“I don’t drink schnapps any more, Zyster. I’m an American, now.”
He poured the drinks and resumed reading the article. The Nevada mortician had immediately notified the police. It didn’t take long before a local newspaper, the Mercury Argus, wrote an article. Other local papers picked up the story. And then the body disappeared, along with photos and notes that Offendahl had taken. An unnamed police official said that the dead man’s organs had probably been “rearranged” in the violent rollover accident that claimed his life. That also accounted for “the two alleged brains.” As for the “alleged” missing genitals, the official said that the body was discovered at night “and a more extensive search would now be undertaken.” But, he added, “there are coyotes in the area, and we are not too hopeful.” Without physical proof, Offendahl became a laughingstock. People were reluctant to consign their loved ones to such an obviously incompetent and possibly deluded undertaker. The county fired him as its coroner. He sold his funeral business and moved away. UFO Confidential claimed he was a victim of a huge Government cover-up and noted that the body had been discovered on a road not far from the military base where the notorious Area 51 was located.
Boltke looked up.
“Coyotes?”
“Yes,” Zyster said. “You see. It was a cover-up. It’s obvious that the Americans had found another one.”
“Another one, what?”
“An alien. Just like we surmised in 1945.”
“I surmised nothing. It could have been a freak of nature.”
Zyster shook his head.
“You didn’t think so, then, and you don’t now. Besides the odds of two such freaks so exactly alike, so may years apart, are astronomical. And the fact that this second body was found so close to a secret military base is too much of a coincidence.”
Boltke couldn’t quite get his mind around what Zyster was implying.
“What was he, or it, doing in Nevada? What is this Area 51? What is so secret about it?”
“The Americans maintain that it is merely a air base and design facility for experimental aircraft. But many people believe the base is where the alien remains from the Roswell incident are being studied.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You haven’t heard about the 1947 Roswell incident?”
“No,” Boltke said shortly. He abhorred being lectured. “I had other things on my fucking mind in 1947.”
“But it’s been the subject of conjecture ever since.” Zyster saw that Boltke was losing patience, so he hurried on. “In 1947 an object crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. The Government quickly claimed that it was a surveillance balloon. But many people contend that it was a UFO and that alien bodies were recovered. Those bodies were reportedly moved to Area 51, where they have been studied since.”
“And you think the dead body was one of the aliens? Come back to life and trying to escape? Are you insane?”
Now it was Zyster who became incensed.
“I think nothing of the sort. Where would an alien learn to drive a car?”
“He did crash it,” Boltke said dryly.
“You are mocking me! I am not insane! Don’t you say that!”
“Calm down. Calm down. It was only a little joke. Have another drink.” He poured for both of them. “Now, just tell me what you think. What was this so-called alien doing there.”
Zyster took a long pull of his scotch.
“I think he was spying on the Americans. Trying to find out what they knew. Trying to learn if the rumors about Roswell were true. It fits with what I found out in Verblinka before the Russians overran the camp. You didn’t want to know anything, but I was curious, so I did some research.”
Despite himself, Boltke was interested.
“And what did you find out?”
“The man, or thing, or whatever it was, that I autopsied that day in 1945 had a name. Ludwig Kemmelman. No one knew much about him, even the Gestapo, when I contacted them. They told me he came in with a group of Jewish scientists that they had kept alive outside Berlin in a special camp, on the grounds that they might come in handy.”
“That’s not like the Gestapo,” Boltke said. “Their records were usually very thorough. If anything, too thorough, if you ask me.”
“Yes, filthy people,” Zyster agreed. “But they had little on Kemmelman. No family or friends. There were a few of his colleagues still alive in our camp and I interrogated them. He was a blank to them. At first I thought they were lying to protect him, but I soon realized they really didn’t know much about him. He apparently presented himself at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin in the early 1930’s and had such a great knowledge of nuclear physics that he was given a position by Einstein himself.”
“How was that possible?”
