Spandau Phoenix (86 page)

Feeling his way across the wall to get closer to the voices, Stern touched cold metal with his right hand. Another knob.

Now he understood. This unholy shrine adjoined the library and study by means of two hidden doors. Horn had made sure that his secret sanctuary had two routes of egress. Taking a deep breath, Stern turned the knob.

He heard the familiar snick of metal, but the voices went on talking. He pushed open the door.

The study beyond was dim but not lightless. Flashes from the picture window intermittently lit the room. Stern could hear the rattle of small arms fire outside, punctuated by the occasional burp of some heavier weapon. He edged into the room and pressed himself against the paneled wall. By the greenish light of a desk lamp he picked out the man with the British accent. He was pointing a large pistol across the desk at a shadow seated before the window.

Stern jumped when he heard the voice of the man in the chair, a gravelly rasp, full of contempt. It was Horn. He couldn't make out all the words, but the old man-despite his vulnerable position-seemed to be offering the Englishman mercy. This only infuriated the younger man.

With a cry of rage he charged the wheelchair, kicked Horn over, then raised his pistol and jerked back the slide. By God, he means to kill him, Stern realized. He started forward instinctively, then he stopped.

A broken fork was not much good against a semi-automatic pistol.

Yet beyond that, something deep in Stern's soul, something angry and crusted black, told him to do absolutely nothing. If the old man lying helpless on the floor actually had gained possession of a nuclear weapon, Stern could neutralize him now by simply allowing the enraged Englishman to blow his brains out. Perhaps that was best ...

The next moments passed like chain lightning. Stern heard Horn mutter something from behind the sofa. The young Englishman, driven beyond his limit of endurance, steadied his gun with both hands and prepared to fire.

"Death at last, Alfred!" he cried. "It's long overdue!"

Stern stopped in his tracks. Alfred? He felt a jolt of disorientation.

Alfred Horn? But the old man had introduced himself as Thomas HomA sharp metallic click froze everyone in the room. The sound was unmistakable-an automatic pistol being cocked.

As if controlled by the same brain, Jonas Stern and Robert Stanton whirled toward the sound. Stern glimpsed a swatch of blond hair in the shadows; then the muzzle flash blinded him.

Five in a row, very fast. The first shots went wild, but the last two snatched the Englishman off his feet and drove him through the picture window, shattering the panes into a thousand glittering razors.

Stern dropped to the floor. The blond hair he had seen told him one thing: Peter Smuts had arrived to save his master.

As Stern peered through the darkness, trying to pick out the Afrikaner, the study door burst open and the overhead lights flashed on. What Stern saw next stopped the breath in his lungs. Ilse Apfel stood rigid at the center of the room, a smoking pistol clenched in both hands. She was the blond who had saved Horn from his would-be executioner! Pieter Smuts bounded across the room and tackled her, one hand immobilizing the pistol as he knocked her to the floor. She went down without a sound.

The Afrikaner came to his feet almost instantly, scanning the room for his master.

"Pieter," cried a weak voice. "Behind the sofa."

Smuts darted to the old man and fell to his knees. "Are you hit?"

"What ... ? No. You saved me, Pieter."

"Linahi" Smuts shouted. "Get the doctor!"

Stern heard footsteps scurrying down the hall.

Only now did Smuts notice the broken window. Stanton's mangled corpse lay half in and half out of it, his lifeless eyes turned upward, open to the rain. The Afrikaner's mouth dropped open in wonder as he realized what must have happened.

"Thank God you arrived, Pieter," Horn mumbled. "The swine meant to kill me. I didn't think he had it in him."

Watching Ilse closely, Smuts righted the wheelchair, lifted the old man into it, then crossed the study and pulled Ilse to her feet.

She looked no more alert than she had when Smuts bowled her to the floor. The Afrikaner led her gently over to Horn.

"Sir, when I got here I saw Frau Apfel standing over there with a pistol raised. It was she that saved you." Smuts made a sudden sound of astonishment. "It's my Beretta! By God, she shot Lord Granville with my bloody Beretta!"

