Six Graves to Munich - Mario Cleri [29]
Rogan shook his head.
Rosalie clung to him. “If I lose you now it would be the end of me. I know it. Please let the others go.”
Rogan said gently, “I can’t. Maybe I could forget about Genco Bari and the Hungarian, Wenta Pajerski. But I could never forgive Klaus von Osteen. And since I have to kill him, I have to kill the others. That’s the way it is.”
She still clung to him. “Let von Osteen go,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. Let him stay alive and then you’ll stay alive, and I’ll be happy, I can live happily.”
“I can’t,” he said.
“I know. He killed your wife and he tried to kill you. But everybody was trying to kill each other then.” She shook her head. “Their crime against you was murder. But it was everybody’s crime then. You would have to kill the whole world to get your revenge.”
Rogan pushed her away from him. “I know all that, everything you’ve just said. I’ve thought about it all these years. I might have forgiven them for killing and torturing Christine. I might have forgiven them for torturing and trying to kill me. But von Osteen did something that I can never forgive. He did something to me that makes it impossible for me to live on the same planet with him, as long as he’s alive. He destroyed me without bullets, without even raising his voice. He was crueler than all the others.” Rogan paused, and he could feel the blood begin to pound against the plate in his skull. “In my dreams I kill him, and then I bring him back to life so I can kill him again.”
They were calling the number of his flight over the loudspeaker. Rosalie kissed him hurriedly and whispered, “I’ll wait in Munich for you. In the same pension. Don’t forget me.”
Rogan kissed her eyes and mouth. “For the first time I hope I come through it alive,” he said. “Before, I didn’t care. I won’t forget you.” He turned and walked down the ramp to the plane.
CHAPTER 11
Flying over Germany in twilight, Rogan could see how the country had rebuilt itself. The rubbled cities of 1945 had sprung back with more factory smoke-stacks, taller steel spires. But there were still ugly scabs of burned-out sections visible from the sky, the pockmarks of war.
He was in Palermo and checked into its finest hotel before midnight, already starting his search. He had asked the hotel manager if he knew anyone in the city by the name of Genco Bari. The hotel manager had shrugged and spread his arms wide. Palermo, after all, had over 400,000 people. He could hardly be expected to know all of them, could he, signore?
The next morning, Rogan contracted a firm of private detectives to track down Genco Bari. He gave them a generous retainer and promised them a large bonus if they were successful. Then he made the rounds of those official bureaux he thought might help him. He went to the United States consulate, the Sicilian chief of police, the publishing office of Palermo’s biggest newspaper. None of them knew anything of or anyone named Genco Bari.
It seemed impossible to Rogan that his search would not be successful. Genco Bari must be a wealthy man, a man of substance, since he was a member of the Mafia. Then he realized that this was the hitch. Nobody, no one at all would give him information on a Mafia chief. In Sicily the law of omertà ruled. Omertà, the code of silence, was an ancient tradition of these people: Never give information of any kind to any of the authorities. The punishment for breaking the code was swift and sure death, and not to be risked to satisfy the mere curiosity of a foreigner. In the face of omertà the police chief and the firm of private detectives were helpless in their quest for information. Or perhaps they, too, did not break the unwritten law.
At the end of the first week, Rogan was about to move on to Budapest when he received a surprise caller at his hotel. It was Arthur Bailey, the Berlin-based American Intelligence agent.
Bailey held out a protesting hand, a friendly smile on his face. “I’m here to help,” he said. “I found out you’ve got too much drag in Washington to be pushed