Six Graves to Munich - Mario Cleri [41]
He was not the man she had imagined. He had a dignified ugliness, but his voice was kind and gentle. He treated accused criminals with the utmost courtesy and a trace of genuine, merciful pity. She heard him sentence a man found guilty of a particularly violent and sadistic crime, and he had not indulged in the usual righteousness of a judge meting out punishment. He had let the convicted man keep his dignity.
One day she found herself directly behind him on a street near the Munich Palace of Justice, and she trailed him as he limped down the street. One of his legs was shorter than the other. He was accompanied by a detective guard who moved a few steps behind him and seemed very alert. But von Osteen himself seemed preoccupied. Despite this preoccupation, he was extraordinarily courteous to people who greeted him in the street and to the chauffeur of the official car that was assigned him.
Rosalie noticed that the man had an extraordinary magnetism. The respect shown him by his fellow judges, the clerks of the court, and the lawyers testified to von Osteen’s force of character. And when a woman laden with bundles collided with him in the street, von Osteen helped her to pick up her bundles, though he was grimacing with pain. He did it with genuine courtliness. It was hard to believe that this was the man Rogan hated so much.
Rosalie found out as much as she could about von Osteen so that she would have the information for Rogan when he arrived in Munich. She learned that von Osteen had a wife who was a power in the social life of Munich and an aristocrat in her own right. She was much younger than von Osteen. They did not have any children. She learned that von Osteen had more political control of the city than any other official, including the Bürgermeister. He was also backed by the U.S. State Department officials as a proven democrat, both anti-Nazi and anti-Communist.
Despite all this, it was enough for her to know that Rogan hated the man to make all von Osteen’s virtues count for nothing. She kept a notebook on von Osteen’s habits, to make it easier for Rogan to kill him.
And every night at 10:00 she waited at the airport for the flight from Budapest, certain that Rogan would return.
CHAPTER 16
When Rogan woke up on his final day in Budapest, his first act was to destroy the dossiers he had compiled on the seven men. Then he went through his belongings to see if there was anything he wanted to keep. But there was nothing except his passport.
He packed everything else and carried his bags to the railway station. He checked the bags into an empty coin locker, then left the station. Crossing over one of the many bridges in the city, he casually dropped the locker key into the river. Then he went to the consulate.
Vrostk had gathered everything he needed. Rogan checked the items—the small jeweler’s drill and chipping tools, the tiny wires, the timing device, the liquid explosive, and some special electronic parts of tiny size. Rogan smiled and said, “Very good.”
Vrostk preened himself. “I have a very efficient organization. It was not easy to get all these things on such short notice.”
“To show my appreciation,” Rogan said, “I’m going to buy you a late breakfast at the Café Black Violin. Then we’ll come back here and I’ll go to work with this stuff. And I’ll also tell you what I’m going to do.”
At the café they ordered coffee and brioches. Then, to Vrostk’s obvious surprise, Rogan called for the chess set. The waitress brought it over, and Rogan set up the pieces, taking the whites for himself.
Vrostk said in an annoyed voice, “I have no time for such foolishness. I must get back to my office.”
“Play,” Rogan said. Something in his voice made Vrostk suddenly quiet. He let Rogan make the first move and then moved his black pawn. The game was soon over. He beat Rogan easily and the pieces were dumped back into the set for the waitress to carry