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The Spandau Phoenix wwi-2

Page 70

by Greg Iles


  just under three hundred kilometers. Roughly three and a half hours

  overland, making allowances for what appeared to be trackless wilderness

  surrounding Horn House itself He snatched up the telephone from the

  desk, his heart pounding.

  Then-as he punched in the number of the Protea Hof Hotel-he heard muted

  voices. He dropped into a crouch behind the desk, taking the phone with

  him.

  The voices were not coming from the telephone. Nor were they getting

  any closer. Stern got cautiously to his feet. By moving to different

  parts of the room, he soon located the source of the sound.

  The voices were coming from behind the wall of photographs. He

  flattened his ear to the wood.

  Both voices were male, one much stronger than the other.

  The stronger voice spoke with a British accent.

  Feeling his way across the wall to get closer to the voices, Stern

  touched cold metal with his right hand. Another knob.

  Now he understood. This unholy shrine adjoined the library and study by

  means of two hidden doors. Horn had made sure that his secret sanctuary

  had two routes of egress. Taking a deep breath, Stern turned the knob.

  He heard the familiar snick of metal, but the voices went on talking. He

  pushed open the door.

  The study beyond was dim but not lightless. Flashes from the picture

  window intermittently lit the room. Stern could hear the rattle of

  small arms fire outside, punctuated by the occasional burp of some

  heavier weapon. He edged into the room and pressed himself against the

  paneled wall. By the greenish light of a desk lamp he picked out the

  man with the British accent. He was pointing a large pistol across the

  desk at a shadow seated before the window.

  Stern jumped when he heard the voice of the man in the chair, a gravelly

  rasp, full of contempt. It was Horn. He couldn't make out all the

  words, but the old man-despite his vulnerable position-seemed to be

  offering the Englishman mercy. This only infuriated the younger man.

  With a cry of rage he charged the wheelchair, kicked Horn over, then

  raised his pistol and jerked back the slide. By God, he means to kill

  him, Stern realized. He started forward instinctively, then he stopped.

  A broken fork was not much good against a semi-automatic pistol.

  Yet beyond that, something deep in Stern's soul, something angry and

  crusted black, told him to do absolutely nothing. If the old man lying

  helpless on the floor actually had gained possession of a nuclear

  weapon, Stern could neutralize him now by simply allowing the enraged

  Englishman to blow his brains out. Perhaps that was best ...

  The next moments passed like chain lightning. Stern heard Horn mutter

  something from behind the sofa. The young Englishman, driven beyond his

  limit of endurance, steadied his gun with both hands and prepared to

  fire.

  "Death at last, Alfred!" he cried. "It's long overdue!"

  Stern stopped in his tracks. Alfred? He felt a jolt of disorientation.

  Alfred Horn? But the old man had introduced himself as Thomas HomA

  sharp metallic click froze everyone in the room. The sound was

  unmistakable-an automatic pistol being cocked.

  As if controlled by the same brain, Jonas Stern and Robert Stanton

  whirled toward the sound. Stern glimpsed a swatch of blond hair in the

  shadows; then the muzzle flash blinded him.

  Five in a row, very fast. The first shots went wild, but the last two

  snatched the Englishman off his feet and drove him through the picture

  window, shattering the panes into a thousand glittering razors.

  Stern dropped to the floor. The blond hair he had seen told him one

  thing: Peter Smuts had arrived to save his master.

  As Stern peered through the darkness, trying to pick out the Afrikaner,

  the study door burst open and the overhead lights flashed on. What

  Stern saw next stopped the breath in his lungs. Ilse Apfel stood rigid

  at the center of the room, a smoking pistol clenched in both hands. She

  was the blond who had saved Horn from his would-be executioner! Pieter

  Smuts bounded across the room and tackled her, one hand immobilizing the

  pistol as he knocked her to the floor. She went down without a sound.

  The Afrikaner came to his feet almost instantly, scanning the room for

  his master.

