Hour of the Assassins (47 page)

“With what?” Wasserman muttered, his florid sunburned face suddenly bleached white.

“Use the telephone cord and make it good and tight. I'm going to check the knots,” Caine ordered.

Wasserman ripped the cord from the wall and tied Freddie's hands behind him with shaking fingers. Caine ordered him to sit on Freddie, who lay rigid with fear, and Wasserman complied. For a long moment the two men stared silently at each other.

“Please, John. You don't know what you're doing,” Wasserman said.

“Shut up!” Caine shouted. He aimed the gun at the bridge of Wasserman's nose and was almost overcome by the temptation to squeeze the trigger. Then he thought about the stamp and exhaled slowly.

“First things first, Herr von Schiffen,” Caine said conversationally. Beads of sweat formed on Wasserman's face and his eyes darted briefly around the room. Caine noticed the glance and smiled coldly.

“You made four mistakes,” Caine began. “I should have caught it sooner, but I was so filled with blind greed that I didn't see what was right in front of my eyes”—gesturing with the gun at the room.

“You must be crazy—” Wasserman began anxiously.

“Don't bother to deny it. You're von Schiffen, all right. It took me a while to see it, that's all,” Caine said.

“What were these so-called mistakes?” Wasserman asked quizzically, like a man who still has a few cards left to play. Caine smiled and calmly began to tick them off.

“First, that fairy tale you told me about your wife. You said that you came from Leipzig, but you have a Low German or Bavarian accent. They speak High German in Leipzig.

“Second, you filled this room with rare pre-Columbian
huaco
figurines from the Andean cultures. So either you must have been in Peru, or you had strong Peruvian contacts, because these
huacos
come from Peru and it's illegal to take valuable archeological artifacts out of that country,” Caine said, gesturing at the pottery displayed in the armoire.

“Von Schiffen must have important connections in Peru, otherwise he couldn't have bought the oil leases. You used those contacts when you had C.J. set me up for the fall in Lima. No one else knew where I was, so it had to be her and she was connected to you. It had to be you. There was no one else,” Caine added.

“And third, you got too cute with the names. That was pure, stupid pride,” Caine said contemptuously. Wasserman returned his stare with horrified fascination, as though Caine were a poisonous snake coiled to strike.

“Go on,” Wasserman said breathlessly, almost in spite of himself.

“Water was the key. I expect that you have some kind of family connection to shipping, or perhaps the navy.”

“My father was a U-boat captain and my grandfather was an admiral in the Imperial Navy,” Wasserman stated proudly, drawing his chest up and looking contemptuously at Caine.

“It had to be something like that.” Caine nodded. “
Schiff
means ‘ship' in German,
Seestern
or ‘starfish' is a five-armed aquatic animal, and Wasserman means ‘water man.' And Sobil found the oil in the Santiago River. It was all ‘water, water, everywhere.' What fools you must have thought us all. But you just couldn't resist that ridiculous German penchant for symbolic code names, just like the bad old days in the Wehrmacht. What were you in the war, anyway? Naval intelligence or the SS?”

“Nothing so trivial,” Wasserman snapped, his eyes gleaming. His Beverly Hills Jewish mannerisms dropped away like a molted snakeskin. He surveyed Caine with a calm arrogance.

“I am General Karl von Schiffen of the Waffen SS and later, in the Gestapo, I was a senior aide to Himmler himself.”

“You forgot to click your heels,” Caine remarked.

“We have no quarrel, you and I. You'll get your stamp. You've earned it,” von Schiffen said with a strained geniality.

“That's very generous of you.”

“Not at all. I assume you have the thumb.”

“I'm afraid I misplaced it in a Lima prison.”

“Then how can I be sure Mengele is dead?”

“Read the newspapers.”

“Fair enough. Besides, you have me at a certain disadvantage,” von Schiffen said, tilting his head toward the gun.

“Satisfy my curiosity on one point. Was there ever really a Jew named Wasserman?” Caine asked.

“Oh, yes,” von Schiffen responded, a wry smile dimpling his cheek. “I met him during an inspection tour of Dachau in January 1945. He had been a diamond merchant in—”

“Leipzig,” Caine threw in.

