The Spandau Phoenix wwi-2

by Greg Iles

  her silver dinner fork and salad fork with it.

  "Take Frau Apfel to her room," said Horn. "Then get to the tower.

  I'll be in my study."

  "But, sir, with Granville loose-" Horn silenced the Afrikaner by ringing

  a hand bell that summoned Linah. "To the tower, Pieter," he commanded.

  "I am in no danger."

  "Bring the girl," Smuts told Luhr, and hurried out.

  "Frau Apfel?" Luhr motioned for Ilse to stand. He forced himself to

  smile. As soon as Linah had wheeled Horn Out Of the dining room,

  however, he snatched Ilse up by the arm and dragged her into the hall.

  "Lock her in!" Smuts called from up the corridor. "Then meet me at the

  reception hall elevator!"

  When Ilse and Luhr reached the bedroom door, she reached into her pocket

  and closed her hand around one of the forks. She thought of driving it

  into Luhr's neck, but she did not. Better to let Stern make a move if

  he thought the time was right.

  Stern didn't get the chance. Luhr turned the knob quickly and kicked

  open the door, knocking, the Israeli backward onto the floor.

  He laughed, then shoved Ilse inside and jerked the door shut.

  Ilse pulled the silver forks from her pocket and tossed them to Stern.

  "Get us out of here!" she snapped. "Now!"

  When the elevator door opened in the domed observatory tower, Jiirgen

  Luhr stepped into a room unlike any he had ever seen. He had once been

  admitted to the control tower of Frankfurt International Airport, but

  even that see primitive compared to this futuristic command post.

  Computer screens, satellite receivers, amplifiers, massive banks of

  switches, closed-circuit television monitors, and countless other pieces

  of high-tech equipment hung from the ceiling and rose from the carpeted

  floor. An eerie green glow bathed the circular room, silhouetting three

  men dressed in khaki who ceaselessly monitored the various surveillance

  consoles.

  One man made way for Smuts, who took a seat before a phosphorescent

  radar screen.

  "Who is in the helicopters?" Luhr asked.

  Smuts smiled thinly. "I'm not sure, but you can bet they're friends of

  Lord Granville, our pet English nobleman.

  You see those switches there? The red ones?"

  "Here?" asked Luhr, reaching.

  "Don't touch them! Christ! Look at the markings. North, East, South,

  West. When I call a direction, pull the first switch for that heading.

  When I call it again, pull the second. Got it?"

  Luhr nodded. "What do they do?"

  "You'll find out soon enough."

  Taking a last look at the radar screen, Smuts moved to the center of the

  room, ascended a short ladder, 'and climbed into the strangest

  contraption Luhr had ever seen. A monstrosity of steel tubing, pedals,

  gears, and hydraulic lines, it looked like something stripped from the

  belly of a World War Two vintage bomber. Protruding from this strange

  machine were six long narrow metal tubes joined at the center and

  extending to within an inch of the dome's wall. Suddenly, Luhr realized

  what he was looking at: a Vulcan 20mm rotary cannon. He had seen them

  many times in Germany, jutting from the stubby snouts of American A-IO

  tank-killing warplanes.

  "Hit the blue switch," Smuts ordered.

  Luhr obeyed, and watched in wonder as a narrow oblong section of the

  domed ceiling receded into a hidden slot in the wall. Smuts touched a

  button; the barrels of the Vulcan gun moved forward through the opening

  like the barrel of a telescope. Now the gun could be traversed on a

  vertical axis.

  "Hit the next switch down." Luhr gasped as the middle four feet of the

  circular wall sank into the floor with . a deep hum. Through the

  bulletresistant polycarbonate glass that now served as the wall, Luhr

  could see a 360-degree panorama of the grounds surrounding Horn House.

  The sky was heav and nearly black with impending rain. Four hundred

  meters to the north, Horn's Leadet and helicopter sat like toys in the

  fast-fading light.