  "Pieter," cried a weak voice. "Behind the sofa."

  Smuts darted to the old man and fell to his knees. "Are you hit?"

  "What ... ? No. You saved me, Pieter."

  "Linahi" Smuts shouted. "Get the doctor!"

  Stern heard footsteps scurrying down the hall.

  Only now did Smuts notice the broken window. Stanton's mangled corpse

  lay half in and half out of it, his lifeless eyes turned upward, open to

  the rain. The Afrikaner's mouth dropped open in wonder as he realized

  what must have happened.

  "Thank God you arrived, Pieter," Horn mumbled. "The swine meant to kill

  me. I didn't think he had it in him."

  Watching Ilse closely, Smuts righted the wheelchair, lifted the old man

  into it, then crossed the study and pulled Ilse to her feet.

  She looked no more alert than she had when Smuts bowled her to the

  floor. The Afrikaner led her gently over to Horn.

  "Sir, when I got here I saw Frau Apfel standing over there with a pistol

  raised. It was she that saved you." Smuts made a sudden sound of

  astonishment. "It's my Beretta! By God, she shot Lord Granville with

  my bloody Beretta!"

  Ilse's face remained expressionless, but Horn's eyes began to shine. "I

  knew it, Pieter," he said triumphantly. "She couldn't stand by and

  watch me die. She is a true German!"

  Horn rolled his chair forward and took Ilse's hand. "Did you kill Lord

  Granville, my child?"

  Ilse said nothing.

  "She's in shock," Horn murmured, shaking his head. "It is a miracle,

  Pieter. Fate brought this woman here to me."

  While appreciative of Ilse's actions, Smuts would not have carried the

  praise so far. "Sir," he said carefully, "it appears to me that Frau

  Apfel acted purely by reflex. She was trying to escape. She saw a

  murder about to be committed; she fired blindly to prevent it. I don't

  think we should attach more significance to it than that."

  Ignoring Smuts, Horn squeezed Ilse's hand in his own.

  "My child," he said softly, "by your action tonight you not only saved

  my life, but your husband's also."

  "But sir!" Smuts protested. "Think what you're saying."

  "Silence, Pieter!" Horn exploded. "I want half a million rand

  transferred to the Deutsche Bank in Berlin, under Frau Apfel's name."

  He smiled at Ilse. "For the child," he said.

  "Pieter told me that you are pregnant, my dear."

  Smuts stared incredulously at his master. This was insane.

  He had never seen the old man make decisions based on sentimentality.

  Somehow, the Apfel woman had acquired a dangerous amount of influence

  over Alfred Horn, and that influence was obviously growing. A tragic

  accident might soon be required.

  A sudden roar from outside rattled the shattered window.

  From his position by the hidden door, Stern saw a line of trace
rs arc

  out toward the rim of the bowl.

  "What of the attack?" Horn asked.

  "The house is secure," Smuts said tersely.

  "And Oberieutnant Luhr?"

  "A good man. That's him firing the Vulcan."

  Horn smiled. "I imagine your little toys came as something of a

  surprise to Robert's friends. eh?"

  Smuts grinned nastily.

  "Do you know who they are yet?"

  "We'll round up the bodies tonight. Then we'll see."

  Horn nodded, then turned to Ilse and spoke softly. "Pieter will take

  you to your husband now. A matter of minutes. Do you hear me, child?"

  Motionless until now, Ilse suddenly began to shiver. A single tear

  streaked her face. She looked as if she might collapse.

  "Take her now, Pieter," Horn commanded. "Schnel "Sir!" The Afrikaner

  snapped into motion.

  Realizing that he had only moments to reach safety, Stern ducked back

  into the shrine room and reached for the telephone. He was about to

  punch in the number of the Protea Hof when he heard a voice coming from

  the phone. His throat tightened in disbelief. Who could it be?

