“We’d best go there.”
Bodden smiled. “It’s a cold place; no heat, you know. But I managed to locate a bottle of brandy.”
“We’ll warm ourselves with that, then,” Eva Scheel said.
There was only one chair in Bodden’s room. One chair, a bed, a pine table, a wardrobe, a window, and a bicycle that he carried up and down three flights of stairs to keep it from being stolen.
“Home,” he said as he ushered her into the room.
Eva Scheel looked around. “I’ve seen worse.”
“And better, too, no doubt. You have a choice — the bed or the chair.”
“The bed, I think.” She walked over and sat down on it. “I see you found yourself a bicycle.”
“At the DP camp in Badenhausen,” Bodden said as he opened the wardrobe and took down a bottle of Branntwein and two mismatched glasses. “There was a man there. A Czech called Kubista. Apparently he’s the resident forger. We talked. For a price, he might sell me some useful information. I would have bought it on the spot had I had the funds.”
“How much?”
“A hundred American dollars.”
“This Czech. He has done business with Oppenheimer?”
Bodden nodded as he handed her a glass of brandy. “He hinted as much.”
She took from her coat pocket a small purse, opened it, and counted out ten $20 bills. “Buy it,” she said. “After that, you will be going to Bonn.”
“And what will I find in Bonn?”
“Oppenheimer, if you’re lucky. He has killed another.”
“A busy man.”
“He has a list. The next one on the list is in Bonn.”
Bodden smiled. “Your young American officer must have been in one of his talkative moods.”
“Very. I heard it all for the first time when he came to see Oppenheimer’s sister this afternoon. I heard it for the second time, plus his theories, over my steak. Now when I tell it to you I’ll be hearing it for the third time.”
She told him then, everything that Lt. LaFollette Meyer had told her, including his disappointment over the fact that the search for Kurt Oppenheimer would now be centered in Bonn and under the jurisdiction of the British and Major Baker-Bates.
When she was through, Bodden refilled their glasses. “It will be a miracle if I find him first.”
“Berlin doesn’t expect miracles.”
Bodden nodded thoughtfully. “You have heard from them?”
“This morning. A courier. She brought instructions plus an enormous amount of money.”
“How large is enormous?”
“Twenty-seven thousand dollars.”
“You’re right; that is enormous.”
“Two thousand is for our expenses.”
“And the other twenty-five?”
“With that you will buy Oppenheimer from the dwarf, should the dwarf find him first.”
“But I am still to try to find him myself, since Berlin, no doubt, is as economical as always.”
“You are to try very hard.”
“You have met the dwarf?”
Eva Scheel shook her head. “No, but I have met his colleague. The American called Jackson.”
“What did you think?”
She took a sip of her brandy and frowned. “I’m not sure. He is not your typical American. He lacks ambition, I think. An American without ambition is rather rare, you know. If he had it, or a purpose that he believed important, I feel he could be very hard, very ruthless.”
“How old is he?”
“In his early thirties.”
“Intelligent?”
“He is no fool. He also has some interesting theories.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the theory that Berlin — or I suppose I should say, Moscow — wants Oppenheimer in Palestine. Jackson came up with the unusual suggestion that a renegade Jew could be quite useful to the Palestinians. And to Moscow.”
“Your Mr. Jackson has a complicated mind.”
Eva Scheel nodded. “Yes, I thought you’d think so.”
Bodden clasped his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair, and gazed up at the ceiling. “The dwarf is playing a double game, of course. That’s to be expected. He’s a Romanian, and they must learn it in their cradles. But what about this Jackson? You say he is without ambition. Deception requires a certain amount of that.”
“A good point. The dwarf, I suppose, could simply be using him. My young American tells me that Jackson has some unofficial but very influential connections with American intelligence in Washington. I would say that the Americans are letting Jackson run to see where he goes. My young American had a very unusual description for Jackson. How good is your English?”
“Try me.”
“He called Jackson an ‘ex-OSS hotshot.’”
“Hotshot I know from the Pole.”
“What Pole?”
“The one who taught me American English. A very funny fellow.” He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “What would happen, do you think, should this Jackson learn that the dwarf was playing a double game?”
“Nothing perhaps. He might only shrug — unless it turned out badly for him. In that case, I would hate to be the dwarf.”
Bodden was again silent for several long moments as he examined all that he had been told. “Then,” he said finally, “there are the British.”
She sighed. “I was wondering when you would get to them. I was almost hoping that you wouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if the British find Oppenheimer first, then Berlin has additional instructions for you.”
“What?”
She dropped her gaze to her drink. “You are to kill him — somehow.”
“Well, now.”
There was yet another silence until, looking at him this time, she said, “Have you ever done anything like that before?”
He nodded. “I have killed, but I have never murdered. There is a difference. At least, I like to think there is. It makes my sleep more restful.”
She went back to the inspection of her drink. “Could you do it?”
This time the silence was longer than ever. Bodden at last decided that there was nothing to lose by being honest. “I don’t know,” he said. “It would depend on — on many things.”
She looked up at him. “Opportunity?”
“Yes, there is that. If the British had him locked up, there might not be any opportunity.”
She nodded. “That’s why I will also be going to Bonn. As I said, Berlin doesn’t expect miracles. But it would be no miracle if the British were to let his sister and her oldest friend in to see Oppenheimer, would it?”
Bodden frowned with his forehead. Distaste was written across the rest of his face. “They don’t expect you to kill him, surely?”
“No, but I could easily slip him the means to kill himself. It is really only a very small pill.”
“Which he would choose over a hanging.”
She smiled slightly, although there was no trace of humor in it. “If Berlin can’t have Oppenheimer for themselves, they would be quite happy for the British to hang him — or the Americans. But they won’t hang him — either of them.”
Bodden was beginning to understand. He nodded slowly. “Yes, I see. If Berlin is willing to pay twenty-five thousand dollars for an assassin, think what he must be worth to the British — not to mention the Americans.”
“They are very rare, I suppose,” she said. “Assassins. Good ones, anyway. Tell me, printer, do you ever think of yourself that way — as an assassin?”
“No,” he said. “Never.”
“I thought not.” She patted the bed by her side. “Sit over here — beside me. That way you won’t have to keep hopping up to fill my glass. We are going to finish it, aren’t we — your bottle — just to keep warm?”
Bodden rose. “I thought we might.” He kicked the chair over near the bed, placed the bottle on it, and sat down next to her.