Kurnov had seized a word, like a drowning man grabbing a lifebelt.
“Phony?” he asked.
Perez laughed again.
“Oh yes, Heinrich. Phony. All I did was work upon your fear … I manipulated you entirely, through fear …”
Kurnov shook his head, unable to comprehend. He wasn’t meant to, of course. Not yet. He had to be teased sufficiently to the brink of collapse.
“We had plenty of accounts from the Jews who survived Buchenwald and Auschwitz of the experiments upon the Russians … I saw them myself. But we had no documentary, irrefutable proof. And the relationship between the Soviet Union and Israel isn’t one where they would accept sworn evidence from Jewish ex-prisoners. And we didn’t know your adoptive name, either. So I had to do two things: discover the name, and create the evidence. That’s why I mounted the dive in Toplitz. All I wanted was some Nazi debris … anything would have done, for us to produce at a Jerusalem press conference …”
The acceptance of what he was being told began to settle, and Kurnov slumped in the chair, held there only by the bonds that secured him. For the second time in his life he had panicked, he realized.
There had been no need to come out of the Soviet Union. Had he stayed, behind the barrier he had created for himself in Russia, he would have been safe for the rest of his life.
“You mean …?” he groped, needing the confirmation.
“Yes, Heinrich,” said Perez. “There is no fourth box from Toplitz. There never has been. We had no proof at all that you were Heinrich Köllman until your carefully recorded confession here tonight. Our only lead was knowing that the surgeon, Bock, controlled the money you’d hidden away from the Nazis. Because he never used it, we guessed you were still alive. And that, as far as we could establish, you were somewhere in Russia. That became my strongest lever. I knew if you thought we had evidence of the Russian atrocities you’d have to come out from wherever you were hiding. Apart from the obvious communication problems, you couldn’t ask the Nazis to recover it for you. Because they wanted you as much as we did. And it would have been equally impossible to get an undetected message to the surgeon from Russia. I knew you’d have to expose yourself … nobody could have been entrusted with recovering something as important as this … that’s why I knew you’d need to take over from Bock. No one could get involved but you, could they?”
Perez stopped, looking down.
“The deaths of the commando squad were my only mistake,” he reiterated. “If they hadn’t been assassinated, the whole project would have gone off perfectly.”
The recrimination he had been fighting against engulfed Kurnov. He twitched against the manacles holding him and slowly tears began to run down his face. There was no sound as he cried.
“If their deaths served any purpose,” continued Perez, reflectively, “it was to focus world attention far better than we had hoped upon the raid. And the box which Shapiro recovered was seen as absolute proof of our story. All we had to do then was talk about the fourth box we believed contained your records, create a story based here in Berlin, and wait for you to capture yourself.”
There was no way he could have known, Kurnov tried to reassure himself, wanting to control the tears. He couldn’t break down in front of them and give them the satisfaction of knowing they’d broken him. He’d made a mistake, certainly. But there was no way he could have avoided it.
“It had to be Berlin, of course,” said Perez, shifting on the desk. “That was most important. Everything had to be connected with memories that would fill your mind and unsettle you. In any other environment, you might have developed doubts and pulled back. But I knew Berlin would smother your mind, like a blanket. All we had to do was pressure Bock, knowing he would be the only man you could approach. And watch for you to get here.”
He smiled across the narrow gap between them. He was very excited by what he had done, Kurnov knew.
“And you came, just like I said you would. Nobody else thought I could manipulate a man’s mind as I have manipulated yours. Do you know, Heinrich, there has scarcely been a moment since this began that I couldn’t have guessed exactly what you were thinking? I anticipated everything … the trauma of returning to Berlin … the fear of knowing that everyone would be looking for you … the apprehension that the Russians might discover what you were doing … the memories … everything …”
“What are you going to do?” asked Kurnov. If they intended killing him, they would have done it immediately. They wouldn’t have waited this long to torture him, either. The detailed account that Perez was giving wasn’t the boasting of a man who had succeeded in springing a perfect trap. So what was the purpose?
