Spandau Phoenix (72 page)

Stern shook his head. "Natterman may have to stand in the stairwell and wait for Hauer and Apfel to come running down. There's a strong chance Hauer kvill fire a reflex shot before he even recognizes the professor.

That's why he gets the vest."

In room 401, Professor Natterman sat with the walkietalkie clenched in his hand. It was sticky hot inside the armored vest. He wanted to take it off, but he reasoned that if Stern had given him the only vest they had, he probably needed it. Setting the walkietalkie on the table, he stood and stretched. His joints ached terribly from all the una( tomed exercise. He had been on his feet for less than a minute when the door slid open.

Facing the professor stood a woman wearing an expensively cut red skirt, a white blouse, and a red hat. She carried a Vuitton handbag in her left hand. It took Natterman several moments to realize that she also held a gun.

Swallow stepped inside the room and closed the door.

"I'vd come for the Spandau papers, Herr Professor," she said in a crisp, low voice, her British accent unmistakable.

"Would you be so kind as to get them for me?"

"I ... I don't have them," Natterman stammered.

"Stern has them?" Swallow asked sharply.

Stunned by her knowledge, Natterman said, "Who are you?" ' Swallow's lips drew back, exposing her small teeth in a fierce animal glare. "Does Jonas Stern have the papers?"

With a fool's courage Professor Natterman grabbed for the walkietalkie on the table. Swallow destroyed it with a threeshot burst from her silenced Ingrain machine pistol.

"Take off your clothes," she ordered. "Every stitch."

When Natterman hesitated, Swallow jerked the Ingrain in his direction.

"Do it! " While Natterman, pale and shaking, removed his clothes, Swallow began searching the hotel -room.

CHAPTER THIRTY

7,40 P.N. Horn House: ThO Northern Transvaal Deep in the basement complex of Horn House, Alfred Horn shepherded his Libyan guests through a maze of stainless steel and glass and stone. Huge ventilator fans thrummed constantly, forcing filtered air down from the surface one hundred meters above. An intricate network of cooling ducts maintained the silicon-friendly environment required by the formidable array of computers purring against the walls; the brittle air also extended the life of the manifold chemicals and weapons stored here. The Libyans surveyed the labyrinth of tubing, hoods, and pipes in reverent silence.

Only young Dr. Sabri, the Soviet-educated physicist, found it hard to suppress his enthusiasm as he toured the lab. Most of the visible hardware had been produced by one or another of the various high-tech subsidiaries of Phoenix AG, but the man who controlled them all was about to reveal a product of very different pedigree. Horn gradually led the Libyans toward the rear of the basement, where something resembling a giant industrial refrigerator stood gleaming in the fluorescent light. Stretching from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, the aluminum-coated lead chamber awaited the men like a futuristic crypt. Three great doors without handles were set in its face.

"Pieter," Horn said softly.

The tall Afrikaner stepped over to an electronic console and flipped a switch. An alarm buzzer sounded briefly; then, with a sucking sound, the center door opened a fraction of an inch. A sickly orange-yellow light dribbled out of the crack. Smuts slipped a hand inside and pulled. When the door opened completely, the Libyan physicist gasped.

"Go ahead, Doctor," said Horn, "have a look."

Sabri looked shaken. "You don't store the weapon in halves?"

"It's quite safe," Horn assured him. "The core has been temporarily removed. The weapon can be disassembled with the tools beside it. You may verify the soundness of the design at your leisure."

Dr. Sabri stepped gingerly into the storage chamber and tiptoed around the weapon. The blunt-nosed cylinder stood menacingly on its tail fins like a blasphemous icon. Painted a gleaming black, the bomb bore a single marking, emblazoned on one of its fins: a rising Phoenix.

The bird's head was turned in profile, its sharp, break screeching, its single fierce eye wide, its talons enjulfed by red flames. Sabri's left hand caressed the cool metal of the bomb chassis like a woman's thigh.

