Frederick Forsyth - The Odessa File

The Odessa man took the letter without a word, slit it open, and cast his eyes quickly down it. He stiffened slightly and gazed narrowly across the sheet of paper at Miller. “I see, Herr Kolb. Perhaps you had better sit down.” He gestured toward an upright chair, while he himself took an easy chair.

He spent several minutes looking speculatively at his guest, a frown on his face. Suddenly he snapped,

“What did you say your name was?”

“Kolb, sir.”

“First names?”

“Rolf Gunther, sir.”

“Do you have any identification on you?”

Miller looked nonplused. “Only my driving license.”

“Let me see it, please.” The lawyer-for that was his profession-stretched out a hand, forcing Miller to rise from his seat and place the driving license in the outstretched palm. The man took it, flicked it open, and digested the details inside.

He glanced over it at Miller, comparing the photograph and the face. They matched.

“What is your date of birth?” he snapped suddenly.

“My birthday? Oh—er-June eighteenth, Sir.”

“The year, Kolb?”

“Nineteen twenty-five, sir.”

The lawyer considered the driving license for another few minutes. “Wait here,” he said suddenly, got up, and left.

He traversed the house and entered the rear portion of it, an area that served as his office and was reached by clients from a street at the back.

He went straight into the office and opened the wall safe. From it he took a thick book and thumbed through it.

By chance he knew the name of Joachim Eberhardt but had never met the man.

He was not completely certain of Eberhardt’s last rank in the SS. The book confirmed the letter. Joachim Eberhardt, promoted colonel of the Waffen SS on January 10, 1945. He flicked over several more pages and checked against Kolb. There were seven such names, but only one Rolf Gunther. Staff Sergeant as of April, 1945. Date of birth 18/6/25. He closed the book, replaced it, and locked the safe. Then he returned through the house to the living room. His guest was still sitting awkwardly on the upright chair.

He settled himself again. “It may not be possible for me to help you. You realize that, don’t you?”

Miller bit his lip and nodded. “I’ve nowhere else to go, Sir. I went to Herr Eberhardt for help when they started looking for me, and he gave me the letter and suggested I come to you. He said if you couldn’t help me no one could.”

The lawyer leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling. “I wonder why he didn’t call me if he wanted to talk to me,” he mused. Then he evidently waited for an answer.

“Maybe he didn’t want to use the phone on a matter like this,” Miller suggested hopefully.

The lawyer shot him a scornful look. “It’s possible,” he said shortly.

“You’d better tell me how you got into this mess in the first place.”

“Oh, yes. Well, sir-I mean I was recognized by this man, and then they said they were coming to arrest me. So I got out, didn’t I? I mean, I had to.”

The lawyer sighed. “Start at the beginning,” he said wearily. “Who recognized you, and as what?”

Miller drew a deep breath. “Well, Sir, I was in Bremen. I live there, and I work-well, I worked, until this happened, for Herr Eberhardt. In the bakery. Well, I was walking in the street one day about four months back, and I suddenly got very sick. I felt terribly weak, with stomach pains. Anyway, I must have passed out. I fainted on the pavement. So they took me away to the hospital.”

“Which hospital?”

“Bremen General, Sir. They did some tests and they said I had cancer. In the intestine. I thought that was it, see?”

“It usually is it,” observed the lawyer dryly.

“Well, that’s what I thought, Sir. Only apparently it was caught at an early stage. Anyway, they put me on a course of drugs instead of operating, and after some time the cancer went into a remission.”

“So far as I can see, you’re a lucky man. What’s all this about being recognized?”

“Yes, well, it was this hospital orderly, see? He was Jewish, and he kept staring at me. Every time he was on duty he kept staring at me. It was a funny sort of look, see? And it got me worried. The way he kept looking at me. With a sort of ‘I know you’ look on his face. I didn’t recognize him, but I got the impression he knew me.”

“Go on.” The lawyer was showing increasing interest.

“So about a month ago they said I was ready to be transferred, and I was taken away and put in a convalescent clinic. It was the employees’ insurance plan at the bakery that paid for it. Well, before I left the Bremen General, I remembered him. The Jew-boy I mean. It took me weeks; then I got it. He was an inmate at Flossenburg.”

The lawyer jackknifed upright. “You were at Flossenburg?”

“Yes, I was getting around to telling you that, wasn’t I? I mean, sir. And I remembered this hospital orderly from then. I got his name in the Bremen hospital. But at Flossenburg he had been in the party of Jewish inmates that we used to bum the bodies of Admiral Canaris and the other officers we hanged for their part in the assassination attempt on the Führer.”

The lawyer stared at him again. “You were one of those who executed Canaris and the others?” he asked.

Miller shrugged. “I commanded the execution squad,” he said simply. “Well, they were traitors, weren’t they? They tried to kill the Führer.”

The lawyer smiled. “My dear fellow, I’m not reproaching you. Of course they were traitors. Canaris had even been passing information to the Allies. They were all traitors, those Army swine, from the generals down. I just never thought to meet the man who killed them.”

Miller grinned weakly. “The point is the police would like to get their hands on me for that. I mean, knocking off Jews is one thing, but now there’s a lot of them saying Canaris and that crowd-saying they were sort of heroes.”

The lawyer nodded. “Yes, certainly that would get you into bad trouble with the present authorities in Germany. Go on with your story.”

“I was transferred to this clinic, and I didn’t see the Jewish orderly again. Then last Friday I got a telephone call at the convalescent clinic. I thought it must be the bakery calling, but the man wouldn’t give his name. He just said he was in a position to know what was going on, and that a certain person had informed those swine at Ludwigsburg who I was, and there was a warrant being prepared for my arrest. I didn’t know who the man could be, but he sounded as if he knew what he was talking about. Sort of official sounding voice, if you know what I mean, Sir?”

The lawyer nodded understandingly. “Probably a friend on the police force of Bremen. What did you do?”

Miller looked surprised. “Well, I got out, didn’t I? I discharged myself. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t go home in case they were waiting for me there. I didn’t even go and pick up my Volkswagen, which was still parked in front of my house. I slept out Friday night; then on Saturday I had an idea. I went to see the boss, Herr Eberhardt, at his house. He was in the telephone book. He was real nice to me. He said he was leaving with Frau Eberhardt for a winter cruise the next morning, but he’d try and see that I was all right. So he gave me the letter and told me to come to you.”

“What made you suspect Herr Eberhardt would help you?”

“Well, you see I didn’t know what he had been in the war. But he was always real nice to me at the bakery. Then about two years back we were having the staff party. We all got a little drunk, and I went to the men’s room. There was Herr Eberhardt washing his hands. And singing. He was singing the ‘Horst Wessel Song.’