Chapter 7

The feeling of celebration was everywhere that Friday the fourteenth day of May in that year 1971. One saw it in the faces of strangers in the streets, of visitors from abroad, in the singing and dancing almost everywhere, the extra smiles and congratulations, the unusual politeness at the beaches and in the hotels. Twenty-three years of nationhood had been passed, three wars had been fought and won, and there was no indication that there would not be more wars in which many would die and Israel’s existence would be threatened. But these were thoughts for yesterday and for tomorrow—today was Independence Day, and nowhere in the world is Independence Day celebrated with as much direct personal memory of the bitter struggle for that independence than in Israel.

It would be more accurate to say the feeling of celebration was almost everywhere. To Colonel Max Brodsky of the Mossad, as well as to those under his command, that Friday was a day like all other days, with work to be done and, in fact, extra precautions to be taken. Brodsky had long considered the strong possibility that Independence Day, particularly when combined with a Sabbath, would be an excellent time for whatever mischief ODESSA had in mind for Benjamin Grossman. But the report his aide gave him was the same as it had been every day that week.

“Sir, General Grossman has arrived at his office. No stops on the way. No contacts with anyone. Same driver, a Sergeant Breil. Thoroughly vetted, sir.” The aide had served in the British Army during the war.

“Good—” Except Brodsky was really not sure it was all that good, although he did not know exactly why. He did know, however, that the two weeks were about to pass, and he did not believe that when an organization such as ODESSA said two weeks, that they meant fifteen days.

And later, “Sir, the general has arrived home. He’s driving himself. He gave his driver the weekend off for the holiday.”

There was nothing unusual in that on Independence Day, but still Brodsky felt that slight chill that came to him when something was about to break. General Benjamin Grossman had also gone home early, again nothing unusual on Independence Day. Still …

“Keep an ear on him,” Brodsky said, and leaned back, thinking.

To Herzl Grossman that day had an air of unreality about it. It had been increasingly difficult as the days went by to act as if everything between himself and his father was as it had always been, but this Friday when his father had returned from the office early he had paid little attention to his son or anything else, sitting in his study with the shades drawn, his briefcase inexplicably on his desk before him and his hand resting on it as if for comfort, seemingly staring at the wall, thinking. But of what he was thinking, Herzl could not imagine. What did a man think who had put to death almost one million Jews and then falls in love with a Jew? What does he think when the woman he loves is killed because of something in his past? Does he blame himself? Or does he put the blame on someone else? Colonel Helmut von Schraeder would undoubtedly blame someone else. Who did Benjamin Grossman blame?

It was all very confusing.…

It was also very confusing as to what game Max Brodsky was playing in giving a criminal like von Schraeder the time he was giving him, the freedom of action he was allowing him. Why had Max Brodsky taken away all the evidence he had amassed in Germany? Why had Max Brodsky not brought Helmut von Schraeder up before the authorities at once? Accused him to his face and had him arrested and brought to justice—and the hangman? Because it would be Helmut von Schraeder they would be hanging, not Benjamin Grossman, his father. Could it be possible that Max Brodsky, who had been closer to him than an uncle could be, almost a father, could be part of some grotesque conspiracy? If his father, Benjamin Grossman, whom he had loved and trusted all his life, could be exposed for the murdering criminal he was, could anyone, including Max Brodsky, be trusted?

And who was really being under surveillance, his father or himself? It was very suspicious being a prisoner in his own apartment, told not to leave when his father came and went whenever he wished and with no indication that he could see that there was any surveillance there at all. And also the business of the telephone being tapped; von Schraeder could stop anywhere he wanted and make as many unrecorded calls as he wanted, but every word Herzl spoke into the instrument was being picked up. Three times in the past week he had picked up the telephone to call Munich and try to reach Miriam Kleiman, and three times he had hung up just as the overseas operator came on the line. Whatever he had to say to Miriam—and he had no idea of what that might be, especially under the circumstances of his parent’s past—was certainly not to be said with someone with earphones on in a little room somewhere listening to every word.

Herzl sat in his room, trying to read, and then gave up. He looked at his wristwatch. Eight o’clock. God, how that day had dragged! His father had confirmed Max Brodsky’s instructions as to the necessity of his not leaving the apartment, saying it would all be over in a few weeks, but those few weeks were about at an end. And, besides, his father was not to be trusted, and very possibly the same was true of his Uncle Max—

He became aware that he was being scrutinized and he looked up to see his father standing in the doorway of his room, his attacheé case in hand. The general had changed to civilian clothes and was smiling at him in a strange manner.

“I have to go out,” he said. “I may be gone all night. But I’ll be back as soon as I can. It’s nothing to worry about,” he added.

