Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

We needed more time."

14 Sir," interrupted a radar controller, "I show one aircraft

approaching from the north. He's very close. He must have been flying

ten feet off the veld!"

Smuts pressed a button on his console. "Attention unidenfified

aircraft," he said tersely. "You have entered restricted airspace.

Turn back now or you will be fired upon. Repeat, turn or be fired

upon."

"It must be the Air Zimbabwe jet," said the radar man, "An hour ago I

marked him as a civil airliner bound for -Jo'burg. He must have sneaked

off his flight path after he went into the ground clutter."

Smuts waved his hand to the Vulcan gunner. The Afrikaner donned his

targeting goggles and depressed two foot pedals. With a deep hydraulic

hum the entire turret rotated to face the airstrip.

Inside the approaching Yak-42, Major Ilyas Karami stood behind the

anxious pilot and listened indifferently to Smuts's flint-edged threats.

"Do they have anti-aircraft guns, Major?" the pilot asked.

"Shut up!" Karaini snapped. "You know what to say."

The pilot picked up his mike. "This is Air Zimbabwe Flight 132," he

said in a quavering voice. "We are in disWe have an avionics

malfunction. Do you read?"

-"MajorKarami,"crackledSmuts'svoice."Thisisyourfi-,W warning.

Turn back now or be shot out of the sky."

"Your mother fucks goats!" Karami bellowed.

"He knows who you are!" cried the pilot. "The mission's been

compromised! We're unarmed! We must turn back!"

Suddenly a brilliant line of tracer fire flashed.up through the gray

clouds. It passed high over the nose of the jet, then swung back and

forth, searching out the airborne intruder.

"Allah protect us!" the pilot wailed, instinctively beginning an

evasive maneuver. He had flown MiG fighters in combat, but to sit

helpless in an unarmed airliner was a new and terrifying experience

for,him.

Karami pulled a pistol from his hip holster and laid the barrel against

the pilot's temple. "Land this whore!" he shouted. "Now!"

"Where?" shrieked the pilot.

"I see the flares!" the copilot yelled. "Dive!"

Steeling his nerves, the pilot banked sharply and headed down toward a

line of flares laid by Jailoud's "bodyguards."

It would be a belly-flop landing, but he didn't care. Never in his life

had he wanted so badly to get on the ground.

Smuts cursed as he saw the chain Of green starbursts light up the center

line of the runway. "Shoot out the flares!" he screamed.

"They can't land without them!"

6,M y goggles are going crazy!" the gunner protested. "I can't see a

bloody thing!"

"Take them off! Shoot!"

The roar of the Vulcan blotted out everything. Hess covered his ears

and shouted something, but no one heard him.

The gunner made a valiant effort to extinguish the flares, but only

succeeded in knocking a few out of line. The main effect of the Vulcan

was to rip the surface of the newly laid asphalt to pieces.

Suddenly Hess gasped in horror. Dropping out of the sky like a great

prrhistoric bird was the Libyan Yak-42. It roared past the turret in

profile as it fell earthkvard.

"There they are!" Smuts yelled. "Fire! Fire!"

The gunner depressed his trigger. Scarlet tracer rounds arced from the

Vulcan's flaming barrels, reaching out for the black apparition ...

Suddenly the turret's elevator door hissed open. Smuts turned in

disbelief, then dived protectively across Hess's wheelchair.

Inside the elevator-Trapped on the floor with his back against the

wall-was the surviving Libyan assassi screamed a curse, raised his Uzi

and fired. Bullets sprayed wildly throughout the confined space,

hammering the polycarbonate windows and tearing through the faceplates

of sensitive electronic gear. One of the South African technicians took

a round in the back of the head and fell dead over his console. The

radar technician managed to draw his pistol and get off three shots

before a ricochet caught him in the neck.

And then there was silence. The Libyan had run out of ammunition.

Smuts heaved himself off of Hess, picked up the dead radar man's pistol,

and shot the Libyan twice through the face. It took him three more

seconds to realize the true significance of the silence. The Vulcan had

stopped firing! When Smuts whirled he saw why. His gunner had been

blinded by flying glass. Worse, the Vulcan's electronic targeting

system had been damaged beyond repair!

"The prime minister has been hit again!" Dr. Sabri cried.

Smuts took no notice of the physicist. He darted to the broad window.

The Libyan jet had landed safely! Through his field glasses he watched

fifty commandos spill onto the tarmac. He forced himself to stay calm.

Soon the Libyans would be at the edge of the shallow bolo that

surrounded the house. Inside the killing zone. He dropped his field

glasses and jerked the bleeding gunner from the Vulcan's operating

chair, then climbed in himself. He put his eyes to the visual aiming

goggles and scanned the airstrip. Beneath a wide door in the rear of

the Yak-42 he saw Arabs lowering some type of artillery piece from the

plane by means of winches. Smuts grinned like a demon and opened fire.

The armor-piercing bullets streaked across the Wash and raced toward the

plane.

But just as the tracer beam reached the laboring Arabs, Smuts released

the trigger. Destroying the jet might not be the smartest option in

these circumstances, he realized. With no means of escape, the Libyans

might fight twice as fiercely to take the house. As he watched the

Arabs beneath the plane, Smuts noticed something sitting about ten

meters behind the Yak-42's tail. It was a pickup truck.

What the hell is that for? he wondered. Then he knew. They'd brought

the truck to tow the big gun and to haul their stolen bomb from the

house to the plane! Smuts jammed his thumb down on the Vulcan's

trigger. It took longer than normal to acquire the Toyota using visual

aiming only, but once he did, the uranium-tipped slugs chewed the Toyota

into scrap metal in seconds.

The gas tank fireballed and set aflame three Libyans beneath the plane.

Smuts climbed out of the Vulcan d went to the panel of an switches that

controlled his Claymore mines. His only real worry was the heavy gun.

He would wait until the soldiers got it away from the plane; then he

would destroy men and machine together. He pressed a button on the

console and spoke crisply: "Bunker gunners, prepare to fire at will."

He turned to Hess. "We'd better raise the shields, sir. We @an't risk

letting even one man get irito the basement complex."

"The prime minister is dead!" howled Dr. Sabri from the floor.

Hess rolled his wheelchair over to the bloodied mound of robes lying

near the base of the Vulcan. Prime Minister Jalloud-minus the lower

part of his face-stared blankly upward at the steel roof of the turret.

Two of the Libyan's bullets had found him.

"The shields, sir," Smuts repeated, reaching for the appropriate button.

"Wait!" Hess ordered. "Frau Apfel is still in the outer triangle."

Smuts grimaced with forbearance. "As are Lieutenant Luhr, Linah, the

medical staff, the rest of the servants, and the Jew. Sir, we cannot

afford to wait."

The old man's frantic eyes searched the closed-circuit television

monitors above their heads. Although the cameras showed most of the

outer rooms, he saw no sign of Ilse.

"But ... Pieter, she saved my life! If we shut her outside@' "The