Ilse's face remained expressionless, but Horn's eyes began to shine. "I knew it, Pieter," he said triumphantly. "She couldn't stand by and watch me die. She is a true German!"

Horn rolled his chair forward and took Ilse's hand. "Did you kill Lord Granville, my child?"

Ilse said nothing.

"She's in shock," Horn murmured, shaking his head. "It is a miracle, Pieter. Fate brought this woman here to me."

While appreciative of Ilse's actions, Smuts would not have carried the praise so far. "Sir," he said carefully, "it appears to me that Frau Apfel acted purely by reflex. She was trying to escape. She saw a murder about to be committed; she fired blindly to prevent it. I don't think we should attach more significance to it than that."

Ignoring Smuts, Horn squeezed Ilse's hand in his own.

"My child," he said softly, "by your action tonight you not only saved my life, but your husband's also."

"But sir!" Smuts protested. "Think what you're saying."

"Silence, Pieter!" Horn exploded. "I want half a million rand transferred to the Deutsche Bank in Berlin, under Frau Apfel's name."

He smiled at Ilse. "For the child," he said.

"Pieter told me that you are pregnant, my dear."

Smuts stared incredulously at his master. This was insane.

He had never seen the old man make decisions based on sentimentality.

Somehow, the Apfel woman had acquired a dangerous amount of influence over Alfred Horn, and that influence was obviously growing. A tragic accident might soon be required.

A sudden roar from outside rattled the shattered window.

From his position by the hidden door, Stern saw a line of tracers arc out toward the rim of the bowl.

"What of the attack?" Horn asked.

"The house is secure," Smuts said tersely.

"And Oberieutnant Luhr?"

"A good man. That's him firing the Vulcan."

Horn smiled. "I imagine your little toys came as something of a surprise to Robert's friends. eh?"

Smuts grinned nastily.

"Do you know who they are yet?"

"We'll round up the bodies tonight. Then we'll see."

Horn nodded, then turned to Ilse and spoke softly. "Pieter will take you to your husband now. A matter of minutes. Do you hear me, child?"

Motionless until now, Ilse suddenly began to shiver. A single tear streaked her face. She looked as if she might collapse.

"Take her now, Pieter," Horn commanded. "Schnel "Sir!" The Afrikaner snapped into motion.

Realizing that he had only moments to reach safety, Stern ducked back into the shrine room and reached for the telephone. He was about to punch in the number of the Protea Hof when he heard a voice coming from the phone. His throat tightened in disbelief. Who could it be?

One of Smuts's soldiers? Did it really matter? Closing his palm over the mouthpiece, Stern stuck his head back through the little door.

He saw the Vulcan's bright red tracer beam climb the distant ridge, searching out more victims. Horn, too, had wheeled his chair around to watch. The tracer beam jinked back and forth beyond the dark horizon, steadied a moment, then lurched into the sky. For an instant the end of the deadly arc became visible-then it detonated in a huge fireball.

The shock wave blasted a sheet of rain and glass into the room.

Several shards fell onto Horn's lap, but the old man didn't seem to notice. He reached for a button on the arm of his wheelchair, preparing to turn. Stern hunkered down, hoping to see the gray face once more in the light. He heard the hum of the wheelchair's electric motor, saw the face in profile-then his survival instinct overrode his curiosity. He scrambled back into the secret room and pulled the door shut behind him.

When he put the phone to his ear, the voice was still talking. With a silent curse he slipped the receiver back into its cradle. There would be no call to Hauer. Stern estimated he had less than a minute to become Professor Natterman again.

Alan Burton lay belly-down in the mud, humping it with the infantryman's desperate love. Even before he heard the apocalyptic roar of the Vulcan gun, he had seen the deadly tracer beam reach out from the tower. Now the gunner was raking repeatedly over the corpses of the Colombians-for corpses they surely were. When a stream of armor-piercing slugs intersects a human body at the rate of sixty-six hundred rounds per minute, the result cannot be described.

