with us at Jarama, ' he mumbled 'And Madrid. ' Helmut tried to deny it,
but Banks heard nothing. His eyes narrowed and his lips grew white and
thin. It was the killing look-I'd seen it a hundred times before.
Had Banks simply shot Helmut, I would not be here today-but Banks was a
huge man, and his instinct was to smash what he hated with his hands.
Clutching the Sten gun like a bat, he smacked its stock across Helmut's
face. I felt Helmut's blood hit me as it sprayed across the room. He
staggered, but held his feet. Dazed, he tried to reason with Banks, but
the Englishman raised the Sten above his head and brought it down on
Helmut's skull Helmut crumpled to the floor Banks's fury at the loss of
his parents had been unleashed, and nothing short of death could stop
it.
Fox and the old man who had pointed me out backed against a wall, cowed
by the violence of their comrade. As Banks raised the Sten once more, I
snatched up Fox's Sten from the table, pulled back the bolt, and pointed
the gun at Banks. The man did not even notice me. I could have cut him
down at that instant, but I hesitated. By killing him, I would be
admitting that my mission hadfailed. Of course it already had, but I
could not yet accept that. My finger quivered on the trigger How could
this specter from my past have traveled to this very room after so long?
And the bombs-how could they have fallen right on Banks's house! How
could it possibly have happened!
I saw Banks bring the Sten down once more onto-or rather into-Helmut's
skull, and I pulled the trigger Whirling around the room in fury, I cut
them all down in seconds, then bolted for the car I had just got it
started when I remembered my forged papers-my 'orders from .Moscow. '
Dashing back inside, I searched for my suitcase, but couldn't find it in
the main room. I checked the kitchen, found nothing, then returned to
the room where the bodies lay. I caught sight of my case in a dark
corner I started toward it, then froze. A pair of tall workboots stood
beside it. And standing in the boots was a thick pair of legs. Bill'
Banks, the red-haired giant, had somehow gotten to his feet, and he
still held his Sten.
He wobbled, then fired. He hit me twice-once in the right arm, once in
the right shoulder I had no choice but to rum At worst, I thought, the
forged papers implicated Stalin-not Hitler-so I ran. I cranked the old
car, and in the confusion of the air raid I managed to escape to the
countryside east of London. I used my escape plan just as if the
mission had been accomplished. I lay low for a few days on the British
coast, with a, German agent who maintained a radio link with Occupied
France-then crossed the Channel to safety.
I served out the remainder of the war in Heydrich's SD, and near the end
fled with some others to South America.
My dream of returning to my native Russia was crushed forever in 1944. I
must live with the knowledge that the terrible shadow my Motherland
lives under is in no small part due to my failure in England in the
spring of 1941. Surely that knowledge is punishment enough for my
failure.
Signed, V V Zinoviev, Paraguay, 1951
Witnessed, Rudolf Hess, Paraguay, 1951
Stern's stomach rolled. Rudolf Hess? 1951? Good God!
What did it mean? Had Hess survived the war after all? Had he fled to
Paraguay with Zinoviev after his failed mission?
But what of Helmut, the daring German spy with the eyepatch? Had he
really died from his terrible beating? Or had he somehow managed to
escape and eventually make his way here, to South Africa? Stern felt
more confused than he ever had in his life. How are Hess and Zinoviev
connected?
he wondered. Where did their lives intersect? Nowhere in Zinoviev's
account was Hess mentioned, yet the date of the planned assassinations
simply couldn't be coincidence. Hess had flown to Britain on May 10-the
exact date that Zinoviev had been ordered to kill Churchill and the
king. So why had Hess been ordered there at all?
Abruptly Stern stood and closed the notebook. Of course!
Zinoviev's failed mission-the double assassination-as important as it
was, was merely preparatory. The real objective was the replacement of
Churchill's government-a coup d'etat. That was Hess's part of the
mission, the political side. But what had gone wrong? The bombs had
fallen as Hitler ordered, but Churchill and the king had not. As far as
Stern knew, no assassin ever got close to either leader on May 10, 1941.
So where did that leave the British conspirators who had planned to
replace them? Where did that leave the real Rudolf Hess? Whatever
Hess's mission had been, Zinoviev's failure had blown it. So where had
Hess gone? When his mission failed, why didn't he go straight back to
Germany? Why run to Paraguay, where he had ap patently witnessed
Zinoviev's document? Many Nazis fled to South America after the war.
patently witnessed Zinoviev's document? Many Nazis fled to South
America after the war. Had Hess been- one of the first to go? And had
he gone alone? No. Somehow, Stern realized, somewhere, Hess had met
Zinoviev before Paraguay.
Had it been in Germany? Or was it in England, on the run after the
failed mission? I'll bet dear Helmut of the one eye could answer that
question, Stern thought wryly. And I've got the oddestfeeling that he's
sleeping in this very house!
Stern hurriedly reconstructed Hess's flight in his mind. If what the
Spandau papers said was true, the real Hess had taken off from Germany,
picked up his double in Denmark, then flown across the Channel and
reached the Scottish Coast around ten Pm. The real Hess had bailed out
over Holy Island; then the double flew on, directly over Dungavel
Castle-his supposed target-all the way to the western coast of Scotland.
There he had turned, paralleled the coast for a while, then flown back
toward Dungavel and parachuted into a farmer's field a few miles away.
Why was the double needed at all? Stern asked himself. As a diversion?
He pictured the lonely, frightened German falling from the Scottish
sky-an image that had captivated the entire world.
What had been in the double's mind at that moment? In the Spandau
papers he had frankly admitted ignorance of the real Hess's mission.
All the double knew was that the scheduled radio signal from Hess had
not come, and rather than kill himself as ordered, he had bailed out of
