The Valhalla Exchange - Jack Higgins [4]
'O'Hagan,' he said. 'The one who writes for The Times?'
'I'm afraid so, General.'
'You've a good mind, son, but remind me to put you straight on China. You've been way out of line in that area lately.'
'You're the expert.' I took out a cigarette. 'What about Bauer, General?'
'What about him?' He leaned back, legs sprawled, all negligent ease.
I laughed. 'All right, let's try it another way. You ask me why a reasonably well-known correspondent for the London Times takes the trouble to haul himself all the way from Lima to a pesthole like this, just to look at the body of a man called Ricardo Bauer who dropped dead in the street here on Monday.'
'All right, son,' he said lazily. 'You tell me. I'm all ears.'
'Ricardo Bauer,' I said, 'as more than one expert will tell you, is one of the aliases used by Martin Bormann in Brazil, the Argentine, Chile and Paraguay on many occasions during the past thirty years.'
'Martin Bormann?' he said.
'Oh, come off it, General. Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, Head of the Nazi Party Chancellory and Secretary to the Fuhrer. The one member of Hitler's top table unaccounted for since the war.'
'Bormann's dead,' he said softly. 'He was killed attempting to break out of Berlin. Blown up crossing the Weidendammer Bridge on the night of May 1st, 1945.'
'Early hours of May 2nd, General,' I said. 'Let's get it right. Bormann left the bunker at 1.30 a.m. It was Erich Kempka, Hitler's chauffeur, who saw him come under artillery fire on that bridge. Unfortunately for that story, the Hitler Youth Leader, Artur Axmann, crossed the Spree River on a railway bridge, as part of a group led by Bormann, and that was considerably later.'
He nodded. 'But Axmann asserted also that he'd seen Bormann and Hitler's doctor, Stumpfegger, lying dead near Lehrter Station.'
'And no one else to confirm the story,' I said. 'Very convenient,'
He put down his glass, took out a pipe and started to fill it from a leather pouch. 'So, you believe he's alive. Wouldn't you say that's kind of crazy?'
'It would certainly put me in pretty mixed company,' I said. 'Starting with Stalin and lesser mortals like Jacob Glas, Bormann's chauffeur, who saw him in Munich after the war. Then there was Eichmann - when the Israelis picked him up in 1960 he told them Bormann was alive. Now why would he do that if it wasn't true?'
'A neat point. Go on.'
'Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter, always insisted he was alive, maintained he had regular reports on him. Ladislas Farago said he actually interviewed him. Since 1964 the West German authorities have had 100,000 marks on his head and he was found guilty of war crimes at Nuremberg and sentenced to death in his absence.' I leaned forward. 'What more do you want, General? Would you like to hear the one about the Spaniard who maintains he travelled to Argentine from Spain with Bormann in a U-boat in 1945?'
He smiled, leaning over to put another log on the fire. 'Yes, I interviewed him soon after he came out with that story. But if Bormann's been alive all these years, what's he been doing?'
'The Kameradenwerk,' I said. 'Action for comrades. The organization they set up to take care of the movement after the war, with hundreds of millions of gold salted away to pay for it.'
'Possible.' He nodded, staring into the fire. 'Possible.'
'One thing is sure,' I said. 'That isn't him lying up there at the mortuary. At least, you don't think so.'
He glanced up at me. 'Why do you say that?'
'I saw your face.'
He nodded. 'No, it wasn't Bormann.'
'How did you know about him? Bauer, I mean. Events in La Huerta hardly make frontpage news in the New York Times.'
'I employ an agent in Brazil who has a list of certain names. Any mention of any of them anywhere in South America and he informs me. I flew straight down.'
'Now that I find truly remarkable.'
'What do you want to know, son?