The Odessa File

‘Good,’ said the Werwolf. ‘There’s a small job I want you to do. Some snooper has been inquiring into one of the Kameraden. I need to find out who he is.’

‘Zu Befehl’ (At your command) came down the phone.

‘Excellent. But between ourselves Kamerad will do. After all, we are all comrades-in-arms.’

Memmers’ voice came back, evidently pleased by the flattery.

‘Yes, Kamerad.’

‘All I have about the man is his car number. A Hamburg registration.’ The Werwolf read it slowly down the telephone.

‘Got that?’

‘Yes, Kamerad.’

‘I’d like you to go to Hamburg personally. I want to know the name and address, profession, family and dependants, social standing … you know, the normal run-down. How long would that take you?’

‘About forty-eight hours,’ said Memmers.

‘Good, I’ll ring you back forty-eight hours from now. One last thing. There is to be no approach made to the subject. If possible it is to be done in such a way that he does not know any inquiry has been made. Is that clear?’

‘Certainly. It’s no problem.’

‘When you have finished, prepare your account and give it to me over the phone when I ring you. I will send you the cash by post.’

Memmers expostulated.

‘There will be no account, Kamerad. Not for a matter concerning the Comradeship.’

‘Very well then. I’ll ring you back in two days.’

The Werwolf put the phone down.

Miller set off from Hamburg the same afternoon, taking the same autobahn he had travelled two weeks earlier past Bremen, Osnabrück and Munster towards Cologne and the Rhineland. This time his destination was Bonn, the small and boring town on the river’s edge that Konrad Adenauer had chosen as the capital of the Federal Republic, because he came from it.

Just south of Bremen his Jaguar crossed Memmers’ Opel speeding north to Hamburg. Oblivious of each other the two men flashed past on their separate missions.

It was dark when he entered the single long main street of Bonn and seeing the white-topped peaked cap of a traffic policeman he drew up beside him.

‘Can you tell me the way to the British Embassy?’ he asked the policeman.

‘It will be closed in an hour,’ said the policeman, a true Rhinelander.

‘Then I’d better get there all the quicker,’ said Miller. ‘Where is it?’

The policeman pointed straight down the road towards the south.

‘Keep straight on down here, follow the tramlines. This street becomes Friedrich Ebert Allee. Just follow the tramlines. As you are about to leave Bonn and enter Bad Godesberg, you’ll see it on your left. It’s lit up and it’s got the British flag flying outside it.’

Miller nodded his thanks and drove on. The British Embassy was where the policeman had said, sandwiched between a building site on the Bonn side and a football pitch on the other, both a sea of mud in the December fog rolling up off the river behind the embassy.

It was a long, low grey concrete building, built back to front, referred to by British newspaper correspondents in Bonn since it was built as ‘The Hoover Factory’. Miller swung off the road and parked in one of the slots provided for visitors.

He walked through the wooden-framed glass doors and found himself in a small foyer with a desk on his left, behind which sat a middle-aged receptionist. Beyond her was a small room inhabited by two blue-serge-suited men who bore the unmistakable stamp of former army sergeants.

‘I would like to speak with the press attaché, please,’ said Miller, using his halting school English. The receptionist looked worried.

‘I don’t know if he’s still here. It is Friday afternoon, you know.’