The Spandau Phoenix wwi-2

by Greg Iles

  Hauer turned his head. "Have I got that right, Professor?"

  "Succinctly put, Captain."

  "From the Russian point of view, one would think the Spandau papers are

  a minor consideration compared to the very real danger of Phoenix. If

  the Russians learn that a secret, extremely nationalistic group exists

  within the police and political hierarchies in both East and West

  Germany, a group bent on breaking the DDR away from Russia and uniting

  with West Germany, a group that has infiltrated the Stasi, there'is

  really no telling what they might do."

  "What are you saying, Captain?"

  "I'm saying that the Russians need to learn about Phoenix. In the right

  way, of course. I didn't tell Colonel Rose any of this, so it will all

  be up to you. You heard Professor Natterman. In Berlin there is a

  photocopy of the Spandau papers. Also in Berlin-in the house of a dead

  policeman named Josef Steuben-there is a fireproof safe. In that safe

  is a year's accumulation of evidence of drug crimes against Funk and his

  men. But more importantly"-Hauer paused, reluctant to reveal something

  that a friend had died to protect-"there is a list of every member of

  Bruderschaft der Phoenix whose name I could learn. The list names

  members on both sides of the Wall. Once the Russians know what Phoenix

  is, Schneider, they will give anything for that list."

  The light of admiration dawned in Schneider's eyes.

  "We want Phoenix crushed, yet we can't trust our own countrymen to do

  the job. So, as painful as it may be, we must turn to the Allies.

  That means the Americans. When YOU get to Berlin, retrieve the

  photocopy and the list, then bide them. Then tell Colonel Rose what you

  have, and what YOU want. at y want is c an American supervision of a

  German urge of Phoenix. When the Americans agree to that, let them

  present the Russians with their ..own offer. I suspect it will run

  something like this: In exchange for continued silence about the Hess

  @r-which is what the British and Americans want-the Russians will be

  given the names of Phoenix members in the East. They can purge the

  Stasi at their leisure, and get the higher-ups by interrogating the

  Stasi members." Hauer cracked his knuckles.

  "As far as I can see, everybody should be happy with that arrangement."

  A strange smile flickered across Schneider's face. "I think you're in

  the wrong line of work, Captain. You should have been a negotiator."

  "I am," Hauer told him. "A hostage negotiator."

  "I thought you were a sharpshooter."

  Hauer sighed. "Sometimes negotiations fail."

  Schneider stood. "I'd better go. Colonel Rose said there's a plane

  leaving for Cairo in forty minutes, and there'll be an Army jet waiting

  for me there."

  Hauer offered his hand. "Good luck, Detective."

  Schneider's grip was like a bear's. "You come back to Berlin, Captain.

  And bring your son. We need more men like YOU."

  At the door Hauer spoke softly. "It's funny, Schneider. I want the

  same thing Phoenix wants, a united Germany, but-"

  "We all want that," Schneider cut in. "But we don't want men like Funk

  running it.

  There is a better Germany than that."

  Hauer met Schneider's eyes. "We'll never get them all, you know.

  Not the ones at the top. Those bastards never pay-" Schneider laid a

  hand on the Walther in his belt. "If the courts don't get them,

  Captain, there are other ways. And don't take too long here. The local

  police are going to start discovering corpses soon."

  With that, Schneider turned and walked away, a hatted man whose

  shoulders stretched half the breadth of the hallway.

  When Hauer walked back through the foyer, Gadi said, "Isn't there

  something else we can do while we wait?"

  Hauer shook his head. "Stern is our only chance. We've got to wait

  until he calls us."

  "I've got a bad feeling about this," Gadi confided. "What if Uncle

  Jonas can't find a way to call?"

  Hauer shrugged. "Then he dies. Just like Hans and Ilse."

  Perhaps inspired by Schneider, he touched the grip of his own pistol.

  "Then we hunt the bastards down and kill them-every one of them."

  Gadi exhaled in frustration. "So we just sit here?"

  "We sit here."

  "How longt' "As long as it takes."

  "I don't like it, Captain. And I don't trust that detective, either."

  Hauer lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. "Who cares."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  4.55 Pm. mI-5 Headquarters, Charles Street, London Sir Neville Shaw sat

  alone in his darkened office, clutching the telephone receiver to his

  ear.

  "What do you mean, you lost him?" he asked.

  Swallow's low voice quavered with barely controlled hysteria.

  "Someone picked him off a motorway with a helicopter. I was too far

  back to stop it."

  Shaw rubbed his forehead. This was bad news indeed.

  "Thank you for informing me," he said at length. "Your services have

  been appreciated, but they will no longer be needed."

  "What?"

  "There will be no further contact between you and this office."

  "Don't give me that, you bastard!" Swallow shrieked. "I want to know

  where Stern went! I know you know, and you had better tell me!"

  Shaw straightened up at his desk. "Listen to me very carefully.

  Your orders are to stand down. Stand down as of this moment. Any

  further action on your part may disrupt a parallel operation, and will

  thus be considered not insubordination, but treason to the Crown. Is

  that clear?"

