medallion-a black-painted swastika! From the wall opposite Stern, a
grouping of black-and-white photographs leaped out like phantoms from a
mass grave. Thousands of gray uniforms stood in endless rigid ranks;
hundreds of jackboots goose-stepped down a depopulated Paris boulevard;
dozens of young lips smiled beneath eyes that had witnessed the
unspeakable. As Stern stared, individual faces emerged from the collage
of depravity. Goring and Himmler ... Heydrich ... Stretcher ... Hess
and Bormann ... Goebbels ... they were all here. Fighting a growing
sense of dislocation, Stern turned, only to confront still another demon
from his past.
Rearing high above him, its enormous bronze wings stretching from one
corner of the red-draped wall to the other, was an imperial Nazi eagle.
Speer's eagle, he thought with a chill, risen again. Yet the great bird
was not an eagle. - For its legs were engulfed in bronze flames, and
clutched in its talons like a world snatched from the primordial fire
was a blood red globe emblazoned with a swastika. The Phoenix!
exulted a voice in Stern's brain. Professor Natterman's voice.
Stern stared in wonder. The head of the mythical bird was turned in
profile. Its sharp beak was stretched wide in a defiant scream, its
solitary eye blazed with fury. Stern felt his knees tremble. Here is
your Egypti@n eye, Professor The exact design! The tattoo used by the
murderers of Phoenix ... the mark sketched on the last page of the
Spandau papers. With dreamlike clarity Stern remembered Natterman's
explanation of Rudolf Hess's Egyptian connection. This Phoenix looked
almost identical to the old Nazi eagle, but the Egyptian character of
its eye could not be denied. The eye did not match the rest of the
sculpture at all. Neither did the flames at the bird's feet. They
added long after the original sculpture was cast. But by whom? Stern
wondered. By a man who spent the first fourteen years of his life in
Egypt? By a man who lost one eye sometime after 1941? By Rudolf Hess?
Under other circumstances, Stern reflected, this strange sanctum might
pass for a private trophy room-a perverted version of the narcissistic
shrines one often found in the homes of vain old generals.
But here-hidden in a fortress at the end of a twisted trail that began
at Spandau Prisonthese relics suggested something else altogether.
This room was no museum, no maudlin monument to the past. It was a time
warp, a place where the past had not been merely preserved, but
reanimated by a personality bent on resurrecting it. Stern felt a wild
urge to leap up and tear the effigy down, like Marshal Zhukov's Russians
atop the Reichstag. He stretched up on tiptoe, then froze.
Mounted on the wall beneath the huge Phoenix he saw what he had come
looking for: maps. And not only maps, but a telephone! The map on the
left-a projection of the African continent-Stern ignored. But the
other-a topographic survey of the northern Transvaal-was just what he'd
wanted. Quickly orienting himself to Pretoria, he slid his finger
northeast toward the splash of 'green that represented the Kruger
National Park. His fingernail stopped an inch short of the park border.
'There you are,' he said aloud. Just as on the radar screen in the
turret high above, the location of Horn House had been clearly marked
with a large red H. Stern figured the distance from the H to Pretoria at
just under three hundred kilometers. Roughly three and a half hours
overland, making allowances for what appeared to be trackless wilderness
surrounding Horn House itself He snatched up the telephone from the
desk, his heart pounding.
Then-as he punched in the number of the Protea Hof Hotel-he heard muted
voices. He dropped into a crouch behind the desk, taking the phone with
him.
The voices were not coming from the telephone. Nor were they getting
any closer. Stern got cautiously to his feet. By moving to different
parts of the room, he soon located the source of the sound.
The voices were coming from behind the wall of photographs. He
flattened his ear to the wood.
Both voices were male, one much stronger than the other.
The stronger voice spoke with a British accent.
Feeling his way across the wall to get closer to the voices, Stern
touched cold metal with his right hand. Another knob.
Now he understood. This unholy shrine adjoined the library and study by
means of two hidden doors. Horn had made sure that his secret sanctuary
had two routes of egress. Taking a deep breath, Stern turned the knob.
He heard the familiar snick of metal, but the voices went on talking. He
pushed open the door.
The study beyond was dim but not lightless. Flashes from the picture
window intermittently lit the room. Stern could hear the rattle of
small arms fire outside, punctuated by the occasional burp of some
heavier weapon. He edged into the room and pressed himself against the
paneled wall. By the greenish light of a desk lamp he picked out the
man with the British accent. He was pointing a large pistol across the
desk at a shadow seated before the window.
Stern jumped when he heard the voice of the man in the chair, a gravelly
rasp, full of contempt. It was Horn. He couldn't make out all the
words, but the old man-despite his vulnerable position-seemed to be
offering the Englishman mercy. This only infuriated the younger man.
With a cry of rage he charged the wheelchair, kicked Horn over, then
raised his pistol and jerked back the slide. By God, he means to kill
him, Stern realized. He started forward instinctively, then he stopped.
A broken fork was not much good against a semi-automatic pistol.
Yet beyond that, something deep in Stern's soul, something angry and
crusted black, told him to do absolutely nothing. If the old man lying
helpless on the floor actually had gained possession of a nuclear
weapon, Stern could neutralize him now by simply allowing the enraged
Englishman to blow his brains out. Perhaps that was best ...
The next moments passed like chain lightning. Stern heard Horn mutter
something from behind the sofa. The young Englishman, driven beyond his
limit of endurance, steadied his gun with both hands and prepared to
fire.
'Death at last, Alfred!' he cried. 'It's long overdue!'
Stern stopped in his tracks. Alfred? He felt a jolt of disorientation.
Alfred Horn? But the old man had introduced himself as Thomas HomA
sharp metallic click froze everyone in the room. The sound was
