The Spandau Phoenix wwi-2

by Greg Iles

  Colonel Rose could have managed to get him a military flight. He took a

  deep breath when he finally made it out of the aircraft. The anxious

  passengers and the South African summer heat had combined to produce a

  singularly unpleasant closeness, even at dawn.

  "What a change," he muttered, thinking of the snowdrifts he'd left

  behind at Frankfurt. He slung his flight bag over his shoulder and

  headed for Customs.

  Standing in the long queue, Schneider looked impatiently at his watch.

  He wanted to get to a telephone as soon as he could. If he was lucky,

  he thought, he might trace Hauer's and Apfel's false passports to a

  hotel before they got moving for the day. He wondered what Hauer was

  doing now.

  Schneider did not know Hauer personally, but,he knew his reputation. He

  figured a lone wolf like Hauer would keep an open mind long enough to

  listen to his arguments about -Phoenix. Schneider didn't give a damn

  about the Spandau papers; all of Rose's ranting about them meant little.

  What Schneider wanted was to sever all contact between Wilhelm Funk's

  neo-Nazi fanatics in West Berlin and their Stasi counterparts in the

  East, and then to drive both Phoenix groups back into the dark hole from

  which they had sprung.

  His instincts told him Dieter Hauer was the man to help him do that.

  Before he contacted Hauer, however, he inten o-ut the local Russian

  situation. Because no Kosov was telling Colonel Rose, the KGB would be

  here in South Africa-probably at the he o p chasing the Spandau papers.

  Schneider wondered where they would be based. The South African

  government allowed no Soviet embassies on its soil; he had checked. Thus

  the KGB had no legal residency from which to conduct operatioms. That

  complicated things. In fact it made him downright nervous. And the

  more he thought about it, the surer he became that he would be making a

  mistake if he talked to Hauer before he knew exactly where the Russians

  were.

  He would not have to look far. Yuri Borodin stood four places behind

  Schneider in the sweltering heat. The Twelfth Department agent had

  easily stayed clear of the German during the flight from Frankfurt.

  Borodin ( traveled First Class, and he had spent the entire flight in

  the second-story lounge of the 747. He laughed as detective Schneider

  lumbered through the Customs comparing his own spare frame to the

  German's, he saw a mental image of a sleek Jaguar following a double

  decker bus. It did not occur to him what was likely to happen if the

  Jaguar hit the bus head-on.

  9.14 A. M. Bronberrick Motel. South of Pretoria

  Hauer closed the door to the dank-smelling motel leaned against a

  battered veneer desk. After much searchinglast night, he and Hans had

  finally taken this ratho the N-1 motorway, ten miles south of the

  capital.

  Hans sat sullenly on a twin bed, fanninl, himself with ,he'd found in

  the mildewed -bathroom. His knife jammed into his belt; his Walther lay

  a few inches from his right hand.

  "I found another car," said Hauer, his face slick with sweat. "A Ford.

  From a small firm, just what we wanted.

  I dumped the Toyota in an underground garage."

  "Good," Hans replied without looking up.

  "I really think it would be safer if you came along Hauer pressed.

  "You don't need me to help you calibrate the scope. And I'm not taking

  any chances on missing the rendezvous."

  "But you're not going to the rendezvous," Hauer said, pocketing the

  keys. "Didn't you realize that? This rendezvous is where I use our

  leverage to turn the tables on the kidnappers. If you show up, Phoenix

  will assume you have the papers with you. They'll simply kidnap you,

  then kill you. I'm going to the Voortrekker alone. You'll keep the

  papers safe here."

  Hans nodded slowly. "I see. But I'm still not going with you now.

  Anything could happen out there. You could kill us just by forgetting

  to drive on the left side of the road.

  Where would we be then?"

  Hauer nodded pensively. "All right. But don't leave this room for

  anything, understand? I'll be back in three or four hours After I

  zero-in the scope, I'm going to scout for an exchange location. I saw a

  stadium on the map that looks good. I'll be back long before six."

