Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

snow. He had lived in the burning desert for the past twelve years, but

the cold was nothing to him. Jonas Stern knew he could outwait anybody.

Especially Germans.

mI-5 Headquarters Charles Street, London, England

Sir Neville Shaw jerked his head up from the Hess file; he'd been poring

over it so long that he had dropped into a kind of half-sleep.

He snapped out of it when Wilson, his deputy, barged into his dim office

without knocking, something he was forbidden to do on pain of

bloodcurdling punishments.

"What the devil!" Shaw snapped.

"I'm sorry, sir," Wilson panted. "I think we've got a problem."

"Well?"

"We finally got something on Spandau-from a Ukrainian in the technical

section of KGB East Berlin. It seems the KGB shot pictures of everyone

who gathered to watch the destruction of the prison. He didn't know why

they took the pictures, but he slipped us the list of names their

computers matched to the photos. They actually turned up a couple of

old SS men-"

"Get to the point!" Shaw barked.

"It's Stern, sir. Jonas Stern. The Israeli that the Mossad wrote us

about. He was at Spandau Prison on the day we tore it down!"

Only a steady whitening of Shaw's, knuckles on the desktop revealed how

shocked he was. He rocked slowly back and forth for nearly a full

minute; then he looked up at Wilson, his eyes bright with purpose. "Did

you pull the file on the woman I told you about?"

"Swallow? Yes, sir. Ann Gordon is her real name."

"Is she living in England?"

"In a little hamlet about thirty miles west of London."

Shaw nodded contentedly. "I'll need to speak to her. I don't want her

coming here, though. Set up a secure line so that I can brief her by

phone."

Wilson's brow knit with confusion. "But I don't understand, Sir

Neville. Swallow is retired."

"I seriously doubt that. But even if she is, she'll come running when

she hears Stern's name."

"Do you mean to reactivate this woman, sir?"

Shaw ignored the question. "I don't know how Jonas Stern is tied into

the Hess case, but he can't be allowed to get near those papers.

If papers are what's been found."

"But why use Swallow at all? She's ... she's an old woman. My lads can

handle any situation with twice the reliability."

Shaw laughed quietly. "Wilson, we tread shadowy paths, but there are

deeds done in this world that should never see the light of day.

Swallow has done more than her share of them. I'll bet your four best

men couldn't sandbag that old harridan."

Wilson looked indignant. "Sir Neville, this seems terribly irregular.

Going out of school like this-"

"That's exactly the point," Shaw snapped. "Swallow is absolutely,

totally deniable. If something embarrassing were to happen-if she

happened to kill Stern, say-all could be blamed on this old vendetta.

Even the Israelis couldn't fault us. Their letter practically

exonerates us before the fact. It proves Stern was at risk the moment

he left Israel."

Sir Neville folded his hands into a church steeple and studied a

Wedgwood paperweight on his desk. Wilson watched his master with

growing apprehension. The mI-5

director looked as if he'd aged five years in the brief hours since

their last meeting.

"You're to put together a second team," Shaw said slowly.

"No brief as yet, but have them ready. More hard boys. The hardest."

Wilson cleared his throat. "May I ask what for, sir?"

Sir Neville ran his hands through his thinning hair, then massaged his

high forehead with his fingertips. "I'm afraid, Wilson, that if your

other lads are unlucky enough to find those Spandau papers, they'll have

cashed in their chips."

Wilson's face went white. "But you . . ." He faltered, recognizing

the diamond-hard gleam in Shaw's eye. "When you briefed them you gave

direct orders not to read the papers if found. They won't."

Sir Neville sighed. "We can't be sure of that."

"But they're my best three men!" Wilson exploded.

Sir Neville raised an eyebrow. "Your men? Interesting choice of words,

Wilson." His craggy face softened. "Damn it, Robert, it's not my

choice, is it? It's the word from on high. Tablets from the bloody

mountaintop!"

Wilson's mouth worked in silent, furious incomprehension. "But what

does that mean, Neville? We are a constitutional monarchy, for God's

sake!"

Sir Neville cleared his throat. "That's quite enough, old boy.

I've been instructed that as regards this case, we're to consider

ourselves on a war footing."

"But we're not at war! We can't just kill our own people!"

Sir Neville attempted a paternal smile, and it was terrible to see.

His eyes had focused into some foggy distance that he alone perceived.

"Some wars, Wilson," he murmured, "last a very long time. A war like

the last one-the last real one-Aoesn't end on a battlefield. Or on some

baize treaty table. There are loose ends, unfinished business.

Left uncut, those loose ends tangle and eventually get drawn into the

skein of the next war. That's what's happening here. For too long we

simply hoped that this Hess business would go away. Well, it hasn't."

Sir Neville blinked, then splayed his hands on the mahogany desktop.

"It's settled," he said with resignation. "I've got my orders.

When those papers are found, everyone down the chain is on borrowed

time.

"But that's insane!" Wilson almost shouted. "You sound like a bloody

Nazi yourself!"

Sir Neville bit his lip in forbearance. "Wilson," he rasped, "if your

lads find those papers and bring them to you, you shut your eyes and

shove them right in here to me. Because no one in that chain will be

exempt. Am I clear?" He examined his fingernails. "And I've got a

feeling that includes myself."

The deputy director's eyes widened. "What in God's name is in those

papers, Sir Neville? What could that motheaten old Nazi have known?"

Shaw grimaced. "It's not what's in them, Robert, but what might be in

them. What they could lead to. You think the Cold War's over?

What a load of tripe. Twenty hours ago it reared its ugly head, and not

for the last time, I'll wager.

I've heard half a dozen back-corridor versions of the Hess affair in my

time, and not one of them is true. There are guilty consciences on

high, Wilson. It's evidence we're after.

Of what? A bargain with the devil, British-style. A marriage of

convenience to the Teutonic Mephistopheles. Enough black ink to smudge

out the oldest reputations in banking, government, and manufacturing.

Maybe enough heat to crack the bloody Crown itself."

Wilson flexed his fists. "The Crown be damned," he said softly.

"We should have killed Hess years ago."

Arctic fire flickered in Sir Neville Shaw's eyes. "We did kill him,

Robert," he said. "I suppose it's high time you knew."

Wilson felt cold sweat heading on the back of his neck.

"I ... I beg your pardon, Sir Neville?"

"I said we killed Hess." Shaw plucked an errant lash from his eye. "The

damned thing of it is, we're going to have to kill him again."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

2DD A.m. Tiorgarten Kriminalpolizei Division West Berlin Detective

Julius Schneider lifted the telephone receiver and dialed a number from

the special list he kept in his top desk drawer. A very loud voice

inside his head was telling him it would be better to drop this matter

altogether-better for his marriage, much better for his career. But the

adrenaline pulsing through his body kept the phone in his hand.