The Odessa File

Miller nodded in amazement.

‘Heels together,’ roared Oster. ‘I want to hear the leather smack. All right, since we may not have much time, we’ll press on starting from tonight. Before supper we’ll tackle the ranks, from private up to full general. You’ll learn the titles, mode of address and collar insignia of every SS rank that ever existed. Then we’ll go on to the various types of uniform used, the differing branches of the SS and their different insignia, the occasions when gala uniform, full-dress uniform, walking-out uniform, combat uniform and fatigue dress would be worn.

‘After that I’ll put you through the full political-ideological course that you would have undergone at Dachau SS training camp, had you been there. Then you’ll learn the marching songs, the drinking songs and the various unit songs.

‘I can get you as far as your departure from training camp for your first posting. After that Leon has to tell me what unit you were supposed to have joined, where you worked, under which commanding officer, what happened to you at the end of the war, how you have passed your time since 1945. However, the first part of the training will take from two to three weeks, and that’s a crash course.

‘By the way, don’t think this is a joke. If you are once inside the Odessa, knowing who the top men are, and you make one slip in procedure, you’ll end up in a canal. Believe me, I’m no milksop, and after betraying the Odessa, even I’m running scared of them. That’s why I live here under a new name.’

For the first time since he had set off on his one-man hunt for Eduard Roschmann, Miller wondered if he had not already gone too far.

Mackensen reported to the Werwolf on the dot of ten. When the door to the room where Hilda worked was safely shut, the Werwolf seated the executioner in the client’s chair opposite the desk and lit a cigar.

‘There is a certain person, a newspaper reporter, inquiring about the whereabouts and the new identity of one of our comrades,’ he began. The liquidator nodded with understanding. Several times before he had heard one of his briefings begin in the same way.

‘In the normal course of events,’ resumed the Werwolf, ‘we would be prepared to let the matter rest, convinced either that the reporter would

eventually give up for lack of progress or because the man being sought was not worth our while making an expensive and hazardous effort to save.’

‘But this time it’s different?’ asked Mackensen softly. The Werwolf nodded, with what might have been a genuine regret.

‘Yes. Through bad luck, ours on the grounds of the inconvenience involved, his on the grounds it will cost him his life, the reporter has unwittingly touched a nerve. For one thing the man he is seeking is a man of vital, absolutely vital, importance to us and to our long-term planning. For another, the reporter himself seems to be an odd character – intelligent, tenacious, ingenious, and I regret wholly committed to extracting a sort of personal vengeance from the Kamerad.’

‘Any motive?’ asked Mackensen. The Werwolf’s puzzlement showed in his frown. He tapped ash from his cigar before replying.

‘We cannot understand why there should be, but evidently there is,’ he murmured. ‘The man he is looking for undoubtedly has a background which might excite certain dislike among such as the Jews and their friends. He commanded a ghetto in Ostland. Some, mainly foreigners, refuse to acknowledge our justification for what was done there. The odd thing about this report is that he is neither foreign, nor Jewish, not a noted left-winger, nor one of the well-known type of conscience cowboys, who in any case seldom get beyond giving vent to a lot of piss and wind, but nothing else.

‘But this man seems different. He’s a young German, Aryan, son of a war hero, nothing in his background to suggest such a depth of hatred towards us, nor such an obsession with tracing one of our Kameraden, despite a firm and clear warning to stay off the matter. It gives me some regret to order his death. Yet he leaves me no alternative. That is what I must do.’

‘Kill him?’ asked Mack the Knife.

‘Kill him,’ confirmed the Werwolf.

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Not known.’ The Werwolf flicked two sheets of foolscap paper covered with typed words across the desk.

‘That’s the man. Peter Miller, reporter and investigator. He was last seen at the Dreesen Hotel in Bad Godesberg. He’s certainly gone from there by now, but it’s a good enough place to start. The other place would be his own flat, where his girlfriend lives with him. You should represent yourself as a man sent by one of the major magazines for which he normally works. That way, the girl will probably talk to you, if she knows his whereabouts. He drives a noticeable car. You’ll find all the details of it there.’

‘I’ll need money,’ said Mackensen. The Werwolf had foreseen the request. He pushed a wad of 10,000 marks across the desk.

‘And the orders?’ asked the killer.

‘Locate and liquidate,’ said the Werwolf.

It was January 13th before the news of the death in Bremen five days earlier of Rolf Gunther Kolb reached Leon in Munich. The letter from his north German representative included the dead man’s driving licence.

Leon checked the man’s rank and number in his list of former SS men, checked the West German wanted list and saw that Kolb was not on it, spent some time gazing at the face on the driving licence and made his decision.

He called Motti, who was on duty at the telephone exchange where he worked, and his assistant reported to him when he had finished his shift. Leon laid the driving, licence of Kolb in front of him.

‘That’s the man we need,’ he said. ‘He was a staff sergeant at the age of nineteen, promoted just before the war ended. They must have been very short of material. Kolb’s face and Miller’s don’t match, even if Miller were made up, which is a procedure I don’t like anyway. It’s too easy to see through at close range.

‘But the height and build fit with Miller. So we’ll need a new photograph. That can wait. To cover the photograph we’ll need a replica of the stamp of the Bremen Police Traffic Department. See to it.’

When Motti had gone, Leon dialled a number in Bremen and gave further orders.

‘All right,’ said Alfred Oster to his pupil. ‘Now we’ll start on the songs. You heard of the Horst Wessel song?’