Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

night as my secretary."

"What!" "

"No arguments," Horn said. "I've decided.

"But the Arabs won't stand for a woman there!"

Horn smiled. "What can they say? I am the only man who possesses the

commodity they want. They certainly can't afford to make trouble about

a secretary."

Smuts shook his head. "What about Stanton? He's getting insufferable."

"I agree," said Horn. "But you should have known his grandfather,

Pieter, a visionary. It's a good thing he's not around to see his

their."

Smuts grunted in agreement.

"Let Robert take this last delivery, Pieter. TWO million rand in gold

bullion is worth waiting for, I think. Then he's yours." @ Smuts

grinned a death's-head.

"Less than twenty-four hours now," Horn intoned. "The wheels are in

motion." He looked up. "Take me to the study, Pieter. I want to sit

by the fire."

"Should I get the chair?"

"No. I feel strongTonight I walk like a man."

"A man among men, sir," Smuts said reverently.

"Thank you, Pieter. The last of a breed, it's true."

Together the two men-one ancient, the other in his mid-forties-set out

upon the long journey to the study, where the old one would await the

dawn with bright, unsleeping eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

g.'30 A.m. Horn House: The Northern Transvaal Ilse had no warning of the

horror to come. She had awakened several times during the night, but

the periods of sleep had been mercifully dreamless. When her door

opened, she expected to find the tall Bantu housekeeper waiting behind

it. Instead she saw Pieter Smuts, Horn's Afrikaner security chief

Smuts's smile did not quite reach his eyes.

"I'm here to give you the threepenny tour," he announced.

"That's not really necessary," Ilse said uneasily. "I'm sure I can find

my way around."

Smuts sighed with enough resignation to indicate he would remain in the

doorway as long as he had to. After closing the door and dressing, Ilse

allowed herself to be led out of the room and down the long corridor.

The lanky Afrikaner towered above her. Again she felt like a child

being led through a museum. Smuts delivered his information in a

monotone.

"Horn House," he said, "stands in one of the most isolated regions of

South Africa-the northeast corner of the northern Transvaal. Boer

country. The nearest town is Giyani to the west, and the nearest

landmark to the east is the Kruger National Park. Not many -roads up

here to speak of."

Point taken, Ilse thought bitterly.

"The estate itself is one of a kind, as you'll see when you get outside.

The residential compound encompasses twelve thousand square feet of

living space. We've got an indoor swimming pool, a gymnasium, an art

gallery, an astronomical observatory, and something quite unusual for a

private dwelling-a hospital. Because of Herr Horn's advanced age, he

suffers from a number of chronic conditions, but here he is able to

obtain optimum health care at all times. The medical complex is at the

end of this hall. We have a resident cardiologist on duty at all

times."

"My God," Ilse said, genuinely shocked.

"The cost of maintaining this unit out on the veld like this would

bankrupt a small town," Smuts boasted, "but for Herr Horn ... ah, here

we are."

They had come to a door with no knob; brass letters on its face read

KRANKENHAUS. SMUTS pushed open the door. "After you," he said.

The astringent smell of alcohol and disinfectant wrinkled Ilse's nose.

She found herself in a large examining room replete with all the

paraphernalia of modern medicine. Blood chemis@ machines, centrifuges,

autoclaves, and various instruments lined the shining countertops. Two

doors were set in the opposite wall. Smuts led her to the one marked

icu.

Behind it was a fully equipped intensive care facility. Cardiac monitor

screens, a defibrillator cart, a ventilator, and two cylinders of oxygen

waited beside an electric hospital bed. Ilse wondered if Horn was in

poorer health than he appeared. "Very impressive,"' she said, not

knowing what else to say.

Smuts nodded curtly and led her out, closing the door softly behind

them. The other door was marked only with a warning symbol-three

inverted yellow triangles inside a circle of black. Smuts opened the

door and stepped inside, motioning for Ilse to follow.

I-rhis is our X-ray unit," he said. "It's state of the art, but I'm

afraid our cardiologist has to do double duty as a radiographer.

He's not too happy about that, as YOu might@' The moment Ilse stepped

across the threshold, someone seized her violently from behind, pinning

her arms to her sides. Before she could scream, Smuts stuffed a

handkerchief into her mouth. The unseen attacker lifted her off her

feet, then heaved her high and dropped her heavily onto a hard surface.

An ugly, sweating black face appeared above her; powerful hands crushed

her flailing arms against the cold Formica while Smuts worked at

something she could not see. Primal terror gripped her. Even without

seeing the thick leather belts that now bound her to the table, lase

registered and identified the sensation. Restraining straps, she

thought wildly. White light speared into her brain from above.

"Be still!" Smuts shouted. "Be still!"

Ilse drew in all the breath she could and tried to scream, but the

bunched handkerchief in her mouth choked her effort to an anguished

groan. Her throat felt near to bursting. The man panting above her was

so black he looked blue. He buckled a thick strap across Ilse's chest,

then forced her right cheek flat against the table and fastened another

strap across her head. All she could see now was a huge lead shield.

Pieter Smuts's hard, angular face floated inside a@ thick bubble window

set in its middle.

Ilse struggled to rise, but the heavy-buckled straps held her

motionless. When she tried to shift even slightly, the@ straps scoured

her flesh like sandpaper. As she lay there, chest heaving, Smuts

stepped around the lead shield. From his right hand a long cable

dropped to, the floor and snaked around the shield to the X-ray machine.

With his left hand Smuts reached up and took hold of a hammerhead-shaped

mechanism suspended above Ilse's head. The X-ray tube.

Painted a metallic orange, it hovered above Ilse like an alien being, a

deadly thing that moved silently on tracks and cables. Smuts raised the

housing to its highest position; then he returned to safety behind the

lead shield.

Two seconds later every muscle in Ilse's body constricted in terror. A

deep electrical surge, a subsonic roar shuddered through the table,

lasting three full seconds before h cease with a sharp clang.

Ilse's mouth went dry. Her from: head beaded with sweat. Just as she

realized what the sound' signaled, it came again, the heart-stopping

buzz of electricity converted into a barrage of irradiated particles and

fired through her body like invisible bullets.

lfer teeth ground furiously as she fought the leather straps. The hide

scraped her flesh raw. Again the awful sound came. Ilse heard herself

screaming, the voice tiny and shrill and meaningless inside her head.

What have I done? What do you want! Without a single word from Smuts,

she had made the mental leap from resistance to abject servitude. She

sought only to know what I was required of her, and she would comply.

Yet still the machine fired. Deeper than sound, she sensed a vibration