The Odessa File

by Frederick Forsyth

  ‘He is a scientist?’ asked the West German in bewilderment.

  ‘No, certainly not. When he was forced to disappear in 1955 he would normally have returned to Argentina. But your predecessor was required by us to provide him immediately with a false passport to enable him to stay in Germany. He was then funded out of Zürich with one million US dollars with which to start a factory in Germany. The original purpose was to use the factory as a front for another type of research in which we were interested at the time, but which has now been shelved in favour of the guidance systems for the rockets of Helwan.

  ‘The factory Vulkan now runs manufactures transistor radios. But this is a front. In the research department of the factory a group of scientists is even now in the process of devising the tele-guidance systems that will one day be fitted to the rockets of Helwan.’

  ‘Why don’t they simply go to Egypt?’ asked the other.

  Gluecks smiled again and continued pacing.

  ‘That is the stroke of genius behind the whole operation. I told you that there were men in Germany capable of producing such rocket-guidance systems, but none could be persuaded to emigrate. The group of them who now work in the research department of Vulkan’s factory actually believe they are working on a contract, in conditions of top secrecy of course, for the Defence Ministry in Bonn.’

  This time the subordinate got out of his chair, his coffee spilling on the carpet.

  ‘God in heaven. How on earth was that arranged?’

  ‘Basically quite simple. The Paris Treaty forbids Germany to do research into rockets. The men under Vulkan were sworn to secrecy by a genuine official of the Defence Ministry in Bonn, who also happens to be one of us. He was accompanied by a general whose face the scientists could recognise from the last war. They are all men prepared to work for Germany, even against the terms of the Paris Treaty, but not necessarily prepared to work for Egypt. Now they believe they are working for Germany.

  ‘Of course, the cost is stupendous. Normally research of this nature can only be undertaken by a major power. This entire programme has made enormous inroads into our secret funds. Now do you understand the importance of Vulkan?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied the Odessa chief from Germany. ‘But if anything happened to him, could not the programme go on?’

  ‘No. The factory and the company are owned and run by him alone. He is chairman and managing director, sole shareholder and paymaster. He alone can continue to pay the salaries of the scientists and the enormous research costs involved. None of the scientists ever has anything to do with anyone else in the firm, and no one else in the firm knows the true nature of the over-large research station. They believe the men in the closed-off section are working on micro-wave circuits with a view to making a breakthrough in the transistor market. The secrecy is explained as a precaution against industrial espionage. The only link man between the two sections is Vulkan. If he went, the entire project would collapse.’

  ‘Can you tell me the name of the factory?’

  General Gluecks considered for a moment, then mentioned a name. The other man stared at him in astonishment.

  ‘But I know those radios,’ he protested.

  ‘Of course. It’s a bona-fide firm and makes bona-fide radios.’

  ‘And the managing director … he is?’

  ‘Yes. He is Vulkan. Now you see the importance of this man and what he is doing. For that reason there is one other instruction to you. Here …’

  General Gluecks took a photograph from his breast pocket and handed it to the man from Germany. After a long, perplexed gaze at the face, he turned it over and read the name on the back.

  ‘Good God, I thought he was in South America.’

  Gluecks shook his head.

  ‘On the contrary. He is Vulkan. At the present time his work has reached a most crucial stage. If by any chance, therefore, you should get a whisper of anyone asking inconvenient questions about this man, that person should be … discouraged. One warning, and then a permanent solution. Do you follow me, Kamerad? No one, repeat, no one is to get anywhere near exposing Vulkan for who he really is.’

  The SS general rose. His visitor did likewise.

  ‘That will be all,’ said Gluecks. ‘You have your instructions.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘BUT YOU DON’T even know if he’s alive.’

  Peter Miller and Karl Brandt were sitting side by side in Miller’s car outside the house of the detective inspector, where Miller had traced him over Sunday lunch on his day off.

