The White Schooner (22 page)

Again the old man raised his hands in protest and banged the table, the handcuffs rattling like chains. ‘Lies,’ he hissed. ‘Damned lies, and you know it. I am not Gottwald—
whoever
he may be. And as for war crimes—that is childish nonsense. I am not and never have been a German. I can prove that. And I can prove that I was not in Germany for one day of the war.’

Black sighed wearily, not so much that he was tired, but that he was sick with emotion, sick with remembered horror; too sick to shout accusations at this carrion-like old man, to pour on him the hatred and loathing of a lifetime. Instead he said, ‘Something of what you say is correct. You are
not
a German. You were in Switzerland from the beginning of the war until November, 1943, when you moved to South America. Whether these facts will help you, will be seen when you are on trial. In the meantime, save your energies for that occasion.’

Van Biljon stared at him, leaning forward across the table, baring uneven yellow teeth. ‘You concede that I am Swiss. That I was not in Germany during the war. So this nonsense you talk of war crimes is not going to help you. What is this? A cloak for crime? For abduction?’ He stopped, closing his eyes and pressing the tips of his fingers against his eyelids. ‘I
will not play that game: ask what the ransom is. How it is to be paid? Where it is to be collected? I am too old for that.’ He sighed. ‘I will leave it to the Spanish Government to deal with you. Do what you wish with me. I have had my life. But you will end your days, you and the others, rotting in a Spanish gaol.’ The words came spitting from the twisted mouth, as if their emission hurt.

Black watched him, unmoved. ‘There is no ransom,
Gottwald
. No easy way out. No escape. Eichmann discovered that, and many thousands of others.
There
is
no
escape.
’

Van Biljon shook his manacled hands in a final gesture of despair. ‘Stop this absurd act. At once! It is preposterous that you should subject an inoffensive old man to such indignities. In the name of God, stop it.’

Black shook his head. ‘We met many years ago, Gottwald. Of course you look different now.’

The old man’s neck muscles worked as he glared at his captor. ‘I
never
forget a man’s face. We haven’t met before.’

‘It’s not a man’s face you have to remember. It was longer ago than that.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I think you do,’ said Black. ‘That Cézanne picture. The water-mill at Argenton-sur-Creuse.’

‘What of it?’

‘It was my uncle’s.’

Gottwald’s face crumbled and his head sagged forward as if its means of support had been suddenly withdrawn. ‘You mean, you mean …?’ he whispered.

‘Yes. I am Bernard Falk. Johan Stiegel’s nephew. You sent us up that path in the forest.’

Gottwald closed his eyes. ‘
Mein
Gott
!’ he said. ‘
Mein
Gott
!’

After Helmut had taken van Biljon back to the owner’s suite, Black sat hunched on the settee in a corner. Drained of emotion, exhausted yet unwilling to sleep, his mind blurred with thought, he tried to concentrate on the rendezvous: Helmut would have to get a star fix at dawn, plot
Snowgoose
’s position, make the necessary alterations of course to reach Rendezvous Gamma by eight-thirty. With luck they would have a little time on hand. If not, use would have to be made of those extra revolutions.

The legal niceties must be observed. Fifteen minutes before they were due at the rendezvous they’d transmit a MAYDAY signal.
Mistral
of
Monaco
in
distress
50
miles
N.W.
Algiers.
Hull
leak.
Sinking
rapidly.
Providentially, Weissner would show up. A schooner sinking on the high seas. He would take them off. Return to his base. Hand those he had rescued to the appropriate authorities. Everything had been thought of. ZID was an organisation manned by people of intelligence, determination and infinite patience. Its director, Kagan, was the embodiment of those virtues. Black’s thoughts trailed away, interrupted by the sound of a door opening. He looked up.

Manuela stood in the doorway, pale and uncertain, steadying herself against the schooner’s corkscrew motion.

Her hair was untidy, she had no make-up, the soft lips glistened and there were dark smudges under eyes which regarded him as if he were a stranger. ‘I couldn’t help it,’ she said. ‘I heard what was said.’

Black had not moved. Now he looked away, running his hand over his forehead. ‘With Gottwald, you mean?’

She came over and stood above him, her hand on his shoulder. ‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I will not repeat it. But the ventilator over the door was open. It was terribly stuffy.’

‘So you know,’ said Black, feeling that it wasn’t a very bright remark.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and I am—well—sad
and
happy. You know.

Mixed up.’

‘Happy that you’re safe. But why sad? For him?’

She shook her head emphatically. ‘Happy that you are—what you are. Sad that I have thought such unkind things about you.’

He felt an enormous relief and pulled her down beside him.

‘I had to
do
pretty unkind things to you.’

She said, ‘Yes,’ and he put his arms round her, burying his face in her hair, holding her tight, restraining thoughts and fears he preferred not to face.

Gently she pushed him away. ‘You know I can’t call you
Bernard
. It is not
you
. For me you can only be Charles. I don’t mind the Falk. I never thought much of Black.’

