to fumble with the buttons of his shirt.
'What are you doing, fool!'
'It's taped to my back,' Natterman explained.
For a moment the man looked confused; then his face resumed its tight
grimace. 'Well, then,' he said uncertainly, 'be quick about it.'
My God, thought Natterman, he doesn't know what he's looking for He was
sent ... by someone else. Who? How did they connect me with Hans and
the papers? Shaking with terror, the professor stripped the
foil-wrapped bundle from his back. He felt as if three layers of skin
had come up with the tape. I must survive, he told himself Survive to
learn the truth. I must distract him...
'Now,' said the killer, 'walk forward slowly and hand it to me.'
Natterman tossed the taped bundle across the room. It landed on the
floor and slid partially under a heavy cabinet that stood in the corner.
'You cracked bastard! Pick it up and bring it here!'
Natterman hesitated for a moment, then slowly walked to the cabinet,
bent over, retrieved the bundle. Just like chess, he thought.
I move-he moves.
'Hand it to me.'
Natterman extended the packet, watching curiously as several drops of
blood fell from his nose onto his twitching biceps. I must be in shock,
he realized. I'm watching someone else...
Keeping his eyes on Natterman, the killer stripped the tape from the
foil that the professor had used to protect the papers.
'Carefully,' Natterman pleaded. 'They're very delicate.'
'Is this all there is?'
Natterman shrugged. 'That's it.'
'Is this all, you filthy Yid?' The killer shook the papers in the air.
Afrikaans, blurted a voice in Natten-nan's brain. The accent is
Afrikaner But ... why does the animal think I'm Jewish? 'I swear that's
all there is,' he said. 'Please be careful. That's a very important
document.' As Natterman spoke, he let his eyes wander toward his book
satchel. It lay exactly where he had tossed it when he came in-on the
leather chair by the door. He stared for a moment, then looked quickly
back at the intruder.
'Again you lie!' the Afrikaner cried. 'If I find something else in
that bag, old man, you're dead.'
Natterman stood by the corner cabinet. Silently he willed the killer
toward the satchel. Toward the chair. Holding his knife out in front
of him, the Afrikaner backed slowly toward the satchel. Just a little
_further, Natterman thought, a little further ...
The killer averted his eyes as he reached for the satchelNow!
Natterman groped in the space between the cabinet and the wall and
closed his hand aroufid the big Mannlicher shotgun that had stood there
for over sixty years. The shotgun his father had always kept out of the
way, yet within easy reach if a deer wandered into the clearing or
poachers encroached on his land. The professor cocked both hammers as
he brought the weapon up, and fired the moment the barrels cleared the
back of the couch.
The killer dived for cover behind the leather chair, but not quickly
enough. Twenty-four pellets of double-aught buck shot tore through his
right shoulder, leaving his upper arm a mass of pulp and bone that hung
from his torso by sinew alone. The bloody knife that had butchered Karl
Riemeck clattered to the floor, its owner blown out of sight behind the
chair.
'Bastard!' Natterman screamed. Never in his life had he wanted to kill
another human being-not even in the war.
But now a rage of terrifying power surged through him as his stinging
eyes probed the outline of the chair for a clear shot.
The Afrikaner knelt motionless behind the chair, thinking.
He had known pain before, and he knew that to give in to it meant death.
Silently he seized the door handle with his good arm and jerked inward.
His shattered shoulder seared with pain; his agonized scream filled the
small cabin as he fought to stay conscious. An almost-forgotten voice
shouted from the depths of his brain: Move soldier! Move! And move he
did. In seconds he had scrambled alligator-style through the doorway,
dragging his useless arm behind, pulling the door shut with his foot as
he passed through. He flopped off the porch into the snow just as the
second blast from Natterman's shotgun splintered the lower quarter of
the oak door.
I should have known! the Afrikaner thought furiously.
Should have anticipated. I underestimated the old bastard.
He had a 9mm automatic in his car, but he'd parked his car in the woods
beyond the clearing. He'd never make it, not if the old man could see
at all. In desperation he swept away a hummock of snow and rolled
beneath the cabin into icy blackness.
Above him, Professor Natterman rooted hysterically through the cabinet
in search of extra shotgun shells. There' I Beneath an overturned
wicker basket he found a full box of twelve-gauge shells.
He broke the breech of the antique weapon, removed the empties,
chambered two shells, jammed the gun closed, and cocked both @ammers.
Then he bolted the splintered oak door.
The papers! he thought suddenly. The Afrikaner had them!
in a panic he searched the cabin for the onionskin pages, but saw none.
No! his mind screamed. He cannot have them!
Crazed with rage, he blasted another hole in the door, then unbolted it
and shoved it open. Just outside, crumpled and matted in a huge smear
of blood, lay six of the nine Spandau pages. Natterman darted outside
and frantically gathered them up, then scanned the snow for the other
pages. He saw none. Furious, he staggered back into the cabin and
snatched up the tinfoil that had protected the papers. He wrapped it
carefully back around the bloodstained pages, then stuffed the foil
packet deep into his pocket.
The exertion had broken loose the clot in his nose. Blood poured down
his bare chest. The animal must have a gun, he thought wildly.
He must. He wouldn't have come with just the knife. Natterman seized
his shirt and jacket from the floor and stumbled into the bedroom, where
Karl still stared sightless at the door.
'Aaarrrgh! ' he roared in anguish. It took almost all his remaining
