Pursuit (49 page)

“Who are they, do you know? Is there a card?”

“There is no card, señor. I do not know who they are, but they said they were old friends.”

The waiter completed his task by neatly pouring the balloon glass to a faint line in the crystal one quarter way up and left, taking the tray but leaving the bottle of brandy. Grossman frowned and turned again. One of the two men had risen and was approaching his table. The man was tall, a bit stooped, and had a full head of hair fashionably curling about his ears and unusually thick and dark for the lines in his face. He smiled as he came up in friendly fashion and held out his hand, speaking in German.

“Benjamin, it's good to see you after all these years!”

Grossman accepted the hand and shook it in puzzled fashion. “I'm afraid you have the advantage—”

“Benjamin Grossman, don't tell me you don't recognize me! Ah, the hair, no doubt. Still, it would be poor form to remove it here, with all these good people eating.” The man pulled up a chair and sat down. At the other table the second man simply sat and waited, his face wreathed in the smoke of the thick cigar between his lips. The man at Grossman's table dropped his voice. “It's been a while, of course. Twenty-seven years since I operated on your face—”

Grossman felt a sudden frightening jolt to his stomach.

“Schlossberg!”

“Not so loud. Not that it really matters here,” Schlossberg said, and tilted his head to one side, examining the features he had created such a long time before. He nodded in satisfaction. “Not bad, if I say so myself. It has stood up quite well. Of course I do surgery no longer. Actually, you were one of my last patients; I'm pleased it turned out so well.”

The doctor had gained a little weight, and the hairpiece changed his appearance greatly; in general, age had treated Franz Schlossberg kindly. The greatest difference was in his attitude. He no longer appeared to be the diffident, apprehensive man Grossman had known in the camps, but instead now seemed to exude a confidence that added to Grossman's sense of unreality. The second man, seeing the ice had been broken, now came to his feet and walked to their table. After the shock of Schlossberg, Grossman was really not surprised to see it was Klaus Mittendorf. Mittendorf smiled blandly and sat down on the other side of Grossman.

“Well, well! Hello, Colonel. Or should I say, Brigadier General?”

Grossman looked around the dining room in sudden panic, unable to believe that all eyes were not upon them, all ears tuned to their discussion, but the other diners seemed to be paying no attention at all, and he realized the restaurant chosen by the two for their confrontation was ideal for their purposes. The noise level was high and the food and drink such as to focus the attention of the diners on their plates and glasses. He brought his own attention back to the men on either side of him.

“How—how did you find me?”

“Find you?” Mittendorf said, sounding surprised. “My dear Colonel, we never lost you.” Mittendorf was enjoying himself immensely. They had known who and what Benjamin Grossman was for years, and where he was, and for all those years he had wanted to expose the man. And for all those years the ODESSA organization had insisted they would eventually find a use for Grossman and that they were not interested in personal revenge. And in this respect he had to admit the organization had been right. But, now! What pleasure in combining his revenge with the requirements of the organization! “We never lost you, Colonel,” he said again, bringing the words past the cigar in his mouth, savoring the words as much as the cigar.

“My dear Helmut,” Schlossberg said quietly, “you always insisted that I call you Helmut, remember?—you didn't really believe I would operate on you, change your appearance, and not tell the Party, did you? We have followed the career of Benjamin Grossman with intense interest all these years, believe me. We were pleased when you survived Bergen-Belsen—”

“Some people were pleased, some not so pleased,” Mittendorf said, and chuckled. “How was it there, Colonel? Bad, eh? Real bad?”

Schlossberg cut in smoothly with a chiding glance at Mittendorf.

“And with your picture all over every airport and dock when the British were going to hang you for murder in Palestine, we could hardly miss that, could we? With our contacts among the Arabs? And of course since then you've become quite a hero with your name in the newspapers quite often. How did we find you?” He shrugged. “As Klaus says, we never lost you.”

Grossman suddenly reached out and picked up the glass of brandy, downing it quickly. It seemed to calm him a bit. He waved aside the waiter who had approached once the glass had been emptied, and poured himself a second drink, but did not drink it. He looked at Schlossberg evenly.