  Hans forced a smile. "I'll be waiting."

  "Fasten the chain behind me."

  Hans stood to see him out.

  "And for God's sake get some sleep, would you?" Hauer said. "Ilse

  wouldn't even recognize you like this."

  As soon as he heard Hauer's car pull away, Hans picked up the telephone.

  "This is room sixteen," he told the desk clerk, his voice edgy. "Call

  me a taxi. Bitte? Of course I can pay for it!"

  He slammed down the phone and trudged over to the lav The mirror was

  cracked in a starburst pattern, causing reflection to stare back at him

  like jumbled pieces of a . Hauer was right. He looked as bad as he

  felt. bllodshot eyes, sallow cheeks, dirty blond hair sticking out in

  all directions. If he didn't sleep soon, he would collapse where he

  stood. All night he had lain awake in the stifling heat, listening to

  Hauer's steady snoring, fighting the solitary hours of his imagination.

  From the moment he had learned the spandau diary was incomplete, his

  fears had been working in him, tapping in the back of his brain like a

  dull pick hammer.

  Hans turned the cold tap, wet a washrag, and brought it to his stubbled

  face. The water felt good, but it didn't improve his appearance.

  He stuck his head under the tap and soaked his hair, then smoothed it as

  best he could. He hadn't planned to lie to Hauer about the rendezvous

  time. But when he heard the cold voice on the telephone The driver

  rolled his eyes and jerked his thumb toward the @ backseat. Hans

  climbed in and the cab screeched away.

  phone last night in the Burgerspark suite, some deep part him had simply

  overridden his conscious will. He believem- The Voortrekker Monument

  sits atop a hill @ miles in Hauer's abilities. If anyone could save

  Ilse by using lo his father could. But what if no one could? Hans had

  seen miraculous rescues during his short tenure with the police

  department. But he had seen other cases, too. And the harder he tried

  to shut those cases out, the clearer they becam in his mind.

  Throughout the night vaigue images had turned to sean nightmares.

  The dead blond girl from the Havel, fished out of the muck by a

  grappling hook two days after the safe" police rescue operation.

  Anonymous Berliners had died by gunfire, by stab wounds, other ways. Et,

  Weiss's gouged and bloody chest. He thought of the from the Havel. The

  police had used the ransom as bait they always did. A half-million

  Deutschemarks in @ash._B the kidnappers had managed to withhold the girl

  just long enough to escape. For Hans the lesson was clear. No plan was

  fail-safe. And no matter how deeply he believed Hauer's commitment, he

  could not risk seeing Ilse pulled from that river, or one like it. Who

  could predict how d kidnappers would react when Hauer tried to turnr />
  their operation back against them?

  Rational men would probab make a deal. But rational men did not tattoo

  eyes on the scalps or gouge religious symbols into the chests of Jews.

  At the veneer desk, Hans scribbled a note to Hauer on the back of a

  promotional flyer. Then he picked from the bed and laid it on top of

  the note.

  The ring of the telephone startled him.

  growled the desk clerk.

  Hans took a long last look at his pistol, but could not take it where he

  was going. He rea the mildewed mattress and withdre@ the Sp, which he

  had stolen while Hauer showered. He into his shirt (beside the knife he

  had taped to he stepped out into the glaring sun. A blue M idling in

  the parking lot. He walked over to the dow.

  "You know the Voortrekker Monument?" he English.

  south of central Pretoria. Visible from most parts of the city, this

  dun-colored building is the spiritual symbol of the Afrikaner nation.

