Frederick Forsyth - The Odessa File

Twenty minutes later, with these and a few clothes in a bag, he was bicycling down the track, around the shattered hulk of the Jaguar and the still-smoldering body lying face down in the snow, past the scorched and broken pines, toward the village.

From there he called a taxi and ordered it to take him to Frankfurt international airport. He walked to the flight-information desk and inquired. “What time is the next flight out of here for Argentina-preferably within an hour? Failing that, for Madrid.”

IT WAS ten past one when Mackensen’s Mercedes turned off the country road into the gate of the estate. Halfway up the drive to the house he found the way blocked.

The Jaguar bad evidently been blown apart from inside, but its wheels had not left the road. It was still upright, slewed slantwise across the drive. The forward and rear sections were recognizable as those of a car, still held together by the tough steel girders that formed the chassis.

But the center section, including the cockpit, was missing from floor to roof. Bits of this section were scattered in an area around the wreckage.

Mackensen surveyed the skeleton with a grim smile and walked over to the bundle of scorched clothes and their contents on the ground twenty feet away. Something about the size of the corpse caught his attention, and he stooped over it for several minutes. Then he straightened and ran at an easy lope up the rest of the drive toward the house.

He avoided ringing the front doorbell but tried the handle. The door opened, and he went into the hallway. For several seconds he listened, poised like a carnivorous animal by a water hole, sensing the atmosphere for danger. There was no sound. He reached under his left armpit and brought out a long-barreled Luger automatic, flicked off the safety catch, and started to open the doors leading off the hall.

The first was to the dining room, the second to the study. Although he saw the body on the hearthrug at once, he did not move from the half-open door before he had covered the rest of the room. He had known two men to fall for that trick-the obvious bait and the hidden ambush. Before entering, he glanced through the crack between the door’s hinges to make sure no one waited behind it, then entered.

Miller was lying on his back with his head turned to one side. For several seconds Mackensen stared down into the chalky white face, then bent to listen to the shallow breathing. The matted blood on the back of the head told him roughly what had happened.

He spent ten minutes scouring the house, noting the open drawers in the master bedroom, the missing shaving gear from the bathroom. Back in the study, he glanced into the yawning and empty wall safe, then sat himself at the desk and picked up the telephone.

He sat listening for several seconds, swore under his breath, and replaced the receiver. There was no difficulty in finding the tool chest under the stairs, for the cupboard door was still open. He took what he needed and went back down the drive, passing through the study to check on Miller and leaving by the French windows.

It took him almost an hour to find the parted strands of the telephone line, sort them out from the entangling undergrowth, and splice them back together. When he was satisfied with his handiwork he walked back to the house, sat at the desk, and tried the phone. He got the dial tone and called his chief in Nuremberg.

He had expected the Werwolf to be eager to hear from him, but the man’s voice coming down the wire sounded tired and only half-interested. Like a good sergeant, lie reported what he had found: the car, the corpse of the bodyguard, the half-handcuff still linked to the scrollwork by the fire, the blunt hacksaw blade on the carpet, Miller unconscious on the floor. He finished with the absent owner.

“He hasn’t taken much, Chief. Overnight things, probably money from the open safe. I can clear up here; he can come back if he wants to.”

“No, he won’t come back,” the Werwolf told him. “Just before you called, I put the phone down. He called me from Frankfurt airport. He’s got a reservation on a flight to Madrid, leaving in ten minutes. Connection this evening to Buenos Aires-.”

“But there’s no need,” protested Mackensen. “I’ll make Miller talk, we can find where he left his papers. There was no document case in the wreckage of the car, and nothing on him, except a sort of diary lying on the study floor. But the rest of his stuff must be somewhere not far away.”

“Far enough,” replied the Werwolf. “In a mailbox.” Wearily he told Mackensen what Miller had stolen from the forger, and what Roschmann had just told him on the phone from Frankfurt. “Those papers will be in the hands of the authorities in the morning, or Tuesday at the latest. After that everyone on that list is on borrowed time. That includes Roschmann, the owner of the house you’re in, and me. I’ve spent the whole morning trying to warn everyone concerned to get out of the country inside twenty-four hours.”

“So where do we go from here?” asked Mackensen.

“You get lost,” replied his chief. “You’re not on that list. I am, so I have to get out. Go back to your flat and wait until my successor contacts you. For the rest, it’s over. Vulkan has fled and won’t come back.

With his departure his whole operation is going to fall apart unless someone new can come in and take over the project.”

“What Vulkan? What project?”

“Since it’s over, you might as well know. Vulkan was the name of Roschmann, the man you were supposed to protect from Miller…… In a few sentences the Werwolf told the executioner why Roschmann had been so important, why his place in the project and the project itself were irreplaceable.

When he had finished, Mackensen uttered a low whistle and stared across the room at the form of Peter Miller. “That little boy sure fucked things up for everyone,” he said.

The Werwolf seemed to pull himself together, and some of his old authority returned to his voice. “Kamerad, you must clear up the mess over there. You remember that disposal squad you used once before?”

“Yes, I know where to get them. They’re not far from here.”

“Call them up, bring them over.

Have them leave the place without a trace of what happened. The man’s wife must be coming back late tonight; she must never know what happened. Understand?”

“It’ll be done,” said Mackensen.

“Then make yourself scarce. One last thing. Before you go, finish that bastard Miller. Once and for all.”

Mackensen looked across at the unconscious reporter with narrowed eyes.

“It’ll be a pleasure,” he grated.

“Then good-by and good luck.” The phone went dead. Mackensen replaced it, took out an address book, thumbed through it, and dialed a number. He introduced himself to the man who answered and reminded him of the previous favor the man had done for the Comradeship. He told him where to come and what he would find.

“The car and the body beside it have to go into a deep gorge off a mountain road. Plenty of gasoline over it, a real big blaze. Nothing identifiable about the mango through his pockets and take everything, including his watch.”

“Got it,” said the voice on the phone. “I’ll bring a trailer and winch.”

“There’s one last thing. In the study of the house you’ll find another stiff on the floor and a bloodstained hearthrug. Get rid of them. Not in the car-a long, cold drop to the bottom of a long, cold lake. Well weighted. No traces. Okay?”

“No problem. We’ll be there by five and gone by seven. I don’t like to move that kind of cargo in daylight.”

“Fine,” said Mackensen. “I’ll be gone before you get here. But you’ll find things like I said.” He hung up, slid off the desk, and walked over to Miller. He pulled out his Luger and automatically checked the breech, although he knew it was loaded.