Spandau Phoenix (34 page)

"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 strength to drag the linen chest from the foot of the bed and wedge @it against the bedroom door. When he had blocked it as well as he could, he picked up the telephone beside the bed.

Dead as Karl, he thought bitterly. Pinching his bloody nostrils closed, he surveyed the room. A washstand. A chair.

An old pine armoire. His father's bed beside the window.

The window!

Even as Natterman realized his vulnerability, he saw a pale hand working just over the sill, trying to force the glass upward. He obliterated the window with a double-barreled blast, gibbering like a madman as he did. The stress had finally overcome him. Like a drunkard he staggered over to the armoire and heaved and pushed until finally it slid across the gaping window. Then he collapsed in a heap against it, not even trying to stop the blood that continued to plop onto his heaving chest.

His last act before he fainted was to chamber two more rounds into the Mannlicher.

142 A.m. The Northern Transvaal, Republic of South Africa Alfred Horn sat hunched in his motorized wheelchair, his prehensile forearms pressing a leopardskin rug against his arthritic knees, and stared into the fire. As always, his mind raced back and forth between past and present, searching for causes and connections, cataloguing injustices to be avenged. Perhaps it was his advanced years, but to Horn the present seemed merely a small space between two doorsone leading back into a past he could not change-the other opening onto a future that, after five decades of planning and struggle and living with defeat, promised the fulfillment of ultimate destiny. Time was short, he knew, and growing shorter. Did he have a week or a month before his ability to leave his imprint upon the world was stolen from him? He needed a month. How ironic, he reflected, that his knowledge of the past posed the greatest threat to his plans for the future. But he was nearly ready. A soft knock sounded behind him. He answered without turning his gaze from the fire.

"Yes?"

The door opened soundlessly. Smuts stood silently at attention.

"What news from Berlin, Pieter?"

"There's a flurry of British and Russian intelligence activity, sir. I'm almost certain they have not located the papers.

No sign so far of Israeli involvement."

"But what of our two policemen, Pieter? They have the papers."

"Sir, Berlin-One informs me that while he has not yet captured the young man whom he believes found the papers, he does have custody of the man's wife."

Horn pondered this intelligence. At length he said, "We shall have them all here. Bring the woman, the man will follow. Send a jet tonight."

"I've already ordered it done, sir."

"Good. Can the husband be reached by phone?"

Smuts cleared his throat. "We haven't located him yet, sir."

While Horn's glass eye remained immobile, his good eye flickered with birdlike suspicion over his security chief's lanky frame, finally settling on his craggy face. Under its unrelenting gaze, Smuts shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

"Pieter?" Horn asked finally.

"Yes, sir?"

"Our two policemen have escaped from West Berlin, haven't they?"

To Smuts's credit, he did not dissimulate. "That appears likely, sir.

The older man-Hauer-apparently has a great deal of influence in Berlin.

We have a man waiting at their last known destination-a cabin near Wolfsburg-but he hasn't reported in."

Horn toyed with a poker in the stand. "These policemen are proving to be a credit to their race, Pieter. After you've drawn them here, we must see what our young friend has dug from the rubble of Spandau."

"It will be done."

"Tell me, how will you convince the young husband that you have his wife if you haven't reached him by the time she's airborne?"

Smuts suppressed a smile. Horn's attention to the smallest details of an operation constantly surprised him. "A simple matter really, sir,"

he explained. "Audio recordings on two separate tape machines.

Prerecorded affirmatives and negatives to be used as needed, with a short statement to open the exchange. With adequate noise reduction the results are quite convincing."

"Excellent, Pieter. I'm pleased."

Smuts's boot heels cracked like a muffled pistol shot.

Horn unconsciously picked at the stippled scar tissue around his glass eye. "I've been thinking, Pieter. I want you to shut down all our drug and weapons trading for the time being. I want no roads leading from the outside world to here."

Smuts nodded. "Very good, sir. We do have that shipment of gold coming

from Colombia, though, payment for our ether. Two million dollars in bullion. It's coming by ship, and the ship is almost here."

Horn considered this. "We'll let her land, then. But everything else shuts down."

"Yes, sir."

"When the policeman's wife arrives, bring her directly to me.

It's so seldom I get a chance to meet young Germans anymore. I should like very much to speak with her."

"Meet her? But, sir, the risks-"

"Nonsense, Pieter. If you are present, what are the risks?"

Smuts nodded. "As you command."

Horn eyed Smuts appraisingly. "Anything else?"

"Beg your pardon, sir?"

Horn frowned. "The radiation leak. You failed to update me on your progress."

