The Spandau Phoenix wwi-2

by Greg Iles

motivate him. He had wanted to go to South Africa with Richardson all

  along. Funk, Luhr, Goltz: these men were minions, corrupt servants of

  an insidious power creeping into Germany from without. Stopping them

  would be a temporary victory at best. Whoever they served was the true

  enemy. To unite officers of the Stasi and the Polizei-sworn

  enemies-would take a truly monstrous power. And to kill a monster,

  Schneider knew, you cut off its head, not its hand.

  With a glance back at Kosov's kneeling figure, he caught Rose by the

  ar-rn and pulled him back into the room where Harry's corpse sat baking

  in the dry heat.

  "I'll go to South Ahica, Colonel," he growled. "But I don't like being

  manipulated. You should have sent me in the first place. You want to

  find two German cops? Send a German cop." Schneider jerked his thumb

  toward the front room. "But I report to you, not him.

  Understood? I trust you alone. Not your government, not Kosov, not his

  government.

  Just YOU."

  "Agreed, Detective." Rose pulled Harry's airplane ticket from his

  pocket and handed it to the German. "From now on, all expenses will be

  paid out of my personal bank account." He lowered his voice. "Your

  flight leaves at two Pm.

  tomorrow. I'll brief you just before you leave. Now, if you don't

  mind, I need to talk a little shop with my new Russian friend."

  Schneider turned. Ivan Kosov stood motionless in the bedroom door, his

  eyes riveted on Harry Richardson's mutilated head. He made no sound.

  Schneider stuffed the plane ticket into his coat pocket and moved toward

  the door. At the last moment, Kosov stepped aside.

  Schneider paused, looked back at Harry, then looked into the Russian's

  eyes lohg enough for Kosov to read the message there. I hate Russians

  as much as you hate Germans, it said. I blinded your little black

  assassin, and I haven't ruled you out as a suspect in this either

  Schneider walked on. He understood Colonel Rose's motives: this was a

  marriage of expediency, nothing more. Politics, as ever, made strange

  bedfellows. Rose didn't TRUSt his Russian counterpart any more than

  Schneider did, but the two professionals had much in common. They're

  like a pair of fathers grieving over murdered sons, Schneider thought as

  he trudged down the stairs. A pair of very dangerous fathers.

  Kosov had looked even angrier than Rose, if that was possible.

  Schneider only hoped the two men realized what they and he-were up

  against. Eighteen hours ago Harry Richardson had practically scalped a

  Stasi agent in an East Berlin street. Tonight he was slated for a

  closed-casket funeral. The man who had done that to him, Schneider

  reflected, was a man to be taken very seriously indeed.

  Six floors below Harry's apartment, Yuri Borodin smiled with

  satisfaction. His plan had worked after all. Ten minutes ago he'd been

  furious. Richardson hadn't had the Spandau papers-as Borodin had

  thought he might-and he had refused to discuss the two German policemen,

  even under torture. Borodin hadn't intended to kill Richardson, but the

  American had made him angry. And then Kosov's bumbling footpad had

  blundered in during the interrogation. Borodin had shot Rykov from

  reflex, without even knowing who he was. That had sealed Richardson's

  fate. Borodin couldn't very well leave anyone alive to reveal what he

  had done.

  Even a Twelfth Department man could not kill a fellow KGB officer with

  impunity.

  Yet in the midst of adversity, inspiration had struck. Before leaving

  Harry's apartment Borodin had planted two microtransmitters@ne in the

  front room, one in the bedroom. Then he'd made an anonymous telephone

  call to Colonel Rose. The harvest had been bountiful. Now he knew not

  only the location of the two German policemen, but also the identity of

  Rose's emissary to South Africa. The burly Kripo detective would lead

  him straight to Hauer and Apfel, and ultimately to the Spandau papers.

