'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
