Frederick Forsyth - The Odessa File

“You little shit,” he told the body and held the gun at arm’s length pointing downward, lined up on the forehead.

Years of living like a predatory animal and surviving where others, victims and colleagues, had ended on a pathologist’s slab had given Mackensen the senses of a leopard. He didn’t see the shadow that fell onto the carpet from the open French window; be felt it and spun around, ready to fire. But the man was unarmed.

“Who the hell are you?” growled Mackensen, keeping him covered.

The man stood in the French window, dressed in the black leather leggings and jacket of a motorcyclist.

In his left hand he carried his crash helmet, gripped by the short peak and held across his stomach. The man flicked a glance at the body at Mackensen’s feet and the gun in his hand.

“I was sent for,” he said innocently.

“Who by?” said Mackensen.

“Vulkan,” replied the man. “My Kamerad, Roschmann.”

Mackensen grunted and lowered the gun. “Well, he’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Fucked off. Heading for South America. The whole project’s off. And all thanks to this little bastard reporter.” He jerked the gun barrel toward Miller.

“You going to finish him?” asked the man.

“Sure. He screwed up the project. Identified Roschmann and mailed the information to the police, along with a pile of other stuff. If you’re in that file, you’d better get out too.”

“What file?”

“The Odessa file.”

“I’m not in it,” said the man.

“Neither am I,” growled Mackensen. “But the Werwolf is, and his orders are to finish this one off before we quit.”

“The Werwolf?”

Something began to sound a small alarm inside Mackensen. He had just been told that in Germany no one apart from the Werwolf and himself knew about the Vulkan project. The others were in South America, from where he assumed the new arrival had come. But such a man would know about the Werwolf. His eyes narrowed slightly.

“You’re from Buenos Aires?” he asked.

“No.”

“Where from, then?”

“Jerusalem.” It took half a second before the meaning of the name made sense to Mackensen. Then he swung up his Luger to fire. Half a second is a long time, long enough to die.

The foam rubber inside the crash helmet was scorched when the Walther went off. But the nine-millimeter parabellum slug came through the fiberglass without a pause and took Mackensen high in the breastbone with the force of a kicking mule. The helmet dropped to the ground to reveal the agent’s right hand, and from inside the cloud of blue smoke the PPK fired again.

Mackensen was a big man and a strong one. Despite the bullet in the chest he would have fired, but the second slug, entering his head two finger-widths above the right eyebrow, spoiled his aim. It also killed him.

Miller awoke on Monday afternoon in a private ward in Frankfurt General Hospital. He lay for half an hour, becoming slowly aware that his head was swathed in bandages and contained a pair of energetic artillery units. He found a buzzer and pressed it, but the nurse who came told him to lie quietly because he had severe concussion.

So he lay and, piece by piece, recollected the events of the previous day until the middle of the morning.

After that there was nothing. He dozed off and when he woke it was dark outside and a man was sitting by his bed. The man smiled.

Miller stared at him. “I don’t know you,” he said.

“Well, I know you,” said the visitor.

Miller thought. “I’ve seen you,” he said at length. “You were in Oster’s house. With Leon and Motti.”

“That’s right. What else do you remember?”

“Almost everything. It’s coming back.”

“Roschmann?”

“Yes.

I talked with him. I was going for the police.”

“Roschmann’s gone. Fled back to South America. The whole affair’s over. Complete. Finished. Do you understand?”

Miller slowly shook his head. “Not quite. I’ve got one hell of a story. And I’m going to write it.”

The visitor’s smile faded. He leaned forward. “Listen, Miller. You’re a lousy amateur, and you’re lucky to be alive. You’re going to write nothing. For one thing, you’ve got nothing to write. I’ve got Tauber’s diary, and it’s going back home with me, where it belongs. I read it last night. There was a photograph of an Army captain in your jacket pocket.”

“Your father?” Miller nodded.

“So that was what it was really all about?” asked the agent.

“Yes.”

“Well, in a way I’m sorry. About your father, I mean. I never thought I’d say that to a German. Now about the file. What was it?”

Miller told him.

“Then why the bell couldn’t you let us have it? You’re an ungrateful man. We took a lot of trouble getting you in there, and when you get something you hand it over to your own people. We could have used that information to best advantage.”

“I had to send it to someone, through Sigi. That meant by mad. You’re so clever, you never let me have Leon’s address.”

Josef nodded. “All right. But either way, you have no story to tell. You have no evidence. The diary’s gone, the file is gone. All that remains is your personal word. If you insist on talking, nobody will believe you except the Odessa, and they’ll come for you. Or rather, they’ll probably hit Sigi or your mother. They play rough, remember?”

Miller thought for a while. “What about my car?”

“You don’t know about that. I forgot.”

Josef told Miller about the bomb in it, and the way it went off. “I told you they play rough. The car has been found gutted by fire in a ravine. The body in it is unidentified, but not yours. Your story is that you were flagged down by a hitchhiker, he hit you with an iron bar and went off in it. The hospital will confirm you were brought in by a passing motorcyclist who called an ambulance when he saw you by the roadside. They won’t recognize me again; I was in a helmet and goggles at the time. That’s the official version, and it will stay. To make sure, I rang the German press agency two hours ago, claiming to be the hospital, and gave them the same story. You were the victim of a hitchhiker who later crashed and killed himself.”

Josef stood up and prepared to leave. He looked down at Miller. “You’re a lucky bastard, though you don’t seem to realize it. I got the message your girl friend passed me, presumably on your instructions, at noon yesterday, and by riding like a maniac I made it from Munich to the house on the hill in two and a half hours dead. Which was what you almost were—dead. They bad a guy who was going to kill you. I managed to interrupt him in time.” He turned, hand on the doorknob.

“Take a word of advice. Claim the insurance on your car, get a Volkswagen, go back to Hamburg, marry Sigi, have kids, and stick to reporting. Don’t tangle with professionals again.” Half an hour after he had gone, the nurse came back.

“There’s a phone call for you,” she said.

It was Sigi, crying and laughing on the line. She had received an anonymous call telling her Peter was in Frankfurt General.

“I’m on my way down right this minute,” she said and hung up.

The phone rang again. “Miller? This is Hoffmann. I just saw a piece on the agency tapes. You got a bang on the head. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Herr Hoffmann,” said Miller.

“Great. When are you going to be fit?”

“In a few days. Why?”

“I’ve got a story that’s right up your alley. A lot of daughters of wealthy papas in Germany are going down to the ski slopes and getting screwed by these handsome young ski-instructors. There’s a clinic in Bavaria that gets them back out of trouble-for a fat fee and no word to Daddy about it. Seems some of the young studs take a rake-off from the clinic. A great little story. Sex amid the Snow, Orgies in Oberland. When can you start?” Miller thought. “Next week.”