“
Natürlich
.” Von Schiffen smiled. “He tried to bribe his way out of the camp with several handfuls of exquisite gems. I simply accepted the bribe and had him gassed anyway. But the similarity of our first names and the water symbolism struck me. I knew that the war would end in a few months and that I would have to assume a new identity and flee Germany. Wasserman was like an omen for me.

“I checked and discovered that his entire family had been wiped out, so there would be no one to ask any questions. I secretly arranged to have his number tattooed on my arm and saw to it that his name was never added to the lists of those who had been gassed. When the time came, I simply threw on some rags and wandered west till the Americans picked me up and brought me to a DP camp. It wasn't difficult. Refugees and deserters were wandering all over Europe in those days. I had almost never visited the camps—that one time in Dachau was a rare exception—so no one knew my face. When the time came, I immigrated to America and used the diamonds to begin my business empire.”

“Brilliant,” Caine admitted. “Who would have ever suspected an important Nazi to be masquerading as a Jew, the thing he most despised? Truly extraordinary.”

“I created the plans for
der Seestern
years ago,” von Schiffen went on. His face assumed the calm demeanor of a man accustomed to authority. “I knew it was only a matter of time. Western civilization is on its last legs. A recent American secretary of state once admitted as much. The European and American democracies are tottering on the brink of chaos. Only a single unifying force can ever stop the Communists and that force must unite behind a single mind.
Ja
, Hitler was right: the only alternative to moral bankruptcy is the
Führerprinzip
, the Leadership Principle.

“All the elements for a Fourth Reich that will dominate the world are in place, beginning with Peru. South America is fertile ground for revolution, with a large and docile population and a tradition of machismo and violence. We Nazis know how to put such elements to use. We already have Peruvian fascists and ODESSA
Kameraden
in key positions in the army and the police. Now that Mengele is out of the way, we can begin to move at last. At the right moment we will overthrow the weak leftist junta and take over, just as in Chile. And we don't have to worry about the Americans, because the CIA is helping us to overthrow the leftist regime. Victory is inevitable,” von Schiffen sneered.

“So you take over Peru. So what?” Caine said.

“First Peru and Paraguay, then Chile and Argentina with their large German populations and military dictatorships, until finally the entire continent, with all its natural resources, will be in our hands for us to mold into a weapon.

“The only thing lacking was the catalyst. Then Sobil struck oil and it all belonged to me! And my oil would be coming on line in the last decades of the century, just when the Arab oil begins to run dry. Imagine how irresistible all our wealth and power will be! Think of it, Caine. Unnoticed in the backwaters of the Third World, the Fourth Reich is being born,” von Schiffen rhapsodized.

“ODESSA, Sobil, the Peruvian fascists, and the Company,” Caine ticked off. “Who was the fifth arm of the Starfish?”

Von Schiffen smiled.

“I don't think I'll tell you,” he said.

With a wide swing of his arm Caine swept the terra cotta
huacos
off the armoire shelf and smashed them across the room, littering the floor with broken crockery.

“Who was the fifth arm?” he shouted.

“Those were priceless works of art. You are a barbarian,” von Schiffen declared contemptuously.

“And don't you forget it,” Caine said, and calmly cocked the hammer of the revolver. “For the last time, who was the fifth arm?”

Von Schiffen seemed to shrink inside his clothes and he couldn't tear his eyes from the gaping muzzle aimed at his head.

“A secret committee of right-wing elements from neighboring countries—Chile, Paraguay, and Argentina. It's called the
Kameradenwerk
, the ‘Comrades' Organization.' And nothing can stop it! No matter how you try to kill a starfish, it always regenerates itself,” he said, his eyes gleaming.

“But Mengele got in the way,” Caine prompted.

“Let's just say that Mengele was no longer an asset to the organization,” von Schiffen remarked.

“Mengele wouldn't leave his Amazon sanctuary so you could bring in the oil crews, so he had to be terminated. But he had too many friends within ODESSA, so you needed someone from the outside. Someone like me,” Caine said.

“We needed you because Mengele forgot what it means to be a German. There was a time when a good German knew what was expected of him. An officer was given an order and he would retire to a room with his Luger. Once Germans understood about such things as honor and duty,” von Schiffen said contemptuously.

