“Take a look at this, Lieutenant, and see if the page that you saw is like the pages in this ledger.”
Lieutenant Fallon flipped through the ledger. “Yeah, I’d say it was. I’d say it was exactly like them, except that the one I saw was torn along one edge like it had been ripped out.”
“Let’s go back to that page for a moment,” Major Baker-Bates said. “You said there were two photographs on it?”
“One was a photograph of Wiese, or Gerwinat, or whatever the hell his name was. It looked like it had been taken through a window when he wasn’t looking. What I mean is that Wiese didn’t look like he knew his picture was being taken.”
“And the other photograph?” Baker-Bates said.
“Same thing, except that it didn’t look like it was taken through a window.”
“It was of a man?”
“Yeah, a man.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Hell, I just glanced at it. I would say he was a guy about forty or forty-five.”
“Was he fat-faced, thin-faced, did he wear glasses, what?”
Lieutenant Fallon shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t remember. I don’t think he wore glasses, but I couldn’t swear to it.”
“No, that would be too much to hope for,” Baker-Bates said.
Lieutenant Meyer sighed. “Okay, let’s take it once more step by step.”
A pained expression appeared on Fallon’s face. “You mean the whole thing?”
“No, just when he handed you the sheet of paper with the photographs on it. What did he say?”
“He just had me look at it, and when I said I couldn’t read German, he said he’d have the interpreter translate it. You know, Wiese.”
“How long did you look at the page?”
“How long — just a few seconds.”
“But you tried to read it?”
“Sure.”
“Now think carefully. Was there anything that you can remember not from the section of the page that concerned Wiese, but the other section — the lower one?”
Fallon screwed up his face in honest concentration. Meyer and Baker-Bates waited patiently. Finally, Fallon shook his head. “About the only thing I could read was the numbers.”
“What numbers?”
“There were a couple of numbers for some kind of address. Two of them, I think. Either twelve or thirteen or maybe fifteen. I remember that it was a low number.”
“How did you know they were for an address?”
“Because they were just before Something-strasse. Well, hell, I know what a Strasse is.”
“But you don’t remember what Strasse it was?”
“I sure don’t.”
“What a pity,” Baker-Bates said.
“But I remember what came right after the address.”
“What?”
“The name of the city. That I could read. Would that be any help?”
Meyer and Baker-Bates looked at each other. Then Meyer, in a very careful voice, said, “That might help just a little, Lieutenant What city was it?”
“Bonn,” Fallon said. “The reason I remembered it was because last month when I took a trip up the Rhine that was far as we got. It’s a pretty little town. You guys ever been there?”
“Not recently,” Major Baker-Bates said.
When they went back out to Meyer’s jeep after questioning both Corporal Little and Private Baxter, Major Baker-Bates was in a buoyant mood that bordered on ebullience. “Well, it looks as though it’s back in my court, doesn’t it?”
It was a glum nod that Meyer gave him. “Bonn’s in the British Zone, all right”
“You’ll be coming to Bonn, of course?”
“I’ll have to check.”
“I do so hope that you can. It’ll give me the opportunity to reciprocate your splendid hospitality.”
“Of course, there’s a chance that he might not go to Bonn.”
“Oppenheimer?”
Meyer nodded.
“Oh, he’ll go to Bonn all right.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“He has a list, doesn’t he? Sort of a things-to-do list — although, in this instance, it’s a people-to-kill list.”
“Yeah, he’s got a list.”
“And he’s German, isn’t he?”
Again, Meyer nodded.
“Did you ever see a German who, given a list of things to do, didn’t start at the top and work his way right down to the bottom? They are, Lieutenant, a most methodical people. It’s one of their primary virtues, provided that they have any virtues at all.”
“Oppenheimer’s a Jew.”
“But he’s also a German, my boy. He has his little list of things to do, people to kill. He’s started at the top and he’ll work his way down right to the bottom.”
“Unless somebody stops him.”
“Oh, I’ll stop him all right,” Major Baker-Bates said. “I’ll stop him in Bonn.”
22
Some twenty kilometers east of the Opel plant, the UNRRA Ford sedan turned in to the dairy farm. At the wheel was Heinrich, the butler-chauffeur and former caterer of Nazi social affairs in Berlin. His two passengers were Jackson and the dwarf. In the trunk of the car were fifty cartons of American cigarettes.
The farmhouse was built of reddish stone with a slate roof, as was the dairy barn, which was attached to it at a right angle. In the middle of the barnyard — and in Jackson’s opinion, far too close to the house — was a huge, steaming pile of manure.
“Let me guess,” Jackson said, nodding at the manure pile. “He’s got it hidden under that.”
The dwarf wrinkled his nose. “It’s a sign of prosperity, you know.”
“He must be a very rich man.”
“I will bring him,” Heinrich said, and got out of the car. Skirting carefully around the manure pile, he went up to the farmhouse and banged on its door with a fist. The door was opened a suspicious inch or two. Heinrich said something, the door opened wider, and the farmer came out.
He was a stocky, thick-waisted man of about fifty dressed in rubber boots and stained, dirty green coveralls. On his head was a shapeless black felt hat, and under it his face wore the wary, careful expression of a peasant who’s convinced that he’s about to be cheated. His eyes were small, blue, and cunning, the eyes of a skilled bargainer. Jackson decided that he would let the dwarf do all the dickering. The dwarf was good at it.
Jackson and Ploscaru got out of the car, but no introductions were made. The farmer stared at them a moment, especially at Ploscaru; grunted; and jerked his head in the direction in which he intended to lead them. He moved off, and the three men fell in behind.
“Why all the mystery, Nick?” Jackson said as they followed the fanner around toward the back of the barn.
“It’s not a mystery, it’s a surprise,” Ploscaru said. “Everybody likes surprise.”
“I don’t.”
“You’ll like this one.”
In back of the barn, the farmer stopped at a crude shed without walls that apparently had been erected to afford some protection to a four-foot-high stack of hay. All there was to the shed was its plank roof and the four poles that supported it.
The farmer picked up a rake and started pulling the hay down and to one side. The hay was only a few inches deep on top. Underneath it was a stained, patched canvas that covered something. When most of the hay was gone, the farmer peeled away the canvas, and Jackson said, “Sweet Jesus!”
It was red, and it had two bullet holes through its windshield. A leather strap was buckled around its immense hood. The radiator cap was adorned with a three-pointed star.
Jackson looked at the dwarf, who was beaming. “Isn’t it beautiful?” Ploscaru said.