BooksBarbecue
Back The One from the Other Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Praise
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. SIXTEEN
  22. SEVENTEEN
  23. EIGHTEEN
  24. NINETEEN
  25. TWENTY
  26. TWENTY-ONE
  27. TWENTY-TWO
  28. TWENTY-THREE
  29. TWENTY-FOUR
  30. TWENTY-FIVE
  31. TWENTY-SIX
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. TWENTY-NINE
  35. THIRTY
  36. THIRTY-ONE
  37. THIRTY-TWO
  38. THIRTY-THREE
  39. THIRTY-FOUR
  40. THIRTY-FIVE
  41. THIRTY-SIX
  42. THIRTY-SEVEN
  43. THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. THIRTY-NINE
  45. FORTY
  46. FORTY-ONE
  47. FORTY-TWO
  48. EPILOGUE
  49. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  50. Teaser chapter

Apart from the certainty that the men who beat me to a pulp had been put up to it by Father Gotovina, I knew nothing at all about them. Except that they were ex-SS men like myself, and possibly policemen. The priest was my only real lead and, gradually, I resolved to be revenged on the person of Father Gotovina himself.

I did not, however, underestimate the gravity and difficulty of such a task. He was a big, powerful man and, in my much weakened state, I knew I was not equal to the task of taking him on. A five-year-old girl with a roll of sweets in her fist and a good right hook would have wiped the kindergarten floor with me. But even if I had been strong enough to tackle him, he would certainly have recognized me and then told his SS friends to kill me. He didn’t strike me as being the kind of priest who would be squeamish about such a thing. So whatever I did to the priest was obviously going to require a firearm and, as soon as I understood this, I also realized that I was going to have to kill him. There seemed no alternative. Once I pointed a gun at him there would be no room for half measures. I would kill him or he would surely kill me.

Killing a man because he had counseled other men to hurt me may look disproportionate, and perhaps it was. The balance of my mind could have been disturbed by all that had happened to me. But perhaps there was also another reason. After all I had seen and done in Russia, I had less respect for human life than of old. My own included. Not that I would ever have made much of a Quaker. In peacetime I had killed several men. I’d taken no pleasure in it. But when you have killed once it becomes easier to kill again. Even a priest.

Once I had resolved who, the questions turned into when and how. And these questions led me to the realization that if I did manage to kill Father Gotovina, it might be a good idea to leave Munich for a while. Perhaps permanently. Just in case some of his finger-chopping friends in the Comradeship put two and two together and made me. It was my doctor—Dr. Henkell—who offered me a solution to the problem of where I would go if I did leave Munich.