Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

"Where is my granddaughter?"

"First the papers."

Playing the role of arrogant academic to the hilt, Stern raised his chin

and looked down his nose at Smuts. "I'll not give the Spandau papers to

anyone but the man who can prove they are his rightful property.

Frankly, I doubt anyone here can do that."

The Afrikaner grimaced. "Herr Professor, it is only my employer's

extreme patience which has kept me from-" An invisible bell cut Smuts

off in mid-sentence. "One moment," he said, and disappeared down the

hall from which he had come.

Glancing around the grand reception hall, Stern wondered what madman had

constructed this surreal schloss on the highveld. He took a couple of

tentative steps down the opposite corridor, but Smuts's returning

footsteps brought him back almost immediately.

"Follow me, Herr Professor," the Afrikaner said stiffly.

In the dimly lit library, Alfred Horn sat motionless behind an enormous

desk, his one good eye focused on the man he believed to be Professor

Georg Natterman.

Stern hesitated at the door. He had expected to be brought before a

young English nobleman named Granville, not a man twenty years his

senior.

"Come closer, Herr Professor," Horn said. "Take a seat."

"I'll stand, thank you," Stern said uncertainly. He saw little more

than a shadow at the desk. He tried to determine the shadow's

nationality by its voice, but found it difficult. The man spoke German

like a native, but there were other inflections too.

"As you wish," Horn said. "You wanted to see me?"

Stern squinted into the gloom. Slowly, the amorphous features of the

shadow coalesced into the face of an old man.

A very old man. Stern cleared his throat. "You are the man responsible

for my granddaughter's abduction?"

"I'm afraid so, Professor. My name is Thomas Horn. I'm a well-known

businessman in this country. Such tactics are not my usual style, but

this is a special case. A member of your family stole something that

belongs to some associates of mine . . ."

Horn sat so still that his mouth barely moved when he spoke. Stern

tried to concentrate on the old man's words, but somehow his attention

was continually drawn to the face@r what little he could see of it. A

low buzz of alarm began to insinuate itself into his brain. With a

combat veteran's sensitivity to physical wounds, Stern quickly noticed

that the old man had but one eye. Watery and blue, it flicked

restlessly back and forth while the other stared ever forward, seeing

nothing. My God! Stern thought. Here is Professor Natterman's

one-eyed man!

"... but I am a pragmatist," Horn was saying. "I always take the

shortest route between two points. In this case that route happened to

run through your family. You have a fine granddaughter, a true daughter

of Deutschiand But in matters such as this-matters with political

implications-even family must take second place."

Stern felt sweat heading on his neck. Who in God's name was this man?

He tried to recall what, Natterman had said about the one-eyed man.

Helmut ... That was the name the professor had mentioned. But of course

Natterman had thought "Helmut" was a code name for the real Rudolf Hess.

Stern felt his heart thud in his chest. It can't be, he thought

quickly. It simply cannot be.

"And so you see how simple it is, Professor," Horn concluded.

"For the Spandau papers, I give you back your family."

Stern tried to speak, but his mind no longer controlled his vocal cords.

The man murmuring to him from the shadows was at least twenty years

older than himself. The face and voice had been ravaged by time, but as

Stern stared, he began to discern the telltale marks of authority, the

indelible lines etched into the face of a man who had held great power.

Could it be? asked a voice in Stern's brain.

Of course it could, answered another. Hess's double died only weeks

ago, and he had endured the soul-killing loneliness of Spandau Prison

for almost fifty years ... This man has lived the life of a millionaire,

with access to the best medical care in the world"I've read your book,

Professor," Horn said smoothly "Germany: From Bismarck to the Bunker A

penetrating study, though flawed in its conclusions. I would be very

interested to hear your opinion of the Spandau papers."

Stern swallowed. "I-I haven't really had that much time to study them.

They deal mainly with the prisoners at Spandau."

"Prisoners, Professor? Not one prisoner in particular?"

Stern blinked.

"Not Prisoner Number Seven?" Horn smiled cagily.

"Have no fear, Professor, my interest is purely academic.

I'd simply like to know if the papers shed any light on the events of

May tenth, 1941-on the flight of Rudolf Hess.

The solution to that mystery has always eluded me"-he smiled again-"as

it has the rest of the world."

Stern fought the urge to step backward. What kind of game was this?

"There is mention of the Hess flight," he whispered.

"And are you familiar with the case, ProfessorT' "Conversant."

"Excellent. I happen to have a unique volume related to it here in my

library. The only one of its kind." Horn tilted his head slightly.

"Pieter?"

Smuts crossed to some tall shelves at the, dark edge of the library and

pulled down a thin black volume. He hesitated a moment, but Horn

inclined his head sharply and Smuts obeyed.

Stern accepted the thin volume without looking at it.

"You hold a piece of living history in your hand, Professor," Horn said

solemnly. "A piece no historian has ever seen before. May of 1941 was

a critical juncture in the march of Western civilization. A time of

great opportunities ." He sighed. "Missed opportunities. I'd like you

to read that while we verify the Spandau papers. Perhaps it will help

you to do what no one else has yet been able to do-solve the Hess

mystery."

Stern looked down at the book in his hands. It was a notebook, he saw,

bound in black leather with a name stamped in gold on its cover: V V

Zinoviev. The name meant nothing to Stern. What was he holding in his

hands? Had this man Horn threatened to kill Ilse Apfel in order to

suppress one clue to the Hess enigma, only to give the man he thought to

be her grandfather another? Was he a fool? Of course not.

He was a snake allowing the sparrow one last song before it felt the

fangs strike. Any knowledge that "Professor Natterman" gained from the

Zinoviev notebook in the next few hours would perish with him.

"Come closer, Professor," Horn said, raising his chin like a connoisseur

examining an antique for authenticity. "Do you have Jewish blood in

your family?"

The flickering blue eye fixed on Stern and bored in, searching for the

slightest hint of deception. Stern struggled to maintain his calm.

During the helicopter flight he had worried that his rusty German would

give him away, yet no one seemed to have noticed it. Would it be his

Semitic nose that betrayed him? That put the final bullet through his

heart?

"Nein, " he said, forcing a smile. "This nose has been the bane of my

life, Herr Horn. There's some Arab blood far back down the line, I

think. It almost cost me my life several times during the thirties."

"I can imagine," Horn said thoughtfully. "So. The Spandau papers. You

have brought them to me?"

Horn's cadaverous face seemed to waver ghostlike in the shadows.

As if by its own volition, Stern's right hand burrowed into his trouser