It was eight o’clock the next morning when his train pulled into Vienna. He had a shower and shave in the station bathroom, and put on clean clothes. He put his bag in a locker.
Salztorgasse is a depressing street that leads off the broad Danube Canal, in what looks like the garment district. Number 6 is an old, four-storey office building, which also happens to be the building the Gestapo used as their Vienna headquarters in the bad old days. At the next intersection is a synagogue, guarded nowadays by a policeman with a submachine-gun. The Documentation Centre has an inconspicuous nameplate on the doorpost. McQuade pressed the button. He had the feeling a television eye was watching him. He said into the entry-phone: ‘My name is McQuade, I telephoned you yesterday from Freiburg.’
The door clicked open. He entered a bare hallway and walked up to the second floor, where an armed policeman sat outside the door of the Documentation Centre. McQuade nodded politely and pressed the bell.
He was admitted by a polite Austrian woman in no-nonsense tweeds.
‘May I see your passport, please?’
She took it into an office on her right. She returned a minute later, with a smile.
McQuade hung his coat on the rack. There were framed certificates on the walls, honorary doctorates awarded to Simon Wiesenthal. He glanced into the secretaries’ office. Three women sat at desks; the walls were lined with hundreds of files and books. Suddenly a figure appeared down the passage.
A large old man was looking at him, checking him out.
‘So, you want to write a book about Nazi hunters?’ Simon Wiesenthal said.
The room was cluttered. A large desk covered with files, the walls lined with crammed bookshelves, two armchairs and sofa in old red velvet, and a brass Moroccan coffee table. On one wall hung a large map of central Europe with the legend ‘Deutschland Unter Der Hitler Diktatur 1933 – 1945’. Studded across it were Stars of David, indicating Nazi concentration camps. Written beneath each star were the numbers of people murdered therein; France, 1,500,000, Holland 220,000 … Simon Wiesenthal sat in an armchair, a good-looking grandfather of a man with heavy eyelids. He said, as if he had given this interview many times:
‘I have no police powers. I cannot order arrests. All I can do is collect the evidence. Collect, collect. Every day many letters arrive, telling me they have seen this war-criminal here, seen that criminal there, people telling me they are witnesses to their terrible crimes. Everything is carefully evaluated. I have developed a feeling in my fingers for good evidence.’ He rubbed them together. ‘If the evidence is good, I act.’ He waved his hand at the secretaries’ room. ‘I have files of over one hundred and fifty thousand war-criminals I still want to bring to justice.’
McQuade was staggered at the number.
‘And me over seventy already! How much time have I got left to do my work? And at least twenty thousand of them can never be caught, because forty years have passed and the witnesses to their terrible crimes have died.’ He threw up his hands wearily. ‘Twenty thousand brutal murderers who are living comfortable lives as businessmen where people like you spend your money. Some of them are top men in Germany today. Well respected. But I know who they are.’ He tapped his old head. ‘And they know that I know … They do not sleep good at night. Because they do not know what witnesses still exist. Every time the door knocks, maybe it is Simon Wiesenthal come to say hullo.’ He looked at McQuade: ‘And that is good. Such people have no right to sleep.’
McQuade said, ‘But the other one hundred and thirty thousand?’
Simon Wiesenthal nodded. ‘I will catch as many as I can. But how many years are left to me? I pray the Lord to give me more, and health to work – to work. But how many can I still catch? Of course my job is difficult because I must be … super-careful never to damage an innocent person.’ He turned his old blue eyes to McQuade. ‘We must never do what the Nazis did.’
McQuade nodded earnestly. ‘Presumably these Nazis have assumed new identities?’
Wiesenthal nodded wearily. ‘Usually they only change their family names, because it is easier for a man to keep his first name – easier for his wife, his children, and they often change their appearances. For example, recently I have been looking for a man whose first name was Franz. I get evidence he is working in Brazil, at a German factory there. I send a man to Brazil to look at this Franz. My man must get friendly with a secretary in this company to look at the records about this Franz. Finally my man tells me there are nineteen men called Franz at this factory. So, there is much more work to do.’
‘So you have men who do such dangerous work?’
Simon Wiesenthal crinkled his eyes. ‘I have no police force. I don’t have hired guns. I am just a detective. I only have people who do enquiry work, voluntarily. Jews and Gentiles. All over the world. For example, banks. Banks often have much information about a man. His passport; his earlier passport; where his money comes from; and so on. Recently I had such a case in Milan. I went there. Sure enough it was my man. I had him arrested.’
