Spandau Phoenix (83 page)

Ilse caught his arm, meaning to restrain him, but,when Stern whirled, something in his eyes moved her into some region beyond logic, beyond reason. She counted to three, and together they flung themselves against the wood.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

7,05 Pm. MozambiquelSouth Africa Border The helicopters stormed northward on the Mozambique side of the border, hugging the plain between the Lebombo Mountains and the Limpopo River. Occasionally they jinked westward long enough for Burton to take bearings. The Englishman knew this part of Africa well, and the Kruger Park had enough landmarks to keep him oriented.

The border itself, a garish scar of bare earth bisected by a huge electric fence, divided two countries that might have been different continents. On the Mozambique side, a desolate war-ravaged plain stretched toward the sea. On the South African side, the lushness of the Kruger Park began immediately. Wide green troughs of river in vegetation snaked westward out of sight. Forests of mopane, Sycamore fig, and Natal mahogany sheltered herds of elephant and zebra, white rhino and lion.

"Take her back up!" Alan Burton ordered.

Juan Diaz breathed a sigh of relief. The Cuban pilot prided himself on his flying skill, but this crazy English gringo had badgered him about the altitude until he wondered if the man had a secret death wish.

Burton pointed to the north and shouted above the rotor noise "We want to keep on this heading until we see the Olifants River! Then we'll veer west and cross the park at treetop level!" He showed Diaz the map.

"The house we want lies about halfway between the western edge of the park and this little town here." Burton pointed to Giyani, then indicated an X marked about fifteen kilometers from the western edge of the Kruger Park.

Diaz nodded, then returned his gaze to the plain below.

"The Kruger Park's about the size of Wales," Burton told him.

"But it's thin-runs north to south."

Diaz ignored him.

"Probably never heard of Wales, eh?" Burton laughed.

"The Prince of Wales?"

Diaz shook his head. Either the Cuban hadn't understood or he simply did not want to be bothered. Burton switched to a more relevant subject. "That fence down there," he yelled, pointing westward, "11,500

volts! They fry a whole gang of Mozambican refugees on that thing every year.

Bloody awful."

The Cuban grimaced. He knew about dead refugees.

Glancing back into the cabin of the JetRanger, Burton looked the Colombian soldiers over again. The presence of 'Alberto, the big MNR

observer, made them look even more unprofessional. "What do you think of our South American friends, Diaz?" he yelled.

The Cuban pilot did not share Burton's confidence in the deafness of the Colombians. He pulled the Englishman's head down near his own.

"Banditos, " he muttered. "No soldiers." He cut his eyes back toward the cabin, then crossed himself so that only Burton could see.

"Bloody hell." Burton had hoped Diaz might know something encouraging about the Colombians that he didn't. Suddenly the Englishman sighted a silver serpentine glittering beneath the dark clouds to the north.

"There's the river!"

he shouted, Diaz nodded, then banked westward and dove for the plain.

Their sister ship followed closely, behind and to the right.

The green sea of the Kruger Park rushed toward them.

The JetRangers skimmed over the border fence and swept westward over the verdant foliage below. Burton saw a herd of antelope raising a huge cloud of dust as they fled the noise of the approaching choppers. Diaz pointed to the dark cloud ceiling above them.

"Much rain when it comes?"

"Buckets this time of year!"

Diaz frowned, but Burton smiled wryly. The weather didn't worry him; that was the pilots' problem. But the accuracy of his intelligence reports did. Who in hell was the English informer who supposedly waited inside the target house? Probably anything but a soldier, Burton thought ruefully. The informer had reported that Alfred Horn relied primarily upon isolation for security-isolation and a neoNazi security chief. Burton wondered if the informer would even recognize defensive measures if he saw them. Swallowing his anxiety, he slapped Diaz on the back and grinned.

"Rain's good for us!" he yelled. "Better cover!"

Diaz glanced doubtfully back into the cabin where the bearded Colombians crouched. He dropped a little closer to the trees.