Burton had seen it before; he had no desire to again.

Apparently Alberto did. Four times already the big guerilla had lifted his head over the rim of the bowl to watch the slaughter. The last time he must have gotten his fill, because Burton could hear the giant African whimpering beside him in the mud. When one of their escape helicopters exploded behind them, Alberto began babbling to himself. The incoherent syllables sounded vaguely religious to Burton, and the Englishman decided that a bit of prayer might not be out of order, even for a confirmed old sinner like himself.

When the terrible roar of the Vulcan diminished to desultory bursts, Alberto tried to jump up and race back to the airstrip. Burton pressed him violently back into the mud. As far as Burton knew, they still had one operable helicopter and, hopefully, a pilot. But to run for it now would be suicide. Any idiot could see that the gunner in the turret was using nightvision equipment. Burton could picture the smug bastard, perched up there behind his monstrous weapon, waiting for one desperate survivor to jump up and bolt for the airstrip. Burton didn't intend to be the moron who tried that.

But Alberto did. After the Vulcan had lain silent for ninety seconds, the big African rose tentatively to his knees and beckoned Burton to follow. The Vulcan burped just once: the three-second burst flashed up the slope like a lightning bolt. Approximately ninety bullets tore into Alberto's body, eviscerating and then decapitating him. The mangled hulk that thudded into the mud next to Burton would be food for the jackals in an hour.

The Englishman decided not to wait around to see the feast. The Deal be damned, he thought bitterly. Maybe Shaw will give me another chance.

God knows I didn't have much of one today. With movements so subtle only a serpent would perceive them, Burton slithered backward through the mud until he dropped below the Vulcan's angle of fire.

Then he jumped to his feet and ran as he never had in his life, low to the ground, but fast. When he felt the ground rising beneath his feet, he knew he was nearing the airstrip.

The Wash brought him up short. Three feet of water raged through its bottom now, but Burton tobogganed down the steep slope as if the torrent represented safety rather than potential death. Hoisting his MP-5

submachine gun high above his head, he waded into the flood. It took superhuman strength to hold himself upright against the current, but he made it across. He scrambled up the far side of the ravine in twenty seconds flat and found himself staring into the face of Juan Diaz.

"Madre de Dios!" the Cuban cried.

"The helo?" Burton gasped, his chest heaving.

"They got ours, English. But Fidel-the other pilot-he's waiting for us.

Come! Before they shoot the runway again!"

They ran. Burton could see the airstrip ahead, a glistening asphalt line. Horn's Learjet waited silently on the apron like a falcon sitting out a storm. The surviving helicopter stood about forty meters from the Lear, only twenty meters from the still-burning wreck of its sister ship. Burton heard its rotors whining as he neared the runway, running full out.

Then the whine was swallowed by the furious ripping sound of the Vulcan.

Burton looked back. He saw the tenible tracer beam race across the bowl, leap over the Wash, and streak up behind them. "Run!"

he screamed at Diaz.

The Cuban needed no prodding; he was ahead of Burton already. The tracer beam actually passed between the two men as it raced toward Fidel's chopper, churning the earth into a furrow of death.

Then it happened. Fidel lost his nerve. Seeing the tracers closing in on him, he simply could not control his panic.

With the only survivors of his team less than thirty meters from his chopper, the terrified Cuban lifted off. Diaz screamed for his comrade to wait, but the @errified pilot ignored him.

Burton had seen this a hundred times before. Slowing his sprint, he unslung his MP-5 and dropped to his knees. The only way to stop a panicked man from bolting was to put an equal or greater throat in front of him. Burton sighted his submachine gun in on the windshield of Fidel's chopper and squeezed off a three-round burst.

"Are you loco?" Diaz screamed. "You'll crash him."

"Signal him to put down!"

Fidel's chopper bucked wildly, hovering ten meters off the ground.