Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

kosher caviar."

"We don't have them," Hauer said again.

Borodin counted quickly. "One, two, three, four-"

"Stop !"

Professor Natterman cried, surprising everyone.

"In God's name stop! Listen to me, you barbarian! Hauer is telling the

truth. Hans Apfel has the ori inal diary. Most of it, anyway. The Jew

who left here a few minutes ago has the rest. My granddaughter has been

kidnapped. We've come to exchange the papers for her life. Surely even

you can understand that?"

Borodin stared at the historian. "How does that help me, old man? I

need results, not excuses."

"There is a copy," Natterman explained. "A copy of the@ papers.

Photographs. You're Russian, correct? If you want to expose the truth

about Rudolf Hess, that's all you need."

Natterman pointed across the room at Hauer. "He has them.

I'm sorry, Captain, those papers mean far more to me than to you, but

they're simply not worth this boy's life."

Hauer stared at the old man with incredulity. This did not sound at all

like the fame-obsessed professor he had com( know.

Borodin raised the MP-5 to Hauer's face. "The photographs, Captain."

Hauer didn't move.

"Kill the Jew," Borodin said calmly.

"Bastard," Hauer muttered. He jerked the envelope from his hip pocket

and tossed it onto the bed.

Borodin held the negatives up to the overhead light, examined them

briefly, then slipped them into his inside coat pocket. "I assume that

none of you know the location of the people to whom your friend is

trading the original papers?"

"That's right," Natterman said.

Borodin chuckled. "I thought not. If you did, this wonderful little

commando unit wouldn't be sitting on its collective ass in a hotel

room."

In spite of the gun at his temple, Aaron cursed and tried to lash out at

the Soviet agent. Borodin stepped aside and called to one of the

residency men, "Dmitri! Leave their weapons, but take their

ammunition!"

Two minutes later Borodin stood smirking in the foyer, 'flanked by his

gorillas. The Russian who had not been wounded held a pillowcase

weighted with Uzi ammunition clips, boxes of shells, and loose .22

rounds.

"This soiree is over, gentlemen," Borodin said. "I'll take my leave

now." He accented his farewells with a broad flourish of his hand. "Do

svidamya! Shalom! Auf Wieders.ihen!" Borodin burst into laughter,

then motioned for one of the gorillas to open the door.

The moment the Russian holding the pillowcase turned the doorknob, the

door burst open and knocked him back ward against his wounded comrade.

From the window, Hauer gaped as the back of the wounded man's head

exploded.

The second Russian groped at his belt for his pistol, but two bullets

hit him low in the stomach and severed his spinal cord. While Borodin

backpedaled out of the foyer and spun toward the window. Hauer and the

Israelis dropped to the carpet as slugs from his MP-5 peppered the bed

and the wall - and the ceiling. Hauer looked up just as two bright red

flowers blossomed on Borodin's shoulders.

Hauer and Gadi were on their feet by the time Borodin's body hit the

floor. Standing in the doorway, his shoulders stretching from post to

post, was a very large man holding a Walther pistol in his hand. A gray

hat was pressed down over his bloody head, and a brass gorget plate hung

from his neck. On it was a capital K, the emblem of the Berlin

Kriminalpolizei.

"Captain Hauer?" Schneider said.

Hauer stepped forward and nodded.

Schneider put his gun in his pocket. "I need to talk to YOU."

Gadi Abrams crouched over Borodin, who lay pale and shaking on the

carpet. He rifled Borodin's pocket for' Hauer's envelope, found it, and

tossed the negatives to Hauer. Then he leaned down over Borodin's face.

"Where is your sniper?" he shouted. "Where!"

Borodin smiled. "Fuck you, Jew."

Gadi snatched up a pillow, crushed it over Borodin's face and punched

him hard on his wounded shoulder. The muffled howl that followed did

not sound-human. Gadi pulled the pillow away.

"Across ... across the street," Borodin croaked. "Room 528 ...

the Stanley ... House."

Gadi closed his brown hands around Borodin's throat and began to

squeeze. "For Yosef," he said softly.

Detective Schneider crossed the room and shouldered Gadi off of the

Russian. He crouched down beside him.

"Are you Yuri Borodin?" he asked tersely. "Are you the man who killed

Major Harry Richardson?"

Borodin stared up with glassy eyes. He saw little chance of leaving

this room alive. His pale face wrinkled into a sneer. "The Swastika

was a nice touch ... don't you think?"

Schneider sighed heavily. In his mind he saw the dim, overheated

bedroom where he and Colonel Rose had examined Harry's mutilated corpse.

In the close South African heat, it wasn't hard to recall. "I should

let you bleed to death," he growled.

"Fuck you too, you stinking German."

While Hauer and the Israelis watched in disbelief, Schneider closed one

huge hand around Borodin's throat and squeezed with the remorseless

force of a root cracking concrete. Schneider did not see Hauer signal

to Gadi, or the two Israelis approach him from behind.

The moment Borodin's legs stopped thrashing, the Israeli commandos

seized him.

Schneider did not struggle, not even when Gadi took the pistol from his

pocket.

Hauer stepped forward and checked the scalp behind both of Schneider's

ears. Satisfied, he stepped back and motioned for the Israelis to

release him.

"I don't have the damned tattoo," Schneider muttered.

In the awkward silence that followed, Hauer finally noticed the weak

moaning coming from somewhere inside the room. He walked around and

looked on the floor between the beds. Professor Natterman lay there,

deathly white, both hands clutching his side. "Captain ... ?"

he whispered uncertainly.

Hauer knelt and examined the old man. The professor had been lying on

the bed when Schneider burst in, and he had been too, slow to seek

cover. Two bullets from Borodin's final spray had struck him.

One had nicked the flesh above his left hip, the other grazed his left

thigh. Hauer could see that the wounds were superficial, but the

professor obviously believed he was in danger of dying. He raised his

quivering arms to Hauer's collar and pulled him down to his face.

"There really is ... a copy, Captain," he rasped. "A copy of the

Spandau papers."

Hauer pulled himself free of the old man's grasp. "What did you say?"

"Tell Stern to remember the copy I made in Berlin!"

"What?"

Natterman nodded weakly. "Stern ... was following me.

He saw me do it. I made a copy of the Spandau papers before I ever left

Berlin for the cabin. I mailed it to one of my old teaching assistants

for safekeeping. Kurt Rossman. If ...

if you get to Ilse, don't worry about the papers. Just get Ilse out.

Tell Stern to get Ilse out!"

Hauer sat stunned. He couldn't believe that through all the warnings

against photocopying the Spandau papers, Natterman had risked Ilse's

life by not admitting that he had already done so. As he opened his

mouth to rebuke the old man, Aaron Haber appeared at his side with a

canvas overnight bag. The young commando withdrew a kit containing

@yne, Xylocaine, sutures, syringes, gauze bandages, a blood-pressure

indicator, morphine, and a cornucopia of emergency drugs. "We came

prepared for casualties," he said. He propped Natterman's legs on some