Man Who Wanted Tomorrow (7 page)

An abhorrence of human suffering apparently now completely overcome. Coupled to the other disparities, an inexplicable change. By itself?—he considered the question, objectively. Kurnov was undoubtedly imbued with a Russian pride, elevated to a position of honor and stature, well aware his privileges were linked with the continuing progress of Soviet space exploration. Was it surprising, then, that a humble prison-camp doctor had been able to temper his morality? Of course not.

And that's all there was, realized Mavetsky. The other sufferer from any investigation, no matter how circumspect, would be himself, decided the minister. Irritably, he summoned the woman from the outer office and handed her the file.

Remembering the cigarette litter in front of her desk, she said hopefully, “What shall I do with it?”

Mavetsky looked up.

“Put it back,” he said, simply.

“Downstairs? In records?” she pressed.

“Of course. Where else?” said the minister.

The woman walked from the room, disappointed. Mavetsky watched her leave. It was ridiculous, he thought, angrily. He'd wasted nearly two hours, just because he'd allowed one man's attitude to annoy him into believing an ordinary request had some ulterior reason.

That was dangerous. There were enough real problems, without those of his own creation. Within ten minutes, he had dismissed Kurnov and the request to visit Berlin from his mind.

(6)

It had been a good life, decided Helmut Bock, greeting the recurring thought. Although psychiatry was not the predominant feature of his medical practice, he recognized the nostalgia as a need for constant reassurance. Which was hardly surprising, he consoled himself. Considering the disaster that could have overtaken him, particularly in the latter days with his plastic surgery experimentation at Buchenwald, such a complete escape was little short of a miracle. He smiled to himself, in the half-light of the early-morning. How worried he had been, he remembered, at being adopted so avidly by Heinrich Köllman. It had been obvious by then to anyone with a minimum of intelligence that the war was lost and that survival was the only consideration. So association with Köllman, whose record was worse even than that of Mengele, could have been ranked as suicide. But although inevitable, the collapse of the Third Reich was too far away for him to resist openly the friendship of someone still so powerful, and he had allowed himself to be cultivated, not realizing initially that Köllman was already preparing his escape.

It hadn't taken long, though, thought Bock, a conceited man who over-rated his intelligence. And, once realized, what had been more sensible than modifying the method that Köllman had been perfecting for several years? But he still
had
been lucky, he reflected, honestly.

By his side the woman turned, erupting into a bubbly snore. He looked at her, distastefully, then lowered the covering from her breasts, very carefully, so she would not awaken. They sprouted, firm and unsagging, generous mountains in the moonlight that came in from the uncurtained windows. There was no sexual feeling. It had been a good job, he congratulated himself. Her breasts would remain firm for at least fifteen years. And her stomach and buttocks, too, no matter how careless she was about her diet. She would, he decided, continue to be the sex symbol of the international movie circuit. No wonder she had been so grateful. He smiled at the memory. She stirred and he covered her, gently. If she awoke, she would imagine he wanted sex, and he felt drained by what had happened earlier.

Yes, he decided, regressing again, he had definitely been lucky. He hadn't realized, not until he was operating upon the former S.S. colonel only two rooms away from the recovering Köllman, that the Nazis were pursuing his benefactor for embezzling over £1,000,000 from his concentration-camp victims. How sad it had been, he reflected, giggling, that the colonel had never recovered from his operation, having imparted the information. And how easy it had been to convince the nervous, over-reactive concentration-camp experimenter that the survivors of the S.S. were within days of capturing him.

The light grew stronger, and gently, still anxious to avoid disturbing the woman, he sidled from the bed and stood just inside the penthouse veranda, gazing out over the still-slumbering Berlin.

It had all happened so quickly. In June he had been terrified of capture and arraignment as a war criminal who deserved the death penalty that the others had got at Nuremberg. By September, he was a man with a different identity supplied by Köllman's forger. He had a new face created by the man who had assisted in the operation upon Köllman (and then had to die because of his knowledge). And was also a millionaire with a fortune securely hidden in Switzerland because Köllman had panicked and fled to the East.

