The Spandau Phoenix wwi-2

by Greg Iles

  "Where is Major Karami?" Smuts asked. "I had hoped to see him again."

  Jalloud smiled. "I'm afraid Major Karami was called away at the last

  moment to attend to pressing military matters.

  I'll bet he was, Smuts thought wryly, flexing his fists to channel off

  tension. "Sorry to hear it."

  "Would anyone like refreshments?" Hess asked. "It is a long flight

  from Tripoli."

  "I'm afraid Our Leader has forbidden any delay, Herr Horn," Jalloud said

  softly. "He awaits our return with the utmost anticipation."

  "To business then. I assume you wish Dr. Sabri to verify.

  the weapon's operational readiness before we load it?"

  "If we might so impose," Jalloud said timidly.

  In that instant, inexplicably, Smuts decided that if trouble was coming,

  Prime Minister Jalloud knew nothing about it.

  The Afrikaner signaled his marksmen by touching his right eyebrow with

  his right hand. He intended to trigger any treachery long before the

  Libyans gained access to the basement complex.

  "With all respect, Mr. Prime Minister," he said, "I must ask that your

  bodyguards wait here. We allow no fiream the basement."

  Jalloud looked uncomfortable. "But Our ]Leader provided these men to

  assist with the loading of the weapon."

  "The bomb weighs more than a thousand kilograms," Smuts replied.

  "It must be loaded mechanically. In fact, I have my doubts about your

  jet's ability to carry both the weapon and passengers. I had assumed

  you would bring a cargo plane."

  "I see," Jalloud said slowly, wondering why no one in Tripoli had

  thought of this. Or perhaps, he thought with a shiver, someone did. "By

  all means," he said. He turned to the bodyguards. "You will wait here

  while Dr. Sabri checks the weapon."

  Taken aback by this request, the soldiers hesitated. Their orders had

  been to wait until they gained access to the basement before carrying

  out their mission. But the Afrikaner had forced their hand.

  Simultaneously reaching the same conclusion, Major Karami's four

  assassins raised their Uzis as one.

  Their faces showed even more surprise than Prime Minister Jalloud's when

  Smuts's concealed marksmen opened fire with their R-5

  assault rifles. The gray-clad-Afrikaners emptied their clips into the

  line of assassins from eight meters away, blowing all four backward

  against the great teak door.

  "The elevator!" Smuts shouted. "Everyone get inside!

  Move!"

  While Hess's wheelchair whirred toward the open elevator, Prime Minister

  Jalloud and Dr. Sabri shouted ri-antic Arabic and crawled along behind

  him. Jalloud took a bullet in the left arm, but in his panic he barely

  felt it. Smuts had looked back to make sure that Hess was safe inside

  the elevator when a stunned Libyan.sat up with a wild cry and let off a

  long burst of bullets in his direction.

  "Body armor!" Smuts shouted. "Head shots only!"

  Bullets ricocheted through the marble-floored reception hall. One

  Libyan took Smuts's advice before the Afrikaners did; his teflon-coated

  9mm slugs exploded the head of one of Smuts's marksmen like a

  cantaloupe. The surviving Afrikaner avenged this loss, then scurried to

  shelter behind a large rosewood chiffonier against the far wall.

  Another Libyan darted outside to use the doorway as a firing position.

  Two seconds later he staggered back into the great hall, blood spurting

  from his throat. Smuts's Zulu driver appeared in the doorway with a

  long hunting knife in his hand. The Zulu moved quickly to another

  downed Arab, dispatched him with his knife, then fell to a long burst

  from the surviving Libyan assassin. Smuts's marksman knocked down the

  last Libyan as Smuts himself hustled Jalloud and the dazed physicist

  into the cubicle where Hess waited.

  "Stay here!" Smuts ordered his marksman. "I'll reinforce you soon."

  The elevator door slid shut. Ten seconds later, the last Libyan to fall

  opened his eyes, brought up his Uzi and fired a sustained burst from the

  floor. Two slugs struck the Afrikaner guard in the head, killing him

  instantly. Groaning in agony, Major Karami's last surviving assassin

  began crawling toward the elevator.

