nothing. Remember Weiss, Hans, think of Steuben. I tried to kid myself
about it, but Steuben was a dead man the moment I saved your life.'
Hans flinched at that. Already he blamed himself for Weiss, and for so
much more. He looked up into his father's face, pleading silently for
him to stop, but Hauer would not.
'If you get on that plane with those papers, you will never return to
Germany. Phoenix's men can kill you on the plane, in the airport,
anywhere. The South African police can murder you in jail. They do it
all the time. If we have Der Bonderschaft in our department, what do
they have diere?
The moment Phoenix has the papers, you will die. You'll die.
You'll, never see your wife again. You'll never see me again. 19
Hans scrambled to his feet. He slipped past Hauer to the shattered
bedroom window and rested his cuffed hands on a knife-edge of glass.
Even in the bitter cold he was sweating.
Haner's words had pierced the fog of dread that surrounded him, yet the
rush of nightmare images would not stop. They rifpped through him like
a ragged strip of film, unspoofing from his heart, catching in his @
flashing behind his eyes. He tried to speak, to express the confusion
he felt, but his voice broke. Tears pooled in his eyes as he stared out
into the frozen forest.
Hauer couldn't see Hans's face, but he heard the sob and imew that his
words had had their effect. He stood up slowly and took something from
his pocket. A key. He walked to the window, removed the cuffs from
Hans's wrists, and put them in his pocket.
'I don't think you understand,' he said. 'I want you to take the papers
to South Africa.'
Natterman cleared his throat. 'Surely you can't mean that, Captain?'
Hauer snapped his head around and gave the old man a withering glare. 'I
mean to use the Spandau diary to draw the kidnappers into the open. To
force them to expose Ilse.'
Hans threw up his hands. 'But what can you do then? You don't have one
of your GSG-9 teams-no twenty-man unit with state-of-the-art weapons and
communications.'
Hauer spoke with cold-blooded confidence. 'You know what I can do,
Hans. You're all the team I need.'
'And me,' Natterman put in.
Hauer ignored him. He had no intention of taking the professor to South
Africa, but now was not the time to tell him that.
Hans walked a few steps away from Hauer. It was almost impossible to
argue with the man when he brought the power of his personality to bear.
Yet Hans feared so much more than Ilse's deadi. He sensed her terror
like a snake twisted around his spine. Not terror for herself, but for
the child she was carrying. Of course he remembered her doctor's
appointment now. He'd fallen asleep after the Spandau detail and missed
it. But why hadn't she told him about the baby when he got home? Yet
he knew the answer to that too.
Because he had come home acting like a total lunatic, a money-crazed
bastard. And hadn't she tried in spite of.him?
He could still hear her voice: I've got a secret too ... And then the
phone call from Funk's man, Jiirgen Luhr. And then Weiss. And Steuben.
And Ilse ...
'Look, I don't have a passport,' he said sharply. 'The kidnappers were
right about that. The only way I can get to South Africa is by the
route they've set up.'
'I can have a forger here in three hours,' Hauer said quickly.
'I'm not giving those bastards a shot at you on the plane.'
'Damn it, they said any deviation from the instructions and they'd kill
her.'
Sensing Hans's growing resolve, Hauer pressed down his exasperation.
'Hans, there are no absolutes in these situations.
You're like a doctor who must operate on his own wife. She has terminal
cancer. She's going to die unless you go in and cut out the tumor. But
there are risks. The knife
-ML,
things. You up the scalpel, then you hear a voice in your ear saying,
'Hey, you give me what I want, and I'll make this woman as healthy as
the day she was born.' ' Hauer shook his head.
'It's a fucking lie, Hans. That voice is the devil, and he doesn't play
by your rules. He feels no obligation. It's your call, but no matter
how badly you want to believe that voice, Their's only one option.
Surgery.'
Hans's cheek twitched involuntarily. He searched the depths of his
father's eyes, but he saw neither subterfuge nor hope of gain@nly the
indomitable will of a man ready to die in a quest he had made his own.
And from somewhere deep within himself, from a place he never knew
existed, a voice edged with steel rose into his throat.
'I'll do it.'
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
2.35 A.m. Soviet Sector. East Berlin, DDR Harry picked himself up out
of the shattered glass and sprinted for the courtyard wall. He heard no
shooting yet, but that didn't reassure him. The rough stone wall was
high.
Without breaking stride he planted his right shoe three feet up the face
of the wall and leaped. His fingers dug into the rough ledge.
He pulled with all his strength, both feet pedaling against the stone,
and scrambled over the top.
He found himself in a narrow walking space between two houses.
Dashing down the dark corridor, he paused where it opened onto a narrow
street. He saw no street signs nor any other landmarks he knew.
Unsure of where to run, he flattened his back against the wall outside
the alley's mouth, locked his hands together in a deadly double fist,
and waited.
Axel Goltz was fast, intelligent, and well-trained, but his desperation
made him careless. He came barreling down the narrow alley at top
speed, and rather than pause at its mouth as Harry had done, he leaned
into his sprint, blindly pursuing the man he thought to be at least a
block ahead of him by now. Harry's locked fists struck the, East German
in the center of the forehead and skidded down the right side of his
