The Spandau Phoenix wwi-2 Read online

  The Spandau Phoenix

  ( World War II - 2 )

  Greg Iles

  The Spandau Diary—what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped and sexually tormented to get it? Why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi past to warriors in the new conflict now about to explode? Why did the world's entire history of World War II have to be rewritten as the future hung over a nightmare abyss?

  From Publishers Weekly

  A neo-Nazi/South African cartel plots to destroy Israel.

  From Library Journal

  Rudolph Hess--Spandau prisoner number 7--dies in 1987. When a secret "Hess diary" is found at Spandau by a West German policeman, the various police and intelligence agencies stationed in Berlin become even more interested in Hess's 1941 flight to England. Did Hess have highly placed contacts there? Was he alone? Was his well-trained double captured instead? The chain reaction from the diary's discovery explodes around West Germany, England, and South Africa, uncovering secret alliances and double agents. This first novel, which attempts to fill in history's blanks and to tie the past with the present, has action, characters, and violence to spare. But the body count is high, even for this genre, and the novel loses its impact long before the end of the drawn-out plot.

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  The Spandau Phoenix

  Greg Iles

  The North Sea lay serene, unusual for spring, but night would soon fall

  on a smoking, broken continent reeling from the shock of war.

  From the bloody dunes of Dunkirk to the bomb-shattered streets of

  Warsaw, from the frozen tip of Norway to the deserted beaches of the

  Mediterranean Europe was enslaved. Only England, beleaguered and alone,

  stood against the massed armies of Hitler's Wehrmacht, and tonight

  London was scheduled to die.

  By fire. At 1800 hours Greenwich time the greatest single concentration

  of Luftwaffe bombers ever assembled would unleash their fury upon the

  unprotected city, and over seven hundred acres of the British capital

  would cease to exist.

  Thousands of incendiary bombs would rain down upon civilian and soldier

  alike, narrowly missing St. Paul's Cathedral, gutting the Houses of

  Parliament. History would record that strike against London as the

  worst of the entire war, a holocaust. And yet ...

  ... all this-the planning, the casualties, the goliathan destruction-was

  but the puff of smoke from a magician's gloved hand. A spectacular

  diversion calculated to draw the eyes of the world away from a mission

  so -daring and intricate that it would defy understanding for

  generations to come. The man behind this ingenious plot was Adolf

  Hitler, and tonight, unknown to a single member of his General Staff, he

  would reach out from the Berghof and undertake the most ambitious

  military feat of his life.

  He had worked miracles before-the blitzkrieg of Poland, the penetration

  of the "impassable" Ardennes-but this would be the crowning 'achievement

  of his career. It would raise him at last above Alexander, Caesar, and

  Napoleon. In one stunning blow, he would twist the balance of world

  power inside out, transforming his mortal foe into an ally and

  consigning his present ally to destruction. To succeed he would have to

  reach into the very heart of Britain, but not with bombs or missiles.

  Tonight he needed precision, and he had chosen his weapons accordingly:

  treachery, weakness, envy, fanaticism-the most destructive forces

  available to man. All were familiar tools in Hitler's hand, and all

  were in place.

  But such forces were unpredictable. Traitors lived in terror of

  discovery; agents feared capture. Fanatics exploded without warning,

  and weak men invited betrayal. To effectively utilize such resources,

  Hitler knew, someone had to be on the scene-reassuring the agent,

  directing the fanatic, holding the hand of the traitor and a gun to the

  head of the coward. But who could handle such a mission? Who could

  inspire both trust and fear in equal measure? Hitler knew such a man.

  He was a soldier, a man of forty-eight, a pilot.

  And he was already in the air.

  Two thousand feet above Amsterdam, the Messerschmitt Bf-110 Zerstdrer

  plowed through a low ceiling of cumulus clouds and burst into clear sky

  over the glittering North Sea.

  The afternoon sun flashed across the fighter's silver wings, setting off

  the black-painted crosses that struck terror into the stoutest hearts

  across Europe.

  Inside the cockpit, the pilot breathed a sigh of relief. For the last

  four hundred miles he had flown a tiring, highly restricted route,

  changing altitude several times to remain within the Luftwaffe's

  prescribed corridors of safety. Hitler's personal pilot had given him

  the coded map he carried, and, with it, a warning. Not for amusement

  were the safety zones changed daily, Hans Bahr had whispered; with

  British Spitfires regularly penetrating Hermann Goering's "impenetrable"

  wall of air defense, the danger was real, precautions necessary.

  The pilot smiled grimly. Enemy fighters were the least of his worries

  this afternoon. If he failed to execute the next step of his mission

  perfectly, it would be a squadron of Messerschmitts, not Spitfires, that

  shot him into the sea. At any moment the Luftwaffe flight controllers

  expected him to turn back for Germany, as he had a dozen times before,

  test flying the fighter lent to him personally by Willi Messerschmitt,

  then returning home to his wife and child, his privileged life. But

  this time he would not turn back.

