Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

Rose's eyes shone with excitement. '@, those files have been sitting in

that warehouse for twenty-five years. My contact thinks our query is

the first dung to turn up Zinoviev's name since it went to disk."

"Jesus. What kind of access do we haver' "Hess's file is out of the

question. A team of MIT hackers couldn't break into a J file in a

month." Rose suppressed a satisfied smile. "Zinoviev, on the other

hand, we may get.

My buddy is constantly updating the Bureau files, and it seems he's got

legitimate access to the warehouse where the 'Hardcopy Only' stuff is.

He's probably digging through Zinoviev's file right now."

Harry looked skeptical. "Colonel, you realize that there may be nothing

on Zinoviev in that warehouse. If Zinoviev is cross-indexed to Hess,

his real file probably has a J classification too."

"We'll find out soon enough," Rose concluded. "Let's get to the heart

of this mess-the Spandau papers."

Harry glanced over at Schneider. "I assume the Berlin police have

them?"

"Not exactly," said Rose. "Two Berlin police officers have them."

Rose consulted a file on his desk. "Hans Apfel, sergeant, age

twenty-seven; Dieter Hauer, captain, age fifty-five. Schneider here

thinks one of these two must have stumbled over the papers while they

were guarding the prison. He says this guy Hauer's a real piece of

workcounterterror training, the works. And he must be right. Not only

have these two escaped the city, they've escaped Germany. They flew out

of Frankfurt two hours ago."

"What? How do you know that?"

While Schneider listened in silence, Rose summarized his actions after

receiving Harry's call. Rose had wanted to storm Abschnitt 53

with guns blazing, but Schneider had persuaded him to pursue a more

discreet course. The colonel's compromise had been a city wide

communications blanket of West Berlin, conducted by the Army Signal

Corps under the reserve powers held by the Allies since the Second World

War. Assets nominally dedicated to the Soviet target were reassigned to

cover all police communications traffic entering or leaving Berlin. Rose

was grinning as he revealed his b ou h.

"Six hours ago it paid off, Harry. We intercepted a call from the

Wolfsburg police to West Berlin police HQ. A traffic unit stopped a man

for speeding and reckless driving, and because they'd received reports

of shooting in the forest to the south the night before, they made a

routine search of the car. They hit the jackpot. The driver was a

forger from Hamburg. Right away the guy starts screaming how he's just

been blackmailed into manufacturing false passports for two West Berlin

cops. Claimed he knew Hauer personally, and he described Apfel to a T."

-Did he have any idea where they were headed?" F asked.

Rose grinned. "That ever-popular vacation spot, the Republic of South

Africa. Traveling as father and son. The forger also made passports

for two older guys who were with Hauer and Apfel, but traveling

separately. He didn't know their true identities or their destination,

but he gave us the names and numbers on all four fake passports."

"Great. Who else knows that?"

"If our luck is holding, almost nobody. I called the Berlin police

presidium and used every authority short of the president to block the

relay of that information to Abschnitt 53.

I also let them know in no uncertain terms that I'd know if they tried."

Harry sat in silence for nearly a full minute. "South Africa," he said

finally. "Is there anything that connects any of what's happened to

South Africa in any wayt' "As a matter of fact, there is. My little

high-tech offensive included pulling the telephone toll records of

certain West Berlin police facilities. We found several calls from the

police presidium going out to different numbers in South Africa. Some

of those calls were made from the office Of the prefect himself."

"Holy shit. Do you have names to go with the numbers?"

"I should have them within twenty-four hours. For once I happen to have

an exotic contact-a major in the South African secret service."

"That's not soon enough, Colonel."

"That's as soon as we can get it, Major And that's if we're lucky."

Harry stood. "You've got to get me down there, Colonel.

Whatever's going down, it's going to happen there."

Rose shook his head. "I can't send you, Harry."

"Why not?"

"You heard me. That's not our turf of even Close. We can't prove that

this thing endangers @can Also, we're not too popular down there right

now, in case you haven't noticed. Not since @ sanctions were put in

effect and half our industry pulled out of @. @ Army's not going to let

me send you down from here just because the Soviets are interested! They

kidnapped me, for Christ's sake.

There's something big going on, Colonel, I can feel it. The reason you

can't find out anything about this Phoenix is that it isn't based here.

it must be in South Africa. This isn't just some legacy from the past

... Can't you feel it?"

"I feel it," Detective Schneider said softly.

Rose drained his second whiskey, stood, and laid his stubby hands flat

on the desktop. "I feel it too, Harry, but my hands are tied.

I've got half of Bonn and all of Berlin breathing down my neck to

prevent any kind of international incident. Officially, I can't do a

thing."

Harry stared curiously at Rose. He sensed some implied communication,

but he couldn't quite pin it down. Suddenly the answer came clear as

ice water. "Grant me two weeks leave, Colonel," he said.

"I've got it coming."

Rose grinned. "That you do, Major. That you do."

"Can you get me a military flight?"

"Negative."

"But it's probably a fifteen-hour flight by commercial carrier!"

"Eleven on Lufthansa," Rose corrected. "Fourteen via South African

Air."

"That's still too long!"

"You're lucky to get a flight at all, Harry. Most airlines only fly

there once a week. Your flight leaves Frankfurt at two Pm.

tomorrow."

Harry shook his head in exasperation, then grinned in spite of himself.

"By the time I get there, I want some names tied to those telephone

numbers."

"You'll have 'em." Abruptly, Rose slammed an open hand down on his

desk. His face showed puzzlement, exhaustion, frustration.

"Goddamnit Harry, what the hell is going on?

Do the Russians really ' care, that much about something that happened

fifty years ago?"

Harry looked thoughtful. "I know what you mean.

Gorbachev has a hell of a lot bigger things on his plate than

fifty-year-old mysteries. I wouldn't think the truth about Hess would

help glasnost any."

"The Russian memory is long," Schneider said gravely.

"And Gorbachev has limited influence over KGB."

Harry glanced at the German. "Maybe. But we're missing the forest

here. We're not talking ancient history. The Berlin police wouldn't

give two shits about something like that.

We're talking about a tie between the past-Hess's past SPANDAU PHOENIX

and the present. The here and now. Maybe Zinoviev is connection."

"Whatever the connection is," said Rose, "I've got a feeling it's pretty

goddamn dirty. I don't have to tell you how many friggin' Nazis our own

government shielded from justice."

Harry looked hard at both men for a few moments; then ..he reached into

his pocket, drew something out, and tossed it on Rose's'desk. The

fragment of Goltz's scalp landed upside-down with a plop, like a wet