by Greg Iles
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR THE NOVELS OF GREG ILES
MORTAL FEAR
“An exuberant, relentlessly readable thriller with a high degree of stay-up-all-night-suspense; up-to-the-minute technology will delight Net surfers and Anne Rice fans.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“The talented Iles uses rich first-person narration and clever plotting to tell a sizzler of a thriller.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A brilliant serial killer thriller with a lead protagonist who is an antihero turned hero. Pass on all the other novels in this subgenre and go straight to this one. A winner.”
—Harriet Klausner for Amazon.com
“I couldn’t stop reading.”
—Nancy Wartik, Mademoiselle
SPANDAU PHOENIX
“A scorching read. . . an irresistible plot . . . suspense in every paragraph.”
—John Grisham
“An incredible web of intrigue and suspense, an avalanche of action.”
—Clive Cussler
“A terrific thriller. . . a remarkable, impressive novel.”
—Nelson DeMille
“Masterful action and suspense . . . a sizzling hot read.”
—Stephen Coonts
“Amazing . . . a masterwork . . . a towering novel . . . a thriller whose depth and scope are sweeping.”
—The Tampa Tribune
“Filled with action, interesting characters, and a compelling plot, Spandau Phoenix is a fascinating mixture of political critique and technothriller.”
—New York Daily News
BLACK CROSS
“A thriller that really thrills . . . on fire with suspense!”
—Stephen King
“Totally absorbing . . . a well-written, fast-paced what-if novel . . . that will be treasured and admired by and for generations.”
—Nelson DeMille
“Good enough to be read twice. Iles delivers a swift historical thriller of such brutal accomplishment that it vaporizes almost every cliché about the limits of the genre.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“This book will keep your heart thumping.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Dutton edition.
First Signet Printing, February 1998
Copyright © Greg Iles, 1997
All rights reserved
eISBN : 978-1-101-20906-6
See page 705 for author copyrights and permissions.
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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“Levon” written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, copyright © 1971 Dick James Music, Ltd. Used by permission; all rights reserved.
Quote from The Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, copyright © 1961 by Grove Press; published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Used by permission.
“Still Crazy After All These Years” by Paul Simon, copyright © 1974 Paul Simon/Paul Simon Music (BMI); used by permission of the Publisher.
“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” words and music by John Lennon and Paul McCartney © 1969 Sony/ATV Songs LLC; all rights administered by EMI Blackwood Music Inc., under license from Sony/ATV LLC (BMI). All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission.
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For my wife, Dr. Carrie McGee Iles, the light at both ends of the tunnel.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, to Natasha Kern, my literary agent.
To Ed Stackler, a young editor of the old school, one of the last in a business that doesn’t have time for it anymore.
Many thanks to Elaine Koster for wise guidance.
Special thanks to Stephen King.
To Michaela Hamilton for pinch-hitting, Peter Schneider for creative thinking, Hank Doliner on general principles, and the team at Dutton/Signet for their expertise and commitment.
Special thanks to Oriana Green, for contributions too numerous to list here, thank God.
Special thanks to Robert and Frances Royal.
Special thanks to “woodyq.”
I owe a great debt to Lou Jacobs, D.O., for generou
sly sharing his insights and experience in neurological surgery.
For general medical assistance: Jerry Iles, M.D., Michael Bourland, M.D., Tom Carey, M.D., John White, M.D., Tom Weed, M.D.
Forensics: Natalie (Raven), the published works of John Douglas, Robert Ressler, Ann Burgess, and Allen Burgess.
For miscellaneous assistance: Robert Savant, D.V.M., John McGee, D.D.S., Keith Rayburn, Jim Easterling, Beverly Halpern, Geoff Iles, John Lanzon, Robert Hag, Mary Lou England, Noah Archer, M.D., Trish Archer, Finley Hootsell, John, George, and Win.
Thanks to the members of CompuServe and America Online, who helped in myriad ways, especially Pat Reinken and Emery Werberg.
I am especially indebted to the works of Joseph Campbell, Camille Paglia, Steven Levy, Jeffrey Burton Russell, Carl Jung, Neil Finn, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and Sting.
Readers: Courtney Aldridge, Betty Iles.
As always, thanks to Madeline for patience, and to her grandmothers for keeping her off my lap long enough to get it done.
All mistakes are mine.
Prologue
Dear Father,
We landed in New Orleans yesterday evening.
A humid city.
Flat, low, dispersed. A single grouping of tall buildings in the distance.
The taxi driver was a Cajun, surprisingly. A thin brown wrinkled man. Rather like getting a Chinese cabbie in Chinatown. I expected an Eastern European, as I see everywhere else.
He kept glancing into the rearview mirror as we passed through a town he called “Metry”—a place where the whites once fled to escape “da niggas.” Now they flee across Lake Pontchartrain. I worked at the computer in my lap but kept an ear open to his words.
Night descended over a rising moon as we swept onto an elevated section of freeway and passed the Superdome. Kali must have been a black shadow to him, beside me in the backseat, a shadow with bright black eyes.
She wanted to kill the driver.
I could feel it.
In her handbag, the scarf—sacred weapon. I see an image in her mind: he stops at a traffic light as we descend the ramp to the lower world of surface streets. She slips the noose around his throat and silently steals his life. . . .
I lay a hand lightly on her wrist and feel a twitch that verifies my sense. She is ready.
I know that if I slide my hand beneath her sari I will find her moist. She lives for these nights.
I hope the security is no tighter than I expect.
I slide my hand beneath her sari.
She is wet. Burning.
Time is fire.
So opposite we are, so perfectly opposite. I understand restraint. Control. The defiance of it.
Kali understands only being.
