“My only interest in your head is what’s in it and if you can keep it on your shoulders. You see I have a man on one of those rooftops. And he’s not there for his own entertainment. He’s a trained marksman with a high-powered rifle who hates Germans even more than I do, if that were even possible. An American rifle with a telescopic sight, which he says has an effective range of about one thousand yards. I should estimate that it’s less than half of that to those rooftops, wouldn’t you agree? So by that standard it ought to be an easy shot for him.”
I said nothing but I was suddenly feeling very uncomfortable, like I had a persistent itch on my scalp and all the Drene shampoo in the world wasn’t going to fix that. I sat down again, quickly. Now I really did want a cigarette.
“Here’s how this works. If I decide that you have been anything less than totally cooperative, then I shall signal to my man and his spotter and—well, you can guess what will happen, can you not? I guarantee that you won’t leave this stadium alive, Herr Ganz.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t. And let’s hope you never have to find out. It’s one of those fiendishly German questions that used to fascinate us Jews in the camps. Is there water in the showerheads, or is there not? Who knew for sure? The lies you told. The way you used language to obfuscate the truth. ‘Special treatment’ used to mean a lifesaving operation in a Swiss clinic; thanks to Germany it now means a bullet in the back of the head and a shallow grave in Ukraine. But in anticipation of your own question I brought you this small proof that I am indeed telling you the truth.”
She handed me a rifle bullet. It was a .308 Winchester cartridge. And it was just the kind of round a sniper would have used over a distance like the one she’d described. I was trying to keep my head but the prospect of losing half of it meant I was already sweating profusely. I’d seen enough comrades hit by snipers in the trenches to know the fiendish damage a sniper could inflict.
“I know, there’s still room for doubt,” she said. “But that’s as much proof as you’re going to get right now, short of my giving him the prearranged signal. At which point it really won’t matter, will it? This is why I’m wearing reds and browns, as a matter of fact. These are my old clothes. In case some of your blood and brains splash onto me.”
She was smiling but I had the very distinct impression that she was perfectly serious, that she really had chosen clothes and even a color scheme that might not show a bit of arterial spray. I tried to match her cool manner but it was proving difficult.
“Can I keep this bullet as a souvenir? It will make a nice change from an evil-eye key fob.”
“Sure. Why not? But choose your next joke very carefully, Herr Ganz, because the next bullet won’t be quite as harmless as that one you’re holding in your hand.”
“You know, suddenly I’m very glad that I apologized.”
“So am I. It’s a good start for you, right enough. If you weren’t a German I might actually like you. But since you are—”
“I take it you’re not from the International Olympic Committee.”
“No. I’m not.”
“And you can’t be Greek NIS. I doubt they’d murder me here in Athens. So then: You must be from the Institute. In Tel Aviv.”
“You really are well informed. For an insurance man. Only before this you were a Berlin detective and you worked in Homicide—in the Murder Commission, which is to say you investigated murders instead of committing them, like so many of your colleagues. Many Jews met very grisly ends at the hands of German police battalions, did they not? But clearly Lieutenant Leventis has some faith in you, otherwise he would not have sanctioned you to negotiate a secret deal with Arthur Meissner. I’m reliably informed that he has done this because he has some hope of finding and arresting Alois Brunner. And that’s where I come in, because if anyone is going to arrest that bastard Brunner I want it to be me. He’s one of several major war criminals we’re looking to arrest.”
“Are you sure you mean arrest? I say that as one who has just been informed there is a rifle pointed at my ear.”
“Oh, very much arrest, yes. Have no fear, if he is here in Greece we’ll spirit Brunner to Israel for trial. A real trial in front of the whole world, with real lawyers and a real verdict as opposed to the shameful war crimes trials you’ve conducted in Germany. Because let’s face it, Herr Ganz, even the Nazis who were tried and convicted by Germany have had a pretty easy time of it. Why only a couple of months ago, I read an intelligence briefing that said an SS officer called Waldemar Klingelhöfer had been released in December 1956 from Landsberg Prison after serving just eight years of a death sentence imposed for the murder of almost two and half thousand Jews. No, Herr Ganz, the world owes us a proper trial. And why should you give a damn? Alois Brunner was an Austrian. Arguably not even that. His hometown is now in western Hungary, I believe. So then. We Jews want our pound of flesh. Thanks to William Shakespeare, it’s what the world expects of us anyway.”
After everything she had said, I didn’t have to think too hard about my decision. There were several rooftops from which a sniper aiming at me would have had an easy shot. Perhaps it was my imagination but I fancied I saw the sun reflected from something on one of the more modern rooftops; it might have
