“As I remember, there were some other folks who’re supposed to be running around up there in the Siebengebirge.”
“Really? Who?”
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
Ploscaru smiled slightly, even a little sadly. “And now there’ll be eight, won’t there?”
They encountered the British roadlbock on highway B 9 just as it reached the Bonn suburb of Bad Godesberg. A British sergeant accompanied by two privates approached the car and asked Jackson and Ploscaru for their passports.
“You might also want to look at this, Sergeant,” Jackson said, handing over the laissez-passer. The Sergeant examined the passports first. He took his time, glancing several times back and forth between the passport photos and the occupants of the Mercedes. He then leisurely opened the envelope and read the letter that it contained. If the four-star General’s signature was supposed to impress him, his face didn’t show it. He might have been reading the trolley schedule. He slowly refolded the letter, tucked it carefully back into its envelope, and handed it back along with the passports.
“You’ll be staying in Bonn?” he said.
“Bad Godesberg,” the dwarf said.
“Where?”
“The Godesberg Hotel.”
The Sergeant nodded thoughtfully. “All right, gentlemen. You can go.”
The Sergeant watched as the old Mercedes rolled away. Then he turned to one of the privates and said, “Get on the blower to the Major, Charlie, and tell him that the Yank and the midget will be staying at the Godesberg.”
The Godesberg Hotel was not the best hotel in either Bonn or Bad Godesberg. The best hotel was probably the Dreesen, where Hitler and Neville Chamberlain had met in 1938 just prior to Munich. However, Bonn had never been known for its hotels, but rather for its university and for being the birthplace of Beethoven, who had left as soon as he could for Vienna and the company of Mozart and Haydn, never to return. The war had nearly bypassed Bonn, although allied bombing and artillery had managed to destroy what some claimed was 30 percent of the city, although others charged that this estimate was far too high.
In its first postwar year Bonn remained what it had always been since the Romans founded it in 12 B.C. — sleepy, which was a guidebook euphemism for dull. And if Bonn was sleepy, Bad Godesberg was unconscious.
The Godesberg Hotel was a three-story building on a side street just off the Ringsdorf. Jackson and Ploscaru had only time enough to check in, unpack, and settle down in the dwarf’s room over a drink before someone started knocking at the door.
The dwarf opened it, looked up, and smiled. “Well,” he said, “what a delightful surprise. Do come in, Gilbert — and your friend, too.”
Maj. Gilbert Baker-Bates, dressed, in a tweed jacket and gray trousers, came into the room, followed by the man with yellow hair. Jackson decided that the jacket and trousers were the same that Baker-Bates had worn in Mexico. He tried to remember what the pay of a British major was, but couldn’t. He wondered whether it would be worthwhile finding out, but decided not. The dwarf would know. The dwarf always knew things like that.
Once in the room, Baker-Bates didn’t look at Ploscaru. Instead, he let his gaze wander around. When it reached Jackson he nodded, the way one might nod to a dimly remembered acquaintance at a large but dull cocktail party.
Still not looking at Ploscaru, Baker-Bates said, “How are you, Nick?”
“Well. Quite well, in fact. And you?”
Baker-Bates turned to the yellow-haired man. “This one’s Ploscaru, of course. And that one over there is Jackson. Minor Jackson.”
The yellow-haired man nodded, but only once.
Ploscaru smiled up at him. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
“It’s not going to be one, Nick. His name’s Von Staden. Heinrich von Staden. He’s your new nanny. Where you go, he goes.”
“Von Staden,” Ploscaru murmured. “Von Staden. Yes, I seem to remember now. You were one of Canaris’s bright young men, weren’t you? In Madrid for quite a while, I believe.”
Von Staden said nothing. Instead, he continued to examine the dwarf as if trying to decide whether to add him to some collection.
Rebuffs, however, were Ploscaru’s specialty and had been for a long time. He smiled cheerfully and said, “Let’s all have a drink, Gilbert, and Minor will show you a letter that you should find most interesting.”
“We’ll take the drink, but there’s no need to wave that letter around. I know what’s in it and who signed it, and I’m not impressed. One misstep and we clap you in jail, both of you, and if there’s a fuss, well, we’ll let Berlin sort it out.”
Jackson mixed two drinks. He handed one of them to Von Staden, who accepted it silently. When he handed Baker-Bates his, Jackson nodded toward Von Staden and said, “Doesn’t he ever shut up?”
“He’s a watcher, not a talker. You should’ve taken my advice and stayed away from Ploscaru.” Baker-Bates looked down at the dwarf. “He’s a treacherous little sod — aren’t you, Nick?”
“All Romanians are,” Ploscaru said with another cheerful smile. “It’s in our blood. But let’s talk about what we’re all interested in. Let’s talk about Kurt Oppenheimer. Tell us why you’re really interested in him, Gilbert.”
“You know why,” Baker-Bates said. “Because we bloody well don’t want him in Palestine.”
“I mean your real reason. No need to be shy; we’re all friends here.”
“You just heard it.”
“But that’s the public reason, Gilbert. Now tell us the private one — the one that scarcely anyone knows.”
“There is no private one, as you call it.”
“No? How strange. I thought there was. I mean, one can understand why you wouldn’t want Oppenheimer in Palestine. But with the Empire crumbling all about you, I thought there would be several spots where you could use a man of his peculiar talents. Greece, for example; Malaya; even India. I mean places where a spot of judicious killing might be in order.”
Baker-Bates stared down at the dwarf for several moments and then smiled, but it was a thin, tight-lipped smile without humor or teeth. “I’d almost forgotten how absolutely mad you really are, Nick.”
The dwarf shook his head and smiled reasonably. “No, not really. A trifle neurotic perhaps, but then, I have reason to be. Now, we know for a fact that the Russians want poor Oppenheimer. And the Americans, too. And I assume that both would pay a modest sum to whoever might deliver him into their eager hands. But what about your people, Gilbert? How much would they bid if he were, so to speak, offered up to them on a silver platter?”
“How much?”
“Yes. How much.”
“Nothing,” Baker-Bates said, putting his drink down. “Not a penny.”
“What a shame.”
Baker-Bates shook his head slowly. “Don’t try it, Nick. Don’t try it or we’ll step on you the same way that we’d step on a bug.” He paused. “A small bug.”
He turned and started for the door. Von Staden moved over quickly and opened it. But Baker-Bates turned back to stare for a long moment at Jackson. The Major nodded at the dwarf. “You can’t trust him, you know. You really can’t.”
Jackson smiled. “I know.”
27
As soon as Baker-Bates had gone, Ploscaru put his drink down, reached into a pocket, brought out a large wad of German marks, and put them on a table. He then reached into another pocket and brought out another wad. He kept on doing this until the table was almost covered with money. After that he looked up at Jackson and said, “Bait.”