He came and put one arm around the stiff shoulders of his son, squeezed him once with affectionate camaraderie, and walked from the apartment quickly, closing the door behind him. Herzl stared at the telephone, wondering if he should call. But he knew he would not. Only one person he knew could truly be trusted, and that was himself. Besides, he had started the investigation into the past of von Schraeder-Grossman, and that investigation was not finished. He walked to the window, staring down into the street as the general emerged from the front of the building and walked to where his car was parked in the street.

Then Herzl ran for the basement garage and his own little sports car.

“The general’s left in his car. He’s driving.” The little square box on Brodsky’s desk imparted a metallic tone to the speaker’s voice.

Brodsky sighed. Whatever was in prospect was at work.

“Trail him,” he said, “but not too close. Not even in sight. He may have noticed you during the week.” He had given up all pretense of his men protecting the general; at the moment he didn’t much care what his aides thought as long as they followed their orders. He just didn’t want to lose the man. “The signals are coming in clearly?”

“Like a dream,” Michael said. “The radio-direction finder is working perfectly. We could follow him blindfolded.”

“Just don’t lose him.”

“We won’t.” There were several minutes of silence. Then, “He’s on the Lod road. He’s leaving town.”

In his office Brodsky stared at the map of Israel pulled down on the wall, his pulses quickening. The chase was on; its success or failure could be vital to the security of Israel, to his future, to the life of Herzl and possibly many more people. He studied the map. The Lod road led to the Ben Gurion Airport, but it also led to Jerusalem with a turnoff at Ramla, and it could also lead to Ashdod, cutting west beyond Gedera, or it could even lead to Ashkelon or Gaza on the sea. It could lead to just about anywhere in southern Israel, or Grossman could be simply leading them in the wrong direction as a precaution against being followed before losing his pursuers and turning to the north. All they could do was wait until a further turn might give a better indication of his end destination. And, of course, not lose him.

“He passed Ramla heading in the direction of Gedera,” the tinny voice said. “Sir, we might be able to come in closer with all this traffic. I doubt he would notice us—”

“Stay well back out of sight!” Brodsky said irritably. “That’s why we hung all that electronic gear on the car!” He wished now he had chosen to go with the pursuit car; sitting in his office and merely waiting for reports was damned irritating.

He swiveled his chair, staring from the window out over the lights that sparkled from the sprawling city. I should be down there celebrating with the others, he thought sourly, instead of trying to find out what my old friend Benjamin Grossman is up to. I only hope it isn’t what I think it is, because if anything goes wrong and he gets away with anything, I should be taken out and shot for not having dragged him in in the first place, sufficient proof or not. But we have to catch him with the goods; otherwise he’ll continue to be a hero in Israel and continue to have endless chances to harm us. And I’ll end up, as his accuser, in jail as an accomplice to our enemies. No, we have to catch him in the act, or with the goods, and we’ll never get another chance like this one. Ben was in a panic when he told me of that meeting in Buenos Aires; he had to be to tell me what he did. And he must have hated himself the next day. But he needed protection for his family.… Brodsky shook his head in disgust. Protection! That was great protection I gave Deborah.… Let’s not dwell on that!

Or am I totally wrong? Is it possible that Herzl’s information is wrong, or that we are putting the wrong interpretation on it? Could it really be just some monstrous coincidence? After all, I’ve known Benjamin Grossman for almost thirty years; could he have been von Schraeder all that time and I not note it? The time we spent in the camps, our travels together from Germany to Italy and then to Israel, his saving us all when that gunboat stopped us when we arrived—would I not have known if he were a Nazi? Would I not have felt it? At that time in the Zion Films projection room, it seemed incontrovertible that Grossman was von Schraeder, but here, now, at this moment, it did not seem possible. The Mossad agent I sent to Europe to search for fingerprints or other information about von Schraeder has gotten no further in almost two weeks than Herzl did in a few days. What I should have done, of course, he thought, was simply to confront Ben, face to face, and ask him to give me an explanation. But if he were innocent of the monstrous charge, he would have no explanation, other than to say it had to be a gross coincidence. And if he were guilty? He certainly wouldn’t admit it—

“He didn’t turn at Gedera, he went straight through—” There was a degree of puzzlement in the metallic voice. “That leads to secondary roads, I think. Wait—” There was a pause as the agent checked his car map. “That’s right. The road splits into two secondary roads, short ones. They both end up at the Ashkelon-Latrun road.”

In his office Brodsky left his chair and was studying the wall map. The microphone on his desk picked up his voice, relaying it to the men in the pursuit car.

“It’s also the shortest road to Kiryat Gat and Beer Sheba,” he said, and added to himself, and also to Arad and Ein Tsofar. Let’s just hope that’s not where he’s heading! “We’ll be able to tell more when he comes to the Ashkelon-Latrun road. Just be careful when he hits those secondaries. Stay well back. There’ll be less traffic there.”

