The owner of the cottage didn't know anything about this theory and in any case wouldn't have cared about it. He was glad that someone wanted to rent the property after the previous group had left. So, he drove to the cottage to check whether it was clean and if the furniture, utilities and property were in good shape. As always, he took his two dogs with him, to give them a chance to run around the countryside.
When he approached the cottage, everything looked in order — the driveway was clear, the cottage was clean, and the garden was in good condition. He set the dogs free and entered the garage. He saw immediately that his things had been moved around and there appeared to be several new tools, including a portable winch and a lathe. He wondered what the tenants had been doing with these tools, but his thought process was interrupted by loud barks. He rushed out of the garage to see what excited the dogs. At first, he couldn't see them, but their barking had intensified, and he saw that one of them was digging the soil with his hind legs, while the other dog whined loudly. As he got closer, a nauseous odor made him grip his nose with his hand and start breathing shallowly through his mouth. Then he saw the source of the odor — something that had the shape of a human body covered with an old rug. He withdrew from the site, pulling the two dogs away from the body and called the local police. He returned to the house and waited for the police to arrive.
Within 30 minutes the only police car from the town of Detva arrived. The police sergeant stepped out of the car and joined the owner of the cottage who excitedly pointed to the spot where he had found the body. The sergeant had seen several dead bodies during his service, but in most cases, they had been dead only for hours. He had never had to deal with a human cadaver which was in advanced stages of decomposition. Only because he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of the owner did he manage to overcome his urge to throw-up.
He called for help and an hour later a unit of police forensic investigators arrived from Zvolen. The coroner donned a face mask, and with the help of two other investigators exhumed the remains of what was once a fine, tall, blond man. The cause of death was obvious — the man's head had been hit by a couple of bullets, and the coroner could tell, even without performing an autopsy, that they were fired at close range. He knew that identifying the person would require advanced forensic techniques, and he sighed when he thought that he would have to send the corpse to Bratislava. There were not many professional challenges for someone of his experience in this quiet part of Slovakia, so he hoped that he would be invited to participate in the post-mortem. After taking several photos of the body and the surroundings, he instructed his assistants to wrap the cadaver in a double body-bag, to reduce the stench. He had identified the dominant odors as rising from two particularly bad-smelling biogenic amines — cadaverine and putrescine, both appropriately named after the putrid cadaver from which they emanated.
The fingerprints and dental X-rays which were obtained during the extensive post-mortem in Bratislava didn't match those of any missing person reported in Slovakia, so they were sent to Interpol headquarters in Paris. They were then distributed to all countries which belonged to the organization. The fact that the man had been tall and blond — features commonly found among the population of Scandinavia and northern Europe — indicated that it was likely that he had come from one of those countries. The German police found a match — the dead man was identified as Rudolf Auerbach, a German citizen with no known current address. His fingerprints were on file because as a teenager he had been arrested for a minor drug offense that didn't lead to a prison sentence. Even though Rudolf was murdered, the German police didn't bother to open an investigation, probably because his body was found in a foreign country. There was no next of kin and the deceased could be buried in Slovakia. 'Good riddance' was the reaction of the officer in charge of the case. The German authorities agreed to reimburse the Slovakian authorities for the burial expenses, and that was the end of the story as far as they were concerned.
Interpol officials were glad that for once they had been instrumental in solving a crime — or in this case, in identifying a body. This great achievement widely publicized by the press officer of the organization as an example of the contribution of the organization to the improvement of international cooperation in fighting crime. It would have gone unnoticed, like most other press releases, were it not for the alertness of Edna Rieger, Mossad's living database. She saw the photo of the deceased, depicting him as a teenager, which was downloaded from the files of the German police, and the name Rudolf rang a bell. She checked the scant details which accompanied the announcement and was almost certain that this was the same Rudolf they were trying to locate in Bologna and later in Coburg. She called David, and excitedly said, "I think we have a lead." She went on to tell him about the body of the blond man found in Slovakia and identified by the German police as belonging to Rudolf Auerbach. David said that he would contact the Slovakian authorities.
David Avivi called the officer responsible for international liaison in the Slovakian intelligence service, Anton Mitrik. Although its official name Slovenska informacna sluzba was translated as the Slovak Information Service (SIS) it was one of the three full-fledged intelligence services which were established in 1993 after Slovakia separated from the Czech Republic. After quite a long conversation, David decided that he had to see the cottage where the body was found with his own eyes. Anton was aware of Mossad's reputation and thought that the SIS could benefit from the cooperation with the prominent Israeli intelligence service, so told David that he would be welcome and promised that he would personally accompany him on his visit.
David and Anton met with the owner of the cottage, who felt that he was honored by the summons from the SIS in Bratislava. He showed them where the body was found and said that the stench of the rotting body had not completely evaporated despite his efforts to clean up the site. He then took them to the garage and told them about the strange objects and tools which were left in the cottage after the former residents left. David asked him to describe the equipment in detail and was soon convinced that the gang had used it to dismantle the nuke. He didn't say anything about radioactive materials, but surreptitiously used the radiation monitor concealed in his watch, which looked like a regular wrist watch, to take a few readings of the radiation level in the garage. He managed to disguise his reaction when the monitor showed irregular radiation levels near the large wood table and on the lathe which the owner kept.
David made no comments about these findings and indicated to Anton that he had seen everything he needed. The two intelligence officers thanked the owner for his cooperation and returned to Bratislava. Anton dropped David off at the airport and he caught a flight to Vienna and back to Tel Aviv.
David updated his elite team and added, "So, now we have incontrovertible evidence that the NEMESIS group have fissile materials which they had probably removed from the nuclear artillery shell. We know they worked on it in this isolated cottage in Slovakia, and we can assume that they got rid of the outer metal casing of the shell somewhere, and that they now have a more compact, smaller and lighter nuke. We have no idea where they have taken it, but my guess would be that it could now be anywhere in Europe. I don't believe that they would dare to transport it by air, because there are radiation monitors at all major airports."