She lets her head loll back on the car seat, black eyes glittering beneath half-closed lids. I move my hand as we descend the ramp onto Poydras, possibly saving the driver’s life.
We move toward Canal and the French Quarter.
Kali climaxes soundlessly.
The driver smells her. Pungent, fierce. I see alertness in the back of his neck, the angle of his head. His eyes dart to the rearview mirror. A whore? he wonders.
Kali smiles at him in the mirror. There is death in her smile. Death that a man might walk willingly into. She is startlingly beautiful. And so she should be.
You paid her father good money for her.
We exited the taxi at Galatoire’s, entered the restaurant, then left and changed cabs twice again. Tiresome but effective.
Security was heavy at the mansion, but no worse than I had expected. A small army, as befits an American cult figure. Bodyguards hired from God-knows-what agency—probably some outfit run by an ex-policeman who swilled Jax on the job for twenty years.
The ironwork of the fence was exquisite. The French influence. I let my right hand graze the points as we moved along it. They would bruise me, I knew, but I felt fit. Almost reckless. The grillwork matched that on the second-story balconies.
Quaint.
The street was crowded with all manner of tourists. Gawkers, most of them. I inclined my head as we passed the gate guards. One nodded slightly, glanced at my briefcase. The other followed Kali with his eyes. Even the billowing sari could not hide the hard contours of her body.
“After we turn the corner?” she asked.
“If the crowd thins.”
When we turned the corner, the crowd melted away as though scattered by a stage manager. Kali bunched up her sari and was over the ironwork in seconds, into the palm fronds and banana trees. I was more careful. I passed the briefcase through the bars, then worked my way over.
We stood together in the dripping trees, looking at the floodlit face of the mansion. Solid stonework, like an outbuilding of Versailles. Kali’s hand dropped to my distended zipper. She lightly squeezed me, a nurse checking a pulse.
I shivered. “We must wait.”
A short intake of breath. “How long?”
I crouched in the tenebrous foliage, booted up the computer, and logged back on to EROS. “She’s still at her computer. She’s searching for me.”
“Then let her find you.”
I shut off the computer and put it back into the case. “The rightmost upper window,” I said, recalling the photocopied blueprints that the archives so dutifully sent me. “Now.”
Crossing the open ground between fence and mansion was daunting for me. For Kali nothing. She believes we are invisible in such moments. Less than shadows. We are our intent.
I opened my briefcase beneath the side balcony. Kali took out the rope and hurled the rubberized hook over the ironwork of the balcony rail. She climbs like a thief.
I tossed up the briefcase.
A rape kit, police would call it.
But it is so much more.
I came prepared for resistance, but the French doors on the balcony were open. So often it happens that way. Evil is an invited guest.
Kali pulled the rope up after us.
We moved up the hallway together. Thick carpeting. Conditioned air whispering out of the ceiling. Somewhere the regular groan of a ceiling fan slowly turning.
I followed the groan.
It led us to the master bedroom. Kali took up her post beside the door. I see it again and again, fate unraveling into chaos:
I open the door as softly as possible.
The patient is seated before her computer, her back to me. She wears a long, flowing garment, like something from one of her early novels. You should tape a penny to one of the blades to stop that noise, I want to say. But I don’t. Instead I say:
“I have come, Karin.”
The chair tips onto the carpet as she bounds out of it in voiceless terror. Her eyes mostly white behind her glasses. She is heavier than her publicity pictures. The eyes dart to my exposed hand, searching for a knife or a gun. But it is empty.
“How did you get in?” she whispers.
I do not dignify this.
“Wh-who are you?”
“Prometheus.”
Her eyes widen beyond the point I believe possible. “But I was just—” She looks back at her computer. “How . . . ?”
“It is not important. I have come for you at last. To give you what you most desire.”
She stares, her brain obviously thrumming behind the glassy eyes. “How—Do you have a car for us?” she asks finally.
“I thought you might call for one of yours.”
“Yes,” she says much too quickly. “If you’ll just let me get some things—”
“No.”
She freezes near her bedside table. Her eyes dart downward, then back to my face. It is breaking down. Kali was right: fantasy and reality are alternate universes. I come to save, but who can grasp great purpose with vision clouded by terror? My hopes crash around me like shattered icons. I slip my right hand behind my back and grip the butt of the pistol.
“Karin?” I plead, offering one last chance.
Then her mask cracks, revealing her p
anic as she stabs a hand at the bedside table. I see a button there. An alarm.
I have no choice but to fire.
The feathers of the dart bloom in the midline, just above where her navel must be. The patient looks down with animal incomprehension and pulls out the dart, but it is much too late for that. Then she runs. The brave ones usually do.
She runs right at me. Not actually at me, but toward me, because I stand between her and the door.
I let her run past me.
She gasps.
I turn.
Kali stands in the doorway. Faithful Kali. Saffron sari, nut-brown skin, jet hair, blacker eyes. She holds a dagger, wickedly curved. A fearsome instrument. Simple. Effective in two dimensions, the physical and the psychological.
The patient turns to me for some explanation. How powerfully her heart must be beating!
“Kali,” I say, regretting every moment.
The patient starts at the sound of Kali closing the door, watches the young woman move lithely across the floor with my briefcase, like a dark angel.
Kali sets the case on the floor, then stands and unfastens her sari. It falls to the carpet, leaving her utterly naked. I watch the patient trying to work out what is happening as the Ketamine cocktail courses through her system. Why is the Indian woman undressing? Just before she loses consciousness, she might work it out. That Kali is undressing to keep her clothes free of blood.
I must disrobe as well, but first I walk to the computer, log off, type a few commands, and shut off the machine. Then I return to the patient, kneel, and open my briefcase.