  "Next," said Smuts.

  Luhr hit the final blue switch, immersing the room in near-total

  darkness. Only the luminous green radar screens competed with the gray

  light outside the turret. Smuts pulled down a leather harness and

  buckled it across his chest. Then he grasped two elongated tubes and

  positioned them directly over his eyes. Luhr realized they were laser

  targeting goggles.

  "Sit down and strap yourself in," Smuts ordered.

  "Why?ll Scowling, Smuts jabbed a foot pedal. Instantly the turret began

  to rotate, throwing Luhr to the floor.

  "Don't ever question my orders, Lieutenant."

  Luhr scrambled to his feet and buckled himself into the chair. On the

  radar screen to his left, two tiny blips crossed the line indicating the

  western edge of the Kruger National Park, then turned southwest toward

  an H marked on the screen in grease pencil.

  "Fifteen kilometers and closing," announced a khaki-clad technician.

  "Approach speed 110 knots."

  Luhr watched the fuzzy green specks pass slightly to the north of the H,

  then veer left and bore straight in. "Who are they?" he asked, unable

  to suppress his apprehension.

  "Dead men," Smuts replied from the gun cage.

  Hans Apfel could not move. He lay in the absolute darkness of a cell

  one hundred meters below the earth. This was the same cell in which

  Jiirgen Luhr had spent his first night in South Africa. Hans was bound

  to a heavy cot with rope and gagged with a thick strip of cloth.

  He could only breathe through his nose. No sound had reached his ears

  for hours, save the occasional sibilant hiss of a ventilator blowing air

  into his cell.

  Suddenly, a deep, buzzing alarm blasted through the basement complex.

  Every muscle in Hans's body contracted in shock. What was happening? A

  fire? For the hundredth time he expelled every ounce of air from his

  lungs and tried to shift his body on the cot. It was no use. He had

  never felt so

  '

  helpless in his life. Yet despite his fear for Ilse, one desperate hope

  flickered in his brain: Is it my father?

  "I've almost got it," Stern grunted, working feverishly at the lock on

  the bedroom door. By intertwining the tines of Ilse's stolen forks and

  snapping off several, he'd managed to fashion the dinner fork into a

  serviceable lock pick.

  "Hurry!" Ilse urged. "I don't think we have much time."

  "Did Horn seem upset?" Stern asked, still working. "Surprised?

  Frightened?"

  "Not really. Please, hurry. We must find Hans!"

  At that moment the clouds opened. The rain lashed the roof of Horn

  House in great sheets, then settled into a steady torrent that would

  soon turn the surrounding gullies into raging rivers.

  "Got it!" Stern cried. He cracked the door slightly, then flung it

  wide.

  Ilse darted into the hall. "Where should we start?"

  "Beat on every locked door you can find. If Hans is here, he'll be

  behind one."

  "Aren't you coming?"

  "You don't need me to find your husband. I've got something else
to

  do."

  "What?"

  "After what you told me, you ask me that? Move girl!"

  Stern spun Ilse around, put a hand between her shoulder blades and

  shoved her down the hall. She hesitated a moment; then, seeing that the

  Israeli meant what he said, she started slowly up the corridor.

  Stern clenched the broken fork tightly in his fist and set out in the

  opposite direction.

  The JetRanger helicopters skimmed across the veld like great steel

  dragonflies. In the distance Burton could just make out the copper dome

  of Horn's "observatory" glinting through the heavy rain. He flattened

  his palm and dropped it close.to his thigh, indicating that Diaz should

  fly still closer to the earth. The Cuban muttered something in Spanish,

  but the scrub brush rose up into the Plexiglas windshield until Burton

  felt he was tearing across the veld on a horse gone mad. Even the few

  stunted trees they passed rose higher than the chopper's rotors.

  "See it?" Burton yelled, pointing.

  The Cuban nodded.

  "We should see an airstrip soon. That's our objective.