“Tonight? Less traffic?” said Michael in the trailing car with disbelief. “Tonight there’s traffic everywhere. Why aren’t they all home watching television, or in shul where they belong? I know, it’s Independence Day, don’t tell me.” He added, suddenly realizing to whom his remarks were being broadcast, “Sir!”

“Just stay back,” Brodsky said, unimpressed by the other’s evaluation of the traffic problem. “Don’t take the slightest chance of being seen.”

“No, sir, we won’t.” There was a pause. Then, “Hey! Take it easy! You want to run up his tailpipe?”

Brodsky stared at the speaker. “What was that supposed to mean?”

“I was talking to Ari, Colonel. He’s driving. The general must have stopped, the signal’s steady. It was getting louder; we’re stopped too, now. Maybe he’s got a flat. Maybe something’s wrong with the car. Do you want us to get closer and see?”

“And do what? Help him fix it?” Brodsky said sourly. Good God! All the signals for disaster were ringing in Brodsky’s head; it accounted for his unusually savage tone. “You stay where you are. You’re still receiving?”

“Yes, sir. Steady as a rock. He’s stopped up ahead.”

“How far from you?”

“I’d say about a mile, sir, from the strength of the signal. Say half a mile from the fork in those secondaries. He’s parked, sir.”

Brodsky studied the map with a puzzled frown. The place where Grossman had stopped was about halfway between a place called Hatzor Ashdod and a tiny village called Kfar Akim. Brodsky knew positively there was nothing of a security nature anywhere in the vicinity. So what was Grossman doing there? Maybe he really did have a flat tire; or he may simply have stopped to relieve himself. He spoke up for the benefit of the desk microphone.

“How heavy is the traffic?”

“Heavy, sir, even here and even at this hour. I never saw it so heavy. Everybody and his uncle is out tonight. I’m sure we could get a lot closer to him—”

“Stay where you are!” Brodsky was thinking furiously. “If the car doesn’t move in the next five minutes, get going again. Pass as if you were part of normal traffic. See if he’s inside. And report!”

“Yes, sir. Five—sir!”

“What?”

“The signal stopped!”

“What! Both?”

“Yes, sir.” The agent was shocked. “I switched on the auxiliary at once, sir. Both units are out.” There was a very brief pause. “Sir, do you want us to try and follow him visually?”

Brodsky stared at the speaker on his desk, his mind running through possible scenarios, even as he silently acknowledged that Grossman had led his pursuers into a spot from which it would be virtually impossible to trail him without electronic aids. They were far too distant to catch him, and there were at least six roads going in different directions he could take from within a mile or so of where he was—or, rather, from where he had been when he had managed to dismantle both of the signal broadcasters. Damn! One would think, or at least hope, that with two distinct and separate electronic systems, the man might not have discovered one!

“No,” he said slowly, “you’d be wasting your time. Come back in.”

He studied the map and then made up his mind. He had always feared the possibility that the ultimate direction of Grossman’s defection might be the material or the secret at Ein Tsofar; he remembered all too well the help that Benjamin Grossman had given in the construction of the facilities at Ein Tsofar. Certainly from the point where Grossman had last been located, a move into the direction of Ein Tsofar was very possible. If that was his destination, the man would still have almost an hour and a half driving time to reach the old kibbutz. If he were wrong and Grossman was heading someplace else—

He clicked his intercom for the night receptionist.

“Notify all checkpoints in the country,” he said, his voice expressionless. “They are to report the passage of a brown army sedan, license plate number AR 436 T. They are not to stop or interfere with the car or its driver or to indicate any interest in it; merely to report its passage and the time of its passage to this office. You will then relay any such reports to me at Ein Tsofar. Repeat.”

The receptionist dutifully repeated the instructions word for word, reading from her pad.

“Good. Now order my car,” Brodsky said, “and call the airport. I want a helicopter waiting on the pad when I get there in half an hour.”

He hung up and came to his feet heavily. The problem, of course, was that Grossman might well be taking roads where there were no checkpoints; since the 1967 war checkpoints had been sharply reduced. And a further problem was that not all checkpoints had communication equipment either to receive or to send; they were usually little shacks to which a soldier would be assigned, dropped off in a jeep and picked up in a jeep, and which was merely for the stopping of suspicious-looking cars for illegal arms or contraband—and they would scarcely find an army car driven by an army general to be suspicious.

Benjamin Grossman smiled to himself grimly as he got back in the car and stepped on the accelerator. Did the Jew Brodsky really think he was dealing with children or idiots? He had located the signal producers long before the ODESSA man had come on the scene. Good God! Did they all think they were dealing with children or idiots? All right, he had made a mistake by going to the Jew Brodsky when he first came back from Argentina; he had been exhausted. But his brain had begun to work again in a short while. He had simply put himself in Brodsky’s place. Certainly surveillance would have to be placed on a man who had met with ODESSA agents and refused to disclose what their demands had been; and it would obviously have to be the type of surveillance that would cover the condition of a car being driven at night. And that meant a bug. And if that one might be located by a suspicious general named Grossman, obviously the answer was a second bug, better concealed.

