The Hess Cross Read online

  "I have a message for the duke. I must speak to him tonight. How far is his home?" Horn asked, speaking slowly, molding the words with his German accent.

  "Weel, 'tis aboot twelve miles or so froom here. But 'tis unlikely ye'll be seein' the duke tonight. 'Tis past . . . " McLean glanced at the wall clock and saw that the pendulum hung lifeless behind the beveled lead glass. This was the cap to an already bizarre evening. He had lived in the cottage all his life, and this was the first time the pendulum had stopped. "It moos be ten-thirty or so."

  Horn's wristwatch sparked reflected light from the ceiling bulb. "Oh, no," he said, "it is nine-thirty. I set this watch before I left Augsburg."

  "Ye ferget," McLean said, a small smile coming to his craggy face, "Scotland is on Dooble Soommer Time. We use the extra hour o' light each day to load the antiaircraft goons."

  The little victory was not savored long.

  "That must be why the British gunners are doing such a good job protecting London from our nightly bombings, nicht wahr?" Horn asked, but as soon as he saw McLean's face drop and, perhaps more importantly, the old lady pick up a pair of scissors from the mantel, he quickly added, "That was ungracious of me. Please accept my apology. My flight tonight is an act of peace, not of war. Here, look at my son I left behind."

  Horn fumbled into his jumpsuit and extracted a billfold. "This is Wolf. He is four." Horn paused and added softly, "I don't know when I'll see him again."

  The aristocracy and authority fell away from Horn's voice as he spoke of his son. The photograph showed Horn dressed in slacks and a white shirt, kneeling next to a small dark-haired boy. Both were smiling, enjoying the moment. McLean knew the pilot would not see his son again until after the war was over.

  The cottage front door shuddered from the force of a beating meant to be a knock.

  "Open up, McLean. There's a kroot 'idin' aroon' 'ere."

  McLean recognized the high-pitched voice of Archie Clark, the local Home Guard. The thudding came again. "McLean. Open up."

  "Jaysus," McLean said as he leaned to the side of his chair, flicked the door handle, and slumped again back into his seat. He didn't look up as Clark burst into the room, waving his World War I Webley pistol wildly.

  "McLean," Clark yelled, oblivious of the closeness of the small room, "there's a kroot 'idin' oot aroon' 'ere, and . . . " He saw Horn and froze, speechless.

  Horn pointed to the closet door and with his deep German accent said, "You might look in that closet."

  Clark's head thrust forward as if to get a better look at the German officer. The paralysis vanished. He jerked the heavy pistol at Horn and shouted, " 'Ands oop. Get those 'ands oop."

  Startled by Clark's sudden recovery, Mrs. McLean raised her hands above her head.

  "God's teeth, poot the bloomin' goon away, Archie," McLean said. "Last time ye 'ad it oot, ye shot woon o' Widow Hightower's goats in the arse."

  Clark was quickly reassured by McLean's sardonic command. He knew from their long friendship it was a tone McLean used only among friends and in controlled situations. But who was the big man sitting in McLean's chair? He was dressed in a pilot's jumpsuit, yet he was too old. From the twigs clinging to the fur on his boots, Clark guessed the pilot had crawled to McLean's doorstep. Clark's confused thoughts were disrupted by bootsteps on the cobblestone walkway.

  Two soldiers loudly stomped through the open door. The distinctive blue-and-white flashes on their shirt sleeves marked them as signalers from the Royal Signal Corps, probably posted to Eaglesham. Both were clean-shaven and wore newly pressed uniforms. They had no doubt been called in from Saturday-night plans to aid in the search. Except for size, the two looked remarkably similar, and neither was in good humor.

  "So, ano'er woon shot doon, eh? Ye're a wee bit astray, me friend," the shorter one said, not expecting the German to understand.

  "Yes," said Horn, "I was ordered to bomb the signal station near here but could not find it, so I began looking for the nearest church to drop my payload. We never waste a bomb."

  David McLean laughed, and was joined by his mother and Archie Clark, who holstered his pistol. The soldier went red in the face and his eyes hardened. He grabbed Clark's pistol and pointed it at Horn's head. The German's smile vanished. He saw the veins stick out on the signaler's neck and the corners of his mouth turn down. Unlike Clark, this was a man who didn't point a gun unless he was seriously considering using it. Horn slowly raised his hands.