Horn House: The Northern Transvaal

Ilse sat opposite Alfred Horn at the long mahogany dining table and stared sullenly at her plate. All the other chairs were empty. In spite of their furious efforts, she and Stern had been unable to break out of the bedroom before Linah arrived to take them to dinner. Stern had pleaded an unsettled stomach, so Ilse had come alone. She wondered if the old Israeli was still trying. As Linah leaned over her left shoulder to pour white wine, she looked up at Horn.

"Where is everyone?" she asked, trying to hold her voice steady.

"Pieter has work to do," Horn replied. "And of course your grandfather remains in your bedroom." He smiled. "I believe he would rather finish reading that notebook I gave him than eat."

Ilse lifted her fork and tried to make a show of eating.

Stern had advised her to carry on as she had been, but now that she knew Hans was almost surely somewhere inside the house, she couldn't contain herself. "Where is my husband?" she cried suddenly.

Horn looked up slowly from his plate. "He has not yet arrived, my dear."

"Liar! He's here!"

Horn swallowed some wine, then set his crystal goblet on the table.

"Who told you that?" he asked quietly. "Your grandfather?"

"No one. I ... I just feel it."

"Ah, woman's intuition. An overrated faculty, I've found.

Do not worry, your Hans will arrive soon."

Ilse 9 uivered with anger. "You're lying," she said stubbornly.

'Hans is here."

Horn slammed his frail hand against the table, rattling the silver.

"I will not tolerate this at my table! You will behave as a German woman should or-" At that moment Pieter Smuts marched into the dining room with Jiirgen Luhr on his heels. "Aircraft approaching the house, sir," he announced. "fwo blips, so far. They're at the edge of the Kruger Park now."

"What type of aircraft, Pieter?"

Smuts smiled coldly. "No radio contact, no IFF, but from their speed I would guess helicopters."

Horn sighed deeply. "@ the bunkers manned?"

"Yes, sir." Smuts's face was taut. "Everyone's in place."

"And Lord Granville?"

The Afrikaner shook his head. "I'm not sure where he is."

While the men spoke, Ilse slid her right arm off of the table, taking her silver dinner fork and salad fork with it.

"Take Frau Apfel to her room," said Horn. "Then get to the tower.

I'll be in my study."

"But, sir, with Granville loose-" Horn silenced the Afrikaner by ringing a hand bell that summoned Linah. "To the tower, Pieter," he commanded.

"I am in no danger."

"Bring the girl," Smuts told Luhr, and hurried out.

"Frau Apfel?" Luhr motioned for Ilse to stand. He forced himself to smile. As soon as Linah had wheeled Horn Out Of the dining room, however, he snatched Ilse up by the arm and dragged her into the hall.

"Lock her in!" Smuts called from up the corridor. "Then meet me at the reception hall elevator!"

When Ilse and Luhr reached the bedroom door, she reached into her pocket and closed her hand around one of the forks. She thought of driving it into Luhr's neck, but she did not. Better to let Stern make a move if he thought the time was right.

Stern didn't get the chance. Luhr turned the knob quickly and kicked open the door, knocking, the Israeli backward onto the floor.

He laughed, then shoved Ilse inside and jerked the door shut.

Ilse pulled the silver forks from her pocket and tossed them to Stern.

"Get us out of here!" she snapped. "Now!"

When the elevator door opened in the domed observatory tower, Jiirgen Luhr stepped into a room unlike any he had ever seen. He had once been admitted to the control tower of Frankfurt International Airport, but even that see primitive compared to this futuristic command post.

Computer screens, satellite receivers, amplifiers, massive banks of switches, closed-circuit television monitors, and countless other pieces of high-tech equipment hung from the ceiling and rose from the carpeted floor. An eerie green glow bathed the circular room, silhouetting three men dressed in khaki who ceaselessly monitored the various surveillance consoles.

One man made way for Smuts, who took a seat before a phosphorescent radar screen.