  And if that wasn't enough, he was now listening to Kosov and Rose hatch

  a renegade operation that could smash both their careers. The only

  oversight, Borodinconceded to himself, had been the writing on the

  floor. The American had sneaked that past him. Richardson had been

  trying to write Borodin, of course, but a bullet through his spinal cord

  had apparently turned his o into something like an r The Anglophobic

  Rose had already misread the one clue that could help him, though; and

  Ivan Kosov wasn't likely to disabuse him of his fantasies!

  As Schneider emerged from the front entrance of Harry's building, Yuri

  Borodin laughed aloud.

  Even in the dog days of glasnost, his job was sometimes more fun than

  work.

  7'31 Pm. Lufthanso Flight 417, Corsican Airspace

  Dieter Hauer looked down at the shiny, wrinkled ball of aluminum foil in

  his hand. It had taken four minutes of his best pickpocket technique to

  remove the Spandau papers from Hans's trousers, but he had finally done

  it. Hans sat in the airplane seat next to him, sleeping fitfully. Hauer

  removed the foil wrapping the thin sheets as if it concealed an

  archaeological treasure. Despite all that had happened, he had yet to

  actually see the papers.

  The first page looked just as Hans had described it: a paragraph

  written in German, followed by a stream Of unintelligible gibberish.

  Hauer scanned the German, but learned nothing new. Sighing, he pulled

  the bottom page from the stack and looked for the signature.

  There it was: Number 7. My God, he thought, to have been in prison so

  long that you didn't even use your name. If the poor bastard remembered

  it at all ... On the last page Hauer saw the carefully drawn eye. It

  looked exactly like those he'd seen tattooed on at least a dozen scalps.

  Whoever wrote the Spandau papers, he decided, had obviously been visited

  at least once by someone with more than hair behind his right ear. Hauer

  didn't realize that three of the pages were blank until he began

  arranging them to repack them in the foil.

  He rubbed his eyes vigorously, unwilling to accept what he saw, but the

  truth was I plain to see. Three pages bore no ink at all.

  The paper wasn't even the same! His first impulse was to shake Hans

  awake and demand to know what he had done with the missing pages. Yet as

  soon as he raised his hand, Hauer realized what had happened. The

  substituted sheets told the story.

  Professor Natterman had lied. The old man had held back after all ...

  he'd kept some of the pages for himself! Hauer cringed as he recalled

  Natterman slipping into the bathroom before laying the foil acket on

  Hans's lap.

  p Greedy bastard! he thought furiously. With yourfamily's lives at

  stake! Pulling the bottom page out again, Hauer stared with grim

  frustration. Angrily, he read the final note in German. The last bit

  caught his eye:

  Phoenix wields my precious daughter like a sword of fire!

  If only they knew! Am I even a dim memory to my angel?

  No. Better that she never knows. I have lived a life of madness, but

  in the face
of death I found courage ...

  Better that she never knows. Those words resonated in Hauer's mind.

  Better that you don't know, either he thought, looking at Hans's

  sleeping face. You'll find out soon enough.

  Hans's lank blond hair hung down across eyelids that quivered in

  troubled sleep. Carefully, Hauer refolded the aluminum foil around the

  pages and slipped them back into Hans's pocket. And what will you do,

  he wondered, when you finally learn that your grandfather-in-law has

  condemned your wife to death? For without the Spandau papers to trade

  to the kidnappers, intact, Hauer knew the chance of bringing Ilse out of

  Africa alive dropped by at least 50 percent. How could that bastard do

  that to his ownflesh and blood?

  And then Hauer knew. The old man had not stolen the missing pages-he'd

  lost them! Lost them to the Afrikaner who attacked him.

  And the Afrikaner had lost them to whoever had attacked him! That was

  why Natterman had frantically searched the carcass that Hans dragked

  into the cabin; he'd been looking for the missing pages. And he had

  found nothing! My God, Hauer thought, feeling acid flood his stomach,

  someone else has those pages!

