by Greg Iles
mean to use the Spandau diary to draw the kidnappers into the open. To
force them to expose Ilse."
Hans threw up his hands. "But what can you do then? You don't have one
of your GSG-9 teams-no twenty-man unit with state-of-the-art weapons and
communications."
Hauer spoke with cold-blooded confidence. "You know what I can do,
Hans. You're all the team I need."
"And me," Natterman put in.
Hauer ignored him. He had no intention of taking the professor to South
Africa, but now was not the time to tell him that.
Hans walked a few steps away from Hauer. It was almost impossible to
argue with the man when he brought the power of his personality to bear.
Yet Hans feared so much more than Ilse's deadi. He sensed her terror
like a snake twisted around his spine. Not terror for herself, but for
the child she was carrying. Of course he remembered her doctor's
appointment now. He'd fallen asleep after the Spandau detail and missed
it. But why hadn't she told him about the baby when he got home? Yet
he knew the answer to that too.
Because he had come home acting like a total lunatic, a money-crazed
bastard. And hadn't she tried in spite of.him?
He could still hear her voice: I've got a secret too ... And then the
phone call from Funk's man, Jiirgen Luhr. And then Weiss. And Steuben.
And Ilse ...
"Look, I don't have a passport," he said sharply. "The kidnappers were
right about that. The only way I can get to South Africa is by the
route they've set up."
"I can have a forger here in three hours," Hauer said quickly.
"I'm not giving those bastards a shot at you on the plane."
"Damn it, they said any deviation from the instructions and they'd kill
her."
Sensing Hans's growing resolve, Hauer pressed down his exasperation.
"Hans, there are no absolutes in these situations.
You're like a doctor who must operate on his own wife. She has terminal
cancer. She's going to die unless you go in and cut out the tumor. But
there are risks. The knife
-ML,
things. You up the scalpel, then you hear a voice in your ear saying,
'Hey, you give me what I want, and I'll make this woman as healthy as
the day she was born.' " Hauer shook his head.
"It's a fucking lie, Hans. That voice is the devil, and he doesn't play
by your rules. He feels no obligation. It's your call, but no matter
how badly you want to believe that voice, Their's only one option.
Surgery."
Hans's cheek twitched involuntarily. He searched the depths of his
father's eyes, but he saw neither subterfuge nor hope of gain@nly the
indomitable will of a man ready to die in a quest he had made his own.
And from somewhere deep within himself, from a place he never knew
existed, a voice edged with steel rose into his throat.
"I'll do it."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
2.35 A.m. Soviet Sector. East Berlin, DDR Harry picked himself up out
of the shattered glass and sprinted for the courtyard wall. He heard no
shooting yet, but that didn't reassure him. The rough stone wall was
high.
Without breaking stride he planted his right shoe three feet up the face
of the wall and leaped. His fingers dug into the rough ledge.
He pulled with all his strength, both feet pedaling against the stone,
and scrambled over the top.
He found himself in a narrow walking space between two houses.
Dashing down the dark corridor, he paused where it opened onto a narrow
street. He saw no street signs nor any other landmarks he knew.
Unsure of where to run, he flattened his back against the wall outside
the alley's mouth, locked his hands together in a deadly double fist,
and waited.
Axel Goltz was fast, intelligent, and well-trained, but his desperation
made him careless. He came barreling down the narrow alley at top
speed, and rather than pause at its mouth as Harry had done, he leaned
into his sprint, blindly pursuing the man he thought to be at least a
block ahead of him by now. Harry's locked fists struck the, East German
in the center of the forehead and skidded down the right side of his
head. Goltz went down like an ox under the slaughterhouse hammer.
Harry heard the metallic ring of a gun hitting the concrete, but he saw
no gun. Goltz must have fallen on it. The Stasi agent lay motionless
on his stomach. As Harry stared down, he caught the dark glint of metal
protruding from beneath Goltz's waist. Cautiously he leaned down and,
snatched up the pistol. Goltz didn't move. Seeing no one else on the
street, Harry decided to question him. He held the pistol to Goltz's
head with his left hand and probed beneath the jaw with his right. There
was a pulse-weak, but steady.
As Harry opened his mouth to speak, he caught sight of the strange spot
behind Goltz's right ear. Hariy's blow had torn the bandage away.
He expected to see stitches, but ins@ he saw a perfectly round moon of
white flesh shining under the streetlight, marked at the center by what
looked like a spot of blood. Leaning closer, he saw what it was-a small
tattoo. A tattoo of an eye. A single, blood red eye, inked into the
scalp by a very talented needle. it reminded him of the eye on the
pyramid on the back of a one-dollar bill, but only a little.
This eye was less defined somehow, yet more piercing, more mystical.
As Harry stared, Axel Goltz flicked his head up from the pavement like a
slingshot and cracked him across the bridge of the nose. The next thing
Harry saw through stinging tears was the East German on his feet, moving
forward with a gleaming knife extended in his right hand.
Harry @ Goltz's pistol without thinking. The explosion of the
unsilenced weapon reverberated through the empty streets like a cannon
shot. The bullet blew Goltz off his feet.