  "Easy," he said softly. "I am unarmed and I am here on official business and must see the Duke of Hamilton tonight. I will go with you to his home."

  Horn put the right amount of obsequiousness into his voice, to satisfy the signalman, who slackened the pressure on the trigger but did not lower the Webley. The malevolent smile returned.

  Horn lumbered up from the deep chair, carefully keeping the weight off his right foot. He turned to Mrs. McLean and said, "I am apparently going with these gentlemen. Thank you, madam, for your kindness. You and your son"—he turned to McLean—"will be remembered."

  The larger signalman put his arm under the German's and helped him out of the house. The smiling soldier followed without returning the pistol.

  Archie Clark snapped the holster cover shut and said, "I moos say, the Home Guard acted bloody swift this night, wha' say?" He paused to brush unseen dust from the epaulet straps on his khaki shirt and looked to McLean for approval.

  McLean yawned widely, stretched, and clasped his hands behind his neck. "Donna ferget to mention yersel' in yer report."

  Ignoring the comment, Clark continued, "Migh' e'en be a promotion in this."

  "Wha' does a farmer get promoted to?" McLean asked as he winked at his mother. Home Guard promotions were unheard of.

  "Good na, General," Mrs. McLean said, escorting Clark to the door. "And, Archie, thank ye." She affectionately patted his shoulder as he walked out.

  "Wha'll happen to him, David?" she asked as she bolted the door and turned to her son, who was thoughtfully rocking in the chair and staring at the clock.

  "Oh, he'll go down to the McTavish Pub and yarn how he's just shot down three or four bombers wi' his pistol," McLean replied, anticipating his mother's hearty laugh.

  Not this time. "Nae, nae, no' Archie. Be serious. Where'll they take the German?"

  "Why, Mama, I do believe ye've been charmed," he said. Seeing the concern which wrinkled her eyes, he continued, "Pe'eps to the Eaglesham jail foor a time. And then into the POW camp near Glasgow."

  "Foor how long?"

  "A long time. At least till the end o' the war. But there's woon thing foor certain: Horn'll nae see the Duke o' Hamilton."

  Douglas Douglas Hamilton, the fourteenth Duke of Hamilton, Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale, Earl of Angus, Arran, and Lanark, eleventh Duke of Brandon, and on and on, lay on the canvas cot in the whitewashed corridor outside the fighter-command operations room at Turnhouse. Layers of regulation RAF blankets warded off the chill of the Scottish May dawn. He had lain awake most of the night expecting the bell that had rung repeatedly during the previous four nights. Hamilton knew the alarm would sound before sunrise. Germans never did anything in fours, always in threes and fives. They would make it five in a row, and this certainty kept him awake.

  For the last four successive nights the thirty-four-year-old duke had patrolled southwest Scotland in his Hurricane. The German bombing runs had been sporadic, without pattern, but with lethal effect. Glasgow and suburbs had been hit, as had the airfields on the firth. The RAF was reeling under the Luftwaffe's attacks.

  Fighter squadrons impressive on command charts were in reality painfully undersupplied and undermanned. Planes were robbed to keep other planes operable. Parts were promised, but rarely arrived. Many of the Hurricanes in Hamilton's squadron were kept together with bailing wire and curses.

  The pilots were chronically fatigued. A night's sleep was unheard of. Irregular catnaps, gobbled food, and a sense of duty made hazy by tension and uncountable ho
urs in the sky kept the pilots running to their planes at the alarm bell.

  Hamilton was pushed not so much by loyalty to the Empire as his desperate desire for revenge. For weeks London and other English cities had been the bombers' targets, and duty argued for his efforts. Now Scotland too was on fire, and loyalty became a burning. When the alarm bell rang, Hamilton was always first to his plane and first in the air. Rarely did he return with ammunition in the belts. His ground crew was perpetually overworked, because Hamilton's plane required more service and care than any other at the airfield. The reason: Hamilton flew harder, longer, and with more ferocity than any other pilot in the squadron.

  "Sir, wake up." The controller rounded the corner from the ops room and approached the duke's cot. His boots echoed in the hallway. "Wake up. It's urgent."

