Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

gun ...

He fired.

His bullet starred the glass.

He fired again.

The tracer beam jinked away from, the Armscor and moved back toward him.

Too late Smuts had realized where the real danger lay.

With the Vulcan gun thundering down upon him, Dieter Hauer actually

closed his eyes as he fired his last shot. The tracer beam stuttered,

flashed again ... winked out.

The spell was broken. Hauer scrambled to his feet and dashed after the

Armscor. Gadi Abrams dragged him back through the hatch.

"You crazy German bastard!"

The Armscor was filling rapidly with oily black smoke.

"Everybody shoot!" Hauer shouted. "Clear a path through the mines!

Detonate everything in our path!"

One Claymore exploded harmlessly nearby, but no more.

The Armscor had reached the section of ground where Burton's Colombians

had been slaughtered the night before. The mines here had been spent,

no replacements laid. The Annscor roared forward and reached Horn House

in twenty seconds flat.

Captain Barnard pulled the vehicle across the main entrance like a

barricade. Instantly two South African CT troops thrust shotguns

through the ports and blasted the hinges off the teakwood door. When

Hauer shoved open the side hatch, he was staring straight into the

marble reception hall where Major Karami's assassins lay dead.

"Move out!" he shouted.

"Wait!" General Steyn was up in the driver's compartment, leaning over

Captain Barnard. Hauer remembered the young man had taken some glass in

the face when the windshield shattered, but as he peered over the

general's beefy shoulder he realized that Captain Barnard was suffering

from a mortal wound.

"Where is it, son?" General Steyn asked softly.

"My chest ... sir."

Carefully the general probed the young man's torso.

"I thought he was wearing a vest," Hauer said quietly.

General Steyn pulled a bloodstained hand from beneath Barnard's right

arm. "There's a splinter of polycarbonate sticking out of him," he

whispered. "Right where the vest stops at the underarm. God only knows

how deep it went in." He turned back to Captain Barnard. "Can you

move, lad?"

The young man tried to smile, then coughed in agony. "It feels like the

damned thing is buried in my heart. Like a sword ... swear to God. Go

on."

General Steyn's neck flushed red. "Nonsense, lad, you're coming with

us."

"Don't move me, sir," Captain Barnard gurgled. "Please don't."

General Steyn looked ready to twist off the head of the man who had

caused this pain. Setting his mouth in a grim line, he drew a .45

caliber pistol from Captain Barnard's belt and placed it carefully in

the young man's hand. "If it gets too bad," he said tersely, "you know

what to do." The general swallowed the lump in his throat. "I'll be

back for you, Barnard. You have my solemn word. Stand fast."

General Steyn turned and squeezed his broad shoulders back through the

door of the driver's compartment. His bluff face was swollen with

emotion. He looked hard into Hauer's eyes. "If it's a war they want,"

he said, his voice trembling, "then it's a bloody war they'll get." He

-drew his own pistol and jerked back the slide.

"Into the house, lads!"

Pieter Smuts staggered away from the Vulcan and wiped the blood out of

his eyes with his shirtsleeve. A dozen slivers of armored glass had

been driven into his face by Hauer's slugs. He crouched beside Hess's

wheelchair.

"They've breached the outer walls, sir. I don't know who's inside that

armored car, but they must be friends of the Jew."

Hess grimaced. "Who could it be but Captain Hauer?" he wheezed.

"I told you never to underestimate an old German soldier. Hauer

obviously outsmarted Major Graaff! Damn the man! A German! A German

attacking me!"

"We can still stop them, sir."

"How?"

"If I order our bunker gunners to cease firing, the Libyans will advance

and kill anyone left alive outside the shields."

"True," Hess said thoughtfully. "But then the Libyans will be inside

the house."

"But not inside the shields. Not near you-not near the weapons."

Hess hesitated, realizing that the order would mean certain death for

Ilse, Linah, and all of the servants. "Do it," he said finally.

Smuts pressed a button on his console and issued the order.

Outside, the rattle of the bunker guns stuttered, then died.

In the eerie silence, Major Ilyas Karami ordered three quarters of his

remaining commando force down the slope.

The rest he held back to transport the howitzer. The battle was not yet

over, and he did not intend to lose it through overconfidence.

The prize was too great.

Alan Burton rolled back over the lip of the Wash and slid down the muddy

wall into darkness. Juan Diaz lay halfburied in the mud-and-bramble

shelter Burton had built at the bottom of the ravine.

Diaz's wounds had developed an unpleasant odor, and his eyes were pale

yellow slits. Burton leaned close to his ear.

"I've got our return tickets, lad. Can you make it?"

"si, " Diaz whispered.

"There's a big jet up there, an airliner, but it's too heavily guarded.

There is also a lovely little Lear that looks like a bloody Turkish

brothel on the inside. That's our bird."

Grunting in pain, the little Cuban heaved himself to his knees, pushing

away Burton's helping hand. "Let's go, English," he rasped, forcing a

grin. "Not enough senoritas on this beach."

It took the two men ten minutes to climb out of the Wash and cover the

eighty meters to the Libyan Learjet. Burton had to carry Diaz the last

third of the way. Instead of putting the Cuban on board the jet,

however, Burton trudged to the edge of the asphalt runway and dropped

him there. Diaz yelped as the pain of his wounds hit him.

"Sorry, sport," Burton panted. "But this is the safest spot for the

time being."

"What?" Diaz exclaimed, finally guessing Burton's intent.

"But the plane is right there!"

"Sorry, lad. I told you if I got half a chance I'd have another go at

the house. When those rug-peddlers started shooting, they gave me just

that. From my point of view, sport, unless I do the job I was sent here

to do, that jet isn't an escape route for me. It's just a taxi back to

purgatory.

Diaz muttered a stream of Cuban profanity.

"Come along now, Juan boy, Crawl into that brush over there.

Wouldn't want those blighters over there to catch you out here alone."

Burton pointed up the runway to where Major Karami and his men struggled

in the dusk. "Cut your balls off with a bloody scimitar, they would."

When Diaz had settled himself in the tall grass, Burton said, "I know

you can reach that jet on your own, sport. I wouldn't want you to leave

without me. You wouldn't do that, would you?"

The Cuban pulled a wry face. "Yesterday I would have," he admitted.

"But last night you saved my life, English.

Cubano don't forget that, eh? You go play hero. Diaz be here when you

get back."

Burton took a last look the Lear-his solitary means of escape-then he

tossed Diaz his wristwatch and gave him a roguish grin. "If I'm not

back in forty minutes, sport, it's bon voyage to you with my best

wishes."

Diaz shook his head and lay back in the scrub grass. Burton unslung his

submachine gun and started back toward Horn House.

Hauer charged out of the Arinscor and into the marble reception hall

with the South Africans on his heels. Gadi brought up the rear.