The magazine in a Mauser is not much bigger than a cigarette lighter. I turned the gun upside down and, with frozen, nervous fingers, slid it up and out of the grip. Eight-millimeter ammunition is about the same size as the nib on a decent fountain pen. And it doesn’t look much more deadly. But there was an old saying in KRIPO: It’s not what you hit them with, it’s where you hit them. There were seven rounds in the magazine and one in the breech. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use any of them. But if I did I knew I would have the element of surprise. No one expects a naked man with just a blanket wrapped around him to be armed with a pistol. I pushed the magazine back into the grip and thumbed back the hammer. With the safety off, the gun was now ready to fire. There seemed little point in worrying about an accidental shot. These men were professional killers. If it came down to a gunfight I knew I would be lucky to get just one of them. I drank some water, used the lavatory, and then held the gun under the spot where my other hand held the blanket around my neck. At least I wouldn’t die like a dog. I had seen enough men shot on the edge of a ditch to know that I would shoot myself before I’d even allow that to happen. About half an hour passed, during which time I thought a lot about Kirsten and the men who had murdered her. If I managed ever to escape from these Israelis, I told myself, I was going to go after them. Even if it meant pursuing them all the way to America. At the very least I was going to follow them to the airbase. But which one? There were American airbases all over Germany. Then I remembered the letter I had found in Jacobs’s glove box. The letter from the Rochester Strong Memorial Hospital itemizing some medical equipment delivered to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, via the Rhein-Main Air Base. It seemed a safe bet that Rhein-Main would be where they were headed. I glanced at my wristwatch. It was almost six o’clock. The plane to Virginia was leaving at midnight. Finally I heard the sound of the key in the lock of the bathroom door. Even if he hadn’t been pointing a gun at me, Zvi’s face would have told me the worst.

“No go, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But what you say is just too fantastic. Even if you’re not who we think you are, you’re still SS. That much you have admitted. And then there are those photographs of you with Himmler and Heydrich. They were the sworn enemies of my people.”

“In the wrong place at the wrong time,” I said. “Story of my life, I guess.”