Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

chair Smuts offered her. Jiirgen Luhr rose immediately to deliver the

apology demanded by Horn, but before he could speak, Lord Granville slid

his chair away from the table.

"If the company will excuse me," he mumbled. "My apologies."

While everyone stared, Stanton rose and left the garden by way of a

glass door leading into the main house.

Inside Horn House, Stanton hurried to Alfred Horn's study and I locked

the door. He felt surprisingly calm, considering what he was about to

do. He lifted the telephone receiver and dialed a London number that he

had committed to memory.

"Shaw," growled a tired voice.

"This is Granville."

"Where are you?" Sir Neville Shaw asked sharply.

'Where do you think?"

"Good Christ, are you mad?"

"Shut up and listen," Stanton snapped, feeling his pulse start to race.

"I had to call from here. They won't let me go anywhere else.

Look, you've got to call it off."

" What? "

"He knows, I'm telling you. Horn knows about Casilda.

I don't know how, but he does."

"He can't know."

"He does!"

There was a long pause. "There's no stopping it now," Shaw said

finally. "And your information on Horn's defenses had better turn out

to be,good, Granville, or you'll answer to me. Don't call again."

The line went dead. Stanton felt sweat running down the small of his

back. The die was cast. Somewhere off the coast of Mozambique, a man

named Burton waited to change his life forever. Perhaps Alfred was

merely toying with me, Stanton thought hopefully. Smuts had evinced no

more suspicion than was usual. Yet Stanton had but one choice in any

case-hold firm. If he could do that for eight hours, Horn's days of

power would end, and he would be free. London would be satisfied, and

one of the largest conglomerates in the world would become the property

of Robert Stanton, Lord Granville in fact, as well as in name.

For a brief moment, Stanton worried that Ilse might betray his advances

of last night, but he dismissed the thought. If she had intended to do

that, she would have done it already.

Unlocking the study door, he set out for the garden in better spirits

than he had been in for some time. All he had to do now was find a way

into the basement complex before the attack came. He had never entered

it before, but he would today.

He could hardly wait.

11:00 A.M. MV Casilda: Madagascar Channel, Off Mozambique The laden

helicopters lifted off the deck of the ship like pregnant birds, but

they lifted. Juan Diaz, the pilot of the lead chopper, looked over to

see that his compadre flying the second ship had taken off safely.

He had. Diaz turned to the tanned Englishman sitting in the seat beside

him.

"They're up, English. Where we going?"

Alan Burton tossed a folded sheet of paper into the Cuban's lap.

A mineral suey map of Southern Africa. "Fl stop, Mozambique," he said.

"Just follow the lines on the map, sport."

Burton turned and looked back at the two rows of Colombians who sat

shoulder-to-shoulder against the cabin walls of the JetRanger.

With their dark faces, scruffy beards, and bandolier ammunition belts,

they looked like armed migrant workers. Sick ones, at that. The

greenish cast of their skin suggested that by leaving the ship, they

would merely exchange their seasickness for airsickness. Burton didn't

care what they looked like, as long as they could cause some commotion.

He could do the job alone if someone provided a sufficient diversion.

He was glad the end of the mission had finally arrived, not least

because they were finally leaving the Casilda. He didn't care if he

never saw another ship in his life.

"I'm supposed to fly by these goddamn chicken scratches?" Juan Diaz

complained, shaking the map in the Englishman's face.

Burton gave the Cuban a black look."'That's what you're being paid for,

sport. Now let's move."

"What about a flight plan?" Diaz asked. The two choppers still hovered

over the old freighter.

'You're holding it," said Burton. "I can show you the landmarks.

Just watch for enemy aircraft."

The Cuban narrowed his eyes. "How do I know who is the enemy?"

Burton grinned. "It's everybody, sport. Simple enough?"

After a grim moment of reflection, Diaz nudged the stick, and as one the

two JetRangers moved out over the ocean, toward the coastline, toward

Africa.

11.25 A.m. 'Room 520, The Stanley House, Pretoria

Gadi Abrams let the drapes fall closed and turned back to Stern.

"Still no sign of them, Uncle. No Hauer, no Apfel."

Stern got up from one of the beds and rolled his shoulders. He had said

little since last night's fiasco at the Burgerspark Hotel.

"They're probably holed up in some cheap hotel, waiting for the

rendezvous at the Voortrekker Monument."

Professor Natterman was pacing out the far end of the room. "So why are

we watching the Protea Hof?" he snapped.

"We can always intercept them at six at the Voortrekker Monument," Stern

replied. "But I think Hauer might return to the Protea Hof before

then."

Natterman snorted with contempt. "What about that woman?" he asked.

"Are you sure it was the same woman from the plane?"

"Absolutely," Gadi said. "From the description you gave and the perfume

I smelled in the hall, I have no doubt at all."

"Who is she, then?" Natterman asked. "What does she want?"

"She wants me," said Stern.

"What makes you say that?" Gadi broke in. "Nobody knows where you

are."

Stern half-smiled.

"Who wants you dead?" Professor Natterman asked.

"Who doesn't?" said Gadi. "The Syrians want him, the Libyans, the

Palestinians ... you name it. That's why he has to live where he does."

Stern shot his nephew a warning glance; then his face softened. "I

suppose it doesn't matter," he said. "Remember the kibbutz I described

to you, Professor? My retirement home? Well, it's no ordinary

kibbutz."

"How do you mean?"

"It's a special settlement for men like me. Retired fieldmen.

Men who have prices on their heads."

Gadi grinned. "Uncle Jonas's head carries the highest price in town."

Stern frowned.

"But Gadi said the woman on the plane was European, said Natterman. "Not

Arabic."

"Precisely," said Stern. "And of the European countries, only one has

agents who might want me dead."

"England?" Natterman asked, his eyes alight.

Stern ran his hand across his chin. "I know who the Englishwoman is.

Her name is Swallow. Or it was, many years ago. But right now she

concerns me much less than the big fellow who checked in here this

morning."

"I say he's a friend of Hauer's," Gadi declared. "Backup from watching

Hauer's room. He's right beneath us, by the though I don't think he

knows it."

"Why do you insist he's German?" Stern challenged.

"Don't give me that, Uncle. A Jew can smell a German, can't he?

No offense, Professor."

"None taken. A German can smell a Jew just as well."

Gadi glared at Natterman. "His name's Schneider, which is German

enough. We'll know what he is for sure in an hour, in any case. Tel

Aviv is checking him out. By the way, they told me Hauer was one of the

sharpshooters at the Munich Olympics. How did you know that?"

Stern half-smiled. "I had one of my notorious intuitions when I read

his police file. We might be able to use that somehow."

"Could this Schneider be part of Phoenix?" asked Yosef Shamir.

The young commando wore a large white bandage around his forehead.