Horn watched the Libyans with thinly veiled curiosity. Prime Minister Jalloud stood well back from the vault, his eyes on the physicist. His interpreter did the same.

Major Karami stood rigid, his black eyes fixed unwaveringly on the upended weapon. "Where is the core?" he asked hoarsely.

"The fissile material," Horn replied, "in this case plutonium 239-lies in a lead vault below ourfeet."

"We must see it."

"I'm afraid you can't actually see it, Major, not without more safeguards than are available in this room. But you can see its effects." Horn waved his right hand.

Smuts pressed another button on the console. Instantly a section of the metal floor to the left of the storage chamber whirred out of sight.

Beneath it lay a lead-lined vault conraining a wooden pallet stacked with orange fifty-five-gallon drums.

"The plutonium is in those drums?" Jalloud asked, instinctively stepping back from the gaping vault.

"They're lined with concrete," Horn explained. "We're perfectly safe.

For a short time, anyway. Look while you can. Those drums contain enough plutonium to turn the State of Israel into a smoking cinder."

While the Arabs made approving noises, Smuts took a small metal box from a nearby shelf. The box had a long cable dangling from it with some type of sensor on the end.

When Horn explained that the machine was a portable radiation detector, Dr. Sabri came out of the chamber and followed Smuts to the edge of the vault. He watched the Afrikaner lower the sensor until it hung just above the row of drums. Most modern radiation detectors emit no sound, but Smuts's "Geiger counter" began to crackle like an untuned radio dial. All of the Libyans but Sabri drew back in terror. While the interpreter held both hands protectively over his genitals, the physicist leaned over to read the instrument.

Major Karami asked, "How can we be sure the drums contain plutonium?"

Horn shrugged. "I have no motive to deceive you. Have I asked you for any money?"

"You are a rich man," Kararni pointed out. "Perhaps your only goal is to make our country look foolish in the eyes of the world. In the eyes of the Zionists."

"Silence, Ilyas!" Prime Minister Jalloud commanded.

Horn smiled knowingly. "My intentions regarding the jews are identical to your own, Major. You can be sure of that."

Karami looked skeptical. He turned to Dr. Sabri and spoke rapidly in Arabic. "Could not spent reactor fuel produce this reaction?

Couldn't the instrument be tampered with to produce any desired reading?"

Already protective of his new toy, Sabri spoke defensively.

"Spent fuel alone would not produce the reaction you see, Major.

The drums contain plutonium."

"You sound very sure of yourself for an inexperienced young man."

"I am the most experienced man you will find in our country!"

"Yes, yes, we know that," Prime Minister Jalloud said, switching back to English. "Why don't we close the vault now?"

Horn nodded. Smuts pressed the button that hydraulically moved the lead-lined cover back into place. Angered by Major Karami's skepticism, Dr. Sabri returned to the bomb chamber. In a few seconds he had the weapon open for inspection. His eyes glinted like those of a boy over his first electric train. Major Karami, however, looked far from satisfied.

"I understand your skepticism, Major," Alfred Horn said.

"And under the circumstances, perhaps you deserve more assurance of my motives than my word alone." Pieter Smuts shifted uneasily. "If you gentlemen will join Dr. Sabri,' Horn went on, "I believe I can satisfy all doubts as to my motives regarding the Jews."

Major Karami stepped quickly into the yellow-lit chamber. Jalloud and his interpreter reluctantly followed him inside, where they formed a respectful half-circle around the bomb.

Smuts leaned down and whispered into Horn's ear, "I don't think this is a good idea."

"Nonsense," Horn said. He buzzed his wheelchair up to the door of the chamber. "The time for secrecy is past. Remove the decal, Pieter."

With a sigh of frustration the Afrikaner flipped a wall switch, flooding the storage chamber with fluorescent white light. Then he shouldered past the Libyans and knelt beside the upended weapon.

Taking a penknife from his pocket, he unfolded a short blade and began to scrape lightly beneath the flames of the painted Phoenix.

