“At one time, you know, he was thinking of shipping all the Jews to Madagascar. And at one time the British offered them Kenya. Kenya, from what I hear wouldn’t have been at all bad. Good land, good climate. But it wasn’t Palestine. Or Israel. You know what I think Palestine could wind up being?”
“What?”
“The world’s largest ghetto.”
“The Jews will have to get rid of the British first,” Jackson said. “Then they will have to get rid of the Palestinians. If they keep the pressure on, the British will probably pull out. They’re broke. They’re going to be pulling out of a lot of places in the next few years. But the Palestinians haven’t got anyplace to pull out to. The Jews are going to have to fight them.”
“And the Syrians and the Egyptians and the Lebanese and probably the Transjordanians.”
“Probably,” Jackson said.
“I wonder if they could win.”
“The Jews?”
“Yeah.”
Jackson thought about it. “It probably depends upon which way Russia leans. The Zionist lobby is pretty strong in the States, so Washington will probably tilt that way. Which way Russia will go is anybody’s guess.”
Lieutenant Meyer nodded, and they walked on in silence for a moment. Then Meyer said, “Remember that buck general I told you about?”
Jackson nodded. “The one you said wasn’t very bright?”
“Yeah. General Grubbs. Knocker Grubbs. Well, the Knocker’s out and an old friend of yours is in.”
“Who?”
“They brought him up from Munich. They say he’s brilliant. I don’t know, maybe he is. I’ve only talked to him once, and that was this morning. He speaks German, though, and that’s a change. He went to Heidelberg before the war. The Army sent him.”
“Has he got a name, this old friend of mine?”
“Sorry, I thought I’d already mentioned it. Bookbinder. Samuel Bookbinder. He’s Jew, like me. Maybe that’s why he’s still only a colonel.”
“He’s no old friend of mine.”
“You know him, though.”
“We met a couple of times in Italy during the war. That doesn’t make us old friends.”
“Well, maybe he’s an old friend of some of your old friends — those ex-OSS wheels in Washington who think you need special handling. Anyway, the cables have been shooting back and forth between them and Bookbinder. You heard the latest about Oppenheimer?”
Jackson nodded. “I heard.”
“I thought you would. From his sister. Well, it’s a British show now.”
“In Bonn.”
“That’s right, in Bonn. They’re sending me up as liaison. You’re going, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. First of all, there’s this.” Lieutenant Meyer took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Jackson.
“What is it?”
“It’s a kind of laissez-passer,” Lieutenant Meyer said — not doing too badly with the French phrase, Jackson thought. “It’s got a four-star general’s name signed to it. It should keep the British off your back unless you fuck up all over the place.”
“I’ll try not to,” Jackson said, and put the letter away without reading it.
“Okay, that’s one. Now here’s two, and two is the one I don’t much like, although the Army doesn’t care a hell of a lot what its first lieutenants like or don’t like. Except I don’t think this is the Army so much as it is your ex-OSS buddies in Washington.”
“Uh-huh,” Jackson said, because Meyer had paused as though expecting some comment.
“Bookbinder pretty much ran his own show down in Munich. He had to, because the Knocker was so fucking stupid. Well, Bookbinder has all sorts of lines out — to Berlin, to here, and even up to Hamburg where the British are. I don’t know where he got this; maybe it was from the British. But maybe not. Anyway, he’s learned that the Russians have sent someone in.”
“After Oppenheimer?”
“That’s right. He crossed over up north at a place called Lübeck. The British had a tag on him but it fell off, which didn’t make them too happy because they thought he might lead them to Oppenheimer.”
“Has he got a name?”
“No name. All that Bookbinder knows about him is that sometimes he’s called the Printer.”
“When’re you going to get to the part that you don’t like?”
“Now,” Lieutenant Meyer said. “The British don’t want Oppenheimer in Palestine. That means somebody else does, but I’m beginning to wonder who.” He looked searchingly at Jackson, but Jackson only shrugged.
“You got any ideas?” Meyer said.
“The Irgun is almost a sure bet.”
“Besides them?”
“The Russians.”
“What about us?”
Jackson stopped walking, turned, and stared at Meyer. After a long moment he said, “If the war were still going on, I’d say yes. It might be something tricky that the OSS would try to pull. Now, I don’t know. It’s a possibility, I suppose.”
“Bookbinder tells me that the Russians want Oppenheimer real bad. If they can’t track him down themselves, they’re even willing to buy him.”
“From whom?”
“From whoever’s got him for sale.” They had started walking again, but Meyer stopped so that he could stare at Jackson without any liking. “I suppose that means you — and that creepy little pal of yours.”
“I’m working for Leah Oppenheimer.”
“Sure you are.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“I don’t know what to believe about you, buddy, except that I don’t trust you. Or that dwarf. Neither does Bookbinder. Up in Bonn he wants me to ride your ass, and if you start to go sour, I’ve got orders to stop you — even if it means bringing the British in. You understand?”
“I understand.”
“Now we get to the part that I really don’t like. It’s a personal message to you straight from Washington. It’s supposed to be funny, I guess, but I don’t think it’s very funny at all.”
“Go to it.”
“Okay. This is it, and it’s an exact quote: ‘Don’t sell until you hear our final offer.’ You got it?”
“I’ve got it.”
“You understand it?”
“Maybe.”
Lieutenant Meyer nodded coldly. “Yeah, I thought you would.” Then he turned and walked back to the Ford sedan.
Because of bad roads and worse bridges it took them nearly three hours to reach Remagen. The dwarf had sung most of the way, more loudly than usual in order to make himself heard over the old car’s big engine. For the last hour he had been singing German drinking songs. When he hadn’t been singing, the dwarf had recounted the histories of the castles they passed. He seemed to know stories about all of them.
They stopped at Remagen for a glass of wine and because Jackson wanted to see what was left of the bridge that the U.S. Army had used to first cross the Rhine.
“You’ve been along here before, of course,” Ploscaru said as they got back into the car and started off again.
“A long time ago. Before the war.”
“You remember the stories about this region?”
“Some of them.”
“Roland built his castle here in Remagen, you know. He had been courting the fair Hildegunde, who was the daughter of the Count of Drachenfels. But then Roland went off to fight the Moors in Spain, and when he returned he found Hildegunde had become a nun. So he built his castle and sat moping in it until she died and then went off to fight the Moors some more. There it is — over there on your left — the Rolandsbogen. Roland’s Arch.”
“So it is,” Jackson said, not slowing down.
“Now a little farther up we’ll catch our first really good view of the Siebengebirge, the seven mountains.”
“Where Siegfried hung out.”
“Right. After he killed the dragon he bathed in its blood, you remember, which made him immune to any wound — except for a very small spot between his shoulder blades.” Ploscaru sighed. “It’s not a very original myth — almost a direct steal from Achilles and his heel; but then, the Germans never were the most original of people, not even in their mythmaking.”