Smuts colored. "I'm sorry, sir. I've been meeting with the engineers about the runway extension." He raised his fore arm and read the time from the inside of his wrist. "The leak was contained as of two hours ago. Minimal exposure to personnel, the basement lab is clean."

"Any word on our cobalt case?"

"No, sir. I'm sorry."

"All right, Pieter. Dismissed."

"Sir!" Again the boots fired, and Smuts disappeared.

In spite of his frustration, Horn smiled wistfully. A jungfrau, he thought, a true daughter of the Fatherland My God, how long has it been since I spoke with a German woman who wasn't raised in this savage country?

"Pieter!" he called suddenly.

Smuts raced back into the room, a Beretta pistol in his hand.

"I'm sorry," Horn apologized, "I spoke too loudly. More wood for the fire, that's all. My joints are driving me mad."

Smuts holstered his weapon. "Yes, sir."

Without hesitation, a man who had commanded troops with distinction across half the African continent marched to a woodpile less than a yard from his employer's chair, added a fresh log to the fire, and stoked the flames beneath it.

"How's that, sir?"

"Fine, Pieter. Fine." Horn slumped back into his padded wheelchair and there, motionless until dawn, slept the sleep of the saved.

1.50 AW. Togel Airfield, West Berlin

"Wing tanks full," the pump jockey said, screwing down the tank cap. He scurried down the hydraulic ladder and onto the tarmac of the fueling area. "On account?" he asked.

Handsomely dressed in a tailored gray suit, Lieutenant Jijrgen Luhr nodded curtly, then marched up the ramp that fed into the belly of the sleek Lear turbojet. On the plush carpeted floor of the passenger cabin, trussed from head to toe with industrial tape, Ilse Apfel struggled desperately to breathe.

"Try to relax, Frau Apfel," Luhr said. "The trip will be much more comfortable for us both."

With great difficulty Ilse inclined her head toward the blond policeman and glared. She hoped defiance would mask the abject terror squirming in her stomach. One hour ago she had been forced to watch this insane lieutenant drag a knife across the throat of Sergeant Josef Steuben.

Ilse had never met Steuben, but she had vomited from sheer horror.

And beneath the horror, she cursed herself for her stupidity.

How could she have walked right into the arms of these ruthless animals?

"It's useless to struggle," Luhr advised. "I would have preferred more subtle measures myself, but I'm told that our host is opposed to the use of drugs. Quite ironic, considering the source of some of his income."

Luhr tapped a small syringe against his armrest. "I'm sure this has all been a shock to you," he said, "but it's only the result of your husband's stupidity. However, in spite of that-and for reasons quite beyond my understanding-you, as well as 1, are to be granted a great opportunity. Tomorrow we're going to meet the man who owns this jet. It is a great honor." Luhr chuckled to himself. "Or so I've been led to believe."

The walls of the Lear thrummed as the engines spooled up for the taxi run.

"Still," he said, "I don't think we need all that constricting tape."

Ilse struggled harder. Luhr grinned.."You're sure you wouldn't like a little sedative? We have a long flight ahead." He stood carefully, holding his head sideways beneath the low cabin ceiling. He towered over Ilse on the floor. "Although," he said heavily, "I think we might arrange some interesting inflight diversions."

As if about to relieve himself, Luhr unzipped his trousers and withdrew a large, uncircumcised penis. While Ilse stared in disgust, he tugged himself eagerly, watching her reaction.

She wasn't frightened by the sight of his organ-most Berlin girls have seen their share of male anatomy-it was his eyes.

In a single instant all humanity had gone out of them. As the grunting lieutenant r)ulled at himself, his blue eyes burned not with lust, but @with blind, furious hatred. Jiirgen Luhr wanted to do more than rape Ilse-he @anted to kill her-to rape her to death if he could.

She shut her eyes tight and forced her mind away from this place, back to a time just after she and Hans were married. They had gone to Munich to visit Hans's mother, at a small Pfahlbauten on the long silver lake outside the city.

Frau Jaspers, n6e Apfel, had @een bitchy, but Hans and Ilse had spent hours together on the water, paddling a small boat and "You think you can handle this?" Luhr rasped, brandishing his organ. "You're going to get it ways you never even dreamed about-" Suddenly the plane lurched, forward. Luhr lost his balance and fell back into his seat, laughing wildly. Ilse struggled in vain against the tape, trapped like a living mummy. Putting himself back into his trousers, Luhr leaned back in his seat and sighed deeply. "Plenty of time for that," he muttered.

The madness had faded from his eyes. He leisurely raised a gleaming boot and prodded Ilse's bottom, then laughed again.