Spandau Phoenix

by Iles, Greg

  Gadi’s jaw dropped.

  “But I’m in command,” Hauer pressed.

  General Steyn pursed his lips. “Tactical command,” he allowed.

  Hauer breathed a sigh of satisfaction. “Make your calls, General.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  5.51 p.m. Horn House

  Jonas Stern’s head, chest, and ankles had been scraped bloody by the leather restraining straps of the X-ray table. Blinding white light stabbed his eyes. He had counted forty blasts of the X-ray unit already, and in between he had heard the muffled voices of the men behind the heavy lead shield. His murderers. They had asked no questions, given no explanations, and Stern needed none. He was a Jew.

  “That’s 150 rads,” said a voice Stern recognized as Pieter Smuts’s.

  “How much is that?” asked a second, eager voice. Jürgen Luhr.

  “How much can he take?”

  “Oh, quite a bit more,” Smuts replied. “And he will.”

  “Just a moment,” said a hoarse, high-pitched voice.

  Stern heard the hum of an electric wheelchair, and then Hess rounded the lead shield. Stern tried to move his head to look, but the straps held him fast. He saw only the brilliant white light overhead. Hess chuckled beside his ear.

  “Pieter has devised a rather ingenious method of eliminating my Jewish problem, wouldn’t you say, Herr Stern?”

  Stern said nothing.

  “I wanted you punished, you see,” Hess explained, “but I also wanted you to live long enough to see your country destroyed.”

  “He may not actually see it, sir,” Smuts interjected as he stepped around the shield. “In a few hours he will experience blindness similar to that caused by flash burns. He may or may not recover his sight.”

  Hess’s face darkened. “But he will live long enough to know that Israel is no more?”

  “If the Libyans stick to the schedule, yes. We could stretch this out for months, if you like.”

  Hess shook his head. “Just long enough for the Jew to see what happens to Israel. What will become of him after that?”

  Smuts’s voice took on a clinical detachment. “It varies. This dosage will cause severe nausea and vomiting for the next twenty-four hours. He’ll have deep burns, bloody diarrhea, his hair will fall out, there’ll be bone marrow destruction—”

  Hess raised his hand. “How much can he stand and survive for two weeks?”

  “I wouldn’t push it over 500 rads, sir. Not if you want him to live until the detonation.”

  When Stern finally spoke, his voice was a knife blade. “In one week, Hess, you will stand in the dock before a war crimes tribunal in Jerusalem.”

  Hess laughed. “Yes? Well, you might be interested to know that your friend Hauer and his young Jewish companion are now in a Pretoria police cell. And General Jaap Steyn is chasing a school of red herrings at the request of my Pretoria office.”

  “You will be manacled,” Stern went on stubbornly. “Israeli schoolchildren will file past your cell and spit in your face. History will judge you as it did your master, as one more tragic gangster with an inferiority complex.”

  “Swine!” Hess shrieked. “When your skin turns black and begins to drop off, you will regret your words!”

  “Don’t let him provoke you, sir,” Smuts said evenly. “In ten days time, Israel will be a dead island in a sea of Arabs.”

  “Yes,” Hess rasped. “What do you think of that, Jew?”

  “I think you should plead guilty,” Stern retorted. “It will shorten the time you have to stand in shame before the world’s cameras.”

  Enraged, Hess stabbed a button on his wheelchair and wheeled away toward the door. “Give him 500 rads! Now!”

  Jürgen Luhr’s hysterical laugh was cut short by a sharp knock at the door. A grey-uniformed soldier stepped in, saluted Hess, then turned to Smuts. “The radar shows one aircraft approaching, sir. Twenty kilometres out. It responded properly to the codes.”

  Hess smiled. “Our Libyan friends have arrived to take possession of their new toy.”

  “I should get up to the tower, sir,” Smuts said.

  “No, finish here first. I want this Jew to get his 500 rads today.”

  Smuts frowned. “I should be with you when you meet the Libyans. Lieutenant Luhr can finish here. The machine is set. All he need do is press the button.”

  Hess paused. “Very well.”

  “Fifty more exposures,” Smuts told Luhr.

  “Jawohl,” Luhr replied, his eyes exultant.

