X-ray machine. Hans's nerves tingled like live wires. Luhr feinted
with his right hand and kicked Hans high in the chest. Hans took the
blow, staggered, steadied himself. Luhr jabbed with his left hand. Hans
did nothing to block it. He felt his right cheek tear, but he ignored
the pain. A crashing roundhouse struck him on the side of the head. He
absorbed the shock, but this time he raised his fists and moved forward.
Backpedaling away, Luhr fired off a right that drilled into Hans's eye
socket.
Hans roared in pain, but he shook the tears out of his eyes and lunged
blindly forward.
As Luhr pivoted to evade him, he felt his back collide with the
faceplate of the X-ray machine. At that instant Hans lashed out. His
fist moxied from his side to the bridge of Luhr's nose without seeming
to cross the space between.
One moment Luhr's face was pale with fury, the next it was covered in
blood. Hans had broken his nose. Luhr screamed in agony, then tried to
bull his way out of the corner. Hans stood him up against the machine
and hit him three times fast in the solar plexus. Luhr sank to the
floor. Hans tasted blood in his mouth. He picked up the heavy
microscope and held it high above his head. His arm shivered from the
weight. One blow would crush Luhr's skull like an eggshell.
'This is for Weiss,' he muttered.
'Wait!' rasped a male voice.
Hans turned slowly, the microscope still high above his head. He saw a
tall, wiry man wearing sweat-soaked trousers and an undershirt leaning
unsteadily on Ilse's shoulder.
'Not that way,' said Stern, his voice strangely flat.
Luhr lay gulping for air at Hans's feet. Slowly he got onto then turned
ha( and stared at the tanned stranger. The beaked nose ...
weathered, hawklike face. 'I've seen you,' Hans said.
'Yes, Sergeant,' Stern replied. 'You have. Now pick that man up and
put him on the table.'
'We don't have time for this!' Ilse cried. 'The house is burning!
We have to find a way through those shields! A few exposures won't even
hurt him!'
'Put that animal on the table!'
Hans stunned Luhr with a kick to the head, then he hoisted him onto his
shoulder and hauled him around to the X-ray table. As soon as he dumped
him there, Ilse strapped him down with the leather restraints.
'Get out!' Stern barked. 'Both of you!'
Hans watched fascinated as the Israeli lifted the broken microscope from
the floor and smashed it down onto the cable trigger Luhr had dropped.
'Shut off the power,' Stern commanded.
Ilse found the ON/OFF switch and flipped it. Stern fiddled with the
tangled mess in big hands for a few moments, then dropped it and stepped
up to the bubble window in the shield.
'Turn the power back on.'
Ilse obeyed. The entire room seemed to vibrate for four seconds; then
it went still. Luhr's scream of terror rent the acrid air. Again the
X-ray unit fired. The indescribable buzz ... clang chilled Ilse's
heart. Stern had permanently closed the circuit in the cable trigger.
The X-ray tube would continue to fire, recharge, and fire again until
someone finally shut off the power or a fuse burned out. Luhr shrieked
like a man trapped in a pit of snakes.
Hans looked up at Stern's lined face. He saw nothing written there. Not
satisfaction, not hatred. Nothing at all.
'Let's go,' said Stern, pulling his eyes away from Luhr's struggling
body.
Ilse held up the black briefcase Hans had been carrying.
'We've got the Spandau papers. We found them in Horn's study.
The other book, too.'
'The Zinoviev notebook?' Ilse nodded. 'Everything.'
'Good girl.' Stern grabbed her arm and hustled her into the hall.
Hans backed slowly out of the room, his eyes still glued to the bubble
window in the lead shield. The X-ray machine continued to fire in
four-second intervals.
Four hundred meters of open ground separated the ridge of the bowl from
Horn House. The Armscor had covered barely a hundred when a fierce
hammering assaulted Hauer's ears. They were taking fire from the Libyan
machine-gun positions on the ridge behind them. Captain Barnard was
sitting in the Armscor's shotgun seat. Hauer grabbed his shoulder.
'Can you raise the tower on that radio, Captain?'
'I can try.'
'Do it! Tell them to give us cover!'
Pulling off his helmet and respirator, Bernard began working through the
frequencies on the radio. Hauer glanced back into the crew compartment.
At the Arrnscor's firing slits, the black-clad team of commandos worked
their R5
carbines like men on an assembly line. One man's head and shoulders
were thrust into the tiny turret mounted atop the Arinscor; he swiveled
the .30 caliber machine gun between the Libyan positions with deadly
accuracy. Yet Libyan bullets still pounded the vehicle's armor. Hauer
turned again and watched Horn House growing larger in the Armscor's
reinforced windshield: 250 meters and closing.
Suddenly an alien voice began speaking inside the vehicle.
'Phoenix to Graaff ... Phoenix to Graaff ... Do you read?' The tension
in Pieter Smuts's voice was like a cable stretched near to breaking.
'Phoenix to Graaff! Where are your reinforcements?'
'Answer him!' Hauer told Captain Barnard. 'Tell him Graaff's manning
our turret gun!'
Hauer looked out at the house again: 160 meters. He gave Bernard an
encouraging punch on the shoulder; then he ducked back into the crew
compartment to confer with General Steyn.
The instant Hauer left the compartment, the driver lashed out with his
elbow and struck Captain Barnard in the side of the head. The Arrnscor
lurched to a halt 140 meters from Horn House. Hauer flew forward and
crashed against a steel bulkhead; only his helmet prevented him from
cracking his skull. The driver snatched u the radio microphone and be,
p gan transmitting rapidly in Afrikaans: 'Arinscor to Phoenix! Armscor
