Spandau Phoenix (81 page)

Hauer felt every eye in the room upon him.

"Here is the situation as I see it: The British want to suppress the Spandau diary, and the Hess story with it. The Americans-at least in the past-have been willing to go ;along with the British. The Russians want to expose the papers and force the British to accept partial blame for what the Nazis did in the war. It's political one-upmanship."

Hauer turned his head. "Have I got that right, Professor?"

"Succinctly put, Captain."

"From the Russian point of view, one would think the Spandau papers are a minor consideration compared to the very real danger of Phoenix. If the Russians learn that a secret, extremely nationalistic group exists within the police and political hierarchies in both East and West Germany, a group bent on breaking the DDR away from Russia and uniting with West Germany, a group that has infiltrated the Stasi, there'is really no telling what they might do."

"What are you saying, Captain?"

"I'm saying that the Russians need to learn about Phoenix. In the right way, of course. I didn't tell Colonel Rose any of this, so it will all be up to you. You heard Professor Natterman. In Berlin there is a photocopy of the Spandau papers. Also in Berlin-in the house of a dead policeman named Josef Steuben-there is a fireproof safe. In that safe is a year's accumulation of evidence of drug crimes against Funk and his men. But more importantly"-Hauer paused, reluctant to reveal something that a friend had died to protect-"there is a list of every member of Bruderschaft der Phoenix whose name I could learn. The list names members on both sides of the Wall. Once the Russians know what Phoenix is, Schneider, they will give anything for that list."

The light of admiration dawned in Schneider's eyes.

"We want Phoenix crushed, yet we can't trust our own countrymen to do the job. So, as painful as it may be, we must turn to the Allies.

That means the Americans. When YOU get to Berlin, retrieve the photocopy and the list, then bide them. Then tell Colonel Rose what you have, and what YOU want. at y want is c an American supervision of a German urge of Phoenix. When the Americans agree to that, let them present the Russians with their ..own offer. I suspect it will run something like this: In exchange for continued silence about the Hess @r-which is what the British and Americans want-the Russians will be given the names of Phoenix members in the East. They can purge the Stasi at their leisure, and get the higher-ups by interrogating the Stasi members." Hauer cracked his knuckles.

"As far as I can see, everybody should be happy with that arrangement."

A strange smile flickered across Schneider's face. "I think you're in the wrong line of work, Captain. You should have been a negotiator."

"I am," Hauer told him. "A hostage negotiator."

"I thought you were a sharpshooter."

Hauer sighed. "Sometimes negotiations fail."

Schneider stood. "I'd better go. Colonel Rose said there's a plane leaving for Cairo in forty minutes, and there'll be an Army jet waiting for me there."

Hauer offered his hand. "Good luck, Detective."

Schneider's grip was like a bear's. "You come back to Berlin, Captain.

And bring your son. We need more men like YOU."

At the door Hauer spoke softly. "It's funny, Schneider. I want the same thing Phoenix wants, a united Germany, but-"

"We all want that," Schneider cut in. "But we don't want men like Funk running it.

There is a better Germany than that."

Hauer met Schneider's eyes. "We'll never get them all, you know.

Not the ones at the top. Those bastards never pay-" Schneider laid a hand on the Walther in his belt. "If the courts don't get them, Captain, there are other ways. And don't take too long here. The local police are going to start discovering corpses soon."

With that, Schneider turned and walked away, a hatted man whose shoulders stretched half the breadth of the hallway.

When Hauer walked back through the foyer, Gadi said, "Isn't there something else we can do while we wait?"

Hauer shook his head. "Stern is our only chance. We've got to wait until he calls us."

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Gadi confided. "What if Uncle Jonas can't find a way to call?"

Hauer shrugged. "Then he dies. Just like Hans and Ilse."

Perhaps inspired by Schneider, he touched the grip of his own pistol.

"Then we hunt the bastards down and kill them-every one of them."

Gadi exhaled in frustration. "So we just sit here?"

"We sit here."

"How longt' "As long as it takes."

"I don't like it, Captain. And I don't trust that detective, either."

Hauer lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. "Who cares."

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

4.55 Pm. mI-5 Headquarters, Charles Street, London Sir Neville Shaw sat alone in his darkened office, clutching the telephone receiver to his ear.

"What do you mean, you lost him?" he asked.

Swallow's low voice quavered with barely controlled hysteria.

"Someone picked him off a motorway with a helicopter. I was too far back to stop it."

Shaw rubbed his forehead. This was bad news indeed.

"Thank you for informing me," he said at length. "Your services have been appreciated, but they will no longer be needed."

"What?"

"There will be no further contact between you and this office."

"Don't give me that, you bastard!" Swallow shrieked. "I want to know where Stern went! I know you know, and you had better tell me!"

Shaw straightened up at his desk. "Listen to me very carefully.

Your orders are to stand down. Stand down as of this moment. Any further action on your part may disrupt a parallel operation, and will thus be considered not insubordination, but treason to the Crown. Is that clear?"

Swallow's laugh was like the cackling of a witch. "The Crown," she scoffed. "Listen to me, little man. I know what kind of operation this is. I know you ordered the murder of Rudolf Hess in Spandau. And if you don't tell me where Stern is now, I'll blow this story wide open.

I'll kill Stern one way or the other, and when I've done with him, I'll come for you. Now-" Shaw broke the connection. The light on his phone went dark. Seconds later Deputy Director Wilson appeared in his doorway, a darker shadow in the dim office.

"What did she want, Sir Neville?"

Shaw stared at Wilson's anxious face for a long time.

"Nothing," he said finally. "Stern's mucking about Pretoria, Swallow's on his tail. Why don't you send out for some food, old man?