  Checking his airspeed against his watch, he estimated the point at which

  he would fade from the Luftwaffe radar screens based on the Dutch island

  of Terschelling. He'd reached the Dutch coast at 3:28 Pm. It was now

  3:40. At 220 miles per hour, he should have put forty-four miles of the

  North Sea behind him already. German radar was no match for its British

  counterpart, he knew, but he would wait another three minutes just to

  make sure. Nothing could be left to chance tonight.

  Nothing.

  The pilot shivered inside his fur-lined leather flying suit.

  So much depended upon his mission: the fates of England and Germany,

  very possibly the whole world. It was enough to make any man shiver.

  And Russia, that vast, barbaric land infected by the cancer of

  communism-his Fatherland's ancient enemy-if he succeeded tonight, Russia

  would kneel beneath the swastika at last!

  The pilot nudged the stick, dipping the Messerschmitt's left wing, and

  looked down through the thick glass canopy.

  Almost time. He looked at his watch, counting. Five ... four ...

  three ... two ...

  Now! Like a steel falcon he swooped toward the sea, hurtling downward

  at over four hundred miles per hour. At the last instant he jerked the

  stick back and leveled out, skimming the wave tops as he stormed north

  toward Aalborg, the main Luftwaffe
fighter base in Denmark. His

  desperate race had begun.

  Fighting through the heavy air at sea level, the Messerschmitt drank

  fuel like water, but the pilot's main concern now was secrecy.

  And finding the landing signal, he reminded himself. Two dozen training

  flights had familiarized him with the aircraft, but the detour to

  Denmark had been unexpected. He had never flown this far north without

  visual references. He was not afraid, but he would feel much better

  once he sighted the feords of Denmark to starboard.

  It had been a long time since the pilot had killed. The battles of the

  Great War seemed so vague now. He had certainly fired hundreds of

  rounds in anger, but one was never really sure.about the killing.

  Not until the charges came, anyway the terrible, bloody, heroically

  insane assaults of flesh against steel. He had almost been killed-he

  remembered that clearly enough-by a bullet in the left lung, one of

  three wounds he'd taken while fighting in the famous List regiment.

  But he had survived, that was the important thing. The dead in the

  enemy trenches ... who knew, really?

  He would kill tonight. He would have no choice. Checking the two

  compasses strapped to his left thigh, he took a careful bearing, then

  quickly returned his eyes to the horizon indicator. This close to the

  surface of the sea, the water played tricks on the mind. Hundreds of

  expert pilots had plowed into the waves simply by letting their

  concentration falter for a few moments. Only six minutes to Aalborg, he

  thought nervously. Why risk it? He climbed to one thousand feet, then

  leveled out and craned his neck to survey the sea below.

  Waveless, it receded before him with the gentle curve of the earth.

  Except ... there ... dead ahead. He could see broken coastline ...

  Denmark! He had done it!

  Feeling a hot surge of adrenaline, he scanned the clouds for fighter

  patrols. If one spotted him, he decided, he would sit tight, hold his

  course and pretend to be a straggler from an early raid. The hard,

  empty northern land flashed beneath him. His destination was a small

  ancillary strip just short of Aalborg air base. But where was it? The

  runway ... his special cargo ... where?

  A thousand feet below, the red flash of railway flares suddenly lit up

  in parallel lines to his left. The signal! A lone green flare

  indicated the proper direction of approach. The pilot circled wide

  until he had come 180 degrees, then began nursing the Messerschmitt in.

  The strip was short-no margin for error. Altimeter zero. With hated

  breath he felt tentatively for the runway. Nothing... nothing...

  whump!-the wheels dropped hard onto concrete. The plane shuddered from

  the impact but steadied fast. Cutting his engines, the pilot rolled to

  a stop thirty meters beyond the last two flares.

  Before he could unfasten his harness, two ground crewmen slid the canopy

  back over his head. Silently, they helped him with his straps and

  pulled him from the cockpit.

  Their rough familiarity startled him, but he let it pass. To them he

  was just another pilot@n a somewhat irregular mission perhaps, operating

  solo from a practically deserted strip south of the base-but just a

  pilot, all the same. Had he removed his flying helmet and goggles, the

  crewmen would have exhibited quite a different attitude, and certainly

  would not have touched him without permission. The pilot's face was

  known to every man, woman, and child in Germany indeed to millions across

  Europe and the world.

  Without a word, he walked a little way off the strip and unzipped his

  suit to relieve himself. There were only the two crewmen, he saw, and

  they had been well briefed. From a battered tank truck one pumped fuel

  into the plane while the other toiled with special fittings beneath the

  Messerschmitt's left wing. The pilot scanned the small runway. There

  was an old sock-type wind indicator, a pile of scrap parts left from

  pre-war days, and, several yards down the strip, a small wooden shack

  that had probably once housed some Danish mechanic's tools.

