Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

police are going to start discovering corpses soon."

With that, Schneider turned and walked away, a hatted man whose

shoulders stretched half the breadth of the hallway.

When Hauer walked back through the foyer, Gadi said, "Isn't there

something else we can do while we wait?"

Hauer shook his head. "Stern is our only chance. We've got to wait

until he calls us."

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Gadi confided. "What if Uncle

Jonas can't find a way to call?"

Hauer shrugged. "Then he dies. Just like Hans and Ilse."

Perhaps inspired by Schneider, he touched the grip of his own pistol.

"Then we hunt the bastards down and kill them-every one of them."

Gadi exhaled in frustration. "So we just sit here?"

"We sit here."

"How longt' "As long as it takes."

"I don't like it, Captain. And I don't trust that detective, either."

Hauer lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. "Who cares."

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

4.55 Pm. mI-5 Headquarters, Charles Street, London Sir Neville Shaw sat

alone in his darkened office, clutching the telephone receiver to his

ear.

"What do you mean, you lost him?" he asked.

Swallow's low voice quavered with barely controlled hysteria.

"Someone picked him off a motorway with a helicopter. I was too far

back to stop it."

Shaw rubbed his forehead. This was bad news indeed.

"Thank you for informing me," he said at length. "Your services have

been appreciated, but they will no longer be needed."

"What?"

"There will be no further contact between you and this office."

"Don't give me that, you bastard!" Swallow shrieked. "I want to know

where Stern went! I know you know, and you had better tell me!"

Shaw straightened up at his desk. "Listen to me very carefully.

Your orders are to stand down. Stand down as of this moment. Any

further action on your part may disrupt a parallel operation, and will

thus be considered not insubordination, but treason to the Crown. Is

that clear?"

Swallow's laugh was like the cackling of a witch. "The Crown," she

scoffed. "Listen to me, little man. I know what kind of operation this

is. I know you ordered the murder of Rudolf Hess in Spandau. And if

you don't tell me where Stern is now, I'll blow this story wide open.

I'll kill Stern one way or the other, and when I've done with him, I'll

come for you. Now-" Shaw broke the connection. The light on his phone

went dark. Seconds later Deputy Director Wilson appeared in his

doorway, a darker shadow in the dim office.

"What did she want, Sir Neville?"

Shaw stared at Wilson's anxious face for a long time.

"Nothing," he said finally. "Stern's mucking about Pretoria, Swallow's

on his tail. Why don't you send out for some food, old man?

Get enough for yourself. It's going to be a long night, and I want you

with me."

Wilson nodded crisply. "Certainly, Sir Neville."

When Wilson had gone, Shaw consulted his map of southern Africa.

He checked the scale against a line he had drawn from the Mozambique

Channel to a sand-colored blank spot near the Kruger Park.

As if in a dream, he saw two tiny helicopters flying slowly across the

map, somewhere along that line. Parallel operation, he thought,

remembering his words to Swallow. He hoped Alan Burton had better luck

than Swallow did. Burton was the last chance for the secret to stay

hidden.

Shaw took his favorite pipe from the stand on his desk and began

rummaging for his tobacco. Jonas Stern Must be good indeed to have

eluded that she-devil, he thought. He wondered about Swallow's death

threat as he sucked on the, cold pipe stem, but he soon put it out of

his mind. At this point in time, a deranged assassin was the least of

his worries.

5.00 Pm. MozambiquelSouth Africa Border

The two helicopters flew in tandem, noses dipped for speed as they swept

across the coastal plain north of Maputo. In the seat next to Alan

Burton, Juan Diaz cursed under his breath. They had spent half the day

in a guerilla camp that looked like an outpost from hell.

Ragged tents pitched in the middle of a desert, cannibalized army

trucks, emaciated black men carrying rusty AK-47s, girls of twelve or

thirteen stolen from nearby villages and forced into whoredom by the

soldiers: the dogs had looked healthier than the people.

"Who were those bastards?" asked Diaz, who had a fair grasp of English.

"The MNR, sport," Burton replied. "Bloody wags. Fascists, to boot.

You're lucky they didn't know you were a communist.?' Diaz spat and

muttered something in Spanish.

"I didn't like it any more than you, Juan boy. But we had to stop to

pay them. Those fuzzy-wuzzies are providing our diversion this evening.

Plus, it was a good place to lie up.

That freighter was too exposed."

Diaz leaned out to make sure his sister ship was close behind.

"Who are they trying to divert for us, English?"

"Government air forces. There's a Mozambican base about a hundred miles

south of here, and a South African one further south."

"Ay-ay-ay," Diaz groaned. "What's based there?"

"In Mozambique? The usual African complement. Transport craft, helos,

a few outdated fighters. But the South Africans have it all."

The Cuban crossed himself and dropped the chopper even closer to the

plain.

"You didn't think an incursion into South Africa would be a stroll on

the beach, did you?"

Suddenly a torrent of what sounded like gibberish to Diaz burst out of

the African ether and filled the cabin. Burton leaned forward and began

transmitting in a slower, broken version of the same language. When he

finished, he replaced the transmitter and settled back into his seat

with a trace of a smile on his lips.

"Takes me back, that does."

"What was that shit?"

"Portuguese, sport. Language of a lost empire."

"Everything still okay?" the pilot asked nervously.

"Bloody marvelous, I'd say."

Burton felt like a different man after the confinement of the ocean

voyage. He was glad to be back in Africa. The only complication so far

had been the "observer" that the MNR guerilla chief had foisted on him.

The observer was a giant black named Alberto who carried a frightening

arsenal of grenades, knives, and pistols. But when Burton thought of

The Deal, he refused to let Alberto worry him. The guerilla looked like

more of a soldier than any of the Colombians, and if he got in the way,

Burton could always kill him. The Englishman reckoned there might be a

good deal of killing 1

before this mission was done. But that was all right. England had

never seemed closer than it did just now.

6.07 Pm. Horn House, The Northern Transvaal Jonas Stern waited alone in

the vast reception hall of Horn House, praying that Ilse Apfel possessed

more nerve and presence of mind than her overwrought husband.

By all rights she should be in worse shape, emotionally speaking.

But something about the way Natterman had talked about the girl gave

Stern hope. Maybe she had the sand to do it.

Maybe"Herr Professor?"

The voice emanated from a dark hallway to Stern's left.

He turned to see Pieter Smuts emerge from the shadows.

"That's right," said Stern, putting his full concentration into each

syllable of German. "Professor Emeritus Georg Natterman, of the Free

University of Berlin. Who are you?" Smuts smiled bleakly. "I believe

you have something for me, Professor?"

Stern regarded the Afrikaner with imperious detachment.