‘I thought it was rather good. Sort of strong-silent-man name.
Killer
Black. You know. But Charles is my second name. Bernard Charles Falk.’

She put up a hand to stifle a yawn.

‘You must sleep,’ he said.

‘Impossible. My brain is too active. There’s too much I don’t understand.’

‘What, for example?’ He held one of her hands, marvelling at its softness, the wrist almost transparent, the veins and arteries showing through the skin like threads in marble.

‘What you were talking about to van Biljon. How could he commit war crimes against the Jews
outside
Germany? How could you, an Englishman, be involved? How did you escape? Can’t you tell me?’

‘It’ll all come out at the trial, Manuela.’ He looked at her with tired, inquiring eyes; then, seeing her disappointment, he said, ‘All right. I’ll tell you. But don’t repeat it. You could ruin me if you did.’

‘Look at me,’ she said impulsively, leaning towards him. ‘Do you think I would ever do that?’

‘No. I don’t.’

‘Oh, Charles,’ she said, ‘I wish I’d known before.’

‘Sit over there, not too close.’ He said it sternly, moving away from her. ‘I can’t think clearly with you next to me.’

He put his legs on the settee, wedging himself in the corner. ‘It’s a long story. Gottwald was a Swiss. At the beginning of the Second World War he was a small, not very successful art dealer in Zurich. He was in his early thirties then. For several years before that he’d had connections with an art
dealer, Rosenthal, on the German side of Lake Constance. In 1940, Rosenthal persuaded him to operate the Swiss end of an escape route across the lake for Jewish refugees. These were wealthy people. They brought easily transported
valuables
. You know. Diamonds, gold, jewellery, pictures.

‘Gottwald’s reward for his services was the sole right to dispose of these for their owners. He got a twenty per cent commission. It was a lucrative business. After he’d worked in this way for some time his reliability and discretion were well established, and a steady trickle of Jews was getting through.

‘By then he’d got a taste for money, and an obsession about the French Impressionists. He’d handled a number of their pictures which refugees had brought over.

‘But to acquire these required a lot more money than he had. Anyway, it seems that some time in 1942 he saw the possibility of getting rich quick, and without risk, by introducing a simple but important variation into the escape routine.

‘Gottwald’s work from the Zurich end was to meet an incoming motor-launch at varying but pre-determined points on the Swiss side of the lake, and transfer the refugees to his panel van. There they would sign documents appointing him sole agent for the disposal of their valuables, which they then handed over. This done, he would lock the doors and drive into Zurich by roundabout routes, dropping the refugees in outlying parts of the city. He had to vary the routes and points of disembarkation on each occasion so that no pattern was built up which might be detected by German agents. Then …’

Manuela broke in. ‘What was this variation you spoke of? In the escape route, I mean?’

The schooner trembled as the bow smacked into a sea and they heard the spray sluice over the deck above them.

‘Wind and sea increasing.’ Black’s red-rimmed eyes
emphasised
his weariness. ‘Now where was I? Oh, yes. The variation. After he’d met the launch, he’d put them in his van. There they’d sign the documents and hand over their valuables. Then he’d lock the van, but instead of driving into Zurich, he’d go to a point on the Swiss-German, or Swiss-Austrian border. He varied them. The distances were never great. He would tell the refugees that they were just outside Zurich, that they must follow a forest footpath he showed them which would lead them to a main road in a kilometre or so. He
explained that these precautions were necessary for the safety of other refugees who would be using the escape route in future.

‘The refugees would set off up the path and soon run into the arms of a German border patrol which was expecting them.’

Manuela shivered. ‘What a fiendish thing to do. But he was making money anyway. Why did he do it?’

‘Greed. Also, perhaps, some complex hate motive. He was a German Swiss.’

‘Why did he help in the beginning?’

‘Money, I suppose. He got a lot of money from the
commissions
. But the only way he could get the lot was to get rid of their owners. Once he’d done that it was easy.’

Manuela brushed the hair away from her eyes. ‘How did the German border guards know the refugees were coming?’

‘Gottwald had a cousin in Bavaria. A man called Halsbach. Well placed in the middle echelons of the Nazi Party. Through him, Gottwald evolved this system for returning refugees. He even claimed out-of-pocket expenses for his services. This was probably done to keep from the Germans the real purpose of his activities.’

‘He must be like an animal,’ said Manuela.

‘You’re a bit hard on animals.’

For a moment she watched him in silence. ‘I heard you say that he went back to South America in 1943.’

Black ran his hands over his face as if to refresh himself. ‘God, I’m tired.’

She was at once contrite. ‘Oh, Charles. How selfish of me. I will go. You must sleep.’

‘No. Don’t go. It does me good to get this out of my system. Anyway I would never sleep. This’ll help to pass the time.’

‘You mean until Rendezvous Gamma?’

He looked up quickly. ‘You know that, too?’

‘Of course. Everything you discussed I could hear in the cabin.’

‘Lucky we didn’t get on to Helmut’s favourite subject.’