‘By whom?’
‘By the public prosecutor. I have no strong young men to do my dirty work for me.’
McQuade did not believe that. ‘But if the public prosecutor refuses? As must happen sometimes in countries like South America?’
Simon Wiesenthal spread his hands eloquently. ‘All I can do is character assassination. Tell the press, the employer. Hopefully get him fired.’
‘You don’t call in Mossad? The Israeli secret service?’
Wiesenthal winced. ‘Mossad? The last time they had success was with Adolf Eichmann.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t work with Mossad. Or Interpol.’ (McQuade certainly did not believe that. Interpol, maybe – but Mossad?) ‘Something else you must understand for your book …’ He tapped his chest. ‘I am not interested in vengeance. I spent five years in five Nazi death camps, and somehow I survived. I was young. Maybe I was also smart. You can see I am a big man when I am properly fed. When I was liberated by the Americans I weighed only ninety pounds. My parents had died in the camps – I watched my mother being driven away by the SS. My own wife I believed to be dead in the camps – sent up the chimney, as the saying was. But somehow I survived! And somehow my wife did too, though I did not know she was also still alive until a long time afterwards.’ He looked across with those old judicial eyes, and for a flash McQuade felt the incredible horror of those frightful years. ‘When the Americans finally opened those terrible gates, and fed us, they asked me, “What work did you do before the war?” I told them I’d been an architect. When they said, “Well, you can go back to your people and build houses again,” I said to myself: “But who will live in the houses? My people are dead, how can I build houses only for money? No, I must do my best for the people who do not need houses any more.” And I resolved to try to see they got justice.’ He spread his hands. ‘But how do you bring justice for so much suffering? For so many dead? To so many little children who will never live in a nice warm house? But I decided to start trying. I stayed in the liberated camp and went from person to person and said “Tell me what happened to you. Tell me who did it. Give me names, dates, descriptions.” Because I knew that out there in the ruins of Germany these murderers, these torturers, these … SS men were slipping away, they had thrown away their smart uniforms … these hangmen were mixing with the starving refugees, saying to the Allies, “I was only an aircraft mechanic – please, I was only a private …” I knew that Generals in the SS and Gestapo were pretending they had nothing to do with those chimneys – with mass murder.’ He looked at McQuade, ‘So, with my friends, I began to write it all down. The names. The dates, the places. And I said to the Americans, “Arrest these criminals – here is the evidence …”’
McQuade was rapt. ‘And did they?’
‘When my facts were good. Because world opinion was outraged by the Nazis. They were preparing for the Nuremberg Trials. The world was finally conscious of the horrors.’ He sighed. ‘But when the Nuremberg Trials were over, and some top criminals hanged, world opinion was satisfied. The Allied troops went home, and the new ones who replaced them had not seen the horrors of the concentration camps, the survivors …’ He shrugged. ‘They were not so energetic after that, and there were plenty of pretty Fräuleins who were desperate for a pair of silk stockings or a tin of coffee. And now the Americans were more interested in catching communists than war-criminals, and even employed former SS officers to help them because they had inside knowledge of communist activities in Germany; for example Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons, even though the French wanted him for war crimes, the Americans shielded him because he was useful.’ He sighed. ‘So thousands upon thousands of war criminals escaped. Murderers – mass murderers.’ He waved a hand. ‘And today they live comfortable lives, all over the world, like respectable citizens. While the Bonzen, the Nazi bigwigs, don’t even work. They live like lords on Odessa funds.’
This was what McQuade badly wanted to know about. ‘Can you tell me about Odessa? Were their funds mostly Nazi plunder?’
Wiesenthal glanced at his watch.
‘Haven’t you read Frederick Forsyth’s book, The Odessa File? He came to me for advice, too.’
