Greg Iles - Spandau Phoenix

“Comments, Pieter?” Horn said.

“I don’t like it, sir, but I don’t see what we can do at this point but monitor the situation. We’re already pushing our timetable to the limit.” Smuts looked thoughtful. “Perhaps Number Seven’s killer left some evidence that was overlooked.”

“Or perhaps Number Seven himself left some hidden writings which were never found,” Horn suggested. “A deathbed confession, perhaps? We can take no chances where Spandau is concerned.”

“Do you have any specific requests?”

“Handle this as you see fit, but handle it. I’m much more concerned about the upcoming meeting.” Horn tapped his forefinger nervously on the desktop. “Do you feel confident about security, Pieter?”

“Absolutely, sir. Do you really feel you are in immediate danger? Spandau Prison is one thing, but Horn House is five thousand miles from Britain.”

“I’m certain,” Horn averred. “Something has changed. Our English contacts have cooled. Lines of communication are kept open, but they are too forced. Inquiries have been made into our activities in the South African defense program. Ever since the murder of Number Seven.”

“You don’t think it could have been suicide?”

Horn snorted in contempt. “The only mystery is who killed him and why. Was it the British, to silence him? Or did the Jews finally kill him, for revenge? My money is on the British. They wanted him silenced for good. As they want me silenced.” Horn scowled. “I’m tired of waiting, that’s all.”

Smuts smiled coldly. “Only seventy-two hours to go, sir.”

Horn ignored this reassurance. “I want you to call Vorster at the mine. Have him bring his men up to the house tonight.”

“But the interim security team doesn’t arrive until noon tomorrow,” Smuts objected.

“Then the mine will just have to work naked for eighteen hours!”

Horn had wounded his security chief’s pride, but Smuts kept silent. His precautions for the historic meeting three nights hence, though unduly rushed, were airtight. He was certain of it. Situated on an isolated plateau in the northern Transvaal, Horn House was a veritable fortress. No one could get within a mile of it without a tank, and Smuts had something that could stop that, too. But Alfred Horn was not a man to be argued with. If he wanted extra men, they would be there. Smuts made a mental note to retain a contract security team to guard Horn’s platinum mine during the night.

“Tell me, Pieter, how is the airstrip extension proceeding?”

“As well as we could hope, considering the time pressure we’re under. Six hundred feet to go.”

“I’ll see for myself tonight, if we ever get out of this blasted city. That helicopter of mine spends more time in the service hangar than it does on my rooftop.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I still don’t like those aircraft, Pieter. They look and fly like clumsy insects. Still, I suppose we can’t very well put a runway on the roof, can we?”

“Not yet at least.”

“We should look into something like the British Harrier. Wonderfully simple idea, vertical takeoff. There must be a commercial variant in development somewhere.”

“Surely you’re joking, sir?”

Horn looked reprovingly at his aide. “You would never have made an aviator, Pieter. To fight in the skies you must believe all things are possible, bendable to the human will.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“But you are excellent at what you do, my friend. I am living proof of your skill and dedication. I am the only one left who knows the secret. The only one. And that is due in no small part to you.”

“You exaggerate, Herr Horn.”

“No. Though I have great wealth, my power rests not in money but in fear. And one instrument of the fear I generate is you. Your loyalty is beyond price.”

“And beyond doubt, you know that.”

Horn’s single living eye pierced Smuts’s soul. “We can know nothing for certain, Pieter. Least of all about ourselves. But I have to trust someone, don’t I?”

“I shall never fail you,” Smuts said softly, almost reverently. “Your goal is greater than any temptation.”

“Yes,” the old man answered. “Yes it is.”

Horn backed the wheelchair away from the desk and turned to face the window. The skyline of Pretoria, for the most part beneath him, stretched away across the suburbs to the soot-covered townships, to the great plateau of the northern Transvaal, where three days hence Horn would host a meeting calculated to alter the balance of world power forever. As Smuts closed the door softly, Horn’s mind drifted back to the days of his youth … the days of power. Gingerly, he touched his glass eye.

“ Der Tag kommt ,” he said aloud. “The day approaches.”

Hans awoke in a sweat. He still cowered inside a dark cave, watching in terror as a Russian soldier came for him with a Kalashnikov rifle. The illusion gripped his mind, difficult to break. He sat upright in bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Still the wrecked compound hovered before him. His soiled uniform still chafed, still smelled of the dank prison yard. He shook his head violently, but the image would not disappear. It was real …

On the screen of the small Siemens television two meters in front of Hans, a tall reporter clad in the type of topcoat favored by West Berlin pimps stood before a wide shot of the wasteland that yesterday had been Spandau Prison. Hans clambered over the footboard of the bed and turned up the volume on the set.

“… Deutsche Welle broadcasting live from the Wilhelmstrasse. As you can see, the main structure of Spandau Prison was destroyed with little fanfare yesterday by the British military authorities. It was here early this morning that Soviet troops in conjunction with West Berlin police arrested the two West German citizens whom the Russians are now attempting to extradite into East Berlin. There is virtually no precedent for this attempt. The Russians are following no recognized legal procedure, and the story that began here in the predawn hours is rapidly becoming an incident of international proportions. To the best of Deutsche Welle ’s knowledge, the two Berliners are being held inside Polizei Abschnitt 53, where our own Peter Müller is following developments as they occur. Peter?”

Before switching to the second live feed, the producer stayed with the Spandau shot for a few silent seconds. What Hans saw brought a sour lump to his throat. A hundred meters behind the reporter, dozens of uniformed men slowly picked their way across the ruined grounds of Spandau. They moved over the icy rubble like ants in search of food, some not far from the very mound where Hans had made his discovery. A few wore white lab coats, but others—Hans’s throat tightened—others wore the distinctive red-patched brown uniforms of the Soviet infantry.

Hans scoured the screen for clues that might explain the Soviet presence, but the scene vaporized. Now a slightly better-dressed commentator stood before the great three-arched doorway of the police station where Hans reported to work every morning. He shifted his weight excitedly from one foot to the other as he spoke.

“Thank you, Karl,” he said. “Other than the earlier statement by the police press officer that a joint investigation with the USSR is under way, no details are forthcoming. We know that an undetermined number of Soviet soldiers remain inside Abschnitt 53, but we do not know if they are guests here, as is claimed, or if—as has been rumored—they control the station by force of arms.