  As the DC-10 roared south toward the bottom of the un world, Hauer

  wondered who could possibly have 0 Natterman's cabin before he and Hans.

  Funk's men? Ilse had obviously been forced to give the cabin telephone

  number to her kidnappers. Had she also given them the cabin's location?

  How early had she been captured? Who else was hunting for the papers

  now? Hauer had seen some rather English-looking young men hovering

  around the ticket d'Hans had slipped counters at Frankfurt Airport, but

  he an by them on the strength of their false passports.

  If Hauer had only known-really known-who had the missing pages, he might

  have felt less like a shepherd leading a lamb to the slaughter.

  But he didn't know. And as he closed his eyes to the sound of the

  roaring turbines, one word cycled endlessly through his mind.

  Who?

  7.40pm. E-35Motorway, Frankfurt, FRG Jonas Stern took his eyes from the

  motorway long enough to glare at Natterman in the passenger seat. "We're

  going to Israel to pick up some packages, and that's all I'll bloody say

  about it!"

  "But what kind of packages?"

  "You'll find out soon enough."

  "But you were on the phone for hours," Natterman persisted. "You wasted

  a whole day."

  "Klap kop in vant!" Stern snapped in Yiddish. "So the Messiah comes a

  day later! You don't order these packages like a pizza pie, Professor.

  You told me yourself that the rendezvous with the kidnappers isn't until

  tomorrow night.

  We'll make Pretoria in plenty of time."

  Natterman sulked in his seat. "Why were you talking to an air force

  general?"

  Stern exploded. "You were listening to my calls!"

  "Only one," Natterman lied. "I just want to know what's going on.

  Where's the harm in that?"

  "You'll know all you need to know," Stern said, scowling.

  "When you need to know it, not before. If you'd put your precious

  career aside for a moment and tell me all you know about Hess's mission,

  I might see fit to reciprocate."

  Natterman put an age-spotted hand to his mouth and bit his thumbnail. He

  looked like a gold prospector deciding whether or not to reveal the

  location of his big strike to a stranger whose help he needs. With

  sudden gravity, he reached across the seat and took hold of Stern's arm.

  "I'll tell you what I think about Hess's mission," he said excitedly. "I

  think Rudolf Hess is still alive. " Stern turned and caught Natterman's

  eye; then he looked back at the wide motorway.

  He chuckled softly. "I know you do, Professor. And I wish it were so

  easy. But you watch too many movies."

  "Then you don't think Hess is alive?" Natterman asked incredulously.

  Stern grinned. "Sure. He's set up housekeeping with Martin Bormann and

  Josef Mengele. Amelia Earhart is the housemaid and Elvis Presley

  provides the dinner entertainment."

  Natterman ignored the levity. "Then you're really not hunting Hess?" he

  said suspiciously.

  -.'

  Stern shook his head. "I told you, Professor, I'm no Nazihunter.

  I'm more of a gamekeeper. And the preserve I protect is Israel."

  "Hess is alive," Natterman insisted. "I know he is. It's completely

  conceivable. His double died only four weeks ago, and the medical care

  at Spandau was atrocious. "

  Natten-nan folded his arms defiantly. "Rudolf Hess is alive and I'm

  going to find him."

  Stern grunted skeptically.

  "Since you're not hunting him," Natterman said in a superior tone, "I

  suppose I can tell you how I know he's alive."

  "Enlighten me, 0 Master," Stern said with mock gravity.

  Natterman scowled. "Laugh if you like. I'll bet you don't laugh at

  this. Remember the tattooed eye that I showed you on the Afrikaner's

  head? That's the constant in this whole mess, the one unifying symbol.

  The Spandau papers said the eye was the key, and the fascist members of

  the Berlin police have the eye tattooed on their scalps beneath the

  hair.