  Its domed Hall of Heroes holds a huge frieze 'commemorating the Great

  Trek of the Boer pioneers, who fled northward from British colonial rule

  in 1838. Hans caught a glimpse of the massive dome as his driver exited

  the N-1 freeway, then swung back under and headed west.

  imb . ing the monument hill, he realized he would be ten minutes early

  for his rendezvous.

  min He paid off the cab, then moved as instructed to a spot dimctly

  beneath the frieze in the Hall of Heroes and studied it like a Muslim

  who has finally reached Mecca. The tourists shuffling around him were

  mostly Afrikaners. With his classic German looks, Hans thought he

  probably looked as Afrikaner as the rest. He was wrong.

  Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he whirled to see a Bantu man of medium

  height-a Zulu, actually, but Hans knew nothing of such distinctions-with

  a large camera bag slung over his shoulder. Hans failed to notice the

  irony of a black'man visiting the monument that memorialized the

  conquest of his native country. The Zulu never once glanced up at the

  frieze. He hurried out of the building and down the slope, Hans

  scrambling after him. A shining blue Range Rover waited at the base of

  the hill. The Zulu indicated that Hans should get into the rear seat.

  Hans climbed in.

  "You have the papers?" asked-the Zulu in broken German.

  Hans nodded. "Are you taking me to my wife?"

  Without a word the Zulu started the engine and drove down the hill, then

  swung the Range Rover onto R-28 and beaded into central Pretoria. He

  drove until they intersected the N-1 freeway, then climbed into the

  northbound traffic.

  Hans looked blankly out the window as the suburbs gave way to gaudy

  storefronts, liquor stores, and finally the government matchboxes of

  black settlements outside the city.

  Hans fingered the knife beneath his shirt. The thought of what the

  kidnappers might do if they realized the diary was incomplete made his

  bowels squirm, but what choice did he have? At least by acceding to

  their demands he had gained a chance to try to explain the missing

  pages. In the middle of some football stadium, with a dozen guns

  sighted on Ilse and himself, anything could happen.

  Suddenly Hans felt his throat tighten. Though he had been @ng straight

  at the back of the Zulu's head, his conscious @d had only now registered

  what his eyes were seeing.

  Behind the Zulu's right ear-in plain sight-was the ominous design

  sketched in the Spandau papers: the eye-the mark of Phoenix! Yet unlike

  Funk's men, this tribesman wore no tattoo. The eye had been branded

  onto his scalp with a red-hot iron! The ugly, whitish-pink keloid scar

  chilled Hans's blood. He @tared, hypnotized by the mark.

  What did it really symbolize? Follow the Eye, the Spandau papers had

  charged. Yet it seemed to Hans that the eye was following him!

  "How ... how far do we have to go?" he stammered, trying to keep his

  anxiety in check.

  The Zulu said nothing.

  Hans touched the haft of the knife in his shirt. Obviously the black

  man didn't intend to reveal anything about the upcoming rendezvous. Hans

  forced his eyes away from the scar and concentrated on the road. The

  shimmering highway stretched in a seemingly endless line across the

  veld, toward a destination Hans could only pray would reunite him with

  ]Ilse. If the kidnappers were as hard as the land they now passed over,

  he thought, their chances of getting out alive were small. He caught

  himself wondering if he should have told Hauer the truth about the

  rendezvous after all. Maybe Hauer could have pulled off the exchange.

  Maybe ...

  "Too late now," he muttered.

  "Bine?" the Zulu said sharply.

  "]Vichts!" Hans snapped. He tried not to stare at the branded eye as

  the Range Rover droned on.

  10:45 A.m. Horn House. The Northern Transvaal

  Linah had set out a fine brunch in the enclosed garden near the

  southwest turret of the estate. Subtropical fruit trees splashed

  blossoms of color against the high stone walls.

  Alfred Horn and his security chief sat together drinking coffee and

  speaking quietly.

  "And what of Captain Hauer?" the old man asked.

  Smuts shrugged. "I had four men at the Voortrekker to kill him, but he

  never showed up."

  "Could he be following Sergeant Apfel?"

  Smuts shook his head. "He might try, but my driver will know if he

  does. We'll have no problems from Hauer."