  Set right down on it!"

  Burton poked his head back into the crowded cabin and gave the

  Colombians a thumbs-up signal. Most of them looked airsick, but

  Alberto-the guerilla observer-grinned back, his square white teeth

  flashing in the shadows.

  Forty seconds later, Diaz wheeled the JetRanger in a wide circle and

  settled onto the freshly laid asphalt fifty meters from Horn's Leadet.

  Burton punched open the Plexiglas door and jumped to the ground. Just

  as they had practiced a dozen times on the Casilda's afterdeck, the

  Colombians poured out of the chopper one after another, looking, for all

  their amateurishness, like a squad of marines securing a hot LZ. A

  quick glance across the tarmac told Burton that the men on the other

  chopper were doing the same. "See you after the party!" he shouted to

  Diaz.

  The Cuban shook his head. "English loco, he muttered, twirling his

  forefinger beside his temple.

  The Colombians crouched at the edge of the rotor blast, waiting for

  Burton to take the lead. The mercenary jumped to the ground and

  immediately started toward the distant dome at an easy trot. The

  Colombians, twenty-two in all, followed closely.

  Thirty seconds' running brought them up short at the rim of the Wash.

  Burton stared angrily into the ravine. He'd been told to expect a

  shallow trench, no more than a thirtysecond delay. But the summer

  cloudburst had turned this steep-sided gully into a treacherous river

  that would take minutes, not seconds, to cross. Three feet of muddy

  runoff churned through the undergrowth near the bottom, and the water

  was rising fast, "Move!" Burton shouted, and leaped over the lip of the

  ravine. He half-fell, half-slid toward the torrent below.

  Looking back, he saw the Colombians skidding down behind him. Two

  minutes later they all stood en the opposite rim of the Wash, huddling

  against the rain. Burton started slogging westward again without a

  word. For a few minutes he saw nothing ahead but rain. Then, like a

  mirage, the whole stunning specter of Horn house appeared out of the

  downpour.

  Burton's blood ran cold. One glance told him that his "inside" informer

  didn't know his ass from his elbow. The "soft" objective he had been

  briefed to expect stood like a medieval fortress on a hill at the center

  of a huge expanse of open ground. Ten men armed with medium machine

  guns could defend,that house indefinitely against a force the size he

  had brought.

  His ragtag outfit had only one hopesurprise.

  The Colombians had not yet picked up on the alarming deterioration of

  their situation, and Burton didn't intend for them to. "All right,

  lads!" he barked. "Change of plan! I'd intended to use the mortar to

  soften the target for you"Burton paused while a bilingual Colombian

  interpreted"but this open ground changes everything. If I open up

  before you go in, the target will be warned. Many of you could die in

  the charge." Burton saw several faces nod warily as the interpreter

  conveyed his words. "My suggestion is that you all go in at the

  double-a quick, silent run. You go in very fast and close to the

  ground. The Israelis favor this tactic, and they've surprised a lot of

  Arabs with it, I can tell you." He summoned a bluff grin. "Ready,

  lads?"

  Two or three Colombians nodded, but most looked a shade paler than they

  had when they thought Burton's mortar barrage would precede their

  attack. The Englishman took a final look at his unit. They were a

  ragged lot by any standard, standing there in the rain, weighted down by

  bandolero ammo belts, grenades, and LAW rockets. They would have been

  comic but for the near certainty of their impending deaths.

  Looking past them to the distant house, Burton felt a sudden, almost

  irresistible urge to order them back to the choppers, to save'their

  miserable lives before they charged the fortress that waited beyond the

  gray wall of rain. But then he remembered The Deal.

  "Move out!" he shouted angrily. "Goddamn it, charge!"

  The Colombians stared dumbly for a moment; then they turned and trotted

  down the slope into the shallow bowl.

  One hung back-a teenager named Ruiz, whom Burton had tried to instruct

  in the finer points of mortar operationwaiting to see if he was needed.