  Swallow's laugh was like the cackling of a witch. "The Crown," she

  scoffed. "Listen to me, little man. I know what kind of operation this

  is. I know you ordered the murder of Rudolf Hess in Spandau. And if

  you don't tell me where Stern is now, I'll blow this story wide open.

  I'll kill Stern one way or the other, and when I've done with him, I'll

  come for you. Now-" Shaw broke the connection. The light on his phone

  went dark. Seconds later Deputy Director Wilson appeared in his

  doorway, a darker shadow in the dim office.

  "What did she want, Sir Neville?"

  Shaw stared at Wilson's anxious face for a long time.

  "Nothing," he said finally. "Stern's mucking about Pretoria, Swallow's

  on his tail. Why don't you send out for some food, old man?

  Get enough for yourself. It's going to be a long night, and I want you

  with me."

  Wilson nodded crisply. "Certainly, Sir Neville."

  When Wilson had gone, Shaw consulted his map of southern Africa.

  He checked the scale against a line he had drawn from the Mozambique

  Channel to a sand-colored blank spot near the Kruger Park.

  As if in a dream, he saw two tiny helicopters flying slowly across the

  map, somewhere along that line. Parallel operation, he thought,

  remembering his words to Swallow. He hoped Alan Burton had better luck

  than Swallow did. Burton was the last chance for the secret to stay

  hidden.

  Shaw took his favorite pipe from the stand on his desk and began

  rummaging for his tobacco. Jonas Stern Must be good indeed to have

  eluded that she-devil
, he thought. He wondered about Swallow's death

  threat as he sucked on the, cold pipe stem, but he soon put it out of

  his mind. At this point in time, a deranged assassin was the least of

  his worries.

  5.00 Pm. MozambiquelSouth Africa Border

  The two helicopters flew in tandem, noses dipped for speed as they swept

  across the coastal plain north of Maputo. In the seat next to Alan

  Burton, Juan Diaz cursed under his breath. They had spent half the day

  in a guerilla camp that looked like an outpost from hell.

  Ragged tents pitched in the middle of a desert, cannibalized army

  trucks, emaciated black men carrying rusty AK-47s, girls of twelve or

  thirteen stolen from nearby villages and forced into whoredom by the

  soldiers: the dogs had looked healthier than the people.

  "Who were those bastards?" asked Diaz, who had a fair grasp of English.

  "The MNR, sport," Burton replied. "Bloody wags. Fascists, to boot.

  You're lucky they didn't know you were a communist.?' Diaz spat and

  muttered something in Spanish.

  "I didn't like it any more than you, Juan boy. But we had to stop to

  pay them. Those fuzzy-wuzzies are providing our diversion this evening.

  Plus, it was a good place to lie up.

  That freighter was too exposed."

  Diaz leaned out to make sure his sister ship was close behind.

  "Who are they trying to divert for us, English?"

  "Government air forces. There's a Mozambican base about a hundred miles

  south of here, and a South African one further south."

  "Ay-ay-ay," Diaz groaned. "What's based there?"

  "In Mozambique? The usual African complement. Transport craft, helos,

  a few outdated fighters. But the South Africans have it all."

  The Cuban crossed himself and dropped the chopper even closer to the

  plain.

  "You didn't think an incursion into South Africa would be a stroll on

  the beach, did you?"

  Suddenly a torrent of what sounded like gibberish to Diaz burst out of

  the African ether and filled the cabin. Burton leaned forward and began

  transmitting in a slower, broken version of the same language. When he

  finished, he replaced the transmitter and settled back into his seat

  with a trace of a smile on his lips.

  "Takes me back, that does."

  "What was that shit?"

  "Portuguese, sport. Language of a lost empire."

  "Everything still okay?" the pilot asked nervously.

  "Bloody marvelous, I'd say."

  Burton felt like a different man after the confinement of the ocean

  voyage. He was glad to be back in Africa. The only complication so far

  had been the "observer" that the MNR guerilla chief had foisted on him.

  The observer was a giant black named Alberto who carried a frightening

  arsenal of grenades, knives, and pistols. But when Burton thought of

  The Deal, he refused to let Alberto worry him. The guerilla looked like

  more of a soldier than any of the Colombians, and if he got in the way,

  Burton could always kill him. The Englishman reckoned there might be a

  good deal of killing 1

  before this mission was done. But that was all right. England had

  never seemed closer than it did just now.

  6.07 Pm. Horn House, The Northern Transvaal Jonas Stern waited alone in

  the vast reception hall of Horn House, praying that Ilse Apfel possessed

  more nerve and presence of mind than her overwrought husband.

  By all rights she should be in worse shape, emotionally speaking.

  But something about the way Natterman had talked about the girl gave

  Stern hope. Maybe she had the sand to do it.

  Maybe"Herr Professor?"

  The voice emanated from a dark hallway to Stern's left.

  He turned to see Pieter Smuts emerge from the shadows.

  "That's right," said Stern, putting his full concentration into each

  syllable of German. "Professor Emeritus Georg Natterman, of the Free

  University of Berlin. Who are you?" Smuts smiled bleakly. "I believe

  you have something for me, Professor?"