  From Hans and Ilse's bedroom the skirmish in the reception hall sounded

  like the Battle of the Bulge. When the firing stopped, Hans shoved open

  the door.

  "Where do we go?" he asked. "Should we try to get out?

  They're probably guarding the main doors."

  Ilse poked her head outside the door. "There's nowhere to run, I told

  you! We've only got onr, chance! Stern!"

  Hans could think of no better plan. "All right," he said.

  "But stay behind me, understand?"

  Another burst of machine gun fire rattled in the reception hall.

  "Behind you," Ilse murmured, wondering where Smuts might be holding

  Stern.

  Keeping close to the wall, they started down the corridor, away from the

  sound of the gunfire.

  High in the observatory tower, Pieter Smuts searched the ' airstrip

  through a pair of powerful Zei@s field glasses. Dusk was falling fast.

  He saw the wreckage of the JetRangers shot down last night spread out

  over the eastern end of the runway. In the midst of the debris sat

  Hess's own Lear, scorched black and missing most of its tail. There was

  a single guard standing beneath the Libyan Leaijet.

  No one else.

  Where was the main body of the assault force? Where was Major Karami?

  Behind Smuts, Hess nodded restlessly in his wheelchair.

  He was trying desperately to fathom the reason for the Libyan soldiers'

  attempt to kill their prime minister. Jalloud himself sat propped

  against a bank of satellite recei moaning from the pain of his shattered

  arm. Shaking in fear, Dr. Sabri ministered to him as best he could.

  "No sign of Karami yet," Smuts said, pulling the field glasses away from

  his eyes. "But it will be dark soon. That's when he'll come."

  "VAo?" Hess murmured, still dazed by the suddenness of the attack.

  "Yes," Jalloud groaned. "It is Karami. It must be."

  Smuts glanced at the Vulcan gun. A trim young Afrikaner sat in the

  firing cage, his alert eyes checking the fearsome weapon's night-vision

  system. Three more gray-clad South Ahicans manned the radar and

  communications gear.

  "Why?" Hess cried indignantly. "Has Qaddafi gone mad?"

  Smuts chuckled quietly. "He always has been. We knew this was a risk.

  We needed more time."

  14 Sir," interrupted a radar controller, "I show one aircraft

  approaching from the north. He's very close. He must have been flying

  ten feet off the veld!"

  Smuts pressed a button on his console. "Attention unidenfified

  aircraft," he said tersely. "You have entered restricted airspace.

  Turn back now or you will be fired upon. Repeat, turn or be fired

  upon."

  "It must be the Air Zimbabwe jet," said the radar man, "An hour ago I

  marked him as a civil airliner bound for -Jo'burg. He must have sneaked

  off his flight path after he went into the ground clutter."

  Smuts waved his hand to the Vulcan gunner. The Afrikaner donned his
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  targeting goggles and depressed two foot pedals. With a deep hydraulic

  hum the entire turret rotated to face the airstrip.

  Inside the approaching Yak-42, Major Ilyas Karami stood behind the

  anxious pilot and listened indifferently to Smuts's flint-edged threats.

  "Do they have anti-aircraft guns, Major?" the pilot asked.

  "Shut up!" Karaini snapped. "You know what to say."

  The pilot picked up his mike. "This is Air Zimbabwe Flight 132," he

  said in a quavering voice. "We are in disWe have an avionics

  malfunction. Do you read?"

  -"MajorKarami,"crackledSmuts'svoice."Thisisyourfi-,W warning.

  Turn back now or be shot out of the sky."

  "Your mother fucks goats!" Karami bellowed.

  "He knows who you are!" cried the pilot. "The mission's been

  compromised! We're unarmed! We must turn back!"

  Suddenly a brilliant line of tracer fire flashed.up through the gray

  clouds. It passed high over the nose of the jet, then swung back and

  forth, searching out the airborne intruder.

