Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

wheelchair over, spilling him onto the parquet floor.

Drawn inexorably forward by the madness of the scene, Ilse edged along

the wall until she could see Horn lying on his back. Erratic flashes

through the picture window fell on his gaunt face, contorted with pain

and confusion, Above him, Stanton, his eyes alight with maniacal fury,

held the gun in his quivering right hand. "You talk of forgiveness!"

he shouted. "Who are you to forgive?" He jerked back the slide of the

.45 and aimed at Horn's glass eye. "What did you make my grandfather

do?"

"Nothing!" Horn said pleadingly. "You have it all backward!

Please, Robert! I do not fear death, but I fear for my mission.

For your grandfather's mission. For mankind!"

Horn's voice rose in desperation. "Do not end the work of half a

century!"

Stanton laughed wildly, then he tightened his mouth into a grimace and

steadied the gun with both hands.

last, Alfred!" ' he cried. "It's long overdue!"

As if in a dream, Ilse raised Smuts's Beretta and pulled back the slide,

just as she had seen Hans do a hundred times in their apartment.

Stanton heard the metallic click. He whirled, trying to pinpoint the

source of the sound ...

Ilse fired.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Stern ran silently, swiftly through the house.

Ilse had described the triangular layout of Horn House to him, but from

inside, the myriad halls and passages seemed only to lead back upon

themselves. He had tried to always turn inward, toward the central

tower that Ilse had told him would lead to the basement, but each time

he was eventually stopped by the same obstacle-an impenetrable sheet of

black anodized metal. The heavy shields blocked every inward-facing

door and window he could find. The central tower and basement complex

had obviously been sealed for battle.

Stern paused for breath beside a wide metal door marked @NKENHAUS.

He had yet to find a telephone, and even if he found one, he could only

give Hauer the most general idea of where he was being held. He needed

a map. Who is attacking this house? he thought angrily. The Arabs

come for their damned bomb, if it even exists? In any other country,

the idea that a private citizen had gained possession of a nuclear

weapon would be ludicrous. But Stern knew that in South Africa no

normal rules applied. In a nuclear-capable state that had developed

beyond the scrutiny of any regulatory entity, anything was possible. A

man of Horn's wealth might well have been instrumental in South Africa's

nuclear weapons program, and God alone knew what price he would have

exacted for his aid. And if he does have the bomb?

Stern asked himself. What then? Visions of Israeli commandos

parachuting into the courtyards of Horn House made his pulse race, but

he knew that such a raid would not happen here. When he finally found a

telephone, he would not have time to make the six or eight calls it

would take to reach the proper members of the Israeli General Staff-if

they weren't out playing golf somewhere. And even if he did reach them,

what action could they take? South Africa wasn't Lebanon or Iraq.

Violating South African airspace would be a dangerous act of war.

The unofficial mot-to of the South African Army was "Thirty days to

Cairo"-meaning that the South African Defense Forces could fight their

way up the entire length of Africa in a month. Few experts argued the

point.

No, Stern realized, Hauer was his only chance. Hauer was in South

Africa, he was one phone call away, and he was ready to act. Stern

wondered what the mandarins in Jerusalem would say if they knew the

future of Israel might depend on a single German.

Stern pushed open the infirmary door and looked for a telephone.

He saw an EKG machine, an IV stand, several laboratory instruments-but

no telephone. There were two doors set in the far wall. One was marked

INTENSIVE CARE, the other bore the international warning symbol for

radiation. Behind the first Stern found a plethora of life-support

equipment, but no telephone. Behind the second he found an X-ray

machine and table, a paneled door marked DARKRoom, fluorescent screens

for examining printed X-ray films, and shelves of manila folders for

stoning them. No telephone.

Stern hurried back into the hallway. After trying another half-dozen

rooms, he found himself standing in the library where he had initially

confronted Horn. Though empty now and shrouded in darkness, the room

seemed to retain some residue of human presence. Stern saw no one, yet

he felt something, a strange aura of awareness. Was someone watching

him from a corner? Uneasy, he moved toward the desk from which Horn had

interrogated him. His common sense told him to get out of the library

fast, yet his intuition told him he was close to something important.

He switched onthe green-shaded desk lamp and stared at the books lining

the library walls. They were standard volumeg, the generic fare that

adorns the shelves of gentlemen of great wealth but little culture.

Driven by a vague premonition, he stepped closer to the shelves.

He touched the books first, then the wood between them, working his way

to the corner of the library, probing with his long fingers. As he

neared the corner he felt cool metal graze his fingertips.

He peered between the shelves. Just where the wood met the wall was a

tiny brass knob.

He closed his thumb and forefinger over it, then gently pulled.

The resulting snick made him jump, but instantly a thin crack appeared

around a three-by-six-foot section of shelving. He pushed forward

slowly, slipped his arm into the dark cavity, and felt for a

switchplate. There. After ten silent seconds, he flipped the switch

and lunged through the secret door.

Stern recoiled in dread as blood red and black assaulted his senses.

The room beyond the door was small but high-ceilinged, like an upended

coffin. Great scarlet drapes fell from the vaulted ceiling, to be

gathered chest-high by black silk sashes. He felt an involuntary

shudder pass through his body. Sewn into the center of each black sash

was a glittering white medallion, and crowning the center of each

medallion-a black-painted swastika! From the wall opposite Stern, a

grouping of black-and-white photographs leaped out like phantoms from a

mass grave. Thousands of gray uniforms stood in endless rigid ranks;

hundreds of jackboots goose-stepped down a depopulated Paris boulevard;

dozens of young lips smiled beneath eyes that had witnessed the

unspeakable. As Stern stared, individual faces emerged from the collage

of depravity. Goring and Himmler ... Heydrich ... Stretcher ... Hess

and Bormann ... Goebbels ... they were all here. Fighting a growing

sense of dislocation, Stern turned, only to confront still another demon

from his past.

Rearing high above him, its enormous bronze wings stretching from one

corner of the red-draped wall to the other, was an imperial Nazi eagle.

Speer's eagle, he thought with a chill, risen again. Yet the great bird

was not an eagle. - For its legs were engulfed in bronze flames, and

clutched in its talons like a world snatched from the primordial fire

was a blood red globe emblazoned with a swastika. The Phoenix!

exulted a voice in Stern's brain. Professor Natterman's voice.

Stern stared in wonder. The head of the mythical bird was turned in

profile. Its sharp beak was stretched wide in a defiant scream, its