“You must remember, nuclear physics was in its infancy then. Many established scientists dismissed it. It was the younger scientists, the renegades, if you will, who were making many of the discoveries. Look at Einstein. Although a respected scientist, he was employed as a patent clerk when he developed the Theory of Relativity. And many of the new thinkers were Jews, German and Hungarian Jews. Don’t you see? Anyone who wanted to know how nuclear science was progressing would go to Germany and pass himself off a Jewish scientist, as crazy as that seems now. Germany was where the breakthroughs were coming. Not America! But Hitler didn’t believe in what he called “Jewish science” and never devoted much money or effort to the development of a German bomb, even though the great German scientists like Otto Hahn and Werner Heisenberg were among the first to realize the potential of nuclear fission. So America got the bomb, and Germany didn’t.”
Zyster could tell from the look on Boltke’s face that he was beginning to understand.
“Who would imagine,” Zyster continued, “that the Nazis would drive most of the Jewish scientists out of Europe, including Einstein, or put them in concentration camps? Kemmelman was a spy from another world and he wound up in Verblinka!”
Boltke found himself pouring them both more scotch. Zyster was a despicable creature, but as crazy as they sounded, his conjectures were starting to make sense. But still ….
“Wait a minute. Why didn’t this Kemmelfarb, or whatever his name was, just come clean and tell the Gestapo who he really was?”
“Kemmelman. Who knows? Maybe he did. Why would they believe him? I wouldn’t have believed it unless I cut him open. But I doubt if he would have said anything. He would probably have been afraid they would believe him and use his knowledge to help the Nazis. It was unlikely he shared their misguided enthusiasm for world conquest.”
Boltke was amused at how Zyster, once an ardent National Socialist, seemed willing to relegate his former comrades to the dustbin of history.
“He was undoubtedly willing to die in the camp to protect his secret,” Zyster continued. “Thank God I selected him for one of my experiments. Had he been gassed like a regular prisoner and sent to the ovens, no one would have been the wiser.”
Zyster laughed.
“What the hell is so funny?”
“Remember what you said to me back in 1945, Rudolph? That the dead man in my lab had been shortsighted. You were making a joke. But it was true.” Zyster laughed again. “But it was Germany that was shortsighted. We would have won the war with the atom bomb.” He paused. “Not that it will matter in the long run.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our alien friend wasn’t here to learn anything he didn’t already know. He was here to find out how far advanced the human race was in its conquest of the atom. That’s what spies do. They find out what the potential enemy’s strengths and weaknesses are.” Zyster looked at Boltke. “Before attacking.”
“Before attacking?”
“Of course. Why would they send spies to gather information about our nuclear capabilities? It’s obvious. They were planning an invasion. And undoubtedly still are.”
“They? The men from Mars? You have been r
eading too much of that science fiction garbage, Zyster.”
Zyster looked exasperated.
“How can you be so dense, Rudolph? It’s so obvious. Unlike you, I’m a man of science. There is no other explanation for what we now know to be true. Aliens have been studying us, for God knows how long. If they wanted us to know about it, they would have revealed themselves. They are not from Mars. Probably from another galaxy. Who knows? But wherever they come from their intentions could not be clearer. And they are not benign.”
Dense? This son of a whore called me dense! Man of science? A fucking pervert! Boltke took a deep breath to calm down.
“So, what’s to be done?”
“We must go public with what we know. I have written out a full report of my findings, as well as my conclusion about what it all means. I have supplemented the photographs I took that day with detailed sketches I’ve made from memory. They are excellent, if I do say so myself.”
“Photographs? What photographs?”
“The ones I took after my autopsy of the creature. I have them with me. Or, rather, I have the original negatives. Easier to conceal.”
Zyster tapped his attaché case. Boltke was stunned.
“I ordered you to destroy everything related to that incident.”
“You commanded the camp, Rudolph, not my laboratories. I reported directly to Himmler. I had my laboratory assistants eliminated, but as a man of science I could not in good conscience destroy evidence of such a find. Besides, I suspected photographs would come in handy eventually, as they have, no?”
