Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

you will be a hero in my nation! Come out from there and let me make

you the richest man in the world! Come out and tell me who you are."

Stern laughed. The sound was brittle as a voice from the grave.

"We're both martyrs, Major. Isn't it funny how that works out?"

His face hardened. "I'll see you in the afterlife, my Arab friend.

Shalom."

In one terrible instant Ilyas Karami realized that the man facing him

across his coveted weapons was a Jew. From the hot core of his being he

screamed a curse of pure hatred at his lifelong enemy, at the same time

jerking out the pistol he had hidden in the belt behind his back.

But at that moment Hess jerked up from the floor and clutched at the

wires in Stern's hands. "Deutschland!" he shrieked. "Deutschland Uber

Alles! " Stern swatted the skeletal arms aside, wrapped the two bare

wires together, and clenched them in his fist. He smiled sadly, then

closed his eyes.

Karami emptied his pistol as fast as his finger could pull the trigger,

but Hess's still-struggling body shielded Stern from the first bullets.

The old Nazi danced horribly in midair, and by the time a slug found

Stern it was too late.

In the blink of an eye, darkness turned to noon. Even with the nose

cone of the Leadet pointed away from the blast, the flash blinded

everyone inside. Diaz lost control of the aircraft. It pitched over

into a screaming, spinning dive, hurtling earthward at over five hundred

miles per hour.

In the cabin, people slammed into each other in the terror of

flashblindness. General Steyn screamed in pain.

Hauer half-fell past Burton into the cockpit. "Straig] up!" he

screamed. "Level out!"

The Lear's engines whined insanely as the plane plummeted earthward.

Hauer grabbed the Cuban's wounded shoulder and squeezed maniacafly-

"Level out, damn you!

The blast wave's coming! The blast wave!"

Somehow Diaz managed to pull out of the dive. He had almost succeeded

in stabilizing the Lear when the blast wave hit. The solid wall of

superheated air tossed the tiny jet like a wave throws a surfboard,

pitching it up and forward, then dropping it into a trough of dead air.

Hauer felt a sudden nausea, as if hydroplaning a car around a curve,

then just as suddenly the feeling passed. He heard Diaz cursing

ftiriously from the cockpit as he wrestled with the controls.

"is anyone hurt!" Hauer shouted. His vision was slowly returning"I

can't see!" someone moaned.

"Holy Mother of God," General Steyn mumbled. "He did it! Stern

actually did it!"

"I can't see anything!" someone cried. "Help me!"

"The blindness will pass!" Dr. Sabri shouted from the floor.

"We were lucky! It could have been twice that bad!"

"The papers!" Gadi muttered, his voict cracking. "The Spandau papers

are gone! Jonas is dead! Where is that German bitch?"

With Ilse now the object of all his rage and frustration, the Israeli

scrabbled blindly across the cabin floor in search of his rifle. Hauer

had finally had enough. When Gadi's hand closed around Ilse's ankle,

Hauer lifted the rifle from beneath the Israeli's sightless eyes and

struck him on the side of the head with its stock.

Gadi collapsed in a heap. Quickly Hauer collected every weapon he could

find-beginning with Burton's MP-5-and piled them all behind some pillows

at the back of the cabin. Then he took Hans's hand and led him over to

Ilse.

"It's all right," he said. "Just keep your eyes closed for a minute."

Ilse's arms went around Hauer's neck as well as Hans's.

"We're alive," she said softly. "My God, we're alive." She opened her

eyes. Tears of relief welled up in them and ran down her cheeks. A

smile started across her face; then she pulled up her hand and covered

her mouth. "Stern," she said haltingly. "Herr Stern ...

he's dead."

As Hauer held Hans and Ilse in his arms, he thought about that.

He suspected that the old Israeli would have called the trade more than

fair. The mystery of Rudolf Hess would probably remain "unsolved"

forever@r at least until the British government opened its secret

vaults-but Stern had never cared much about that. What mattered was

that the State of Israel had received a new lease on life. A gift from

one of its youngest fathers, and eldest sons. EPILOGUE (WASHINGTON)-At

8:47 Pm. Eastern Standard Time last night, a National Weather Office

RORSAT a meteorological satellite recorded an intense flash and heat

bloom over the northeastern corner of the Republic of South Africa.

Weather Office analysts report that the event was consistent with data

resulting from a large underground nuclear blast. The Weather Office

recorded many such events over the Soviet Union during the 1960s, and

believes its opinion to be accurate.

Both the National Reconnaissance Office and the Pentagon have refused to

comment, but it is believed that this incident confirms the existence of

a secret nuclear weapons arsenal in South Africa. A similar event was

photographed over the Indian Ocean off the South African coast in 1984.

Weather Office analysts do not have the equipment required to measure

the release of radiation into the atmosphere, but they suggest that,

with the prevailing winds over the northern Transvaal yesterday, any

such radiation would likely have been blown out over the Indian Ocean.

Several international environmental groups have expressed outrage over

the test. National Weather Office analysts place the probable nuclear

test site less than 20 miles from the Kruger National Park, one of the

richest preserves for wildlife on the African continent. The

environmental organization Greenpeace intends to file complaints with

both the international Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations, but

the activist group expects that "little will be done."

The White House has issued no statement on the event, and government

officials in Pretoria and Capetown have bluntly refused to grant

interviews, calling the charges alarmist and unfounded. A National

Weather Office analyst who refuses to be named gave this comment: "Tell

the South Africans, 'Welcome to the Club.' (WEST BERLIN-API)-At 4:00

A.M. Central European Time yesterday, an elite counterteffor unit

consisting of GSG-9

commandos working in concert with the U.S. Army stormed a

Friedrichstrasse police station and cleared it of hostile elements.

U.S. Army Colonel Godfrey Rose, the American commander on the scene,

stated that a hostage situation had been going on for some time without

the knowledge of the press. The terrorists inside the station had not

demanded media coverage, Rose said, and it was felt that premature press

involvement "could have impeded the rapid resolution of what was not a

critical, but rather an unpleasant situation."

API has no further information on the terrorists who took over Abschnitt

53, but the West Berlin mayor's office has indicated that several West

Berlin police hostages died in the assault. Among them was Wilhelm

Funk, the prefect of West Berlin police. Funk, along with his fellow

officers, will be buried on Friday with full police honors.

Colonel Rose, who had worked extensively with Funk in the past, called

his death "a loss that will be deeply felt, but is best put behind us."

The funeral service at the Wilmersdorf cemetery is expected to draw

thousands of loyal West Germans.

Minutes of the Special Inter-Allied Intelligence Conference on