Farnbach sat back, his thick lips closed and his nostrils flaring, his face flushed.
The man in white looked at his next clipped-together sheets. “No, Farnbach, I’m sure it was a statement,” he said, “and in that case I have to correct it slightly: by killing them you prepare the way for the fulfillment of the destiny, et cetera. It will come; not in April 1977, when the ninety-fourth man dies, but in time. Only obey your orders. Traunsteiner, you’ve got Norway and Denmark.” He handed the sheets away. “Ten in one, six in the other.”
Traunsteiner took the sheets, his square red face set in a grim demonstration: Unquestioning Obedience.
“Holland and the upper part of Germany,” the man in white said, “are for Sergeant Kleist. Sixteen again, eight and eight.”
“Thank you, Herr Doktor.”
“The eight in lower Germany and nine in Austria—make seventeen for Sergeant Mundt.”
Mundt—round-faced, crop-headed, eyeglassed—grinned as he waited for the sheets to reach him. “When I’m in Austria,” he said, “I’ll take care of Yakov Liebermann while I’m at it!” Traunsteiner, passing the sheets to him, smiled with gold-filled teeth.
“Yakov Liebermann,” the man in white said, “has already been taken care of, by time, and ill health, and the failure of the bank where he kept his Jewish money. He’s hunting for lecture-bookings now, not for us. Forget about him.”
“Of course,” Mundt said. “I was only joking.”
“And I’m not. To the police and the press he’s a boring old nuisance with a file cabinet full of ghosts; kill him and you’re liable to turn him into a neglected hero with living enemies still to be caught.”
“I never heard of the Jew-bastard.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
The men laughed.
The man in white handed his last pair of sheets to Hessen. “And for you, eighteen,” he said, smiling. “Twelve in the United States and six in Canada. I count on your being your brother’s brother.”
“I am,” Hessen said, lifting his silver head, the sharp-planed face proud. “You’ll see I am.”
The man in white looked around at the men. “I told you,” he said, “that the men are to be killed on or near the date given with each one’s name. ‘On’ is of course better than ‘near,’ but only microscopically so. A week one way or the other will make no real difference, and even a month will be acceptable if you have reason to think it will make an assignment less risky. As for methods: whichever you choose, provided only that they vary and that there’s never any suggestion of premeditation. The authorities in no country must suspect that an operation is under way. It shouldn’t be difficult for you. Bear in mind that these are sixty-five-year-old men: their eyes are failing; they have slow reflexes, diminished strength. They’re likely to drive poorly and cross streets carelessly, to suffer falls, to be knifed and robbed by hoodlums. There are dozens of ways in which such men can be killed without attracting high-level attention.” He smiled. “I trust you to find them.”
Kleist said, “Can we hire someone else to take an assignment or to help with it? If that seems the best way of bringing it off?”
The man in white turned his hands out in wondering surprise. “You’re sensible men with good judgment,” he reminded Kleist; “that’s why we chose you. However you think the job should be done, that’s the way to do it. As long as the men die at the right time and the authorities don’t suspect it’s an operation, you have a completely free hand.” He raised a finger. “No, not completely; I’m sorry. One proviso, and it’s a very important one. We don’t want the men’s families involved, either as co-victims in any sort of accident or—in the case, say, of younger wives who might be open to romantic overtures—as accomplices. I repeat: the families aren’t to be involved in any way, and only outsiders used as accomplices.”
“Why should we need accomplices?” Traunsteiner asked, and Kleist said, “You never know what you’re liable to run up against.”
“I’ve been all over Austria,” Mundt said, looking at one of his sheets, “and there are places here I’ve never heard of.”
“Yes,” Farnbach groused, looking at his single sheet, “I know Sweden but I certainly never heard of any ‘Rasbo.’”
“It’s a small town about fifteen kilometers northeast of Uppsala,” the man in white said. “That’s Bertil Hedin, isn’t it? He’s the postmaster there.”
Farnbach looked at him, his brow uplifted.
The man in white met his gaze, and smiled patiently. “And killing Postmaster Hedin,” he said, “is every bit as important—correction, as holy—as I said it was. Come on now, Farnbach, be the fine soldier you’ve always been.”
Farnbach shrugged and looked at his sheet again. “You’re…the doctor,” he said drily.
“So I am,” the man in white said, still smiling as he turned to his briefcase.
Hessen, looking at his sheets, said, “Here’s a good one: ‘Kankakee.’”
“Right outside Chicago,” the man in white said, bringing up a stack of manila envelopes between spread-open hands. He spilled them onto the table—half a dozen large swollen envelopes, each lettered at a corner with a name: Cabral, Carreras, de Lima—a snifter was snatched from the sliding rush of them.
“Sorry,” the man in white said, sitting back. He gestured for the envelopes to be distributed, and took his glasses off. “Don’t open them here,” he said, pinching his nose, rubbing it. “I checked everything myself this morning. German passports with Brazilian entrance stamps and the right visas, working permits, driver’s licenses, business cards and papers; everything’s there. When you get back to your rooms, practice your new signatures and sign whatever needs signing. Your plane tickets are in there too, and some currency of the destination countries, a few thousand cruzeiros’ worth.”
“The diamonds?” Kleist asked, holding his Carreras envelope in both hands before him.
“Are in the safe at headquarters.” The man in white homed his eyeglasses in their petit-point case. “You’ll pick them up on your way to the airport—you leave tomorrow—and you’ll give Ostreicher your present passports and personal papers to hold for your return.”
Mundt said, “And I just got used to ‘Gómez,’” and grinned. The others laughed.
“What are we getting?” Schwimmer asked, zipping his portfolio. “In diamonds, I mean.”
“About forty carats each.”
“Ouch,” Farnbach said.
“No, the tubes are quite small. A dozen or so three-carat stones, that’s all. They’re each worth about seventy thousand cruzeiros in today’s market, and more in tomorrow’s, with inflation. So you’ll have the equivalent of at least nine-hundred-thousand-odd cruzeiros for the two and a half years. You’ll live very nicely, in the manner befitting salesmen for large German firms, and you’ll have more than enough money for any equipment you need. Incidentally, be sure not to take any weapons with you on the plane; they’re searching everybody these days. Leave anything you’ve got with Ostreicher. You’ll have no trouble selling the diamonds. In fact, you’ll probably have to drive buyers away. Does that cover everything?”
“Checking in?” Hessen asked, putting his attaché case by his side.
“Didn’t I mention that? The first of each month, by phone to your company’s Brazilian branch—headquarters, of course. Keep it businesslike. You in particular, Hessen; I’m sure nine out of ten phones in the States are tapped.”