Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

Then, slowly, he let his hand fall from the Schmeisser's grip.

"Jawohl, Herr ... Herr Reichminister."

"Now, Herr Major! And be about your business! Go!"

Suddenly Major Berger was all action,. With a pounding heart he hurried

toward the Messerschmitt, his face hot and tingling with fear.

Blood roared in his ears. He had just threatened to place the Deputy

Fuhrer of the German Reich-Rudolf Hess-under arrest! In a daze he

ordered the crewmen to speed their packing of the guns. While they

complied, he harried them about their earlier maintenance.

Were the wet-points clear? Would the wing drop tanks disengage properly

when empty?

At the edge of the runway, Hess turned to the man in the flying suit.

"Come closer," he murmured.

The man took a tentative step forward and stood at attention.

"You understand about the guns?" Hess asked.

Slowly the man nodded assent.

"I know it's dangerous, but it's dangerous for us both.

Under certain circumstances it could make all the difference."

Again the man nodded. He was a pilot also, and had in fact flown many

more missions than the man who had so suddenly assumed command of this

situation. He understood the logic: a plane purported to be on a

mission of peace would appear much more convincing with its guns

disabled.

But even if he hadn't understood, he was in no position to argue.

"It's been a long time, Hauptmann, " Hess said, using the rank of

captain in place of a name.

The captain nodded. Overhead a pair of Messerschmitts roared by from

Aalborg, headed south on patrol.

"It is a great sacrifice you have made for your country, Hauptmann. You

and men like you have given up all normality so that men like myself

could prosecute the war in comparative safety. It's a great burden, is

it not?"

The captain thought fleetingly of his wife and child. He had not seen

them for over three years; now he wondered if he ever would again.

He nodded slowly.

"Once we're in the plane," said Hess, "I won't be able to see your face.

Let me see it now. Before."

As the captain reached for the end of his scarf, Major Berger scurried

back to tell them the plane was almost ready.

The two pilots, enthralled in the strange play they found themselves

acting out, heard nothing. What the SS man saw when he reached them

struck him like a blow to the stomach. All his breath passed out in a

single kasp, and he knew that he stood at the brink of extinction.

Before him, two men with the same face stood together shaking hands! And

that face! Major Berger felt as if he had stumbled into a hall of

mirrors where only the dangerous people were multiplied.

The pilots gripped hands for a long moment, their eyes heavy with the

knowledge that both their lives might end tonight over foreign soil in

the cockpit of an unarmed fighter.

"My God," Berger croaked.

Neither pilot acknowledged his presence. "How long has it been,

Hauptmann?" Hess asked.

"Since Dessau, Herr Reichminister."

"You look thinner." Hess murmured, "I still can't believe it.

It's positively unnerving." Then sharply, "Is the plane ready, Berger?"

"I... I believe so, Herr@' "TO your work, then!"

"Jawohl, Herr Reichminister!" Major Berger turned and marched toward

the crewmen, who now stood uncertainly against the fuel truck, waiting

for permission to return to Aalborg. Berger unclipped his Schmeisser

with one hand as he walked.

"All finished?" he called.

, "Jawohl, Herr Major," answered the chief mechanic.

"Fine, fine. Step away from the truck, please." Berger raised the

stubby barrel of his Schmeisser.

"But ... Herr Major, what are you doing! What have we done? "

"A great service to your Fatherland," the SS man said.

"Now-step awayfrom the truck!"

The crewmen looked at each other, frozen like terrified game.

Finally it dawned on them why Major Berger was hesitating. He obviously

knew something about the volatility of aircraft fuel vapor.

Backing closer to the truck, the chief mechanic clasped his greasy hands

together in supplication.

"Please, Herr Major, I have a family-2' The dance was over. Major

Berger took three steps backward and fired a sustained burst from the

Schmeisser. Hess screamed a warning, but it was too late. Used with

skill, the Schmeisser could be a precise weapon, but Major Berger's

skill was limited. Of a twelve-round burst, only four rounds struck the

crewmen. The remainder tore through the rusted shell of the fuel truck

like it was pap@r.-, The explosion knocked Major Berger a dozen feet

from where he stood. Hess and the.captain had instinctively dived for

the concrete. Now they lay prone, shielding their eyes from the flash.

When Hess finally looked up, he saw Major Berger silhouetted against the

flames, stumbling proudly toward them through a pall of black smoke,

"How about that!" the SS man cried, looking back at the inferno. "No

evidence now!"

"Idiot!" Hess shouted. "They'll have a patrol from Aalborg here in

five minutes to investigate!"

Berger grinned. "Let me take care of them, Herr Reichminister!

The SS knows how to handle the Luftwaffe!"

Hess felt relieved; Berger was making it easy. Stupidity was something

he had no patience with. "I'm sorry, Major," he said, looking hard into

the SS man's face. "I cannot allow that."

Like a cobra hypnotizing a bird, Hess transfixed Berger with his dark,

deep-set eyes. Quite naturally, he drew a Walther automatic from the

forepouch of his flight su I it and pulled back the slide. The fat SS

man's mouth opened slowly; his hands hung limp at his sides, the

Schmeisser clipped uselessly to his belt.

"But why?" he asked quietly. "Why me?"

"Something to do with Reinhard Heydrich, I believe."

Berger's eyes grew wide; then they closed. His head sagged onto his

tunic.

"For the Fatherland," Hess said quietly. He pulled the trigger.

The captain jumped at the report of the Walther. Major Berger's body

jerked twice on the ground, then lay still.

"Take his Schmeisser and any ammunition you can find," Hess ordered.

"Check the Daimler."

"Jawohl, Herr Reichminister!"

The next few minutes were a blur of action that both men would try to

remember clearly for the rest of their lives-plundering the corpse for

ammunition, searching the car, double-checking the drop tanks of the

aircraft, donning their parachutes, firing the twin Daimler-Benz

engines, turning the plane on the old cracked concrete-both men

instinctively carrying out tasks they had rehearsed a thousand times in

their heads, the tension compounded by the knowledge that an armed

patrol might arrive from Aalborg at any moment.

Before boarding the plane, they exchanged personal effects. Hess

quickly but carefully removed the validating items that had been agreed

upon: three compasses, a Leica camera, his wristwatch, some photographs,

a box of strange and varied drugs, and finally the fine gold

identification chain worn by all members of Hitler's inner circle.

He handed them to the captain with a short word of explanation for each:

"Mine, my wife's, mine, my wife and son . . ." The man receiving these

items already knew their history, but he kept silent. Perhaps, he

thought, the Reichminister speaks in farewell to all the familiar things

he might lose tonight. The captain understood that feeling well.

Even this strange and poignant ceremony merged into the mind-numbing