  One of Smuts's soldiers? Did it really matter? Closing his palm over

  the mouthpiece, Stern stuck his head back through the little door.

  He saw the Vulcan's bright red tracer beam climb the distant ridge,

  searching out more victims. Horn, too, had wheeled his chair around to

  watch. The tracer beam jinked back and forth beyond the dark horizon,

  steadied a moment, then lurched into the sky. For an instant the end of

  the deadly arc became visible-then it detonated in a huge fireball.

  The shock wave blasted a sheet of rain and glass into the room.

  Several shards fell onto Horn's lap, but the old man didn't seem to

  notice. He reached for a button on the arm of his wheelchair, preparing

  to turn. Stern hunkered down, hoping to see the gray face once more in

  the light. He heard the hum of the wheelchair's electric motor, saw the

  face in profile-then his survival instinct overrode his curiosity. He

  scrambled back into the secret room and pulled the door shut behind him.

  When he put the phone to his ear, the voice was still talking. With a

  silent curse he slipped the receiver back into its cradle. There would

  be no call to Hauer. Stern estimated he had less than a minute to

  become Professor Natterman again.

  Alan Burton lay belly-down in the mud, humping it with the infantryman's

  desperate love. Even before he heard the apocalyptic roar of the Vulcan

  gun, he had seen the deadly tracer beam reach out from the tower. Now

  the gunner was raking repeatedly over the corpses of the Colombians-for

  corpses they surely were. When a stream of armor-piercing slugs

  intersects a human body at the rate of sixty-six hundred rounds per

  minute, the result cannot be described.

  Burton had seen it before; he had no desire to again.

  Apparently Alberto did. Four times already the big guerilla had lifted

  his head over the rim of the bowl to watch the slaughter. The last time

  he must have gotten his fill, because Burton could hear the giant

  African whimpering beside him in the mud. When one of their escape

  helicopters exploded behind them, Alberto began babbling to himself. The

  incoherent syllables sounded vaguely religious to Burton, and the

  Englishman decided that a bit of prayer might not be out of order, even

  for a confirmed old sinner like himself.

  When the terrible roar of the Vulcan diminished to desultory bursts,

  Alberto tried to jump up and race back to the airstrip. Burton pressed

  him violently back into the mud. As far as Burton knew, they still had

  one operable helicopter and, hopefully, a pilot. But to run for it now

  would be suicide. Any idiot could see that the gunner in the turret was

  using night-vision equipment. Burton could picture the smug bastard,

  perched up there behind his monstrous weapon, waiting for one desperate

  survivor to jump up and bolt for the airstrip. Burton didn't intend to

  be the moron who tried that.

  But Alberto did. After the Vulcan had lain silent for ninety seconds,

  the big African rose tentatively to his knees and beckoned Burton to

  follow. The Vulcan burped just once: the three-second burst flashed up

  the slope like a lightning bolt. Approximately ninety bullets tore into

  Alberto's body, eviscerating and then decapitating him. The mangled

  hulk that thudded into the mud next to Burton would be food for the

  jackals in an hour.

  The Englishman decided not to wait around to see the feast. The Deal be

  damned, he thought bitterly. Maybe Shaw will give me another chance.

  God knows I didn't have much of one today. With movements so subtle

  only a serpent would perceive them, Burton slithered backward through

  the mud until he dropped below the Vulcan's angle of fire.

  Then he jumped to his feet and ran as he never had in his life, low to

  the ground, but fast. When he felt the ground rising beneath his feet,

  he knew he was nearing the airstrip.

  The Wash brought him up short. Three feet of water raged through its

  bottom now, but Burton tobogganed down the steep slope as if the torrent

  represented safety rather than potential death. Hoisting his MP-5

  submachine gun high above his head, he waded into the flood. It took

  superhuman strength to hold himself upright against the current, but he

  made it across. He scrambled up the far side of the ravine in twenty

  seconds flat and found himself staring into the face of Juan Diaz.