“That’s always the greatest fear, isn’t it, Heinrich? Not knowing. It’s quite easy to send a man insane, just from apprehension, once fear has been instilled in him, isn’t it?”
Kurnov stared up, waiting. Was that it? Were they trying to crush his mind? He snatched at the flicker of hope. He’d be able to resist, he decided. He’d be able to anticipate the pressures and easily counteract them.
“It’s very clever,” said Perez, without any conceit. “You see, Heinrich, Israel knows that the world is irritated by her … that it would lose more than it gained by another Eichmann trial … you’re the last spectacular coup, but even that is only for our own satisfaction. No one else will know we’re involved …”
He glanced at his watch.
“… Only two hours ago, Jerusalem announced an abject apology for intruding into Austria and said all inquiries about what was alleged to have been recovered from the lake would be handed over to the appropriate authorities …”
Kurnov felt his mind wavering again and tried desperately to understand what Perez was saying.
“You’re in a whirlpool, Heinrich. And there’s no possible way you can stop yourself being sucked down.”
“For God’s sake …” pleaded Kurnov, confused.
“Listen carefully,” insisted Perez. “Listen to what’s going to happen to you …”
Kurnov snapped up, eyes fixed on Perez’s face and then regretted the gesture. It had been part of the psychiatry, he realized, and was carefully prepared to determine the degree of mental erosion.
“Like I said, I knew you’d have to come out of hiding. Although we didn’t know your identity, we had some clear indications that you had achieved a position of some authority, so there’d be no difficulty in your getting exit permission. I also knew that the Organisation der Ehemaligen S.S. Angehörgen would be desperate to get the evidence, too. Not because it involved you, although that was sufficient reason, but because we were careful to announce it contained evidence against nearly every surviving Nazi …”
He paused, to make a point.
“It was quite easy to test how close the Nazis were. It was obvious that with the facilities they command, they would put an intercept on the Israeli embassy telephone. We experimented. We staged a fictitious meeting between someone from the embassy and the person supposd to have the box. Within two hours, they turned up. So we knew we had them, just like we had you.”
“I don’t understand … I still don’t understand,” protested Kurnov.
“Last night we baited the real trap,” said Perez. “And they all walked into it, all fifteen of them …”
He coughed, tired by the explanation.
“… They’re dead,” he went on. “We’ve destroyed the Organisation der Ehemaligen S.S. Angehörgen in Berlin … there’ll never be another moment when the Nazis in Egypt and South America can feel completely secure, knowing that they have a control setup here.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Oh, it’s very important to you, Heinrich,” assured Perez. He stood, moving closer to the tethered man. Kurnov pulled away, expecting to be hit, but then realized Perez was holding up something for him to see. Oh God, he thought, how completely they’d trapped him. There were over a dozen photographs, perfectly taken through an i
nfra-red filter with a fast film. Print followed print, each more damning than that which preceded it. There was Kurnov giving the Nazi salute … standing admiringly before the picture of Hitler and the Nazi flag … even kneeling in a position that looked like homage before one of the busts at the side of the room.
Happy at Kurnov’s reaction, Perez pulled back, edging on to the desk again.
“How about this?” he commanded. Kurnov’s voice filled the room, the tape recording perfect.
“… The Führer was a great man … Another three years and we would have perfected the germ experiments that would have rid Europe of every Jew, gypsy and black … It was the Führer’s own instructions that the freezing experiments should be conducted not only on Jews, but on the Russian prisoners as well … The Russians would shoot me, if they knew … For them to discover I’m the person responsible for Russian deaths in a concentration camp … would drive the fools insane …”
Perez stopped the machine.
“I never guessed you would offer so much for the tape recording, while you believed all the time that you were manipulating the mind of a deranged Nazi,” admitted Perez.
