The Odessa File

‘Basically quite simple. The Paris Treaty forbids Germany to do research into rockets. The men under Vulkan were sworn to secrecy by a genuine official of the Defence Ministry in Bonn, who also happens to be one of us. He was accompanied by a general whose face the scientists could recognise from the last war. They are all men prepared to work for Germany, even against the terms of the Paris Treaty, but not necessarily prepared to work for Egypt. Now they believe they are working for Germany.

‘Of course, the cost is stupendous. Normally research of this nature can only be undertaken by a major power. This entire programme has made enormous inroads into our secret funds. Now do you understand the importance of Vulkan?’

‘Of course,’ replied the Odessa chief from Germany. ‘But if anything happened to him, could not the programme go on?’

‘No. The factory and the company are owned and run by him alone. He is chairman and managing director, sole shareholder and paymaster. He alone can continue to pay the salaries of the scientists and the enormous research costs involved. None of the scientists ever has anything to do with anyone else in the firm, and no one else in the firm knows the true nature of the over-large research station. They believe the men in the closed-off section are working on micro-wave circuits with a view to making a breakthrough in the transistor market. The secrecy is explained as a precaution against industrial espionage. The only link man between the two sections is Vulkan. If he went, the entire project would collapse.’

‘Can you tell me the name of the factory?’

General Gluecks considered for a moment, then mentioned a name. The other man stared at him in astonishment.

‘But I know those radios,’ he protested.

‘Of course. It’s a bona-fide firm and makes bona-fide radios.’

‘And the managing director … he is?’

‘Yes. He is Vulkan. Now you see the importance of this man and what he is doing. For that reason there is one other instruction to you. Here …’

General Gluecks took a photograph from his breast pocket and handed it to the man from Germany. After a long, perplexed gaze at the face, he turned it over and read the name on the back.

‘Good God, I thought he was in South America.’

Gluecks shook his head.

‘On the contrary. He is Vulkan. At the present time his work has reached a most crucial stage. If by any chance, therefore, you should get a whisper of anyone asking inconvenient questions about this man, that person should be … discouraged. One warning, and then a permanent solution. Do you follow me, Kamerad? No one, repeat, no one is to get anywhere near exposing Vulkan for who he really is.’

The SS general rose. His visitor did likewise.

‘That will be all,’ said Gluecks. ‘You have your instructions.’

Chapter Four

‘BUT YOU DON’T even know if he’s alive.’

Peter Miller and Karl Brandt were sitting side by side in Miller’s car outside the house of the detective inspector, where Miller had traced him over Sunday lunch on his day off.

‘No, I don’t. So that’s the first thing I have to find out. If Roschmann’s dead, obviously that’s the end of it. Can you help me?’

Brandt considered the request, then slowly shook his head.

‘No, sorry, I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Look, I gave you that diary as a favour. Just between us. Because it shocked me, because I thought it might make a story for you. But I never thought you were going to try and track Roschmann down. Why can’t you just make a story out of the finding of the diary?’

‘Because there’s no story in it,’ said Miller. ‘What am I supposed to say? “Surprise, surprise, I’ve found a loose-leaf folder in which an old man who just gassed himself describes what he went through during the war?” You think any editor’s going to buy that? I happen to think it’s a horrifying document, but that’s just my opinion. There have been hundreds of memoirs written since the war. The world’s getting tired of them. Just the diary alone won’t sell to any editor in Germany.’

‘So what are you going on about?’ asked Brandt.

‘Simply this. Get a major police hunt started for Roschmann on the basis of the diary, and I’ve got a story.’

Brandt tapped his ash slowly into the dashboard tray.

‘There won’t be a major police hunt,’ he said. ‘Look, Peter, you may know journalism, but I know the Hamburg police. Our job is to keep Hamburg crime-free now, in 1963. Nobody’s going to start detaching overworked detectives to hunt a man for what he did in Riga twenty years ago. It’s not on.’

‘But you could at least raise the matter?’ said Miller. Brandt shook his head.