Boltke closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was beginning to get a headache.
“How did the photographs survive the bombing and then the Russians?”
“They were not in the camp when the end came. I sent them to my sister in Bavaria. She kept them for me. She probably never even looked at them. Even if she had, she would not have known what they were. Trude was a good sister, but dumb as an ox. Eventually I was able to have them forwarded to me in Paraguay. Alas, I was not able to preserve the alien’s remains. I had stored them in a special freezer separate from the one I was trapped in. It was destroyed by the bombs. The pulverized remains would have been indistinguishable from those of a human. Probably wound up in a mass grave. But the photographs will be enough. Believe me, we can present a quite convincing case. They will have to listen to us.”
Boltke couldn’t believe his ears.
“You want us to reveal ourselves?”
“The Americans will welcome us. We will be heroes. We can be like von Braun and his rocket scientists. Except even more famous, because we will be saving the world.”
Boltke was very familiar with the Werner von Braun story. The genius behind the Nazi V-2 rocket program had surrendered to the Americans at the end of World War II and been welcomed with open arms. The U.S. was terrified by the threat of Russian nuclear-tipped missiles; all was forgiven a man who used slave labor at Peenemünde. Boltke had even seen the movie, I Aim at the Stars, a 1960 biographical film which told von Braun’s life story. He particularly liked the line “but sometimes I hit London," voiced by a cynical American newsman in the movie. Kennedy, the dead American President, had promised his countrymen that they would land on the moon before 1970. Everyone was counting on von Braun and the other Nazi scientists.
But Boltke knew that neither he nor Zyster would get the kid-glove treatment afforded von Braun and the other Germans. He and the nutty doctor came from a group of so-called war criminals that the Allies quickly put before a firing squad or sent to the gallows. We might not get the death penalty now, he realized, but even if the Americans believed their evidence, they’d confiscate it and then send them both to jail for life. The irony was that Boltke had come to regret many of his wartime actions, and not only because he was afraid of being punished. His life in the United States, and his exposure to its cultural diversity and democratic traditions, had opened his eyes. He had been a shit during the war, he now realized, blinded by “duty” and ambition, and led astray by a racist maniac with a silly mustache. He never really enjoyed the killing, unlike Zyster, who was a born sadist.
“Listen, Erik, have you thought this through?” Boltke used the man’s first name to put him at ease. He had begun to formulate a plan. “Why expose ourselves at all? To what end?”
“Aren’t you tired of running? Of hiding? Of looking over our backs for Mossad? This will wipe the slate clean. And we will be rich. Our book will sell in the millions.”
Boltke was about to reply that he didn’t consider himself as a man on the run, and was quite comfortable in his new life, when he caught the import of what Zyster had just said.
“Book,” he said in strangled voice. “What book?”
Zyster poured himself another drink without asking. He looked at Boltke, and smiled.
“Well, it’s obvious, no? We should write a book about what happened in Verblinka.” Zyster saw the horrified look on Boltke’s face. “Just the bit about the alien and my autopsy, of course. We will have to minimize the other things that went on. The Americans and the Israelis are still a bit sensitive about some of the other incidents.”
Sensitive is not the right word, Boltke thought. The man is a raving lunatic.
“At first I thought we could go to the newspapers,” Zyster said. “The New York Times would be the obvious choice.”
“The New York Times! You do realize that the paper’s owners are Jewish.”
“Yes, of course. But that’s not why I decided against going to them, even though I know they would do a fine job. I’m sure with a story this important they would be inclined to let bygones be bygones.”
Let bygones be bygones? Boltke was speechless. The throbbing in his head intensified.
“Excuse me, Erik, I need some aspirin.”
Boltke went into the bathroom attached to his bedroom and took four aspirin. On the way back he took his remaining Luger from his bedside table, checked the clip, and put it in his jacket pocket.
