The Spandau Phoenix wwi-2

by Greg Iles

  The man was Yuri Borodin, himself a colonel and one of the brightest

  stars of the Twelfth Department of the First Chief Directorate of the

  KGB. Kosov hated everything about Borodin-his undisguised arrogance,

  his hand-tailored clothing, his aristocratic family background and

  manner of speech, his meteoric rise to high rank@everything. It made the

  situation all the more difficult to bear.

  "So you think your men can handle a simple surveillance job?"

  Borodin asked coldly.

  "Da, " Kosov grunted.

  Borodin looked out of the car window distractedly. "I'm afraid I do not

  share your faith. Major Richardson will go to U.S. Army Headquarters

  for debriefing, then he'll move.

  Wherever he goes, that is where the missing Polizei officers and your

  Spandau papers are. If indeed papers are what the young German found.

  If it is papers, I'd, bet my career that the Americans have them

  already."

  I hope you do, thought Kosov "What makes you think the Americans have

  caught them?"'he asked. 'And what makes you think Major fiichardson was

  even working on the Spandau case when my men captured him?"

  Borodin switched to an upper-class English accent. "Instinct, old boy,"

  he said primly.

  Kosov wrinkled his lip in disgust. "You sound like an Oxford professor

  with a pipe stuck up his ass."

  "And how would you know what an Oxford professor sounds like?"

  Borodin needled. "I'm just practicing the King's English, Comrade.

  I'll probably be needing it in the next few days."

  Someone tapped on the smoked-glass window on the driver's side of the

  BMW. Kosov cranked down the window.

  Captain Dmitri Rykov stuck his head into the window.

  "They've taken him to U.S. headquarters," Rykov informed them, eyeing

  Borodin with curiosity.

  "I'll be off, then," Borodin said lightly.

  "Where are you going?" asked Kosov.

  "To pick up Major Richardson when he leaves army headquarters.

  You don't really think I trust your chaps to stay on him, do you?

  No offense intended, of course."

  "But how will you get there?"

  Borodin smiled. "In this car, of course."

  "But this is my personal car!" Kosov exploded.

  "Now, now, Comrade," Borodin said. "Relax. This car belongs to the

  people, doesn't it? I need a car-this one's available. You'll get it

  back eventually. Now, out of the car.

  I must be on my way."

  Koso hauled himself out of the vehicle and slammed the v d door behind

  him. Borodin didn't even notice. He roared up to the checkpoint, not

  the slightest bit nervous about his false papers.

  Borodin was Twelfth Department, and Twelfth Department always got the

  best.

  Dmitri Rykov stared dumbfounded at his superior. He had never seen Ivan

  Kosov allow someone to run roughshod over him like that.

  "Who was that man, Colonel?"

  Kosov stared after his receding BMW. "Someone you will get to know very

  well in the next few days, Dmitri." He turned to Rykov.

  "You still have your travel papers?"

  "Yes, Comrade Colonel."

  "Good. I want you to cross into the American sector and go to U.S. Army

  Headquarters. There you will find the man you just saw steal my BMW.

  you're to follow him and report his every movement back to me.

  Do you have any credit cards?"

  Rykov nodded with enthusiasm"American Express?"

  "Gold Card."

  Kosov scowled. "Captain Rykov, I am authorizing you to spend whatever

  is necessary to follow that man wherever he goes."

  "Yes, sir!"

  "Anywhere in the world," Kosov added.

  Rykov's chest swelled as he absorbed the import of Kosov's words.

  This had to be something big. Something that could make a career.

  "His name," said Kosov quietly, "is Yuri Borodin. He's a colonel in the

  Twelfth Department."

  Rykov paled.

  "Do you wish me to find someone else, Captain?"

  Rykov cleared his throat. "Nyet, Comrade Colonel. Dmitri Rykov is your

  man."

  "Then get your ass over to the checkpoint and find out what cover

  Borodin used to cross. I'll call a car for you."

  Kosov laid a hand on Rykov's shoulder. "Keep your eyes open for someone

  named Zinoviev. He's either a very old man or a very dead one.

  Call me as often as you can. I'll have more information on Borodin for

  you."

  "Thank you, Comrade Colonel!"

  "And Dmitri ... about that tattoo. The eye on Goltz'shead."

  Kosov lowered his voice. "It is the symbol of a oneeyed man. I don't

  know his name, but whoever he is, he's at the center of this case. The

  Americans don't know anything about him, and I don't think Borodin does

  either. So if you happen to meet a man with one eye-a glass eye, or

  even a patch-you are to call me immediately. If you.

  even hear of a one-eyed man involved with this case, you call me."

  Rykov looked confused, but he nodded.

  "Now go!

  Ignoring his bruised leg, Rykov sprinted after the BMW.

  Kosov lit a Camel cigarette and took a deep drag. He held in the acrid

  smoke for a long time before he exhaled. He felt better now.

  Much better. When he smiled, the expression made him look even uglier

  than he wa's.

