Spandau Phoenix (76 page)

Shortly Lord Granville appeared, wearing dark sunglasses and muttering to himself. A huge white square of gauze was taped high on the left side of his head, but it did little to conceal the massive purple bruise that extended from behind his ear to his left eye.

"My God!" Smuts exclaimed, as the Englishman wobbled to the table.

"What have you done now, Robert?" Horn asked wearily.

"Got pissed again. Literally. Took a fall in the loo last night that would have killed a bloody wildebeest. Didn't break the skin, though, thank God. I'd have bled to death on the spot." He pulled a silver flask from his pocket and poured two jiggers of brandy into his coffee.

"King and country," he toasted, and drained the mixture.

Smuts glared. Such conduct by anyone else in the old man's presence would be unthinkable, yet Stanton made it rule.

"Robert," Horn said, "when will our next payment from the Colombians arrive?"

Stanton tried in vain to mask his surprise at this question "What?

Oh. It's coming in by ship next week, remember?

Brazilian gold this time. Supposedly it's never even seen the inside of a bank."

Horn leaned his head back and smiled. His good eye looked past Stanton and settled on a fragrant eucalyptus tree.

"And how will our gold get from this mysterious ship to here?"

"By helicopter," the Englishman said, frowning now. "I told you that yesterday."

Pieter Smuts looked quizzically at his master.

"Yes," Horn said, "yes that's right. You did."

Everyone looked up at the sound of the garden gate. Ilse stood there, her blond hair uncombed, her eyes swollen from lack of sleep.

"Guten Morgen, " Horn called. "Please join us."

Ilse edged toward the table, her wary eyes on Stanton.

With an effort that stunned all present, Alfred Horn struggled from his wheelchair and stood until Ifse had seated herself in the wrought-iron chair Smuts offered her. Jiirgen Luhr rose immediately to deliver the apology demanded by Horn, but before he could speak, Lord Granville slid his chair away from the table.

"If the company will excuse me," he mumbled. "My apologies."

While everyone stared, Stanton rose and left the garden by way of a glass door leading into the main house.

Inside Horn House, Stanton hurried to Alfred Horn's study and I locked the door. He felt surprisingly calm, considering what he was about to do. He lifted the telephone receiver and dialed a London number that he had committed to memory.

"Shaw," growled a tired voice.

"This is Granville."

"Where are you?" Sir Neville Shaw asked sharply.

'Where do you think?"

"Good Christ, are you mad?"

"Shut up and listen," Stanton snapped, feeling his pulse start to race.

"I had to call from here. They won't let me go anywhere else.

Look, you've got to call it off."

" What? "

"He knows, I'm telling you. Horn knows about Casilda.

I don't know how, but he does."

"He can't know."

"He does!"

There was a long pause. "There's no stopping it now," Shaw said finally. "And your information on Horn's defenses had better turn out to be,good, Granville, or you'll answer to me. Don't call again."

The line went dead. Stanton felt sweat running down the small of his back. The die was cast. Somewhere off the coast of Mozambique, a man named Burton waited to change his life forever. Perhaps Alfred was merely toying with me, Stanton thought hopefully. Smuts had evinced no more suspicion than was usual. Yet Stanton had but one choice in any case-hold firm. If he could do that for eight hours, Horn's days of power would end, and he would be free. London would be satisfied, and one of the largest conglomerates in the world would become the property of Robert Stanton, Lord Granville in fact, as well as in name.

For a brief moment, Stanton worried that Ilse might betray his advances of last night, but he dismissed the thought. If she had intended to do that, she would have done it already.

Unlocking the study door, he set out for the garden in better spirits than he had been in for some time. All he had to do now was find a way into the basement complex before the attack came. He had never entered it before, but he would today.

He could hardly wait.

11:00 A.M. MV Casilda: Madagascar Channel, Off Mozambique The laden helicopters lifted off the deck of the ship like pregnant birds, but they lifted. Juan Diaz, the pilot of the lead chopper, looked over to see that his compadre flying the second ship had taken off safely.