“There’s a movie film, of course,” added the Israeli. “We’ve several copies of everything. But one is in a briefcase that the West German police recovered two hours ago lying beside the body of a very famous man in West Berlin. He’s known now as Frieden, but it won’t take long to establish that he was a former Standartenführer for the area that covered Buchenwald. He’s one of the Nazis we killed. But ballistics examination of the bodies will show the bullets all came from guns still in their hands or around their bodies … with their fingerprints on them … a classic case of Nazis falling out over something very important …”
He paused.
“… And you will be that very important reason, Heinrich. That will be the only conclusion the police will be able to draw. Another gun was taken from the scene. That’s got your fingerprints on it, which we carefully took when you were unconscious …”
Kurnov’s head began to move again, unable to accept what was being explained to him.
“Think how the police will reconstruct it all, Heinrich. Fifteen men, who will be proven within twenty-four hours all to have been Nazis, all dead after what looks like an internal fight. Inside a basement flat in the apartment-block they uncovered a room, decorated exactly like this, a shrine to Nazism. And inside the briefcase by the body of the obvious leader, there is a record of you bargaining for the evidence that the world has been assured was uncovered from Toplitz … plus the confession of why you had to leave Russia to retrieve it. There’s only one possible reconstruction, isn’t there?”
He paused, as if he expected Kurnov to give it. Kurnov just moaned.
“The only assumption can be that, with a group of Nazis still loyal, you went tonight to collect the evidence from another group … After the bargaining, there was a fight … a fight from which you and perhaps others escaped … presumably with the evidence you’d come to collect, apparently unaware of the recordings Frieden intended to use for blackmail …”
“Stop,” shouted Kurnov, hysteria very close now. “I don’t want to hear any more. It’s madness … madness …”
“No, it’s not,” rejected Perez. “It’s perfectly simple. And there’s even better to come …”
Kurnov stared, dully.
“This was as far as we had planned it,” he conceded. “We wanted to create the situation where the West German police, with fingerprints proving you were Heinrich Köllman and a full tape-recorded confession of war crimes, would be hunting you in West Berlin for involvement in murder. But now the Russians have made it even better. They’ve been aware of what you’ve been doing here. We know that: I was quite surprised you missed the surveillance. We even had to block them following you tonight. It seems they’ve drawn the same conclusion as that which we’ve tried to implant in the minds of the police. Four hours ago, they announced you’d defected. And that you were a Nazi, undoubtedly contacting old associates. What better confirmation will the authorities want?”
Kurnov was soaked in perspiration. The sour smell of his own body came up at him, disgustingly. At least he wasn’t going to be tortured, physically, he thought. There were merely going to hand him over to the authorities. Somehow, it seemed almost an anti-climax. Inexplicably, he felt suddenly happy. He tried to control the emotion, recognizing the ski-slope of hysteria.
“So there you are, Heinrich,” finished Perez. “You’re completely exposed … fingerprints, that confirm you are Heinrich Köllman, on a gun that killed at least two people tonight … an admitted slaughterer of Jews and Russians … wanted by West Berlin and Moscow …”
Kurnov dragged his face up to the other man, realizing he had not finished.
“And now we’re going to let you go,” announced Perez, simply.
Kurnov searched, unable to form the words. Again the head shook.
“Yes, Heinrich,” pressed the psychiatrist, “I intend you to suffer. Don’t you remember what one of your early experiments showed? That the human acceptance of knowing there is nothing a man can do to avoid disaster is one of the most horrifying of mental pressures? That’s what it was like at the camps, Heinrich. That was the most insidious torture of all, knowing that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that anybody could do to avoid whatever fate you decided for them. And that’s what’s going to happen to you. You’re as imprisoned as if you were an inmate of Dachau or Buchenwald. There’s no way you can get out of this encircled city. The West Germans are looking for you … the Russians want you … probably a few surviving Nazis, too, if they can group themselves again. All of them, chasing you …”
Perez nodded, and Kurnov felt the manacles being removed.