  ‘No, I don’t. So that’s the first thing I have to find out. If Roschmann’s dead, obviously that’s the end of it. Can you help me?’

  Brandt considered the request, then slowly shook his head.

  ‘No, sorry, I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Look, I gave you that diary as a favour. Just between us. Because it shocked me, because I thought it might make a story for you. But I never thought you were going to try and track Roschmann down. Why can’t you just make a story out of the finding of the diary?’

  ‘Because there’s no story in it,’ said Miller. ‘What am I supposed to say? “Surprise, surprise, I’ve found a loose-leaf folder in which an old man who just gassed himself describes what he went through during the war?” You think any editor’s going to buy that? I happen to think it’s a horrifying document, but that’s just my opinion. There have been hundreds of memoirs written since the war. The world’s getting tired of them. Just the diary alone won’t sell to any editor in Germany.’

  ‘So what are you going on about?’ asked Brandt.

  ‘Simply this. Get a major police hunt started for Roschmann on the basis of the diary, and I’ve got a story.’

  Brandt tapped his ash slowly into the dashboard tray.

  ‘There won’t be a major police hunt,’ he said. ‘Look, Peter, you may know journalism, but I know the Hamburg police. Our job is to keep Hamburg crime-free now, in 1963. Nobody’s going to start detaching overworked detectives to hunt a man for what he did in Riga twenty years ago. It’s not on.’

  ‘But you could at least raise the matter?’ said Miller. Brandt shook his head.

  ‘No. Not me.’

  ‘Why not? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to get involved. You’re all right. You’re single, unattached. You can go off chasing will-o’-the-wisps if you want to. I’ve got a wife and two kids, and a good career, and I don’t intend to jeopardise that career.’

  ‘Why should this jeopardise your career with the police? Roschmann’s a criminal, isn’t he? Police forces are supposed to hunt criminals. Where’s the problem?’

  Brandt crushed out his stub.

  ‘It’s difficult to put one’s finger on. But there’s a sort of attitude in the police, nothing concrete, just a feeling. And that feeling is that to start probing too energetically into the war crimes of the SS can do a young policeman’s career a power of no-good. Nothing comes of it anyway. The request would simply be denied. But the fact that it was made goes into a file. Then bang goes your chance of promotion. Nobody mentions it, but everyone knows it. So if you want to make a big issue out of this, you’re on your own. Count me out.’

  Miller sat and stared through the windscreen.

  ‘All right. If that’s the way it is,’ he said at length. ‘But I’ve got to start somewhere. Did Tauber leave anything else behind when he died?’

  ‘Well, there was a brief note. I had to take it and include it in my report on the suicide. By now it will have been filed away. And the file’s closed.’

  ‘What did he say in it?’ asked Miller.

  ‘Not much,’ said Brandt. ‘He just said he was committing suicide. Oh, there was one thing; he said he left his effects to a friend of his, a Herr Marx.’

  ‘Well, that’s a start. Where’s this Marx?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’ said Brandt.

  ‘You mean to say that’s all the note sa
id? Just Herr Marx? No address?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Brandt. ‘Just Marx. No indication where he lives.’

  ‘Well, he must be around somewhere. Didn’t you look for him?’

  Brandt sighed.

  ‘Will you get this through your head? We are very busy in the police force. Have you any idea how many Marxs there are in Hamburg? Hundreds in the telephone directory alone. We can’t spend weeks looking for this particular Marx. Anyway, what the old man left wasn’t worth ten pfennigs.’

  ‘That’s all then?’ asked Miller. ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Not a thing. If you want to find Marx you’re welcome to try.’

  ‘Thanks. I will,’ said Miller. The two men shook hands and Brandt returned to his family lunch table.

  Miller started the next morning by visiting the house where Tauber had lived. The door was opened by a middle-aged man wearing a pair of stained trousers supported by string, a collarless shirt open at the neck and three days’ stubble round his chin.