  "What's urgent, Corporal?" Hamilton responded without moving in the bed. If it wasn't the alarm, it wasn't urgent.

  "A German pilot has parachuted down near Eaglesham. He's asked to speak to you."

  Hamilton lifted his head off the pillow to look at the controller, but still didn't commit himself to leaving the bed. "Corporal, I suggest you mix a little water with it next time."

  "His name is Captain Alfred Horn, and he's asked to see you personally."

  "I don't know a Captain Alfred Horn. I don't know any German pilots, for God's sake. Can't this wait, Corporal? It's four in the morning."

  "No, Sir. The chief wants you at Maryhill Barracks immediately."

  The corporal was not usually this insistent, and Hamilton could see he was not leaving until the duke's feet were on the ground.

  "All right, all right. Get the staff car ready and out front."

  "It's already there. So's the driver."

  The efficiency by his subordinates was typical. The Duke of Hamilton had been appointed RAF wing commander at the outbreak of the war. Because he was the premier peer of Scotland, many airmen believed Hamilton would treat the position as an honorarium. They joked that any man who could trace his ancestors back to the thirteenth century must be genetically adept at staying alive long enough to procreate. The duke hadn't.

  His detractors didn't know him. Hamilton had been in love with flying since age fourteen, when he spent hours watching the British pilots train in their biplanes. At age eighteen he was a skilled pilot. In 1933, as chief pilot on the Houston Everest Expedition, he became the first man to fly over Mount Everest. He had owned several planes before the war and flew them incessantly. He was now respected throughout the RAF as one of the most capable fighter pilots. His origins and reputation commingled and produced a mystique which caused junior officers and airmen to revere him.

  Hamilton sat upright on the cot. The tension that had kept him awake did nothing to revitalize him. He was so exhausted he seemed as if in a cloud. The cot pulled at him, begging his return. His feet were a hundred miles away, and the lines of communication were scrambled by fatigue. The duke switched his mind off and began the routine. Feet into the pants already open and in position on the floor. Shirt off the wall hook. Flight jacket. Leather helmet. The helmet was almost strapped when his brain caught and he remembered that a car, not his Hurricane, waited for him. He threw the helmet onto the bed and numbly marched out the ops-room door toward the waiting automobile.

  Since the outbreak of the war, Maryhill Barracks had grown from a single barracks to a small encampment of soldiers training for the front. No one considered dropping the name "barracks," however, because it so aptly described the camp. Everything was single-ply—the walls, paint, blankets, barbed-wire fence, and toilet paper. Maryhill Barracks had been designed to last for the duration of the war, and the Army Architect Corps had great faith in Britain's war machine. Five seconds after England's victory, the barracks would crumble to the ground in a fine, forgettable powder.

  There was an affinity between the barracks and his stables, thought the Duke of Hamilton as the staff car slid to a stop in front of the Barracks' headquarters' door. He stepped out into a knee deep haze of dust churned up by the car's abrupt halt. The dust was the driver's last effort to break the land-speed record on the road from Turnhouse to Maryhill Barracks. From the car's squealing start Hamilton knew he would not catch up on his sleep during the jolting ride. An authority superior to the duke had ordered the driver to get the duke to the barracks as fast as possible. The lane-and-a-half-wide twisting country roads had become a Grand Prix circuit. When Hamilton had ordered the driver to slow, the private had grinned fiendishly and embedded the accelerator pedal even farther into the fire wall. Now it was over, and Hamilton was intact.

  "Will that be all, sir?" called the private from the driver's seat. Without looking, Hamilton knew the driver was still wearing the wolf's grin and probably checking his watch for an elasped time.

  "Yes, Private. Thank God."

  The car shot away, raising another film of dirt, which clung to Hamilton's pants and gave his uniform a two-tone appearance. An RAF interrogation officer met him at the barracks' headquarters' door.

  "Thank you for coming, sir. At 2200 hours, May 10, a Messerschmitt 110 crashed into a field in Lanark County, six miles from Eaglesham. The pilot bailed out and has suffered a broken ankle."

  The officer was well trained. His welcome had been short, rudely short from anyone other than an interrogation officer. Within thirty seconds the duke knew all the officer knew about the flight.

