The Spandau Phoenix wwi-2

by Greg Iles

"Got money?"

  "All I need."

  "Right," said the driver. "Get in, then."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I30 Pm. Horn House, Northern Transvaal, RSA Seated in his motorized

  wheelchair on the north lawn, Alfred Horn chewed an Upmann cigar while

  Robert Stanton, Lord Granville, paced nervously around him, gulping from

  an enormous Bloody Mary. For an hour the young Englishman had been

  ranting about "corporate expansion." The corporation he referred to was

  the illegal and wholly invisible one which carried on the lucrative

  drug- and currencysmuggling operations he had administered for Alfred

  Horn for the past eight years. The old man had sat silent during most

  of the tirade. He was curious, but not about increasing his illegal

  profits. He was curious about Stanton himself.

  Today the young nobleman's voice had the semblance of its usual

  brashness, but something in it did not quite ring true.

  He was drunk, and Horn intended to give him as much rope as he would

  take.

  "I don't even know why I'm trying," he lamented. "Do you realize how

  much money we have lost in the past three days, Alfred? Over two

  million pounds! Two million. And I have no idea why. You shut down

  our entire European operation without a word of explanation."

  "To whom do I owe explanations?" Horn rasped.

  .Well ... to no one, of course. But Alfred"certain people might get

  angry if we don't resume operations very soon.

  We have commitments."

  A faint smile touched Horn's lips. "Yes," he said softly.

  "I'm curious, Robert, this gold that is scheduled to anive day after

  tomorrow. Why is it coming by ship? Normally those deliveries are made

  by air."

  This question surprised Stanton, but he recovered quickly.

  "The final leg will still be made by air," he said. "By helicopter. I

  don't know why, Alfred. Perhaps the currency export restrictions were

  tightened at Colombia's airports.

  Perhaps it was easier to take the gold out by ship. Who knows?"

  "Indeed." Horn glanced at the thin face of Pieter Smuts.

  "Tell me, Robert, do you miss England? You've been with us a month

  now."

  Stanton took a huge swallow of his Bloody Mary. "Glad to be away from

  the bloody place. It's winter there, isn't it?

  Though I must admit I'd like to get down to Jo'burg for a weekend.

  Not much female companionship to choose from here. I don't have the

  fancy for dark meat Smuts has. I suppose it's an acquired taste."

  Stanton grinned. "There's always the pretty new Fraulein, of course,

  our own Aryan princess.

  Horn's solitary eye burned into Stanton's face. "You will keep your

  distance from Frau Apfel, Robert," he said sharply. "Is that absolutely

  clear?"

  "Wouldn't dream of it, old boy. Not my type at all." The young

  Englishman tried to look nonchalant, but he could not remain cool under

  the smoking gaze of Horn's security chief. "Would you mind terribly not

  doing that, Smuts?" he said irritably. "Gives me the galloping

  creeps."

  Smuts continued to stare like a wolf at the edge of a dying fire.

  After several moments, Horn said, "It won't be long now, Robert, and

  everything will be back to normal. I have some business to take care of

  first, that is all. It's a matter of security."

  Security, Stanton thought contemptuously. In two days you're going to

  find out about bloody security. He slipped on a pair of Wayfarer

  sunglasses to hide his eyes while he considered his remarkable position.

  Three months ago, two very powerful people had decided they wanted

  Alfred Horn dead.

  One was a ruthless Colombian drug baron who wanted access to Phoenix's

  European drug markets. His motivegreed-Stanton clearly understood. The

  other was a rather terrifying gentleman from London named Sir Neville

  Shaw.

  Stanton knew nothing about his motive. All he knew was that both Shaw

  and the Colombian had asked him to assassinate Alfred Horn. With his

  own hands! Stanton had refused, of course. He didn't want to murder

  the old man.

  Horn had made him rich-something his worthless title had never done. But

  the terrible pressure to kill the old man had not relented. The

  Colombian had threatened Stanton's life, a threat Stanton could afford

  to ignore as long as he lived under Horn's protection. Sir Neville Shaw

  had also begun with threats. I'll bury your title under a mountain of

  dirt and blood, he'd said. Stanton had laughed. He didn't give two

  shits about his title. Even as a child he had sensed that the name

  Granville was held in quiet, profound contempt among most of the British

  peerage. That was one reason he'd turned to the life he had, and also

  why, upon his father's death, he had accepted the aid and protection of

  Alfred Horn.

  But then Shaw had changed tactics. Kill Horn, he'd said, and the Crown

  will allow you to keep the companies you own and operate under Horn's

  supervision. Stanton had paused at,that. Because the time was long

  past for Alfred Horn to pass on his empire to a younger man. For five

  years Stanton had been the majority stockholder of Phoenix AG, yet not

  one decision regarding the administration of the giant conglomerate had

  been made by him. His father had played a similar role before him, but

  his father had been allowed to make decisions-his father had been

  trusted. Robert was a mere figurehead, almost a joke. Yes, the time

  for change had come. Yet Stanton could not do the dirty work himself;

  even if he succeeded in killing Horn, Pieter Smuts would tear him limb

  from bloody limb. No, the old man would have to be killed in such a way

  that Smuts and his security force died with him. Stanton had pondered

  this problem for a week, after which time he had hit upon a rather

  brilliant plan. He would simply bring together the two parties who

  shared a common goal. On a day trip to London he had communicated his

  plan to Shaw, then left the devious mI-5 chief to work out the details.

