Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

satchel. It lay exactly where he had tossed it when he came in-on the

leather chair by the door. He stared for a moment, then looked quickly

back at the intruder.

"Again you lie!" the Afrikaner cried. "If I find something else in

that bag, old man, you're dead."

Natterman stood by the corner cabinet. Silently he willed the killer

toward the satchel. Toward the chair. Holding his knife out in front

of him, the Afrikaner backed slowly toward the satchel. Just a little

_further, Natterman thought, a little further ...

The killer averted his eyes as he reached for the satchelNow!

Natterman groped in the space between the cabinet and the wall and

closed his hand aroufid the big Mannlicher shotgun that had stood there

for over sixty years. The shotgun his father had always kept out of the

way, yet within easy reach if a deer wandered into the clearing or

poachers encroached on his land. The professor cocked both hammers as

he brought the weapon up, and fired the moment the barrels cleared the

back of the couch.

The killer dived for cover behind the leather chair, but not quickly

enough. Twenty-four pellets of double-aught buck shot tore through his

right shoulder, leaving his upper arm a mass of pulp and bone that hung

from his torso by sinew alone. The bloody knife that had butchered Karl

Riemeck clattered to the floor, its owner blown out of sight behind the

chair.

"Bastard!" Natterman screamed. Never in his life had he wanted to kill

another human being-not even in the war.

But now a rage of terrifying power surged through him as his stinging

eyes probed the outline of the chair for a clear shot.

The Afrikaner knelt motionless behind the chair, thinking.

He had known pain before, and he knew that to give in to it meant death.

Silently he seized the door handle with his good arm and jerked inward.

His shattered shoulder seared with pain; his agonized scream filled the

small cabin as he fought to stay conscious. An almost-forgotten voice

shouted from the depths of his brain: Move soldier! Move! And move he

did. In seconds he had scrambled alligator-style through the doorway,

dragging his useless arm behind, pulling the door shut with his foot as

he passed through. He flopped off the porch into the snow just as the

second blast from Natterman's shotgun splintered the lower quarter of

the oak door.

I should have known! the Afrikaner thought furiously.

Should have anticipated. I underestimated the old bastard.

He had a 9mm automatic in his car, but he'd parked his car in the woods

beyond the clearing. He'd never make it, not if the old man could see

at all. In desperation he swept away a hummock of snow and rolled

beneath the cabin into icy blackness.

Above him, Professor Natterman rooted hysterically through the cabinet

in search of extra shotgun shells. There' I Beneath an overturned

wicker basket he found a full box of twelve-gauge shells.

He broke the breech of the antique weapon, removed the empties,

chambered two shells, jammed the gun closed, and cocked both @ammers.

Then he bolted the splintered oak door.

The papers! he thought suddenly. The Afrikaner had them!

in a panic he searched the cabin for the onionskin pages, but saw none.

No! his mind screamed. He cannot have them!

Crazed with rage, he blasted another hole in the door, then unbolted it

and shoved it open. Just outside, crumpled and matted in a huge smear

of blood, lay six of the nine Spandau pages. Natterman darted outside

and frantically gathered them up, then scanned the snow for the other

pages. He saw none. Furious, he staggered back into the cabin and

snatched up the tinfoil that had protected the papers. He wrapped it

carefully back around the bloodstained pages, then stuffed the foil

packet deep into his pocket.

The exertion had broken loose the clot in his nose. Blood poured down

his bare chest. The animal must have a gun, he thought wildly.

He must. He wouldn't have come with just the knife. Natterman seized

his shirt and jacket from the floor and stumbled into the bedroom, where

Karl still stared sightless at the door.

"Aaarrrgh! " he roared in anguish. It took almost all his remaining

strength to drag the linen chest from the foot of the bed and wedge @it

against the bedroom door. When he had blocked it as well as he could,

he picked up the telephone beside the bed.

Dead as Karl, he thought bitterly. Pinching his bloody nostrils closed,

he surveyed the room. A washstand. A chair.

An old pine armoire. His father's bed beside the window.

The window!

Even as Natterman realized his vulnerability, he saw a pale hand working

just over the sill, trying to force the glass upward. He obliterated

the window with a double-barreled blast, gibbering like a madman as he

did. The stress had finally overcome him. Like a drunkard he staggered

over to the armoire and heaved and pushed until finally it slid across

the gaping window. Then he collapsed in a heap against it, not even

trying to stop the blood that continued to plop onto his heaving chest.

His last act before he fainted was to chamber two more rounds into the

Mannlicher.

142 A.m. The Northern Transvaal, Republic of South Africa Alfred Horn

sat hunched in his motorized wheelchair, his prehensile forearms

pressing a leopardskin rug against his arthritic knees, and stared into

the fire. As always, his mind raced back and forth between past and

present, searching for causes and connections, cataloguing injustices to

be avenged. Perhaps it was his advanced years, but to Horn the present

seemed merely a small space between two doorsone leading back into a

past he could not change-the other opening onto a future that, after

five decades of planning and struggle and living with defeat, promised

the fulfillment of ultimate destiny. Time was short, he knew, and

growing shorter. Did he have a week or a month before his ability to

leave his imprint upon the world was stolen from him? He needed a

month. How ironic, he reflected, that his knowledge of the past posed

the greatest threat to his plans for the future. But he was nearly

ready. A soft knock sounded behind him. He answered without turning

his gaze from the fire.

"Yes?"

The door opened soundlessly. Smuts stood silently at attention.

"What news from Berlin, Pieter?"

"There's a flurry of British and Russian intelligence activity, sir. I'm

almost certain they have not located the papers.

No sign so far of Israeli involvement."

"But what of our two policemen, Pieter? They have the papers."

"Sir, Berlin-One informs me that while he has not yet captured the young

man whom he believes found the papers, he does have custody of the man's

wife."

Horn pondered this intelligence. At length he said, "We shall have them

all here. Bring the woman, the man will follow. Send a jet tonight."

"I've already ordered it done, sir."

"Good. Can the husband be reached by phone?"

Smuts cleared his throat. "We haven't located him yet, sir."

While Horn's glass eye remained immobile, his good eye flickered with

birdlike suspicion over his security chief's lanky frame, finally

settling on his craggy face. Under its unrelenting gaze, Smuts shifted

his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

"Pieter?" Horn asked finally.

"Yes, sir?"

"Our two policemen have escaped from West Berlin, haven't they?"

To Smuts's credit, he did not dissimulate. "That appears likely, sir.