  "Here's what the pilot carried with him," said the officer as he pointed to an assortment of objects on the table in the middle of the room. There were several photographs, a gold wristwatch, a camera, a flight purse, and an identification card. More interestingly, there was a small syringe with several needles. Hamilton opened a small, ornately carved wood box that contained an assortment of vials and capsules.

  "Is the man ill?" asked Hamilton, nodding to the needles and bottles.

  "No, sir. Our company doctor said those are homeopathic drugs."

  "Homeopathic?"

  "Yes. The capsules and bottles contain extremely weak toxins that in large doses produce symptoms of diseases the man who takes them is trying to avoid. In the seventeenth century, people believed that by taking these drugs the diseases could be escaped."

  "Is Horn a kook?"

  "I don't believe so. He's lucid and acts with a purpose. That purpose is to speak with you."

  "Perhaps I should see this Captain Horn."

  Horn had spent the night in the Maryhill stockade, the official title for a six-by-ten-foot room fastened to the headquarters building seemingly as an afterthought. The only furniture was a wood-and-canvas cot. He had slept with his flight uniform on. And slept well. The rigors of his cross-channel flight and night jump, combined with the interrogation officer's incessant late-night questions, had taken their toll. He had been asleep before the door on his cell closed that night.

  The sound of the bolt grating against its catch propelled Horn from sleep. The importance of his mission cleared his head like a breath of ammonia. He immediately knew where he was and whom he was expecting.

  Nor was he disappointed. Horn had studied numerous photographs of the Duke of Hamilton, and the duke now stood before him in the open doorway. The duke's strikingly handsome face was unmistakable. He was the highest-ranking Scottish nobleman and he looked it.

  Hamilton entered the cell and closed the door behind him without saying anything. Horn stood, stepped gingerly forward, and said, "We met, sir, during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. I have come as Adolf Hitler's emissary, with proposals for peace. I am Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess."

  If Rudolf Hess had been expecting to be treated as a visiting dignitary, he was immediately and sorely disappointed. Rather than the prime minister or foreign secretary, Hess was visited by a series of psychiatrists, intelligence agents, and other assorted interrogators. When he wasn't being questioned, Hess was confined in tiny cells in various prisons and secret houses.

  Two weeks after his flight, Hess stopped jumping off his cot every t
ime the cell door opened, expecting an emissary from Churchill coming to negotiate the future of Europe. His captors took his shoe laces and belt and returned his pill kit only when he stopped eating in protest. He was allowed to shave only when a guard hovered over him. The dim light bulb in his cell was always on, so that intent eyes could watch him twenty-four hours a day through the brick-size slot in the iron door. He was given only a spoon to eat with, which was taken from him as soon as he swallowed his last bite of each meal. When the doctors found spectacularly unsuccessful slashes on his wrists, the MP's searched his cell for an hour and finally removed his bed springs. Then they pulled out the light fixture and lit the cell with a spotlight shining through a thick glass shield in the ceiling. He was shown how to salute his guards and how to properly address his superiors, which included everyone who visited his cell. His diet, exercise routine, and toilet habits were rigidly controlled.

  Thus the British professionally and thoroughly reduced Germany's deputy führer to a prisoner of war. The world thought it had heard the last of Rudolf Hess.

  II

  November 6, 1942

  CHICAGO IS THE GRAY CITY, and Hyde Park is the grayest of the Gray City. This neighborhood eight miles south of the Loop is downwind of the steel mills and foundries in Gary, Indiana, and other steel towns along the southwest shore of Lake Michigan. The sky above Hyde Park is the repository of the mills' airborne effluent. The neighborhood suffers from the worst sulfur-dioxide smog in the country.

  The air is gray. On most days, anything over a block away appears through a mist. Smog completely hides buildings four blocks away. Lines are vague and subdued. Edges and corners in Hyde Park have an ethereal blur, like the French Impressionist paintings in the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue. The shroud seldom lifts.

  The University of Chicago dominates Hyde Park. Its immense neo-Gothic buildings stretch from Washington Park ten blocks west to Lake Michigan. The hub of the university is the Quadrangle, several acres of grass dotted with small trees surrounded by the five-and six-story classroom buildings, dormitories, and libraries. Here is the Class of 1904 Drinking Fountain and Senior Bench and other college necessities.