He landed on his back in the street, sucking for air, a tiny hole in his
chest, a gaping hole in his back. Harry knelt quickly beside him and
said into his ear, "Why did you shoot the Russian? Why?"
Wide-eyed in shock, Goltz made a gurgling noise in his throat.
Harry lifted him roughly by his shirt front. "What is Phoenix?" he
asked sharply. "Goltz! What is PhoenixT' The German couldn't speak. A
froth of blood spilled over his lower lip. Harry racked his memory for
the Stasi man's rank. Lieutenant? "Was ist Phoenix, Herr Leutnant?" he
barked in the voice of a sergeant major.
A faint smile touched the corners of Goltz's mouth. "Der Tag kommt, "
he croaked. "For the Jews ... for the world."
He sighed once, then went limp.
HaM heard sirens in the distance. "Damn!" he cursed. He dropped Goltz
to the concrete and forced his head to the side. The blood red eye
stared upward. Harry didn't know what the mark meant, but he knew that
it was somehow important. Goltz had obviously been hiding it from Rykov
and his men; Harry saw no reason to let them find it now. He
264 GREG IL-ES
laid the pistol barrel against the German's skull, muzzle against the
tattoo. He pulled against the trigger, then stoppe
d.
Without pausing to think, he jammed the pistol into his belt and pried
the knife from Goltz's clenched fist. He tried to grasp the bald circle
of Goltz's scalp between his thumb and forefinger, but it was
impossible. There was no hair to pull, and the skin was stretched too
tightly around the skull.
Ignoring the wailing sirens, Harry braced his knee firmly against the
right side of the Stasi man's head. He grasped the hair at the lower
edge of the shiny circle and tugged up a little hummock of flesh.
Then he jabbed the knifepoint into the scalp beneath the tattoo, deep
into the fascia. Goltz's body jerked when the point struck bone-from
reflex, Harry hoped. But then the bleeding started: little pulsing
waves that shimmered black-red beneath the streetlight. Goltz was
unconscious, but alive. Gritting his teeth together, Harry levered the
knife blade up, using the point as the fulcrum, and worked his left
thumb under the raised scalp. This accomplished, it took only a few
seconds of sawing to excise the half-dollar-sized swatch of skin that
bore the tattoo.
The sirens were much closer now. Harry stood and shoved the fragment of
scalp deep into his trouser pocket. Then he sprinted toward the nearest
intersection, wiping the blood from his hands as he ran. There were
street signs at the intersection, but he didn't recognize the names.
With no better option, he began running toward the brightest lights he
could see. He soon saw a sign he knew: Rosenthaler Strasse. High in
the sky to his left hovered the shining observation, sphere of the great
Femsehturm, the 1,215-foot television tower that rises needle-like from
the Alexanderplatz to dominate both East and West Berlin. Using the
tower as point zero, Harry visualized East Berlin from the air,
estimating distances and comparing the times it would take him to reach
different destinations.
Twelve blocks to the west stood the British Embassy.
Harry knew the ambassador, but he also knew that his chances of getting
through the gate unmolested were nil. If either Goltz or Rykov had
reached a telephone, the friendly embassies would be covered already.
Twenty blocks to the east was a French SDECE safehouse where Harry knew
he could find refuge, but the shortest route to it lay through one of
the busiest sections of East Berlin. Even at night it would be risky.
Harry started walking. He crossed two deserted corners, then passed a
row of yellow phone boxes where an ill-kempt young man stood shouting
into a telephone. On impulse Harry turned and walked back to the phone
boxes. He took hold of the boy's jacket with one hand and broke the
connection with the other.
"Hey!" the boy snapped. "Arschloch! Let go!"
"Coins!" Harry demanded, pointing to the phone.
"Pragen' I "
"Fick Dich in Knie!" the German cursed.
Harry grabbed the tangled mane of blond hair and twisted until the boy's
eyeball rested against the telephone's coin slot. "Pragen! " he
hissed.
Snarling, the youth pulled thirty Pfennig from his jacket and dropped
the jangling coins onto the sidewalk. Harry jerked him out of the phone
box and shoved him down the street. "Beat it!" he growled.
"Haue ah!" The boy backed off cursing, then turned and shuffled on.
Harry dialed an East Berlin number from memory and waited. He could
still hear the siren, but fainter.
"British Embassy," said a sleepy ferri@le voice, after a dozen rings.
"I have an urgent message for Ambassador Brougham," Harry said
breathlessly. "The code is Trafalgar. Am I being recorded?"
"Yes, sir!" The crisis code had worked its-magic.
Harry paused, remembering Colonel Rose's warning not to tell the British
anything about the Spandau case. He understood the caution, but under
these circumstances he might be captured and silenced long before he got
through to Colonel Rose.
"Are you there, @ir?" asked the Englishwoman.
"Message to God," Harry said, using.Rose's nickname.
"Zinoviev, repeat, Zinoviev. Break. Phoenix, repeat, Phoenix.