‘A long time ago,’ McQuade said. ‘I know Odessa was a secret organization to help Nazis—’
‘Is a secret organization,’ Wiesenthal interrupted, ‘which still very much exists. It stands for Organisation der SS-Angehörigen, “Organization of SS Members”.’ He sighed wearily. ‘Set up at the end of the war when the Allies were hunting SS men, Odessa helped SS members escape, paid for their defence at trials and supported their families. It pretended to be a charitable organization, but in reality it was a vast underground network between the SS members in captivity and the others outside. It had highly organized escape routes, produced perfect false documents and had safe-houses and sea-tickets and jobs and money. It even had friends in the Vatican – there was the “Monastery Route” over the Alps to Rome – and from there to Spain and South America. Also the Middle East, where the Nazis had big Arab friends also hostile to the Jews.’ Simon Wiesenthal sighed again. ‘Their funds were partly plunder, yes – the SS were in charge of the Final Solution, the concentration camps and confiscation of Jewish property. All the confiscated wealth was sent to the Reichsbank, the German Reserve Bank, including the gold from the teeth of the Jews sent to the gas chambers, and sure, some of it got into unauthorized hands. But most of the funds came from the big German industrialists who attended the Strasbourg Conference in 1944.’ He looked at McQuade. ‘Do you know about that?’
McQuade shook his head earnestly.
Wiesenthal glanced at his watch again.
‘The conference of Germany’s leading industrialists took place on the 10th August, 1944, at the Hotel Maison Rouge in Strasbourg. It was top secret. Hitler knew nothing about it. This was the “smart money” of Nazi Germany. They agreed that preparations must be made to safeguard Nazi assets from the Allies. They knew that the war was lost, so they must build up funds for the Third World War. They established large secret accounts and set up seven hundred and fifty companies in neutral countries for the rebuilding of the Fourth Reich. They created a network all over the world.’ Wiesenthal held up a finger. ‘I have seen the minutes of that meeting – the Americans found them …’
He got up and plucked a book off the shelves. ‘This is called The Murderers Amongst Us. I wrote it.’ He flicked through pages. ‘The chairman of the conference was Dr Scheid of Herrmannsdorfwerke. He said, and I quote: “From now on Germany’s industry must prepare for the economic post-war campaign. Every industrialist must seek contacts with firms abroad, without creating attention. And … we must be ready to finance the Nazi Party, which will be forced to go underground for some time.”’ Wiesenthal looked at McQuade meaningfully, then ran his finger down the page. ‘The minutes of the conference continue, “The Party leadership expects that some members will be convicted as war criminals. Thus preparations must be made to place less prominent leaders as ‘technical experts’ in various German key enterprises. The Party is ready to supply large amounts of money to industrialists who contribute to the post-war organization abroad …”’ he paused, then continued quoting with emphasis: ‘“so that after the defeat a strong new Reich can he built”.’
Wiesenthal looked at McQuade, then snapped the book closed. ‘Furthermore, it is well known that the Nazis buried dozens of crates of treasure in the lakes in the Aussee region of Austria, for future use, and Hitler hid billions of dollars worth of plundered art treasures in a salt mine in the region – which the Americans discovered and returned to their rightful owners. But only a fraction of the treasure in the Aussee lakes has been recovered. Der Stern magazine mounted a diving operation in 1959, which brought up fifteen crates, but they only contained counterfeit English five-pound notes.’
McQuade’s pulse tripped. Counterfeit fivers … Wiesenthal slapped the book back on its shelf.
‘So a vast economic network was set up to prepare for the Fourth Reich. And that’s where Odessa gets its money from, to this day.’ He paused, then ended, ‘And thousands upon thousands of war-criminals escaped. To South America. And to Australia, and to South Africa. Even to the United States, and England. Where they live happily to this day.’ He added, ‘We have given the Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Hayden, a list of two hundred Nazi criminals living in Australia – he has promised action. In 1948 the British asked the Australians to “go easy” on war-criminals, you know. In Britain itself there are over two hundred – we have complained to the Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, and he is going to form a War Crimes Inquiry and advertise for witnesses.’
‘War-criminals escaped to South Africa?’ McQuade had not meant to echo that.
Wiesenthal shrugged. ‘A lot. Many Afrikaners were pro-Germany during the war, and now have a big neo-Nazi organization there, that even uses a swastika-like emblem – what do they call it, the AWB?’
‘But do you consider that AWB a significant force? Or lunatic fringe?’
Wiesenthal snorted. ‘Any neo-Nazi movement is significant, my friend, because Nazism is not dead – its evil is alive and well, world-wide. My information from South Africa is that the AWB is very powerful, and a serious threat to the government. It has direct historical parallels with the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany – decadent South Africa, public discontent, persecution of the blacks, even the Ghetto-mentality of Nazi Germany is legally enforced by the Group Areas Act, public anxiety about the future – then a lion comes out of the hills, like Adolf Hitler did, and whips the people up into a belligerent attitude. This AWB leader even demands “Lebensraum”, just like Hitler did – except he calls it his pure-white state.’