Köllman had recovered well from that incredible mistake, decided Bock. A man still very aware of the dangers from the past, the plastic surgeon had followed avidly the details available of Kurnov's success in Russia, even keeping a picture scrapbook of the face he had so carefully sculpted from the model provided. Poor Reinhart. The idiot had still imagined he was to continue helping people when he had arrived at Bock's makeshift clinic. Bock could still recall that last-minute look of shocked realization as they had rendered him unconscious.

What had happened at Lake Toplitz was unsettling, he thought. More and more he had been dwelling in the past, since the news of the assassinations and the missing container had been occupying the newspapers and television screens. The Jewish premier's assertion that someone in Berlin was offering the secrets for sale added to the worry. Did anything incriminating lie in the lake? he wondered. He was sure he was safe, personally. The records officer at Buchenwald had been a heroin addict, and Bock had carefully supplied his need, creating a dependence to ensure that when the collapse came, every single document referring to him had been incinerated in the very ovens that had so recently destroyed other evidence. No, Bock assured himself, confidently, he was quite safe from any investigation. A hunt for the Toplitz documents would get nowhere, anyway, he concluded, attempting to reinforce his confidence. The Jews would never be able to buy the records if they were for sale. The Nazi funds were incredible. He paused at the comforting thought, remembering the bank-statement of the previous week. Poor Köllman, he sympathized, existing in the austerity of the Soviet Union, unaware that his carefully garnered fortune had increased to over £.3,000,000 in thirty years.

Bock smiled in self-satisfaction, looking back toward the sleeping actress. He'd had no need to touch the capital for almost twenty-five years, since he'd become recognized as one of the world's leading cosmetic plastic surgeons. Payment in kind was always a bonus, but the patients paid in the ordinary way, as well. God, how they paid. The woman stirred. She'd awaken soon, decided Bock. He went into the bathroom, adjusting the shower control to “water massage”. She really had been extraordinarily inventive, he decided, feeling the needles of water bite into him, bringing his flesh alive. She'd have to be gone by the weekend, though. There was arriving from Buenos Aires an Argentinian woman with the most spectacular breasts he had ever examined. He couldn't understand why she wanted them reduced. Amazing, he thought, what women were prepared to do to remain beautiful.

“Hello,” she said, looking up at him as he returned to the bedside. “I thought you had deserted me.”

“What a silly idea,” he said, pulling back the covering. Perhaps another quarter of an inch off her stomach, he speculated, professionally. It was a debatable point. Her husband had seemed satisfied, two days earlier.

She smiled, misinterpreting the examination.

“Are you sure I'm the only one who's undergone plastic surgury?” she said, coquettishly, looking at his nakedness.

Crude cow, he thought, straddling her waist.

“I'd hate you to get a stiff neck,” he said, joining in the charade.

“Never.”

Bock wondered if he could stand her for the remainder of the week. Below him, she groaned. He should definitely have taken that quarter-inch off her waist, he thought.

Three miles away, in the apartment on Seelingstrasse, Mosbacher awakened and lay tense for a moment, in that state of immediate awareness to which he had been trained. Sure of his surroundings, he relaxed, turning to look at the twin-bed four feet from him.

Perez slept fitfully. Several times he whimpered, muttering dissociated words, then relapsed into unsettled sleep again. Would he last? wondered Mosbacher. The strain upon him was tremendous. Superhuman, even, particularly considering his personal history. Should he even now inform Jerusalem of his doubt? he questioned. Immediately he rejected the idea, without deeper consideration. It could serve no purpose. They wouldn't abort the mission merely on his fears. And Perez was too used to convincing them, better able to argue and convince other people. With leading politicians and statesmen, Mosbacher was always uncertain, words clogging in his mouth. Any belated objection he put up would be almost flippantly dismissed, he knew. They were committed. And there was no way for the mission to go on without Perez.

The man sighed softly, so as not to disturb his friend. What a shitty business they were in, he thought. Was it necessary to pursue the Nazis after so long? he wondered, raising again the doubt that had begun the break with Perez. Of course it was, he decided. Too many had survived to hold high office in the new Germany. It was the method of the scheme that offended him.