  Thus the present plan; thus the ship. All that remained now was the

  execution.

  "Drunk already, are you?" Smuts goaded in his flat voice.

  For once Stanton looked the Afrikaner dead in the eye.

  "Just thinking," he said. "You should try it sometime, old

  sport."

  Ilse Apfel stood on a gentle swell of grass and stared across the vast

  high-veld. She had fled Horn House after the nightmare in the X-ray

  room, running as far and as fast as she could. No one had stopped her,

  but Linah had followed at a respectful distance, pausing whenever Ilse

  did, keeping pace like a distant shadow. After Ilse's panic had carried

  her nearly two miles from the house, she'd calmed smoothed out a place

  in the rough grass to rest.

  Alfred Horn had spoken the truth at dinner, si On this empty plateau

  there was simply nowhere to. Not without a map, a gun, and a good

  supply Far to her left, scrawny, humped cattle grazed. Beyond them a

  pair of reddish horses pranced in the sun. A black haze hung low in the

  distance, touching the brown horizo& Though Ilse did not know it, th
e

  black smoke rose from the coal-fueled cookstoves of a small native

  kraal, or village.

  Such smoke marked most native dwellings from Capetown to the Bantustan

  of Venda. In winter it was worse. Then the dark palls hung perpetually

  over the settlements, blocking out the sun. In South Africa electricity

  is a selectively p@, vided commodity.

  Ilse looked down at the sun-baked earth. What hope had she here, so far

  from Germany? What chance did her childm have? Hans was on his way

  here now, if Horn could be believed . And from Smuts's questions in the

  X-ray session, shorn thought there was a chance Hans's father might be

  coming too. She hoped so. Even from Hans's rare comments about Dieter

  Hauer, Ilse had gleaned that he was a highly respected, even feared,

  police officer. But what could he do against men like Pieter Smuts?

  Again!

  Jiirgen Luhr, who had slashed a helpless policeman before her eyes?

  She thought of Alfred Horn. Lord Grenville was right about one

  thing-the old man had taken to her. Ilse had enough experience with men

  to recognize infatuation, and Horn had definitely fallen for her. And

  here, she realized, his infatuation might be the key to very survival.

  And to her child's survival. She wonder what madness the old man had

  planned for tonight. From what Stanton had told her of Horn's business

  dealings, meetings could augur no good for anyone. Still. she c not

  very well refuse to attend-not if she wanted ate herself further with

  Horn. And she might le@ thing that could help her escape.

  Pulling a long blade of grass from the ground and started back toward

  the house. She had wandered afield than she'd thought. Linah was no

  longer in sig before Ilse had covered fifty meters, she confronted thing

  she had not seen on her way out: a shimmering stretch of hot asphalt

  running off through the grass and scrub. A @? Her heart quickened with

  hope. Then she saw the plane. Three hundred meters to her right, on a

  round asphalt runway, Horn's sleek Lear-31A. Ilse sighed hopelessly,

  and continued west.

  a long rise, she caught sight of Horn House about away. She gasped.

  Fleeing the house earlier, she had not looked back. But now she saw

  the whole estate laid out before her like a postcard photograph, stark

  and stunning in its originality. She had never seen anything like it,

  not in .)magazines, not even on television. Horn House-a building #kat

  from inside gave the impression of a classical manor Med with ornate

  rooms and endless hallways-was actually an equilateral triangle. A

  triad of vast legs surrounded a central tower that rose like a castle

  keep above the three outer legs. Crowning this tower was a.glittering

  copper-plated dome. The observatory, Ilse remembered. Hexagonal

  turrets ked each vertex of the great triangle. She half expected to see

  archers rise up from behind the tessellated parapets.

  With a sudden shiver, she realized that Horn House was exactly what it

  appeared to be-a fortress. On the seemingly ureless plain, the massive

  citadel stood ofi a hill set in center of a shallow, circular bowl

  created by gradually rig slopes on all its sides. Anyone approaching it

  would have to cross this naked expanse of ground beneath the gaze of the

  central tower.

  Ilse pressed down her apprehension and set off across the asphalt, using

  the observatory dome as her homeward beacon.

  She was quickly brought up short by a deep, dry gully. She d crossing a

  shallow defile earlier, but nothing s. She must have crossed it at

  another point on her from the house. Easing herself down over the rim,

  carefully into the dusty ravine.

  Smuts had christened this dry creek bed "the wash and it served as the

  first barrier in an impregnable security screen which the Afrikaner had

  constructed around his master's isolated redoubt. If Ilse had known

  what lay been her and Horn House, she would have hunkered down he Wash

  and refused to take another step. The Afrikaner used all his experience

  to turn the grassy bowl between the Wash and his master's fortress into

  a killing zone from which no intruder could escape alive.