  ‘’Morning. Are you the landlord?’

  The man looked Miller up and down and nodded. He smelled of cabbage.

  ‘There was a man gassed himself here a few nights back,’ said Miller.

  ‘Are you from the police?’

  ‘No. The Press.’ Miller showed the man his press card.

  ‘I ain’t got nothing to say.’

  Miller eased a ten-mark note without too much trouble into the man’s hand.

  ‘I only want to look at his room.’

  ‘I’ve re-let it.’

  ‘What did you do with his stuff?’

  ‘It’s in the backyard. Nothing else I could do with it.’

  The pile of junk was lying in a heap under the thin rain. It still smelt of gas. There was a battered old typewriter, two scuffed pairs of shoes, an assortment of clothes, a pile of books and a fringed white-silk scarf that Miller assumed must be something to do with the Jewish religion. He went through everything in the pile, but there was no indication of an address book and nothing addressed to Marx.

  ‘Is that the lot?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s the lot,’ said the man, regarding him sourly from the shelter of the back door.

  ‘Do you have any tenant by the name of Marx?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Do you know of any Marx?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Did old Tauber have any friends?’

  ‘Not that I knew of. Kept himself to himself. Came and went at all hours, shuffling about up there. Barmy if you ask me. But he paid his rent regular. Didn’t cause no trouble.’

  ‘Ever seen him with anybody? Out in the street I mean.’

  ‘No, never. Didn’t seem to have any friends. Not surprised, the way he kept mumbling to himself. Barmy.’

  Miller left, and started asking up and down the street. Most people remembered seeing the old man, shuffling along, head down, wrapped in an ankle-length greatcoat, head covered by a woollen cap, hands in woollen gloves from which the fingertips protruded.

  For three days he quartered the area of streets where Tauber lived, checking through the dairy, the greengrocer, the butcher, the hardware store, the beer-bar, the tobacconist, intercepting the milkman and the postman. It was Wednesday afternoon when he found the group of urchins playing football up against the warehouse wall.

  ‘What, that old Jew? Mad Solly?’ said the leader of the group in answer to his question. The rest gathered round.

  ‘That’s the one,’ said Miller. ‘Mad Solly.’

  ‘He was barmy,’ said one of the crowd. ‘He used to walk like this.’

  The boy hunched his head into his shoulders, hands clutching his jacket round him, and shuffled forward a few paces, muttering to himself and casting his eyes about. The others dissolved in laughter, and one gave the impersonator a hefty shove which sent him sprawling.

  ‘Anyone ever see him with anyone else?’ asked Miller. ‘Talking with anyone else. Another man.’

  ‘Whatcher want to know for?’ asked the leader, suspiciously. ‘We didn’t do him no harm.’

  Miller flicked a five-mark coin idly up and down in one hand. Eight pairs of eyes watched the silver glitter of the spinning coin. Eight heads shook slowly. Miller turned and walked away.

  ‘Mister.’

  He stopped and turned round. The smallest of the group had caught up with him.

  ‘I seen him once with a man. Talking they was. Sitting and talking.’

  ‘Where was that?’

  ‘Down by the river. On the grass bank along the river. There are some benches there. They was sitting on a bench talking.’

  ‘How old was he, the other one?’

  ‘Very old. Lot of white hair.’

  Miller tossed him the coin, convinced it had been a wasted gesture. But he walked to the river and stared down the length of the grass bank in either direction. There were a dozen benches along the bank, each of them empty. In summer there would be plenty of people sitting along the Elbe Chaussee watching the great liners come in and out, but not at the end of November.

  To his left along the near bank lay the fisher port, with half a dozen North Sea trawlers drawn up at the wharves, discharging their loads of fresh-caught herring and mackerel, or preparing for the sea again.

  As a boy he had returned to the shattered city from a farm in the country where he had been evacuated during the bombing, and had grown up amid the rubble and the ruins. His favourite playing place had been this fisher port along the river at Altona.