He had. Diaz turned to the tanned Englishman sitting in the seat beside him.

"They're up, English. Where we going?"

Alan Burton tossed a folded sheet of paper into the Cuban's lap.

A mineral suey map of Southern Africa. "Fl stop, Mozambique," he said.

"Just follow the lines on the map, sport."

Burton turned and looked back at the two rows of Colombians who sat shoulder-to-shoulder against the cabin walls of the JetRanger.

With their dark faces, scruffy beards, and bandolier ammunition belts, they looked like armed migrant workers. Sick ones, at that. The greenish cast of their skin suggested that by leaving the ship, they would merely exchange their seasickness for airsickness. Burton didn't care what they looked like, as long as they could cause some commotion.

He could do the job alone if someone provided a sufficient diversion.

He was glad the end of the mission had finally arrived, not least because they were finally leaving the Casilda. He didn't care if he never saw another ship in his life.

"I'm supposed to fly by these goddamn chicken scratches?" Juan Diaz complained, shaking the map in the Englishman's face.

Burton gave the Cuban a black look."'That's what you're being paid for, sport. Now let's move."

"What about a flight plan?" Diaz asked. The two choppers still hovered over the old freighter.

'You're holding it," said Burton. "I can show you the landmarks.

Just watch for enemy aircraft."

The Cuban narrowed his eyes. "How do I know who is the enemy?"

Burton grinned. "It's everybody, sport. Simple enough?"

After a grim moment of reflection, Diaz nudged the stick, and as one the two JetRangers moved out over the ocean, toward the coastline, toward Africa.

11.25 A.m. 'Room 520, The Stanley House, Pretoria

Gadi Abrams let the drapes fall closed and turned back to Stern.

"Still no sign of them, Uncle. No Hauer, no Apfel."

Stern got up from one of the beds and rolled his shoulders. He had said little since last night's fiasco at the Burgerspark Hotel.

"They're probably holed up in some cheap hotel, waiting for the rendezvous at the Voortrekker Monument."

Professor Natterman was pacing out the far end of the room. "So why are we watching the Protea Hof?" he snapped.

"We can always intercept them at six at the Voortrekker Monument," Stern replied. "But I think Hauer might return to the Protea Hof before then."

Natterman snorted with contempt. "What about that woman?" he asked.

"Are you sure it was the same woman from the plane?"

"Absolutely," Gadi said. "From the description you gave and the perfume I smelled in the hall, I have no doubt at all."

"Who is she, then?" Natterman asked. "What does she want?"

"She wants me," said Stern.

"What makes you say that?" Gadi broke in. "Nobody knows where you are."

Stern half-smiled.

"Who wants you dead?" Professor Natterman asked.

"Who doesn't?" said Gadi. "The Syrians want him, the Libyans, the Palestinians ... you name it. That's why he has to live where he does."

Stern shot his nephew a warning glance; then his face softened. "I suppose it doesn't matter," he said. "Remember the kibbutz I described to you, Professor? My retirement home? Well, it's no ordinary kibbutz."

"How do you mean?"

"It's a special settlement for men like me. Retired fieldmen.

Men who have prices on their heads."

Gadi grinned. "Uncle Jonas's head carries the highest price in town."

Stern frowned.

"But Gadi said the woman on the plane was European, said Natterman. "Not Arabic."

"Precisely," said Stern. "And of the European countries, only one has agents who might want me dead."

"England?" Natterman asked, his eyes alight.

Stern ran his hand across his chin. "I know who the Englishwoman is.

Her name is Swallow. Or it was, many years ago. But right now she concerns me much less than the big fellow who checked in here this morning."

"I say he's a friend of Hauer's," Gadi declared. "Backup from watching Hauer's room. He's right beneath us, by the though I don't think he knows it."

"Why do you insist he's German?" Stern challenged.

"Don't give me that, Uncle. A Jew can smell a German, can't he?

No offense, Professor."

