The Seventh Secret

by Irving Wallace

  Languages aside, Tovah's major at the university had been journalism. From early on she'd had a reporter's curiosity and a reporter's eye. She had done very well in her journalism classes, and after graduation and her stint in the army she had been readily taken on by the Jerusalem Post as a feature writer. Near the end of her first year she had been called into the office of the managing editor, a rare occurrence.

  "Tovah," he had said, "I have an unusual assignment for you, very unusual."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means that the director of Mossad wants to give you an interview. The Mossad has never done this, has never even permitted one of our reporters into their building outside Tel Aviv. But this morning the director initiated the invitation. He specifically requested you."

  Tovah had been astounded. She had always known the secrecy that surrounded this arm of the Israeli government, the secret service branch founded in 1951.

  "Why me?" she had wondered.

  "They've probably read some of your byline pieces and liked them."

  "What can they possibly tell me?"

  "Find out. Your appointment is with the memuneh—the father—the director himself. Ten tomorrow morning. Yes, you'll find out then."

  Five minutes after she was closeted alone with the director of Mossad, a forceful and straightforward man with no words to waste, she had found out quickly what he had to tell her. He didn't want to give her a story. He wanted to give her a job.

  "Our business is keeping an eye on people," he had said. "We've kept an eye on you for the last half year. While we have nine hundred agents and other personnel—one hundred in the headquarters here, the rest elsewhere in the world—most of the agents are not women. Like our previous chief, Meir Amit, I am uncomfortable using women. Sooner or later a female may find it necessary to use sex to get what she wants. I don't like that, but . . ."

  He had shrugged, letting it hang there, and Tovah had become conscious that he was taking in her appearance. She knew—had always known—that she was attractive in a perfectly goyish way. Long flaxen blond hair. Blue eyes. Aquiline nose. Small mouth. Full firm bosom. Shapely legs. Nothing obviously Jewish. Aryan Germans might have regarded her as one of their perfect specimens.

  Now the director had been measuring her womanhood.

  She had felt the necessity to speak up. "I don't mind. About the sex part, I mean. I'm not a child. One does what one has to do in life."

  The director had grunted. "For the agent in the field, it can be a dangerous job. We do not encourage assassination. We do encourage self-defense. Every agent is trained to use a weapon, many weapons. Every agent is taught to lie and cheat, when it is necessary. We care only about results. Our agents are civil servants, on government salary. For three years, it is a million three hundred ten thousand shekels—not much when you think in American currency, eight hundred dollars a month. None will become rich. All will know they are helping Israel survive. If you are interested, we can arrange things with your editor. You'd still be working for the Jerusalem Post here and abroad. That would be your cover. But your main job would be working for Mossad."

  "Doing what?"

  "Plenty. You would receive assignments abroad. First you have to be trained during a twelve-month leave from the paper. Learn to send communications by code, learn to shadow a suspect and to shake a pursuer, learn hand-to-hand combat, learn to use a .22 Beretta. Then you would be ready."

  "Why me?" she had pressed.

  "I told you we've had an eye on you. We liked your looks and your tenacity. We liked your observant reporting. We liked your knowledge of German, Spanish, English." He had paused. "Well, what do you say?" He had paused again. "Or do you want to think about it?"

  Sitting there, listening, she had been thinking about it, meaning her life. The newspaper work was all right, but had become somewhat repetitious and tiresome. Her love life was nothing special, although there had been someone more interesting recently. Still, there would be time for that later. She yearned for an exciting involvement in something that would mean some-thing. Also, she yearned for travel, to break out of this tight community of sufferers, to see new places, new people.

  She had stared back at the director. "I have thought about it," she said. "When do I start?"

  Tovah had already been in the Israeli army. The Mossad training was a little more of the same, perhaps more rugged, more exacting, more varied, but continually fascinating. Then she had worked the rest of the year in the Tel Aviv headquarters, deciphering coded messages, debriefing agents, interrogating possible contacts.

  Her first assignment abroad as Helga Ludwig, had been to research and write a major travel article on Paraguay. Actually, Mossad had obtained a fresh lead on the supposedly deceased Dr. Josef Mengele, the SS physician at the Auschwitz- Birkenau death camp who had sent 380,000 innocent people to their deaths in Hitler's reign of terror. Mengele had escaped from the American Zone in Austria to Argentina in 1951, and, with the help of German colonists there and in Paraguay, had eluded all Nazi-hunters. Now Mossad had come upon a fresh lead. Dr. Mengele had been seen in Nueva Germania, a small town in central Paraguay. Tovah had been ordered to verify the sighting of Dr. Mengele, and learn what she could about five other wanted Nazis, several of whom might still be in hiding in Paraguay. She had learned much, but the big catch proved as elusive as ever. Now the assignment was almost over and she could leave this godforsaken country. Tovah glided back into the present, the plaza bench in Asunción.

  Her watch told her it was one-thirty, just time enough for her to get back to the lunch in her room with Ben Shertok and her report.

  When she emerged from the hotel elevator and made for her room, she found Ben Shertok already there, leaning contentedly against the wall outside her door, puffing on a cigar. He resembled a professorial type, rumpled hair, horn-rimmed spectacles on a hawkish nose. A quiet and dedicated intelligence chieftain.

  He planted a chaste kiss on each of her cheeks, and apologized for coming early. "Because the plane wasn't on time. It was early. So I'll excuse you if you want to go to the bathroom."

  She let them into her room. "I feel guilty, living in this fancy hotel even for a day. I assure you, Ben, it wasn't like this for the last four weeks."

  "You bet I know," he said. "I took the liberty of ordering from room service when I was downstairs. I don't have much time, and yet didn't want to rush our lunch. I have to be in Chile this evening."

  "I'll just wash my face and hands," she said. "It was hot out there. What am I having for lunch?"

  "I thought I heard you say, when we dined in Buenos Aires, how much you were taken by those dumplings of ground maize and onion on your first visit here."

  "Sopa paraguaya," she said. "You couldn't have done better."

  "Some red wine, too," he added.

  "Great. See you in five minutes."

  When she came out in twenty minutes, she found that the food had already been served from a rolling cart set between the window and the bed. She realized that Shertok was showing someone out, a dumpy man in overalls carrying a kit.

  She looked at Shertok questioningly, as he seated himself before the lunch cart. "Just a colleague," he explained. "He debugged the room. It's clean." Shertok began sampling the wine between sucks on his cigar. Tovah sought her purse, extracted a notebook, opened it, and laid it on the table as she sat opposite Shertok.

  "If you haven't much time, I should start right in," she said, cutting into her first dumpling, chewing it, washing it down with the dry wine.

  "How was the trip?" he asked.

  "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 y
ou'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."

  In 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.