“I introduced you to ODESSA. It saved your life.”

“And I appreciate it.”

“Do you? I also gave you money—”

“I appreciate that as well. It enabled me to live quite comfortably until my ranch began to produce. I'm rather a wealthy man now, and I admit I owe a good bit of it to you.”

Mittendorf laughed. “And you couldn't get the rest out! Ah, Colonel, the mistakes you made!” The heavy-set Mittendorf was having fun. What a pleasure to see the concern, the panic, on the thin Jew-face of the bastard when Schlossberg had sat down at the table! No arrogance now; none of that supercilious shit from the bastard now! No important friends in Berlin to lean on now; no family name other than one that didn't even exist! What a joy!

“So you know that, too?” Grossman was looking at him, seeing the same Mittendorf, feeling the same contempt for the man he had always felt. The very contempt took the panic away; his mind began to function again. Mittendorf would really never be a danger, but the new Dr. Schlossberg might well be.

“We know everything there is to know about Brigadier General Benjamin Grossman,” Schlossberg said quietly. “And about his wife, Deborah, who is head hurse at the Magen David Adom first-aid station, and about his son, Herzl, and about everything else. Just as we know everything about Mengele and Bormann and the others who escaped the hangman and who someday we may call upon for their services.”

“So ODESSA still exists …”

“Of course it still exists,” Mittendorf said contemptuously.

“And you two are still a part of it?”

“We
three
are still a part of it,” Schlossberg said evenly.

“And what does that mean?”

Schlossberg leaned back comfortably, the introductions over, ready for the business of the evening.

“It means we have a job for you.”

“And if I refuse your job?”

“Not my job;
our
job. And why would you refuse?” Schlossberg asked, as if puzzled by the question. “You, a dedicated member of the Party? You took an oath as a gentleman and an officer of the SS. I knew when I operated upon you that you wished to save your life only for and until the day you could once again do your best for the Party, no? So why would you possibly refuse?”

“Besides,” Mittendorf added, his tiny eyes dancing with mirth, the smoke fairly exploding from his cigar as he chuckled around it, “who would put you on trial first? Who would have the opportunity to hang the famous Colonel Helmut von Schraeder, the Monster of Maidanek, eh? Poland? The Russians? Or—Israel, as they did Eichmann?” He laughed. “They would spend fortunes outbidding each other for you.”

Schlossberg looked at Mittendorf reprovingly.

“There is no need for threats, I am sure. Colonel von Schraeder knows his duty and as a dedicated officer I am sure he is ready to perform it.”

Grossman sat quietly, listening to the not very subtle sarcasm, staring into the amber depths of his brandy glass, fingering the delicate crystal gently. At last he sighed and looked up.

“All right. What do you want?”

“That's better—”

Schlossberg pulled his chair a trifle closer to Grossman. It was evident that he was in charge of the operation and that Mittendorf had been permitted to attend only as a concession to his ancient feelings of hatred. Schlossberg spoke quietly and slowly.

“In 1965,” he said, “some six years ago, several hundred pounds of enriched uranium were stolen—or borrowed, or lost, or begged, or strayed, it makes little difference—from an enriching plant in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States of America. The factory, incidentally, was owned by a Jew. You know of this missing uranium, of course.”

Grossman sat silent, watching the other man, his face expressionless.

“Of course you do,” Schlossberg said evenly, not permitting the slightest doubt, and went on. “Then just a few years ago, in France, a truck carrying a much larger cargo of uranium—not yellow-cake but again enriched—was hijacked. This time we estimate the amount taken was substantial; many tons. And with this enriched uranium, as I'm sure you know, any decent scientific organization can quite easily produce atomic weapons.”

He was watching Grossman closely now, watching for the slightest change on the man's rigid face, any sign that Grossman's reaction would indicate he was striking home.

