The Seventh Secret (9 page)

"By my standards, a bust I'd say. I never caught up with a solid lead to the whereabouts of Josef Mengele."

"Is he here in this country?"

"Everyone says so, but I'm not sure, Ben. It has become a sort of chic thing to say—I'm speaking of the locals—that they have seen or met the 'renowned' Mengele himself. A great conversation piece, and kind of prestigious, if you understand."

"I understand very well."

Tovah consulted her notebook as she ate. "The locals all know that after the Allies overran Germany and Austria, Mengele used one of the Nazi escape networks to make his way to Rome, hid out in a monastery in the Via Sicilia, obtained a false passport in Spain, then entered Argentina in 1951. It's no news to anyone here that when Mengele realized pursuers were closing in, he crossed over to Paraguay, somehow became a Paraguayan, and lived quite openly and safely in Asunción."

Shertok nodded. "We leaned on the American president Carter to do something about it," he said. "Carter put pressure on President Stroessner here, and Stroessner reluctantly revoked Mengele's citizenship. After that Mengele vanished, slipped out of the capital and has lived in the back country ever since."

Briefly, she reviewed her notes.

"Then the director got this new lead," Tovah resumed. "He felt—"

"There have been plenty of leads lately," Shertok interrupted, "now that we've been joined by the West German government and a group of Americans in offering almost four million dollars in rewards for Mengele's capture. There was the lead, in June, that Mengele had gone to Brazil, lived under the name of Wolfgang Ger-hard, had drowned and been buried in 1979."

"Well, as you know, Mossad never accepted the idea that Mengele had died and been buried in Brazil. They considered that the forensic report was based on a contrived plant. All a perfect ploy to put off' further investigation, and allow the living Mengele to remain safely alive in Paraguay. Anyway, the director felt that Mengele was still very much alive. In fact, according to the director, Mengele had recently been seen hale and hearty in a Paraguayan town called Nueva Germania, a ratty little colony of German settlers founded by a German teacher and Jew-hater back in the last century. Mengele went there to treat some ailing leftover Nazis. In appreciation he was given the protection of the town, and I was sent to find out if he was still there."

Shertok sipped his coffee. "Did you know it was dangerous, Tovah?"

"Oh, I knew it was dangerous."

"Did you know how dangerous? Two of your predecessors, not Mossad agents, got too close to Mengele and paid for their curiosity."

"No, I didn't know that," said Tovah slowly. "What do you mean?"

"In 1961 an attractive Jewish lady named Nora Eldoe, who had been sterilized by Mengele at Auschwitz, traced him to a resort here. She became acquainted with him. Before she could act, Mengele learned who she was. They found her corpse a short time later in Brazil.

Next, Herbert Cukur, a rehabilitated Nazi, located Mengele in an Argentine hideout. Cukur's body was found in a car trunk in Uruguay."

"Anyway, when I reached Nueva Germania, he was already gone. Had left a week before. I tried to find out where he had gone, and got a number of leads. So I just tramped around the back country pretending to be a travel writer. I went to Hernandarias, Mbaracayu, San Lorenzo, and so on, winding up in Concepción. No Mengele anywhere. I'll tell you, there were plenty of Paraguayan Germans in every town and city. Someone told me there are 70,000 of them, the biggest ethnic group here. A few of them claimed they had seen Mengele, but no one told me where."

"In other words, no luck."

"None whatsoever. I'm sorry, Ben."

"Well, you tried. That's the most we can ask." Shertok was thoughtful a moment. "I was just wondering—do you think anyone will ever find Mengele?"

"I would think so. Definitely. I don't believe he was buried in Brazil. None of those I met could ever be tempted by any reward. They were Nazi diehards. But one day someone more fallible will want that four million. That's the person who will inform. I'm sure Mengele will be found, sooner or later. In fact, I'm counting on it."

Shertok indicated Tovah's notebook. "What about the others?"

Draining her coffee cup, Tovah went on. "Let me see. I was told to keep my eyes and ears open for Heinrich Müller, one of Himmler's Gestapo heads. Couldn't find out whether he was in Paraguay. Someone said he may have gone over to the Soviet Union after World War II to work for the KGB. Just a rumor.'

"What about Josef Schwammberger and Walter Kutschmann?"

She was studying her notebook again. "Schwammberger. SS commander at the Przemy[l concentration camp in Poland. Now seventy-three. He's not in Paraguay. Definitely in Argentina, but invisible. As for Kutschmann, the Nazi executioner in Poland, he was also in Argentina, but several people thought he was here now. No leads, not one."

They had finished the meal, and Shertok sat back, lighting a fresh cigar.

"Anyone else?"

"One more. Didn't see him either. But heard definitely that he was here."

"Who?"

"Not a war criminal. A Nazi scientist. Professor Dieter Falkenheim. We have him on some list or other as missing."

"Now you've found him?"

"Definitely," said Tovah. "Falkenheim is somewhere in northern Paraguay. Want to know how he got out of Germany? The American intelligence mission,
Alsos
, assigned to round up Nazi scientists and bring them to the United States, found out that this nuclear physicist who was trying to put together a nuclear bomb was in the town of Ilm. When
Alsos
reached his laboratory in Ilm, they found it empty, hastily abandoned. I now know what happened. Falkenheim was smuggled to Denmark, and from there Juan Perón had him flown to Argentina. He worked for Perón until Perón was exiled. Then Falkenheim slipped over to Paraguay. He's been here ever since. There is some speculation that he may have shipped one hundred tons of uranium ore out of Germany during the fall of Germany. Remember when the Americans found eleven hundred tons of uranium ore hidden in a salt mine outside Stassfurt? Well, there may have been twelve hundred tons of ore. Maybe Falkenheim got the rest."