Get enough for yourself. It's going to be a long night, and I want you with me."

Wilson nodded crisply. "Certainly, Sir Neville."

When Wilson had gone, Shaw consulted his map of southern Africa.

He checked the scale against a line he had drawn from the Mozambique Channel to a sand-colored blank spot near the Kruger Park.

As if in a dream, he saw two tiny helicopters flying slowly across the map, somewhere along that line. Parallel operation, he thought, remembering his words to Swallow. He hoped Alan Burton had better luck than Swallow did. Burton was the last chance for the secret to stay hidden.

Shaw took his favorite pipe from the stand on his desk and began rummaging for his tobacco. Jonas Stern Must be good indeed to have eluded that she-devil, he thought. He wondered about Swallow's death threat as he sucked on the, cold pipe stem, but he soon put it out of his mind. At this point in time, a deranged assassin was the least of his worries.

5.00 Pm. MozambiquelSouth Africa Border

The two helicopters flew in tandem, noses dipped for speed as they swept across the coastal plain north of Maputo. In the seat next to Alan Burton, Juan Diaz cursed under his breath. They had spent half the day in a guerilla camp that looked like an outpost from hell.

Ragged tents pitched in the middle of a desert, cannibalized army trucks, emaciated black men carrying rusty AK-47s, girls of twelve or thirteen stolen from nearby villages and forced into whoredom by the soldiers: the dogs had looked healthier than the people.

"Who were those bastards?" asked Diaz, who had a fair grasp of English.

"The MNR, sport," Burton replied. "Bloody wags. Fascists, to boot.

You're lucky they didn't know you were a communist.?' Diaz spat and muttered something in Spanish.

"I didn't like it any more than you, Juan boy. But we had to stop to pay them. Those fuzzy-wuzzies are providing our diversion this evening.

Plus, it was a good place to lie up.

That freighter was too exposed."

Diaz leaned out to make sure his sister ship was close behind.

"Who are they trying to divert for us, English?"

"Government air forces. There's a Mozambican base about a hundred miles south of here, and a South African one further south."

"Ay-ay-ay," Diaz groaned. "What's based there?"

"In Mozambique? The usual African complement. Transport craft, helos, a few outdated fighters. But the South Africans have it all."

The Cuban crossed himself and dropped the chopper even closer to the plain.

"You didn't think an incursion into South Africa would be a stroll on the beach, did you?"

Suddenly a torrent of what sounded like gibberish to Diaz burst out of the African ether and filled the cabin. Burton leaned forward and began transmitting in a slower, broken version of the same language. When he finished, he replaced the transmitter and settled back into his seat with a trace of a smile on his lips.

"Takes me back, that does."

"What was that shit?"

"Portuguese, sport. Language of a lost empire."

"Everything still okay?" the pilot asked nervously.

"Bloody marvelous, I'd say."

Burton felt like a different man after the confinement of the ocean voyage. He was glad to be back in Africa. The only complication so far had been the "observer" that the MNR guerilla chief had foisted on him.

The observer was a giant black named Alberto who carried a frightening arsenal of grenades, knives, and pistols. But when Burton thought of The Deal, he refused to let Alberto worry him. The guerilla looked like more of a soldier than any of the Colombians, and if he got in the way, Burton could always kill him. The Englishman reckoned there might be a good deal of killing 1

before this mission was done. But that was all right. England had never seemed closer than it did just now.

6.07 Pm. Horn House, The Northern Transvaal Jonas Stern waited alone in the vast reception hall of Horn House, praying that Ilse Apfel possessed more nerve and presence of mind than her overwrought husband.

By all rights she should be in worse shape, emotionally speaking.

But something about the way Natterman had talked about the girl gave Stern hope. Maybe she had the sand to do it.

Maybe"Herr Professor?"

The voice emanated from a dark hallway to Stern's left.

He turned to see Pieter Smuts emerge from the shadows.

"That's right," said Stern, putting his full concentration into each syllable of German. "Professor Emeritus Georg Natterman, of the Free University of Berlin. Who are you?" Smuts smiled bleakly. "I believe you have something for me, Professor?"

Stern regarded the Afrikaner with imperious detachment.

"Where is my granddaughter?"

"First the papers."

Playing the role of arrogant academic to the hilt, Stern raised his chin and looked down his nose at Smuts. "I'll not give the Spandau papers to anyone but the man who can prove they are his rightful property.

Frankly, I doubt anyone here can do that."

The Afrikaner grimaced. "Herr Professor, it is only my employer's extreme patience which has kept me from-" An invisible bell cut Smuts off in mid-sentence. "One moment," he said, and disappeared down the hall from which he had come.

Glancing around the grand reception hall, Stern wondered what madman had constructed this surreal schloss on the highveld. He took a couple of tentative steps down the opposite corridor, but Smuts's returning footsteps brought him back almost immediately.

"Follow me, Herr Professor," the Afrikaner said stiffly.

In the dimly lit library, Alfred Horn sat motionless behind an enormous desk, his one good eye focused on the man he believed to be Professor Georg Natterman.

Stern hesitated at the door. He had expected to be brought before a young English nobleman named Granville, not a man twenty years his senior.

"Come closer, Herr Professor," Horn said. "Take a seat."

"I'll stand, thank you," Stern said uncertainly. He saw little more than a shadow at the desk. He tried to determine the shadow's nationality by its voice, but found it difficult. The man spoke German like a native, but there were other inflections too.

"As you wish," Horn said. "You wanted to see me?"

Stern squinted into the gloom. Slowly, the amorphous features of the shadow coalesced into the face of an old man.