  "Madre de Dios!" the Cuban cried.

  "The helo?" Burton gasped, his chest heaving.

  "They got ours, English. But Fidel-the other pilot-he's waiting for us.

  Come! Before they shoot the runway again!"

  They ran. Burton could see the airstrip ahead, a glistening asphalt

  line. Horn's Learjet waited silently on the apron like a falcon sitting

  out a storm. The surviving helicopter stood about forty meters from the

  Lear, only twenty meters from the still-burning wreck of its sister

  ship. Burton heard its rotors whining as he neared the runway, running

  full out.

  Then the whine was swallowed by the furious ripping sound of the Vulcan.

  Burton looked back. He saw the tenible tracer beam race across the

  bowl, leap over the Wash, and streak up behind them. "Run!"

  he screamed at Diaz.

  The Cuban needed no prodding; he was ahead of Burton already. The

  tracer beam actually passed between the two men as it raced toward

  Fidel's chopper, churning the earth into a furrow of death.

  Then it happened. Fidel lost his nerve. Seeing the tracers closing in

  on him, he simply could not control his panic.

  With the only survivors of his team less than thirty meters from his

  chopper, the terrified Cuban lifted off. Diaz screamed for his comrade

  to wait, but the @errified pilot ignored him.

  Burton had seen this a hundred times before. Slowing his sprint, he

  unslung his MP-5 and dropped to his knees. The only way to stop a

  panicked man from bolting was to put an equal or greater throat in front

  of him. Burton sighted his submachine gun in on the windshield of

  Fidel's chopper a
nd squeezed off a three-round burst.

  "Are you loco?" Diaz screamed. "You'll crash him."

  "Signal him to put down!"

  Fidel's chopper bucked wildly, hovering ten meters off the ground.

  Unaccustomed to firing the Vulcan, Jijrgen Luhr had missed the chopper

  on the first pass. Tracers danced wildly above the chopper's rotors.

  Diaz signaled frantically for his compadre to put down, but Fidel still

  seemed uncertain of where the greater danger lay. Burton convinced him

  with a sustained burst that fragmented the chopper's windshield. The

  JetRanger dropped until it hovered a meter above the runway. Burton

  dashed for its side door, passing Diaz on the way. He leaped into the

  shuddering machine and trained his weapon on Fidel.

  "Don't take off till Diaz is in!"

  The little Cuban was close, but not close enough. Without even meaning

  to, Fidel jinked his ship two meters higher.

  "Down!" Burton roared.

  The JetRanger settled, then jerked up again.

  Luhr backed his tracers off about forty meters from his target and began

  vectoring in again. This time the deadly beam held steady as he walked

  it in on the struggling helicopter.

  "Jump!" Burton yelled.

  Diaz leaped for the chopper's right skid, caught it. Burton got one

  hand on the Cuban's collar, saw the fear and anger in his eyes-then he

  felt the wild impact. For the briefest instant the tracer beam had

  sliced up and nicked Diaz in the side. One bullet plucked him off the

  skid as deffly as the finger of God.

  The chopper yawed wildly as Fidel sought to avoid the tracer beam.

  "Set this whore down!" Burton cried. He fired a round through the

  Plexiglas two inches from Fidel's head. The panicked Cuban shrieked in

  ten-or. Leaning out of the side door, Burton saw Diaz lying in the mud

  below, one arm raised in supplication.

  Without any warning the chopper tilted ninety degrees and, whether by

  Fidel's design or not, Burton tumbled out.

  He caught himself on the skid and hung on with claws of desperation. He

  felt the JetRanger start to rise. Fidel had made his decision: he was

  clearing out. In a split second Burton made his own.

  With a curse on his lips he let go of the skid and fell six meters to

  the ground.

  He landed badly, but the muddy earth cushioned his fall.

  Above him, Fidel's chopper climbed rapidly, but not rapidly enough. Luhr

 

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