  "Allah protect us!" the pilot wailed, instinctively beginning an

  evasive maneuver. He had flown MiG fighters in combat, but to sit

  helpless in an unarmed airliner was a new and terrifying experience

  for,him.

  Karami pulled a pistol from his hip holster and laid the barrel against

  the pilot's temple. "Land this whore!" he shouted. "Now!"

  "Where?" shrieked the pilot.

  "I see the flares!" the copilot yelled. "Dive!"

  Steeling his nerves, the pilot banked sharply and headed down toward a

  line of flares laid by Jailoud's "bodyguards."

  It would be a belly-flop landing, but he didn't care. Never in his life

  had he wanted so badly to get on the ground.

  Smuts cursed as he saw the chain Of green starbursts light up the center

  line of the runway. "Shoot out the flares!" he screamed.

  "They can't land without them!"

  6,M y goggles are going crazy!" the gunner protested. "I can't see a

  bloody thing!"

  "Take them off! Shoot!"

  The roar of the Vulcan blotted out everything. Hess covered his ears

  and shouted something, but no one heard him.

  The gunner made a valiant effort to extinguish the flares, but only

  succeeded in knocking a few out of line. The main effect of the Vulcan

  was to rip the surface of the newly laid asphalt to pieces.

  Suddenly Hess gasped in horror. Dropping out of the sky like a great

  prrhistoric bird was the Libyan Yak-42. It roared past the turret in

  profile as it fell earthkvard.

  "There they are!" Smuts yelled. "Fire! Fire!"

  The gunner depressed his trigger. Scarlet tracer rounds arced from the

  Vulcan's flaming barrels, reaching out for the black apparition ...

  Suddenly the turret's elevator door hissed open. Smuts turned in

  disbelief, then dived protectively across Hess's wheelchair.

  Inside the elevator-Trapped on the floor with his back against the

  wall-was the surviving Libyan assassi screamed a curse, raised his Uzi

  and fired. Bullets sprayed wildly throughout the confined space,

  hammering the polycarbonate windows and tearing through the faceplates

  of sensitive electronic gear. One of the South African technicians took

  a round in the back of the head and fell dead over his console. The

  radar technician managed to draw his pistol and get off three shots

  before a ricochet caught him in the neck.

  And then there was silence. The Libyan had run out of ammunition.

  Smuts heaved himself off of Hess, picked up the dead radar man's pistol,

  and shot the Libyan twice through the face. It took him three more

  seconds to realize the true significance of the silence. The Vulcan had

  stopped firing! When Smuts whirled he saw why. His gunner had been

  blinded by flying glass. Worse, the Vulcan's electronic targeting

  system had been damaged beyond repair!

  "The prime minister has been hit again!" Dr. Sabri cried.

  Smuts took no notice of the physicist. He darted to the broad window.

  The Libyan jet had landed safely! Through his field glasses he watched

  fifty commandos spill onto the tarmac. He forced himself to stay calm.

  Soon the Libyans would be at the edge of the shallow bolo that

  surrounded the house. Inside the killing zone. He dropped his field

  glasses and jerked the bleeding gunner from the Vulcan's operating

  chair, then climbed in himself. He put his eyes to the visual aiming

  goggles and scanned the airstrip. Beneath a wide door in the rear of

  the Yak-42 he saw Arabs lowering some type of artillery piece from the

  plane by means of winches. Smuts grinned like a demon and opened fire.

  The armor-piercing bullets streaked across the Wash and raced toward the

  plane.

  But just as the tracer beam reached the laboring Arabs, Smuts released

  the trigger. Destroying the jet might not be the smartest option in

  these circumstances, he realized. With no means of escape, the Libyans

  might fight twice as fiercely to take the house. As he watched the

  Arabs beneath the plane, Smuts noticed something sitting about ten

  meters behind the Yak-42's tail. It was a pickup truck.

  What the hell is that for? he wondered. Then he knew. They'd brought

  the truck to tow the big gun and to haul their stolen bomb from the

  house to the plane! Smuts jammed his thumb down on the Vulcan's

  trigger. It took longer than normal to acquire the Toyota using visual

  aiming only, but once he did, the uranium-tipped slugs chewed the Toyota

  into scrap metal in seconds.

