Frederick Forsyth - The Odessa File

“By the way, don’t think this is a joke. If you are once inside the Odessa, knowing who the top men are, and you make one slip in procedure, you’ll end up in a canal. Believe me, I’m no milksop, and after betraying the Odessa, even I’m running scared of them. That’s why I live here under a new name.” For the first time since he had set off on his one-man hunt for Eduard Roschmann, Miller wondered if he had not already gone too far.

Mackensen reported to the Werwolf on the dot of ten. When the door to the room where Hilda worked was safely shut, the Werwolf seated the executioner in the client’s chair opposite the desk and lit a cigar.

“There is a certain person, a newspaper reporter, inquiring about the whereabouts and the new identity of one of our comrades,” he began. The liquidator nodded with understanding. Several times before, he had heard one of his briefings begin in the same way.

“In the normal course of events,” resumed the Werwolf, “we would be prepared to let the matter rest, either convinced that the reporter would eventually give up for lack of progress, or because the man being sought was not worth our while making an expensive and hazardous effort to save.”

“But this time—it’s different?” asked Mackensen softly.

The Werwolf nodded with what might have been genuine regret. “Yes. Through bad luck, ours on the grounds of the inconvenience involved, his on the grounds it will cost him his life, the reporter has unwittingly touched a nerve. For one thing, the man he is seeking is a man of vital, absolutely vital, importance to us and to our long-term planning. For another, the reporter himself seems to be an odd character-intelligent, tenacious, ingenious, and, I regret, wholly committed to extracting a sort of personal vengeance from the Kamerad.”

“Any motive?” asked Mackensen.

The Werwolf’s puzzlement showed in his frown. He tapped ash from his cigar before replying. “We cannot understand why there should be, but evidently there is,” he murmured. “The man he is looking for undoubtedly has a background which might excite certain dislike among such as the Jews and their friends. He commanded a ghetto in Ostland. Some, mainly foreigners, refuse to acknowledge our justification for what was done there. The odd thing about this reporter is that he is neither foreign, nor Jewish, nor a noted Left-Winger, nor one of the well-known type of conscience-cowboy who, in any case, seldom get beyond giving vent to a lot of piss and wind, but nothing else.

“But this man seems different. He’s a young German, Aryan, son of a war hero, nothing in his background to suggest such a depth of hatred toward us, nor such an obsession with tracing one of our Kameraden, despite a firm and clear warning to stay off the matter. It gives me some regret to order his death. Yet he leaves me no alternative. That is what I must do!”

“Kill him?” asked Mack the Knife.

“Kill him,” confirmed the Werwolf.

“Whereabouts?”

“Not known.” The Werwolf flicked two sheets of foolscap paper covered with typed words across the desk. “That’s the man. Peter Miller, reporter and investigator. He was last seen at the Dreesen Hotel in Bad Godesberg. He’s certainly gone from there by now, but it’s a good enough place to start.

The other place would be his own flat, where his girl friend lives with him. You should represent yourself as a man sent by one of the major magazines for which he normally works. That way, the girl will probably talk to you, if she knows his whereabouts. He drives a noticeable car. You’ll find all the details of it there.”

“I’ll need money,” said Mackensen. The Werwolf had foreseen the request. He pushed a wad of 10,000 marks across the desk.

“And the orders?” asked the killer.

“Locate and liquidate,” said the Werwolf.

It was January 13 before the news of the death in Bremen five days earlier of Rolf Gunther Kolb reached Leon in Munich. The letter from his North German representative enclosed the dead man’s driving license.

Leon checked the man’s rank and number on his list of former SS men, checked the West German wanted list and saw that Kolb was not on it, spent some time gazing at the face on the driving license, and made his decision.

He called Motti, who was on duty at the telephone exchange where he worked, and the assistant reported to Leon when he had finished his shift.

Leon laid Kolb’s driving license in front of him. “That’s the man we need,” he said. “He was a staff sergeant at the age of nineteen, promoted just before the war ended. They must have been very short of material. Kolb’s face and Miller’s don’t match, even if Miller were made up, which is a procedure I don’t like anyway. It’s too easy to see through at close range.

But the height and build fit with Miller. So we’ll need a new photograph.

That can wait. To cover the photograph we’ll need a replica of the stamp of the Bremen Police Traffic Department. See to it.” When Motti had gone, Leon dialed a number in Bremen and gave further orders.

“All right,” said Alfred Oster to his pupil. “Now we’ll start on the songs.

You’ve heard of the ‘Horst Wessel Song’?”

“Of course,” said Miller. “It was the Nazi marching song.” Oster hummed the first few bars.

“Oh, yes, I remember hearing it now. But I can’t remember the words.”

“Okay,” said Oster. “I’ll have to teach you about a dozen songs. Just in case you are asked. But this is the most important. You may even have to join in a singsong, when you’re among the Kameraden. Not to know it would be a death sentence. Now, after me:

It was January 18.

Mackensen sat and sipped a cocktail in the bar of the Schweizerhof Hotel in Munich and considered the source of his puzzlement: Miller, the reporter whose personal details and face were etched in his mind. A thorough man, Mackensen had even contacted the main Jaguar agents for West Germany and obtained from them a series of publicity photographs of the Jaguar XK 150 sports car, so he knew what he was looking for. His trouble was he could not find it.

The trail at Bad Godesberg had quickly led to Cologne Airport and the answer that Miller had flown to Undon and back within thirty-six hours over the New Year. Then he and his car had vanished.

Inquiries at his flat led to a conversation with his handsome and cheerful girl friend, but she had only been able to produce a letter postmarked from Munich, saying Miller would be staying there for a while.

For a week Munich had proved a dead lead. Mackensen had checked every hotel, public and private parking space, servicing garage, and gas station.

There was nothing. The man he sought had disappeared as if from the face of the earth.

Finishing his drink, Mackensen eased himself off his bar stool and went to the telephone to report to the Werwolf. Although he did not know it, he stood just twelve hundred meters from the black Jaguar with the yellow stripe, which was parked inside the walled courtyard of the antique shop and private house where Leon lived and ran his small and fanatic organization.

In Bremen General Hospital a man in a white coat strolled into the registrar’s office. He had a stethoscope around his neck, almost the badge of office of a new intern.

“I need a look at the medical file on one of our patients, Rolf Gunther Kolb,” he told the receptionist and filing clerk.

The woman did not recognize the intern, but that meant nothing. There were scores of them working in the hospital. She ran through the names in the filing cabinet, spotted the name of Kolb on the edge of a dossier, and handed it to the intern. The phone rang, and she went to answer it.