He turned into the road for Kiryat Gat, humming lightly to himself, for he was sure there were no voice pickups in the interior of the car. He had searched for them carefully, and he was sure that the man from ODESSA, whatever his name was, had done so as well. His hum faded, replaced by bile in his throat. Whoever the man from ODESSA was, he undoubtedly was the person who had handled the delivery of the explosive that had killed his Deborah. Well, once he was certain that the threat had been removed from Herzl, then he would find this man from ODESSA, whoever and wherever he might be, and he would also find Schlossberg and Mittendorf. The Jew Brodsky wanted to know how to reach these men for his purpose? Well, for once he, Benjamin Grossman, would do the work of the Jew Brodsky, and maybe even take care of the Jew Brodsky, for dessert.

And thinking of the Jew Brodsky, what would he do when his men reported that the signals had stopped, that obviously General Grossman had dismantled them? What he would do would be to instantly contact as many checkpoints as he could reach and tell them to report the passage of a brown army sedan license number AR 436 T. Would the Jew Brodsky tell them to stop that car and hold the driver? Very doubtful; the checkpoints were under the command of the army and such instructions could be overridden by a general, even one in civilian clothing. Besides, the Jew Brodsky would gain little by having the car stopped; no, what he would ask is that the passage and the time of passage be reported, nothing more. Grossman smiled in the dimness of the car, because it really made no difference what instruction the Jew Brodsky handed out; the roads he had selected for the first part of his journey had no checkpoints, he had determined that, and the few after that in the desert had no communication.

He grinned to himself savagely and drove on.

Brodsky’s helicopter gave the proper recognition signals, received permission to land, and settled down past the sheer cliffs to touch lightly onto the brilliantly illuminated pad. The lights were extinguished as soon as the helicopter made contact with the concrete; the rotor engines were cut and in the silence that fell the pilot could hear his instructions.

“—into the hangar with the bird, and you too. Stay out of sight,” Brodsky said, and set off at a brisk walk for the command post.

The command post was set in the rear of one of the auxiliary caves, and Brodsky could not help but recall the place when it had been a simple kibbutz, with its plain cement-block buildings, when its products were melons and figs, and when the major problem had been water, the lack of it, or Arab attacks; when its boundaries were the old fence where Grossman had so recklessly knelt with the machine gun during that battle so many years before. Now the buildings were all gone, and the people and the melons and the figs were also all gone, and where the old fence had stood was less than a quarter of the way to the new electrified fence and the new watchtowers that were manned day and night by soldiers, not settlers, and the entire area was restricted. Brodsky sighed at the necessities of defense and security, and walked into the command post.

The majority of the personnel of the Ein Tsofar facility were off duty, spared from labor by the Independence Day celebration; they were either home in one of the major cities or in Arad, thirty miles away, enjoying the celebration that was going on in every town and village in the country, no matter how large or small. A captain was on duty, the result of losing a coin toss to see who would be stuck with the duty; with him was the radioman who had accepted the helicopter’s recognition signal. He was not there as the result of a lost bet; he was there—like the sentries and the soldiers at checkpoints—because he had been ordered to be there.

The captain and his superior shook hands; the captain reseated himself, indicated a chair for his guest, and reached into a drawer for a bottle of brandy. He had always liked Colonel Brodsky, and a little conversation would be a pleasant break in the evening’s dullness, although he was surprised to be hosting the colonel. If he were not a mere captain, he would certainly not be stuck out here in the desert on a night such as this one.

Brodsky checked his watch. If his theory was correct, Grossman still had at least thirty minutes of driving to reach the facility. He sat down, accepted the drink, and sipped from it. He put his glass down.

“Were there any messages for me from my office?”

The captain paused in raising his own glass. “No, sir.”

“Ah …” Brodsky took another sip of his drink. It was possible to reach Ein Tsofar without passing any checkpoints, or at least any with communications, simply by staying with secondary roads, and Grossman would be aware that the checkpoints would be notified. He looked at the captain. “General Grossman will be coming here tonight, I believe. In half an hour or so, if I’m right. Driving.”

The captain looked surprised. “General Grossman is coming here, sir?”

“I think so.”

“Again?”

Brodsky froze. “What do you mean, again? When was he here last?”

“Just this morning, sir. He arrived by helicopter about nine o’clock. He made a brief inspection by himself, just walked through the facility—briefer than usual, but of course no one is working today—and then he left. You say he’s coming back, sir?”