"None taken. A German can smell a Jew just as well."

Gadi glared at Natterman. "His name's Schneider, which is German enough. We'll know what he is for sure in an hour, in any case. Tel Aviv is checking him out. By the way, they told me Hauer was one of the sharpshooters at the Munich Olympics. How did you know that?"

Stern half-smiled. "I had one of my notorious intuitions when I read his police file. We might be able to use that somehow."

"Could this Schneider be part of Phoenix?" asked Yosef Shamir.

The young commando wore a large white bandage around his forehead.

"Maybe he threw the grenade last night. Maybe he was the one who hit me with the door."

"That was Hauer," Stern said firmly.

"Who fired the gunshot?" asked Yosef. "I was only semiconscious in that stairwell, but I'm certain I heard a shot."

"Nothing about it in this morning's newspapers," Gadi said.

"There was no body in the stairwell. If our German cops shot at someone, they must have missed."

Stern smiled. "I think it went this way: Swallow's grenade panicked the Germans. They fled down the stairs, Apfel in front. They ran into trouble, Apfel panicked and fired his gun. I read Hauer's police file.

If he'd fired his gun, he wouldn't have missed."

"I'll keep that in mind when we meet him," Gadi said soberly.

"You're not going to meet him!" Natterman flared. "He's given you all the slip!"

Stern padded slowly over to the hotel window. "Hauer is coming back to the Protea Hof," he declared, parting the drapes and staring across at the seven-story hotel. "I don't know how I know it, but I do."

One floor below the Israelis, Kripo detective Julius Schneider held the telephone against his sweating cheek as he sat on the edge of the bed.

Beside him lay his hat, half a sandwich, and two empty bottles of beer.

Into his ear came the angry drawl of Colonel Godfrey Rose.

"You too proud to take a tip from a Russian, Schneider?"

"No, Colonel."

"Kosov gave me the name of the son of a bitch who mutilated Harry.

I think he suspected it all along. He's a Russian too, you believe that? Name's Borodin, Yuri Borodin.

Twelfth Department, KGB. According to Kosov, he's a real hotshot.

Renegade out for glory, that type. I guess that's what Kosov meant about you watching your back."

Schneider made a sound in his throat that was halfway between a growl and a sigh. "So, Borodin could have seen me leaving Major Richardson's apartment. He could be following me now."

"Could be, Schneider. Have you located Hauer and Apfel yet?"

"I'm watching their hotel room now. They aren't in it, though."

"Hmm. You decided how you're gonna handle Hauer?

You gonna try to take the papers?"

"I don't know yet. Hauer may have better ideas than I do about crushing Phoenix."

Rose was silent for a moment. "Yeah, well, the Russians are getting pretty itchy about Phoenix themselves. Kosov heard that a low-ranking Stasi agent cracked under torture this morning. Seems he's a member of something called Bruderschaft der Phoenix. The Russians are already talking to the State Department about setting up a special interAllied commission to deal with the Rudolf Hess case, Phoenix, and all related affairs. Sort of an international Warren Commission."

"A what, Colonel?"

"Never mind, Schneider." There was a sibilant rustle of paper in the background. "You want a quick rundown on Yuri Borodin's file?

Reads like the friggin' Count of Monte Cristo."

"Please."

"Got a pencil?"

The German heaved his bulk back on the bed and closed his eyes.

"I'm ready."

2.02 Pm. Bronberrick Motel. South of Pretoria The moment Hauer saw the note, he knew that Hans had tricked him. He knocked Hans's abandoned Walther aside and read swiftly: I'm sorry, Captain. I've thought it through, and I feel the risks of an armed exchange are just too great. I couldn't tell you before, but Ilse is carrying a child I didn't want to lie about the time of the rendezvous, but I knew you'd never let me try it this way. Please don'tfollow me. I'll meet you back here when I've got Ilse. [Here the name "Hans" had been signed, then scratched through.] If it @goes bad, I want you to know I don't blame you for anything in the past. We found each other in time. Your son, Hans.