  Every square meter of the circular depression was protected by Claymore

  mines, explosive devices containing hundreds of steel balls that, when

  remotely detonated, blasted outward at an angle and cut any living

  creature to pieces in a millisecond. Concrete bunkers, each armed with

  an M-60 machine gun, studded the inner lip of the huge bowl.

  Each was connected to the central tower by a network of underground

  tunnels, providing a secure means of directing fire and reinforcing the

  bunkers in the event of casualties. But the linchpin of Horn House's

  defenses was the "observatory." The nerve center of the entire security

  complex, the great copper dome housed closed-circuit television

  monitors, radar screens, satellite communications gear, and the pride of

  Smuts's arsenal-a painstakingly machined copy of the American Vulcan

  mini-gun, a rotary cannon capable of pouring 6,600 armor-piercing rounds

  per minute down onto the open ground surrounding Horn House.

  None of these precautions was visible, of course; Pieter Smuts knew his

  job. The Claymore mines-designed to be spiked onto the ground

  surface-had been waterproofed and hidden beneath small mounds of earth.

  The bunkers had sheets of sun-scorched sod laid over their outward

  faces.

  Even the Vulcan gun slept silently behind the retractable 'lllescope

  cover" of the "observatory," waiting to be aimed not at the heavens, but

  at the earth.

  Oblivious to the matrix of death that surrounded her, Ilse fought her

  way up and over'the far rim of the Wash, brushed herself off, and

  continued toward the still distant house.

  With a soft buzz Alfred Horn turned his wheelchair away from his

  security chief and gazed across the veld. Ilse had just topped the rim

  of the bowl to the northeast. With her blond hair dancing in the sun,

  she looked as carefree as a Jungfrau picnicking in the Grunewald.

  Without taking his eyes from her, Horn asked, "Is the helicopter

  available, Pieter?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Horn watched Ilse make her way across the long, shallow depression and

  climb the hill to the house. It took several minutes. When Ilse spied

  the Ahikaner, she started to avoid the table, but Horn motioned her

  over. She stepped tentatively up to his wheelchair.

  "Is there any news of my husband?" she asked diffidently.

  "Not yet, my dear. But there soon will be, I'm sure." Horin turned to

  Smuts. "Pieter, have one of the office girls order some clothes for

  Frau Apfel. They can fly them out in the helicopter. And make sure

  there's something conservative."

  He cast a surreptitious glance at Lord Granville. "For tonight."

  The young Englishman stared into his drink.

  "Take Frau Apfel with you, Pieter," Horn suggested. "She can provide

  her sizes." He turned to Ilse with a smile.

  "Would you, my dear?"

  Ilse hesitated a moment, then she silently followed Smuts.

  She didn't know what to make of
Alfred Horn's eccentricities, but she

  remembered the Afrikaner's warning against disobeying him. She would do

  anything to keep her unborn child off the torture table that waited in

  the X-ray ROOMHom watched her walk into the house, a look of rapture on

  his face. Stanton observed him with growing disgust. The oldfool's

  past it, he thought. There's no stopping things now.

  You never learned the natural law, Alfred You pass the torrh to the

  young or you die. As Stanton drained the dregs of his Bloody Mary, he

  made a silent toast to Sir Neville Shaw.

  3.30 P.M. Mozambique Channel, Indian Ocean

  Sixty-five miles off the wooded coastline of southern Mozambique, the MV

  Casilda hove to in the 370-mile-wide stretch of water that separates the

  old Portuguese colony from the island of Madagascar. A medium-sized

  freighter of Panamanian registry, her holds were full of denim fabric

  bound for Dares Salaam on the Tanzanian coast to the north. After

  unloading this cargo Casilda would sail to Beira, the great railhead and

  port on the Mozambique coast, where she would take on a consignment of

  asbestos bound for Uruguay. But just now she had other business.

  Strapped to the aft deck of the freighter like giant insects pinned to a

  display board were two Bell JetRanger HI helicopters scheduled for

  delivery to RENAMO, the antiMarxist guerrillas in Mozambique- Although

  the choppers would eventually be delivered to their official buyers,

  they had a job to do first-a slight detour to take. Supplied by a very

  wealthy gentleman in South America, the JetRangers were configured as

  commercial aircraft-with the papers required for legal transfer all in

  order-but a military man might I e quick to notice that they could be

  easily modified for combat duty in a pinch.

  The sun-blistered man who surveyed the two helos from the shadow of the

  wheelhouse awning was just such a man.

  An Englishman, and the only white man on the entire ship, his name was

  Alan Burton. During the entire five-week voyage, Burton had watched

  over the helicopters as if they were his own. In the next two days he

  would have to entrust his life to them, and as he did not particularly

  trust any of the men he would be working with, he felt that the most he

  could do was be sure of the choppers. They were his lifeline.

  His way in-his way out.

  Casilda had been lucky so far. At no port of call had any customs