Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

solitary eye blazed with fury. Stern felt his knees tremble. Here is

your Egypti@n eye, Professor The exact design! The tattoo used by the

murderers of Phoenix ... the mark sketched on the last page of the

Spandau papers. With dreamlike clarity Stern remembered Natterman's

explanation of Rudolf Hess's Egyptian connection. This Phoenix looked

almost identical to the old Nazi eagle, but the Egyptian character of

its eye could not be denied. The eye did not match the rest of the

sculpture at all. Neither did the flames at the bird's feet. They

added long after the original sculpture was cast. But by whom? Stern

wondered. By a man who spent the first fourteen years of his life in

Egypt? By a man who lost one eye sometime after 1941? By Rudolf Hess?

Under other circumstances, Stern reflected, this strange sanctum might

pass for a private trophy room-a perverted version of the narcissistic

shrines one often found in the homes of vain old generals.

But here-hidden in a fortress at the end of a twisted trail that began

at Spandau Prisonthese relics suggested something else altogether.

This room was no museum, no maudlin monument to the past. It was a time

warp, a place where the past had not been merely preserved, but

reanimated by a personality bent on resurrecting it. Stern felt a wild

urge to leap up and tear the effigy down, like Marshal Zhukov's Russians

atop the Reichstag. He stretched up on tiptoe, then froze.

Mounted on the wall beneath the huge Phoenix he saw what he had come

looking for: maps. And not only maps, but a telephone! The map on the

left-a projection of the African continent-Stern ignored. But the

other-a topographic survey of the northern Transvaal-was just what he'd

wanted. Quickly orienting himself to Pretoria, he slid his finger

northeast toward the splash of 'green that represented the Kruger

National Park. His fingernail stopped an inch short of the park border.

"There you are," he said aloud. Just as on the radar screen in the

turret high above, the location of Horn House had been clearly marked

with a large red H. Stern figured the distance from the H to Pretoria at

just under three hundred kilometers. Roughly three and a half hours

overland, making allowances for what appeared to be trackless wilderness

surrounding Horn House itself He snatched up the telephone from the

desk, his heart pounding.

Then-as he punched in the number of the Protea Hof Hotel-he heard muted

voices. He dropped into a crouch behind the desk, taking the phone with

him.

The voices were not coming from the telephone. Nor were they getting

any closer. Stern got cautiously to his feet. By moving to different

parts of the room, he soon located the source of the sound.

The voices were coming from behind the wall of photographs. He

flattened his ear to the wood.

Both voices were male, one much stronger than the other.

The stronger voice spoke with a British accent.

Feeling his way across the wall to get closer to the voices, Stern

touched cold metal with his right hand. Another knob.

Now he understood. This unholy shrine adjoined the library and study by

means of two hidden doors. Horn had made sure that his secret sanctuary

had two routes of egress. Taking a deep breath, Stern turned the knob.

He heard the familiar snick of metal, but the voices went on talking. He

pushed open the door.

The study beyond was dim but not lightless. Flashes from the picture

window intermittently lit the room. Stern could hear the rattle of

small arms fire outside, punctuated by the occasional burp of some

heavier weapon. He edged into the room and pressed himself against the

paneled wall. By the greenish light of a desk lamp he picked out the

man with the British accent. He was pointing a large pistol across the

desk at a shadow seated before the window.

Stern jumped when he heard the voice of the man in the chair, a gravelly

rasp, full of contempt. It was Horn. He couldn't make out all the

words, but the old man-despite his vulnerable position-seemed to be

offering the Englishman mercy. This only infuriated the younger man.

With a cry of rage he charged the wheelchair, kicked Horn over, then

raised his pistol and jerked back the slide. By God, he means to kill

him, Stern realized. He started forward instinctively, then he stopped.

A broken fork was not much good against a semi-automatic pistol.

Yet beyond that, something deep in Stern's soul, something angry and

crusted black, told him to do absolutely nothing. If the old man lying

helpless on the floor actually had gained possession of a nuclear

weapon, Stern could neutralize him now by simply allowing the enraged

Englishman to blow his brains out. Perhaps that was best ...

The next moments passed like chain lightning. Stern heard Horn mutter

something from behind the sofa. The young Englishman, driven beyond his

limit of endurance, steadied his gun with both hands and prepared to

fire.

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

Stern stopped in his tracks. Alfred? He felt a jolt of disorientation.

Alfred Horn? But the old man had introduced himself as Thomas HomA

sharp metallic click froze everyone in the room. The sound was

unmistakable-an automatic pistol being cocked.

As if controlled by the same brain, Jonas Stern and Robert Stanton

whirled toward the sound. Stern glimpsed a swatch of blond hair in the

shadows; then the muzzle flash blinded him.

Five in a row, very fast. The first shots went wild, but the last two

snatched the Englishman off his feet and drove him through the picture

window, shattering the panes into a thousand glittering razors.

Stern dropped to the floor. The blond hair he had seen told him one

thing: Peter Smuts had arrived to save his master.

As Stern peered through the darkness, trying to pick out the Afrikaner,

the study door burst open and the overhead lights flashed on. What

Stern saw next stopped the breath in his lungs. Ilse Apfel stood rigid

at the center of the room, a smoking pistol clenched in both hands. She

was the blond who had saved Horn from his would-be executioner! Pieter

Smuts bounded across the room and tackled her, one hand immobilizing the

pistol as he knocked her to the floor. She went down without a sound.

The Afrikaner came to his feet almost instantly, scanning the room for

his master.

"Pieter," cried a weak voice. "Behind the sofa."

Smuts darted to the old man and fell to his knees. "Are you hit?"

"What ... ? No. You saved me, Pieter."

"Linahi" Smuts shouted. "Get the doctor!"

Stern heard footsteps scurrying down the hall.

Only now did Smuts notice the broken window. Stanton's mangled corpse

lay half in and half out of it, his lifeless eyes turned upward, open to

the rain. The Afrikaner's mouth dropped open in wonder as he realized

what must have happened.

"Thank God you arrived, Pieter," Horn mumbled. "The swine meant to kill

me. I didn't think he had it in him."

Watching Ilse closely, Smuts righted the wheelchair, lifted the old man

into it, then crossed the study and pulled Ilse to her feet.

She looked no more alert than she had when Smuts bowled her to the

floor. The Afrikaner led her gently over to Horn.

"Sir, when I got here I saw Frau Apfel standing over there with a pistol

raised. It was she that saved you." Smuts made a sudden sound of

astonishment. "It's my Beretta! By God, she shot Lord Granville with