  After Smuts rolled Hess out, Luhr swaggered over to the table and leaned over Stern. “Are you enjoying this, you filthy Yid?” Stern spat into Luhr’s open mouth. The German gagged, raised his fist high over Stern’s neck, then dropped it shaking to his side. He reached up, took hold of the X-ray tube housing and brought its barrel to within an inch of Stern’s groin. Then he hurried behind the lead shield and peered through the thick bubble window. “Let’s see if we can burn your balls off, Jew,” he snarled. He pressed the trigger.

  6.04 p.m. The Northern Transvaal

  The South African-built Armscor AC-200 armoured car swerved off of the last road east of Giyani and crashed down onto hard veld. Six huge wheels hurled the long, wedge-shaped hill, over berms and trenches at forty miles per hour—the speed of a mildly-agitated rhinoceros. Machine guns bristled from the Armscor’s steel hide, giving the low-slung fighting vehicle the look of a tank designed for a war on the moon. Inside, Dieter Hauer checked his watch. The hell-for-leather journey from Pretoria had taken three hours, they still had twenty kilometres of punishing, trackless wilderness to cover before they reached Horn House. He estimated they would find it about dusk—the worst possible time. It would still be light enough for the defenders to see them coming, but too dark for accurate small-arms fire by his assault team.

  He had tried to keep his mind off Hans’s fight during the trip; he’d spent most of the ride conferring quietly with General Steyn. By concentrating on tactics, he had almost managed to ignore the fact that with Stern and the missing pages now in his custody, Hess had no reason to keep Hans and Ilse alive any longer.

  The scene inside the Armscor comforted Hauer, though it would have terrified most civilians. Ever since Giyani, his team had worn their black Kevlar helmets and anti-riot respirators. These sophisticated gas masks concealed the entire face, giving their wearers the insectile look of Hollywood movie aliens. Every man also wore a full suit of black body armour. Made of Kevlar composite material fortified by ceramic tile inserts, these suits would stop not only pistol rounds and shrapnel, but high-velocity armour-piercing bullets.

  Hauer could scarcely tell the men apart. He knew that General Steyn sat beside him on the metal bench seat, and that one of the men sitting across from him was Gadi Abrams. Captain Barnard was up front in the shotgun seat. The driver and the other two men were members of South Africa’s elite counter-terror (CT) commando unit, making up the five-man force Hauer had originally requested. All the rifles save Hauer’s were South African.

  Gadi did not mind this, as the South African R-5 assault rifle was merely a carbine style variant of the Israeli Galil.

  Hauer carried the long, graceful sniper rifle he had requested from General Steyn—the Austrian-built Steyr-Mannlicher SSG69. On the floor lay an assortment of weapons from grenades to combat shotguns.

  He wrenched his respirator aside. “Stern said to expect a strong defence!” he shouted. “And I think he knows what he’s talking about.”

  General Steyn pulled his own bug-like mask off, revealing his perpetually red face. “He does, Captain. You’re the one who insisted on one vehicle and five men. I would have hit this place with an airborne division!”

  “And seen this corner of your country vaporized,” Hauer reminded him. “What about land mines, General? Aren’t they popular down here?”

  “Very. We have so many unpaved roads that mines are the weapon of choice. The bottom of this vehicle is designed to deflect mine blas
ts upward and away, but a sustained series of hits—one large minefield, say—and we’ve bought it.” General Steyn grinned. “I may be getting up in age, but I don’t fancy a hot fragment in the balls!”

  Hauer laughed. The closeness of the sound inside the respirator gave him a brief flush. Wearing a full suit of armour was disorienting. It insulated a man from lethal projectiles, but it also isolated him from the men around him. Staring through his bubble eyeholes, Hauer wondered about the South African CT troops. General Steyn had vouched for their loyalty, but Hauer didn’t count that for much. Not when one of the general’s own staff officers had been on Phoenix’s payroll.

  Hauer would have given his pension for a German GSG-9 assault team to replace the South Africans. He’d have few doubts about success then. But it was no use wishing. You fight with what you have. He wondered if Jonas Stern calculated the same way. He could imagine the dilemma the Israeli was struggling with now—if Stern was still alive. If it came to a choice between detonating a nuclear weapon on South African soil or letting it be captured by Arab fanatics sworn to destroy Israel, Hauer knew Stern would not hesitate to turn this corner of South Africa into a radioactive wasteland. If the choice were between Germany and South Africa, he knew he would do the same. He only prayed it wouldn’t come to that.