‘It might have been interesting.’ She tilted her head on one side, regarding him curiously. ‘Why don’t you people speak to each other in Hebrew?’

‘Two of us don’t speak it well. In any case when this
operation began we had orders not to speak Hebrew at any time, in case we gave away our cover. English is the one language we all speak reasonably well. And it suits me. I am English.’

She repeated an earlier question. ‘Why did Gottwald go to South America in 1943?’

‘Because that year the escape route dried up. Rosenthal
disappeared
, and Gottwald’s cousin in Bavaria sent word that the Jewish underground in Germany had got wind of the
double-sell
.

‘Gottwald left Switzerland for South America almost
immediately
. I expect he was terrified of reprisals. He took with him the pictures. You’ve seen many of them at Altomonte. A good part of that collection was built up during the war years. Either with the wealth he stole from refugees, or simply by keeping their pictures. Like my uncle’s Cézanne.

‘In the Argentine, he took the name “van Biljon” and had extensive plastic surgery. The idea was to simulate facial
injuries
and burns in an air crash.’

Manuela said, ‘He certainly succeeded.’

‘Afterwards he moved from the Argentine to Peru, shifting to Brazil when the war ended. In 1949 he moved again, this time to the Paranà area of Brazil. Bormann, Mengele, Gluck and others were in those parts, and Gottwald evidently wanted to be near them. I expect it gave him a sense of security. But there is no evidence that he had any connection with them. From the start he chose the life of a recluse.

‘As it happened, his first serious mistake was to take the name of van Biljon, although he had good reason for doing this. But it provided the first, the essential, clue to his identity. He had been married before the 1939–45 war to a woman who came from a Transvaal family which had settled in the Argentine after the Boer War. In this way he had an intimate knowledge of the background he’d adopted.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘She died of leukemia in Zurich less than a year after their marriage. There were no children.’

‘I believe he adored children,’ she said. ‘Is it not strange?’

‘No. I understand this. He had to live with his conscience. We all do. He had sent many people to their death, some of them children. I imagine he thought in a twisted way that he could come to terms with himself if he gave happiness to
children.’ Black pulled at his beard. ‘It is impossible to know what goes on in such a mind. Perhaps it also was that they gave him company, and were too young to menace him with awkward questions about the past.’

‘Tell me about yourself.’ She looked at him curiously. ‘What happened to you?’

‘I must get a drink,’ he said. ‘I’m getting hoarse. Something for you?’

‘A Coke or milk. Anything.’

As Black stood up, Dimitrio flung into the saloon. ‘Quick! Aircraft flares astern,’ he shouted and ran back.

After a moment’s hesitation, Manuela followed. As she emerged from the companionway into the wet windy
darkness
, she heard Black’s urgent shouted order, ‘Reverse course. Stop engines. Hoist sails,’ and she saw by the reflection of the compass light that he was at the wheel.

There was a flurry of activity and the schooner’s bows came round until she was heading for Ibiza. The big diesels coughed to a stop and the hull vibrations ceased. Kamros came from the engine-compartment and lent a hand with the running gear.

Halyards were run to the winches, sails hoisted, sheets slackened and the booms swung broad-off to catch the wind. Within minutes
Snowgoose
was under sail, moving slowly through the water, making the most of the wind from astern, her navigation lights burning.

Fine on the starboard bow, Manuela saw a flare flicker faintly then go out, leaving behind a night which seemed blacker than ever. She heard Black say: ‘How many flares were there?’

‘Two,’ said Francois. ‘One about thirty seconds after the other.’

‘Could you hear the aircraft?’

‘No. At first I thought they might be distress signals. But they came down so slowly that I realised they were aircraft flares.’

‘Did they illuminate anything?’

‘Nothing that I could see. I reckon they were about eight to ten miles off, or we’d have heard the aircraft.’

‘Could be closer,’ said Black. ‘The wind’s carrying the sound away from us.’

Helmut said, ‘Aircraft don’t drop flares over the sea unless
they look for something.’

‘That,’ said Kamros, ‘is a fabulous deduction.’

‘
Magnifique.
’
Francois cleared his throat. ‘
Deutschland
über
Alles.
’

‘Shut up,’ said Black urgently. ‘And listen.’

After that the only sounds were the slap and gurgle of water along the schooner’s side, and the creaking of running blocks and rigging.

It was Dimitrio who heard it first. ‘On the port bow,’ he called.

‘What?’ snapped Black irritably.

‘Aircraft engines.’

A moment later Black said, ‘Yes.’ What had at first seemed no more than a pulsing in the atmosphere, had grown in intensity to become a rhythmic pattern of sound somewhere out on the port bow.

‘Twin piston engines.’ Black’s voice was laconic. ‘I’ll stay at the wheel. The rest of you get under cover. If they drop a flare it’ll look odd if the cockpit’s stiff with bodies at three o’clock in the morning.’

‘Three-twenty-seven,’ corrected Helmut, calling back over his shoulder as he shepherded the others down the
companionway
, shutting the door after him and switching off the lights.