view. He was just grateful the old man hadn’t died during a Soviet guard month.
Another sharp chest pain made Kosov wince. It was thinking about the damned Germans that caused it. He hated them. The fact that both his father and his grandfather had been killed by Germans probably had something to do with it, but that wasn’t all. Behind the Germans’ arrogance, Kosov knew, lurked a childish insecurity, a desperate desire to be liked. But Kosov never gratified it. Because beneath that insecurity seethed something else, something darker. An ancient, tribal desire—a warlike need to
dominate.
He’d heard the rumors that Gorbachev was softening on the reunification issue, and it made him want to puke. As far asKosov was concerned, the day the spineless politicians in Moscow decided to let the Germans reunite was the day the Red Army should roll across both Germanys like a tidal wave, smashing everything in its path.
Thinking about Moscow brought Kosov back to Hess. Because on that subject, Moscow Centre was like a shrewish old woman. The Rudolf Hess case held a security classification unique in Kosov’s experience; it dated all the way back to the NKVD. And in a bureaucracy where access to information was the very lifeblood of survival, no one he had ever met had ever seen the Hess file. No one but the chairman. Kosov had no idea why this was so. What he
did
have was a very short list—a list of names and potential events relating to Rudolf Hess which mandated certain responses. One of those events was illegal entry into Spandau Prison; and the response: immediate notification of the chairman. Kosov felt sure that the fact that Spandau now lay in ruins did not affect his orders at all. He glanced one last time at the scrawled letters on his pad:
Hauer, Polizei Captain.
Then he stubbed out his cigarette and lifted the red phone.
6:25 A.M. British Sector: West Berlin
The warm apartment air hit Hans in a wave, flushing his skin, enfolding him like a cocoon. Ilse had already left, he knew it instinctively. There was no movement in the kitchen, no sound of appliances, no running shower, nothing. Still jumpy, and half-starved, he walked hopefully into the kitchen. He found a note on the refrigerator door, written in Ilse’s hurried hand:
Wurst in the oven. I love YOU. Back by 18:00.
Thank you, Liebchen
, he thought, catching the pungent aroma of
Weisswurst.
Using one of his gloves as a potholder, he removed the hot dish from the oven and placed it on the counter to cool. Then he took a deep breath, bent over, rolled up his pants leg and dug the sheaf of onionskin out of his boot. His pulse quickened as he unfolded the pages in the light. He backed against the stove for heat, plopped a chunk of white sausage into his mouth, and picked up reading where the Russian soldier had surprised him.
…
I only hope that long after these events cease to have immediate consequences in our insane world, someone willfind these words and learn the obscene truth not only of Himmler, Heydrich, and the rest, but of England—of those who would have sold her honor and ultimately her existence for a chance to sit at Hitler’s blood-drenched table. The facts are few, but I have had more time to ponder them than most men would in ten lifetimes. I know
how
this mission was accomplished, but I do not know
why.
That is for someone else to learn. I can only point the way. You must follow the Eye. The Eye is the key to it all!
Hans stopped chewing and held the paper closer to his face. Sketched below this exhortation was a single, stylized eye. Gracefully curved, with a lid but no lashes, it stared out from the paper with a strange intensity. It seemed neither masculine nor feminine. It looked mystical somehow. Even a little creepy. He read on:
What follows is my story, as best I can remember it.
Hans blinked his eyes. At the beginning of the next paragraph, the narrative suddenly switched to a language he could not understand. He didn’t even
Another sharp chest pain made Kosov wince. It was thinking about the damned Germans that caused it. He hated them. The fact that both his father and his grandfather had been killed by Germans probably had something to do with it, but that wasn’t all. Behind the Germans’ arrogance, Kosov knew, lurked a childish insecurity, a desperate desire to be liked. But Kosov never gratified it. Because beneath that insecurity seethed something else, something darker. An ancient, tribal desire—a warlike need to
dominate.
He’d heard the rumors that Gorbachev was softening on the reunification issue, and it made him want to puke. As far asKosov was concerned, the day the spineless politicians in Moscow decided to let the Germans reunite was the day the Red Army should roll across both Germanys like a tidal wave, smashing everything in its path.
Thinking about Moscow brought Kosov back to Hess. Because on that subject, Moscow Centre was like a shrewish old woman. The Rudolf Hess case held a security classification unique in Kosov’s experience; it dated all the way back to the NKVD. And in a bureaucracy where access to information was the very lifeblood of survival, no one he had ever met had ever seen the Hess file. No one but the chairman. Kosov had no idea why this was so. What he
did
have was a very short list—a list of names and potential events relating to Rudolf Hess which mandated certain responses. One of those events was illegal entry into Spandau Prison; and the response: immediate notification of the chairman. Kosov felt sure that the fact that Spandau now lay in ruins did not affect his orders at all. He glanced one last time at the scrawled letters on his pad:
Hauer, Polizei Captain.
Then he stubbed out his cigarette and lifted the red phone.
6:25 A.M. British Sector: West Berlin
The warm apartment air hit Hans in a wave, flushing his skin, enfolding him like a cocoon. Ilse had already left, he knew it instinctively. There was no movement in the kitchen, no sound of appliances, no running shower, nothing. Still jumpy, and half-starved, he walked hopefully into the kitchen. He found a note on the refrigerator door, written in Ilse’s hurried hand:
Wurst in the oven. I love YOU. Back by 18:00.
Thank you, Liebchen
, he thought, catching the pungent aroma of
Weisswurst.
Using one of his gloves as a potholder, he removed the hot dish from the oven and placed it on the counter to cool. Then he took a deep breath, bent over, rolled up his pants leg and dug the sheaf of onionskin out of his boot. His pulse quickened as he unfolded the pages in the light. He backed against the stove for heat, plopped a chunk of white sausage into his mouth, and picked up reading where the Russian soldier had surprised him.
…
I only hope that long after these events cease to have immediate consequences in our insane world, someone willfind these words and learn the obscene truth not only of Himmler, Heydrich, and the rest, but of England—of those who would have sold her honor and ultimately her existence for a chance to sit at Hitler’s blood-drenched table. The facts are few, but I have had more time to ponder them than most men would in ten lifetimes. I know
how
this mission was accomplished, but I do not know
why.
That is for someone else to learn. I can only point the way. You must follow the Eye. The Eye is the key to it all!
Hans stopped chewing and held the paper closer to his face. Sketched below this exhortation was a single, stylized eye. Gracefully curved, with a lid but no lashes, it stared out from the paper with a strange intensity. It seemed neither masculine nor feminine. It looked mystical somehow. Even a little creepy. He read on:
What follows is my story, as best I can remember it.
Hans blinked his eyes. At the beginning of the next paragraph, the narrative suddenly switched to a language he could not understand. He didn’t even
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