  630 pm. #30 Ldtzenstrasse

  Ivan Kosov's black-clad assassin padded softy into Ilse's apartment

  building and slipped into the stairwell. He was looking forward to

  paying back the German whore who had taunted him yesterday, and he knew

  a hundred ways to extract his pound of flesh. He only hoped that the

  old tart's young companion would be home with her. She could prove very

  entertaining before she died. It never ceased to amaze Misha how

  cooperative women became after only the briefest acquaintance with his

  knife.

  Three floors above him, Eva Beers leaned toward her bathroom mirror and

  pulled a stained bandage away from her cheek. The laceration looked

  considerably worse than it had twelve hours before.

  The skin hung slack in spite of her best attempts to smile or grimace.

  Last night, when she had first got back to her apartment, she'd

  discovered that the lower half of her left cheek did not seem to be

  moving normally. It disturbed her, but she put the problem down to

  shock. Eva had been in her share of bar brawls, and drawing on this

  experience she did a fair job of patching the deep gash inflicted by the

  young Russian. But now she worried.

  The bleeding had long since stopped, but the stubborn flesh to the left

  of her mouth still hung lifeless, like that of a stroke victim.

  Replacing the bandage, she decided to ignore Kosov's warning and seek

  proper medical assistance.

  She slipped on a housecoat and walked out to the front room of her

  modest apartment to check on Ernst. The tough old cabbie lay snoring on

  the sofa. He had taken a bad beating and needed a doctor almost as

  badly as Eva did. She leaned over him, listening to his irregular

  breaths. His bruised and battered face made her furious again. She had

  expected the Russians to come back for her as soon as they realized she


  had lied about Ilse, but they hadn't. Lucky for them, too, she thought.

  Because for the remainder of last night and most of today, some of her

  heavily built friends from her Ratskeller days had hung around the

  apartment just in case the Russians showed up. An hour ago Eva had

  thanked them and sent them on their way, glad that no further trouble

  had visited.

  Kissing Ernst lightly on his forehead, she went back to her bedroom and

  pulled the door shut. In her bureau drawer she found the number of an

  old general practitioner who not so long ago had run a quiet practice

  catering to smugglers, addicts, and young girls in trouble. I hope he's

  still in business, she thought. She had no patience with emergency

  roomstoo many forms to fill out, too many questions to answer.

  She left the doctor's number on the bureau and went into the bathroom to

  make up her face.

  In the hallway outside the apartment, Misha inserted an@e-thin tOOl

  into the door lock and picked it with ease.

  Eva had carelessly left the bolt unshot when her friends left but she

  had fastened the chain. Misha put his deceptively' narrow shoulder

  against the door and leaned into it hard, yanidng the chain's

  anchor-plate from the doo@amb.

  The noise of the screws pulling loose was minimal, but enough to make

  the sleeping cabbie shift on the sofa.

  Misha's ears detected the rustle, and after his eyes adjusted to the

  darkness, he discerned the supine form. He crossed the room silently

  and stared down. Bruises and a badly blackened eye distorted Ernst's

  face, but Misha recognized the old man who had fought so tenaciously

  outside his taxi on the previous night. As Misha stared, Ernst's eyes

  flut@ open. With the dreadful clarity of nightmares the old cabbie

  recognized the Russian above him. He opened his mouth to scream a

  warning to Eva, but Misha snatched a threadbare pillow from the couch

  and slammed it over Ernst's contorted face, pressing down with all his

  strength.

  In the bathroom Eva heard nothing. The battle being fought in her front

  room was desperate but soundless. Just when Misha felt the old man's

  struggles begin to subside, a hand shot upward and locked around his

  throat in a maniacal death grip. The Russian struggled to hold the

  smothering pillow in place, not believing the old man's strength. The

  bony fingers clutching his throat seemed to be probing for some hollow

  place where they could gain sufficient purchase to crush his windpipe.

  Misha had had enough. The pillow had seemed a good idea at first, but

  it was obviously too slow for this old lion.

  Fighting to breathe, he held the @illow in place with his right hand and

  drew his stiletto from its ankle sheath with his left.

  A veteran of the streets, Ernst the cabbie knew what the snick of spring

  and steel meant, but he rould fight no harder than he was already. He

  felt the cold blade pierce his chest just below the sternum. Misha

  expertly twisted the blade across the midline marking the passage of the

  aorta; the old man felt ice turn to fire. He jerked spasmodically, then

  his wrinkled hands slipped from Misha's-throat. @ I The Russian gulped

  in huge lungfuls of air and shook his head to clear it. He had not

  expected this battle. Then suddenly, as the pillow slipped from the old

  man's livid face, Ernst somehow summoned a last measure of energy and

  cried out-not loudly, but it was enough. Misha looked see Eva's bedroom

  door slam shut and hear the click of the bolt shooting home.

  Cursing, he scrambled around the room's baseboards until he found the

  telephone line running from the bedroom. He severed the black wire two

  seconds after Eva picked up the receiver in her roomSheathing his knife

  with a grin, he charged the bedwom door. The bolt did not give.