He looked again at the sleeping figure of Perez. But they should choose with more care, he thought. He tempered the doubt. It was too easy for him, a bachelor whose parents had died in Dachau, a man with no home but an apartment in which he sheltered during the night. Perez was married and, a month before, his wife had had a child that the man had not yet been allowed to see. How simple it would be, if it were possible to select a revenge-unit of unattached, totally committed men whose deaths, if they failed, would be mourned by no one. He should have made the sacrifice, instead of Perez, thought Mosbacher. He smiled at the stupidity. How could he have done it? Perez was ideal because of his stature and because of that very history which at the same time made him unreliable. There was no way Mosbacher or anyone else could have replaced him. Knowing sleep would not return, he got up from the bed and went to the window, staring out over the city. Directly in line, but not visible, was the penthouse apartment in which Bock was at that moment moaning, half in pleasure, half in discomfort, above the film star.

It really began tomorrow, thought Mosbacher. He corrected himself, looking at his watch. Not tomorrow. Today. How fortunate it had been, he remembered, that Bock chose to sleep with every attractive female patient. She had been a brave Jewess, he decided, to report that tell-tale scar beneath the left arm, indicating the removal of the tattooed S.S. number. The Mossad had spent a lot of money paying for two more women to undergo treatment and seduction to establish the suspicions of the first genuine patient. But never, when they started to intercept his letters through the bribed sorter at Berlin's Central Post Office, had the Mossad imagined they would discover that one of the most renowned plastic surgeons in the world had learned his craft under another name on unanaesthetized patients at Buchenwald. And more important still, they learned that he had apparent control of Heinrich Köllman's Swiss bank-account, the most decisive clue that the scientist was still alive and in hiding.

Mosbacher went to the table, flicking through the photostat of the account-records that had arrived five days ago
en route
to the surgeon. Over £3,000,000. He wondered how Bock had gained control. It didn't matter. It was certainly enough to buy back embarrassing secrets being held to ransom. The Nazis would have even more, he knew.

He was aware that Perez was awake, watching him.

“It'll be a fine day,” he said, looking out over the city.

“It starts today,” said Perez, dully.

“Yes.”

“Nervous?”

“Yes.”

“Of what—failure? Or getting hurt?”

What answer did the young man want? conjectured Mosbacher. Surely Perez wasn't frightened of being injured. They'd been too well trained for that.

“Both, I suppose,” he replied.

“Do you know what I thought about, yesterday?” asked the younger man.

Mosbacher turned from the window. Perez was lying, hands locked behind his head, gazing at the ceiling.

“No,” he said.

“I was thinking of my son. I looked at the picture that Rachel sent me and I thought that my father must have felt like I did then, when he saw me for the first time. And when he saw my sister. And then I thought of what happened in Buchenwald.”

Let him talk, decided Mosbacher. It was probably useful therapy.

“Can you imagine what it's like, forced to watch children that you've created and the mother who gave birth to them, subjected, day after day, to experiments to establish their degree of physical survival? And your level of mental tolerance?”

He was crying, Mosbacher saw.

“No,” he said. “I don't think anyone can imagine that.”

“He did it,” said Perez, distantly. “Köllman did it.”

“I know, Uri,” said Mosbacher, softly. “They all committed crimes it's difficult to comprehend.”

“We might fail,” said the man, with unexpected pessimism. He turned on his side, so he could look across the room. “Have you thought about that?”

“Of course,” said Mosbacher.

Neither spoke for several minutes. Then Perez said: “If we fail … if there's no reaction, I mean, then I'm going to make them suffer. I'm going to kill every Nazi we can locate … I'm going to do it, Arron. I'm going to kill them all …”

He was serious, realized Mosbacher. He would have to act immediately, if things went wrong. An injection would be the best way if he could accomplish it, rendering Uri unconscious until they got him back to Israel. Whatever method he chose, he would have to stop Perez doing something that would get him jailed. Or killed. Uri had suffered enough. And he hadn't seen his son, either.