"Unlikely. I suspect it is just faulty arithmetic on the part of the Americans. Anyway, Falkenheim is not our primary target."

"But still a Nazi. I just thought it was interesting."

"Could be. I don't know. Try it out on the director when you get back. Speaking of the director, did he ask you to keep an eye out for Martin Bormann while in Paraguay?"

"No, not a word about Bormann. I think Mossad is satisfied that he was killed in an explosion while trying to get out of Berlin. I think they've all written him off."

"Maybe so." From behind a cloud of smoke, Shertok casually posed another question. "What about Adolf Hitler?"

Tovah looked startled. -Adolf Hitler?"

"In Paraguay. Anyone speak to you of seeing him?"

"Come off it, Ben. You must be pulling my leg. Hitler shot himself in the
Führerbunker
in 1945. Everyone knows that."

"Not everyone, Tovah. Not quite everyone. Shertok straightened himself across from her. "Ever hear of Sir Harrison Ashcroft?"

"Ashcroft, Ashcroft." She tried to remember. "Didn't I read something about him in the paper today?"

"You did. His daughter, Emily Ashcroft, and friends, buried him outside Oxford."

"So?"

"So this—the Ashcrofts were finishing a biography on Adolf Hitler called Herr Hitler. Then Dr. Ashcroft got a lead of some kind from someone in Berlin that Hitler didn't shoot himself in the bunker as everyone believes. The informant said it wasn't Hitler's remains that the Russians dug up. There were no remains of Hitler. Dr. Ashcroft went to West Berlin to look into it. The day before he was to excavate around the bunker, he was killed by a hit-and-run driver in a freak accident."

"A real accident?"

"We don't know."

Tovah studied Shertok's serious scholarly face. "Thanks for the information. What's that got to do with me?"

"Maybe something." Shertok shifted uneasily. "This morning I got a coded message from Chaim Golding, who heads Mossad in West Berlin. He says that Emily Ashcroft has decided to finish the job on her own. She arrived in West Berlin today. Registered at the Bristol Hotel Kempinski."

"How do you know all that?"

"Chaim Golding knows everything that goes on in Berlin, both Berlins, especially when it has to do with Hitler." Shertok hesitated. "I realize you've had a rough assignment here and you're tired. You have a vacation due you. You're planning to go straight back to Tel Aviv and have a reunion with your parents and boyfriend. But—well ..."

"You want me in Berlin."

"Golding wants it. So does the director. You know the city. You know German. You know how much we want the truth—whatever it be—about Hitler. Mossad would like you to postpone Tel Aviv. Stay in Berlin for a week at least."

"To do what?"

"To meet Emily Ashcroft. Find out what her father knew, or what she knows now, about Hitler's not having died when he was supposed to. You can be Tovah Levine again. Use your old cover, the Jerusalem Post. Maybe try to—to interview her."

"Ben, you know better than that. She's not going to want to talk to any reporters."

"Her father did."

"Yes, Ben, but look what happened to him."

"You may be right. Well, no matter how you do it, on some pretext or other meet her, ingratiate yourself. Find out what she knows. I don't think anything will come of it, but who can tell? We've got to be sure, Tovah, that the big one didn't get away."

"Whatever you say. When?"

"Tomorrow morning to Buenos Aires. From there straight to West Berlin."

"My hotel?"

"You're already booked into the Bristol Hotel Kempinski."

"Cozy."

"Yes, I told you, we want you as close to Emily Ashcroft as possible." He handed her the plane tickets. "Maybe this time you'll come up roses."

She smiled wanly. "In my hand, I hope. Not on my grave."

I
n West Berlin, at ten o'clock in the morning of an overcast day, Evelyn Hoffmann had emerged from the Café Wolf and stood briefly beside the bookstore on the corner of Stresernann Strasse and Anhalter Strasse to inhale the fresh morning air.

What she was doing now, and would do the remainder of the morning and part of the afternoon, was a routine that she had followed for twenty-two years, certainly almost without variation for the last ten years.

But this morning, before beginning her routine, Evelyn Hoffmann paused briefly to study her reflection in the window of the Café Wolf. What she saw did not displease her. At seventy-three, one could not expect to appear as one had at twenty-three. In the early days she had been a beauty, everyone had agreed. She had been taller than medium height, with ash blond hair, slender, sophisticated, reserved, with pride in her long shapely legs. She still cherished a description that dear Keitel—Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel—had given of her after the war: "Very slender, elegant appearance, quite nice legs—one could see that. She seemed to be not shy, but reticent and retiring—a very, very nice person." In fact, she had modeled for the great sculptor, Otto Brecker, in the nude, and had hoped to be a film star in Hollywood after the trouble was over. That had been long ago. No matter. Now, at seventy-three, -she decided, she still cut an imposing figure. She had bent very little to the passage of time, was still of erect bearing and trim, her hair dyed brown now, her face crisscrossed with tiny- wrinkles now, but not too badly for an older woman. Her mind and memory were as sharp as ever. Only her walk had given in to the years. It had become slower, more tentative, her breath shorter.

So now the routine.

Evelyn Hoffmann moved away from the Café window and went to the narrow shop next door bearing a sign over the entrance that read KONDITOREI. She waited her turn, and then had a box filled with fresh
Nusskuchen
and had it wrapped with a ribbon to resemble a gift.

Leaving the shop, she walked slowly across the street, purse in one hand and the box of cakes in the other, to Askanischer Platz, halting briefly on Schöneberger Strasse to buy today's copy of the
Berliner Morgenpost
. Seeing that it was sold out, she settled for the tabloid BZ—the
Berliner Zeitung
—which she rarely read, and took her place in the bus shelter to await the approaching number 29 bus that would bring her to the Ku'damm in twenty minutes.