McQuade considered the old man was exaggerating the situation, but he again recalled the Schmidt ranch, and the three-legged swastika of the AWB. Wiesenthal went on: ‘Many Nazi war-criminals are right here in Germany and Austria. As directors of big companies. Pillars of society. Some of them are even top civil servants, some even in parliament.’
McQuade was rapt. ‘And are they still Nazis?’
Wiesenthal smiled grimly. ‘Although the Nazi Party is banned in Germany, Mr McQuade, it is very much alive. Its economic power is enormous. There has been a resurgence of Nazism.’ He waved his hand. ‘I’m not talking about the ordinary suburban Germans who lived under Hitler – they got swept along because people are sheep, and the vast majority want to forget their past. No, I’m talking about serious,’ he clenched his fist, ‘hard-core Nazis, who believe in Hitler’s National Socialism, who seriously want to re-establish it.’ He sighed. ‘And this is world-wide, not just in Germany. Extreme right-wing politics is gaining ground.’
McQuade badly wanted to ask him about Hitler’s grand plan for Africa, but thought better of it. ‘And, do the governments cooperate with you?’
Wiesenthal snorted softly. ‘Depends. On who I’m after. On who Mr Big is. On a lot of things.’ He smiled wearily. ‘For example, you’ve probably read in the newspapers recently that in the United Nations War Crimes Archives four hundred files have mysteriously gone “missing”?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘“Missing”? How? And it’s reported that tens of thousands of documents have been stolen from the Nazi Documentation Centre in West Berlin. How? Who would want to steal from the Documentation Centre?’
‘Who?’
‘Who indeed?’ Wiesenthal shrugged. ‘Certain members of the staff, perhaps? To sell, perhaps? To “interested parties” perhaps? To destroy evidence, perhaps?’ He waved a finger. ‘Of course, this is conjecture, but, for example, there is a certain politically important gentleman, not far from this buildings in the heart of Vienna, who might be the kind of person to have such an “interest”.’ He shook his face in disavowal. ‘But that is only one kind of difficulty I face, Mr McQuade. And how many more can I catch before I die?’ He sighed. ‘But they must not sleep good – because tomorrow it may be their turn.’ He shook his head. ‘My wife says, “Why don’t we retire and go to live in Israel near our grandchildren?” Yes, I want to do that very much. But not while I still have my health. Enough to catch some more Nazis and make them sleep badly. Such men have no right to die in peace.’ He looked at McQuade, then held up an old finger earnestly. ‘I repeat, I am not interested in vengeance. Once I have had a man arrested and handed my evidence to the public prosecutor, I don’t care whether the court convicts him or not. I have done my duty. To all those people who died. My duty is ensure that mankind will not forget. So the Holocaust does not happen again.’ He nodded grimly. ‘Because mankind forgets very easily. Genocide soon becomes old history, and anti-Semitism is not dead, young man. It is not dead …’
Simon Wiesenthal had finished. He looked at his watch significantly. It was. a practised gesture. McQuade said earnestly: ‘Just one more question, please.’
Wiesenthal heaved himself to his feet. ‘Yes?’ he said.
McQuade said: ‘I’m very interested in the Gestapo. In particular, in Heinrich Muller. What became of him? Is he alive or dead?’
Wiesenthal looked at him. McQuade hurried on: ‘Can you show me a recent photograph of him?’
Wiesenthal looked at him. His old face changed.
‘A recent photograph of Heinrich Muller already?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘What makes you think Heinrich Muller was still alive recently?’
McQuade said hastily: ‘Maybe he isn’t. But for my story, will you tell me what you know about him?’
‘And what do you want to know about SS General Heinrich Muller?’
‘Well, he’s a war-criminal, isn’t he?’
Wiesenthal had not taken his eyes off him. ‘Probably the most-wanted war-criminal. Now that Mengele and Martin Bormann are dead. Germany was a police state and the Gestapo were the police. Heinrich Muller was the general in charge of the Gestapo. “Gestapo Muller”, they called him. Adolf Eichmann came directly under him.’
‘Is he still alive?’
Wiesenthal said slowly, ‘Sometime after the war a grave was found in a cemetery in Germany. The tombstone had his name and details on it. But when the authorities exhumed the coffin it was found to contain the bones of three different people.’ He looked at McQuade. ‘None of those bones were Heinrich Muller’s.’
