Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

similar. But that's not the case at all. Think, man. Here was a man

who knew he was near death, who decided to leave a record of the truth.

Yet all proof that he ever lived had been wiped out long ago by Reinhard

Heydrich. How could he prove who he was? I'll tell you. As Hess's

trained double, Number Seven had studied everything about the Deputy

Fuhrer. Yet no matter how much like Hess he became, he still possessed

certain traits and abilities that Hess did not. And knowing those

abilities better than anyone, he used one to prove his identity. Thus,

he wrote his final record in Latin." Natterman's eyes flashed with

triumph. "And so far as I have been able to determine, Rudolf

Hess-though better educated than most of Hitler's inner circle-Aid not

know more than twenty words of Latin, if any. "

"That proves nothing," Hauer argued. "In fact, that suggests to me that

some crank wrote this diary."

"Why do you fight this so hard, Captain? Number Seven was the only

prisoner."

"At the end. There were others before."

"Yes," Natterman admitted. "A few. But cranks? No. And the searches,

Captain, there were thousands of them. The diary must have been written

near the end."

"It could have been slipped in by a guard," Hauer suggested. But the

cold ache in his chest belied his words.

Natterman shrugged. "It's not my job to convince you, Captain.

But given what's already occurred, I suggest we work on the assumption

that the diary is genuine-at least until I can take further steps to

authenticate it."

Hauer rummaged through his borrowed suit for a cigar.

"But what's the point of all this? The KGB and half the Berlin police

force haven't gone mad over some scrap of history. What does the diary

mean now?"

"Now?" Natterman smiled. "I suppose that depends on who you happen to

be. Paradoxically enough, the answer to your question lies in the past.

That is why the diary is so important." The old man's voice climbed a

semitone with repressed excitement. "It is a veritable tunnel into the

past ...

into history."

Hauer walked to the front window of the cabin and stared out into the

frozen darkness. "Professor," he said finally, "if this diary were

real, is there any conceivable way it could be embarrassing enough to

influence NATO? Possibly even the Soviet Union?"

Natterman raised an eyebrow. "Given the lengths to which certain

countries have gone to suppress the Hess story, I would say yes. Of

course it would depend on what one wanted to influence those nations to

do."

Hauer nodded. "Suppose someone wanted to use the diary to make the

superpowers more amenable to the idea of German reunification?"

Natterman's face darkened with suspicion. "I think I have answered

enough questions, Captain. I think you should@' The splintered cabin

door banged open again. When Hauer turned, he saw Hans hunched over,

dragging something into the cabin.

It took him a moment to realize that it was a human body. Then he saw

the hair-long, blond hair.

"Hans?" he said hoarsely.

Hans grunted and fell backward, breathing hard. The corpse's head

thudded to the floor. Hauer walked slowly across the room and looked

down at the body. It wasn't Ilse.

It was a man. A dead man with long blond hair. The right arm hung from

the torso by a single cord of tendon; the shoulder had been blasted into

mush by the professor's shotgun. But the most shocking sight was the

throat. It had been expertly cut from ear to ear.

"A thorough job, Professor," said Hauer.

"I-I didn't do that," Natterman stammered. "Not the throat."

Hauer glanced furtively'at the windows.

"There's someone else out there!" Natterman cried.

Hauer watched in astonishment as the old man flew at the carcass like a

grave robber. He rifled every pocket, then began groping beneath the

frozen, blood-matted shirt.

"What are you doing, Professor!"

Natterman looked up, his eyes wild. "I-I'm trying to find out who he

is."

"Any papers on him?"

Natterman shook his head violently, afraid for a moment that Hauer had

asked about the missing diary pages. But he doesn't know they're

missing, he reassured himself, getting to his feet. He doesn't know ...

Hauer said, "It's a good thing he didn't get hold of the Spandau papers.

There's no telling where they might be now."

"You have the papers?" Hans asked in surprise.

My God, Natterman thought wildly. Where are those pages? "Ilse gave

them to me," he said.

"The question," Hauer mused, "is who finished this bastard off?"

With a grunt he crouched over the body and heaved it onto its stomach.

The half-severed head flopped over last. Hauer probed the thick blond

hair behind the corpse's right ear. "Well, well," he said, "at least we

know who sent this one. Look."

Hans and the professor knelt and examined the spot Hauer had exposed

with his fingertips. Beneath the roots of the dead man's hair was a

mark just under two centimeters long.

It was an eye. A single, blood red eye.

"Phoenix," Hauer muttered.

Natterman jerked as if he had been stunned with electricity.

"It's the eye from the Spandau papers! The exact design!

The All-Seeing Eye. What does it mean there? On this man's head?"

Hauer stood. "It means that Funk's little cabal sent this fellow.

Or his masters did."

"You said 'Phoenix.' You haven't read the Spandau papers. What do you

know about the word Phoenix?"

"Not nearly enough."

"But who killed him?" Hans asked. "Whoever it was ...

it's almost as if he's helping us. Maybe he knows something about

Ilse."

Hans darted toward the door, but Hauer caught him by the sleeve.

"Hans, whoever killed this man did it to get the papers, not to help us.

You were outside for ten minutes and no one talked to you.

Obviously no one wanted to. Whoever's out there could cut your throat

as easily as he did this fellow's, so forget it." He kept hold of

Hans's sleeve. "Did you fix the telephone?"

Hans looked longingly at the door. "The wire's spliced," he said in a

monotone.

"Good. I'll call Steuben at the station. If something's changed in

Berlin, we just might be able to slip back in before morning."

Hauer knew it was a lie when he said it. They wouldn't be going back to

Berlin. Not until they had followed the Spandau diary wherever it

led-until they had traveled the professor's "tunnel into the past" to

its bitter end. One look at the mangled carcass at his feet told him it

was going to be a bloody journey.

"We'd better stand watches," he said. "Whoever killed our tattooed

friend may still be out there. You're up first, Hans."

Thirty meters from the cabin, a tall @@ntinel stood in the deep snow

beneath the dripping trees. In one hand he held three bloodstained

sheets of onionskin paper, in the other a knife. By holding the blade

at a certain angle, he could illuminate the pages by reflecting light

from the cabin windows.

But it was no use. He spoke three languages fluently, but he could not

read Latin. As he watched the silhouettes moving across the yellow-lit

windows, he envied the old man's education . Not that it made any

difference. He had known what the papers said ever since he'd stood

outside the door of the Apfel apartment and listened to the arguments

inside. Stuffing the pages into his coat pocket, he murmured a few

words in Hebrew. Then he squatted down on his haunches in the deep