“So now you can run, Heinrich. You can run, to try to hide, like the Jews did when you came into the camps, looking for a fresh consignment of guinea pigs. There won’t be a moment when you can relax, Heinrich. The pictures taken here tonight will be released, showing your new face. Which is hardly necessary; Russia has made photographs available. They’ll be in Bild Zeitung and B-Z and Die Welt and every other newspaper circulating in the city. There’ll be massive coverage on both A R D channels, so anyone who has a television set will recognize you. By tonight, there won’t be anybody in West Berlin who doesn’t know what your face looks like. Imagine that, Heinrich! You’ll be just like the Jews … hunted wherever you go …”
Kurnov slipped off the chair, kneeling in the room for the second time.
“No,” he pleaded. “Please God, no.”
He reached out, imploringly, and Perez stared down at him.
“I had one doubt, about the entire operation,” said the Israeli. “I never thought, once I’d captured you, that I’d be able to hold back from hurting you, physically. But I can. I can because I know exactly what I’m going to do and I know it’s causing more pain than any physical torture would.”
He nodded, and Kurnov felt himself jerked up. “You’ve still got all your Russian documents in your pockets,” said Perez, evenly. “And I’ve left you with two marks. That’s a personal gesture. That’s exactly what I had, when I came out of Buchenwald …”
He waved the bank-drafts that Kurnov had handed over, hours before.
“And thanks for the £3,000,000,” he said “Such a present to yids from a Nazi like you!”
He turned away, exhausted.
“Put him in the street,” he ordered. “Let him start running.”
Kurnov’s legs buckled and he tried to get back on to the floor, but the men held him easily, dragging his feet over the concrete.
Suddenly Perez spoke again. “Of course, you’ll try to explain everything, when you’re finally caught,” he said, not bothering to turn back to the man. “In an hour, this room will be what it always has been, a cellar. Our own forensic experts are going to clean it, so there’ll be no evidence to support your story. The owner is a Jew, of course. He’ll be amazed at
any inquiries put to him. There’s no way to prove your innocence, Heinrich. No way at all.”
Mosbacher paused, leaving the others initially to drag Kurnov from the room.
From the minute vestibule came the sound of Kurnov, whimpering.
“I was right,” said Mosbacher, positively. “There was no justification for doing it this way.”
Perez turned to reply, but Mosbacher had already left the room.
Gerda Pöhl stood at her accustomed place at the window that morning, overlooking Duisburgerstrasse, drinking her coffee. He wouldn’t come now, she thought. Herr Muntz had made a mistake. She’d benefited from it, though, she decided, walking into the bedroom and looking at the still-unworn suit. She’d put it on, she thought, when she visited Heini’s grave at the weekend. And then linger over her coffee on the Kurfürstendamn, so that her new clothes would be noticed. She went into the kitchen, rinsed the cup and saucer and left them to drain, pausing before the refrigerator. She opened it, looking guiltily inside. She’d rationed herself to three slices a day, but it was nearly all gone, she saw. Heinrich had liked ham so much, she remembered.
The first injection three days before had made him sick. But then Bock, who had been cured of his heroin addiction five years earlier, had expected it. But it was better now. It was a wonderful sensation, like being supported on fluffy clouds. Nothing could hurt him or get to him, through the protection of the clouds, he thought, lying back in his apartment. He would control it this time, he told himself. It wouldn’t get out of hand, like five years ago, threatening to interfere with his work.
He’d be sensible, restricting the injections. No more than three a day. It was stupid for doctors to argue about dependence leading to greater and greater doses. Three a day, that’s all. The effect of the fix was subsiding, he recognized. Reality was coming at him, through the clouds, like seeing land far below an incoming aircraft. He wondered where Kurnov was: the conference ended today. He had expected contact. He had to know whether the Russian had recovered the contents of the box: his life might quite literally depend upon it. He looked at his watch. Nine-thirty. If there had been no call by eleven, he would have to go to the hotel, he knew. The prospect frightened him. He’d take another injection, he decided. It would be in addition to the number to which he had rationed himself, but there was a particular reason. He wouldn’t do it again. Just this once. There wouldn’t be any danger.
Man Who Wanted Tomorrow Page 18
