Chapters (50)
- Praise
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Teaser chapter
“Then you don’t know as much as you think you do. As a matter of fact, Father Gotovina had nothing to do with what happened to you. He’s not part of the ODESSA at all. Or this. I wouldn’t like you to harm him. Really. His hands are clean.”
“No? Then why did your wife go and see him at the Holy Ghost Church, in Munich?”
“Well, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Father was involved with the Old Comradeship.” Gruen laughed again. “Not a bit. But he’s not part of the ODESSA, or connected with the CIA in any way. And my wife visiting him? That was quite innocent, I can assure you. You see, Father Gotovina goes to Landsberg Prison a great deal. He’s chaplain to all of the Roman Catholics at Landsberg. And occasionally I have him take a message to a friend of mine. Someone who’s serving a life sentence for so-called war crimes. He brings him medical journals. That kind of thing. For old time’s sake.”
“Gerhard Rose,” I said. “Your friend, I suppose.”
“Yes. You have been busy. I underestimated you—in that respect at least. That’s another thing my mother’s money is going to come in handy for, Bernie. Paying for a legal appeal against that man’s sentence. He’ll be out in five years. You mark my words. And you ought to. It’s in your interests, too.”
“Eric?” I said. “I’ve got to go now. I’ve run out of coins. But I will find you.”
“No, Bernie. We won’t see each other again. Not in this life.”
“In hell then.”
“Yes. In hell, perhaps. Good-bye, Bernie.”
“Auf Wiedersehen, my friend. Auf Wiedersehen.”
I put the phone down and stared at my new boots, reflecting on what I had just learned. I almost breathed a sigh of relief. It was the ODESSA and not the Comradeship that was behind everything that had happened to me. I wasn’t exactly out of the Vienna woods. Not yet. Not by a long shot. But if, as Fritz Gebauer had told me when I had visited him in his prison cell in Landsberg, the ODESSA and the Comradeship were not connected, then it was only the CIA and the ODESSA I had to fear. It meant there was nothing at all to stop me from seeking help from the Comradeship myself. I would ask my old comrades in the SS for their help in getting out of Vienna. I would go to the Web. Like any other common or garden Nazi rat.
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-SEVEN