furious. Richardson hadn't had the Spandau papers-as Borodin had
thought he might-and he had refused to discuss the two German policemen,
even under torture. Borodin hadn't intended to kill Richardson, but the
American had made him angry. And then Kosov's bumbling footpad had
blundered in during the interrogation. Borodin had shot Rykov from
reflex, without even knowing who he was. That had sealed Richardson's
fate. Borodin couldn't very well leave anyone alive to reveal what he
had done.
Even a Twelfth Department man could not kill a fellow KGB officer with
impunity.
Yet in the midst of adversity, inspiration had struck. Before leaving
Harry's apartment Borodin had planted two microtransmitters@ne in the
front room, one in the bedroom. Then he'd made an anonymous telephone
call to Colonel Rose. The harvest had been bountiful. Now he knew not
only the location of the two German policemen, but also the identity of
Rose's emissary to South Africa. The burly Kripo detective would lead
him straight to Hauer and Apfel, and ultimately to the Spandau papers.
And if that wasn't enough, he was now listening to Kosov and Rose hatch
a renegade operation that could smash both their careers. The only
oversight, Borodinconceded to himself, had been the writing on the
floor. The American had sneaked that past him. Richardson had been
trying to write Borodin, of course, but a bullet through his spinal cord
had apparently turned his o into something like an r The Anglophobic
Rose had already misread the one clue that could help him, though; and
Ivan Kosov wasn't likely to disabuse him of his fantasies!
As Schneider emerged from the front entrance of Harry's building, Yuri
Borodin laughed aloud.
Even in the dog days of glasnost, his job was sometimes more fun than
work.
7'31 Pm. Lufthanso Flight 417, Corsican Airspace
Dieter Hauer looked down at the shiny, wrinkled ball of aluminum foil in
his hand. It had taken four minutes of his best pickpocket technique to
remove the Spandau papers from Hans's trousers, but he had finally done
it. Hans sat in the airplane seat next to him, sleeping fitfully. Hauer
removed the foil wrapping the thin sheets as if it concealed an
archaeological treasure. Despite all that had happened, he had yet to
actually see the papers.
The first page looked just as Hans had described it: a paragraph
written in German, followed by a stream Of unintelligible gibberish.
Hauer scanned the German, but learned nothing new. Sighing, he pulled
the bottom page from the stack and looked for the signature.
There it was: Number 7. My God, he thought, to have been in prison so
long that you didn't even use your name. If the poor bastard remembered
it at all ... On the last page Hauer saw the carefully drawn eye. It
looked exactly like those he'd seen tattooed on at least a dozen scalps.
Whoever wrote the Spandau papers, he decided, had obviously been visited
at least once by someone with more than hair behind his right ear. Hauer
didn't realize that three of the pages were blank until he began
arranging them to repack them in the foil.
He rubbed his eyes vigorously, unwilling to accept what he saw, but the
truth was I plain to see. Three pages bore no ink at all.
The paper wasn't even the same! His first impulse was to shake Hans
awake and demand to know what he had done with the missing pages. Yet as
soon as he raised his hand, Hauer realized what had happened. The
substituted sheets told the story.
Professor Natterman had lied. The old man had held back after all ...
he'd kept some of the pages for himself! Hauer cringed as he recalled
Natterman slipping into the bathroom before laying the foil acket on
Hans's lap.
p Greedy bastard! he thought furiously. With yourfamily's lives at
stake! Pulling the bottom page out again, Hauer stared with grim
frustration. Angrily, he read the final note in German. The last bit
caught his eye:
Phoenix wields my precious daughter like a sword of fire!
If only they knew! Am I even a dim memory to my angel?
No. Better that she never knows. I have lived a life of madness, but
in the face of death I found courage ...
Better that she never knows. Those words resonated in Hauer's mind.
Better that you don't know, either he thought, looking at Hans's
sleeping face. You'll find out soon enough.
Hans's lank blond hair hung down across eyelids that quivered in
troubled sleep. Carefully, Hauer refolded the aluminum foil around the
pages and slipped them back into Hans's pocket. And what will you do,
he wondered, when you finally learn that your grandfather-in-law has
condemned your wife to death? For without the Spandau papers to trade
to the kidnappers, intact, Hauer knew the chance of bringing Ilse out of
Africa alive dropped by at least 50 percent. How could that bastard do
that to his ownflesh and blood?
And then Hauer knew. The old man had not stolen the missing pages-he'd
lost them! Lost them to the Afrikaner who attacked him.
And the Afrikaner had lost them to whoever had attacked him! That was
why Natterman had frantically searched the carcass that Hans dragked
into the cabin; he'd been looking for the missing pages. And he had
found nothing! My God, Hauer thought, feeling acid flood his stomach,
someone else has those pages!
As the DC-10 roared south toward the bottom of the un world, Hauer
wondered who could possibly have 0 Natterman's cabin before he and Hans.
Funk's men? Ilse had obviously been forced to give the cabin telephone
number to her kidnappers. Had she also given them the cabin's location?
How early had she been captured? Who else was hunting for the papers
now? Hauer had seen some rather English-looking young men hovering
around the ticket d'Hans had slipped counters at Frankfurt Airport, but
he an by them on the strength of their false passports.
If Hauer had only known-really known-who had the missing pages, he might
have felt less like a shepherd leading a lamb to the slaughter.
But he didn't know. And as he closed his eyes to the sound of the
roaring turbines, one word cycled endlessly through his mind.
Who?
7.40pm. E-35Motorway, Frankfurt, FRG Jonas Stern took his eyes from the