  Hauer told me so. But what Hauer doesn't know, Stern, is what that

  symbol means. I do. It's an Egyptian symbol-the All-Seeing Eye, the

  Guarding Eye of God." Natterman nodded knowingly. "Hauer also told me

  that the police fascists protect something or someone called Phoenix.

  Are you familiar with the Phoenix, Stern?"

  "Of course. It's the mythological bird of flames that rises from its

  own ashes every five hundred years."

  "Very good. Now, 'Phoenix' is a Greek word, but the Greeks did not

  invent the Phoenix myth. Phoenix is but the Greek name of the Egyptian

  god Bennu-the bird who rises from the ashes of its own destruction. Do

  you see?"

  "What I see," said Stern irritably, "is a history professor who has lost

  touch with reality."

  Natterman cackled. "That's because you're blind, Stern!

  Blind like all the rest! Blind to history! I told Hauer that the key

  to this mystery lay in the past, but the arrogant fool didn't believe

  me!"

  "What in God's name are you babbling about?"

  "Egypt, Stern, Egypt. Don't you see? All these mystical signs and

  symbols, they lead ultimately to one man: Rudolf Hess!"

  "How?" Stern snapped.

  "Because," Natterman explained, "Rudolf Hess was born and raised in

  Egypt! He went to school in Alexandria until he was fourteen years

  old!"

  Stern sat in stunned silence. "That's true," he murmured finally.

  "I remember now."

  Natterman was nodding with nervous energy. "I'm going to find him,

  Stern. I'm going to deliver that Nazi bastard into the modern world. It

  will be the academic coup of the century!"

  "Take it easy, Professor. I think you're letting your imagination run

  away with you. That eye could mean any number of things. And the name

  Phoenix has been used to name everything from cities to cars to condoms.

  You're stretching logic too far. So Hess was raised in Egypt ...
I'

  presume he attended a German school there, and he was still only a. boy

  when he emigrated to Germany."

  "He did attend a German school," Natterman admitted.

  "But fourteen is not so young. And childhood impressions are often the

  most vivid of our lives. The treasures and mysteries of Egypt's past

  would have fascinated any European boy. No, Stern, I don't think I'm

  stretching logic. It's simple deductive reasoning."

  Stern looked thoughtful. "Think what you wish, Professor.

  I will say this: I'm not so sure Hess's original mission is over yet"-he

  smiled-"I just don't think Hesr, is running it."

  Natterman looked anxious. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that Hess flew to Britain to arrange an AngloGerman peace.

  I accept that as fact. Whatever delusions Hess may have had, the

  strongest correction, the only real foundation for such a peace was the

  widespread belief in England that Germany represented the last and

  strongest possible barrier against an expansionist-minded Russia.

  Against communism."

  "That's freshman history," said Natteirinan. "What's your point?"

  "My point is that things may not be so different now. The Soviet Union

  is disintegrating, Professor. The heart of the military colossus is

  economic chaos; the great warrior is starving inside his armor.

  Russia's provinces and satellites seethe with resentment and sedition.

  One day not so long from now, Professor, the Soviet Union could

  explode."

  "And?"

  "And I'm not the only fool who knows that! I'm saying

  It

  that some people may still believe that Germany represents the best

  natural barrier against Russia, the unstable colossus."

  "Germany? As a barrier to Russia?"

  Stern smiled coldly. "Not Germany as you know it. But a Germany

  reunited. Reunited and armed with nuclear weapons. Its own nuclear

  weapons."

  "No," Natterman breathed. "That can't be true. If we Germans wanted

  nuclear weapons, we could have developed them ourselves long ago. We

  invented the ballistic missile, for God's sake!"

  Stern snorted. "It's no more fantastic than your fairy tale about

  Rudolf Hess."

  "Hess is alive!" Natterman insisted. "I know it!"

  Stern's face hardened. "Whether he is or he isn't, Professor, I don't

  want you mentioning his name in front of anyone from this moment

  forward. You understand? No one. Not friends, not family. Fantasies