Frederick Forsyth - The Odessa File

Two floors above, Mackensen had watched his arrival. Taking his bomb in his suitcase, he descended to the foyer, paid his bill for the coming night, explaining that he would be leaving very early in the morning, and went out to his car. He maneuvered it into a place where he could watch the hotel entrance and the Jaguar, and settled down to another wait.

There were still too many people in the area for him to go to work on the Jaguar, and Miller might come out of the hotel any second. If he drove off before the bomb could be planted, Mackensen would take him on the open highway, several miles from Osnabruck, and steal the document case. If Miller slept in the hotel, Mackensen would plant the bomb in the small hours, when no one was about.

In his room, Miller was racking his brains for a name. He could see the man’s face, but the name still escaped him.

It had been just before Christmas 1961. He had been in the press box in the Hamburg provincial court, waiting for a case in which he was interested. He had caught the tail end of the preceding case. There was a little ferret of a man standing in the dock, and defending counsel was asking for leniency, pointing out that it was just before the Christmas period and his client had a wife and five children.

Miller remembered glancing at the well of the court, and noting the tired, harassed face of the convicted man’s wife. She had covered her face with her hands in utter despair when the judge, explaining the sentence would have been longer but for the defending counsel’s plea for leniency, sentenced the man to eighteen months in jail. The prosecution had described the prisoner as one of the most skillful safecrackers in Hamburg.

Two weeks later, Miller had been in a bar not two hundred yards from the Reeperbahn, having a Christmas drink with some of his underworld contacts.

He was flush with money, having been paid for a big picture feature that day. There was a woman scrubbing the floor at the far end. He had recognized the worried face of the wife of the cracksman who had been sentenced two weeks earlier. In a fit of generosity which he regretted the next morning, he had pushed a 100-mark note into her apron pocket and left.

In January he had got a letter from Hamburg Jail. It was hardly literate.

The woman must have asked the barman for his name and told her husband. The letter had been sent to a magazine for which he sometimes worked. They had passed it on to him.

Dear Herr Miller, My wife wrote me about what you done just before Christmas. I never met you, and I don’t know why you done it, but I want to thank you very much.

You are a real good guy. The money helped Marta and the kids have a real good time over Christmas and the New Year. If ever I can do you a good turn back, just let me know. Yours with respects…

But what was the name on the bottom of that letter? Koppel. That was it.

Viktor Koppel. Praying that he had not got himself back inside prison again, Miller took out his little book of contacts’ names and telephone numbers, dragged the hotel telephone onto his knees, and started calling friends in the underworld of Hamburg.

He found Koppel at half past seven. As it was a Friday evening, be was in a bar with a crowd of friends, and Miller could hear the jukebox in the background. It was playing the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” which had almost driven him mad that winter, so frequently had it been played.

With a little prompting, Koppel remembered him, and the present be had given to Marta two years earlier. Koppel had evidently had a few drinks.

“Very nice of you that was, Herr Miller, very nice thing to do.”

“Look, you wrote me from prison saying if there was ever anything you could do for me, you’d do it. Remember?”

Koppel’s voice was wary. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, I need a bit of help. Not much. Can you help me out?” said Miller.

The man in Hamburg was still wary. “I ain’t got much on me, Herr Miller.”

“I don’t want a loan,” said Miller. “I want to pay you for a job. Just a small one.”

Koppel’s voice was full of relief. “Oh, I see, yes, sure. Where are you?”

Miller gave him his instructions. “Just get down to Hamburg station and grab the first train to Osnabruck. I’ll meet you at the station. One last thing: bring your working tools with you.”

“Now look, Herr Miller, I don’t work off my turf. I don’t know about Osnabruck.” Miller dropped into the Hamburg slang. “It’s a walkover, Koppel. Empty, owner gone away, and a load of gear inside. I’ve cased it, and there’s no problem. You can be back in Hamburg for breakfast, with a bagful of loot and no questions asked. The man will be away for a week. You can unload the stuff before he’s back, and the cops down here will think it was a local job.”

“What about my train fare?” asked Koppel.

“I’ll give it to you when you get here. There’s a train at nine out of Hamburg. You’ve got an hour. So get moving.” Koppel sighed deeply. “All right, I’ll be on the train.” Miller hung up, asked the hotel switchboard operator to call him at eleven, and dozed off.

Outside, Mackensen continued his lonely vigil. He decided to start on the Jaguar at midnight if Miller had not emerged.

But Miller walked out of the hotel at quarter past eleven, crossed the square, and entered the station.

Mackensen was surprised. He climbed out of the Mercedes and went to look through the entrance hall.

Miller was on the platform, standing waiting for a train.

“What’s the next train from this platform?” Mackensen asked a porter.

“Eleven thirty-three to Munster,” said the porter.

Mackensen wondered idly why Miller should want to take a train when he had a car. Still puzzled, he returned to his Mercedes and resumed his wait.

At eleven thirty-five his problem was solved. Miller came back out of the station, accompanied by a small, shabby man carrying a black leather bag.

They were in deep conversation. Mackensen swore. The last thing he wanted was for Miller to drive off in the Jaguar with company. That would complicate the killing to come. To his relief, the pair approached a waiting taxi, climbed in, and drove off. He decided to give them twenty minutes and then start on the Jaguar, still parked twenty yards away from him.

At midnight the square was almost empty. Mackensen slipped out of his car, carrying a pencil-flashlight and three small tools, crossed to the Jaguar, cast a glance around, and slid underneath it.

Amid the mud and snow-slush of the square, his suit, he knew, would be wet and filthy within seconds.

That was the least of his worries. Using the flashlight beneath the front end of the Jaguar, he located the locking switch for the hood. It took him twenty minutes to ease it free.

The hood jumped upward an inch when the catch was released. Simple pressure from on top would relock it when he had finished. At least he had no need to break into the car to release the catch from inside.

He went back to the Mercedes and brought the bomb over to the sports car.

A man working under the hood of a car attracts little or no attention.

Passers-by assume he is tinkering with his own car.

Using the binding wire and the pliers, he lashed the explosive charge to the inside of the engine compartment, fixing it to the wall directly in front of the driving position. It would be barely three feet from Miller’s chest when it went off. The trigger mechanism, connected to the main charge by two wires eight feet long, he lowered through the engine area to the ground beneath.

Sliding back under the car, he examined the front suspension by the light of his flashlight. He found the place he needed within five minutes and tightly wired the rear end of the trigger to a handy bracing-bar.