Brodsky’s hand flew to the telephone, and then stopped. Who was he going to call? Any message from any checkpoint would be relayed to him, and tying up the line with pointless calls, especially when he had no idea of who to call, was fatuous. Grossman had gone to his office in his usual manner, had undoubtedly simply told his secretary he did not want to be disturbed for either visitors or phone calls for several hours, had then walked into his office and locked the door, gone out the other door, down the back stairs to the street, and taken a cab to the airport. All very simple. And his men were glued to the car in the garage all the while. Great work!

“No,” he said. “I was mistaken. I doubt very much the general will be coming back.”

He reached for the brandy bottle and refilled his glass. As long as he had to await word from his office, he might as well use the time to get drunk. There was a very good chance he had just seen his future go down the drain, and worse, there was a good chance that the country’s security had been compromised. And then Max Brodsky had a second thought, one he wondered had not occurred to him before, and he pushed the brandy bottle away, reaching for the telephone instead, speaking to the captain as he raised the receiver.

“Have my helicopter brought out and kept ready for instant departure.”

He brought the receiver to his ear and clicked for the operator. There was a call that just might do the trick.

Trailing a car at night, Herzl discovered, was far from an easy job, especially if one was to be careful and keep two or three other cars in between in order not to be identified. It required constant concentration, but even then Herzl had time to wonder that no other car, as far as he could determine, seemed in the least interested in the movements of the man he knew to be Colonel Helmut von Schraeder. Cars between his little sports model and the general’s large sedan would pass the general’s automobile to disappear into the night, to be replaced by other cars that first passed him and then passed the general’s car, for the general seemed to be driving unusually slowly for a man with a temperament of Benjamin Grossman. Well, if nobody was interested in where von Schraeder was going, then he, Herzl, would follow him all night, if necessary. Gasoline was no problem, fortunately; one tankful in his little sports bug could take him from one end of the small country to the other.

He suddenly found himself without an intermediary car and he slowed down precipitously, just as the general’s sedan pulled to the shoulder of the road, and he saw his father get down and bend over as if inspecting the front tire. He flashed past, relieved not to have been seen, drove down the highway a bit and pulled off into a narrow trail leading into the dunes. Had something happened to the other car? He backed around with difficulty in the narrow space, cut his headlights and waited, the engine of the small sports car panting as if anxious to take up the chase again. Herzl wondered if perhaps he had been detected or, even if he had not, if the maneuver were merely a move to do precisely what it had done—put a potential pursuer up some trail waiting while the other car turned and went off in another direction. But before he could worry about this possibility very long the brown sedan swept past his hiding place, no longer at such a leisurely pace, and he barely made it back to the highway in time to see the taillights of the other car disappearing in the distance. From then on it took all his attention and driving skills on the narrow, winding road to just keep up with the car ahead.

Traffic thinned considerably as they passed Kiryat Gat on the road to Beer Sheba. Herzl was now positive there was no surveillance at all on the other man, for now there were no other cars in sight for long distances, either ahead of them or behind them. He realized that in time the man in the car ahead would know he was being followed, but other than keeping the car in sight, he knew of no way to discover where the man was going. But even though the man might eventually suspect he was being followed, there would be no way he could determine he was being followed by his son.

An occasional Egged bus, loaded with passengers, would roar past him and he could see it ahead cutting around the brown sedan; otherwise they seemed to be alone on the road. Where could the man possibly be going? There was nothing ahead except desert. And why was von Schraeder being permitted to move about so freely? Herzl was very glad now that he had resisted the temptation to call Max Brodsky; certainly there had to be something very suspicious in the way Brodsky was acting—or, rather, not acting.

At Beer Sheba the streets were bright with streetlamps and he had to drop back, but at least both cars had to move slowly through the people that moved about on the main street, bottles in hand, celebrating. The brown sedan took the road to Dimona, and as they passed that little village, also alive with music and dancing, Herzl knew he could not continue to trail the other man without being discovered, for now, other than an occasional Egged bus no other traffic was to be seen. When the car ahead passed the cutoff to the old road leading down the mountain, Herzl made up his mind. He had to take the chance that the man ahead was going to Eilat; there was nothing on the road before that point. With the extra speed of his small car he could get there first, but it meant taking the old road down what was known as the Scorpion’s Ascent, coming into the Eilat road at the small settlement of Hatzeva Ir Ovot. With a shudder at the thought of the road ahead, he swung into the old road, hoping he was not making a terrible mistake. The taillights of the other car disappeared into the night.

For approximately ten miles the road was paved; then he turned into the trail leading to the Scorpion’s Ascent, his wheels spurting sand, trying to concentrate on the road immediately before him and not on the torturous decline he would soon meet. He had come here with a group of friends one summer vacation in a jeep, and he remembered the frightful descent at a creeping pace; now he intended to take it as fast as he could without sliding from one of the precipitous cliffs into the jagged chasms that lined the snaking road.