  Horn nodded.

  "How long do you expect it will be before we hear something from the

  Arabs? Three days? A week?"

  "I've already heard," Horn said casually, and took a sip of his coffee.

  "Qaddafl himself called me an hour ago. He has accepted our terms. What

  did I tell you, Pieter? If you want a job done quickly, hire a hungry

  man. Prime Minister Jalloud will return tomorrow night with men to

  transport the weapon."

  "Tomorrow night!" Smuts exclaimed. "I had no idea it would be that

  soon. Two hours ago I sent half my men back to then-tine."

  Horn smiled. "That was a little premature, Pieter. But I shouldn't

  worry. There will be no problems with the Libyans. And if there were,

  I am confident that you-could protect us from that. You have had years

  to prepare year defenses."

  Smuts looked uncertain. "Did Qaddafl mention Major K?" Smuts nodded

  suspiciously. "Karami is planning some kind of double-cross. I'm

  certain of it. I'd better make additional security arrangements."

  Horn smiled cagily. "You might want to make some arrangements before

  tonight, Pieter. I have the feeling we may need a few extra men."

  Smuts squinted curiously At his master. But before he could ask for

  clarification, Lieutenant Jiirgen Lahr opened a sliding glass door and

  marched toward the table. Horn eyed the tall German suspiciously, but

  Smuts waved a greeting.

  "Guten Morgen, Herr Oberleutiiant." "Guten Morgen! " Luhr replied,

  clicking his heels together smartly. He inclined his head first to

  Horn, then Smuts.

  "Sit," Smuts commanded.

  "Just a moment," Horn interjected. "Show me
your mark, Herr

  Oberleutnant."

  Instantly Luhr moved to the old man's wheelchair and leaned down so that

  Horn could inspect the tiny tattoo behind his ear. Horn actually licked

  his finger and rubbed the mark to make sure it was indelible. When he

  was satisfied, he gave Luhr permission to sit down.

  "Danke, " said Luhr, taking a chair and sitting ramrod straight.

  Horn stared at Luhr some time before speaking. His one flickering eye

  lingered on the blond hair, the hard blue eyes, the trim figure and

  classical features. He nodded slowly. The young policeman had sparked

  something in his memory.

  "Has your stay in our cell taught you some respect for orders?"

  Luhr had prepared for this. "Sir, I drugged Frau Apfel only for her

  welfare, I assure you. She struggled so hard against her bonds that I

  feared she might injure herself."

  Horn's single eye glazed like a chip of ice. "There is no excuse for

  insubordination! A man who disobeys orders is a threat to everyone

  around him!"

  Luhr wiped a sheen of perspiration from his forehead.

  "But," Horn went on in a softer tone, "my security chief seems to think

  I should give you a second chance. He speaks highly of your work in

  Berlin."

  Luhr raised his chin proudly.

  "Frau Apfel will be joining us soon, Herr Oberleutnant.

  When she arrives at table, you will issue an immediate apology.

  Then the matter will be closed.. Clear?"

  "Absolutely," Luhr said solemnly. He had never balked at licking the

  proper pair of boots.

  While Linah poured coffee for Luhr, the sound of someone talking softly

  drifted around the corner of the house.

  Shortly Lord Granville appeared, wearing dark sunglasses and muttering

  to himself. A huge white square of gauze was taped high on the left

  side of his head, but it did little to conceal the massive purple bruise

  that extended from behind his ear to his left eye.

  "My God!" Smuts exclaimed, as the Englishman wobbled to the table.

  "What have you done now, Robert?" Horn asked wearily.

  "Got pissed again. Literally. Took a fall in the loo last night that

  would have killed a bloody wildebeest. Didn't break the skin, though,

  thank God. I'd have bled to death on the spot." He pulled a silver

  flask from his pocket and poured two jiggers of brandy into his coffee.

  "King and country," he toasted, and drained the mixture.