‘So he faked his death.’
‘Or somebody did so on his behalf.’
‘So where did he go? Is that known?’
Wiesenthal said slowly, ‘To Russia.’
McQuade was amazed. ‘Russia? … But the Russians were arch-enemies of the Nazis.’
Wiesenthal sat down again and said quietly, ‘It is thought that after Hitler’s suicide, Muller went over to the Russians in the last days of the war …’
McQuade knew that wasn’t true. Because Horst Kohler had him aboard U-boat 1093. Why would the Russians accept the man? ‘Do you believe that?’
Wiesenthal said quietly, ‘Have you ever heard of the “Rote Kapelle”? The Red Orchestra?’
McQuade had not. ‘No?’ Wiesenthal said woodenly. ‘It is a known fact that there was a spy in Hitler’s bunker. The Gestapo knew that radio transmissions were going to the Russians. Within hours of a decision being made in Hitler’s bunker, the Russians knew about it – troop movements, strategies, and so on. The Gestapo called it the Red Orchestra. They scoured Berlin, looking for the illegal radio. With their specialized equipment they narrowed the source down to the area around Hitler’s chancellory itself. The only radio in Germany which the Gestapo did not control was that of Martin Bormann, Hitler’s right-hand man, which was used only to keep in touch with Nazi Party offices.’ Wiesenthal raised his eyebrows. ‘So? So who was the best person to fool the whole Gestapo with an illegal radio? Or to use a legal radio for illegal transmission? SS General Heinrich Muller himself?’
McQuade did not believe it. Any radio operator who was left alone for ten minutes could have done it. ‘But Muller and his Gestapo were responsible for hunting down communists too, weren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘So why should he defect to the Russians? Did Muller have access to Hitler’s bunker?’
‘Yes. And through Himmler, his boss, who was chief of the entire SS, which included the Gestapo.’
‘But would he have known Hitler’s secret decision-making process?’
Wiesenthal hadn’t taken his eyes off him. ‘Probably not.’
‘So if Muller was the Red Orchestra, he must have had an accomplice who was plugged into Hitler’s decisions?’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe Martin Bormann himself was the Red Orchestra. He had a sacrosanct radio, you say.’
Wiesenthal said with a twitch of a smile:
‘So, you are an intelligent man, Mr McQuade.’ He lifted his finger. ‘There is another theory, that both Bormann and Muller were Russian spies. Both disappeared from the bunker when Berlin fell.’ He paused, smiling lightly. ‘But it seems even more unlikely that Martin Bormann, Hitler’s right-hand man, who had made the Nazi Party his whole career and who was notorious in his persecution of Jews, and communists – it is even more unlikely that he was the Russian spy. Most historical experts agree that Martin Bormann probably was killed whilst trying to escape with other senior officials from Hitler’s bunker in the Russian bombardment of Berlin – whereas Heinrich Muller is last heard of a day before, disappearing from the bunker.’ Wiesenthal raised his old eyebrows. ‘If Bormann was the spy, why would he wait till the very end, when he could have joined his Russian friends days earlier? So that leaves Muller as the suspect. Hmm?’
McQuade was fascinated. But he did not want to believe it. If this were true there was probably no loot on that submarine. ‘Do you believe it, Doctor Wiesenthal?’
The grand old man smiled at him widely for the first time. ‘I am a detective, Mr McQuade. I believe nothing until I see conclusive evidence. But it is very obvious that you don’t believe it.’
The old man was seeing through him. McQuade blundered on: ‘Has he been seen, since those days forty-odd years ago?’
Wiesenthal did not blink. ‘Mr McQuade, in my job I daily receive letters from many people saying they have seen this criminal and that. Even ones we know are long since dead.’
‘And have you investigated these reports about Muller?’
Wiesenthal smiled. ‘I do not have the resources of the CIA. I have investigated the reports which –’ he rubbed his fingertips together –’ give me that feeling in my fingers.’
McQuade blundered on, ‘But can you tell me when you received the last report?’
Wiesenthal shrugged hopelessly and shook his head.
‘Were you given the name he was using?’
Wiesenthal looked at him with a little smile.
‘Unfortunately not. Can you tell me why you’re so interested in my dear old friend Heinrich Muller?’
McQuade sat back. ‘Just for my book.’ He smiled self-consciously.
Wiesenthal nodded. ‘For your book, of course … And is this book fact or fiction, Mr McQuade?’