  He stepped back and examined the door. it had a heavy frame with two

  solid planks crossing with ur thinner sheets of in the middle, but it

  was Paneled with an above wood. Aiming at a spot on the upper right P

  el-just the knob-Misha kicked hard, splintering the brittle woodA second

  kick opened the hole he wanted. He thrust his left hand through the

  jagged opening, groping for the bolt.

  With the sure eye of a seamstress, Eva drove the point of a brass letter

  opener through the back of the Russian's ex@ hand. The shriek from the

  other side of the door did not even sound human. Misha's spasming hand

  jerked back through the splintered door panel, taidng the letter opener

  with it.

  ,Devil's whore!" he screamed, wrenching the blade from his punctured

  hand. "You're dead!"

  Eva did not own a gun, and she was 'now truly terrified. Her attacker

  launched his body repeatedly against the door, wwarning in animal rage.

  Still the bolt refused to give.

  Then, suddenly, the bloody hand reappeared through the hole and probed

  for the bolt. The circular wound in its center made Eva think of the.

  hand of C st. Hyste c ly, she hri ri al screamed some part of a

  childhood, prayer and smashed a chair down on the bloody fingers.

  The crack of bones made her shudder, but it renewed her hope for

  survival.

  Unbelievably, the hand tried for the bolt again. Again Eva brought the

  chair down, this time on the wrist. Misha howled like a madman. Enraged

  beyond feeling pain, he withdrew his shattered hand, backed up, and took

  a flying kick at the spot where he judged the bolt to be. This time the

  door crashed open.

  With @ of terror streaming down her bandaged face, Eva backed toward the

  bedroom wall, holding the small wooden chair in front of her like a lion

  tamer. When she collided with her cluttered vanity table, she felt her

  bladder let go. She froze there, transfixed by the predatory gleam in

  the Russian's eyes. Then he moved toward her, breaking the spell. Eva

  swung the little chair in desperation, but he parried it easily.

  Laughing, he snatched the chair from her and tossed it aside.

  The killing fever was on him now. He closed on the shivering woman, his

  blood-slickened knife dancing like a cobra's head. Moaning in mortal

  terror, Eva lunged blindly, hoping somehow to get past the Russian. She

  had no chance.

  Misha expertly channeled her momentum downward and pinned her against

  the floor, his boot planted solidly between her shoulder blades. He

  snatched her hair and jerked her head back, pressing the knife blade to

  her throat. His fractured bones seared with agony, but he thought he

  could hold the blade steady long enough to drag it across the stubborn

  woman's throat. He dangled the bright blade before her rolling eyes.

  "You know whose blood that is, woman?" he rasped in Russian.

  "Go on, you bastard!" she screamed. "Do it!"

  Misha pressed the blade against her throat, trying for a.

  firmer grip with his wounded hand.

  Suddenly, a roar like that of a Black Forest bear filled the room.

  Misha looked up in surprise. A huge form blocked out the light as it

  charged toward him. It was Schneider. The big detective had just

  gotten off the elevator and started toward Ilse's flat when he hear
d

  Misha kick down the bedroom door. He raced toward the noise, saw

  Ernst's blood-soaked corpse on the sofa bed, and continued his headlong

  charge into the bedroom.

  Misha flung his arm up and tried to hold his knife steady, but

  Schneider's momentum bowled him over like a child. He tumbled back

  against the vanity and landed in a sitting position. Dazed, he

  transferred his knife to his good hand and got up onto his knees.

  Schneider backed off slightly, crouching in a classic knife fighter's

  stance.

  Eva scrambled unsteadily to her feet and stood a few'feet behind him.

  "Run!" she shouted. "Here's the door behind you!"

  "Get out!" Schneider ordered.

  "I'll call the police!" Eva cried, searching hysterically for her

  useless phone.

  "Don't call anyone!" Schneider snapped. "Go downstairs!"

  Having regained some of his faculties, Misha rose into a low crouch and

  moved out from the vanity, smiling n "You should have brought a knife,"

  he taunted in GerrnanSchneider snatched a sheet from the bed and twisted

  it quickly around his left arm, as he had been taught to do against an

  attacking dog. He circled carefully, waiting for the Russian's lunge.

  He knew it would come soon.

  With a cry Misha feinted left, then struck hard, driving the point of

  the knife upward toward the Gerfnan's huge chest.

  More like a mongoose than a bear, Schneider parried the outstretched

  blade with his sheet-wrapped arm and darted out of danger; in the same

  movement he rammed his mammoth right fist into Misha's eye socket as the

  Russian's body followed his knife thrust.

  The blow felled Kosov's assassin like a rotted oak.

  When Misha regained consciousness four minutes later, his right eye had

  swollen shut. A distant voice in his brain told him that he would soon

  have his vision back, but the voice was wrong. Schneider's impacting

  fist had so suddenly increased the pressure inside the Russian's eyeball

  that it literally exploded at its weakest point-in Misha's case around

  the optic nerve-scrambling the delicate contents into jelly.

  With his good eye Misha saw the big German speaking into a telephone

  beyond an open door. He heard the name Rose, but it meant nothing to

  him. A disheveled blond woman with a white bandage on her face imelt

  over a sofa, weeping softly. Misha tried to rise, but found that his