“We live in decadent times,” Caine shrugged.

“You said I made four mistakes. What was the fourth?”

“You misunderstood me. You should have had me killed in that Lima prison,” Caine said.

“I assumed the Company would handle that. They bungled it, those pathetic amateurs with all their computers and gadgets,” von Schiffen said, his voice thick with derision and disgust.

“You're the one who made all the mistakes,” Caine said quietly.

“What now? Killing me in cold blood won't stop the Starfish.”

“The stamp,” Caine said, holding out his hand, palm up.

“
Natürlich
. It's in my safe, hidden in the armoire. If you'll allow me,” von Schiffen said, a cynical smile flickering across his sweaty face. Caine nodded and moved to a position where he could cover both von Schiffen and Freddie.

Von Schiffen moved cautiously to the armoire and opened a panel in the back that concealed the safe. He twirled the combination dial and opened the safe with a loud click. Freddie stirred restlessly and Caine glanced at him for an instant. When he looked back at the safe, von Schiffen was whirling, something gleaming in his hand.

The S&W went off with a deafening explosion and von Schiffen's head flopped over like a rag, as the body collapsed. The massive .44 caliber slug had torn away most of his neck. The nearly headless torso spilled a bright stream of blood over the floor. Caine aimed at Freddie, who stared in horror at von Schiffen and the Walther PPK in von Schiffen's hand, now almost submerged in the widening pool of blood.

“I didn't know he was a Nazi, man. I swear it,” Freddie whined. Caine nodded grimly and crossed to the open safe, stepping on the corpse to avoid staining his shoes with blood.

He quickly rummaged through the safe. He found some correspondence relating to the Starfish and a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills, but the stamp wasn't there. Now he knew C.J.'s price for the betrayal, he thought. He also found a sterling silver ring that bore a snarling Viking face, with a swastika carved on one side and the lightning flashes of the SS on the other. Caine wearily shook his head and tossed the ring into the pool of blood. He pocketed the papers and the money, and using a handkerchief to keep his hands from getting bloody, he picked up the Walther and locked it in the safe.

“Is C.J. at the beach house now?” he asked.

Freddie nodded, wide-eyed. He knew it was his turn now.

“Does she have the stamp?”

Freddie nodded again, his body curled into a quivering fetal position. The blood lapped silently at his shoes, like the tide. Caine stepped around the blood and kneeled by Freddie's head.

“I need about an hour's head start, so I'm going to knock you out. When you come to, I suggest you clear but, because everybody and his brother will be looking for you. I'm not going to kill you, because I don't think you knew what the old kraut was involved in. Got it?” Caine said conversationally. You must be getting soft in your old age, Caine told himself.

Freddie nodded and Caine clouted him behind the ear with the butt of the S&W. Freddie's head clunked against the floor and Caine slapped his face a few times to make sure he was out. He looked around at the office. Then he walked over to the big sunny painting and took it off the wall. He ripped the canvas from the frame and rolled it up. He decided to mail it anonymously to the Louvre, if he got the chance. The painting was probably part of the SS war booty and after all, Monet had been French. Maybe it would help square accounts a little, he thought.

He walked outside, putting the hat and sunglasses back on. He threw the painting in the trunk of the Mercedes and started the car. No one paid any attention to him, except for a blond street girl with wan, washed-out features, who stared hungrily at the Mercedes as it started up Western.

Caine turned west on Sunset and drove smoothly through the traffic, the S & W heavy against his belly. Large garish billboards along the Strip advertised the latest rock music albums. At the outdoor vegetarian restaurant white-togaed waitresses served organic nut-burgers to patrons who stared dull-eyed at the endless stream of traffic. Maybe the gasoline fumes from the cars added something to the taste, Caine mused. A police car tore by, its lights flashing, but they weren't after him, and a minute later he saw the police talking -to the bushy-haired teen-age driver of a dune buggy.

He followed the gentle curves through Beverly Hills, past grandiose rococo houses behind high gates and lawns that were manicured like putting greens. Maybe he couldn't kill the Starfish, Caine mused. But by killing von Schiffen and by mailing the papers he had taken from the safe to Presidente Diaz in Lima, he just might be putting a dent in it. That part felt all right, anyway.