“Now,” Schlossberg went on, “we are convinced that all of this uranium ended up in Israel.” He held up his hand. “Before you waste your time denying this, if you intend to, I might mention that we are not alone in this belief. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA in the United States are equally sure.”

Grossman raised an eyebrow. “ODESSA has men in the FBI and the CIA?”

“ODESSA has men everywhere,” Mittendorf said, and suddenly smirked. “We even have a brigadier general in the Israeli Army named Benjamin Grossman, don't we?”

Schlossberg waved him to silence, concentrating on Grossman.

“Where we have men and where we don't has nothing to do with it. Getting back to this enriched uranium, we are sure not all of it has been processed into weapons; the amount would indicate an inordinate number of weapons beyond any immediate need. Besides, there undoubtedly will be further developments in the field, developments that will also require enriched uranium. So we believe Israel is holding, in its original pellet form, a great deal of this uranium.”

He looked around the room, satisfying himself that their conversation was entirely private and that the three of them appeared to be nothing more than three associates discussing business over a brandy. Grossman waited patiently, his face a mask, anticipating the demand soon to be made upon him. Schlossberg nodded.

“You know what we want, of course. Israel has so much enriched uranium they won't even miss the small amount we need. Fifty pounds …”

Grossman pursed his lips. “For exactly what purpose?”

Schlossberg looked disappointed, as if his high opinion of the other's intelligence had suddenly been put in doubt.

“For the obvious reason, of course,” he said, and leaned closer, his eyes alight with enthusiasm, almost fanatacism. “Can you picture the power of any group—of our group, ODESSA—holding the threat of an atomic weapon in our hands? We could get all the money we needed. We could get anyone out of prison we wanted, even Hess, the poor sod. In comparison with the idiots who hijack airplanes, we could really
demand!
”

“True,” Grossman said in agreement, since it obviously was true. “But who would believe you had the bomb unless you detonated it? And if you detonated it, what would you have left for your threat?”

Schlossberg smiled at him, a pitying smile.

“You were the one who always believed in having two strings to your bow. It takes about twenty-two pounds of enriched uranium to make a small bomb; fifty pounds will do us nicely for two bombs. One bomb will be dropped in a suitable place—the Negev or the Sinai, possibly—to prove we are serious. The second will be held in abeyance as the threat. As a very real threat!” He looked at Grossman directly. “And please don't tell us you know nothing of this material or where it is stored in Israel. We would scarcely believe you.”

Grossman looked back at the man, his face expressionless. Mittendorf leaned over.

“And if we didn't believe you, we might have to denounce you to the Jews …”

Grossman smiled gently. He had been expecting this threat since the two men joined him at his table, and had formulated his response once his initial panic had left him.

“To begin with,” he said easily, “would our friend Dr. Schlossberg, who was tried and sentenced to death in absentia in Nuremberg, and you, Mittendorf, who the Poles and Russians are still looking for after all these years—would you two charming gentlemen be in any position to testify at any trial I might be asked to undergo? I rather doubt it.” He smiled and continued. “Secondly, even if you were foolhardly enough to present yourselves, who would believe you? It would be your word against mine—two known war criminals against the word of a man who suffered a year in Bergen-Belsen and later became a hero—if you'll forgive the immodesty—in his adopted country's army. And your motive for formulating this lie would be easily determined—to weaken the Israeli Army, undoubtedly at the behest of the Arabs. Thirdly, of course, is a matter of proof. ODESSA was kind enough to eliminate any records of Colonel Helmut von Schraeder, and the Allied bombers over Hamburg were kind enough to totally eliminate any possible records of a fictitious Benjamin Grossman. So, gentlemen—” He spread his hands apologetically. “I should think if there were to be any threats, they would come from my side, not yours.”

“Although they would also not get very far,” Schlossberg said, “since both Klaus and I have well-established identities other than our original ones in a place you will never know, and not in Argentina, if that is any help to you. You should be flattered; we traveled a long way to meet you tonight.” Schlossberg sighed. “I was afraid a brilliant man such as you would see the weakness of our argument,” he said regretfully. “Our first argument, that is …”