stick, and with a sickening boom the Lear tore itself from the earth's
grasp. The dark veld fell away beneath them.
They were airborne.
JL
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Stern peered into the darkness at the far end of the
lab. Hess lay motionless beside him. The old Nazi had dragged himself
too close, and Stern had clubbed him with the butt of his rifle.
He looked dead. Three silent minutes had passed since the last
explosion. Then-just seconds ago Stern thought he had heard a furtive
shuffle from the shadows.
There ... again. He recognized the sound now: the stealthy rustle of
soldiers maneuvering into position.
'Herr Horn!' called a voice from the darkness. 'Guten Abend!
This is Major Ilyas Karami! I have come to take delivery of my weapon!'
Squatting behind the bomb with the stripped wires in his hands, Stern
leaned his cheek against the cool metal.
'Herr Horn!' Karami shouted. 'There is no need for more men to die! We
want the same thing, don't we? The destruction of Israel!'
Stern glanced at his watch. He reluctantly set the detonator wires
aside and picked up one of the rifles Gadi had left him.
'Herr Horn!' Karami cried. 'I know you are there!'
Stern stared down at the exposed detonator wires. They were blurred
now. The radiation had done its work. I could touch them together now,
he thought, and end the whole mad game. But the others will barely be
airborne by now, if they've reached the plane at all.
Gadi ... Hauer ... Frau Apfel . . . the Spandau papers ...
Stern pulled back the bolt on the R-5 and pointed it into the darkness.
'If you do not answer,' Karami shouted, 'I shall be forced to order my
men forward!'
Stern rose to one knee and depressed the R-5's trigger.
The muzzle flashes seared his damaged eyes as he strafed the far end of
the dark lab. He fired until the clip ran out, then picked up another
rifle. His ears were ringing like fire bells.
Someone moaned in agony.
A deep voice screamed Arabic in the darkness: 'Don't shoot back!'
He doesn't want his men to hit the bombs, Stern realized.
That might buy me a few moreStern froze. Through the groans of the
wounded he could hear the rustle of the Libyans edging forward through
the unfamiliar darkness. They were coming. Fighting an almost
irresistible urge to ffimst the wires together, he cocked the second
R-5, rose up, and opened fire.
The Lear was at seventeen thousand feet and still climbing. Diaz had
pointed the sleek jet dead-east, toward Mozambique and the Indian Ocean.
It streaked upward like a bullet, passing four hundred miles per hour.
Alan Burton sat in the cockpit beside Diaz and did his best to keep the
Cuban conscious, while behind them a violent argument raged in the
passenger cabin.
Gadi Abrams wanted Hess's briefcase. He meant to obey his uncle's last
wish, and that meant taking the papers to Israel himself. The briefcase
lay beside Ilse, who was ministering to General Steyn at the rear of the
cabin.
'It is my duty and my right!' the Israeli repeated. 'Hess was a Nazi
and his mission was directed at the Jews!'
Hauer stood up from his seat beside Hans and placed himself between Gadi
and Ilse. 'Take it easy,' he said. 'The Holocaust doesn't give you the
right to take possession of every scrap of history relating to the
Nazis. The papers deal first and foremost with Germans. We should be
the ones
t@ll
'You'll bury them forever!' Gadi ac@used.
Hauer shook his head. 'You idiot. Those papers don't hurt Germany,
they hurt Britain.'
'This is ridiculous!' Hans snapped. 'We could all die at any moment!
If you want to argue about who owns the Spandau papers, it's me. I
found them, so just shut up. Ilse will keep them until we're safely
away from here.'
'When will that be?' Ilse asked Dr. Sabri.
'I'm not sure,' the Libyan replied. 'It depends on how
AL
minimum distance point now.'
'Listen to me!' Gadi interrupted. 'You may have found the Spandau
papers, but Hess gave the Zinoviev book to my uncle.'
'In the belief that he was my grandfather,' Ilse reminded him.
Gadi wobbled uncertainly on his wounded leg. Fearing he might lose
consciousness, he raised his R-5 threateningly.
'Tell Frau Apfel to pass the case to me, Captain. Or I will be forced
to take it.'
,Put that down!'' Hauer bellowed. 'If you fire in here you'll kill us
all!' He took a step toward the commando.
'Stop!' Gadi warned, jabbing his rifle forward.
With the mesmerizing stare he had used on the Russian KGB officer all
the way back at Spandau Prison, Hauer took one more step, then pinioned
Gadi's wrist with a grip of iron.
'Let go!' Gadi cried, his face white with rage. The muzzle of the R-5
was an inch from Hauer's left eye.
'Drop it,' Hauer said quietly.
'Let's all calm down, shall we?'
Alan Burton had spoken qgietly from the'cockpit door, but his MP-5
submachine gun put steel in his words. 'Let the nice lad go, Captain,'
he said. 'So he can drop his weapon.'
'He won't drop it.'
'I think he will,' said the Englishman. 'This is a pressurized cabin,
Captain. If he fires that rifle in here, he will kill us all-himself
included d the papers will be destroyed.
My weapon, on the other hand, holds teflon-coated bullets.
They explode before they pass through a human body. A rather handy
innovation. Our Israeli friend probably knows all about it.'
Hauer loosened his grip.