  Stern regarded the Afrikaner with imperious detachment.

  "Where is my granddaughter?"

  "First the papers."

  Playing the role of arrogant academic to the hilt, Stern raised his chin

  and looked down his nose at Smuts. "I'll not give the Spandau papers to

  anyone but the man who can prove they are his rightful property.

  Frankly, I doubt anyone here can do that."

  The Afrikaner grimaced. "Herr Professor, it is only my employer's

  extreme patience which has kept me from-" An invisible bell cut Smuts

  off in mid-sentence. "One moment," he said, and disappeared down the

  hall from which he had come.

  Glancing around the grand reception hall, Stern wondered what madman had

  constructed this surreal schloss on the highveld. He took a couple of

  tentative steps down the opposite corridor, but Smuts's returning

  footsteps brought him back almost immediately.

  "Follow me, Herr Professor," the Afrikaner said stiffly.

  In the dimly lit library, Alfred Horn sat motionless behind an enormous

  desk, his one good eye focused on the man he believed to be Professor

  Georg Natterman.

  Stern hesitated at the door. He had expected to be brought before a

  young English nobleman named Granville, not a man twenty years his

  senior.

  "Come closer, Herr Professor," Horn said. "Take a seat."

  "I'll stand, thank you," Stern said uncertainly. He saw little more

  than a shadow at the desk. He tried to determine the shadow's

  nationality by its voice, but found it difficult. The man spoke German

  like a native, but there were other inflections too.

  "As you wish," Horn said. "You wanted to see me?"

  Stern squinted into the gloom. Slowly, the amorphous features of the

  shadow coalesced into the face of an old man.

  A very old man. Stern cleared his throat. "You are the man responsible

  for my granddaughter's abduction?"

  "I'm afraid so, Professor. My name is Thomas Horn. I'm a well-known

  businessman in this country. Such tactics are not my usual style, but

  this is a special case. A member of your family stole something that

  belongs to some associates of mine . . ."

  Horn sat so still that his mouth barely moved when he spoke. Stern

  tried to concentrate on the old man's words, but somehow his attention

  was continually drawn to the face@r what little he could see of it. A

  low buzz of alarm began to insinuate itself into his brain. With a

  combat veteran's sensitivity to physical wounds, Stern quickly noticed

  that the old man had but one eye. Watery and blue, it flicked

  restlessly back and forth while the other stared ever forward, seeing

  nothing. My God! Stern thought. Here is Professor Natterman's

  one-eyed man!

  "... but I am a pragmatist," Horn was saying. "I always take the

  shortest route between two points. In this case that route happened to

  run through your family. You have a fine granddaughter, a true daughter

  of Deutschiand But in matters such as this-matters with political

  implications-even family must take second place."

  Stern felt sweat heading on his neck. Who in God's name was this man?

  He tried to recall wh
at, Natterman had said about the one-eyed man.

  Helmut ... That was the name the professor had mentioned. But of course

  Natterman had thought "Helmut" was a code name for the real Rudolf Hess.

  Stern felt his heart thud in his chest. It can't be, he thought

  quickly. It simply cannot be.

  "And so you see how simple it is, Professor," Horn concluded.

  "For the Spandau papers, I give you back your family."

  Stern tried to speak, but his mind no longer controlled his vocal cords.

  The man murmuring to him from the shadows was at least twenty years

  older than himself. The face and voice had been ravaged by time, but as

  Stern stared, he began to discern the telltale marks of authority, the

  indelible lines etched into the face of a man who had held great power.

  Could it be? asked a voice in Stern's brain.

  Of course it could, answered another. Hess's double died only weeks

  ago, and he had endured the soul-killing loneliness of Spandau Prison

  for almost fifty years ... This man has lived the life of a millionaire,

  with access to the best medical care in the world"I've read your book,

  Professor," Horn said smoothly "Germany: From Bismarck to the Bunker A

  penetrating study, though flawed in its conclusions. I would be very

  interested to hear your opinion of the Spandau papers."

  Stern swallowed. "I-I haven't really had that much time to study them.

  They deal mainly with the prisoners at Spandau."

  "Prisoners, Professor? Not one prisoner in particular?"

  Stern blinked.

  "Not Prisoner Number Seven?" Horn smiled cagily.

  "Have no fear, Professor, my interest is purely academic.

  I'd simply like to know if the papers shed any light on the events of

  May tenth, 1941-on the flight of Rudolf Hess.

  The solution to that mystery has always eluded me"-he smiled again-"as

  it has the rest of the world."

  Stern fought the urge to step backward. What kind of game was this?

  "There is mention of the Hess flight," he whispered.

  "And are you familiar with the case, ProfessorT' "Conversant."

  "Excellent. I happen to have a unique volume related to it here in my

  library. The only one of its kind." Horn tilted his head slightly.

  "Pieter?"

  Smuts crossed to some tall shelves at the, dark edge of the library and

  pulled down a thin black volume. He hesitated a moment, but Horn

  inclined his head sharply and Smuts obeyed.

  Stern accepted the thin volume without looking at it.