  It houses something quite different now, I'll wager, he thought.

  Zipping up, he walked slowly toward the shack, alert for any sign of

  human occupation. The sleek black bonnet of a Daimler jutted from

  behind the ramshackle building, gleaming like a funeral hearse. The

  pilot slipped around the shack and peered through the windshield of the

  car. Empty. Remembering his instructions, he wound a long flying scarf

  around the lower half of his face. It made breathing difficult, but

  combined with his flying helmet, it left only his eyes visible to an

  observer. He entered the shack without knocking.

  Darkness shrouded the interior, but the fetid air was pregnant with

  human presence. Someone, not the pilot, lit a lantern, and the room

  slowly revealed itself. A major wearing the smart black uniform of

  Himmler's SS stood less than a meter from the pilot. Unlike most of his

  type, this representative of Himmler's "elite corps" was quite fat.

  He looked more accustomed to the comforts of a soft billet like Paris

  than a battle zone. Behind him, a thinner man dressed in a leather

  flying suit sat rigidly in a straight-backed wooden chair.

  Like the pilot, his face was also draped by a scarf. His eyes darted

  nervously between the newcomer and the SS man.

  "Right on time," the SS major said, looking at his watch.

  "I'm Major Horst Berger."

  The pilot nodded, but offered no name.

  "Drink?" A bottle appeared from the shadows. "Schnapps?

  Cognac?"

  My God, the pilot thought. Does the fool carry a stocked bar about in

  his car? He shook his head emphatically, then jerked his thumb toward

  the half-open door. "I'll see to the preparations."

  "Nonsense," Major Berger replied, dismissing the idea with a flick of

  his bottle. "The crewmen can handle it.

  They're some of the best from Aalborg. It's a shame, really."

  It is, the pilot thought. But I don't think you're too upset about it.

  I think you're enjoying all this. "I'm going back to the plane," he

  muttered.

  The man in the wooden chair stood slowly.

  "Where do you think you're going?" Major Berger barked, but the man

  ignored him. "Oh, all right," Berger complained. He buttoned his

  collar and followed the pair out of the shack.

  "They know about the drop tanks?" the pilot asked, when Berger had

  caught up.

  "Ja. "

  "The nine-hundred-liter ones?"

  "Sure. Look, they're fitting them now."

  Berger was right. On the far side of the plane, two ground crewmen

  attached the first of two egg-shaped auxiliary fuel containers to the

  Messerschmitt's blunt-tipped wings. When they finished, they moved to

  the near side of the aircraft.

  "Double-check the wet-points!" the pilot called.

  The chief mechanic nodded, already working.

  The pilot turned to Major Berger. "I had an idea," he said.

  "Flying up."

  The SS man frowned. "What idea?"

  "I want them to grease my guns before we take off."
>
  "What do you mean? Lubricate them? I assure you that the weapons are

  in perfect working order."

  "No, I want them to pack the barrels with grease."

  Behind Majo@ Berger, the man in the flying suit stepped sideways and

  looked curiously at the pilot.

  "You can't be serious," Berger objected. He turned around.

  "Tell him," he said. But the man in the flying suit only cocked his

  head to one side.

  "But that's suicide!" Major Berger insisted. "One chance encounter

  with a British patrol and-" He shook his head. "I simply cannot allow

  it. If you're shot down, my career could take a very nasty turn!"

  Your career is over already, the pilot thought grimly.

  "Grease the guns!" he shouted to the crewmen, who, having fitted the

  empty drop tanks, now anxiously pumped fuel into them. The chief

  mechanic stood at the rear of the fuel truck, trying to decide which of

  the two men giving orders was really in charge. He knew Major Berger

  from Aalborg, but something about the tall, masked pilot hinted at a

  more dangerous authority.

  "You can't do that!" Major Berger protested. "Stop that there!

  I'm in command here!"

  The chief mechanic shut off the fuel hose and stared at the three men at

  the edge of the runway. Slowly, with great purpose, the pilot pointed a

  long arm toward the crewman under the wing and shouted through his

  scarf: "You! Grease my guns! That's a direct order!"

  The chief mechanic recognized the sound of authority now. He climbed

  onto the fuel truck to get a grease gun from his tool box.

  Major Berger laid a quivering hand on a Schmeisser machine pistol at his

  belt. "You have lost your mind, I believe," he said softly.

  "Rescind that order immediately or I'll put you under arrest!"

  Glancing back toward the crewmen-who were now busy packing the

  Messerschmitt's twenty-millimeter cannon with heavy black grease-the

  pilot took hold of his scarf and unwrapped it slowly from his head.

  When his face became visible, the SS man fell back a step, his eyes wide

  in shock.

  Behind him the man in the flying suit swallowed hard and turned away.

  The pilot's face was dark, saturnine, with eyes set deep beneath bushy

  black brows that almost met in the center. His imperious stare radiated