‘I haven’t decided yet. I’ve only just started my research.’
Nod, nod, nod. ‘And what have your researches produced? Very little has been published about my old friend Heinrich Muller.’
‘That’s why I’ve come to see you.’
‘To ask for a recent photograph? So you too think Heinrich Muller is still alive?’ He smiled. Then he rubbed his fingertips together. ‘I have that feeling in my fingers, again.’ His eyebrows went up. ‘I think you know something you must tell me, Mr McQuade …’
McQuade insisted, ‘Only what I’ve read.’
Simon Wiesenthal smiled. ‘That feeling in my fingers, Mr McQuade … I am seldom wrong.’ He raised his old eyebrows and smiled: ‘And it is your solemn human duty to tell me what you have found out, Mr McQuade … Your duty to mankind. You must help me to do justice, Mr McQuade.’
‘Of course I would.’
‘Good! Thank you! So tell me, hmm?’ He smiled.
McQuade tried to sigh. ‘I have nothing to tell, Doctor.’
Wiesenthal shook his old head. Then suddenly he scowled. ‘I want this Heinrich Muller! I want him, I want him!’ He paused, glaring. ‘So you must tell me what is in your head! So I can pay my friend Heinrich Muller a little visit!’ He paused again. Then suddenly his scowl vanished benignly. ‘Do you mind showing me your passport, please?’
McQuade was taken aback. ‘Certainly.’ He produced it.
The old man took it politely. He leafed through it.
‘It says here your profession is marine biologist.’
‘Yes, but I have my own deep-sea trawler.’
‘Ah. And where do you fish?’
McQuade winced inwardly. But he had known these questions might be asked, it had been a calculated risk and there was probably no point in lying because the man could easily check up on him, but it was worth a try. ‘Off the South African coast. But I have business interests in Australia and South America.’
‘Ah, a businessman too.’ Wiesenthal put the passport on his desk. ‘You must not think me rude for asking such questions, but your request for a recent photograph of Heinrich Muller is an unusual one.’ He let that hang, then he called to the secretaries’ office, ‘Bring me the Heinrich Muller file, please.’
McQuade’s heart leapt. He had succeeded! And obviously Muller was alive!
A pretty girl brought in a big box-file. The old man took it and sat there, apparently thinking deeply. Then he tapped the file lovingly.
‘So, okay, I make a little deal with you, Captain …’ He opened the file, and admired it. ‘You tell me what you know. And I will show you a photograph of Herr Heinrich Muller.’
So the old boy was using a carrot. ‘I know nothing that is not in the library.’
Wiesenthal sighed theatrically. He stood up, and called, ‘Come take the Muller file, please.’ He turned to McQuade. ‘Pity. I have some good photographs. And other information valuable to an author.’
McQuade stood up worriedly. He wanted that photograph! ‘Doctor Wiesenthal?’
The old man looked at his watch. ‘No more questions, please.’ The girl entered and Wiesenthal gave her the file.
McQuade said urgently, ‘Will you tell me when the photograph was taken?’
Wiesenthal turned innocently and put his hand on McQuade’s shoulder. ‘And now, Captain,’ he smiled, ‘I must do some work. Thank you for calling.’
McQuade sighed with frustration.
‘Okay, Doctor Wiesenthal. It’s a deal.’
Wiesenthal smiled kindly at him.
‘Good.’ He called: ‘Bring back the Muller file, please …’
He wasn’t going to tell the old fox the whole truth. Not until he’d got the loot out of that submarine. Then he would gladly tell Simon Wiesenthal everything, do everything to catch Heinrich Muller and put him on an Israeli scaffold. He told Wiesenthal what he had told Frau Kohler, and what the good woman had told him. He stuck rigidly to his story that he was only writing a book.
Wiesenthal listened intently, without interruption but scribbling notes. When McQuade finished, he said,
‘Why didn’t you tell me all this at the outset?’
‘Because I did not want the story getting out. Then any journalist could write about it before me.’
‘Ah. A scoop.’ Wiesenthal nodded understandingly. ‘And where on the Argentinian coast was this supposed to have happened?’
‘I don’t know. I met Paco and Fernando in Rio de Janeiro. They simply said it happened in the south.’
Wiesenthal picked up the passport again. He leafed through it. ‘Have you got a Brazilian immigration stamp?’
McQuade was ready for this one. ‘No, I was crewing in the Cape Town to Rio yacht race. Crew didn’t get stamped.’