  Across the narrow aisle, the South Africans sat like Sphinxes behind their black masks. Hauer’ finally discerned the smouldering gaze of Gadi Abrams through the bubble eyes of one respirator. Hauer stared back, trying to read the message in the Israeli’s dark eyes. The best he could come up with was, “I trust only you and me, and I’m not too sure about you,” before the young commando turned away. Hauer felt exactly the same.

  6.11 p.m. Horn House

  This time Smuts did not meet the Libyans on the runway. He waited in the relative security of the reception hall with his master. If they don’t like being met by a kaffir he thought, to hell with them. Hess sat in his wheelchair beside Smuts, wearing a gray suit-jacket and black eyepatch. He had once again assumed the role of Alfred Horn. Smuts peered through a window as his Zulu driver goosed the Range Rover up the final crescent of the drive. When the Libyan delegation climbed out, Smuts immediately noticed the ratio of four bodyguards to two negotiators. On the last trip, he recalled, that ratio had been reversed. He also noted the conspicuous absence of Major Ilyas Karami.

  Smuts had expected something like this, and despite Hess’s optimism, he had prepared for treachery. He had two marksmen waiting in the corridors on either side of the reception hall, and he had reinforcements on the way. This morning, when Major Graaff had called to report that he had taken Dieter Hauer into custody, Smuts had requested a contingent of NIS men to holster his own force. Graaff had enthusiastically agreed. Smuts hoped they would arrive soon. He took a last look at his marksmen, then opened the great teak door and stepped back.

  Wearing flowing white robes, Prime Minister Jalloud swept into the hall and threw his arms wide in greeting. “Herr Horn!” he exclaimed. “The historic day has come! Allah has brought us here safely. May He smile upon our business!”

  Hess nodded curtly. “Guten Abend, Herr Prime Minister.”

  Dr Sabri and the four bodyguards stepped over the threshold.

  “Where is Major Karami?” Smuts asked. “I had hoped to see him again.”

  Jalloud smiled. “I’m afraid Major Karami was called away at the last moment to attend to pressing military matters.

  I’ll bet he was, Smuts thought wryly, flexing his fists to channel off tension. “Sorry to hear it.”

  “Would anyone like refreshments?” Hess asked. “It is a long flight from Tripoli.”

  “I’m afraid Our Leader has forbidden any delay, Herr Horn,” Jalloud said softly. “He awaits our return with the utmost anticipation.”

  “To business then. I assume you wish Dr Sabri to verify the weapon’s operational readiness before we load it?”

  “If we might so impose,” Jalloud said timidly.

  In that instant, inexplicably, Smuts decided that if trouble was coming, Prime Minister Jalloud knew nothing about it. The Afrikaner signalled his marksmen by touching his right eyebrow with his right hand. He intended to trigger any treachery long before the Libyans gained access to the basement complex.

  “With all respect, Mr Prime Minister,” he said, “I must ask that your bodyguards wait here. We allow no firearms in the basement.”

  Jalloud looked uncomfortable. “But Our Leader provided these men to assist with the loading of the weapon.”

  “The bomb weighs more than a thousand kilograms,” Smuts replied. “It must be loaded mechanically. In fact, I have my doubts about your jet’s ability to carry both the weapon and passengers. I had assumed you would bring a cargo plane.”

  “I see,” Jalloud said slowly, wondering why no one in Tripoli had thought of this. Or perhaps, he thought with a shiver, someone did. “By all means,” he said. He turned to the bodyguards. “You will wait here while Dr Sabri checks the weapon.”

  Taken aback by this request, the soldiers hesitated. Their orders had been to wait until they gained access to the basement before carrying out their mission. But the Afrikaner had forced their hand. Simultaneously reaching the same conclusion, Major Karami’s four assassins raised their Uzis as one. Their faces showed even more surprise than Prime Minister Jalloud’s when Smuts’s concealed marksmen opened fire with their R-5 assault rifles. The grey-clad Afrikaners emptied their clips into the line of assassins from eight metres away, blowing all four backward against the great teak door.

  “The elevator!” Smuts shouted. “Everyone get inside! Move!”

