The South African CT troops reacted differently. The highly trained
commandos considered their
ia
Kevlar body armor an offensive weapon. While one soldier fired covering
bursts, the other loaded a tear-gas canister into his shotgun and fired
at the forklift. Stinging vapor fogged the far side of the room.
Without even waiting to hear a cough the South Africans charged, firing
as they ran.
'Clear! Clear!' came a shout in Afrikaans.
'That's it!' said General Steyn. 'Let's go!'
At the forklift, Hauer hugged Hans and Ilse fiercely, but there was no
time to speak. At their feet lay the bodies of Smuts's men, cut to
pieces by the South African commandos. The CT troops had already
secured the stairwell beyond the door. The steel steps led both up and
down. Leaning out over the rail, Hauer looked up and counted six
flights of stairs that ended on a wide landing three floors above.
Below, the stairs disappeared into darkness.
'The bomb's downstairs,' said Stern. 'A hundred meters down.
That's our objective.'
'But the enemy's up there,' Hauer argued, pointing with his sniper
rifle.
'They don't matter,' said Stern. 'He doesn't matter.'
'Who?' asked General Steyn. 'Horn?'
Hauer cut his eyes at Stern. 'If we don't neutralize that tower, we
won't be able to do a damned thing about your bomb even if we find it.'
Stern laughed softly. 'How long do you think those shields will hold
those Arabs back, Hauer? Five minutes?
Ten? Horn will probably lower them himself, so that the Arabs can kill
us for him.'
'Scheisse! ' Hauer cursed. 'That's why the firing stopped!
They're already coming, Stern. We've got to get control of that turret
gun. You can do what you want, but I'm taking the South Africans with
me.'
Without hesitation Stern and Gadi started down the stairs.
Hauer, General Steyn, and the South Africans started up, with Hans and
Ilse bringing up the rear. On the top-floor landing Hauer put his ear
against the green metal door and listened. He thought he heard voices
on the other side, but he couldn't be sure. Backing away, he saw the
South Africans preparing to blow down this door just as they had the one
in the courtyard. He signaled them to wait. Taking hold of the
aluminum knob, he applied a very slight circular pressure.
The knob turned.
He glanced back at the South Africans, nodded toward the door, held up a
fist, and shook his head. The CT trvups gut the message: no grenades.
Hauer licked his dry lips beneath his respirator. Then he raised his
leg and kicked open the door.
Five men-Hess, Smuts, and three of Smuts's security troops-looked up in
stunned surprise. After one frozen moment, Smuts's men made the mistake
of going for their guns.
General Steyn's troops instantly killed all three with shotgun blasts.
Smuts himself did not xesist. He stepped calmly away from the
observation window and set down his field glasses.
No one seemed to know what to say. General Steyn stepped from behind
Hauer and looked down at the wizened old man in the wheelchair.
'Thomas Horn,' he said rather pompously, 'in the name of the Republic of
South Africa, I place you under arrest.'
Still wearing his black eyepatch, Hess looked up with contempt.
The general cleared his throat. 'You are Thomas Horn?'
'I am not,' Hess said with disdain. 'I am Rudolf Hess.
And you, General, are a traitor to your nation and to your race.'
General Steyn's mouth fell open. 'You're who?'
'Ignore him, General,' Hauer snapped. 'He's mad as a sewer rat.'
Hauer turned to Smuts. 'Why aren't you firing on the Arabs?'
Smuts wiped his still-bleeding face on his sleeve and smirked.
'They'll kill you too,' Hauer pointed out.
'Probably,' Smuts conceded. 'But they might not.'
Hauer moved to the bullet-starred polycarbonate wall and looked out.
Half the Libyan commandos had already crossed the bowl, and more were
coming-black phantoms gliding across the moonlit earth. Hauer looked
back and studied the cage that controlled the Vulcan gun.
'General Steyn, can your men operate that gun?'
At a nod from the general, one of the black-suited South Africans pulled
off his gas mask, climbed into the cage, and opened fire. The noise was
shattering. The gunner knocked down a dozen Libyans in less than twenty
seconds. When Smuts's bunker gunners saw the Vulcan resume firing, they
assumed that their chief had gone back over to the offensive, and they
added their machine guns to the fray.
Pieter Smuts eased his hand toward the console that controlled the
shields on the ground floor.
'Touch that and you're dead,' Hauer warned.
Smuts's hand lingered over the switch until Hauer backed him off with a
flick of his rifle. The Vulcan thundered on, vomiting shells and flame
into the darkness.
'Listen to me!' Hess said, struggling to make himself heard.
'You ...' He pointed to Hauer. 'You're German. In the name of the
Fatherland, join me!' The old man looked around in sudden confusion.
'Where is Frau Apfel?'
As if on cue, Ilse stepped through the door. Hans had held her outside
until he was certain the skirmish in the turret had ended.
'She understands!' Hess wailed. 'You should all join-' At that instant
the first shell from Major Karmni's howitzer struck the tower.
The explosion rocked the entire structure on its foundations.
'Everyone out!' Hauer shouted. 'Move!'
Pieter Smuts darted across the room, lifted Hess out of his wheelchair,
and carried him bodily into the stairwell. Everyone else hurried after
them. Only the South African manning the Vulcan remained in the turret,
probing for the howitzer through the smoke below. The group had reached
the second-floor landing when the second howitzer shell tore through the
turret window and exploded, incinerating man and machinery in a blinding