He seemed to be alone in the world, the overhead sky flooded with stars, the sliver of a moon the only things to keep him company in the night, the road a constantly curving ribbon of sand, barely marked; and then he was at the Scorpion and on it, fighting the terrifying, twisting, dropping curves with sweaty hands, wondering what he was doing here. The headlights of his car seemed to bounce off the cliffs beyond the chasms on either side as he braked and swung into each curve only to step on the accelerator momentarily with his other foot on the brake pedal, the wheels skidding obediently to the very edge of the treacherous drop, barely gripping in time. The twisting road that swung before his sweeping headlights seemed to be almost vertical in places, as if he might slide down it rather than drive down it. To Herzl it seemed he was driving in a nightmare, and a small portion of his mind detached itself from the terror of the road and the necessity to calculate each co-ordinated movement of his hands and feet, to wonder if he went over the edge whether he would float down and down with the weightlessness of a dream and then suddenly waken to discover it had all been unreal, for the Scorpion’s Ascent was like nothing but a scene from Dante’s Inferno. And then, when it seemed he had been fighting the frightening road for hours, the lights of the settlement could be seen far below, and he was out of the last curve and onto the straight stretch that dropped down the last of the mountain to the intersection with the Eilat road.

He turned into the Eilat road and found himself back in the world again. No car headlights could be seen in either direction; he could only hope he was ahead of the other car, because if he had gone through the nerve-racking torment of the Scorpion for nothing, if the other car was still ahead of him or—worse thought—if the other car had not been destined for Eilat but had turned north and was now miles away … It was not wise to think of such things. He had to be ahead and the other car had to be going to Eilat. And he was going to get there as fast as he could. He stepped on the accelerator and closed his mind to any thought except to reach his destination. What he would do when he got there, and when the other car got there—for it was pointless to think the other car would not get there—was something he would have to worry about at the time.

It was on the road from Beer Sheba to Dimona that Benjamin Grossman was finally certain he was being followed, and after the two cars had both passed Dimona and faced nothing but desert, he determined to find out exactly who was following him, and to handle the matter. He certainly did not intend to fail at this time. He eased his revolver from the holster set beneath the dashboard and held it in one hand even as he started to pull onto the shoulder; then the headlights that had been trailing him for so long swung off onto the road that led to the tiny settlement of Oron, deep in the Negev. With a humorless smile at his own display of nerves, Grossman completed braking the car and turned off his lights, waiting. If it had merely been a maneuver on the part of the other car, its driver would get a good surprise when he came back and passed this spot, but no car appeared and after a brief wait he put the revolver back in place and pulled back onto the highway, resuming his journey. It had been an idiotic thought in the first place; who could follow a man at night in the desert, where headlights are necessary to avoid disaster, and hope not to be detected? He had better not start imagining things; he was too close to completion of his mission for that. On the other hand, there was no point in taking needless risks.

He came to the intersection of the Dimona road with the Eilat road and paused, glancing at his wristwatch. Ten o’clock and about a hundred miles to go to reach Eilat, with paved road all the way, and the few checkpoints with no means of receiving instructions to watch for General Grossman and his brown army sedan. No problem; plenty of time to meet his appointment and with nothing in his path. He smiled and glanced almost automatically at the attaché case at his side, and then turned onto the deserted highway and stepped on the accelerator. He wondered how long, if ever, it would be before the fifty pounds was missed. It was an interesting question. Even if it should be missed at once—which was doubtful since as far as he could determine there was no reason to institute an inventory—there would be no reason to connect a highly respected general in the army with its disappearance. If and when the discovery was made, the Jew Brodsky might connect it with his conversation after his trip to Argentina, and he might suspect all he wanted. There would be no proof. His trip to Ein Tsofar that morning? He had made many inspection visits to the facility; it was part of his responsibility. This morning he had simply made one more. And could the Jew Brodsky admit he had put signal bugs onto the automobile of the respected General Grossman? He could not. All he could do was to keep quiet about it. No, there was no reason not to return to Tel Aviv, wait a few weeks, and then put in for his retirement, and leave with Herzl. Nor would he miss Israel. Without Deborah he felt about the country as he had felt when he first arrived: a desolate desert, and the scenes lit up by his headlights as he drove was the proof.

But once he was settled someplace else, he would see to it that the ODESSA man he was about to meet would pay for the death of his Deborah, no matter what it took to locate him nor no matter how long it took. Nor will anything happen to our son Herzl; I pledge you this, he said silently to the picture in his head of his dead wife that never left him. Both things I pledge you.

The celebration in Eilat had moved mainly to the hotels, and as Herzl drove into the small town he could see the lights blazing from the group of tourist hotels beyond the Arkia Airport along the beach. He could picture the excitement, the happiness, the singing and dancing and drinking that was going on there, and he only wished he was a part of it. He had been born the same year the nation had been born, and he never had failed to celebrate each Independence Day as if it were his own actual birthday. But his mission tonight was far too important—that was, if he hadn’t miscalculated and made the two-hundred-mile drive for nothing.