"Who is in the helicopters?" Luhr asked.

Smuts smiled thinly. "I'm not sure, but you can bet they're friends of Lord Granville, our pet English nobleman.

You see those switches there? The red ones?"

"Here?" asked Luhr, reaching.

"Don't touch them! Christ! Look at the markings. North, East, South, West. When I call a direction, pull the first switch for that heading.

When I call it again, pull the second. Got it?"

Luhr nodded. "What do they do?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

Taking a last look at the radar screen, Smuts moved to the center of the room, ascended a short ladder, 'and climbed into the strangest contraption Luhr had ever seen. A monstrosity of steel tubing, pedals, gears, and hydraulic lines, it looked like something stripped from the belly of a World War Two vintage bomber. Protruding from this strange machine were six long narrow metal tubes joined at the center and extending to within an inch of the dome's wall. Suddenly, Luhr realized what he was looking at: a Vulcan 20mm rotary cannon. He had seen them many times in Germany, jutting from the stubby snouts of American A-IO

tank-killing warplanes.

"Hit the blue switch," Smuts ordered.

Luhr obeyed, and watched in wonder as a narrow oblong section of the domed ceiling receded into a hidden slot in the wall. Smuts touched a button; the barrels of the Vulcan gun moved forward through the opening like the barrel of a telescope. Now the gun could be traversed on a vertical axis.

"Hit the next switch down." Luhr gasped as the middle four feet of the circular wall sank into the floor with . a deep hum. Through the bulletresistant polycarbonate glass that now served as the wall, Luhr could see a 360-degree panorama of the grounds surrounding Horn House.

The sky was heav and nearly black with impending rain. Four hundred meters to the north, Horn's Leadet and helicopter sat like toys in the fast-fading light.

"Next," said Smuts.

Luhr hit the final blue switch, immersing the room in near-total darkness. Only the luminous green radar screens competed with the gray light outside the turret. Smuts pulled down a leather harness and buckled it across his chest. Then he grasped two elongated tubes and positioned them directly over his eyes. Luhr realized they were laser targeting goggles.

"Sit down and strap yourself in," Smuts ordered.

"Why?ll Scowling, Smuts jabbed a foot pedal. Instantly the turret began to rotate, throwing Luhr to the floor.

"Don't ever question my orders, Lieutenant."

Luhr scrambled to his feet and buckled himself into the chair. On the radar screen to his left, two tiny blips crossed the line indicating the western edge of the Kruger National Park, then turned southwest toward an H marked on the screen in grease pencil.

"Fifteen kilometers and closing," announced a khaki-clad technician.

"Approach speed 110 knots."

Luhr watched the fuzzy green specks pass slightly to the north of the H, then veer left and bore straight in. "Who are they?" he asked, unable to suppress his apprehension.

"Dead men," Smuts replied from the gun cage.

Hans Apfel could not move. He lay in the absolute darkness of a cell one hundred meters below the earth. This was the same cell in which Jiirgen Luhr had spent his first night in South Africa. Hans was bound to a heavy cot with rope and gagged with a thick strip of cloth.

He could only breathe through his nose. No sound had reached his ears for hours, save the occasional sibilant hiss of a ventilator blowing air into his cell.

Suddenly, a deep, buzzing alarm blasted through the basement complex.

Every muscle in Hans's body contracted in shock. What was happening? A fire? For the hundredth time he expelled every ounce of air from his lungs and tried to shift his body on the cot. It was no use. He had never felt so

'

helpless in his life. Yet despite his fear for Ilse, one desperate hope flickered in his brain: Is it my father?

"I've almost got it," Stern grunted, working feverishly at the lock on the bedroom door. By intertwining the tines of Ilse's stolen forks and snapping off several, he'd managed to fashion the dinner fork into a serviceable lock pick.

"Hurry!" Ilse urged. "I don't think we have much time."

"Did Horn seem upset?" Stern asked, still working. "Surprised?