Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

like laser beams arcing across the slope below. Anywhere the gun

lingered for a full second, more than a hundred depleted-uranium-tipped

slugs impacted in a steady stream of death.

The rain and darkness obscured the remaining attackers, but Smuts seemed

to have no trouble finding them. Wearing ear protectors now, he worked

the pedals with practiced skill, traversing the gun with remorseless

accuracy. Watching Smuts's slit-eyed face behind the Vulcan, Luhr

actually pitied the men who remained alive.

Four floors below the observatory, Robert Stanton, Lord Granville,

watched the weapons he had known nothing about blast his dreams of power

into oblivion. If Alfred survives this night, he thought desolately,

what will Shaw give me?

Not afucking thing, that's what! He shook his head in wonder.

Not one member of the assault teaxn remained standing!

Unbelieving, Stanton pressed his palm against the windowpane, watching

in horror as the Vulcan's terrible tracer beam climbed the slope, then

disappeared over the ridge. Seconds later a fireball mushroomed into

the sky. Probably a helicopter, he realized. Stanton could bear no

more. He knew he had but one chance now: to find Horn and allay any

suspicion that he was connected with the attack. If Burton is killed,

he thought hopefully, I might just bring it off. He dashed into the

dark hallway and made for the study, almost sure that Horn would be

closeted there.

Scurrying through the vast reception hall, he saw Ilse jerk back into

one of the corridors, but she meant nothing to him now. In seconds he

would be fighting for his life. A quick sprint brought him to the study

door, which he found unlocked. He burst through it like a man in blind

panic. A green-shaded lamp burned at Horn's desk, but the old man was

not there. Then, slowly, Stanton made out the wheelchair, silhouetted

against the rain-spattered picture window.

Scarlet tracers sliced through the darkness outside, giving the room a

surrealistic sense of drama, like the bridge of a ship during battle.

"Alfred!" Stanton cried with exaggerated relief. "Thank God you're

safe!"

Slowly Horn rotated his wheelchair until he faced the young Englishman.

His face was haggard, but his solitary eye burned with black contempt.

"So, Robert," he rasped, "you would be my Judas."

Ilse tore through the halls like a madwoman. She had searched every

unlocked room and pounded on every locked door in the house, but she'd

found no sign of Hans. Nor had she seen Stern since they parted at the

bedroom door. She had found one useful thing. In a spartan bedroom

decorated only by an eight-by-ten photograph of a younger, uniformed

Pieter Smuts, she'd found a Beretta 9mm semi-automatic pistol in a

holster hanging from the bedpost. She wasn't sure she could use it, but

she had no doubt that Stern could. Or Hans, if she could find him.

Approaching the reception hall at a full run, she saw Lord Granville

sprint across it in another direction. She skidded and tried to

backpedal into the narrow corridor, but she was, too late-Stanton had

seen her. Yetjust as she turned to flee, she heard the Englishman's

footsteps echoing down one of the main passageways-away from her.

Carefully she crossed the reception hall and peered down the corridor

into which Stanton had vanished. What's he after? she wondered.

What is so important that he would ignore me running loose?

Another prisoner, perhaps? Hans?

Ilse darted down the hallway after Stanton. Toward the far end of the

dark corridor she saw a vertical crack of light. As she neared it, she

heard voices. One was unmistakably Stanton's,the other ... she couldn't

be sure. Pulling off her shoes, she slipped quietly through the door.

She pressed herself flat against the paneled wall of the study.

Alfred Horn sat hunched in his wheelchair before a large picture window,

barely discernible in the shadows. Beside an ornate desk four meters

away stood Lord Granville.

He was gesticulating wildly with his hands.

"I told you, Alfred!" he shouted. "Smuts is insane! He knows nothin,9

of my loyalty! I'm your partner for God's sake!"

"You are a liar and a coward," Horn said evenly. "And you care for

nothing but money." He swept a hand toward the window, where sporadic

tracer fire still illuminated the grounds in short bursts.

"You see how your greed ends, Roberl,?"

Stanton raised his arms in supplication. "But I know nothing of that!

It's another of Smuts's schemes to discredit me!

He's always been jealous of me, you know that!"

Horn shook his head sadly. "Dear Robert. How is it that great men

produce heirs such as you? It is the bane of the world."

"Please!" Stanton begged. "What proof is there against me?"

Horn rubbed his wizened forehead. "Reach beneath the desktop, Robert."

Stanton did. His fingers touched a toggle switch. He flipped it

reflexively. A mate voice boomed from speakers on the bookshelf: "Good

Christ, are you mad?"

Stanton felt faint. "Shut up and listen!" snapped a voice he

recognized as his own. "I had to call from here. They won't let me go

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

"What?" asked the incredulous voice, the British accent unmistakable.

"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's no stopping it now," said Sir Neville Shaw. "And your

information on Horn's defenses had better turn out to be good,

Granville, or-" Alfred Horn's bitter voice rose above the recording.

"You don't even make a good Judas, Robert! You're pathetic!"

"But ... but it's not what you think!" Stanton wailed.

"That call was about the gold we're expecting!"

"Liar! You've betrayed me! I will coddle you no more!"

With a sudden straightening of his body, Stanton pulled a .45

caliber pistol from his belt. "You're the fool!" he cried, his eyes

burning with maniacal hatred. "Doddering around this carnival house,

clinging to your rotting fortune like a sick lion. Blubbering your

idiotic racial philosophies through these empty halls. You're daft!

Your day is past, old man!

It's my turn now!" Stanton aimed the pistol at Horn's head.

"Put down the gun, Robert," Horn said quietly. "I will forgive you.

Please, for your grandfather's sake."

"Shut up! You'd never let me live now!"

"I will forgive you, Robert. But first you must tell me all about your

friends from London."

Stanton shook his head like a terrified child. "I can't! I tried to

protect you, you know. They wanted me to kill you myself, but I

refused. They offered me the bloody moon!

They threatened to blackmail me, to expose some horrible secret about my

grandfather"-Stanton grinned wildly"but then I realized they were more

afraid of the secret than I was!" The petulant scowl returned. "But

they mean to kill you, Alfred. One way or the other.

Don't you see? I had no choice. London will only send someone else for

you."

"Perhaps," Horn said wearily. "Perhaps I made a mistake, Robert.

Because you are ... like you are, I never revealed to you my true

identity. My true mission. Even your father kept it from you-wisely, I

thought. But the time has come for you to know. I will forgive your

treachery, but first you must put down the gun. Put it down, and learn

the true story of your noble heritage."

"You bastard!" Stanton screamed. He charged forward and kicked Horn's