He pulled into Hatmarim Avenue and parked between the darkened post office and the brightly illuminated bus station, with the Egged buses angled in like behemoths nuzzling the building for sustenance. Any new arrival in Eilat would have to pass his vantage point, and he was suddenly sure that von Schraeder was heading for Eilat. The brown sedan should be appearing soon. The full significance for the long trip to the town had finally come to him. Somehow—possibly through his old friend Max Brodsky, who had also gone from Buchenwald to Belsen instead of Natzweiler, now that he thought of it—Helmut von Schraeder had learned that his past had been discovered, exposed; Eilat was the most logical point from which to flee the country. Much better than from any Mediterranean port. Five minutes in a fast speedboat and he would be outside Israeli territorial waters; fifteen minutes and he could be across the narrow gulf and on friendly soil.

But not if I can help it, Herzl promised himself grimly, and settled down to wait. From his position he could see the road at the end of the airport runway that led to the beach hotels, all lit up and gleaming in the night; in his imagination he could almost hear the music. Every now and then a car, usually a jeep, would come into view from the long stretch of desert and turn into the road toward the hotel; every now and then a car would appear from the south, coming up, possibly, from as far away as Sharm e-Sheikh to join in the festivities. But in general traffic was very light; most people had already arrived for the celebration hours before. Herzl consulted his watch; it was eleven-thirty. He had been here ten minutes. Could he have been wrong? Had the other man stopped somewhere else, or had he turned north when he came to the Eilat road? But why drive through Dimona to reach the Eilat road and then turn north? It made no sense. No, his man was headed for Eilat and an attempted escape across the gulf. Any other conclusion was not to be considered.

He was concentrating so hard on trying to find a flaw in his logic that he almost missed the brown sedan when it passed Hatmarim Avenue; he woke up and pulled into the main road to see the sedan pass the cutoff to the beach hotels and continue in the direction of the old port. He turned on his headlights and followed. The car ahead seemed to be in no hurry; Herzl dropped back and held the same speed. He had no idea how far he would have to go, but he knew that as soon as the car ahead made the slightest attempt to get near a boat, he was going into action.

In the brown sedan, Benjamin Grossman was relaxed. He had made the trip down through the desert with ample time to spare; once the delivery was made he might even consider putting up at one of the beach hotels and joining the celebration there the following day. Possibly even call Herzl and have him come down to join him. He had stopped several times on the long trip to make sure he was not being followed, and now he was certain of it. Nor had he been bothered at all at the several military checkpoints that he had passed, although he was sure that Brodsky would have contacted them if there was any way he had been able; but there were no telephones out there, and the soldiers he had seen at the checkpoints had not even bothered to come out of their shacks as he had passed. Probably all thinking how badly they had been treated to be assigned this lonesome duty on a holiday such as this one.

He passed the Arkia Airport and drove toward the old port. The lights of a car that was now behind him meant nothing; someone driving to one of the two hotels across from the diver’s club, or some poor devil heading down to Sharm e-Sheikh, and if it was the latter he didn’t envy the man; he himself had had enough desert driving that day.

At the underwater observatory he slowed down to set his mileage meter, and then went on. It was ten minutes to midnight, giving him plenty of time. He felt a bit proud of his timing; he would arrive almost to the minute. Not bad after over two hundred miles of driving on roads that at best could be said to be paved, but that was about all.

At the proper point he left the main road and started along the sand. As the ODESSA man had said, it was hard and bore the weight of the heavy car, even though he could feel the car drag a bit as the wheels sank in a few inches. Still, he could now understand why he was completing his journey on the beach; the main road cut away from the water’s edge at the point he had left it, disappearing behind high cliffs. Two miles to go. He began to accelerate and then reduced his speed again as the wheels began to dig in more at the higher speed. And then suddenly he frowned in alarm. The headlights that had been following him had also swung from the main road at the point he had and were following him on the sand!

Could it be that the ODESSA man had been waiting for him in Eilat and was just now coming to the boat? That didn’t sound like the ODESSA man, arranging to leave behind a car to be found. He stepped on the accelerator once again, but the car behind him was apparently lighter and sank into the sand less, because it was also accelerating and was overtaking him. In the distance Grossman could now see the dock and the small speedboat waiting at the point where the beach ran out and the cliffs dropped abruptly into the sea; but then his attention was taken by the car that was now beside him, and now was drawing ahead, as if it were a race. Grossman slowed down, reaching for the revolver under the dash, and then suddenly had to slam on his brakes as the other car slewed in front of him, scattering sand. The two vehicles shuddered to a halt, almost touching, their wheels dug into the sand. It was only then that Benjamin Grossman recognized the car and the young man climbing down and walking in his direction. He got out, staring in total surprise, his briefcase in one hand, the revolver dangling idly from the other.