Break. Message to Ambassador Brougham: This is Major Harry Richardson,
U.S. Army. I was abducted, repeat, abducted into East Berlin tonight.
I have escaped and I'm on my way to your embassy for asylum."
Harry heard a hiccup of astonishment. "I'm on foot, and I should be
there in about seven minutes. Get those gates open!"
Harry slammed down the phone and looked westward to ward the British
Embassy. Then he started east toward the safehouse.
2.36 A.M. KGO headquarters SOVIOT Sedor, Berlin. DDH
Ivan Kosov sat thoughtfully in his Swiss-made office chair and gazed at
a four-by-five-inch file photograph of Harry Richardson. It was a
telephoto shot, long and grainy, but the expression on the American's
face looked as cocksure as it had when he picked the name Zinoviev from
the three Kosov had tossed out. Kosov muttered an oath and slid the
photo aside.
Now he looked into the piercing eyes of Rudolf Hess.
This picture was an eight-by-ten, sharp and clear, of the Deputy Famr
during his prime. The heavy-brewed Aryan face radiated authority and
self-assurance. Beneath this photo lay a smaller shot of Hess as a
First World War pilot.
His eyes looked younger, brighter somehow-unfreighted with the knowledge
of immeasurable death and destruction.
Kosov had stared at these photos of Hess for years, wontiering why
Moscow was still obsessed with the old Nazi's mission. 'They had proof
that Prisoner Number Seven was an impostor@r so Kosov had heard from
several Dzerzhinsky Square old-timers that he trusted. Yet if Centre
had such proof, why didn't they expose him long ago? They're waiting,
the old-timers said. Waiting for what? Corroboration, they said. Was
Zinoviev that corroboration? Whoever Zinoviev was? 'Was there really
some hidden purpose in Hess's flight, or was this simply one more
conspiracy theory Vawned in the murky corridors of Moscow Centre?
Kosov had the feeling he was about to find out at last.
The computers had tracked Yuri Borodin to London.
Kosov had sent a query straight on to the embassy, and while he waited
for the reply, he'd ordered a printout of Harry Richardson's file. Kosov
envied the freedom Borodin enjoyed. Twelfth Department agents, for all
practical purposes, "stationed" themselves. A far cry from the
deskbound life Kosov had led for the past decade.
Suddenly Kosov's printer began to chatter. Not bad, he thought.
Borodin must have been at the embassy when the message came through.
He read the reply as his printer spat
'A
it out, thankful that the days when he had to decode his own messages
were long past.
TO KOSOV- 07611457
2:39 A.M. GMT London In response to query-YES I know agent in question.
NO I have no relationship with him other than ADVERSARIAL Subject is
valuable resource. Hold him there until I arrive.
ETA tomorrow. CANCEI-TODAY A.M.
BORODIN
Kosov slammed a horny hand down on his desk. T
he American had lied
after all! But while this knowledge delighted Kosov, Borodin's
intention to come to Berlin did not.
"I've caught the golden goose," he said bitterly, "and this prima donna
wants to come take the credit. We'll see about that."
While Kosov grumbled, his printer began to chatter again.
What emerged this time was not a message, but a digital facsimile
photograph, a study in grays and black. It showed four uniformed young
men in their early twenties, standing shoulder to shoulder against the
famous Borovitsky Gate of the Kremlin. Kosov didn't recognize the
uniforms, but the young men were obviously officers. A hand-penciled
arrow pointed to the face of the second man from the left. The photo
was very grainy, but Kosov recognized the hardness in the eyes and
around the mouth of that face. Those eyes have seen much death, he
thought. At the bottom of the photo was a handwritten caption: V V
Zinoviev: Awarded Okhrana Captaincy 1917. Beneath the photo-typed-were
the words: Message follows by courier-Zemenek.
Kosov felt a thrill of triumph. Here was the mysterious Zinoviev at
last! And sent to him by the chairman himself!
Yet Kosov's triumph was tempered by puzzlement and uneasiness.
Zinoviev an officer of the Okhrana? What in God's name could the
Okhrana have to do with this case? It was a ghost from an even more
distant past than Rudolf Hess.
The Okhrana was the tsar's dreaded secret police force-the most ruthless
enemy the communists had ever known.
Kosov scratched his grizzled head. With a sharp sense of frustration,
he realized what was eating at him. Without quite knowing it, he had
been expecting Zinoviev to turn out to be the mysterious one-eyed man.
It only made sense. For 7
268 years he'd had a name with no face to go with it, and a oneeyed man
without a name. Why couldn't they be one and the same?
Maybe they are, he thought suddenly, staring at the photo again.
The hard-faced young officer in the photo had two living eyes-of that
Kosov had no doubt. They stared out from the picture like smoldering
lumps of coal. You are very young here, little tiger Kosov thought.
Plenty of time yet to lose an eye. Especially in yourjob, eh?
Most Okhrana officers had lost more than their eyes after Tsar Nicholas
was overthrown.
'Telephone, Comrade Colonel!" interrupted a secretary.
"Urgent Startled out of his reverie, Kosov snatched up the receiver.