  The gas tank fireballed and set aflame three Libyans beneath the plane.

  Smuts climbed out of the Vulcan d went to the panel of an switches that

  controlled his Claymore mines. His only real worry was the heavy gun.

  He would wait until the soldiers got it away from the plane; then he

  would destroy men and machine together. He pressed a button on the

  console and spoke crisply: "Bunker gunners, prepare to fire at will."

  He turned to Hess. "We'd better raise the shields, sir. We @an't risk

  letting even one man get irito the basement complex."

  "The prime minister is dead!" howled Dr. Sabri from the floor.

  Hess rolled his wheelchair over to the bloodied mound of robes lying

  near the base of the Vulcan. Prime Minister Jalloud-minus the lower

  part of his face-stared blankly upward at the steel roof of the turret.

  Two of the Libyan's bullets had found him.

  "The shields, sir," Smuts repeated, reaching for the appropriate button.

  "Wait!" Hess ordered. "Frau Apfel is still in the outer triangle."

  Smuts grimaced with forbearance. "As are Lieutenant Luhr, Linah, the

  medical staff, the rest of the servants, and the Jew. Sir, we cannot

  afford to wait."

  The old man's frantic eyes searched the closed-circuit television

  monitors above their heads. Although the cameras showed most of the

  outer rooms, he saw no sign of Ilse.

  "But ... Pieter, she saved my life! If we shut her outside@' "The

  Libyans will never reach the house," Smuts assured him, his voice taut.

  "But we must raise the shields, just in case."

  "Very well," Hess said thickly. "Raise the shields."

  Smuts pressed th
e button. Throughout Horn House, black anodized metal

  shields rose up from the floor, blocking every door, staircase, and

  window leading from the outer wings to the central complex. The

  Afrikaner sighed with satisfaction.

  Suddenly an explosion rocked the turret. Leaping to the window in

  alarm, Smuts heard the distinctive crump of a mortar. Seconds later a

  round fell just short of the outer wall of the house. Two more crashed

  through the roof of the west wing. Horn House was on fire. As if urged

  forward by d flames, twenty Libyan commandos started across the killing

  zone at a fast run.

  "Damn you, Karami!" Smuts shouted. He climbed back into the Vulcan and

  opened up on the Libyan mortar position&. He quickly silenced one, but

  a replacement immediately took its place. After forty seconds of

  continuous firing, the Vulcan's drum magazine ran out.

  Smuts screamed at one of his soldiers: "Hurry, -man! Load the fucking

  gun!"

  While the Libyan machine guns chattered and the mortar shells rained

  down on the outer walls, Smuts scanned the dark rim of the bowl.

  Just as he started to look away from the horizon, he saw the help he had

  desperately hoped for. A hundred meters southeast of the Libyans, a

  squat black shape stood silhouetted against the lesser shadow of the

  falling night. A pair of halogen headlamps winked once, twice, then

  died. The black shape crept slowly forward, hesitated again.

  By God, that's Graaff, Smuts thought with elation. "It's Major Graaff!"

  he cried. "He made it!" Smuts hammered his fists against the Vulcan in

  triumph. If he knew Graaff, that armored car was only the spearhead of

  a veritable army!

  "Drum loaded!" shouted the man beneath the VulcanSmuts fired a

  celebratory burst into the darkening sky, then he opened up on the

  Libyans with a vengeance.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Poised on the ridge above Smuts's killing zone, Hauer watched the burst

  of spectacular tracer fire lance up into the sky from the observatory

  turret.

  "That's itf' he shouted. "They think Major Graaff sent us!

  Go!"

  "Wait!" General Steyn called to the Armscor's driver.

  "Look at that tracer fire, Hauer. That's a rotary cannon. This

  vehicle's tough, but they could blow us to pieces in seconds with that

  gun."

  Hauer ripped his respirator aside. "General, you gave me tactical

  command of this operation!"