Shlomo and Aaron went at it roughly, like they were looking for my wallet, flinging my clothes into the shallow grave in front of me. Shivering I folded my arms around my torso like a fur wrap. A fur wrap would have been better. The sun had dipped behind the mountain. And a wind was getting up.
Now that I was naked the interrogator spoke again.
'Eric Gruen. For crimes against humanity you are sentenced to death. Sentence to be carried out immediately. Do you wish to say anything?'
'Yes.' My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. As far as these Jews were concerned, it did of course. They thought it belonged to Eric Gruen. No doubt they expected I would say something defiant like 'Long live Germany' or 'Heil Hitler.' But Nazi Germany and Hitler could not have been farther from my mind. I was thinking of Palestine. Perhaps Shlomo had hit me for not calling it Israel. Either way I had very little time left if I was going to talk my way out of a bullet in the back of the head. Shlomo was already checking the magazine of his big Colt automatic.
'Please listen to me,' I said through chattering teeth. 'I'm not Eric Gruen. There's been a mistake. My real name is Bernie Gunther. I'm a private detective. Twelve years ago, in 1937, I did a job in Israel for Haganah. I spied on Adolf Eichmann for Fievel Polkes and Eliahu Golomb. We met in a cafe in Tel Aviv called Kaplinsky's. Kaplinsky, or Kapulsky, I really don't remember. It was near a cinema on Lilienblum Strasse. If you telephone Golomb he'll remember me. He'll vouch for me. I'm sure of it. He'll remember that I borrowed Fievel's gun. And what I advised him to do.'
'Eliahu Golomb died in 1946,' said my interrogator.
'Fievel Polkes, then. Ask him.'
'I'm afraid I've no idea where he is.'
'He gave me an address to write to, if ever I had some information for Haganah, and I couldn't contact Polkes,' I said. 'Polkes was Haganah's man in Berlin. I was to write to an address in Jerusalem. To a Mr. Mendelssohn. I think it was Bezalel Workshops. I don't remember the street. But I do remember that I was to place an order for a brass object damascened in silver, and a photograph of the Sixty-five Hospital. I've no idea what it means. But he said it would be a signal for someone in Haganah to get in contact with me.'
'Maybe he did meet with Eliahu Golomb.' Shlomo spoke angrily to my interrogator. 'We know he had contact with senior people in the SD. Including Eichmann. So what? You've seen the photographs, Zvi. We know he was chummy with the likes of Heydrich and Himmler. Anyone that shook that bastard Goring's hand deserves a bullet in the head.'
'Did you shoot Eliahu Golomb?' I asked. 'Because he shook hands with Eichmann?'
'Eliahu Golomb is a hero of the State of Israel,' Zvi said stiffly.
'I'm very glad to hear it,' I said, shivering violently now. 'But ask yourself this, Zvi. Why would he have trusted me with a name and address if he hadn't trusted me? And while you're thinking about it, here's something else to consider. If you kill me, you'll never find out where Eichmann is hiding.'
'Now I'm sure he's lying,' said Shlomo, and pushed me into the grave. 'Eichmann is dead.' He spat into the grave beside me and worked the slide on his automatic. 'I know because we killed him ourselves.'
The grave was only a couple of feet deep and the fall didn't hurt. Or at least I didn't feel any pain. I was too cold. And I was talking for my life. Shouting for it.
'Then you killed the wrong man,' I said. 'I know, because yesterday I spoke to Eichmann. I can take you to him. I know where he's hiding.'
Shlomo leveled the gun at my head. 'You lying Nazi bastard,' he said. 'You'd say anything to save your own skin.'
'Put the gun down, Shlomo,' commanded Zvi.
'You don't really buy that crap, do you, boss?' protested Shlomo. 'He'll say anything to stop us shooting him.'
'I don't doubt that for a moment,' said Zvi. 'But as the intelligence officer of this cell, it's my job to evaluate any information that comes our way.' He shivered. 'And I refuse to do that on a mountainside in the middle of winter. We'll take him in the house and question him some more. Then we'll decide what to do with him.'
They frog-marched me to the house, which was deserted, of course. I guessed it must have been rented. Either that or Henkell did not care what happened to it. For all I knew, the documents I had signed in Vienna, at Bekemeier's office, had transferred all of Gruen's wealth to the United States. In which case the two of them would be set up nicely for a good long while.
Aaron made some coffee, which all of us drank gratefully. Zvi threw a blanket over my shoulders. It was the one that had been on Gruen's legs while he had sat in his wheelchair, pretending to be a cripple.
'All right,' said Zvi. 'Let's talk about Eichmann.'
'Just humor me a minute,' I said. 'And let me ask the questions.'
'All right.' Zvi looked at his watch. 'You have exactly one minute.'
'The man you shot,' I said. 'How did you identify him?'
'We had a tip-off it was him,' said Zvi. 'And he wasn't surprised to see us. Nor did he deny that he was Eichmann. I think he would have denied it if he'd been someone else. Don't you?'
'Maybe. Maybe not. Did you check his teeth? Eichmann has two gold plates, from before the war. They would certainly have appeared on his SS medical record.'
'There was no time,' admitted Zvi. 'And it was dark.'
'Do you remember where you left the body?'
'Of course. There's a maze of underground tunnels the SS planned to use for the secret murder of thirty thousand Jews from the Ebensee concentration camp. He's under a pile of rocks in one of those tunnels.'
'Did you say Ebensee?'
'Yes.'
'And the tip-off was from Jacobs, right?'
'How did you know?'
'Have you ever heard of Friedrich Warzok?'
'Yes,' said Zvi. 'He was the deputy commander of the Janowska Concentration Camp.'
'Look, I'm pretty sure the man you shot wasn't Eichmann but Warzok,' I said. 'But it ought to be easy enough to check. All you have to do is go back to Ebensee and examine the body. Then you'll know for sure that I'm telling the truth and that Eichmann is still alive.'
'Why didn't Warzok deny that he was Eichmann?' asked Zvi.
'What would be the point?' I said. 'To deny being Eichmann he would have had to have proved he was Warzok. And you'd have shot him anyway.'
'True. But why would Jacobs sell us a dummy?'
'I don't know. All I know is that Eichmann is about sixty miles from here. Right now. He's in hiding. I know where. I can take you to him.'
'He's lying,' said Shlomo.
'Anyone would think you don't want to find Eichmann, Shlomo,' I said.
'Eichmann is dead,' said Shlomo. 'I shot him.'
'Can you really risk being wrong about something like that?' I asked.
'We would probably be walking into some kind of trap,' said Shlomo. 'There's only three of us. And supposing we did find Eichmann. What would we do with him?'
'I'm glad you mentioned that Shlomo,' I said. 'You let me go. That's what you do. If you ask him nicely, Eichmann will even tell you my real name. He'll also confirm part of my story. About being in Palestine before the war. Letting an innocent man go in return for helping you to find Eichmann seems like a very small price to pay.'
Aaron said, 'And what about those photographs? You were in the SS. You knew Heydrich and Himmler. And Nebe. Do you deny that?'
'No, I don't. But it's not how it looks, that's all. Look, it would take a long time to explain. Before the war I was a cop. Nebe was the boss of the criminal police. I was a detective. That's all.'
'Give me five minutes with him, Zvi,' said Shlomo. 'I'll find out if he's telling the truth or not.'
'So you do admit that it's a possibility?'
'Why did you say that the body in the tunnels must be Friedrich Warzok's?' asked Zvi.
