy Director Wilson appeared in his
doorway, a darker shadow in the dim office.
'What did she want, Sir Neville?'
Shaw stared at Wilson's anxious face for a long time.
'Nothing,' he said finally. 'Stern's mucking about Pretoria, Swallow's
on his tail. Why don't you send out for some food, old man?
Get enough for yourself. It's going to be a long night, and I want you
with me.'
Wilson nodded crisply. 'Certainly, Sir Neville.'
When Wilson had gone, Shaw consulted his map of southern Africa.
He checked the scale against a line he had drawn from the Mozambique
Channel to a sand-colored blank spot near the Kruger Park.
As if in a dream, he saw two tiny helicopters flying slowly across the
map, somewhere along that line. Parallel operation, he thought,
remembering his words to Swallow. He hoped Alan Burton had better luck
than Swallow did. Burton was the last chance for the secret to stay
hidden.
Shaw took his favorite pipe from the stand on his desk and began
rummaging for his tobacco. Jonas Stern Must be good indeed to have
eluded that she-devil, he thought. He wondered about Swallow's death
threat as he sucked on the, cold pipe stem, but he soon put it out of
his mind. At this point in time, a deranged assassin was the least of
his worries.
5.00 Pm. MozambiquelSouth Africa Border
The two helicopters flew in tandem, noses dipped for speed as they swept
across the coastal plain north of Maputo. In the seat next to Alan
Burton, Juan Diaz cursed under his breath. They had spent half the day
in a guerilla camp that looked like an outpost from hell.
Ragged tents pitched in the middle of a desert, cannibalized army
trucks, emaciated black men carrying rusty AK-47s, girls of twelve or
thirteen stolen from nearby villages and forced into whoredom by the
soldiers: the dogs had looked healthier than the people.
'Who were those bastards?' asked Diaz, who had a fair grasp of English.
'The MNR, sport,' Burton replied. 'Bloody wags. Fascists, to boot.
You're lucky they didn't know you were a communist.?' Diaz spat and
muttered something in Spanish.
'I didn't like it any more than you, Juan boy. But we had to stop to
pay them. Those fuzzy-wuzzies are providing our diversion this evening.
Plus, it was a good place to lie up.
That freighter was too exposed.'
Diaz leaned out to make sure his sister ship was close behind.
'Who are they trying to divert for us, English?'
'Government air forces. There's a Mozambican base about a hundred miles
south of here, and a South African one further south.'
'Ay-ay-ay,' Diaz groaned. 'What's based there?'