‘I see. And you could find this Paco and Fernando again?’
‘I doubt it. They were off a fishing trawler.’
‘Could you recognize them again?’
McQuade shook his head. ‘Possibly. It was a dark bar. They wore beards. Spanish-looking.’
‘And why did you buy the wallet and the tag?’
‘I was fascinated by the story.’
‘And why did you take the trouble to find Frau Kohler?’
‘The story. And to return a sentimental souvenir.’
‘Although you didn’t even know if she was alive? Quite an expense?’
‘It’s quite a story. And I was due for a holiday.’
‘But the initials H.M. meant nothing to you?’
‘No. It was only after Frau Kohler told me her story that I decided to research into Heinrich Muller.’ He sighed. ‘May I please see the photograph?’
‘And what have you done about the submarine?’
McQuade’s heart missed a beat. He frowned. ‘The submarine? I don’t even know where it is.’
‘It’s off the coast of Argentina.’
‘That’s a hell of a long coast.’ He paused. ‘It might not have sunk. Maybe it only put two men ashore.’
‘Who fought to the death, and the submarine is officially listed as missing? You’re not interested?’ He added hastily, suddenly disarming, ‘Forgive me but I must examine your evidence carefully. That’s my job.’
‘Of course,’ McQuade said stiffly.
‘And if we have a deal, I must get my money’s worth.’ Wiesenthal stroked the file affectionately. ‘If I was writing this story, I’d be very interested in the whereabouts of this submarine, and what else Herr Muller left behind inside it when it sank …’
McQuade’s pulse tripped. The old boy had read him like a book. God, he’d been a fool! He forced a smile.
‘But as we’ll never know, maybe I should write the book as fiction.’
‘Hmm, maybe so …’ Wiesenthal stroked his chin in solemn agreement, then heaved himself to his feet, as if out of a reverie. He glanced at his watch. ‘Excuse me one moment.’ He walked out with the file.
McQuade picked up his passport. After a minute Wiesenthal returned, still with the file. He held out his hand. ‘Well, I wish you luck with your book.’
‘May I see the photograph, please.’ It was not a question.
Wiesenthal held up a finger, as if remembering. ‘Ah, yes … Oh, I’m sorry, Mr McQuade,’ he said with great sincerity, ‘but we have no recent photograph of SS General Heinrich Muller.’
McQuade glared at him. ‘You tricked me.’
Simon Wiesenthal’s shoulders rose expressively. ‘Tricks, schmicks, I never said I had a recent photograph of the man. If you feel tricked, I am sorry, and can only say I do not care if I have to play little tricks to get evidence against war-criminals. As long as the evidence is trustworthy, and I’m afraid your evidence is only partly trustworthy. Indeed, you tried to trick me.’
‘It’s the truth!’ McQuade said shamelessly.
Wiesenthal’s old eyes were amused. ‘So, what does it matter to you? You have now decided to write fiction. Why does a fiction writer need to know what an old Nazi war-criminal looks like? So’ – he shrugged – ‘write anything you like, and good luck to you.’
McQuade was furious. ‘You old rogue.’
Wiesenthal shrugged, with a twinkle. ‘Oh yes. Ask Adolf Eichmann, God rest his soul.’ Then he tapped McQuade on the shoulder conspiratorially. ‘You be frank with me, Captain, and I’ll be frank with you …’ He gave his old Jewish smile, waited a moment, then held out his hand, ‘Well, unless you have something more to tell me …’
McQuade wasn’t going to fall for those theatrics again. ‘I’ve told you everything, Doctor.’
Simon Wiesenthal looked at him, then he sighed, resigned. ‘Captain, you asked for a recent photograph? Well, I have only this.’ He flicked through the box-file and pulled out a photograph.
McQuade took it, his hopes soaring.
It was a black-and-white photograph of a man in uniform. He was smiling faintly, directly at the camera. A thickset man in his late thirties? Eyes and eyebrows dark. A handsome man. A strong jaw with very thin lips.
‘Thank you,’ McQuade said sincerely. ‘May I keep this?’
‘Yes. I have copies.’
‘But is this the most recent photograph you have?’
‘Taken in 1943, I believe. Now, if there’s anything else you can tell me about this matter, it is your duty to do so. Your duty to mankind …’ The old blue Jewish eye held the blue Gentile eye.
‘I’ve told you everything, Doctor.’
Wiesenthal smiled. ‘Then I wish you a safe journey.’