“Herzl? What are you doing here?”

“Von Schraeder—what are you doing here?”

Grossman felt the shock almost physically; the blood left his face, leaving him momentarily dizzy. “Von—?”

“Don’t lie to me. You’re Colonel Helmut von Schraeder.” Herzl’s voice was harsh with tension. “How did you ever become Benjamin Grossman?”

Grossman was still in shock. “I don’t understand—”

“What don’t you understand? How I discovered who my great father was? How I worked so hard to prove my distinguished hero father was the Monster of Maidanek? I found out because you changed your face, but you never changed mine. That was your mistake, von Schraeder. You should have had plastic surgery done on me when I was a child.” Herzl’s voice was trembling now that he was actually pouring it all out to the ashen-faced man before him; all the frustrations of all the days since his discovery were in his bitter voice. He found himself fighting tears. “I found out because you used to wink at me first with one eye and then with the other when I was a child. I found out because you fell out of a tree when you were eight years old. I found out because you couldn’t roll up maps properly on the hood of a German army jeep in Poland thirty years ago …”

Grossman was slowly getting a grip on himself.

“Herzl, you don’t understand—”

“I understand you murdered almost a million people at Maidanek. How could you shove them into gas chambers—?”

“Herzl, Herzl! I was under orders. If you had been there, in my position, you would have done the same—”

“You’re a liar!” Now the tears came. Herzl shook his head violently to clear his sight. “It isn’t true! It’s a lie! You’re a liar!”

Grossman sighed. “I hope you never find out …” He stared at Herzl and shook his head. “What a pity you had to find out! What a stupid tragedy! I had such hopes.… Now I will have to go with the boat. Now I’ll never know my grandchildren …”

Herzl moved in front of him, his face determined, the tears gone, leaving streaks on his face. “You’re going nowhere, von Schraeder. You’re going on trial for the murders you committed. You’re going to hang, von Schraeder, as Eichmann hung.”

“No,” Grossman said gently. “I have to go. Please, Herzl, don’t try to stop me.”

He walked around Herzl, starting for the waiting boat. Herzl turned and tackled him, bringing him down to the sand. Grossman dropped the attaché case and revolver and swung about, breaking Herzl’s grip, struggling to his feet. Herzl came to his feet as well; the two men faced each other, both about the same size, Herzl younger and stronger, Grossman still in excellent condition and with far more experience at fighting. The tableau held for only a second and then Herzl was on top of the other man and the two went down, rolling over and over in the sand.

On board the speedboat Hans Richter stared in speechless disbelief. What on earth was the matter with von Schraeder? Richter had no idea who the other person was or what he was doing there, but the briefcase held the promise of the material he had been assigned to pick up, and von Schraeder had a revolver but the idiot was making no attempt to use it! With a muttered curse, Richter picked a revolver from the weapons rack and started to jump from the boat, determined to end the matter once and for all, but at that moment Grossman rolled over, his hand fumbling in the sand, coming up with the dropped weapon. He reversed it and brought the butt down on his son’s head with force. He came to his feet, panting, looking down with pained eyes at the unconscious boy; then he bent down, kissed Herzl on the head, picked up the briefcase, and ran for the boat.

His path was suddenly lit by the sharp glare of spotlights from the sky and the two men at the boat could hear the whir of rotors as the giant helicopter slowly began settling to the sand near the fallen boy. Richter dropped the gun he had with a curse, picking a grenade from the weapons rack instead. Grossman reached the boat at the same time, jumping over the rail, putting himself in front of Richter. He was furious.

“What are you doing? That’s my son out there!”

“That’s a helicopter full of Jews out there, you madman!” Richter said coldly, and pulled the pin. He brought his arm back in a practiced motion to throw the grenade toward the helicopter and the men who were pouring from it, when Grossman grabbed his arm, dragging it down viciously with all his force, pulling it and Richter into his strong arms. A sudden picture came to him of Buchenwald, then in the hospital at Belsen; at least he would not die of typhus a third time. The picture disappeared as quickly as it had come. The last and final thing that Benjamin Grossman had the pleasure of seeing was the sudden look of animal terror on the face of the man who had killed his Deborah.

Then the grenade exploded.

“Egged buses,” Brodsky said, his tone blaming himself for his stupidity. “I should have thought of them at once. They cover the country from one end to the other, in all directions and on every road. Most of them have two-way communication with their dispatchers; those few that don’t still stop at places where they can be given messages and relay any information they get. They drive faster than almost any car, and to flash their bright lights to pass and check a license plate at night—a license plate of a brown sedan—is the work of a second or two.”