  He liked the fishermen, gruff, kindly men who smelt of tar and salt and shag tobacco. He thought of Eduard Roschmann in Riga, and wondered how the same country could produce them both.

  His mind came back to Tauber and went over the problem again. Where could he possibly have met his friend Marx? He knew there was something missing, but could not put his finger on it. It was not until he was back in his car and had stopped for petrol close to Altona railway station that the answer came. As so often, it was a chance remark. The pump attendant pointed out there had been a price increase in top-grade petrol and added, just to make conversation with his customer, that money went less and less far these days. He went to get the change and left Miller staring at the open wallet in his hand.

  Money. Where did Tauber get his money? He didn’t work, he refused to accept any compensation from the State of Germany. Yet he paid his rent regularly and must have had something left over with which to eat. He was fifty-six years old, so he could not have had an old-age pension, but he could well have had a disability pension. Probably did.

  Miller pocketed his change, gunned the Jaguar to life and drove round to Altona post office. He approached the grille marked ‘Pensions’.

  ‘Can you tell me when the pensioners collect their money?’ he asked the fat lady behind the grille.

  ‘Last day of the month, of course,’ she said.

  ‘That will be Saturday then?’

  ‘Except at weekends. This month it will be Friday, the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Does that include those with disability pensions?’ he asked.

  ‘Everyone who’s entitled to a pension collects it on the last day of the month.’

  ‘Here, at this grille?’

  ‘If the person lives in Altona, yes,’ replied the woman.

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘From opening time onwards.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  *

  Miller was back on Friday morning, watching the queue of old men and women begin to filter through the doors of the post office when it opened. He positioned himself against the wall opposite, watching the direction they took as they departed. Many had white hair, but most wore hats against the cold. The weather had turned dry again, sunny but chill. Just before eleven an old man with a shock of white hair like candy floss came out of the post office, counted his money to make sure it was all there, put it in his inside pocket and looked round as if searching for someone. After a few minutes he turned an
d began to walk slowly away. At the corner he looked up and down again, then turned down Museum Street in the direction of the river bank. Miller eased himself off the wall and followed him.

  It took the old man twenty minutes to get the half-mile to the Elbe Chaussee, then he turned up the bank, crossed the grass and settled himself on a bench. Miller approached slowly from behind.

  ‘Herr Marx?’

  The old man turned as Miller came round the end of the bench. He showed no surprise, as though he was often recognised by complete strangers.

  ‘Yes,’ he said gravely, ‘I am Marx.’

  ‘My name is Miller.’

  Marx inclined his head gravely in acceptance of this news.

  ‘Are you … er … waiting for Herr Tauber?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said the old man without surprise.

  ‘May I sit down?’

  ‘Please.’

  Miller sat beside him, so they both faced towards the river Elbe. A giant dry-cargo ship, the Kota Maru out of Yokohama, was easing downriver on the tide.

  ‘I’m afraid Herr Tauber is dead.’

  The old man stared at the passing ship. He showed neither grief nor surprise, as if such news was brought frequently. Perhaps it was.

  ‘I see,’ he said.

  Miller told him briefly about the events of the previous Friday night.

  ‘You don’t seem surprised. That he killed himself.’

  ‘No,’ said Marx, ‘he was a very unhappy man.’

  ‘He left a diary, you know.’

  ‘Yes, he told me once about that.’

  ‘Did you ever read it?’ asked Miller.

  ‘No, he never let anybody read it. But he told me about it.’

  ‘It described the time he spent in Riga during the war.’

  ‘Yes, he told me he was in Riga.’

  ‘Were you in Riga too?’

  The man turned and looked at him with sad old eyes.

  ‘No, I was in Dachau.’

  ‘Look, Herr Marx, I need your help. In his diary your friend mentioned a man, an SS officer, called Roschmann. Captain Eduard Roschmann. Did he ever mention him to you?’