  Burton started to nod, then he sensed someone behind him.

  He turned to see Alberto, the huge MNR guerilla observer. Burton

  pointed to the mortar tube he had dropped onto the grass and eyed the

  guerilla questioningly. When Alberto nodded with confidence, Burton

  decided he would prefer skill to g6w company today.

  He motioned for Ruiz to follow the charge.

  Alberto immediately began setting up the mortar, but Burton, impelled by

  some morbid instinct, crouched on the rim of the grassy bowl and watched

  the Colombians go in. As his eyes followed the camouflaged

  figures-running now-he suddenly noticed something odd about the floor of

  the bowl. Subdividing the approaches to Horn House into measured

  sections were dozens of small, grass-covered mounds. At first glance

  they seemed only natural irregularities in the ground-animal spoor,

  perhaps-but Burton soon realized that the humps were anything but

  natural. His mind faltered for a moment, not wanting to accept it; then

  his gut instinct grasped the whole, ghastly scene.

  A killing ground.

  Those innocent-looking mounds concealed land mines. Burton shouted a

  warning, but the Colombians had already passed out of earshot.

  Alberto raised his head at Burton's shoutThen it started.

  Sixteen Claymore mines exploded simultaneously, sending thousands of

  steel balls scything through the air at twice the speed of sound.

  Half the Colombians were shredded into bloody pulp before they could

  scream. The sound came in waves, deep, shuddering concussions muted by

  the rain.

  Most survivors of the first blast staggered to the ground, mortally

  wounded. Shrapnel detonated some of the Col
ombian ordnance.

  Grenades flashed in the dusk; one of the LAW rockets exploded in a

  blinding fireball, consuming the man who carried it.

  Burton lay stomach-down, shielding his eyes against the flashes.

  Alberto tugged at Burton's pack, groping for mortar rounds so that he

  could return fire. Burton'slai)ved the hie guerilla's hand away.

  "Bloody hell! All you'd do now is pin-point our position!" He punched

  his fist into the soggy veld.

  "Poor bastards."

  In spite of the Englishman's pessimism, Alberto grinned and pointed down

  the slope to where, unbelievably, a halfdozen Colombians still crawled

  doggedly toward Horn House. Having gone too far to retreat with any

  hope of survival, they went blindly on. Forty meters from the great

  tliangular structure, one of them rose to one knee and let off a LAW

  rocket. The smoke trail arrowed across the grass, and the exploding

  warhead tore a jagged hole in the wall above a shuttered window.

  Emboldened by their comrade's success, three wounded Colombians got up

  and cheered, then charged the main entranee with their AK-47s on full

  automatic.

  At that moment-with a sound like a handsaw n'ppi' tin-Smuts's,Vulcan gun

  opened up from the observatory.

  From the tower, Jijrgen Luhr watched the carnage with morbid

  fascination. He could not quite comprehend the fact that he had

  obliterated a dozen human beings with the flick of a switch. The land

  around Horn House looked as if a hundred plows had passed over it,

  sowing blood and fire. The remotely detonated Claymores had churned the

  earth into a smoking graveyard. When the Vulcan gun began to fire, Luhr

  thought he had gone deaf. White flame spat out of the six spinning

  barrels; the unbelievable rate of fire made the scarlet tracers look

  like laser beams arcing across the slope below. Anywhere the gun

  lingered for a full second, more than a hundred depleted-uranium-tipped

  slugs impacted in a steady stream of death.

  The rain and darkness obscured the remaining attackers, but Smuts seemed

  to have no trouble finding them. Wearing ear protectors now, he worked

  the pedals with practiced skill, traversing the gun with remorseless

  accuracy. Watching Smuts's slit-eyed face behind the Vulcan, Luhr

  actually pitied the men who remained alive.

  Four floors below the observatory, Robert Stanton, Lord Granville,

  watched the weapons he had known nothing about blast his dreams of power