can’t you let them live?”
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,
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
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 around, so I might as well. Of course I have my selfish motive, too. I want to keep you from accidentally ruining a lot of our groundwork in setting up information systems in Europe.”
Rogan looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment. It was impossible to doubt the man’s sincerity and warm friendliness. “Fine,” he said at last. “You can start off helping me by telling me where to find Genco Bari.” He offered the lean American a drink.
Bailey sat down, relaxed, and sipped his Scotch. “Sure, I can tell you that,” he said. “But first you have to promise that you’ll let me help you all the way. After Genco Bari you’ll go after Pajerski in Budapest and then von Osteen in Munich, or vice versa. I want you to promise to follow my advice. I don’t want you caught. If you are, you’ll wreck Intelligence contacts it’s taken the United States years and millions of dollars to set up.”
Rogan didn’t smile or act particularly friendly. “OK. Just tell me where Bari is-and make sure I get a visa for Budapest.”
Bailey sipped his drink. “Genco Bari is living in his walled estate just outside the village of Villalba in central Sicily. The necessary Hungarian visas will be waiting for you in Rome whenever you’re ready. And in Budapest I want you to contact the Hungarian interpreter at the United States consulate. His name is Rakol. He’ll give you all the help you need and arrange your exit from the country. Fair enough?”
“Sure,” Rogan said. “And when I get back to Munich do I contact you, or will you contact me?”
“I’ll contact you,” Bailey said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be able to find you.”
Bailey finished his drink. Rogan saw him to the elevator and Bailey said casually, “After you killed those first four guys, that gave us enough of a lead to break your Munich Palace of Justice case wide open. That’s how I know about Bari, Pajerski, and von Osteen.”
Rogan smiled politely. “That’s what I figured,” he said. “But since I found them by myself, it doesn’t matter what you found out. Right?”
Bailey gave him an odd look, shook hands, and just before getting into the elevator said, “Good luck.”
As Bailey knew the whereabouts of Genco Bari, Rogan realized that everyone else must have known too-the police chief, the private detectives, probably even the hotel manager. Genco Bari was one of the big Mafia leaders of Sicily; his name was no doubt known throughout the country.
He rented a car to drive the fifty-odd miles to Villalba. It struck him that he would quite possibly never leave this island alive, and that the last criminals would remain unpunished. But that didn’t seem to matter so much now. As it did not matter that he had made up his mind not to see Rosalie again. He had arranged for her to receive money from his estate once she had been in touch with the office. She would forget about him and make a new life. Nothing mattered at the moment except killing Genco Bari. And Rogan thought about that man in the Italian uniform. The only man of the seven in the high-domed room in the Munich Palace of Justice who had treated him with any genuine warmth. And yet he, too, had taken part in the final betrayal.
On that final terrible morning in the Munich Palace of Justice, Klaus von Osteen had smiled in the shadows behind his great desk, as Hans and Eric Freisling had urged Rogan to change into his “freedom clothes.” Genco Bari had said nothing; he’d merely looked at him with gentle pitying eyes. Finally he had crossed the room and stood in front of Rogan. He had helped Rogan knot his tie, had patted it securely inside Rogan’s jacket. He had distracted Rogan so that Rogan had never seen Eric Freisling slip behind him with the gun. Bari, too, had taken a hand in the final humiliating cruelty of the execution. And it was because of Bari’s humanity that Rogan could not forgive him. Moltke had been a selfish, self-serving man; Karl Pfann, a brutal animal. The Freisling brothers were evil incarnate. What they had done could be expected, springing as it did out of their very natures. But Genco Bari had exuded a human warmth, and his taking part in torture and execution was a deliberate, malignant degeneracy; unforgivable.
Now driving through the starry Sicilian night, Rogan thought of all the years he had dreamed of his revenge.