  While Hess’s wheelchair whirred toward the open elevator, Prime Minister Jalloud and Dr Sabri shouted in frantic Arabic and crawled along behind him. Jalloud took a bullet in the left arm, but in his panic he barely felt it. Smuts had looked back to make sure that Hess was safe inside the elevator when a stunned Libyan sat up with a wild cry and let off a long burst of bullets in his direction.

  “Body armour!” Smuts shouted. “Head shots only!”

  Bullets ricocheted through the marble-floored reception hall. One Libyan took Smuts’s advice before the Afrikaners did—his Teflon-coated 9mm slugs exploded the head of one of Smuts’s marksmen like a cantaloupe. The surviving Afrikaner avenged this loss, then scurried to shelter behind a large rosewood chiffonier against the far wall.

  Another Libyan darted outside to use the doorway as a firing position. Two seconds later he staggered back into the great hall, blood spurting from his throat. Smuts’s Zulu driver appeared in the doorway with a long hunting knife in his hand. The Zulu moved quickly to another downed Arab, dispatched him with his knife, then fell to a long burst from the surviving Libyan assassin. Smuts’s marksman knocked down the last Libyan as Smuts himself hustled Jalloud and the dazed physicist into the cubicle where Hess waited.

  “Stay here!” Smuts ordered his marksman. “I’ll reinforce you soon.”

  The elevator door slid shut. Ten seconds later, the last Libyan to fall opened his eyes, brought up his Uzi and fired a sustained burst from the floor. Two slugs struck the Afrikaner guard in the head, killing him instantly. Groaning in agony, Major Karami’s last surviving assassin began crawling toward the elevator.

  From Hans and Ilse’s bedroom the skirmish in the reception hall sounded like the Battle of the Bulge. When the firing stopped, Hans shoved open the door. “Where do we go?” he asked. “Should we try to get out? They’re probably guarding the main doors.”

  Ilse poked her head outside the door. “There’s nowhere to run, I told you! We’ve only got one, chance! Stern!”

  Hans could think of no better plan. “All right,” he said. “But stay behind me, understand?”

  Another burst of machine gun fire rattled in the reception hall.

  “Behind you,” Ilse repeated, wondering where Smuts might be holding Stern.

  Keeping close to the wall, they started down the corridor, away from the s
ound of the gunfire.

  High in the observatory tower, Pieter Smuts searched the airstrip through a pair of powerful Zeiss field glasses. Dusk was falling fast. He saw the wreckage of the JetRangers shot down last night spread out over the eastern end of the runway. In the midst of the debris sat Hess’s own Lear, scorched black and missing most of its tail. There was a single guard standing beneath the Libyan Learjet. No one else.

  Where was the main body of the assault force? Where was Major Karami? Behind Smuts, Hess nodded restlessly in his wheelchair. He was trying desperately to fathom the reason for the Libyan soldiers’ attempt to kill their prime minister. Jalloud himself sat propped against a bank of satellite receivers, moaning from the pain of his shattered arm. Shaking in fear, Dr Sabri ministered to him as best he could.

  “No sign of Karami yet,” Smuts said, pulling the field glasses away from his eyes. “But it will be dark soon. That’s when he’ll come.”

  “Karami?” Hess murmured, still dazed by the suddenness of the attack.

  “Yes,” Jalloud groaned. “It is Karami. It must be.”

  Smuts glanced at the Vulcan gun. A trim young Afrikaner sat in the firing cage, his alert eyes checking the fearsome weapon’s night-vision system. Three more grey-clad South Africans manned the radar and communications gear.

  “Why?” Hess cried indignantly. “Has Qaddafi gone mad?”

  Smuts chuckled quietly. “He always has been. We knew this was a risk. We needed more time.”

  “Sir,” interrupted a radar controller, “I show one aircraft approaching from the north. He’s very close. He must have been flying ten feet off the veld!”

  Smuts pressed a button on his console. “Attention unidentified aircraft,” he said tersely. “You have entered restricted airspace. Turn back now or you will be fired upon. Repeat, turn or be fired upon.”

  “It must be the Air Zimbabwe jet,” said the radar man, “An hour ago I marked him as a civil airliner bound for Jo’burg. He must have sneaked off his flight path after he went into the ground clutter.”