Soon he had pried up a triangle of black polyurethane. He put the knife back into his pocket, then took the curled edge between his thumb and forefinger and pulled with a gentle, steady pressure. There was a soft, adhesive ripping sound as the black decal tore away from the metal fin.

Prime Minister Jalloud gasped.

"Allah protect us," whispered the interpreter.

Dr. Sabri stared in mute wonder.

But Major Karami smiled with wolfish glee. For hidden beneath the black polyurethane decal was Alfred Horn's true Phoenix designa blood red planet Earth clutched in the flaming talons of the Phoenix. And spanning the red globe-a curved black swastika. Karami's sigh of satisfaction told Horn that his revelation had produced its desired effect.

Horn smiled. "It will take the doctor a half hour at least to complete his inspection. Why don't we,go upstairs and wait in more comfortable surroundings? Smuts will stay until he has finished."

"An ... an excellent idea," Jalloud stammered Jumah the interpreter stumbled out of the chamber, his face ashen. He and Prime Minister Jalloud followed Horn's wheelchair to the elevator at the far end of the basement lab.

But Major Karami lingered behind. At the elevator Jalloud turned and watched him. Still only halfway to the elevator, the stubborn major stood staring back down the length of the lab to the vault where Sabri-under the watchful gaze of Pieter Smuts-tolled over his deadly prize.

Horn called, "More questions, Major?"

Karami turned and walked toward the elevator. "What is behind the other two doors? More bombs?"

Horn's smile faded. "No. I keep only one weapon here.

They're too dangerous."

"More dangerous than raw plutonium?" Karami stepped into the elevator.

Horn smiled thinly. "Far more dangerous. There is always the chance that some unscrupulous individual or nation might attempt to steal them."

The elevator closed with a hydraulic hiss.

"I'M sure this house is well protected," Karami baited.

"Did you see any security on your way in?" Horn asked gamely.

Karami's eardrums registered a painful relief of pressure as the elevator rocketed toward the surface. He had already noted the lack of security with great satisfaction. "No, I didn't."

"It's there, Major. Smuts is the best in his field."

"And what is his field, Herr Horn? Personal security?"

The old man smiled. "I believe the English term is 'asset protection.'

"Translate," Karami commanded. When the prime minister's interpreter obliged, Karami said, "Ah. Was he a soldier, then, this Smuts? Where did he train?"

Horn folded his spotted hands in his lap. "He served in the South African army as a young man. But he has a varied background. By the time I found him, he'd fought all over Africa."

The elevator opened on the ground floor.

"And who trained him in this 'as-set protection,' as you call it?"

Karami asked. "The South African Army?"

"I did," Horn said tersely, rolling into the spacious reception hall. "I "With all due respect," Karanii called, who trained you?"

Horn sopped his wheelchair and whirled to face the Libyan. "The German Army," he said quietly.

The Arab's eyelids fell, hooding the yellow sclera of his eyes.

"More questions?" Horn challenged.

Fearin a deal-breaking dispute, Prime Minister Jalloud stepped between the two men. "The major has a great curiosity, Herr Horn.

He's known as a zealous military historian in our country."

Karami ignored him. "You must have fought in the Second World War, Herr Horn. Were you SS?"

Horn spat contemptuously on the marble floor. "I said the army, Major, not Himmler's lapdogs. The Wehrmacht was my home!" Horn had taken all he intended to from this arrogant Bedouin. "Listen to me, Arab. In 1941 the mufti of krusalem went to Berlin to beg the Fuhrer's help in destroying the Jews of Palestine. The Fuhrer generously armed the Arabs"-Horn stabbed a finger #t Karami-"yet still your fathers could not push the Jews into the sea! I hope you do better this time!"

Major Karami shook with rage, but Horn simply turned his wheelchair away and whirred off down a long corridor.

Jalloud shot Karami an angry glance. "Fool! What are you trying to do?"

"Just testing the old lion's claws, Jalloud. Calm yourself."

"Calm myself?" The prime minister caught hold of Karami's robe.