“No, a book make more sense,” Zyster continued when he returned, “the American public has an insatiable appetite for conspiracy theories. Look at all the ridiculous books being written about the Kennedy assassination. A bestselling book will generate its own publicity. The media can come later, once we establish our credentials.”
Zyster’s glass was empty. Boltke filled it.
“This is excellent, Rudolph. What is it?”
“Scotch. Johnny Walker Black Label.”
“I could learn to like it.”
“You said ‘our credentials’.”
“Yes, of course. This must be a collaborative effort.”
CHAPTER 4 - ROAD TO NOWHERE
On a small hill about 100 yards from Boltke’s house, Etan Soul hung his Zeiss binoculars on a sturdy branch, stood up, hid behind a tree and flapped his arms against his side to keep warm. He also rubbed his ears, which were numb. As a well-traveled Mossad agent, Soul was used to all sorts of climates, but he couldn’t remember ever being this cold. It would be dark soon, and even colder. He wasn’t worried about the loss of light. Needless to say, he had no love of Germans, but they made terrific binoculars. There would be enough moonlight so that he could maintain the surveillance. Unless he froze to death, of course.
Soul was not dressed for northern Vermont in winter. He’d hurriedly outfitted himself at Sears with a ski jacket, heavy brown pants and boots but they wouldn’t have sufficed except for the thoughtful suggestion by a clerk that he might also want to invest in some “long johns,” as the Americans called thermal underwear. Fortunately he was able to buy a mottled white jacket that provided just enough camouflage amid the snow and foliage of the hillside. Most of the other garments in the Sears racks were brightly colored. He’d settled for a light gray ski hat, which was in his pocket. That was one of the reasons he was so cold. Soon as the sun went down, the cap went on.
Soul lay down in the snow and resumed looking at the house. He’s bee
n following Erik Zyster for a week, ever since he’d gotten the priority message from Mossad’s South American station that the Nazi doctor had, for some unfathomable reason, risked a trip to the United States. Soul didn’t know how the South American station knew of the journey. Someone in Paraguay probably sold Zyster out. Mossad had turned a few low level Nazis over the years by telling them to cooperate or risk a nighttime trip to Israel in a diplomatic pouch.
Soul assumed that Mossad wanted him to kill the doctor; spiriting him away from the United States would be problematic. Things were tense in the Middle East. It looked as if war could break out at any moment. Tel Aviv didn’t want any complications with their staunchest ally. But his initial orders were clear. Find out what Zyster was up to, and who he contacted. Only if it looked like he’d get away was he to be eliminated.
Soul had picked his quarry up when he landed at JFK in New York and was standing next to Zyster in line when he rented a car. Soul didn’t know what phony name Zyster used to facilitate his travels. He barely had time to rent a car himself and follow the man out of the terminal, leaving his own car in the short-term lot for Mossad to retrieve. Next thing he knew, he was on the New York Thruway, heading north.
When Zyster stopped for a leisurely lunch outside of Albany, Soul was able to run into the Sears to buy some clothes. After three more hours of thruway driving, Zyster took a local road into Vermont. That made trailing him more problematic. Soul had to chance hanging back, which meant that Zyster might take a turnoff he couldn’t see. Fortunately, it was ski season, so the road wasn’t totally deserted. By the time they got near Jeffersonville, it was getting dark, making it easier to follow Zyster’s tail lights at a distance.
Once in the town itself, the traffic was heavier and the Mossad agent was able to close the gap. He had a bad moment when Zyster suddenly made a u-turn and passed him going the other way. Had he spotted his tail? But no, the Nazi doctor had spotted a McDonald’s and pulled into its parking lot. Soul parked across the street as Zyster went into the restaurant, which looked crowded. A few minutes later Zyster emerged, carrying a large paper bag. Next, he drove out of the small town, with Soul keeping a respectful distance. After two miles, Zyster pulled into a small mom-and-pop motel. The Nazi checked in at the office and then drove his car to one of the motel units.
TWO SUDDEN!: A Pair of Cole Sudden C.I.A. Thrillers Page 17